The recent Maoist bloodbath in Chhattisgarh has once again exposed the inherent flaws in the UPA government’s anti-Naxalite policy and its implementation on the ground. That hundreds of armed Naxals in a well-planned daylight ambush could attack a convoy carrying prominent Congress leaders and workers with impunity is not very puzzling to those who are aware of the government’s complacent, blow-hot-blow-cold approach to this menace.
The bloodbath only reconfirms what Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, heading the UPA government, has been saying since 2006 that the Maoist insurgency is the greatest internal security challenge India faces. Yet even after nine years of UPA rule and despite the prime minister’s recent four-year report card claiming success on the Naxal front as one of its achievements, the Maoists could re-assert themselves in gory terms that they remain as much of a danger for the established order as ever.
Evidently, the official efforts to contain the Maoist menace have been inadequate. The UPA’s Integrated Action Plan, launched in February 2009 to co-ordinate efforts in Naxal-affected states, has obviously not worked in the desired manner. There are interludes when the governments at the Centre and states feel that they have the situation under control. But then a horrific incident, like the latest one in Chhattisgarh or the early one in Dantewada, takes place and the country is back to square one with the Centre blaming the states and the states complaining of not getting adequate central support for tackling the Naxal menace.
The threat of leftwing extremism is currently spread over 16 states running through the centre of the Indian hinterland from the Nepal-Bihar border to the Karnataka-Kerala borders in a south-west orientation and is referred to as ‘The Red Corridor.’ Almost one-third of the country is eclipsed by the ‘red corridor’, under the parallel rule of the Maoists. In Chhattisgarh, 10,000sq km is called “a liberated zone”. The rebels’ establishment of potent external linkages with foreign intelligence and terrorist organisations further compounds the problems.
Too much time has already been squandered on intellectually debating the merits or demerits of the Maoist cause even after the insurgents have unambiguously pronounced their objective to seize power in India by a protracted war and opted to speak in only one language: violence. Since 2006, there have been 12,300 incidents resulting in the death of over 5,000 people. Behind the façade of a struggle for the poor and oppressed, they have been taking on the establishment in frontal combat continuously and consistently with a ruthlessness that is unprecedented.
Yet whenever the question of tackling Maoist menace arose, the UPA and its various elements have spoken in different voices and at cross-purposes. One set called Maoists a grave threat, a bunch of bandits or terrorists and so on, while the other romanticised them as merely misguided people fighting for the tribal victims and wanted to bring them back into the fold even as they were blowing up schools, using women and children as human shields, tying up with cross-border terror outfits and killing at will. The leadership of the Congress bought this unquestioningly for all these years.
Now no amount of chest-beating can conceal the fact that the devastating attack on Congress leaders in Chhattisgarh could have been avoided if there was consensus on fighting the menace and both the state and the central governments had not been so complacent. With eyes on the elections and goaded by the romantics, the governments had lulled themselves into belief that the Maoist problem was no longer a security issue and all that they had to do was to concentrate on development to win hearts and polls.
The Chhattisgarh tragedy represents a serious setback for the government’s paramilitary campaign against leftwing guerrillas and should serve as a wake-up call to the UPA and force it to come to terms with the reality that the Maoist insurgency is a no-holds-barred war against the Indian State, against the very idea and existence of democracy, and the official response - a mixture of denial, accommodation and neglect - to contain them has not been up to the mark.
In New Delhi there is buzz now in North Block about a strategy shift: away from area-domination and protecting development activity to strikes against Maoist centres and leaders, but out there in south Chhattisgarh all that the people still hear are political accusations. Which is music to Maoist ears since it confirms that the central and state governments have moved no closer to a comprehensive policy.
The recent rejection of the idea of the National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC), which is meant to institutionalise co-operation between state and centre on internal security, among other things, by many chief ministers on the ground that it impinges on the rights of states confirms that politicians are content to trap themselves into circles of confusion disregarding the big picture. Subsequently, leaders of nine Maoist-affected or connected states, where the Maoists call the shots, met to co-ordinate their approaches.
What the recent carnage calls for is a no-nonsense response, one that will be remembered as a watershed in dealing with the armed struggle variety of politics espoused by spurious revolutionaries posing a dire threat to everything enshrined in the constitution. That the perpetrators are criminal battalions, armed with improvised explosive devices and assault rifles points to the enormity of the task.
After the latest massacre, the prime minister asserted that there will be no bowing to violence. But words are not enough. The record so far is utterly unconvincing. The Maoist challenge demands unified action from the state and centre. Creating a climate of blame and fear does not advance that co-operation. Political forces should not let their short-term plans interfere with the struggle to overcome the insurgency.
This is the time to take a fresh look at the NCTC that appears to have been re-worked to ease the apprehensions of the states that their turf is being encroached upon. The objective should be to fight the common enemy to the finish with the full might. The ferocity and precision of the Maoist strikes clearly indicate that the order of battle requires operational counter-measures that are far beyond the professional capability of the police and paramilitary outfits. With national security at stake, what is required is to pool in the best resources available even if that means bringing in the superior skills and experience of the armed forces in counter-insurgency operations. It is an operational imperative to bite the bullet and take on the Maoist challenge.