As the Union Home Ministry prepares to launch a massive anti-Maoist drive to take down rebel strongholds across the country after getting the green signal from the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) last week, it will not be the first time that a large-scale military action is launched to take on the Naxalite movement.

The latest thrust by the Home Ministry will draw lessons from a long forgotten operation in 1971 that broke the back of the original Naxal movement. While the Army will not be used in the current operations, the strategy to take on Maoist strongholds will revolve around “Op Steeplechase” — a joint Army-Paramilitary-Police operation that was carried out in July-August 1971 to take down armed rebels in West Bengal months before the Bangladesh war.

The operations were carried out over a 45-day period that was preceded by the deployment of three full-size divisions, besides the crack 50 Para Brigade to West Bengal. Though the nearly 40,000 Army personnel who were deployed in the mission “did not fire a single bullet”, the role of the Armed Forces was “area domination” that enabled the police and administration to penetrate the Maoist heartland.

Besides deployments in towns and cities, the main operations were carried out in rural Maoist strongholds that were cordoned off by Army troops. Crack Army troops formed the outer perimeter of the operations while police and paramilitary forces carried out arrests and clashed with Maoist rebels. The main role played by the Army was to dominate the area with an overwhelming force, effectively cutting it off from the outside world.

... contd.