Author: K.P.S. Gill
Publication: Outlook
Date: May 5, 2005
URL: http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20050505&fname=kps&sid=1
It is time the Indian state and
its home minister stopped fabricating excuses for those who use violence
against the state and its vulnerable citizens, and fulfilled their fundamental
obligation to their people.
For decades, India's leadership
has floundered in a miasma of sentimentality, of a false, confused and
disastrous rhetoric that has enormously empowered the enemies of the law,
of the state, and of civilisation. Worse, it has yielded policies that
have directly undermined the capacities of enforcement agencies to effectively
confront a wide range of extremely violent political actors who have persistently
employed the methods of terrorism - repeatedly targeting innocent civilians
and non-combatants, including women, children and the poorest of the poor.
Vast areas of the country have, consequently and progressively, been surrendered
to lawlessness and disorder.
Finally, however, Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh spoke out with exemplary clarity on the issue of terrorism
at the Chief Minister's Conference at New Delhi on April 15, 2005, raising
hopes - indeed, creating a measure of conviction - that the confusion and
vacillation of the past was finally to be expelled from the national policy-framework.
Within ten days, however, the Prime
Minister's perspective and position came under challenge from his own minister
of home affairs, exposing the incoherence of the present regime and making
a mockery of the idea of collective cabinet responsibility. It is useful
to analyse the conflicting positions that are presently being projected
from these two sources at the highest level of the government.
Leaving no room for ambiguity, the
Prime Minister had stated,
"There can be no political compromise
with terror. No inch conceded. No compassion shown... There are no good
terrorists and bad terrorists. There is no cause, root or branch, that
can ever justify the killing of innocent people. No democratic government
can tolerate the use of violence against innocent people and against the
functionaries of a duly established democratic government."
He added, further, that "there is
no place for violence and extremism of any kind in a democratic, rule-based
society". Specifically referring to the tendency to underplay the growing
dangers of Left Wing extremism (Naxalism), he emphasised the
"inter-state and external
dimension to Naxalism today. This requires greater coordination between
state governments and between the centre and states. We have to take a
comprehensive approach in dealing with Naxalism given the emerging linkages
between groups within and outside the country..."
And while he did state that the
option of negotiations "should always be welcomed", he made it clear that
this avenue could be pursued only with groups that abjured violence:
"...the basic issues regarding violence
and the state's obligation to curb it should be clarified at the outset,
so that there are no misunderstandings or a feeling of being let down at
later stages. In our country, symbols and gestures matter. Nothing should
be done which detracts from the authority of the Indian state and its primary
role as an upholder of public order. The state should not even remotely
be seen to back away in the face of threats of armed violence."
In sharp contrast, on April 24,
2005, at a high level meeting with ministers, government officials, opposition
leaders and intellectuals at Bangalore, union home minister Shivraj Patil
stated:
"The government is not interested
in using weapons. They (the Naxalites) are our brothers and sisters and
we know that this is a socio-economic problem rather than one of law and
order. We can solve these problems through dialogue and discussions...
Whatever the political difficulties, force should be used only if nothing
else works and only to protect innocents.
Let us deal with Naxalism as a socio-economic
problem, not a law and order problem..."
He did, of course, concede a secondary
role to "policing", declaring, "good policing is... important for development",
but his general orientation was squarely located in the "root causes" approach
to terrorism that his Prime Minister had explicitly rejected.
It is evident that both these postulations
have been stated with obvious sincerity, but are clearly irreconcilable
within a coherent policy framework. Those who are familiar with the dynamics
of governance would recognise immediately how devastating this can be;
all administrative organisations - including the senior police leadership
- operate within a political and policy framework, and any ambivalence,
confusion, contradiction or muddleheadedness at the top of the policy pyramid
impacts directly on their functioning.
In addressing them as "our brothers
and sisters", and in an earlier speech, as "our children" the home minister
has sought to establish an entirely specious distinction between "Naxalites"
and other "terrorists". The truth is, all criminals - and this includes
terrorists and others engaged in political crime - are at some level "our
children" and "our brothers and sisters". They cannot, on this account,
escape the imperatives of the justice system.
Crucially, moreover, the victims
of such terrorists and criminals are also "our children" and "brothers
and sisters", and it is the state's primary duty to protect these vulnerable
groups, rather than to seek to circumvent the law and extend extraordinary
indulgences on those who torture, maim, murder and otherwise terrorise
helpless citizens - citizens who continue to abide by the law, and expect
the state to protect their lives and properties. To the Naxalites' victims,
it matters little whether his government is negotiating with those who
terrorise him, or whether it regards them as a "law and order" or a "social"
problem; their primary concern is the terror that is inflicted on them.
Worse, what is not understood by
those who treat the Naxalites - or "Maoists", as they now style themselves
- as a "special case" and seek a negotiated solution with them, is just
how irreducibly opposed to our constitutional democracy these groups are,
and how integral terrorism is to their strategy. Terror is not just an
accidental element of their political strategy or military tactics; it
is an essential, dictated by the ideological vision they have embraced.
Mao Tse Tung declared explicitly,
"To put it bluntly, it is necessary
to create terror for a while in every rural area, or otherwise it would
be impossible to suppress the activities of the counter-revolutionaries
in the countryside or overthrow the authority of the gentry. Proper limits
have to be exceeded in order to right a wrong, or else the wrong cannot
be righted."
The truth is, even if the traditional
"class enemies" of the Maoists were all eliminated, they would continue
to invent them, in order to inflict their terror. Even today, it is not
the rich and the powerful who fall victim to "Maoist" violence - these
can always, with rare exception, successfully bribe both the Naxalites
and the politicians, each of whom is quite happy with the absence of effective
administration that gives them a free run in vast areas. It is, overwhelmingly
and in all theatres of such conflict, the poorest of the poor who are maimed,
tortured and killed.
Policy makers are ordinarily told
whatever they want to hear. But India's leaders should visit the sites
of history where terrorists have - however briefly - prevailed, and should
have the writings of extremist ideologues translated into a language comprehensible
to our policy community, so that they can learn from the awful experience
of other societies, instead of inviting comparable misfortunes on the people
of this country.
Finally, it is the primary and overarching
duty of the state to protect its citizens from the depredations and violence
of those who refuse to accept the authority of its laws. It is time the
Indian state and its home minister stopped fabricating excuses for those
who use violence against the state and its vulnerable citizens, and fulfilled
their fundamental obligation to their people.
K.P.S. Gill is Publisher, SAIR;
President, Institute for Conflict Management. This article was first published
in the Pioneer.