Author:
Publication: Organiser
Date: August 6, 2006
URL: http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=142&page=4
Call it CPM pressure, cynical political opportunism
or a total abdication of its primary duty, the UPA is talking with a forked
tongue on the raging Maoist menace in the country. Not that the centre is
unaware of the gravity of the situation. Maoist terrorists are proving a greater
threat to the country's sovereignty than even the jehadi terrorists.
In Chhattisgarh, the BJP government is fighting
the Maoists with its back to the wall. It has inspired a unique people's movement,
Salwa Judum, in the tribal belt to confront the terrorist outfit, which has
been targeting the helpless Vanvasis and the security personnel with blood-curdling
brutality at regular intervals. The Maoist leadership is drawn from the wily
plains people, mostly from Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. To that
extent they are not tribals, only that they are making tribals their cannon
fodder.
A few weeks ago the Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh described the Maoists as the most serious internal threat facing the
country. But his Home Minister is totally unmoved. He looks at it as a simple
law and order problem. For him, it is only a matter of tackling a couple of
hundred youth who are "our misguided brothers and sisters".
The Tribal Affairs Minister P.R. Kyndiah's
response is more hilarious. Releasing his draft tribal policy he said Maoism
is a mere violent manifestation of tribal unrest owing to social, political
and economic reasons. The draft policy emphasised that these disaffected sections
of tribals have begun to view the state as their exploiter and enemy and they
are looking up to the preachers of violent action as their protectors and
friends. Such purple prose can only be straight out of some Maoist propaganda
literature, but this is the stuff with which the UPA government's draft tribal
policy is made of. If this is the perception of various ministers in the central
cabinet to what the Prime Minister described as the "most serious internal
threat" to the country, there is something fundamentally wrong with the
UPA.
That is why the state governments are groping
in the dark on fighting this terror. The Maoists have killed and maimed more
security personnel and civilians, caused more damage to public property than
the jehadi terrorists. Their approach is more barbaric and brutal. K.P.S.
Gill, the greatest living legend in fighting terrorism in the country, who
is now security adviser to Chhattisgarh government, told the Indian Express
Editor-in-Chief Sekhar Gupta on NDTV's Walk the Talk, "Their (Maoists)
strength if it can be called a strength, is the brutality by which they kill.
That has been their modus operandi since the time they started out in the
70s… (They kill) by multiple injuries, a stone is picked up and the victim
is hit with it over and over. It seems brutal, prehistoric. Their strategy
(is) that the manner of killing should frighten more than killing itself.
They terrorise those whom they are supposed to be representing, to be emancipating."
The latest instance was the cruel Maoist attack
on the Salwa Judum relief camp at Errabor in Dantewada where, according to
local media reports, among the 59 people killed a woman special police officer
was mercilessly picked up and gangraped before being murdered in the most
barbaric manner. In this attack, as in all previous instances, they did not
spare even children. Their tender limbs were chopped off and thrown in the
thick forest. This is the kind of Maoist revolution our left intellectuals
are hailing as liberation.
"They are mainly an extortionist group
rather than a political movement, and they extort money from tribals. The
only thing sets them apart is the brutality in which they act," says
Gill.
"That is why it is remarkable that these
terrorised people, these unarmed people have risen up against the Naxalite
terror. And it is this willingness of ordinary people to stand up that will
make the eventual difference." This is how Gill summed up the Salwa Judum
experiment. "It is people's war against Maoists," says Chief Minister
Raman Singh. The increased attacks on the Salwa Judum by the Maoists is an
indication of their despair. They are both frustrated and angry that the tribals
are getting themselves organised with some government help to fight back their
tormentors. Tribals are given physical training and elementary lessons in
combating terror. It is also an effort to engage them in the socio-economic
development of the region. The Maoists are desperate that the poor, hopeless
and exploited Vanvasis are learning to get out of their haven and say no to
the Maoist extortionists. The Maoists exploit them economically and sexually.
They arrest the progress in the tribal belt, campaign against education and
social empowerment. They agitate against industrialisation because that will
expose them.
The Maoist brutality is never graphically
reported. They have the halo of social revolutionaries, bestowed on them by
apologists in the media and fellow-traveller NGOs. Civil liberty outfits only
argue for their cause, not for the victims of their macabre onslaughts. The
security men who get killed in thousands won't even get any gallantry award.
They die unsung leaving their families to the vagaries of their job profile.
Of late, the left and civil liberty groups
have unleashed a propaganda war against Salwa Judum. Their entire focus is
on the Chhattisgarh government. Their strategy is to give it a tribal versus
tribal façade and allege that Salwa Judum is inspiring the tribal brethren
to fight the state's war. The votaries of this thesis ignore the fact that
Maoists are enemies of the nation and it is the duty of every citizen in the
country to confront and isolate such anti-social elements, who work outside
the civilised society. Maoists declare that they have no faith in the Republic,
no use for democracy and constitutional framework. They work at the behest
of foreign masters with foreign funds and weapons.
Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh charged
that the centre was washing its hands of the issue. The latest instance he
cited was the centre's superficial response to the Maoist attack on the Salwa
Judum's relief camp at Errabor. "Can we checkmate the naxalites single-handedly
when they strike on our people within just one kilometre from a neighbouring
state?" he asks.
In fact, the UPA has joined the sinister attempt
to give Salwa Judum a bad name and kill it before it takes off. It has partially
succeeded in confusing the political establishment and it is talking as if
Salwa Judum is a greater menace than the vicious indoctrination of the gullible
Vanvasis by anti-nationals. We should not allow this thinking to gain ground.
Salwa Judum is a non-party endeavour. It was initially started by the leader
of the Congress opposition, Mahendra Karma. It has the support of veteran
Congress leaders like Shyama Charan Shukla. Actually the entire Congress leadership
in the state except former Chief Minister Ajit Jogi is behind this movement.
Any rethinking on its efficacy at this stage will prove counter-productive,
giving the Maoists both the strategic and psychological boost.
Ultimately, development is the only solution
to Maoist menace. That is why the Maoists oppose new projects, any move to
provide Vanvasis a better living in the tribal areas. They want to keep the
Vanvasis captive in their backwardness. The fight against Maoists can be won
by ensuing better education, sanitation, better roads, electrification and
progress.
