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THE November 13 naxalite attack in Jehanabad, a small town in Bihar, should rate as one of the most audacious demonstrations of insurgency in India. There have been daring actions by militant groups before, such as the assault on Parliament House, but there is no instance of a radical group attacking a jail to free its members and liquidate its opponents.
The scale of the operation was such that the jail was under the control of the cadre of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) for almost two hours. The naxalites fulfilled, with consummate ease, the primary objectives of the attack: the freeing of their comrades, including the influential CPI (Maoist) leader of Jehanabad Ajay Kanu, and, the assassination of Bade Sharma and Biswesar Rai, two leaders of the Ranveer Sena, an upper-caste militia.
The intensity of the attack is also exemplified by the fact that more than 300 prisoners made use of the opportunity to escape. Unconfirmed reports say that the CPI (Maoist) has taken approximately 30 Ranveer Sena activists hostage, but the attackers have denied the charge.
The manner in which the naxalites went about "operation jail break" barely 50 kilometres from the State capital, Patna, also accentuates the extraordinariness of the incident. Unlike earlier naxalite attacks, the Jehanabad operation did not conform to guerilla style. Instead, the manoeuvres of the armed militants resembled, in many respects, the methods used in conventional warfare. The naxalites attacked police lines, the offices of the district administration, and the jail simultaneously.
The sequence of events of the night of November 13, as recorded by the Jehanabad police and narrated by the local people, highlights this aspect. Thus, the overall picture that emerges is one of precise planning and execution.
An inkling of the operation was available around 8-30 p.m. when groups of naxalites went around the town on motorcycles asking people to stay indoors as the town was about to witness a "militant action of revolutionary character". Minutes later, gunshots were heard from several parts of the town and almost simultaneously the town plunged into darkness as the power lines were cut. CPI (Maoist) cadre, through a public address system, continued to call on the people to remain indoors. The message given out was that the naxalites had "nothing against the people" and that "their attack was against the oppressive police and administration".
The attackers took over the town for the next two and a half hours. There are conflicting reports about the strength of the group that attacked the town. Official records estimate that there were more than 500 people involved in the attack. A CPI (Maoist) press release put the strength of the People's Guerilla Army (PGA) cadre involved in the operation at 200.
While the jail was the main target of the attack, the police lines and offices of the district administration faced heavy distraction fire. Before the attack, the naxalites disrupted traffic on the busy Patna-Gaya rail line passing through Jehanabad. A skeleton security force was all that was present in the town, including in the jail, as a large section of the forces had been deployed in other parts of the State on duty for the Assembly elections. Naturally, the forces could not repulse the attack. By all indications, they `surrendered' to the naxalites in less than an hour after the operation commenced.
SECURITY specialists and political observers are of the view that the new and bold martial strategy by the Maoists is loaded with grave security and political implications. According to a senior security official, the manner in which the attack was planned and executed points to an increase in the strategic and martial skills of the naxalites. It also highlighted, he added, the strength and reach of the local communication network that the CPI (Maoist) has developed in and around Jehanabad.
According to long-time naxalite-watcher Indra Bhushan Singh, there are several larger messages in the attack. Two of them are certainly about the rise in the strike power of the CPI (Maoist) and the enhanced coordination among its units in different parts of the country. The enhanced coordination within the organisational structure of the CPI (Maoists) is highlighted by the involvement of naxalites from Jharkhand and Orissa in the latest operation.
At the political level, the operation signals the revival of a concentrated action against "the oppressive feudal-landlord forces" in Bihar. In practical terms, it could result in militant action against upper-caste - particularly Bhumihar - villages and their leaders. In the past few years there has not been much focus on this type of action. Indra Bhushan Singh is of the view that the prospect of a National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government - with the upper-caste-oriented Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) having a major say in it - taking over in the State could be one of the reasons for this renewed focus.
He also feels that in the unique organisational activity charted out by the naxalites, the Jehanabad operation could be seen as a continuity of the Madhuban attack carried out on April 24. The attack had witnessed simultaneous action against "several instruments of the state" such as the police station, post office, a nationalised bank and offices of the district administration. The action, code-named "Operation Dhamaka", had almost all the characteristics of the Jehanabad operation, including the coordination among activists belonging to different State units. According to intelligence agencies, even Nepal-based Maoists were involved in the Madhuban attack, which resulted in the looting of arms and ammunition from the local police station, killing of seven police personnel and plundering of money from the bank and the post office.
