Maoists syllabus: Peoples rebellion,arms training

We have seized country-made guns during recent raids in South Bastar. These crude guns are being used to impart weapons training to the children attending the Maoist schools, a senior police official engaged in anti-Naxalite operations said.

Human Rights Watch (HRW),in its report published in September 2008,had pointed out that the Naxalites recruit children aged between six and 12 into their childrens association called Bal Sangams,where children are trained in Maoist ideology,used as informers and taught to fight with non-lethal weapons. The HRW report had stated that Naxalites promote children above the age of 12 to other wings Chaitanya Natya Manch (street theatre troupes),Sangams (village-level associations),Jan Militias (armed informers) and Dalams (armed squads). In Sangams,Jan Militias and Dalams,Naxalites give children weapons training with rifles and teach them to use different types of explosives,including landmines.

The Maoists consider the vast forest area of South Bastar,spread over Dantewada,Bijapur and Narayanpur districts,as their liberated zone of Dandakaranya,which also covers parts of Andhra Pradesh,Maharashtra and Orissa. There is no presence of civil administration and any government department in this region under the control of Maoists,who call it as the DK state. However,in government parlance,its an area dominated by the Maoists.

According to official estimates,the Maoists have destroyed 385 residential schools being run by the tribal welfare department in Bastar region over the last four years,depriving the tribal students facilities pertaining to education in government-run schools.

Besides,there has been an alarming dropout rate in Dantewada,Bijapur and Narayanpur districts that face the problem of Naxalism. The tribal welfare departments statistics say that more than 19,000 students enrol in schools in Class I in Dantewada district in a year. By the time they reach Class V,their number comes down to 7,000 and it further declines to 4,000 in Class VIII. Among them,only 2,300 students reach Class X.

Similarly in Bijapur district,7,100 students enrol in Class I every year,but 5,000 of them leave school by the time they reach Class V. Their numbers dwindle to 1,500 in Class VIII and 1,200 in Class X.

In Narayanpur district,another educationally backward district of Bastar,the annual enrolment in Class I is 5,000 and less than 1,000 reach Class X.

The district administrations in these three districts as well as in Bastar and Kanker districts are gearing up for an intensive campaign to enhance enrolment in schools and check dropout rate with community participation. Bastar district administration has already alerted block educational officers,block level resource coordinators and revenue officials of 12 blocks under the district to monitor attendance in schools and do necessary follow up to ensure that all students regularly attend schools.

However,the tribal welfare department,which carried out a campaign to bring back dropouts,could not make much headway,as teachers reported that many students were missing from the villages and they quoted parents as saying that their children had been taken away by the Naxalites.

BJP legislator Mahesh Gagda,who represents Bijapur Assembly segment,alleged that the Maoists are forcibly taking away children from the villages and using them as human shields in the armed conflict against the security forces. The Maoists have been using children in school uniform to carry weapons and as their informers to dodge the police, he said,adding that there was a need to open more residential schools with adequate security.

Besides,there have been instances of Maoist cadres themselves moving around wearing school uniforms. In an encounter last month,the police shot dead seven Naxalites and some of them were in school uniforms. Last year,a Naxalite dressed in school uniform boarded a bus at Narayanpur and killed an alleged police informer before fleeing.

As the Centre and the state governments are gearing up for a massive joint operation against the rebels,the Maoists are exhorting the tribal villagers to provide boys and girls from every village to be recruited into their ranks. Recently,there have been instances of villagers opposing such Maoist efforts.

People are opposing Naxal diktat and coming forward to help the police in its drive to flush out the rebels. The police are getting more information about the activities of the rebels from the interiors ever since it carried out a massive awareness programme under Operation Green Hunt, Inspector General of Police (Bastar range) T J Longkumer said.