This picks up on a meme I’ve been working on for a while. Jug Suraiya discussed the multiple centers of gravity that are emerging at the sub-state level yesterday. Would have been nice to be cited rather than summarized but that’s the nature of providing open-source analysis.

Free of Left shackles, the Centre on Friday finally told West Bengal what security and intelligence agencies had been urging it to do for a long time — ban Maoists in the state.

By further isolating the Naxals, the state will further remove itself from the actual act of governance (as compared to the perception of state legitimacy). This actually helps drive the dynamic that this action is ostensibly supposed to bring to an end.

Lalgarh’s equilibrium has yet to be found.

A Naxal-backed outfit calling itself People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCAPA) had set up a semi-permanent road block (effectively turning this major artery into a PCAPA toll road). In response to this road system hijack, the insufficient police force ‘outsourced’ night law enforcement to a legitimized militia (along the lines of Salwa Judum) calling itself the Maoist Resistance Force (MRF).

However, instead of just guarding the sides of the road, the MRF took down the toll booth. Open source intelligence reveals that the Naxals responded by conducting a decapitation attack on the MRF as well as the government currently in place (which runs the police force). Three senior officers were murdered, and several government official homes and businesses were simultaneously looted.

The situation has yet to reach a state of equilibrium.

As I learned during my experience prototyping this type of analysis during the Mumbai attacks – something the legacy think tank world reprimanded me for – tapping into global information flows in this way is an exhausting endeavor. They deserve credit for their efforts. It can save lives.

You can follow them at @ChrisAlbon and @Steve_Schippert .

We will know this transition has taken place once the insurgency absorbs conventional military capability (the conventional arsenal) or starts crashing critical networks. (For much more on this dynamic, consult my colleague John Robb’s Global Guerrillas weblog.)

It’s a good idea, and one I’ve written about pretty extensively (including a chapter aptly titled ‘Reconfiguring the National Security Architecture‘ in a book put together by the first think tank 2.0, email me if you’d like to read it). The trick for properly executing this strategy however, isn’t one of reshuffling bureaucracies and moving personnel around.

Instead, it involves what an Indian Army officer and myself were working on a few months ago – collaborative security. This strategy centers upon effectively managing the appropriate information flows – from chowkidars to rural-stationed policemen to military officers to intelligence officers. Fusion centers need to be opened up to private collaboration, and built on smart strategic technology.

Note: Doing so does not have to involve a large bureaucratic IT department, or a huge budget. It can be done in a way that makes it incredibly cheap (yielding an enormous ROI) while enabling every layer of security within the state. Getting started just requires building the momentum, finding a politician with vision, and getting the right talent in the right place.

The Tamil Tiger is far from dead.

More interesting, however, is this useful visualization by Ushahidi reveals the underbelly of the election process (violence, corruption etc).

Authorities believe 90 percent of human trafficking in India is “intra-country.”

India’s home secretary Madhukar Gupta remarked that at least 100 million people were involved in human trafficking in India.

“However, studies and surveys sponsored by the ministry of women and child development estimate that there are about three million prostitutes in the country, of which an estimated 40 percent are children,” a CBI statement said.

In short, Pakistan needs to coopt the state building capacity of JuD without alienating the hierarchy that provides the social services while at the same time killing their connectivity to other militant groups in the area. Any military attack, of any type – bombing, artillery, raid – results in the strategy collapsing.

Given ongoing fighting in western Pakistan, the madrassa plan will likely accelerate the alienation process (especially if even individual madrassas are shut down instead of co-opted). We saw the same dynamic emerge with JuD (the results are, in part, being played out in the Swat valley).

Moving away from the model of stockpiling explosives (in a target rich environment with little protection) is important. However, this does not address the more pressing problem of the 10% tax placed by Naxals on all corporations. (This has yielded tens of millions in Jharkhand alone.) It also poses the threat of equipment destruction should the tax not be paid.

Because the barriers to entry in biological warfare are much lower than the  overstated case of nuclear war, any such threat (indeed as we saw in the case of H1N1) would be far too swift for a nation-state to respond to. Solutions to such a rapidly changing environment must be absolutely local, based on local variants, conditions, and abilities. However, as with any agile organization, the right systems need to be in place to manage information flows.

Last week, I wrote about the importance of biodefense dashboards at the Center for Threat Awareness. I argued that individuals, communities, and even local governments can utilize to visualize and exchange important data. Startlingly, these systems are not commonplace. They must be built before the fall.

By targeting one of the lowest paid individuals in the security check (the screener) and offering compensation ($200) the network hacker was able to access the aircraft with a forged passport. This is the first case in which an airline employee was charged in regards to human trafficking.

• 1 in 5 candidates for the Parliament have criminal records, including murder, attempted murder, kidnapping, extortion, and assault.
• 1 in 6 candidates for Parliament have a net worth of at least Rs. 10,000,000 – in a country where average income is Rs. 25,000.

India, in response to the potential of a global pandemic, is attempting to place controls on immigration (by scanning travelers from Europe and the United States). How well these measures succeed (as well as controlling internal disconnectedness) will be a very important indicator for resiliency analysts looking to India.

One area that government efforts will, with almost near certainty, fall short is areas where government access is already weak, having been superseded by black globalization. (In short, much of the areas of focus of this weblog.)

Aside: If the nightmare scenario erupts, we may well see entire country-bandhs.

Rather its the distribution of nuclear material that will prove to be the harder problem to tackle due to the potential for dirty bombs. (In a very basic way, a dirty bomb is any type of explosive attached to any type of radioactive material.) If the material is not secured, we are likely to see such devices used in an unbridled chaos environment.

With virtually no vehicles plying, supply of essentials like milk and LPG have been suspended. The railways are running three morning trains from Daltonganj, but there are no passengers. Even banks have downed shutters.

In short, the insurgency has crashed an entire section of Jharkhand while the state attended to its own needs (rather than actually strengthening governance or institutions). Interestingly, the bandh was called to demand restitution for the families of villagers who were caught in the cross-fire between Naxalites and state troops. Thus far, no payment has been made.

What’s more interesting is, thus far, the lack of uniformity in Naxal attacks, bandhs, and other efforts to disrupt ongoing elections. While these attacks do make for good copy (and are great information operations), they are ultimately not indicative of much other than the uneven nature of the Naxal hierarchy (reflective of a market-based structure).

Here’s why: 7 out of South Delhi Lok Sabha seat’s 10 Assembly constituencies do not get piped water supplied by the Delhi Jal Board (DJB). Most areas in South Delhi constituency survive on water tankers, an issue that candidates have utilised in past, too, by bartering water tankers for votes.

Taking this power away from the political class, largely a function of cheap technology, is key to empowering constituents.

Many consider the movement as a hierarchical, measured, with radical leadership that can be decapitated and traditional ends (take over the nation-state in a glorious revolution). However, this component of the movement is much, much smaller than most think. Indeed, even many of the members of this hierarchy misunderstand their impact on the Indian nation-state.

A majority of the activity driving the Naxalite movement forward comes from the black market that the Maoist hierarchy underpins and protects. This is why, despite calls for all out assault on polls to show just how strong the movement is, most profit-motivated participants in this illicit network continued about their daily business – slowly eroding the ability of the nation-state to conduct any activity in the regions where they generate profit from illicit trade. In the long run, this dynamic will have a greater impact than any new elected leadership.

This is why we have yet to see a large scale assault on polling infrastructure. It’s not an imperative for the variety of subgroups operating in the Maoist black market.

The first is to go to war with the various separatist movements (LeT, JuD, Taliban, Balochs etc). This option requires a massive concentration of resources and prolonged conflict (a recipe for disaster for any kind of nation-state). The second, centers on co-opt these factions to maintain stability. The alternative to this ‘controlled chaos’ is unbridled chaos.

This is what we see occurring with the Swat Valley agreement. This is the only way Pakistan retains any semblance of functionality. What should the international community do? Focus its efforts on building resiliency into neighboring states and securing nuclear materials (Pakistan is arguably the only remaining nuclear threat). If it needs more time to do these things, it can extend the timeline by implementing an open source counterinsurgency. (What those with short-run memories call the Awakening strategy.)

• Systems disruption. Armed only with shovels, Naxals have shutdown both major and minor roadways that are, in many ways, the only connectivity rural villages have to the Indian state. The state is now unable to access these areas to gather votes.
• Provoking the overreach. A series of high visibility attacks, including on the largest bauxite mine in Asia, coupled with an ever larger state force body count is designed to turn largely disconnected regions into war zones. (This is noted by the large amounts of federal paramilitary forces and assets being requested at the state level for increased security. To the Naxals, this is simply making the environment more target-rich.)

Also, Naxal threats have been able to force the government to, in effect, disenfranchise 9 constituencies (marked by shorter voting hours) in addition to those that are now disconnected by road.

Update: Naxals reportedly used rocket launchers to target a paramilitary force portecting polls in Sasaram. (Polls were scheduled to open tomorrow.)

Update 2: Naxals were also able to successfully attack a Greyhound (elite paramilitary force) boat, injuring ten commandos.

The attack has also temporarily shut down production at the mine, which is responsible for a large part of extracting the 2.92 billion tons of bauxite (10 % of the world’s supply) that lay under Indian soil.

Those traffickers demonstrated their pull in this neighborhood last month when they paid residents to block Monterrey’s major thoroughfares with hours-long demonstrations, day after day for two weeks.

Protesters included youths with their faces covered to hide their identities, the tapados (covered ones), but also their mothers and grandmothers. Some of the tapados were paid as little as 200 pesos, about $13, plus a cellular telephone; others received 500 pesos, about $33, and the backpacks filled with supplies.

