US embassy cable - 05CALCUTTA68

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 CALCUTTA 000068 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
STATE FOR SA/INS AND INR 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV, PINS, PTER, SOCI, IN, Counter-Terrorism 
SUBJECT: THE COMMUNISTS WORRY ABOUT THE MAOISTS 
 
 
1. (SBU)  SUMMARY:  West Bengal's governing Communist Party of 
India-Marxist (CPM) is concerned about the nascent spread of 
ultra-Left Maoist influence in rural West Bengal.  The Party 
would prefer to tackle the Maoist challenge politically, by 
mobilizing the rural masses, but has not yet been able to 
develop programs or leaders who can successfully accomplish 
this.  Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee favors the iron 
fist over the velvet glove and is pressing the state government 
to take a hard line.  END SUMMARY. 
 
2. (SBU)  Deliberations during the triennial State Conference of 
the CPM, which concluded on February 12 in Calcutta, indicate 
that the Party is taking the Maoist threat seriously.  Since the 
September 2004 merger between the two largest ultra-Left 
"Naxalite" groups, the People's War and the Maoist Communist 
Center, the resulting CPI(Maoist) has been engaged in mass 
contact programs in their strongholds in West Bengal (the 
districts of West Midnapore, Purulia, Bankura, Nadia).  This has 
involved distributing political literature, organizing small 
gatherings and taking up local issues with the administration 
through front organizations.  This has reached a scale where it 
is beginning to raise serious concerns within West Bengal's 
governing party. 
 
3. (SBU)  According to a ConGen contact, two political trends 
are worrying the CPM leadership.  First, the rural areas had 
been the traditional strongholds of the CPM due to their local 
organization, their control of the Panchayat (local government) 
system, and their record - now two decades old - of land 
redistribution.  In the most recent elections the CPM had begun 
to develop urban support for the first time, but the Party is 
concerned that, at the same time, it may be losing its grip in 
the countryside.  According to this view, the benefits the CPM 
delivered are too far in the past to earn the Party credit, 
while the reality of the present is a local organization that it 
too often autocratic and corrupt.  The Maoists, through their 
mass contact programs, are fast moving into the rural political 
spaces vacated by the CPM.  The second concern our contact 
mentioned was the declining political fortunes of the CPM's 
traditional political rivals in the state - the Congress and 
Trinamul parties.  The CPM fears that the Maoists are starting 
to assume the main opposition role in some places and may prove 
more formidable opponents.  Reports from the rural areas 
indicate some political workers from the Trinamul and even some 
disgruntled CPM cadre have begun joining Maoist organizations. 
 
4. (SBU)  Some in the Party would prefer to engage the Maoists 
in negotiations while seeking to strengthen the CPM's rural 
leadership and deliver more benefits to the countryside.  As the 
Bengali Nobel-Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen has amply 
documented, the CPM record on delivering health and education to 
the rural countryside has been abysmal in some areas of West 
Bengal, leaving ample scope for improvement in service delivery. 
 Howevr, West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharee, 
who himself has been on the Naxalites' hit lst, is advocating a 
hard-line against the emerging Maoist threat.  Citing the recent 
experience in Andhra Pradesh, he argues that talks have not been 
successful in the past when the Maoists simply used the 
negotiating phase to regroup.  By contrast the Congress Party, 
running the UPA government in New Delhi, appears to favor 
negotiations.  So far, West Bengal has been adhering to its 
Chief Minister's hard line and has been arresting CPI(Maoist) 
activists, even though the organization is not legally banned in 
the state.  Bhattacharjee has expressed frustration that when 
the Naxalites engage in terrorist activity (as opposed to their 
political work) they usually attack from neighboring Jharkhand 
and then return to safehavens out of reach of the West Bengal 
police.  His concern has now spread to northern West Bengal 
where he has requisitioned additional security forces from the 
Central government to combat the Nepalese Maoists.  The West 
Bengal police had earlier detained some Nepalese Maoist leaders 
in Siliguri, and there is a fear that more might spill over into 
West Bengal following the King's assumption of power in Nepal. 
 
5. (SBU) COMMENT:  The CPM concerns appear well-founded, even if 
they still represent more of a potential future threat than an 
actual present danger.  Congress and the Trinamul's diminishing 
influence has given the Maoists an opportunity, and through 
their mass contact programs they are beginning to fill this 
void.  It is not clear whether the Chief Minister's decision to 
adopt a hard line against the Maoists will work or not.  So far, 
the Maoists are confined to a few districts in West Bengal. 
They could pose a serious political challenge to the CPM if they 
spread all across the state.  END COMMENT. 
 
SIBLEY