Desperate and Deadly

The latest Naxal attack in Chhattisgarh that left 16 dead speaks of the growing frustration of Maoists and of the Centre’s continuing ineptitude in tackling the issue

Maoists have enough reason to hate elections: they reject the Indian Constitution as a bourgeois idea and democracy as a sham. But there is more to wanton killings, especially ahead of polls—like this week’s ambush in Sukma killing cops—than mere ideology. Arundhati Roy’s ‘Gandhians by consumption and lifestyle’ are a frustrated lot with their strength dwindling amid difficulty in recruiting new cadres, especially because many Tribals are getting exposed to the world outside and want to lead normal lives.

Not all Tribals want to die merciless deaths for no reason.

Lately, things are getting tougher for these ‘Gandhians’ with India’s forces having made deep inroads into traditional Maoist strongholds such as Chintagufa (Sukma), Bijapur, Kanker and Narayanpur in Chhattisgarh. The gun-slinging ‘greats’ are angry and desperate.

The wrath that smacks of desperation was never more evident than in the attack on a Congress convoy on 25 May last year. Traditionally known for surgical strikes, members of the CPI(Maoist), which was part of this ambush were young and confused, and couldn’t even identify their chief target, Mahendra Karma, Congress leader and founder of the disbanded militia, the Salwa Judum. They asked other Congress leaders for Karma till he stepped forward and identified himself. Many months later, a senior leader of Naxalites, Ramanna said that the strike— which happened in the same area where this week’s ambush took place—had no blessings of the political wing of the organisation. The Naxal leader said the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA), the armed wing of the outfit that led the offensive, were in haste and took a wrong decision. Twenty-seven people, including Congress state unit president Nand Kumar Patel and his son Dinesh, died in the attack. Naxalites had earlier said the Bastar attack was revenge for the atrocities committed by Salwa Judum and Operation Green Hunt against Naxalites. Thanks to huge deployment of forces— 100,000 additional personnel—in the Bastar region late last year ahead of the Assembly election, Maoists decided not to launch strikes.

This latest attack took place when a joint team of the CRPF and the police—of around 50 people—was moving from Tongpal village to Jeeram Ghati.

A few Maoist watchers attribute the recent violence to a lull in anti-Maoist combing operations at a national level, ever since P Chidambaram left the Home Ministry. The Centre has been caught napping on several counts. Despite the Union Cabinet approving the setting aside of Rs 3,000 crore for extending ‘connectivity’ to far-flung areas such as Bastar and other Maoist-affected regions spread across Odisha, Bihar, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh, the Department of Telecom (DoT) has been sitting on the project for more than a year. Lack of communication facilities has been cited as one of the reasons for not being able to track the movement of Maoists across states through dense forests.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has been accused of offering mere lip service to the menace, which he once called India’s ‘biggest internal security threat’. Even interventions by the PMO failed to speed up the ‘connectivity’ project, conceptualised after the 2010 Dantewada massacre where 76 CRPF personnel were killed. Several conflict management experts have also suggested formation of an elite force such as the Green Berets in the US (every third Green Beret is a medic) whose job would be to integrate with the local community help people with health care and education.

The Centre will have to do much more, and quicker. After all, extreme ailments need extreme methods of cure.

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