BY INDER MALHOTRA
NO paradox in this land of unending paradoxes could have been more painful and disastrous than what exists since May 28. On the one hand the entire country is traumatised by the horrifying rail sabotage in Midnapore that killed 148 passengers and seriously injured another 190.
On the other, the political class is giving a disgraceful display of disunity in the face of the horrifying crime that bore all the fingerprints of Maoists or of its offshoot that calls itself the People’s Committee against Police Atrocities (PCPA). Each political party or faction is indulging in a game of one-upmanship. The consequent cacophony and confusion has virtually paralysed the Indian state.
Mamata Banerjee Unfazed
Most culpable on this score, unsurprisingly, is Ms Mamata Banerjee. As railway minister, she ought to have been the most concerned and outraged. But she has never taken her ministerial responsibilities seriously. Her single-point agenda is to be West Bengal’s chief minister through the state assembly elections due in early 2012. The dastardly attack on Gyaneswari Express came on the eve of municipal elections that, for her are a dress rehearsal for the assembly poll. It is a measure of her high stakes in the municipal contest that she broke her alliance with the Congress in the state while retaining it at the Centre! She has often been accused, not without reason, for cooperating with the Maoists in order to take on the CPI (M)-led Left Front for which she has blind hatred. She has often claimed that there are no Maoists in West Bengal.
This might explain but can never excuse her stunning declaration that the unspeakable attack on the train was the handiwork not of the Maoists but a Marxist-led "conspiracy" against her party, the Trinamool Congress. She has demanded a CBI inquiry, and the Union government has accepted the demand, subject to the state government’s agreement that is mandatory. There is no harm waiting for the outcome of the inquiry. But practically to absolve the Maoists of the blame for this heinous crime is absurd. Yet one of Ms Banerjee’s henchmen, also an MP, had the temerity to call West Bengal’s Director-General of Police a "fool" for providing the media with circumstantial evidence of the Maoist involvement in the slaughter of the innocent. The tragedy, however, is that the Prime Minister has never before tried to discipline the wayward railway minister for her transgressions, nor is he likely to do so this time around.
Internal Threat
To be fair, Ms Banerjee is not the only source of comfort to the Maoists and their 16,000-strong contingent of armed cadres that are paid reasonable remuneration with unfailing regularity on the first of every month. They have every reason to feel encouraged also by dissensions within the ruling United Progress Alliance and, more importantly, within its core, the Congress party. Union home minister, Mr P Chidambaram has publicly admitted that his mandate is "limited". A senior Congress leader, Mr Digvijay Singh, has sharply attacked his policy of confronting the Maoist marauders and argued for softness towards these "misguided youth". Congress president, Ms Sonia Gandhi later tried to bridge the gap between the two approaches, but this has yet to bring about clarity in the Centre’s policy. To make matters worse, there is hardly any synergy between New Delhi and the Naxal-infested states most of which are ruled by non-UPA parties. This is exacerbated by the far from normal relationship between the Congress and the principal Opposition, the BJP.
This is where the country has landed itself six years after Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh had sounded the alarm that Naxalite violence was the "biggest single internal security threat to the country". What an irony it is that Maoist sway at that time was just about half of what it is at present. Today, 223 districts form part of the Red Corridor that stretches from Pashupati in Nepal to Tirupati in Andhra. In the first five months of this year the Maoists have killed 616 persons, civilians and security personnel which is hugely more than during the same period last year. It should not be difficult to imagine what would happen in the next ten years if the present indecision, drift, half-baked policies and half-hearted action persist. Against this bleak backdrop the key question is: what do we do and how?
Revolt of the Oppressed
Any honest answer to this question must begin with an admission that should make successive rulers of the India hang their heads in shame. There can be no denying that if the Maoists have flourished so far and so fast, it is because for a minimum of four decades the adivasis, the inhabitants of the Naxal-infested areas, have been oppressed, suppressed and exploited ruthlessly and remorselessly. In some respects they are worse off than even the Dalits. The jungle is not only the adivasis’ habitat it is also their living, indeed their life. Of this they have been dispossessed by the greedy jungle contractors, the rapacious mine-owners (it is another irony that the land of the poorest of the poor is the richest in mineral wealth that both foreign and Indian tycoons want to grab), venal bureaucrats and, above all, the politicians ruling the relevant states who are corrupt to the marrow of their bones. How did Madhu Koda collect Rs 4,000 crore in two years? Which brings me to the other side of the picture. Those who gave so much to Koda, could they have existed without paying corresponding amounts to the Maoists who, according to authoritative estimates, "collect" a minimum of Rs 1,200 crore a month?
Anyhow, it goes without saying that no one can reverse the grim state of affairs by treating it as a mere law and order problem. By the same token, how does one begin the process of bringing back socio-economic justice to the Red Corridor if anyone attempting development is gunned down and schools and hospitals built in remote areas are destroyed instantly? In order to start developing an area it would be necessary to rid it first of those determined to decimate all state agencies. On the other hand, there are areas where development can begin right away if only there is a modicum of good governance there. It is difficult to strike a balance between the two requirements. But surely this task wouldn’t be made easy by the self-styled "progressives" who say that only the Indian state is a "terrorist" while the Maoists are angels or at least modern-day Robin Hoods. It is perverse to invest murderers with respectability.
A political consensus is absolutely necessary to formulate a cogent and viable dual policy on combating Maoists. To build it the initiative must come from those in the driving seat. However, even an agreed policy cannot be implementing without eliminating the rampant corruption and inefficiency. More importantly the instruments to deal with the armed cadres of the Naxalites, the state police and the Centre’s paramilitary forces, have to be up to scratch. At present, they are not. Unless the Indian state acts quickly and firmly, mighty India might end up with a Nepal-like situation.