So how are swarms to be countered? The simplest way is to create many more units able to respond to simultaneous, small-scale attacks and spread them around the country. This means jettisoning the idea of overwhelming force in favor of small units that are not “elite” but rather “good enough” to tangle with terrorist teams. In dealing with swarms, economizing on force is essential.

I have the good fortune of working on a project that should help take this stuff off the paper and into the real world.  (Helping out a collection of very smart Indian security officers/thinkers who have pioneered this approach in-country.)

• Dumb Shields. Killing children saps the moral credibility of state forces while offering Naxal operatives some degree of safety.
• Labor. Repetitive but slightly complex tasks can easily be executed by children -the Nike model. Also allows long term pattern detection – better cull candidates for positions of leadership as they grow older.
• Warriors. Firearm and explosives training can allow children to act as force multipliers, spying on the streets (all too common a sight in destitute areas), and be utilized in ways state forces do not expect.

Chhattisgarh’s police force, heavily involved in Salwa Judum, is able to recruit children by deputizing them and paying the family Rs. 1,500 ($30) per month. Naxals offer black economy participation, or promise the family’s safety.

Most of the 18 police personnel come to office only once a week due to their huge jurisdiction. This leaves only a police station officer, who doubles up as a clerk, a wireless operator and a lone police sub-inspector to hold fort at Nara.

Unsurprisingly, no cases were charged in the Nara area:

This is not because Nara is incident-free. The problem is that cops have to take the accused 46 km away to Nakhatrana for court hearings. Moreover, the police station also does not have a lock-up.

“Even for filling diesel in mobikes and jeep, we have to travel all the way to Nakhatrana and if the vehicles break down then we have to go to Bhuj which is 100 km away,” said police sources.

This has in no small way influenced the course of events in Naxal affected areas (on the other side of the country). These police outposts are susceptible to overruns, theft, and general inadequacy.

• 1.5 years is plenty of time to saturate a social network with propoganda and ideology. His arrest could inspire the infected nodes to go viral and transmit Naxal membership.

• Reveals the unsustainable nature of Naxal tactics. Self sacrificing, while useful, is not durable over time.

Instead of attempting to bring individuals into the core Naxalite group, the operative’s time could have been better spent connecting with the black economy and providing economic incentive to participate in this alternative social network. Instead of a year and a half, it could have taken weeks or months with tangible results: a decline in the state’s ability to govern, revenue, and he would still out from behind bars to create the same dynamic elsewhere.

Here’s the video from CNN-IBN, short watch:

Here is some more on the illicit opium nexus.

Mohammad Shakir Afridi, president of the Khyber Transport Association, in the northwestern city of Peshawar said: “We have stopped supplies to foreign forces in Afghanistan from today.

“We have around 3,500 trucks, tankers and other vehicles, we are the major suppliers to Afghanistan, transporting about 60-70 per cent of goods.”

In short, Pakistan needs to coopt the state building capacity of JuD without alienating the hierarchy that provides the social services while at the same time kililng their connectivity to other militant groups in the area. Any military attack, of any type – bombing, artillery, raid – results in the strategy collapsing.  Removing the hierarchy does the same thing, at least until the state has time to coopt the players at the bottom of the LeT pyramid.

Instead, Pakistan is now banning the organization and shutting down it’s offices. In essence, it’s shutting down the state in the region in question.

This will only accomplish to increase the alienation (and depravity) of the groups in the region that were reliant on the social system provided by JuD. This will drive them to the black market. This will drive unbridled chaos in the region rather than controlled chaos.

Nils Gilman has the dynamic:

The majority of people in these locales of course merely become victims of the situation into which they are born. But there are some who refuse to be victims, and follow their entrepreneurial instincts (read: risk-willingness and bloody-mindedness) to make the best of their situation, using the channels provided by globalization to free themselves. These are the people who participate in the economy of deviant globalization.

Deviant globalizers know the state is neither going to help them close the gap with the rich world, nor protect them from the buffets of the global market. But for that very same reason, they are also not revolutionaries: they have no interested in seizing the state to enact development (that’s so twentieth century). Rather, they seek autonomy from the state, so that they can build their economic empires and establish alternative forms of legitimacy.

The price of protecting convoys has increased in step with the threat. Private security contractors now make between $500 and $800 per vehicle, with guards earning about $300 per month. This is interesting because it may have driven the attacks to make their way along the supply chain into the heart of Pakistan. Notably, they’ve moved beyond attacking the network edges (easier but less payoff unless sustained over a long period of time) and instead are focusing on network nodes (high yield but theoretically more dangerous).

Note that the facilities attacked are essentially left hollow (guards are left alive, buildings are left alone) while the supply packages are completely destroyed. It seems the attackers want to sustain this ability in their arsenal.

Pakistan is attempting to pick apart the organization by recognizing LeT’s public divisions as valid. To make this work they will have to effective police JuD – regulating its financing, where the money is spent, and ensuring that the LeT internal divisions (military, social) operate independently of one another.

In short, Pakistan needs to coopt the state building capacity of JuD without alienating the hierarchy that provides the social services while at the same time kililng their connectivity to other militant groups in the area. Any military attack, of any type – bombing, artillery, raid – results in the strategy collapsing.  Removing the hierarchy does the same thing, at least until the state has time to coopt the players at the bottom of the LeT pyramid.

In 1993, in response to the dismantling of a major piece of Muslim religious infrastructure, the Babri Masjid, Muslim and Hindu hardliners sparked riots all over the country, with a strong focus on Bombay. This sectarian violence was facilitated by Dawood’s black market firm, “D Company.”

An army of young, poverty stricken Muslim men, each paid a few thousand rupees were able to kill hundreds, cause massive economic damage, provoke a major Hindu extremist response, and drastically shift the demographics of the city as hundreds of thousands fled to areas of like-minded religious concentration. Acting swiftly to exploit the situation, D Company detonated a series of 13 bombs in Bombay, on what is referred to as “Black Friday.”

Dawood’s army of the young and poor is still in place in the largest slum in the world, which is located in the middle of Mumbai.

Nuclear-armed Pakistan put its forces on high alert after a hoax caller pretending to be India’s foreign minister spoke to President Asif Ali Zardari in a threatening manner on November 28, two days after the militant attacks on Mumbai began, the Dawn newspaper reported on Saturday.

Look, this is an unfortunate initiative. Instead of demanding the private sector meet a minimum standard, security services should partner and enable these high density locations to connect to one another and tap into core security information services. Information, i.e. keeping track of threats, fire brigades, police officers provide these places, each with limited means, to connect to one another and build collaborative security rather than simply throwing money away.

Note: in most cases, private security does not refer to private military contractors like Blackwater, but rather to mall/public security. These are not highly trained operatives with years of combat experience. Instead, these are guards who know how to provide medical care and handle a radio, some with weapons experience - the combination of which is useful in the right circumstances.

‘As the guests tried to rush into the kitchen, one terrorist burst into the restaurant and began to shoot anyone that remained in the restaurant. At this point my father was in the kitchen and, along with his two friends, rushed to the fire exit.

‘They had barely descended a few steps when they were trapped from both ends by terrorists.

Fear management.

“What’s the point of asking Islamabad to hand over Dawood when we’re not doing anything to destroy his empire in Mumbai and other places in India?” a senior official asked.

While the Naxal insurgency co-opts the most participants in the Indian black economy, Dawood Ibrahim is in himself succinctly described as the number one participant. A scion of the smuggling era, (occurred during India’s buildup to opening up its economy) he now operates with impunity out of Pakistan, parties with Bollywood stars, and is the goto guy for anyone seeking to attack targets in urban India.

Unfortunately, the Pakistani state can’t take him out without incurring the wrath of Dawood’s network, which is extensively linked to every major terror outfit in the region and has played a prominant role in major attacks. In short, Dawood is to black globalization what AQ Khan was to nuclear proliferation (also a Pakistani resident).

This is the same challenge Pakistan faces across the board, especially with regards to LeT- the functioning state has been essentially slaved to its various nonstate elements. This is why Zardari has been forced to act as the mouthpiece for both his functioning state and the nonfunctioning areas that killed his wife – any other action results in his immediate failure. Musharraf faced the same dynamic.

One approach would be to simply recognize the failure of the Pakistani state and ask for support. Unfortunately, India is struggling with its internal security systems while the United States is quickly running into the headwinds of global economic crisis.

Greater public sector expenditure should be undertaken very carefully. Far too many commentators are demanding a surge in defense funding -  they fail to notice that defense systems were totally useless in this attack. Instead of following the American example of hundreds of billions of dollars wasted on the military, India should invest in the best and brightest thinking – lean information systems that take advantage of cheap technology to allow rapid response systems to take advantage of assets in place, advanced communication etc.

Simply put – more better is required, not just more, and not just better.

By contrast, the HuJI/IM/SIMI/LeT nexus is seeking out the social systempunkt, which is designed to explode the state along its primary cultural faultlines and ensnare citizens in a cycle of violence against one another.

Though Naxal efforts may generate the same, this is not their intention. Different threats.

Attempting to dismantle LeT will require a massive concentration of resources. This will be hard to justify for the borderline bankrupt state because the shadow LeT government (a form of controlled chaos), while obviously problematic, is still providing stability. Any attempts to crash the organization will cause fracturing, force evolution, and pose more danger.

Meanwhile, the state is sustaining major losses on its Afghanistan border. Short of localizing the state of Pakistan to functioning urban areas (under constant fire a la Islamabad), its unclear as to what steps can be taken across the multiple dimensions of the crisis.

