Combating the Maoists/Naxals requires the most energetic steps, firm action, and leadership which operate upfront ensuring avoidance of collateral damage

Nearly 200 districts in the country are in the grip of Maoists/Naxals. This situation developed over a period of time and all this while state governments and the Centre turned a Nelson’s eye to the emerging scene. There appears to be no one accountable for the current state of affairs. No heads ever rolled, but all those who failed the State kept climbing the promotion ladder. Now when the Home Minister has named some police officers who had failed policemen at Dantewada and wants action against them, we are told that these officers are the very best.

If they are so good, then how did we reach this sorry state, where policemen, state and central police organisations (CPOs) are easily targeted, their weapons taken away, they face regular ambush, and police stations and CPO camps are routinely raided. How have the police, both state and CPOs in the Red Corridor, descended to such poor state of training and low morale. This state of affairs does reflect on the quality of leadership in these forces. There is no accountability and there are no sackings, while more and more senior level posts are sanctioned, making the police extremely top heavy

Lack of inclusive growth

The Indian State has been painfully slow in waking up to the Maoist/Naxal threat. There is large-scale disaffection, deprivation and despondency amongst vast sections of marginalised and dispossessed population. All development and poverty alleviation schemes have simply bypassed them. For them, there has been no “inclusive growth”. No one in Delhi, Ministry of Finance (MoF) and Planning Commission, etc, bothered to find out where large funds being made available for inclusive growth have been disappearing. Among them, Adivasis have suffered the most. Their small land-holdings have been taken over by mining mafias, hydel projects, multinational corporations (MNCs) and some others; whose forest rights have been dissolved, leaving them with no means of livelihood. Forced evictions from their dwellings and land had become a routine affair. No roads, no schools, no hospitals, nothing were built in these areas.

There has been a gradual withdrawal of governance at the district level. To stay in power, the political class found it more profitable to keep the people in a state of poverty, ignorance and deprivation. Turmoil and unrest in these areas made siphoning of funds much more easy. At the same time, these conditions created fertile grounds for the Maoist/Naxal groups to spring to life and find wide ranging support among the dispossessed. Maoists terrorrised the locals to draw their support on the one hand, and to deny their support and intelligence to the police and security forces on the other.

As governance shrank, police high handedness increased and allocations for poverty alleviation schemes ended in the pockets of corrupt officials and colluding politicians, Naxals ranks kept increasing. District officials never stirred out and functioned from within their high security residences and offices and on return to Delhi, became experts in dealing with Maoists. Given such conditions, Maoists kept enlarging their foothold, while Delhi and the affected states slept and took no corrective action or held any one accountable for this downslide.

Aftermath of Dantewada

Now after the Dantewada ambush and the targeting of a civilian bus in the same region killing over 35 people, suddenly everyone has come to life and all manner of solutions to the problem are being fielded. The media has gone into an overdrive, demanding allout and immediate action against the insurgents. Wisely, as of now, the deployment of the military is not being considered as an option, but there is demand both from the Home Minister and the affected states for deployment of the Indian Air Force (IAF). Use of helicopters, even in a logistic support role, could result in casualties as these will often fly low over insurgent-infested areas. Given the terrain conditions and poor intelligence, gunship helicopters will not be that effective and could cause considerable collateral damage. Use of offensive air support will throw up a whole range of wrong signals to the world and adversely affect foreign investment in the country. The fact is that Maoists will have to be defeated, essentially, by the security forces in ground action. There is no getting away from this.