Naxals are no modern day Robin Hoods...

It’s more than a week since Mallojula Koteswara Rao, alias Kishenji, died in a police encounter in the thick jungles of West Midnapore in Bengal, but the spectre of his movement is still haunting the respective state government. Six 'concerned citizens' were appointed as interlocutors between state and the armed Naxals. But with Kishanji killed, five of the six people have resigned.

A movement which used to be a Bihar’s problem in 70’s has taken centre stage and has spread, unfortunately to about 220+ districts out of about 600 in India. In the beginning, the movement reflected the lack of development in remote area of the country where most deprived lived with no roads, schools, hospitals or even no attention. Hence the poorest quarters of the state become the breeding hubs for Naxals. It was understandable that being ignored and unconcerned, their numbers, anger and distrust towards state grew stronger with every passing day. All this alienated a section of our population giving rise to disgruntled youth who are easily brainwashed into joining the Naxal movement. Therefore the negligence for decades has somehow put the enormous pressure on government with an odd problem, which is, to offer development as well as take out the extremist elements in the most extreme circumstances. And in this situation the fear is that if government exerts more violence at places where people are struggling to make ends meet, the more it will be alienated.



As a matter of fact more people have died in Naxals attacks than the so called jehadi conspiracies, but a large section of Bajrangi officials, administrators and section of journalists were more concerned in maligning followers of a particular religion and witch hunt them rather than work against the real problem of Naxalism in India. Hence a conspirator camouflage by some individuals against fellow citizens is blown with spilling reality out in a case like the Dantewada incident. And if 26/11 was a wakeup call for the country’s anti terrorism mechanism, the Dantewada incident was an eye opener of governments’ deficiencies in tackling the Maoist Challenge. As by baiting and wiping out almost the entire company of CRPF personnel at Dantewada & EFR at Silda camp they have proved that they are combination of well trained cadres, maneuvering with deadliest precisions and fire powers to destroy even our Mine Protected Vehicles, which further consolidates the fear that it’s a transition in strategy of Naxals from guerrilla to mobile warfare.

And irrespective of above, thanks to the lethargic leaderships and inattentive successive governments which were busy boasting their political achievements with hollow misleading slogans as “India Shinning”, or a “Bharat Nirman” campaign, undermining the real danger of Naxalism for years, which has somewhat helped the consolidation of “Naxalism”. Hence Instead of forming a concrete plan to sabotage the Maoists, the successive government relied on rhetoric. A glaring example is, not very long ago Mamata supported and shared the dais with Chatradhar Mahato, the leader of People's Committee against Police Atrocities (PCPA) in Lalgarh and adjoining regions of West Midnapore while it was looked upon by the Left parties with suspicion as the PCPA enjoyed Naxal backing. And in most of Banerjee’s successes like the Singur and Nandigram movement, the Naxals have claimed equal participation. And in 2009, well before the Assembly elections in Bengal, Ms. Banerjee had refused to believe in the presence of Naxals and protested against Operation Lalgarh. But suddenly two years down the line she calls them 'Supari Killers' (contract killers), and feels there's an urge to retain the same forces which were being asked to pull out. And in between the double standards and struggle for power amongst the democratic government and armed squads, it’s the commoners who find themselves in a consistent flux.

No doubt India is developing fast and steady for last one and half decades or so with the world’s largest booming middle class populations. And statistically government after government has spent billions and billions for the underprivileged. Schemes under various names have been announced every now and then. Whereas, we have no proper accountability and system to make sure the schemes reach the right people at the right time. But unfortunately there is a huge glaring gap between urban India and rural India.

Let’s see this fact sheet:

---India ranks 134 in human development index according to 2009 UN report

---The human poverty index value of 28.0% for India and ranks 88th among 135 countries for which the index has been calculated. The HPI measures severe deprivation in health by the proportion of people who are not expected to survive to age 40

---46% of our children below 5 are underweight, ranking 137. We are just one rank ahead of Bangladesh

---41% of our population lives below 1.25$ a day

---75% of our population lives below 2$ a day

---We have 8.2% Scheduled tribe population and 16.2% scheduled caste population, together they make 1/4th of our total population and predominant among them still untouched by the economic progress we make.

It’s not surprising as according to the Berlin-based watchdog Transparency International, India figures 85th among 180 countries in the corruption perception index.

But even though irrespective of all above, the ideology of Naxalism for whatever reason it originated has steered away from the conceived ideology of fighting for the landless, deprived class and has now hit a dead-end, left with just violent streak. And the sympathizers do make mistake as Naxals are “no modern day Robin Hoods”, but extortionist with well oiled economy of extortion, kidnapping, theft and terrorists as circumstances of poverty cannot be an alibi for violence nor be a justification for terror acts. But even the “arming and training of specialized forces” has not been too effective in the wake of “poor maintenance of police stations, lax training and low motivation”. There is also lack of better coordination on State and Center on this most dangerous issue that have come to hit the lives of people living in Andhra, Kerala, Uttar Pardesh. Bihar, Jharkahand, West Bengal and Chhattisgarh.

It remains to be seen how the government is going to intercept the new developments. The high casualty has made the Center consider over strict measures. However, the sad reality is that we have been unable to keep our security personnel above from the traps set by the Maoists whereas they (Naxals) would always cross over to adjoining states after each cowardly act of terrorism. It should not be overlooked that Maoists have wrecked thousands of schools and rural health centre hence it’s not for pro developments demands only.

Therefore if the Union government is sincere they must come out with a concrete programme that is - deployment of police forces and improvement of infrastructure in less developed States, develop agriculture and generate employment as part of establishing a well-balanced social structure as the economic disparities, social injustice and infrastructural imbalances are observed to be the main problems. And to tackle this war within, the government should have multi pronged strategy. Naxal movement cannot be won only by guns. Guns for guns can never solve the problem completely. One should acknowledge the reason for the movements like Naxal to thrive and take measures to arrest it.

http://twocircles.net/2011dec11/naxals_are_no_modern_day_robin_hoods.html was published on 11/12/2011