Operational specifics: Suffice it to say that once the units were activated and on scene, they acted pretty well and appropriately. The real question is why there was a 9 hour boot up time.

One approach, that is being implemented by the government, is to distribute these assets around the country so as to cut down transportation times.

The next appropriate step would be to decentralize these units so as to activate at any sign of an emergency. This goes beyond standard readiness and includes independent movement to the area of operations as necessary.  This bypasses the various steps required to activate these assets, the burden of which wasted hours during this attack. Final GO orders should be reserved for civilian command, but prep orders should be at their discretion. This takes advantage of the previously cut down transportation times.

A secondary critique is that a third of MARCOS (naval special operations forces) is based out of Mumbai, but were not activated or utilized until NSG were on scene. The country requires a very lean apparatus to tie together internal rapid response forces in the event of an emergency. Service-specific units, while useful in warfare, do not function well when tied into a hierarchy. (Think America’s Joint Special Operations Command, which can activate hybrid units as necessary, immediately. ) This takes advantage of distributed and decentralized units.

A lot of this relies on communication and information. Aside from the intelligence failure, NSG commandos lacked rudimentary maps and blueprints of the areas of operation. They went in essentially blind against an unknown number of fortified hostiles in a very densely populated area. Cooperation between police forces, the private sector, and these special operations forces was quickly established, but force multipliers (like maps) were not fully utilized.

Joint operations are absolutely necessary, joint training moreso, and an organizational structure that is able to adapt quickly to rapidly changing situations is vital.

In the short run it is politically unpalatable to focus on that long term strategy. Hence the pending failure of the party that has derived its legitimacy from continued economic growth.

The leaders of the movement have declared their intention to move past the traditional guerrilla model of warfare and instead implement a strategy centered on heavy shock troops conducting fewer but massive attacks. – Shlok Vaidya, Pragati Magazine, November 2007.

Latest operation in India is pivotal because it reveals the complex interconnected nature of the multiple threats the country faces.

• Tactical innovation. As discussed at this site in some depth, is the primary contribution of the Naxals. Additionally, large amounts of RDX are regularly stolen from mines in Naxal infested areas. These explosives traveled through the black market to representatives of the terrorists. It seems the lessons learned by the Naxals are in fact being adopted by other insurgencies operating in the country.

• Training. Several of the operatives (total number ranges from 25-50) were highly trained, and, as evidenced by the recorded phone conversation, werer heavily indocrinated. This implies intensive training in any of the focal points for terror training to varying degrees since the 1980’s – Afghanistan, then Kashmir, then Afghanistan, then Iraq, then Pakistan.

• Strategic innovation. International. Direct linkages with Pakistan are designed to apply international pressure and expectations to that country which are unlikely to be met, thus providing more pressure within the country, thus driving up recruitment and funding for these militant organizations.

• Strategic innovation. Domestic. Classic social systempunkt. Planned just before major national elections with the obvious intent being a move to the right, which increases the chances for government overreach, causing further alienation and a higher propensity for sectarian conflict/riots.

After using the nautical attack vector, the group attacked a series of targets using automatic weapons and grenades before making their way to the hotel in hijacked vehicles. Along the way they managed to murder the head of the Anti Terror Squad, purely by luck, and then split up to the hotel, the hospital, and the Nariman house.  In essence, a well planned coordinated attack that collapsed into a killing spree.

In that case, Mumbai just avoided the nightmare scenario (where this was a smokescreen attack for something worse). This attack ends with the last terrorist of this particular group.

UPDATE: Note the close proximity of Nariman Bhavan to the waterfront. The single group thesis rings even more true if they were routed here to wait for the a nautical exit route, but the Navy acted too quickly for that to occur. (The initial choosing of the nautical attack vector has better logic that way.)

If the intent was to allow the mobile operatives to fan out, we may soon see a series of second order events as daylight breaks.

Aside from initial penetration and equipment acquisition, it seems that highly autonomous units were told to simply create chaos while possible. Some went mobile (stealing police vehicles and opening fire on crowds), destroying petrol pumps, random gunfire at key transportation hubs. Others sought to hunt down and target American and British citizens at key economic targets, and are now holed up fighting for their lives.

UPDATE: Movie theaters, cafes, are under attack. It’s a full scale assault, hit and run, drive by shootings, etc. The Navy is clearing the port after two boats packed with explosives.

Here’s the important notes:

• Unsophisticated equipment. RDX is readily accessible for anyone with access to the black market and sufficient cash. Automatic weapons are harder to come by, but not absurdly so.

• Unsophisticated tactics. OSINT says the assault teams simply walked into the lobby of the hotels and opened fire, then began rounding up white hostages, sorting by US and UK passport holders. No disguises have been reported. Teams on the roof are throwing grenades (likely how Anti Terrorism Squad DIG Karkare – general officer – was killed after responding.)

A sustained hostage situation (a la Tehran ‘79) is very unlikely. More later.

Excellent Flickr stream.

UPDATE: Deccan Mujahideen has taken responsibility. It is a front for the Indian Mujahideen, which is deeply connected with SIMI and HUJI – the search for the social systempunkt has reached yet another major data point.

However, it is important to keep in mind that Naxals have a hard limit for development before they crash connectivity. WIth development likely to stagnate in the collapsing global economy, any rollbacks in this progress will result in increased offloading of social power to the Naxals.

This is a dangerous approach given the current declining economy. The districts Naxals operate in will increase in step with the decline of the global economy. As economies fade, insurgencies take off. In all likelihood, Patil’s willing to engage in the same repressive approaches that India used to some degree of success in the mid to late 1980s.

However, the core dynamics of the insurgency have shifted over the last decade. Major decentralization, harnessing of market forces, and international linkages present a threat that “encounter specialists” will not be able to contain.

The same tactics that were used to moderate success (as measured in second order events) in Bangalore, Jaipur, Hydrabad, Delhi are now, instead of targeting the new wealth, are trying to undercut growth by exploding already primed powder kegs.

Indicator: “Angry crowds attacked the police with stones after the blasts in the city.”

The Naxals have pioneered a better approach: simply levying a black economy tax on the firm running the mine and using what is essentially free income to build a black economy ecosystem, which they then leverage to accomplish their goals.

• Several low intensity bombs in rapid succession in seven locations across the city.
• Some degree of network analysis was applied since 2-3 bombs were along the very critical Hosur Road.
• Should the organization’s network analysis ability grow more sophisticated, the yield from such bombings would be exponentially greater.
• No word on who conducted the attacks, but all open-source indicators point to HuJI.
• There is a market difference from earlier attacks: instead of religious infrastructure, economic nodes were hit such as construction sites, stores, and bus stops.

Looking to publish an article on the topic in the next month or so.

Total cost born by the country? Over $1.75 billion.

“The major blows fell on the railways and tourism industry. Also, the disruption of railway freight traffic caused production delays in many parts of the country,” Jindal said.
“The figures do not include the losses of property and damages done to railway tracks,” he added.

A battery set, four loudspeakers and a microphone have been installed by local villagers and attached to an electricity pole along the Delhi-Mumbai railway track.

The announcement system which was till now was used to disseminate general information in the area, is now frequently utilised to check the location of security squads, who have been deputed to man all the exit and entry routes to the fields…

Small cheap hacks to infrastructure to coopt it for your own needs is a sign of a very smart movement.

• Hydra like behavior: When train routes are cut off by the emplacement of a tent on the train tracks, security forces respond by tearing down the tent. When they return, hundreds more are placing multiple tents to cut off the railways.
• Slaving state forces to their own ends: Elaborate distractions are set up (such as the tent cut off) while small groups destroy infrastructure elsewhere. Police are now attempting to guard hundreds of miles of railway tracks.
• Small organized groups are charged with rapidly rotating road shutdowns as pioneered in Kolkata .
• Cutting off Dausa’s water pipeline – the first attack on this system. Tens of thousands without water in the summer’s heat for at least two days.

In short, they are very much inside the state’s OODA loop, rapidly out thinking their enemy and costing the state millions of dollars a day.

In response, call centers operating out of the hotzone have begun taking precautions, some more likely to succeed. These are built on the assumption that hyperlocal resources are the only ones able to be leveraged by the firm to build value:

• Putting employees up in hotels near the office.
• Providing bedding for lower echelons to sleep in the office itself.
• Storing food, water, and diesel for power generators in case of disruption.
• Placing redundancy centers on alert in case primary centers go offline.

than others, where the definition of "local" expands to include employee residences:

• Hiring cab companies to use alternate routes and ferry employees when safe.

Cab companies will be likely to avoid major troubled routes – highways, bridges – but will only provide impetus for more distributed action by the Gujjar insurgency. The second day will likely be worse than the first.

At least 20 trains have been canceled so far on that route. Given the tightly coupled nature of and strictly followed timetable, this had lead to a cascading overloads. Neighboring state of MP has 29 trains diverted, another 17 canceled to prevent total overload. Taking note of this development, the Gujjar’s have staged sit-ins on highways (also bridges, to prevent rapid rerouting).

What started in Rajasthan has since spread along highway, railway, and media networks and is now encircling Delhi. The location of this insurgency is critical. Those protesters around the nation’s center of power have not only cut off railway routes, but are also threatening to prevent the passage of critical commodities to the city

Subramaniam said the Centre was in full agreement with Chhattisgarh in countering the naxal menace. All Naxal documents collected from the affected areas suggested that their leadership has exhorted the cadre to annihilate all resistance to their undergound movement, he said.

