Tackling The Red Taliban

News Flash, May 24, 2011 – Maoists kill 10 policemen in a landmine blast in the jungles of Gariaband, Chattisgarh, bodering on Orissa. The bodies of policemen were found in a mismembered state.

With this gruesome and dastardly act the Maoists have once again cocked a snook at the Indian state. The location of the incident also points at the spatial spread of the movement to hitherto unaffected regions.

Over the years the militant Maoist Movement has spread like cancer across the nation. It occupies an area of 92000 sq. km., and is spread across 20 of the 28 Indian States.

The Red Corridor spans from Bihar in the North to Kerala in the South, covering states like West Bengal, Orrisa, Jharkhand and Andhra Pradesh. That is almost 40% of the Indian territory.
With 20, 000 armed militia and 50, 000 strongly indoctrinated cadres the uprising has proved troublesome for the State to tackle.

Gone are the days when the ML militia fought with country made guns, and rudimentary ammunition.
Today it has access to the most sophisticated arms in the market. The Maoist fund managers get their coffers filled from extortion, illegal mining and from across- the- border sympathizers.
The common enemies of the Indian State have joined hands with the Maoists. Thus while ULFA, Telengana activists and the Jihadi terrorists help the Red Brigade, the Maoists of Nepal are no less forthcoming in supporting their Indian compatriots.

The most sad part of the story is that the clandestine political patronage that Maoist Ultras receive from the political parties. Thus in Jharkhand the Shibu Soren government has had a tacit understanding with CPI (M) that has helped the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha in the hustings. The Brigade has purportedly helped the party to win six of the eighteen Assembly seats in the 2010 elections.
And the irony is that Jharkhand is one of the worst affected state of Maoist violence.

Roots of the Maoists uprising lie in the neglect and underdevelopment of the rural areas. Grassroot local self government and district administration have failed to create growth conditions in the backwaters. Poverty and unemployement has provided a fertile ground for popular discontent, and police atrocities against incipient Maoist uprisings have added fuel to fire.

With the Central Government still searching for a proper growth model for the impoverished rurals, Maoists have stolen the thunder from the State and have proactively set forth their own agenda. That of violent uprising of the proletariat and a consequent power change.

The Mao Zedong doctrine which inspired Kanu Sanyal and Charu Mazumdar in the spring of 1967 to let loose the Naxal Bari uprising, is still running in the life blood of modern day Maoist Don Quixotes. The Spring Thunder (as the Naxal Bari movement was called by the Chinese) has taken deep roots in the rural India.

It is no surprise that the Red Corridor is the area which has the largest concentration of mines in India. A takeover of such region has economic basis. It provides for illegal mining from which the movement prospers.

The Indian Establishment is still in two minds as to how tackle the red menace. It dithers on the prospects of opening aerial attack on the cadres. It works piecemeal on policing strategy.

Yet it wants to root out the Red Taliban before going all out for development work.
Many other factors have given a fillip to the movement. A porous interstate border, lack of coordinated interstate police effort, lack of proper intelligence sharing and lackadaisical development work in affected areas.

However, apart from twin actions of firm policing and focused development , the government should try to engage the Red Brigade in a dialogue. For it is only by drawing the militia and the disgruntled rurals into the national mainstream can the problem be permanently solved.