Author: Swapan Dasgupta
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: July 3, 2006
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 conscience - have found their way into advisory committee
and government-funded 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 a 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 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. 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 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. Second, the Maoists have over-extended themselves
and need a little respite to regroup, rearm and re-fund their units. The CPI(Maoist)
wants a breather to take advantage of the transition in Nepal. If there is
some deal 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.
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.
The joker of calibration is the Congress which wants to fight Maoists but
can't resist the temptation of cutting short-term deals with them to unsettle
a State Government run by the BJP.