“Situation is of considerable concern both to the Centre and state. Policemen are not ready to step into the forests. Though 17,000 posts are sanctioned for anti-naxal force, the state government is finding it very difficult to fill them. That is why the self-defence force was organised to save people from becoming sitting ducks for the Naxals,” he said.

Why? This is the cheapest strategy for the central and state government, both of whom are focusing their efforts on development. The larger picture, as the battle rages in the Supreme Court, is that those alienated by the government in Naxal affected areas are rapidly finding out that the justice systems of the Indian government are not concerned with their welfare.

If you are in the area, feel free to email me. Will be in the area from Wednesday to Sunday.

Most of the people in these areas think that opium is a flower, like sunflower or marigold, and is used to extract oil. In fact, the labourers working on the opium fields are also ignorant about the NDPS act.

The opium growers offer good wages to the labourers, land owners and people looking after the cultivation. The lure of money makes it immaterial for the local people to ask the growers about the illegal cultivation.

The description of the problem on target, but he falls prey to the same mistake as the government in that he recommends:

The need of the hour is that the state government should appoint special force to nab the growers and raid the other areas where the cultivation is done.

The problem is, of course, much more complicated than that.  Alienating your greatest assets is problematic.

“It is a question of law and order. You (state government) cannot give arms to somebody (a civilian) and allow him to kill.” - Supreme Court’s Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan.

A key component of nation-state legitimacy is a monopoly on violence. Chhattisgarh’s Salwa Judum militia is a response to an inability of its state forces to maintain such a monopoly. This is an example of  of open-source counterinsurgency strategy.

The Supreme Court is moving towards making decisions on two petitions before it regarding Salwa Judum. To maintain the viability of the Indian nation-state it will have to preserve the (myth of) the monopoly, which means Salwa Judum cannot continue. This leaves Chhattisgarh without any real solutions on the table: traditional counterinsurgency requires wealth, blood, and time. As one of the poorest states in the country, Chhattisgarh has none of these resources.

The critical shift would be designating the CBI as the primary national agency charged with investigation – something that most states oppose. Supporting such a measure would decrease funding and support for already lagging state police forces.

Other proposed reforms:

• Acting as an information cluster center. The CBI would have authority to act on any information routed to them from diverse agency sources.

• Integrating advanced technology. Much along the FBI model, the parliament is advocated the establishment of advanced forensic departments with research and development capabilities.

• Reducing the number of officers deputized to other agencies. A key part of any upward career move is working for several years at another, preferably federal, agency. For example, Indian Police officers often laterally transfer to the National Security Guard or CBI or Border Security Force.

The larger issue, however, is whether it is appropriate for the CBI to move into the FBI structure. Reforming a large bureaucracy like the CBI is a laborious process requiring significant expenditure of fiscal and political resources. And it takes time. The returns on such an investment would likely fall short of the expectations of this commission given the unique challenges of federalism in India.

Which demands the larger question: is it possible for an emerging India to leapfrog over current advanced state models into a configuration more appropriate for the changing face of warfare?

He also describes how:

• Ideology is irrelevant: “The fact both Communism and Socialism failed doesn’t matter to the Naxalite leadership, ideologues and sympathisers: people in remote, backward districts of India don’t know 20th century history.”
• Hollowing out the state instead of offering an existential threat. “So while the Naxalites consolidated into a nation-wide movement a few years ago, the central government continues to claim that this is essentially a matter for the states, and it would only play a co-ordinating role.”
• Fighting on the cheap. “In the absence of a coherent national antiinsurgency strategy states were left to their own devices.”
• Open-source counterinsurgency. “Setting up Salwa Judum, an extraconstitutional counter-insurgency militia, was a big mistake. So is the draconian law which suspends the freedom of the press.”

The real effect of the Naxal operation, however, can be measured by the perception of uncertainty influencing decision making: Rahul Gandhi, being groomed to take over his family’s political party, is being forced to travel the state secretly (or utilizing one of the choppers – expensive and in short supply). The Naxals are still on the run.

The elephant in the room is that any firm operating in an area where Naxals operate has to pay a tax or else face violent consequences. This is the basis for their funding. Going after these firms would decrease incentive to work on these already security bloated development projects. Any decrease in development is a victory for the Naxals.

View Larger Map

The Indian Oil Corporation (OIC) supplies all of Nepal’s oil. For its trucks, there are six highway entry points in Bihar, one in Sikkim, and one in Uttarakhand; only one, Birganj, is directly connected to Kathmandu. As the Nepali government sends out armed escorts for fuel tankers, it will likely station troops at regular intervals along the 70 mile stretch from the Raxaul fuel depot in India to Kathmandu. The tourist hotspot city of Pokhara is 70 miles away from that point and no highway connects it to Raxaul. A pipeline was to be built from the capitol to the fuel depot, but Nepal was unable to bear the financial costs.

Some facts:

• Of the 38 bandhs and blockades in the past month in Nepal, 80% have occurred along the Indian border. Markets, industry, governance offices, are all shutdown in the region.
• Cascading failure: 50% of Kathmandu’s automobiles are not functioning. Private fuel distributors are shutdown while a few public sector nodes continue to provide oil to long lines of people.
• Kathmandu keeps a reserve of approximately three days. Pokhara only keeps enough for one day of disruption.

It is the convergence of many factors that is hitting Nepal hard:

• International uncertainty. Drives oil prices up.
• Heavy subsidization. The state-run Nepal Oil Company (NOC) is required to buy oil from the OIC at international market price sell it at low cost.
• Domestic uncertainty. OIC reducing oil supply in an effort to minimize losses as the political risk increases.
• Institutionalized corruption. 65% of end-user bought oil is a mixture of half-kerosene and water. This requires significant payoff of a large section of the government. This offers little incentive to change the status quo.

The situation is simply untenable and likely to worsen.

Waging a counterinsurgency in any kind of urban setting requires very sophisticated fire control and discipline. There is a direct tradeoff between collateral damage and victory. (Weighted towards the former.)

(Thanks Nam)

To meet this demand, illicit poppy farmers have emerged across the country. Most are concentrated in Naxalite infected areas:

Orissa:

• In November of 2006, authorities crashed a Rs. 1,000,000,000 ($29 million) crop. This was the largest such operation in the country.
• Since then, Orissa’s illicit growers have shifted from massive farms to highly distributed 6,000-10,000 plant small plots. Anything larger than 20 acres has been shutdown.

Jharkhand:

• 300 villages are utilizing 20,000 acres to  grow 100 tons of poppy from October to February each year.
• A per kilogram investment of Rs. 300-400 ($7-$9) yields a return of around 7,000%.
• Naxals offer protection from police and are paid for their service in opium profits. They also offer protection services from smugglers and opium traders for an additional percentage.

In recognition of the fact that none of the opium makes it to the legitimate and lucrative international market, the government of India is conducting a pilot program to test the viability of co-opting this black market. Two firms have been offered contracts to process 100 tons a year to meet a domestic shortage of 20. Export controls are rumored to be lifted as domestic demand is met.

Qamar Qureshi, WII’s chief tiger census investigator, said the tiger reserves in Naxal-affected Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Orissa have fared poorly. “They are suffering because of Naxalism,” he said.

Why: Tiger preserves can not be developed by force of law, and as such are prime areas for groups seeking to stay off-grid. Forest personnel are rarely, if ever, armed with anything more than a pistol. The bow-and-arrow is standard issue.

• Indravati. Chhattisgarh. From 29 tigers in 2001 to an estimate of somewhere in the single digits by locals. Government officials were unable to gain access to the area due to Naxal activity.

• Palamau. Jharkhand. From 32 to zero. (Data is shaky given no state cooperation.)

• Valmiki. Bihar. From 53 to 10. An 81% decline.

• Simlipal. Orissa. From 99 to 20. An 80% decline.

• 600 paramilitary troops and policemen of Orissa are in hot pursuit.
• 3 platoons of Greyhounds from Andhra Pradesh have been flown in.
• 2 Air Force helicopters are being used for aerial reconnaissance.
• The fleeing Naxals are engaging government troops and leveraging their high tech communications capability to coordinate their escape. They have so far lost two with another two falling into government hands.
• Geography remains the crux of the issue as illustrated on this map. Zoom in on the blue markers to see the largely undeveloped jungle terrain.

View Larger Map

In this case, the Naxalites in Orissa adapted their own tactics to strategy being developed across the globe. Attacks on police systems are particularly effective given the resulting drop in recruitment, confidence in the ability of the state to provide protection, and trust in intelligence.

• The mission was dual purpose: a symbolic attack on critical state governance structure and the acquisition of 1,000 firearms and 200,000 rounds of ammunition.
• After informing local residents of their plans to steal weapons, 400 attackers were able to swarm and overwhelm police stations, an armory, and a training academy.
• These synchronized attacks took place some 30 kilometers apart.

To this end, the BSF has had an “air wing” of five aircraft for some time. This unit has been chronically underfunded, undermanned, and relegated to what an officer I met called “polishing its boots.” Now, the central government is signing on to pay for another six rotary wing aircraft to help evacuate wounded BSF personnel as well as the staff, facilities, and knowledge to maintain the entire wing.

Control of the skies is a key factor in determining primacy of violence. Without extensive jungle warfare training, as another officer put it, “we get down and dirty, but we are blind.” Airborne assets increase the scope of operations, the kind of missions that can be accomplished, and the speed with which the BSF can operate.  The fog of war is cleared to some degree.

