THE movement continuously faces ‘encirclement and suppression’ campaigns launched by the government. Such operations conducted by armed policemen and para­military forces constitute an integral part of the enemy's strategy to crush the morale of the people and their resis­tance struggles.

To combat such operations, the following measures are presently being adopted :

(i) The people are being prepared in advance for protesting and resisting such repressive campaigns in various ways.

(ii) The underground network of the organisation is being strengthened so that it can carry on work even under such complex conditions, maintain close contact with the peasant masses and lead them in struggles at opportune moments.

(iii) Armed units may have to beat a temporary retreat, letting the heat of the operation cool off. Mean­while, they can carry out some actions in certain far away areas so as to divert the attention of the enemy. To accomplish this, the areas of operation of the armed units are being made flexible so that the main forces may continue their operation from outside the enemy’s encirclement. A mechanism is being developed so as to maintain a living contact between forces within the areas encircled and those outside.

(iv) Well-knit arrangements are being made to hide arms under the possession of the people.

(v) A system of counter-intelligence is also being developed.

(vi) The Kisan Sabha is developing a mechanism to retain its initiative, both from above as well as from below, even under conditions of encirclement and suppression.

However, given the poor success-record so far of all the general campaigns of 'encirclement and suppression' which require the mobilisation of a very large number of forces and cause a lot of resentment among large sections of the people due to harassment by the police and para-military forces, the enemy seems to be contemplating new strategy of strengthening its intelligence network to find out the exact locations of the people’s armed forces and organising sudden ‘commando’ raids. The latest pattern of raids bear testimony to this new-found strategy, ostensibly supplied by the Central advisers, and the enemy has indeed been success­ful in a few cases.

To counter this new strategy of the enemy, the armed units are also heightening their vigilance, they are dealing mercilessly with the agents of the police and are frequently shifting their locations so as to deny the ‘commandoes’ of the enemy any specific target.