Soft Targets
This India Today article is interesting, but largely misses the point:
They [the Maoists] are said to be attacking telecom towers to prevent the police eavesdropping on their conversations, and to neutralise police informers.
True enough as it goes… but, in a country which effectively bypassed land-lines, particularly in rural areas, disabling poorly defended mobile towers is an effective means of paralysing all rapid local communication.
More later.
Bingo. Too much big-army thinking prevalent, both within the military institution, but also government in general and especially the media. IE. “OH, no one’s dead, its not a big deal.”
I spent a couple days and a few hundred bucks worth of copies of Brave New War ’selling’ systems disruption to a few of India’s generals a couple years ago. Some got it (of course the special ops guys). Most didn’t.
Yeah Sholok. I agree. The Naxalites have proven themselves to be patient and, in many ways, have been able to out think the state. Their flexible structure also gives them better local knowledge and the capacity to alter strategy and tactics to best suit prevailing local conditions.
To the editor of this site-
I recently wrote a small summary of the Naxalism’s history for my personal blog on world politics. As someone who is more informed than myself on the nature of Naxalism, I welcome you to stop by and leave a comment. Feel free to correct anything I may have gotten wrong, or to add any additional information that would benefit readers who had no previous knowledge of the topic.
My post can be found here: http://scholars-stage.blogspot.com/2009/11/naxalism-short-introduction-to-indias.html
~T. Greer