The problem thus far has been that this sort of primacy is expensive. Helicopters, fixed wing aircraft, and the associated training and equipment are big-ticket items. And they increase the visibility of the counterinsurgency being fought in the red corridor.

More on military modernization soon.

• An individual or group seeking to meet a black market demand for low-intensity IED’s building prototypes and experience.
• Random attacks by a non state actor. Unlikely given the sparse distribution and frequency of these attacks. To inject total chaos into the system, some degree of synchronization would be required, as would almost-ubiquity.
• Aggressive mischief. Unlikely given the possibilities for high payoff for this knowledge.

As technology is increasingly diffused and the associated barriers to entry into the black market drop, we will see an uptick in protoattacks.

“Our line is armed struggle in Kerala too. We will set up base areas, people’s militia and people’s liberation guerilla army in due course. ” – “Mohan”, number one Naxalite in Kerala.

He goes on to state categorically that his strategy does not center on symbolic agitation or classical hit and run on police targets tactics. He declines to elucidate a strategy, but does comment on building organizational capacity.

As I wrote in November of last year in Pragati Magazine:

The leaders of the movement have declared their intention to move past the traditional guerrilla model of warfare and instead implement a strategy centered on heavy shock troops conducting fewer but massive attacks.

When the lessons learned from this new model are synthesized with the hard-won knowledge of economic systems disruption, the resulting bleeding- edge variant of Maoist insurgency campaign could prove devastating to India’s economic future

One result: A sharp uptick in equipment and weapons purchases at subnational levels of government. The money still comes from the center but decision making will be increasingly distributed. This is a major shift, and will require a rethink of what role each level of government plays.

As security becomes a function of increasingly granular and subnational governments slaved to national interests, the nation-state loses its monopoly on violence. India has to develop frameworks to understand this changing reality.

• Aside from training 14,000 Central Reserve Police Force troops, supporting a jungle warfare school, and providing UAV support, the Indian Army refuses to actively engage the Naxalites.
• In Bangalore, the Karnataka government refuses to allocate funds for hazard pay to members of a new anti-terror commando outfit it approved two years ago.
• Meanwhile, the government of Andhra Pradesh wants to export its model of the highly trained and highly paid Greyhound commando anti-Naxal force throughoutthe  country. The force is currently paid by other states to train their fledging paramilitary units.

“Everybody knows in Chhattisgarh that Maoists annually extort millions of rupees as donations to the Maoist movement and major business players always donate generously to run their businesses. But now youths who are in no way linked to Maoists have also been earning big sums.” – Senior IPS Officer.

Naxalites have effectively created an environment, via threats and targeted executions, where extortion is a standard cost (on average ten percent) of running a business. The returns offered in the illicit economy, in the Naxal model, are greater than that in the white economy. The potential for upward mobility is higher, and this is apparent to the unemployed undereducated youth.

Leveraging the same mechanisms as the Naxals (anonymous letters, rotating drop points, cutouts, etc) this new breed of entrepreneur managed to force businesses, government officials, shop owners, steel conglomerate, vendors, and every facet of the National Mineral Development Corp to pay upwards of Rs. 220 million ($5,500,000) in the last year alone.

Packages of a presiding officer, his signature, his ability to communicate with the government, and official paperwork will be rotated throughout the countryside to arbitrate conflict. He will not be able to preside over cases that involve the state.

However, The central government is looking to shed the costs associated with this effort. It will boot up the system and then pay for half of it for a period of three years. The result will likely become:

• Ad-hoc. The connectivity that underpins a platform will likely decay and fray as funding slows. Breaking connectivity (by routing through tiered governments) results in a tiered justice system that is as problematic as no system.
• Corrupt. Presiding officers will decline in quality as both the central and state governments cut expenditure on the project. Look for tribal, wealth, caste, and other sub-state group influence to take hold.

Simply put, the commitment of resources and personnel doesn’t align with strategy. To make this a workable decentralized solution, the first step would be to effectively connect the dots, which requires interoperability, which (in a government context) is driven by funding.

An ideological change would be marked by a public statement and a concentrated information operation on the part of the government. Instead, Reddy has shied away from the lime light and open-source information source is carrying any mention of any note of regret. Additionally, his wife, also a Naxal, has not surrendered.

This gives some credence to the idea that he was bought, but now the state lacks return on that investment. Purchasing loyalty is one option to combat an insurgency, but price levels fluctuate wildly based on market conditions. Payments have to be adjusted to meet demand but always increase.

• Intelligence fusion cell. The Interior Ministry has appointed the heads of external and internal intelligence agencies to compile and disseminate intelligence collected by various paramilitary, police, and military units operating in Naxalite affected areas.

•  Focus on inter-insurgency linkage. Worried about Naxalites injecting money, manpower, and knowledge  into various other campaigns in the area, the fusion cell has been asked to zoom in on campaign overlap.

• $100 million for police modernization. Firearms, sophisticated communications technology, and other specialized equipment.

• Delhi is booting up its own anti-Naxal force based on the anti-terror “Special Cell” which recruits top officers and gives them more responsibility than their peers to build intelligence networks and crush terror groups.

Some gaps: the lack of any holistic development strategy or any tie-in with the mining industry that has proven so problematic in the region in question.

Some of this can be attributed to aging railway infrastructure, as can a large portion given low quality control of localized equipment production but two other causes have a greater impact:

• Lack of training. In the face of plummeting spending on signals staff, other organizations within the IR are providing individuals to operate machinery and technology they are simply not prepared for.
• Theft. Accounts for half of the signals equipment that needs to be replaced. Metals and machinery are stolen by individuals lacking other sources of wages. (This has the potential to be insurgency-based as well as driven by the economic imperative.)

Signals are one of two sources of interoperability (the physical tracks are the other) within the railway platform. If they start firing at the wrong time, place, or wrong light, the results could be disastrous.

Something to think about: The governor of Chhattisgarh, ESL Narasimhan, hailed the Salwa Judum as “the second independence movement launched by the tribals of the state to save democracy.”

This may be driven by the fact that the state, along with Jharkhand, is where some 70% of Naxal activities take place. Or, perhaps because Narasimhan was one of the targets of a recently disrupted plot to decapitate the Chhattisgarh leadership.

Update.  Chhattisgarh defends its support of SJ in court as consistent with the will of the people.

Development, of course, is key to solving social system problems of concern to rural villagers: poverty, hunger, and a lack of upward mobility. However, injecting funding and people can have unforeseen negative implications:

• Naxal Taxes. The extortion strategy of Naxals will increase its revenue significantly. If corporations hit a critical threshold in terms of revenue or number of villagers affected, Naxals will crash connectivity rather than leveraging its flows.
• Security. SEZs are still vulnerable to organic reactionary movements like POSCO in Orissa.

Industry may, given the potential of enormous payoff in these areas, accept the taxes and offload security costs onto the government. However, the government should think twice before committing significant time and resources to this strategy:

• Manpower. Significant amounts of forces. This could be the massive counterinsurgency operation that officials know is required but have been hesitant to put in place.
• Costs. To field a force able to patrol and protect enclaves expect lots of expenditure. Given the focus on robust economic growth, this cost cannot be incorporated into a larger tax burden.

Mounting this large-scale operation serves to bring greater media and international exposure to a problem that few politicians are willing to tackle. In classic Maoist insurgencies, this kind of overreach results in victory for the agile guerrillas that provoked it. In modern warfare, the results can be devastating for a rapidly growing economy.

On that note: I am available to consult, speak, or write on a regular or project basis. Contact me if you have a need to know what lays ahead for India, understand the Naxalites in the context of modern warfare, or develop strategies to deal with uncertainty in the Indian market.

• 2005. Four Naxal attacks destroy critical infrastructure.
• 2006. Eight similar attacks (a 100% increase).
• 2007. Seventeen attacks (another 100% increase) with an uptick in overall network noise.

These attacks are only catastrophic node failures – explosions that totally decimated any given railway line, cable, or station/office. Disruptive node failures, marked by rendering infrastructure irrelevant but allowing it to “regenerate”, are tougher to ascertain and generally are left off of government reports. Some of these easy (and cheap) system hacks:

• Track obstructions, switch breaking, removal of track. Easy, but equally easy to fix.
• Distributed signal systems. More sophisticated requiring more complex fixes. Shut downs or communication delays have the same effect: the halting of the train and cascades throughout the rest of the timetable.

In response, the government is planning a 20,000 increase in Railway Protection Force troops for additional force presence and rapid response.

Fear Vikas, Green Tigers, Nalladandu, Red Tigers, Tirumala Tigers, Palnadu Tigers, Kakatiya Cobras, Narsa Cobras, Nallamalla Nallatrachu (Cobras) and Kranthi Sena are some of the gangs. The gangs have fiery logos featuring cobras, tigers and guns.

Hyderabad based journalist Sudhakar Reddy Udumula outlines  the rapid growth of very granular private armies in the troubled area of Telangana in Andhra Pradesh:

If such caste-based private armies are allowed to survive, a majority of attacks would be directed against dalits and the landless poor. Most of the private armies would be operated by rich, upper-caste people. For them, the weaker sections are the target, [the CPI-M leader] said, adding that in addition to organised massacres, private armies use dehumanising programmes to insult the weaker sections. Private armies take the guise of anti-Maoist groups and spring up after a major attack by extremists.

The state, rather than suppressing their growth, relies on these groups to do what they can’t given fiscal constraints:

• “We have no information that the Cobra gangs are caste-based. They are reactionary forces to the Maoists.”

•  ”Where is the need? The police is doing everything as per the law to tackle the Maoist menace. The police is not supporting them.” Mr Sen added, “The police will investigate (the killings) impartially. I feel that this is a natural reaction against the atrocities of the Maoists.”

