Consensus on Maoist
Problem, not on Solution
By Vinod Varshney
There is political consensus in India that Naxalism is a big threat to the development process and liberal democratic system of the country. But consensus eludes on implementable solutions. A few believe that naxal violence should be dealt with force first and then only can development follow, while others say development process in tribal areas should be speeded up first, and yet another emerging opinion is that the problem can be eradicated only if police action and development activities take place simultaneously and vigourously.
Pranab Mukherjee, the central finance minister asserted in a seminar “Red Corridor And Development” organized thursday by Nai Dunia, a multi-edition Hindi newspaer that naxalite violence was truly an internal security problem, and not just a law and order issue, therefore the centre and state according to the constitution should act together to combat the meance while Arun Jaitly accused the Central Home Ministry for trying to dub the problem as of law and order to be tackled by states. He cautioned intellectuals not to romanticize maoist slogan that power comes from the barrel of gun and took a dig at the widespread perception that lack of development was the sole reason for spread of naxalism. He said that they wanted to capture power by guns.
Several speakers in the seminar including the NDA supremo Sharad Yadav underscored the fact that the economic development in tribal areas had remained grossly neglected. According to him 2-3 % of the national GDP was based on the resources of the tribal areas which traditionally belonged to them, but they remain neglected in the fruits of growth and development. The worst part of the problem is that tribals have no voice and the society which benefitted from the economic development based on their resources is least concerned about them.
He lamented the changed attitude of the political parties in recent years.” Earlier people like Baleshwar Dayal and ThakKar Bapa and even from the BJP used to go among them and had become their voice, now no political party goes among them. NGOs do go but their job seems to get money from their funders and criticize politicians.
Aruna Sharma, DG Doordarshan drew attention to the fact that the money allocated to each district is as much as Rs 1200 crore, but it remained unused to the extent of seventy percent. This means tribal areas remain perenially under-developed and an entire generation of tribals have to miss the opportunity.
She disagreed with the labour-oriented Bihar model to tackle the under-development of tribal areas. She said that requirement was for infrastructure. Unit cost of infrastructure there would no doubt be costly, but governments should be ready to spend this extra money.
D.M. Mitra, a security specialist delineated the shift of Naxalism since 1970s which has now retreated to Jungles. He described under-development as an enabling factor for Naxalism, "but no one should be in the wrong impression that the Maoists are for development; they are basically against the liberal democracy."
"State agencies do not reach amidst tribals, thus they remain segregated from the development and technology so much so they are still in the hunters and gatherers stage of civilization. Government personnel run away from tribal areas at the first available opportunity, sometimes citing their sickness or by taking help of unions and courts and nothing can be done about it."
The situation got worsened by downsizing the bureaucracy by 30 percent so much so at many places only one BDO remains to look after three blocks. He suggested government personnel who work in the tribal areas should be given special incentives as cost of deprivation.
Dr Raman Singh, the Chief Minister of Chattisgarh, a state troubled with maoist-violence painted a different picture of the problem. He said tribals today were victims of maoists, and terrorized by Maoists they were running away from their traditional habitats . This situation has led to the rise of Salwa Judum (public force) to counter their violence.
He also pointed out how governments had not bothered to heed to the advice of the Supreme Court that companies working in tribal areas should spend 20% of their profits for the development of the area, which currently is only 1-2 percent.
He gave details of how Maoist extracted some Rs 500-600 crore each year and have acquired sophisticated weapons including ant-helicopter guns and mine detecting equipments. This could not be the handiwork of tribals, but only of forces inimical to India. "This is not a law and order problem, but an internal security problem of the country. To defeat them there is need to train the police in gorrila warfare."
He criticized intellectuals who often raise an MNC bogey in the Bastar region whereas the fact was only public sector companies like NMDC, SAIL and CMDC were involved in mining activities in this tribal area.