In a startling revelation, a surrendered senior leader of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist) has disclosed that the very consumer technologies the outfit depended on became the primary cause of its undoing. According to Pulluri Prasad Rao, alias Chandranna, a former central committee member, mobile phones and tablets used by top leaders for communication and learning allowed state security agencies to track, tap, and eventually eliminate the insurgent group's leadership.
The Fatal Lapse in Electronic Discipline
In an exclusive interaction in Telangana, Chandranna stated that the organisation's catastrophic failure to enforce strict electronic discipline proved fatal. He revealed that despite having an internal security manual detailing procedures to check devices for tracking software, several senior leaders consistently used gadgets that compromised their safety.
"Despite having an internal manual on checking devices for trackers, several leaders continued to use gadgets that compromised security and they were tracked," Chandranna said. He added that while some trackers were detected, others managed to escape scrutiny, leading to a series of strategic losses.
He attributed the deaths of key leaders, including Patel Sudhakar Reddy, to such carelessness and a blatant disregard for the party's own security protocols. Chandranna described his own cautious methods, which involved avoiding calls from fixed locations and constantly moving away from strategic spots while using phones, citing both signal issues and security concerns.
Life on the Move in the Maad Forests
Chandranna provided a rare glimpse into the operational mechanics of the Maoist central committee within the dense Dandakaranya forests. The organisation, he said, had no permanent headquarters or base village. Instead, it functioned as a perpetually mobile entity, with its leadership constantly shifting locations across different forest zones.
Weapons and literature were stored in hidden dumps, while the operational command of the central committee travelled with its leaders. "The entire forest in Maad" effectively served as their command area, wherever they moved. Leaders would stay in one location for varying periods—sometimes a month, 15 days, or as little as five days—before relocating, with Chandranna mostly travelling on foot.
Weapons, Training, and Denials
On the critical issue of armaments, Chandranna admitted that the party never succeeded in developing its own weapons. This was despite efforts by Sadhanala Ramakrishna, an engineer and gold medallist from Osmania University. The outfit primarily relied on seizing weapons from police and paramilitary forces—the "enemy"—and using them against them, a strategy he claimed contributed to their operational successes.
Regarding training, he disclosed a historical detail: "In 1987, the party received one to two weeks of instruction on weapon handling from the LTTE at a camp in Bastar."
Chandranna also addressed several allegations often levelled against the Maoists. He firmly stated that unarmed policemen who surrendered were never killed. On the sensitive issue of child recruitment, he claimed the outfit officially opposed the practice, enforcing a minimum age of 16 years, and any isolated cases of minors joining were sent back. "Sixteen years and above was the minimum age. We never recruited child soldiers," he asserted, adding that the party did not maintain an urban guerrilla network.
He categorically denied any links with external actors like Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) or global terror networks. He also rejected claims of Chinese influence, stating the party would never support China, which he alleged was "pursuing capitalism," despite invoking the name of Mao Zedong.
The Rise of the Greyhounds and Shifting Battlegrounds
Chandranna singled out the Telangana police's Greyhounds as the "most feared force" for the Maoists. He acknowledged that this elite anti-Naxal unit's model was later adopted by police forces in neighbouring states like Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh. Following significant pressure in Telangana, he noted that Chhattisgarh emerged as the major focus area of the conflict.
The revelations by Chandranna paint a picture of an ideological movement ultimately ensnared by the digital tools of the modern world it opposed, with operational lapses and advanced state counter-insurgency tactics leading to its severe degradation.