Udumala has also covered the Naxal cluster of the blogosphere.

Aside from the standard state-level officer call for additional troops from the central government, Ranjan offers the following:

• “Soon Andhra Pradesh will face the same problems we are facing.” The limited success of Andhra Pradesh’s Greyhounds is likely to face significant hurdles as Naxals innovate in response.
• “It is a success on an immediate level and can’t be a sustainable strategy. Do you know there are many unsanctioned Salwa Judum camps?” This gets to the heart of the matter: An open-source counterinsurgency has no top-level control.
• “The Naxals see industry as a source of earning and won’t ruin its work.” The insurgency extorts 10% of any profit earned by mining firms. For the Naxals this strategy is only viable in the short-term. Prolonged development will have negative consequences for its recruitment and public support underpinnings.

”People living in far off corners should know what is happening around them. How fast the world is changing and how the people are benefitting from the initiatives of individual efforts and Government schemes,” the SP said.

This, of course, is only effective if the village has modern grid services: water, electricity, roads.

• January 1. Naxals attacked The attack placed pressure to retreat into existing urban bases.
• January 18. IED’s are placed to target the convoy of a four-star anti-Naxalite operations officer in charge of the new plans.

The development of a network of forest bases presents a challenge to the insurgency. Central forces are generally better equipped and trained than their state peers. The CRPF is planning on eleven bases scattered at the intersection of the states of Bihar, Jharkhand, and Uttar Pradesh.

Rather than enjoy the time gap between an attack and the time it takes for a distantly stationed force to deploy, Naxals would find themselves having to respond to rapid feedback loops.

When asked if electronic systems were being used as force multipliers (the RPF is minuscule in comparison to what it must protect) the officer rubbed their eyes, sipped their chai, and then explained how “modernization” is occurring very slowly because the funding for internal security simply is not there.

Mohan leverages the security imperative offered by a recent jailbreak to try and build support for technology to solve the problem. This approach is problematic:

• These technology systems will require a tender/vendor process that can take valuable time and significant effort on the part of centralized governments.
• It calls for the engineering of “brittle” complex security systems. The goal is to basically fortify each prison node. Given limited resources, this effort can not scale evenly. Some nodes will be weaker than others, and open to (Naxal) shocks.

Some viable options:

• Increasing the speed and bandwidth of information to and from these usually remote prison nodes could allow increased coordination.
• Encouraging distributed innovation. Young officers deployed to rural prisons should be incentivized to use local resources to solve the problem of lax security. This is unlikely to happen in an often corrupt hierarchy.

The force will:

• Be raised with 50% central funds and 50% state funds on loan from the central government.
• Take three years to stand up.

This force is in addition to 26 IR battalions, a 26,000 force, already deployed in 10 affected states. Sadly a majority of these troops are ill-equipped and lack training necessary to conduct operations in dense jungles without relying on brute force. In short, this is a heavy new investment in a policy tool that has not been garnering many returns.

Worth noting:

• Using government estimate of 10,000 Naxalites, brings the ratio to seven central personnel for each Naxal. (The actual number of Naxalites is much higher.)

Meanwhile, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal are:

• Routing intelligence directly from police outposts in one state to their peers rather than through their state-specific hierarchies.
• Coordinating near-border counterinsurgency operations via information sharing, and cooperative kinetic operations.

Given that Naxalites thrive on unguarded, undeveloped border areas of failing states, this makes sense. The real question is what toll this internal churning will take upon states as borders blend together and problems percolate.

It is worth noting that the only role the central government played was to host the meeting of states.

As always, feel free to send me an email or comment here.

• Rs. 2,500,000 ($62,000) per acre.
• Land with three room structures complete with electricity, plumbing and gas infrastructure.
• Jobs for all families – continuing on a hereditary basis.
• Free education for their children.

At the same time, however, the villager’s negotiating position is affected by the Supreme Court stating that the permits POSCO received need to be reexamined. POSCO sought to gain separate permits for nondisputed areas, and then add in permits as contentious areas came into the fold. The Court says the entire project must be viewed with one permit in mind.

Deliverables by 2003 included:

• At-risk villages in desert, tribal or hill areas with populations greater than 500 would be connected.
• All villages with populations greater than 1,000 would be connected via road to major arteries.

By 2007:

• Hill, tribal or desert villages with populations between 250 and 500 would be linked.
• All villages with populations greater than 500 would be brought into the fold.

The Naxalite movement has allowed work to continue by private contracted firms provided they receive a fee amounting to 10% of the contract. If this strategy were applied in all areas, this would amount to upwards of $2 billion in Naxal coffers. If only the “red corridor” is targeted, this sum is approaching $1 billion, minus overhead.

When some firms refused to pay, Naxals began attacking day laborers and heavy machinery leading to the shutdown of work in some 10,000 villages.

Note: You can track extensive metrics and the progress of the project, titled “Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana” at this site.

• 2.92 billion tons of bauxite (10 % of the world’s supply)
• 276 billion tonnes of coal
• 23 billion tons of iron ore deposit

But these resources have gone mostly untapped due to Naxal and tribal activism and generally inept economic regulatory practices by the government. As the central government moves to cut its excessive red tape, the states with the most resources, Orissa, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, are clamoring to retain control. They seek:

• Assurances that multinational firms will not control large tracts of land.
• Limit and then phase out resource exports to fuel the development of an organic manufacturing industry.
• Larger funding streams (five percent) into their coffers to be used for development and governance.

Ironically, these states barely have the ability to prospect their land, but are forced to pander towards the lowest economic classes to whom the loss of land is akin to an attack on their way of life. It is no coincidence that the states clamoring for control are also the most affected by Naxalites.

• Naxalites have enormous influence in shaping the future of India’s security environment. “I have said in the past that left-wing extremism is single biggest security challenge to the Indian state,” Singh said. “It continues to be so.”

• The Maoists are early adopters of the systems disruption strategy that has proven devastating in Iraq and Afghanistan. “They are carefully targeting all aspects of economic activity,” he continued. “They are targeting vital economic infrastructure so as to cripple transport and logistic capabilities and also slow down any development activity.”

• The state cannot rely on the controlled chaos approach any longer. The solution, Singh said, is for state police forces, “to establish specialized, dedicated forces to fight left-wing extremism.”

Each of these is covered in-depth my article “The Rising Naxalite Rage“.

• Television. A 30 minute movie to be broadcast on public television channels including jailed Maoist confessions of criminal acts targeting the public.
• Radio and Newspaper. Publishing of the rupee amount of the net damage caused by the Naxalites, including the total state expenditure on counter-Naxal operations, total Naxal wealth accrued through extortion, their treatment of women and, particularly, juxtapose Naxal-leader wealth in comparison to their rhetoric.
• Police engagement. Awareness campaign through townhall meetings, college seminars and increased interviews in the press.

This is in response to the Naxal efforts which have included:

• Television. A short film revealing the harsh reality of what is termed “anti-Maoist operations” and the general corruption of state forces, including execution style killings of suspects and institutional framing efforts and cover ups.
• SMS text messaging. Spreading disinformation by spoofing sender data to senior government officials as well as threats to life and property.
• Extensive leaflet distribution campaign.

While the police campaign is ostensibly targeted towards the rural population that the Maosts rely upon, it is important to note that many of its efforts are designed to shore up support within urban areas. By building threat awareness, the police hope to increase their own funding.

• 560 (30%) of the passengers were unauthorized.
• All three classes – Air Conditioned, Sleeper and General – were taken over.
• A loss of some Rs. 47,961 (approximately $1,000) was incurred.
• The few police on-scene were escorted off the train, as were ticket wielding passengers by the Maoists – who were armed with bottles and rocks.

The forcible acquisition of train berths by political parties is not uncommon, but this particular instance is notable due to sheer size.

The acquisition of 1 firearm resulted in total control of the battlespace. Rarely is the critical threshold so low, and so, prior to leaving, the Naxals made sure to steal six more rifles and one radio handset.

In areas of low governance and high Naxalite activity, public institutions such as:

• petrol pumps
• nationalized banks
• shopping complexes
• open-air markets
• mining infrastructure
• state buildings

are protected by armed guards.

However, to stay below the Naxal radar they are forced to forgo firearms and instead are armed with bows and arrows. The same is true for police forces at the precinct level. To prevent raids by the Maoists, a sign of dominance and the resultant establishment of a critical threshold, state forces are forced to concede the battlespace by giving up arms.

To this end, a pro-POSCO faction, backed by the government, has held the entire village of Dhinki, the hub of the PPSS, under house-arrest, effectively sealing off the centralized command and control of the organization.

With the opposition firewalled off 12 government survey units, previously targeted for kidnapping, are roaming the countryside trying to ascertain what resources will have to be compensated for, including:

• the amount of land to be acquired,
• structures (homes, schools, shops) on the land,
• number of trees,
• bodies of water,
• and betel crops.

Though this approach works in the short term, it can not be sustained. Furthermore, it sets a dangerous precedent in its message: that progress can only be made if protesters are removed from the picture.

The organization will be headed by:

• One Inspector-General of Police.
• One Deputy Inspector-General.
• Two Superintendents .
• 22 Deputy Superintendents  from the State Police, a distinct service from the Indian Police Service.

Given that this 2,000 man strong unit is to be armed with automatic weapons, firepower that is orders of magnitude greater the the average police officer’s armament, the primary mission will be seeking out Maoist strongholds and destroying them.

(For more context on this, read my article The Rising Naxalite Rage.)

