The killing of 75 CRPF personnel and a local policeman in a Naxalite ambush in Dantewada clearly indicates that the Operation Green Hunt launched to flush out the Naxalites was not properly evaluated, planned, and carried out. The Army Chief recently said that the men were not fully trained to operate in jungle area. In any case it is doubtful that they were familiar with the area. It is not clear what was the aim of the movement of so many soldiers together and their returning following the same path. Who provided the intelligence to them, if any? These issues were recently discussed in a meeting of retired senior officers. The discussion was initiated by Shri R J Khurana.
The governments for the last over 60 years have created many Para-military forces but by and large ignored the need for increasing the number, capability, training, weapons and proper usage of the police force in the police stations. They are the one that are closest to the criminals. Even if the outside forces are required and sent, they have to get the input from these local policemen.
Today, it seems there is more threat from Naxalites than from terrorists. You can get intelligence and engage the terrorists but the naxalites not only ensure that they get all the information but they ensure through the element of fear that the forces get no such inputs. The terrorists may get some help from ‘sleepers’ but not from general public. They can be, in many cases, identified. But here there is no difference between an ordinary resident and a naxal.
Most of the weapons of the naxals are from looting the police armoury or through clandestine means from across the border. As per the figures given out by the Home department, over 200 districts are naxal affected and some 90 of them have no government administrative presence in large areas. Unless these districts are ‘liberated’ no long-term initiative can be taken to bring the residents in the main stream. Then the main task would be to ensure that the administration does not once again misgovern through corrupt practices, inefficiency, delays in attending to their problems, not initiating urgently needed developments and violating their freedom. These were the very causes of the development of Naxalism.
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Digvijay Singh, the Ex-CM of MP has in an article sayd and I quote "Maoists, at the most, are misguided ideologues who have lost faith in the system and feel that the only way to deliver is through the barrel of a gun. But the sheen of that political ideology appears to be wearing off when we see traders, forest contractors, industrialists and mining companies carrying on their business without a problem — in fact, quite merrily — in the Naxalite dominated areas. The Maoists, simply, are collecting protection fees."
ReplyDeleteI tend to agree. After all why the Maoists have not stopped mining operations in affected areas or have taken up the cause of the tribals for higher wages or better living and working conditions for them? Shri Digvijay Singh considers that Chidambaram is extremely rigid once he makes up his mind.
He goes on to say, "We can't solve this problem by ignoring the hopes and aspirations of the people living in these areas. Are these people getting the benefits of public distribution system, MNREGA, NRHM and other pro-poor policies ? Are our forest policies, mining policies, land and water policies people-centric ?"
This problem can only be solved by involving the local tribal people who live in that region. They neither get the benefits from the government nor from the Maoists.