Author: Swapan Das Gupta
Publication: The Free Press Journal
Date: July 10, 2006
URL: http://www.samachar.com/features/100706-features.html
Those familiar with diplomatic gobbledygook
will have noticed the generous overuse of the term "calibrated"
to describe a prevailing confusion or tentativeness of existing policy.
Often used as a euphemism for "nuanced",
a "calibrated" strategy invariably involves moving in one direction
without any clear sense of purpose, and with one eye on a possible exit route.
It would be ungenerous to suggest that the Left approach to the exercise of
political power at the Centre is whimsically calibrated.
On paper, the Communists are in the twilight
zone between wielding power at the Centre and being in opposition-the only
caveat being that they will not allow the UPA Government to collapse in a
hurry.
At the same time, they have ensured that a
generous clutch of their fellow-travellers-the "eminent historians",
the professional seminarists and the custodians of left-liberal consciencehave
found their way into advisory committees and governmentfunded quangos. From
these watchtowers of the establishment, they have begun the battle to shape
the ideological debate in the country.
In the past month, many of the usual suspects
who are otherwise battling Narendra Modi and supporting terrorists have initiated
a campaign to rubbish the robust, one-year-old Salwa Judum campaign against
Maoist terror launched by the adivasis of Chhattisgarh. Beginning with a press
conference in Delhi by members of an Independent Citizen's Initiative, the
mainstream media has been inundated by demands that the Salwa Judum camps
be disbanded and a cease-fire offered to the CPI(Maoist)-an insurgent group
described by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as the "single biggest internal
challenge" faced by the Republic.
These demands have been endorsed by the Communists
and a section of the Congress which hopes to benefit politically from an expedient
understanding with the Maoists.
It is only a matter of time before the human
rights industry now descends on Chhattisgarh to plead the terrorists' case.
Given the array of forces ranged against Salwa Judum, it is apparent that
the patriotic adivasis of Chhattisgarh are doing something right. It has long
been said that left-wing extremism cannot be countered as a purely law and
order problem.
There is no empirical basis to sustain the
argument that winning a civil war against a non-ethnic insurgency involves
delving into complex socio-economic formulations.
The Naxalites in West Bengal in the 1970s,
the JVP in Sri Lanka in the late-1980s and the Khalistani secessionists in
the early-1990s were crushed by the effective use of the coercive arms of
the state. But inspirational policemen like Ranjit Gupta in West Bengal and
J.F.Rebeiro and K.P.S. Gill in Punjab also used civil society groups adroitly
to combat terrorism.
Leaders like Siddhartha Shankar Ray and Priya
Ranjan Das Munshi also led the political charge against Red terror in West
Bengal. It is this aspect of the anti-terrorist operations which scare Maoists.
The Maoists have traditionally used their guns to intimidate villagers into
submission.
By temporarily resettling locals into camps-a
technique first tried with great success in the anti- Communist drive in Malaya
in the early-1950s-the Salwa Judum campaign has created the opening for effective
police action. It has even led to the surrender of some 2,638 Maoist foot-soldiers,
a better term would be cannon-fodder, who joined the movement for no apparent
ideological reason.
Salwa Judum is not the be-all and end-all
of counter-insurgency; it has secured an environment for the effective use
of force. The Maoists want Salwa Judum called off for two reasons.
First, it will send a powerful signal to the
adivasis that the Maoists have the necessary political clout to supplement
their guns and claymore mines. Those who took the initiative to fight terror
will end up as sitting duck targets of the Maoists.
The Maoists have already murdered some 268
villagers for participating in the Salwa Judum. If the movement is called
off, it will be accompanied by the ruthless killings of the entire anti-Maoist
leadership.
Second, the Maoists have overextended themselves
and need a little respite to regroup, rearm and re-fund their units. Cease-fire,
as experience shows, is invariably a ruse to prepare for the next phase of
political terrorism. In Andhra Pradesh, for example, the Maoists used the
first six months of their short-lived cease-fire with the government to extort
between Rs 50 and 60 crores from traders and businessmen.
At present, the CPI(Maoist) wants a breather
to take advantage of the transition in Nepal. If there is some deal, which
the CPI(M) is seeking to broker, to legitimise the People's Liberation Army
as a parallel force to the Royal Nepal Army, the surplus weapons of the Nepal
Maoists will start flowing to the Indian Maoists.
As things stand today, the Maoists are progressively
acquiring more and more sophisticated weapons with each passing day. The Claymore
mines, for example, are now supplemented with US-made IC-V8 wireless equipment
which allows explosives to be remote-controlled from a distance of five kilometres.
Against this, the local police, except in
Andhra Pradesh, lack technology, fire power, training and motivation. Chhattisgarh's
demand for airborne reconnaissance was peremptorily turned down by the Centre.
There is nothing "calibrated" about the CPI(M) simultaneously playing
interlocutor with Nepal's Maoists and facilitating India's home-grown terror
in Chhattisgarh. Both amount to the same thing.
West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya,
for example, is a hardliner when it comes to keeping the Maoists out of West
Bengal. His party, however, speaks another language when it comes to Maoists
in Orissa, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Bihar.
At the UPA-Left coordination committee meeting
earlier this month to discuss price rise, the Left devoted much of its time
demanding the Government take action to force the Chhattisgarh government
to disperse the 50,000 or so people living in protected resettled villages.
The joker of calibration is the Congress which
wants to fight Maoists-recall the Prime Minister's spirited assurance on April
14 that "There can be no political compromise with terror"- but
can't resist the temptation of cutting short-term deals with them to unsettle
a state government run by the BJP.
No wonder, the Maoist insurgency has spread
to 165 districts in the country and affect 17 per cent of the population.
In the past three months, more people have
died from Maoist-related violence than from terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir.
And yet, the liberals keep repeating the same discredited mantra of killing
them with kindness.