To capitalize on the challenges of harsh high peaks and subzero temperatures the tactics of Pakistan’s special forces centered on gaining and holding the ridge overlooking a critical Indian supply highway. Unwilling to risk losing world support by crossing into Pakistani territory and cutting off their supply lines – effectively letting the bunkered down infiltrators “die on the vine” – Indian troops faced the daunting task of scaling 90 degree cliffs (at times 18,000 feet) at high altitude to engage in what often turned into hand-to-hand combat.

Troops conducted these dangerous maneuvers this with little, if any, tactical intelligence. Aerial flyovers and civilian assets were the primary sources, neither in real time. The few unmanned aerial vehicles operated by the military at point performed poorly in the severe conditions of the area.

This resulted in India investing heavily in the development of a fleet of UAVs. Since then the government has has:

• Bought what it could not build. The Indian Army currently utilizes Israeli Searchers and Herons.
• Accelerated an organic UAV development program. The Lakshya, Nishant are the result.
• Conducted extensive unmanned maritime reconnaissance and surveillance. The eastern seaboard of the country is protected by a UAV unit based out of the Andobar islands.

It is now seeking to purchase an additional 150 UAVs and micro-UAVs with the following capabilities:

• All-weather day and night surveillance.
• Minimal thermal signature.
• 18-30km range.
• Direct, evaluate and correct artillery fire.

While the Kargil War was an example of irregular conventional combat, UAV’s are useful assets in combating insurgencies – real time intelligence is critical. UAVs are already operating in Kashmir, and now the states of Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, and Andhra Pradesh have voiced interest with a test program taking off in Chhattisgarh to combat the Naxalite threat.

“Bhatke Rahi (Misguided Traveller)”, a 30-minute play written by Superintendent of Police in Ranchi M S Bhatia, is aimed at stopping youths from going of the track. Bhatia said, “the play shows how Naxalites rob happiness and deny development to common people by illusory dreams.”

The play directed by Dilip Palwle, a graduate of Delhi School of Drama, will be performed in Naxalite-hit villages of [Jharkhand] till December 20.

In the absence of the movies, music and other media that the globalizing world takes for granted, this is an example of a simple and cheap counter-propaganda campaign designed to combat a traditional insurgency.

Naxal Watch is the pro-state equivalent.

 Update hil Howison was on this a year ago.

Scared of Naxalite penetration, state law enforcement troops were deployed to ostensibly keep the peace but government leaders make no secret of their support of the violence:

“Thursday’s violence would be the last clash there. Now the anti-POSCO people will not dare to raise their voice. This has proved that they are a minority there and most of the local people want POSCO for their development,” says Orissa’s Commerce and Transport Secretary Priyabrata Patnaik.

This commitment has since been solidified by pro-POSCO villagers even as police were at the scene:

• A delegation of activists were prevented from even approaching the village at the center of the conflict. They were harassed and forced to return.
• Anti-POSCO activists were denied permission to conduct a a hunger strike at the location of the violence of last week then driven out.

The PPSS reacted by arming themselves and conducting a public parade. The organization is armed with:

• 30 firearms.
• 50-60 crude bombs.
• Bows, arrows and knives.

This is the problem with the controlled chaos approach: control over chaos is rarely retained by anyone, much less the government. The result is a protracted, dirty conflict along tribal/ethnic/economic lines. This instability prevents foreign investment and development from taking hold.

The Jharkhand Naxalite operating budget is based on extortion:

• Rs. 70,000 per coal firm per year
• Rs. 25,000 per transportation firms per year

The Rewards of the Shadow Economy 

This money flows in the black market:

• Individuals earn between Rs. 1,000 to 3,000.
• The terms of their employment includes a life insurance payout of Rs. 125,000.

The Naxalite Tax 

The return on the Naxalite investment in the their extortion rackets is an annual budget of Rs. 3.2 billion ($80 million). 

The state of Jharkhand was formed out of the southern part of the northeastern state of Bihar in late 2000. Though the economy is based on its plentiful natural resources: minerals and forestry, its progress has been stubbornly slow.

Troubled History

• It has, since its creation, been victim to some 130 bandhs.
• This is an average of 20 a year, or 2 a month.
• Only 30% are called by and enforced by the Naxalites though the tactic evolved and was streamlined by that insurgency.
• Political parties are the primary culprits.
• Economic collectives and even businessmen protesting the rampant use of the tactic by others have been forced to rely the tactic.

Economic Implications

• The cost of each day of shutdown is estimated at some Rs. 600 million ($15 million).
• This puts the total economic damage figure at Rs. 78 billion ($2 billion) for the past seven years.

The Bandh Tax

Given that Jharkhand’s annual GDP hovers around Rs. 320 billion ($8 billion), 3.5 percent of the state’s economic potential is lost every year. This is the bandh tax.

As previously established, compounding bandhs can result in the collapse of cities. Jharkhand may prove to be a larger scale example of the same phenomenon.

This is the first part of a look at the dynamics at work in Jharkhand.

July 11, 2006

Seven pressure cookers packed with 2.5 kilograms of RDX each are placed in rising middle class compartments of seven outbound Western line trains in Mumbai. Within moments of near-simultaneous explosions realtime global media streams begin transmitting live footage. Rerouting a city with a population of 12 million resulted in cellular grids crashing, road transit overloading and public services going down. 209 died, 700 were injured.

Recent History

The nodes of the urban transit network have been assaulted with the intent to maximize shock value several times:

• When the underworld coordinated thirteen bombings on March 12, 1993, an additional two unexploded car bombs were found days later outside of major railway stations.
• A decade later, a bomb exploded at Ghatkopar railway station on December 2, 2002.
• Four days later, a bomb exploded in an air conditioning duct at Bombay Central Railway Station’s food plaza.
• A bomb-laden bicycle exploded next to the Vile Parle Railway Station on January 27, 2003.

Any network disruption as a result of these attacks was not a mission objective, but rather a byproduct that served as a reminder and a fear-multiplier.

Shifting Tactics

Each attack on the urban railway network increased the number of human fatalities by, on average, 311%, though this differential reached as high as 1096%. This is an unsustainable growth rate and attackers require growth in order to make an impact.

A new trend emerged 2003 in which network edges, or links between nodes, are targeted rather than the nodes themselves.

• A bomb placed in a first class ladies compartment exploded just prior to hurtling into Mulund railway station on March 13, 2003. Mulund is a critical link for trains leaving or entering the city.

The July 11, 2006 bombings approach the critical threshold for symbolic terrorism on Mumbai’s urban transit network. The potential for minor incremental improvement is most likely negligible. Instead of symbolic besting, evidenced by higher and higher bodycounts, the trendline indicates that secondary network effects and cascading failures will increase both in number and in impact and will progressively play a central role in terror mission planning.

Resiliency and Response

While the densely clustered nature of the July 11, 2006 attacks allowed Railway officials to rapidly bring the network back on line that same night, this could not be said of the brittle framework of a modern city – the cellular, road and service networks. Cellular nets may have been brought down by the government so as to prevent the possibility of remotely detonated explosives. If so, given that peer to peer connections are central in disaster response, the results were likely deadly. Secondary network effects, like the decreased margins of the outsourcing industry due to the costs of building resiliency into their systems, are still at play.

Ongoing economic attrition is troubling given that Mumbai plays an important role as India’s financial hub. It contributes 40-60% of tax revenue, routes 40% of India’s foreign trade and Rs.40 billion in corporate taxes.

Into the Future

As metro transit systems are built in major urban areas, like in Delhi, operational resiliency and rapid threat reaction will need to be developed. Senior National Security Guard officers I met with say that they understand and are preparing for the eventual targeting of these new systems. This is a good first step, but a real strategy will have to be utterly localized and implemented in the design process of the new faster systems instead of relying on central units.

This brief collapse was the result of a build-up of the six days of compounding bandh initiated and enforced by various communist groups. These forced banked on the relative inexperience of the opposition farmer groups to achieve the objective of an urban overreach .

This strategy paid off when farmer efforts resulted in large scale visible violence. The sum result of the short lived campaign included hundreds of injured protesters and policemen, dozens of torched vehicles, and the burning of two ruling Communist Party offices.

Some 500 federal troops were deployed throughout the city within an hour of being called into action by the state government to quell the unrest. They were pulled out several days later, after order was restored.

Farmer groups are now facing an imperative to innovate beyond loosely coordinated mob violence. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

These individuals pay as much as $1,500 to earn passage to the Gulf states. More often than not, they are unable to discern the legitimacy of their local immigration service provider and, given the prevalence of illicit human trafficking networks in this part of the world, many find themselves unwitting illegal immigrants. Those who do hold valid visas, upon disembarking, have their passports taken away and are forced to work as pseudo-slaves.

This has resulted in significant worker unrest and more recently, large scale demonstrations – such as in the 4,000 strong demonstration in Dubai – in countries that do not allow workers to unionize or strike, like the UAE. This unrest is likely to expand and intensify, now that the labor market is saturated to a point where the average construction worker earns 600 dirhams a month, but living costs average around 700 dirhams.

This uptick has the potential of destabilizing the booming economy of the Gulf. Especially since Indians make up 50% of the private labor force. Adding in Bangladeshi and Pakistani workers bring that figure up to 75%.

This has not gone unnoticed. Rather than relying solely on its usual tactic of deporting the activist leaders, the UAE recently implemented an amnesty program targeting 341,000 illegal immigrants, of which 70,000 were Indian. 40,000 of the latter participated and have returned to the workforce, but the wage/costs ratio is a critical problem yet to be solved.

