Author: Editorial
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: November 17, 2008.
URL: http://www.dailypioneer.com/134869/Courage-under-fire.html
Chhattisgarh votes against Maoists
The people of Chhattisgarh deserve to be saluted.
Close to 60 per cent of voters turned up in polling booths for the first phase
of the State's Assembly election, rejecting Maoist calls for a boycott. Just
how much the Left-wing insurrectionists care for the people was obvious when
the Maoists went about attempting to sabotage and cripple the election process.
Two landmine attacks in thickly-forested Dantewada district - today, the capital
of India's Maoist insurgency - were accompanied by an ambush of an Election
Commission team. As many as 21 electronic voting machines were destroyed or
taken away and a CRPF jawan was killed by a sniper. In Bastar, an Indian Air
Force helicopter was fired upon by light-machine guns just as it was taking
off, killing an IAF sergeant - who got a bullet in his head - and grievously
injuring the pilot. In a sense, November 14 was the toughest test for Indian
democracy since the Jammu & Kashmir election of 2002. A determined, well-armed
militia was bent upon discrediting the integrity of the polling, forcing people
to stay indoors, working towards a small vote percentage and, consequently,
a flawed mandate, and ridiculing the writ of the Indian state. With six of
every 10 voters insisting on having their say, and keeping their five-yearly
tryst with popular sovereignty, the Maoists have ended up as massive losers.
The two security personnel they killed will go down as martyrs for democracy.
Chhattisgarh votes in the concluding and second
round on November 20. The ballots will be counted and the contours of the
next Government will be available only three weeks from then, on December
8. Yet, irrespective of whether the BJP retains power in Raipur or the Congress
wrests back the State it lost in 2003, public opinion in Chhattisgarh has
already delivered one strong message - it wants decisive action against the
Maoists. There is no sympathy for the Maoists even among the poor Adivasi
communities in whose name they wage a 'revolution' but whom the Maoists actually
oppress, loot and steal from as a form of 'protection tax'. Itinerant intellectuals
who occasionally drop in from Delhi, Bangalore and further afield may believe
there is widespread support for the Maoists. It may have taken the Union Home
Minister four years to figure that the State Government was fighting a full-fledged
insurgency, complete with Claymore mines and rocket launchers, and not "a
few boys". Yet, the earthy wisdom of the indigenous people of the undivided
Bastar district - it is now broken into three districts: Dantewada, Kanker
and the rump Bastar - and their innate sense of right and wrong had made the
choice a long time ago. The inspiring voters of November 14 have only reaffirmed
that reality. Raipur and Delhi should heed it.
It is now incumbent upon the party that wins
office on December 8 - and the coalition that comes to power at the Centre
in 2009 - to spare no effort in combating the Maoists and ridding Dantewada-Bastar
of Red terror. Having been driven out of Andhra Pradesh, the Maoists are hiding
out in ancient forests that were left alone and not entirely mapped by even
the Mughals and the British. They must be hunted down and eliminated. After
November 14, there is no excuse.
