As the new Home Minister of India, the most daunting task before Sushil Kumar Shinde will be handling the Maoist menace. Although the West Bengal Government has recently registered some spectacular successes against the Maoists, the performance of the Central Government and some other State governments leaves much to be desired in this respect. The Maoists' record in recent times underscores that they are operating with impunity while the governments at the Centre and in several States only dither and deliberate.
Failure to formulate a worthwhile anti-Naxal strategy is too visible. Recently the Union Government has asked its paramilitary forces and the affected State governments not to pursue counter-operations if the Maoists are seen using women and children as human shields, a directive which lends credence to the allegation that innocent tribals were killed in counter insurgency operations in the jungles of Dantewada. Moreover the Union Home Ministry had recently put forward a naïve proposal that operations by the security forces may be focused in only 16 per cent of the Maoist insurgency affected areas and creation of an administrative unit covering the trijunction of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh will serve the purpose. But the proposal has not found much favour in various concerned departments.
There is no coherent strategy. The Prime Minister repeatedly says that the Maoist problem poses the single biggest internal security challenge. P. Chidambaram, the former Home Minister, used to describe the Maoists as a ‘powerful and determined adversary'. Yet it took years for the Central Government to realise that the Maoists often use innocent people as human shields and separate operational procedures are required to face such a situation. Confusion in the top echelons of the administration has reached such a stage that Chidambaram had once even pressed for the induction of the Army and Air Force in anti-Naxal operations and, when rebuffed by the service Chiefs, had rued the fact that he was only operating with ‘a limited mandate'.
But the nation cannot go on paying for the worthlessness of the governmental authority and the time has come when the Maoists must be dealt with a heavy hand. Just look at their record. Arnab Dam alias Vikram, a top level Maoist leader apprehended recently, has given out that they had killed an innocent school teacher simply because the latter had strayed into the Maoist dominated area of Ayodhya hills in the Purulia district of West Bengal. In recent times they had kidnapped two District Collectors, the first one was of the Malkanagiri district of Odisha and the other one was of the Sukma district of Chhattisgarh. In Odisha they had also abducted two Italian tourists and an MLA of the Biju Janata Dal and, if police reports are to be believed, then Mamata Banerjee, perhaps the most popular among all the Chief Ministers of the country, is high on their hit list.
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UNDER such circumstances, it was only expected that the Central Government would exhibit a sense of purpose. But just the opposite has happened. In April 2010 the Maoists had killed 76 CRPF jawans in Dantewada of Chhattisgarh. Ten months later, in February, 2011, a Chief Ministers' Conference on Internal Security was held where Chidambaram openly admitted that there had been ‘a perceptible lull' in anti-Naxalite operations since that ghastly incident.
Strangely, Chidambaram had advanced two reasons for the government's failure—non-availability of enough police personnel and lack of proper training—which portrayed the government in a very poor light. Is the Indian state really capable of fighting the Maoist menace? If the data given by the South Asia Intelligence Review (SAIR), an organisation led by the super cop K.P..S. Gill and dedicated to the study of terror programmes, are to be believed then the Maoists have mercilessly exposed the soft underbelly of the Union Government. Not only that, they are now expanding to new areas.
Chidambaram was honest in admitting the hopeless condition of our security forces. According to SAIR studies, between 2007 and 20011 various branches of the Central armed police forces had to cope with a situation where 46,000 personnel had opted for voluntary retirements. Outright resignations totaling 5220 took place where there was no scope for VRS. The most affected were the Central Reserve Police Force and Border Security Force, the two organisations whose personnel have to bear the brunt of facing the Naxalites in jungle warfares. In 2011 resignation figures in these two organisations reached these 70 per cent mark over what those had been in 2010.
The Maoists have now tasted big money. In 1970-71 Charu Mazumdar, the undisputed leader of the Naxalites, had prohibited use of sophisticated firearms as that would have entailed collection of money from landlords and industrialists. But now the present crop of Maoist leaders feels no such qualms of conscience. According to G.K. Pillai, a former Union Home Secretary, contractors, industrialists, landlords and politicians are regularly threatened by the torch-bearers of revolution and they are forced to part with around 14 billion rupees a year to fill the Maoist coffer. This has given rise to various types of conjectures about the Maoists' firepower. According to one estimate, they have 40,000 armed cadres and nearly one lakh militia members.
Is the Indian state capable of handling the Maoist menace? Both Manmohan Singh and P. Chidambaram, the former Home Minister, view it from the angle of law and order only. They do not understand that the Maoists are only exploiting the deep-rooted sense of alienation among the poor and tribal people of our country. Except Mamata Banerjee, no other State satrap raises much hope. Navin Patnaik, the Odisha Chief Minister, presents a suave and cultured face. But his inefficiency is astounding. After the abduction of the two Italians he had raised a hue and cry accusing the Centre of non-coperation. But it later came out that no specific request had gone from Bhubaneswar to New Delhi. Moreover sometime back the CAG had some scathing comments about the Patnaik Government accusing it of non-utilisation of sophisticated counter-insurgency weapons while the State Police were forced to meet the Naxals with antiquated revolvers and muskets. Similar is the case with the Government of Maharashtra. Once, after the assassination of 12 CRPF personnel in the Gadchroli district, its Home Minister, R.R. Patil, had gone bombastic. He accused almost everybody of supporting the Naxalites but did not question his own ability as the Home Minister.
The arrest of Arnab Dam alias Vikram shows that given proper political backing the police can successfully control the Maoist threat and no deployment of the Army or Air Force is necessary. In Bihar Nitish Kumar has so far blown hot and cold over the issue. Navin Patnaik is totally confused. The Chief Ministers of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh view it from a feudal angle. Taking advantage the CPI (Maoist) has not only consolidated its traditional Red Corridor starting from the Nepal border and then running along parts of West Bengal, Jharkhand, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh but has extended it area of influence upto Maharashtra. In 2005 the Maoists used to control 70 districts. Now 223 districts of the country are under their influence.
The most worrisome factor for the security and integrity of the country is the fact that the Maoists are now establishing their bases in the North-East. Tarun Gogoi, the Assam Chief Minister, has already confirmed the presence of Maoists in several upper Assam districts like Jorhat, Dibrugarh, Shibsagar, Dhemaji, Lakhim-pur and Tinsukia. One CPI (Maoist) Polit-Bureau member has now been staying in the North-East and another senior Polit-Bureau member, named Prasanta Basu alias Kishan, different from the Kishenji who died in an encounter, is now invested with the responsibility of spreading the party organisation in the North-East.