This is an important step for the generally underutilized RPF, but, to put it in perspective, there will be, at the end of next year, 55 canine units to cover 7500 stations and 40,000 miles of track.

Current resources are already overburdened. Dogs normally have a 12.5% false positive rate, but when on duty for more than two hours this number jumps to 60%. The RPF’s canine teams often work for eight hours.

To compound, only 14 of the currently approved 23 are being trained due to infrastructure limits. Another 22 are slated for next year, but the spillover from the current training schedule will likely cause more delay.

A better approach: The RPF should be examining alternative low-cost animals – pigs, rats, bees – or technologies – robots or sensor networks. The considerable talents of the state-run globally-acclaimed Indian Institutes of Technology should be incentivized to solve these kinds of problems.

.73% of railway stations will be covered by the superficial canine security measure. It is time to encourage a market ecosystem to meet glaring security demands.

In response to the SEZ-centered violence in nearby Nandigram, some 22 major road arteries in Kolkata were, over the course of an hour and a half, shutdown in rapid succession for 15 minutes each. Each short segment resulted in 60-90 minutes of deadlock, but the combination of arteries resulted in some roads being shut down for as long as six to seven hours.

The shutdown of road traffic prevented most normal economic activity from taking place as well as the surge in Diwali-holiday shoppers. The leftist segmented shutdowns spread to neighboring villages where Naxalite units worked to disrupt national highways and train networks with minor success.

How it begins:

A resurgent Maoist uprising is about to be unleashed on India. Its forces will emerge from the Dandakaranya forest and the ensuing battle will rage for years across hundreds of underdeveloped districts and Special Economic Zones. The viability of the government encouraging economic development in or even maintaining hold of the “Red Corridor” will be drawn into question. Any infrastructure network, be it privately or publicly backed, is marked for disruption. The once suppressed Naxalite insurgency is poised to set ablaze the flows of globalization and destabilize the economic expansion of almost half of the country.

Read the issue and the full article here.

Update: John Robb, one of the world’s foremost authorities on the future of warfare, explains how Naxal-inspired bandhs fit into the larger picture. His book, Brave New War, is a must-read for anyone, particularly those interested in India’s future, seeking to make sense of the emerging patterns of warfare.

In modern warfare,  the goal of dramatic public attacks is to force the nation-state to respond on an equally spectacular scale. A flawed implementation of such an approach creates prime feeding grounds for a subnational group.

Marand’s political party initiated a one day bandh, or economic shutdown, of the state of Jharkhand. Bandhs were banned in 1998 by the Supreme Court. The law was enforced when 100 political enforcers were arrested but they were given tacit state support in the form of breakfast. Roads, railroads and markets were blocked. Coal mining firms were particularly hit given their inability to move any of their product.

The government responded by initiating Operation Vikram. Some 600 soldiers in five CRPF paramilitary battalions have simultaneously begun a clear-and-hold operation in five districts. Operation Vikram is slated to expand to a total of 18 districts  and include joint action by the states of Orissa and Bihar. Three members of a Naxalite splinter group have been killed so far.

The Maoist strategists will likely avoid direct confrontation to allow the state forces to flail without any push-back. The overreach has been set in motion.

Given the lack of private sector talent, private airlines are turning to the military. Indian Air Force (IAF) aviators earn between Rs. 25,000 and Rs. 40,000 a month. The private sector is able to lure them away by offering pay increases of up to 1,000 percent. The IAF is authorized 12,128 officers, but is currently operating with 88 percent of that number and is lacking bodies to fill 600 of its 3,278 pilot slots. Just under ten percent, or 300 pilots have left in the last three years alone.

The Army is authorized 46,615 officers for its 1.13 million soldiers but operates with 75 percent. The amount of officers applying for early retirement has steadily increased by anywhere from 20 to 40 percent every year since 2002. Over 3,000 have applied in past three years, 950 this year alone, and approximately half were approved.

The worst-hit areas are lieutenants, captains and majors. This is alarming, given that highly trained small unit leaders are vital in waging a successful counterinsurgency campaign.

It is important to note that this decline in retention will increase and expand as India’s military industrial complex slowly boots up from the wreckage of the public sector monopoly.

POSCO expects to output some 600 million tons of iron ore over the course of the 30-year lease approved by the Orissa government in 2005. Mining is slated to begin in 2009 and the South Korean company expects to create 18,000 jobs over 10 years.

The physical infrastructure to be built includes a plant and a port which require a total of 4,004 acres. Till date, POSCO has gained control of less than 10% of that figure despite offering employment and other forms of compensation to the 4,000 families facing displacement.

In large part this is due to the organized response of the POSCO Pratirodha Sangram Samiti (PPSS), an organization that began in 2005 when its leader, Abhaya Sahu, empowered by only a rickshaw-mounted microphone went from village to village building support.

Since then, the public counter-POSCO effort has been gaining steam by aligning itself with environmentalists who argue that the port will disrupt local ecology and NGO’s who argue that the livelihood of fishermen and farmers is at stake.

In addition to the political track, PPSS members have taken to preventing encroachment by state or corporate officers by guarding village entrances with bamboo sticks.

This marked the beginning of a transformation towards a more combative approach:

• In May of this year, a vehicle carrying three Indian POSCO executives was swarmed by 10 villagers with sticks. The corporate officers were taken captive and were released the same day when POSCO promised not to send anymore staff to the area.
• On October 11, 10 laborers bound for the project site were kidnapped by the PPSS.
• On October 13, four POSCO executives – three South Koreans and an Indian – were swarmed and taken prisoner by a crowd of 40-50 armed villagers while dismounted. Their vehicle was pushed into a ditch, again no reward was demanded, and the corporate officers were freed when the local police promised that neither state nor POSCO staff would enter PPSS controlled areas.

Due to the potential for enormous payoff POSCO will likely press on with its efforts despite excruciatingly slow progress and localized unrest. To deter POSCO, PPSS has to make it economically inviable to pursue construction and later, production. The increasingly activist posture reflects that, to some degree, this understanding is taking hold. The only question is what form this economic deterrence will take.

Update: The 10 laborers taken prisoner four days ago on their way to build a bridge at the project site have been released after the government gave in to the PPSS demand that the unused timber be removed and the project not be restarted.

Update 2: Private intelligence firm Stratfor tracks the same topic here.

1. Jama Masjid. April 14, 2006. Delhi. Two nearly simultaneous bombs at this prominent mosque resulted in 14 dead.
2. Shab-e-Barat. September 8, 2006. Malegaon. Three bombs interrupted a festival. 38 dead, 200 injured.
3. The Samjhauta Express. February 19, 2007. Simultaneous suitcase IEDs caused a fire resulting in 68 dead and 50 dead on the single railway link between Lahore and Delhi.
4. Mecca Masjid. May 18, 2007. Hyderabad. A bomb in the 400 year old mosque resulted in 14 killed and 50 injured. In the ensuing violent protest an additional five were killed by anti-riot police.

Influenced by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s organization, the Tanzim Qaidat Al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn or Al Qaeda in Iraq, HuJI is targeting physical religious infrastructure an effort to collapse the fragile social structures that contain diverse local communities.

“It is an act of terror, no religion including Islam permits it and the perpetrators of the act aim to break the Indian nation in to religious lines,” said Maulana Badruddin Ajmal Al-Qasmi, president Assam United Democratic Front (AUDF).

In short, HuJI is searching for the social systempunkt. Iraq’s al-Askari Mosque bombings and the ensuing sectarian violence exemplify this approach.

HuJI’s attacks have wildly fluctuated in terms of effectiveness due to technical considerations such as unexploded or inadequate ordinance and, so far, the secondary violence stemming from these attacks has been relatively mild.

Should HuJI close the gap between its strategic thinking and tactical abilities, it could explode through the systempunkt and potentially cause significant disorder.

The going rate for a poached leopard or tiger on the eastern coast of India is $50. A forest-dweller can, in a few hours, increase his monthly income (on average $42) by 119 percent by participating in this economy. The skin, after traversing the globe, sells for upwards of $2,000 – a 4,000 percent return on investment that is likely immediately absorbed by another black market.

Obviously, efforts to combat this global network such as the Coalition Against Wildlife Trafficking – the US and India are both active members – will require significant economic power in order to make any sort of measurable impact.

• 86,899 detonators
• 20,150 kilograms of slurry explosives
• 52,740 meters of fuse
• 419 kilograms of gelatin sticks

International connectivity plays a major role in driving the theft of explosives. Explosives bound for India’s Border Roads Organization, which builds connectivity into rural areas of Afghanistan, were stolen some 20 miles off the coast of Mumbai. 61,000 detonators were found by the Sri Lankan Navy on a vessel falsely marked as a gulf oil company transporting oil.

At the same time, the illicit explosive RDX, formerly a driver of the illicit trade network between Bangladesh and eastern India is being supplanted by the open-market alternative of ammonium nitrate (used as fertilizer and in the mining industry) which is making it tougher for the security establishment to trace and react.

We were driving back from a sales trip into the (further) interiors in the stockist’s car when a bunch of gray boys, in their mid teens, formed a human chain across the road to block us…It did seem a primitive toll tax booth but when we stopped, the stockist actually started negotiating the toll amount with them..they came down from 100 bucks to 70, but started getting agitated when pressed further. Suddenly the leader of the gray pack shouted angrily “Pay up 100 now nahi to bhaiya will visit you personally tomorrow.”

This bhaiya, I found later, is the local self styled naxalite who does the ‘collection’ to keep the wheels of agitation well oiled.