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
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 --> 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
-
Analyse internal security threats and transborder crimes along Myanmar, Bangladesh and Pakistan borders including Line of Control (LoC). Also discuss the role played by various security forces in this regard.
Next question in the 2020 paper (Q20). View answer →
-
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.
More from this paper
Q1 · UPSC Mains 2020 · GS III · 10 marks
Explain intra-generational and inter-generational issues of equity from the perspective of inclusive growth and sustainable development.
Inclusive Growth
Intra-generational equity is fairness among people alive now; it is the core of inclusive growth. Inter-generational equity is fairness toward the unborn; it is the core of sustainable development. Jobless or unequal booms fail the first test even when GDP rises. Aquifer mining, carbon lock-in, and weak environmental clearance fail the second. Policy must raise present capability without running down the ecological and fiscal stock.
Q2 · UPSC Mains 2020 · GS III · 10 marks
Define potential GDP and explain its determinants. What are the factors that have been inhibiting India from realizing its potential GDP?
Indian Economy
Potential GDP is sustainable full-capacity output, not the latest quarterly print. Determinants are labour, capital stock, TFP, infrastructure, and macro stability. India wastes potential through low female participation, logistics gaps, and factor-market frictions. Bank and corporate stress, weak learning, and informality hold productivity down. Demand shocks open an output gap; scarring can also lower the ceiling itself.
Q3 · UPSC Mains 2020 · GS III · 10 marks
What are the main constraints in transport and marketing of agricultural produce in India?
Indian Economy
Village roads and a thin cold-chain waste perishable produce before it is sold. Small loads and truck dependence keep agri freight costly. APMC concentration, weak assaying, and poor price information squeeze the seller. Distress harvest sales and thin warehouse-receipt credit force low prices. MSP procurement is not a marketing system for most crops and States.
Toppers' copies
Toppers' copies for this question will be uploaded soon.