Context

• Recently, the Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh, Bhupesh Baghel during his State­wide tour, announced that the State government was ready for peace talks with the Maoists provided they laid down arms and expressed their faith in the Constitution of India.
• In its response, the Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee (DKSZC) of the CPI (Maoist) alleged that the offer as dodgy.

Maoists condition for peace talks

The three major conditions the Maoists want to include are as follows:

As the state government didn’t bring any change in its earlier stand, there has been no progress.

State Government’s Earlier Efforts For Talks:

• To initiate talks, the State government (under Congress regime) lifted the ban on the CPI (Maoist) party in May 2004.
• Consequently, there was four day peace dialogue in October 2004 between the representatives of the People’s War (PW) party and government representatives at the initiative of the Committee of Concerned Citizens.
• A mutually acceptable team of mediators (led by former civil servant R. Sankaran) was constituted and an agreement on a ceasefire was reached.
• CPI (Maoist) party proposed a 11­point charter of demands which majorly included Law on the Boundary of Lands, Creation of a separate state of Telangana, questions relating to armed action by both sides etc.
• The talks ended with an agreement on a ceasefire and the government promised to consider the main demand of land distribution among the landless, and talks again in the second round.
• Troublesome ceasefire violations: Clause 7 (of the ceasefire agreement) which permitted the Maoists to undertake propagation of their politics without carrying weapons, had become problematic.
• Though the Maoists at the peace talks had handed over their weapons to their cadres while leaving the jungles, media pictures of activity by their armed squads raised apprehensions about their adherence to the mutual agreement.
• Breakdown of talks: Later, the Chief Minister declared that there would be no talks with the Maoists unless they agreed to lay down arms. Thus the peace process collapsed midway and the ban was re­imposed on the CPI(Maoist) and its sister organisations.

Central Government Efforts: 

• In 2010, then Home Minister P. Chidambaram, tried to bring the Maoists to the negotiating table, with pre-condition of Maoists halting violence.
• In response, Azad, alias Cherukuri Rajkumar (now deceased), spokesperson of the Central Committee, CPI (Maoist set his party’s three pre­conditions to a dialogue with the Union government. These three conditions were as follows:

• Collapse of talks: CPI (Maoist) spokesperson Azad was killed in an encounter with the Greyhound commando force of the Andhra Pradesh police in 2010 and the process of trust building derailed.

Union Government 14-point policy                               

In 2006, the Union Home Minister announced a 14-point strategy to tackle Naxalism. Few salient features of the policy are as follows:

• Deal sternly with the Naxals indulging in violence
• Address the problem simultaneously on political, security and development fronts in a holistic manner
• Ensure inter-state coordination in dealing with the problem
• Accord priority to faster socio-economic development in the Naxal affected or prone areas
• Supplement the efforts and resources of the affected states on both security and development fronts
• Promote local resistance groups against the Naxals
• Use mass media to highlight the futility of Naxal violence and the loss of life and property caused by it
• Have a proper surrender and rehabilitation policy for the Naxals
• Affected states not to have any peace dialogue with the Naxal groups unless the latter agree to give up violence and arms.

National Strategy to counter LWE

It was formed in 2015 as a multipronged approach to combat LWE. Its main aim was to ensure participatory governance and protection of the rights of local tribals, inter alia.

SAMADHAN doctrine

It was rolled out by Union Government in 2019 to tackle left-wing extremism in India. It encompasses the entire strategy of government from short-term policy to long-term policy formulated at different levels. SAMADHAN stands for

• S- Smart Leadership,
• A- Aggressive Strategy,
• M- Motivation and Training,
• A- Actionable Intelligence,
• D- Dashboard Based KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and KRAs (Key Result Areas),
• H- Harnessing Technology,
• A- Action plan for each Theatre,
• N- No access to Financing

Statistics related to Naxal incidents

• According to data provided by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), there has been a steady decline in Left Wing Extremism (LWE) related violence and geographical spread of LWE influence in the country.
• While the incidents of Left Wing Extremism have come down by 23 per cent, the number of deaths has come down by 21 per cent.
• The geographical influence of Maoists has contracted to only 41 districts in the country, which is a sharp reduction from 96 such districts in 10 States in 2010.
• LWE incidents have also reduced from 2,258 in 2009 to 349 incidents till August 2021.
• However, while there has been a decline in the number of Naxals incidents in the past year, the number of security personnel killed in the past four years is more than 180, according to MHA officials.

Way Forward for Negotiations

• The State government cannot afford the risk of moving out security forces as a pre­condition for initiating peace talks. Thus, Maoist’s demand of withdrawal of armed police forces can be met only by a mutually agreed ‘ceasefire’, with its limited meaning of abjuring violence by the Maoists and the halting of anti­Maoist operations by security forces for some period.
• The release of jailed Maoist leaders need not be made a pre­condition by the Maoists as there is no senior Maoist cadre in Chhattisgarh’s jails.
• However, with regard to condition of lifting a ban on the CPI (Maoist), and its front organisations, some concessions may be thought of to let the talks happen.
• Moreover, the Chhattisgarh government has not only withdrawn criminal cases against many tribals but has also ensured expeditious trial of Naxal cases. The government is also hard at work to implement PESA.

Therefore, moving forward with the lessons learned, suitable modalities may be worked out if both sides are serious about peace talks.