In both the Madhuban and Jehanabad operations, the naxalites were so well organised as to have a special nursing unit, which concentrated on taking away the injured cadre to safety. In Jehanabad only one injured activist, Jindal Paswan - who initially gave the false name of Manoj Kanu to the police - was left behind. Captured by the police, he died in the Patna Medical College Hospital.
According to Jehanabad District Magistrate Rana Avdesh, the injured naxalite gave vital clues about the planning of the operation. It is not clear whether Jindal Paswan gave any information about the future activities of the CPI (Maoist) in the region. However, the police as well as the six companies of the Central Paramilitary Forces (CPMF) inducted into the region after the attack have intensified activities in scores of villages in and around Karpi, to which Jindal Paswan belonged. Chauhar, the village of Ajay Kanu, the "liberated" naxalite leader is also in this area. The joint operation of the police and the CPMF is assisted by helicopter-borne aerial surveys and covers villages such as Jikkatiya, Patiyari, Puran, Rampuraria, Terra and Mushari, all considered to be hotbeds of naxalite activity. Many of these villages fall in Arwal, the district adjoining Jehanabad.
Neither the police nor the CPMF has claimed any significant gains in the first 10 days of their operation. However, the intensive combing of the villages and the aerial surveys have undoubtedly aggravated the sense of fear and insecurity among the local population. One can also hear cynical reactions, albeit muted, to the security initiative across these villages. "One does not know what these people are going to achieve by doing all this now. Those who have struck must be safe in their shelters elsewhere and the only result seems to be hardships to us, innocent people," Shraddanand Singh of Karpi village told Frontline.
A similar sentiment prevails in Ganiari, the Bhumihar-dominated village to which the slain Bade Sharma belonged. Talking to Frontline, Braj Kishore Sharma, Bade Sharma's uncle, said that the villagers had no faith in the initiatives of the government and the security agencies. "The government cannot give us protection even in our birthplace, how can we believe them?" he asked. Braj Kishore added that Bade Sharma and his village had been constant targets of naxalites. "Even in February, when Bade was in jail, they managed to blow up part of his house and killed our relative Purushottam Singh. The assassination inside the jail was a continuation of all this."
Braj Kishore added that the prospect of an NDA government in the State - the interview was conducted before the counting of votes - also did not instil any hope in the Bhumihar and other upper-caste communities of the region. Braj Kishore said: "The NDA government would be led by an Other Backward Class (OBC) Kurmi leader, Nitish Kumar, and a large number of naxalite leaders in this region belong to the Kurmi community. How can we expect anything from such a dispensation?"
Bade Sharma was an accused in at least half a dozen cases of massacre in the region. The other slain Ranveer Sena leader, Biswesar Rai, was second in the Sena hierarchy, only below its founder Brahmeshwar Singh. Cases against Biswesar Rai included the one relating to the Laxmanpur Bathe massacre of 59 people, mostly women and children, in December 1997. He had a role in almost all the major massacres carried out by the Sena in the past 18 years.
According to Sena activists at Ganiari, many leaders, including Kamlesh Hira Bhatt, Pappu Sharma, Shivjee Sharma, Babunand Sharma, Bharosa Sharma and Mithila Singh, are missing after the jailbreak. There is apprehension in Ganiari that all of them have been taken hostage though the CPI (Maoist) has denied the charge. According to CPI (Maoist) activists contacted by Frontline, the Ranveer Sena leaders must have found their own safe havens far from Ganiari. "They know that they would be caught again by security forces if they returned to their home villages," pointed out a CPI (Maoist) activist.
It is difficult to deduce where the truth lies between the conflicting claims of the two extremist organisations, but one thing is clear. With the Jehanabad jailbreak and the resultant developments, the battle between naxalites and upper-caste militias in Bihar is bound to acquire newer and more intense forms. And by any yardstick, the new NDA government will, indeed, have to overcome gigantic impediments to get the situation under control. Especially because of the sizable representation the upper castes are bound to have in the government.
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