Q19 · UPSC Civil Services Mains 2020 · GS III · 15 marks · 3 min read

What are the determinants of left-wing extremism in Eastern part of India? What strategy should Government of India, civil administration and security forces adopt to counter the threat in the affected areas?

Topic: Security Forces and Agencies. Syllabus: Various Security forces and agencies and their mandate. Same official PYQ from year-wise 2020 and Security Forces and Agencies.

Revision summary

Eastern LWE grows from forest-land dispossession, missing services, and Maoist organisation. Tri-junction terrain and mineral rents add operational and financial ease. The Union’s job is fused intelligence, choking extortion, and aligned development spends. Civil administration must deliver FRA, PESA, roads, and honest grievance. Security forces should be intelligence-led and police-owned, then leave a civilian hold.

Model answer

Copper italics in this answer — like this — are the key facts. Each one is unpacked in the Facts & figures rail.

Introduction

Left-wing extremism in eastern and central India — the Dandakaranya–Jharkhand–Odisha–Bihar arc — is not only a police file. Its determinants are land, forest, dignity, and a State that arrived as a thana and a contractor. The response therefore cannot be only a CRPF camp. Government, civil administration, and security forces need one strategy with three trades.

Body

Determinants in eastern India

  • Agrarian and forest dispossession: tenancy insecurity, delayed FRA, 2006 titles, mining and dam displacement without consent, and contractors on jal-jungle-zameen.
  • Governance vacuum: absent schools, health, roads, and a revenue officer who is not extractive. The Maoist filled the dispute-resolution gap.
  • Adivasi and Dalit exclusion: social humiliation and unaccountable police, which made a radical class war story locally believable.
  • Terrain and borders of States: tri-junction forests (Chhattisgarh–Odisha–Jharkhand, etc.) that let cadres slip across jurisdictions.
  • Resource curse politics: minerals of Jharkhand, Odisha, and Bastar attract rents; some of that rent historically leaked to protection economies.
  • Ideology and organisation: CPI (Maoist) cadre structure, extortion, and propaganda; youth without jobs as the recruitment pool.
  • External and criminal overlay: arms, explosives, and occasional urban sympathiser networks — secondary to the rural political economy, not imaginary.

Strategy for the Government of India

  • Hold the SAMADHAN frame as operations-plus: smart leadership, intelligence, and development, not a slogan-only acronym.
  • Financial choking of extortion, and a political refusal to treat LWE as a permitted ‘social movement’ once it uses mines and IEDs.
  • Centres of excellence for intelligence fusion; avoid purely kinetic body-count incentives.
  • Coordinate MHA, rural development, tribal affairs, and mines so a road is not only a CRPF logistics spur but a clinic and a mandi.

Strategy for civil administration

  • Deliver FRA, PESA, and basic services faster than the pamphlet. A title deed and a teacher beat a midnight speech.
  • Road, telecom, banking, and PDS in vacated areas immediately, or the cadre returns as the only employer.
  • Grievance and prosecution of official abuse; fake encounters and sexual violence are strategic defeats.
  • Surrender-cum-rehabilitation that is real: skills, safety from revenge, and a place in the village.
  • Local panchayats and traditional councils as the political centre, not a parallel Maoist janatana sarkar.

Strategy for security forces

  • CRPF, CoBRA, State armed police, and district police as a grid: police must own the thana; CAPF should not be a permanent substitute government.
  • Small-team, intelligence-led operations over large, predictable road-opening routines that invite IEDs.
  • IEDs and mine warfare specialisation; protect locals from being used as human shields or forced porters.
  • Civic action that is not a substitute for the collector, but is coordinated with him.
  • Human-rights SOPs, women in units for search, and prosecution of force crime — legitimacy is a weapon.

Sequence

  • Clear, hold, and then civil hold. Security without administration recreates the vacuum that was the original determinant.

Flow diagram

flowchart TD
  D[Land forest dignity vacuum] --> LWE[LWE eastern belt]
  GOI[MHA SAMADHAN fusion] --> C[Clear]
  CIV[FRA PESA services] --> H[Hold]
  SF[Police CoBRA intel] --> C
  C[C] --> H[H]
  H --> X[Cadre shrinks]

Conclusion

Eastern LWE is determined by dispossession, absent government, and an organised Maoist military-political machine. The Centre should fuse intelligence, money-trail, and development. Collectors must deliver FRA, services, and clean grievance. Forces should be intelligence-led, police-first, and rights-bound. The gun opens space; only the civil State closes the war.

Quick related

Students also ask

  • Is development enough without operations?

    Not while an armed parallel tax exists. Operations without development also fail. The sequence is both, with civil hold at the end.

  • Are all Adivasis Maoist?

    No. That slur is how the State loses the village. Most residents want title, school, and not to be searched twice.

Same topic · past papers

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