Yesterday night the news came in
that a convoy of congress leaders was attacked by Naxalites in Chhattisgarh. Reports
suggest that the naxalites who were 250 in number killed 29 people altogether. Amongst
them was senior Congress leader Mr. Mahendra Karma who was killed in cold
blood. The irony is that Mr. Karma is stated to have been under the Z category
security. Another senior congress leader Mr. V C Shukla has been critically
injured. As usual the PM flew into Chhattisgarh with his retinue and make
remarks like the perpetrators of this crime would be brought to justice and
this is an attack against democracy.
I wonder why we are just mute
witnesses to such dastardly acts time and again where some outlaws manage to
kill our citizens at will. Shouldn’t be State and Centre be doing something
about this? And if they say they are doing are they doing enough is the
question? Do they even have a strategy to decimate the Naxalites who are freely
operating within the Indian Territory?
This situation should be shameful
of any government of the day. Look how the US was successful in decimating the
Al Qaeda network in a span of 10 years and Osama bin laden met the grave. No they
are planning to withdraw from Afghan soil. And here we have been toying with
the Naxalite movement since the 1960s. In the past five years alone over 10,000
have been killed in Naxal violence.
This very attack is a clear
indication that all is not well with the government’s anti- Naxal strategy
which is to be two pronged. The security arm and the development arm. This
attack is a clear indication that the security arm is ending in a failure and
is lacking, in supporting the development arm. It should be noted that the
congress leaders we there on a pre-election campaign trail, on the run up to
the soon to be held assembly elections in the state. The Security agencies in
charge of the Naxal operation have miserably failed the local citizens. The
naxals have just got emboldened yet again. They have managed to get the
security forces napping once again. It was so outrageous to read the reports
that the police personnel guarding these leaders where not only outnumbered but
also ran out of ammunition in the gun battle which ensued. There was no back up
strategy in place, no air support or reinforcements. Once again our senior
politician jumped on to the bandwagon to make rhetorical statements like saying
that this is an attack on democracy and such other statements. But what I don’t
understand that why they cannot do anything beyond serving words in times of such
disasters.
My calculation is that the
development arm may be doing its bit but the security arm is failing the
development arm and therefore the government must run a reality check at the
earliest. There seems to be a need to get
back to the drawing board and draw up a fresh offensive plan to tackle this
growing menace which has managed to spread its fangs across 83 districts in
nine states of the country.
In the year 2012 there were 300
civilians who were killed and from this 134 were police informers. It is
observed that each year half the number of civilians killed are informers. I
strongly feel that by using locals as informers the Security Forces are clearly
endangering their lives. This has to be changed. We could substitute this with
24x7 surveillance by having drones in the sky to keep a tight check on the
movement of the Naxalites and to ensure that we have real time intelligence collection
from the ground. We need to be more
creative and deploy some stealth technologies as well. We should think of
defoliating the jungles of these areas if need be. The government should not hesitate
to do so. For the lives of its citizens are more precious than anything else. Surgical strikes to decimate the top
leadership of the Naxal Movement should be carried out periodically. Also the funding
mechanisms of these groups should be investigated thoroughly and annihilated completely.
I strongly believe that if the center
keeps harping on the line that since law and order is a state subject the
center can only act in a ‘support and enabler’ role, then disaster is waiting
to happen sooner or later. It is high time that the Union Government recognizes
the fact that Naxalism is not a single state phenomenon but is almost engulfs a
fourth of our mainland. And therefore to pass on the buck to the States is not
going to help in the long run. It is time for taking some resolute action on
the ground. If the government cannot guarantee its citizens safety from such
anti-national elements then I am afraid that the very foundation of having
established nation–states will get questioned and more so because this is an
internal threat and the enemy is operating well within our territory and right under
our nose. Till when, will we be talking of containment of the violence, and be
happy with the reduction in the number of reported incidents of violence and
deaths. Why can‘t we start thinking how to decimate this growing internal
threat like what the US did to the Al-Qaeda.
The patience of the common man is
running thin day after day and so is our faith in the democratic apparatus, as
a whole.
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