Armed Forces & Internal Conflict

Killing of 76 personnel of CRPF by Naxals in the hot spot of Dantewade in Chhattisgarh, has evoked severe reactions! Media is Ga..Ga all over! Quick fix formulae are being spoken in loud. The Govt of India is under tremendous pressure of showing some action on the ground, in the bargain, has off guard hinted that it could use air power or may use Special Forces to quell the Naxal movement. Thereby, showed willingness to bit something no Union Govt ever though of resorting to! The last of the unifying symbols of our constitutional democracy i.e. the Armed forces are going to be used against its own people rather the external enemy! What a shame! The other pillars of democracy, have failed in their charter primarily due to shortsightedness …leading to the present situation!

Is the union Govt’s message, a right one?

I am not sure, but, the Chief of Air Staff has spoken out, so have past several Army chiefs. They have been stating in one voice “don’t use Armed Forces for partisan purposes! Armed forces are meant for quelling external enemy not the internal threat!”

The present disposition at the centre has not treated the Naxal problem seriously enough until Mr. P Chidambaram took over as the Union Home minister. All that case build up, Mr. LK Advani did was laughed at & ridiculed, and the efforts Putin were diluted by the present disposition by equated it to a local issue of the concern state. However, the change of guard at the Home ministry and the change of situation in West Bengal brought to the fore the menace of Naxalism and after loss of 6 years of no action, the thread Is again being picked up! I am Glad at least the problem is being seen in its seriousness!

However, I am not sure if the nation has understood the gravity correctly. The source or the epicenter of all Naxal activity is Andhra Pradesh. The entire leadership comes from the region and they who control the Naxal influence all over the central tribal area of India. The modus operandi of Naxal’s is to keep a low profile until it reaches critical mass. It uses tactics of befriending political parties aspiring for power for a price, the price it extracts is so huge that the short term vision of these political parties makes the nation pay an enormous price in long run! Let me give specific example.

Naxal’s befriended Late M Channa Reddy , the then CM of Andhra Pradesh, who was more then willing to look the other side just for the grabing power with the support of Naxals. So did Mr. NT Rama Rao. Same was the case in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, now Bihar has adopted similar stand. The Naxal support is taken to win the elections, in the bargain, the political party in power closes its eyes to the unabated proliferation of the Naxal activity. No violent activity gets reported nor actioned until certain area become out of bond for the Govt agencies …… is it not a matter of fact that several Govt agencies do not venture in many such liberated zones?

Whom do we blame?

The callus attitude and allowing free movement of Naxals and unwilling to take them head on for the greed of getting votes in the Naxal influenced regions, serious credibility issues on functioning of Govt machinery due to corruption, apathy towards marginalized society, untrained and ill motivated policemen, lack of influence among the society to get honest feedback ,utter lack of intelligence and serious political/politician’s lack of credibility are some of the reasons for unabated growth of this menace.

Lets be clear of few fact, Is the Naxal ideology genuinely concern for the marginalized? ………the answer would be a big no! they want to establish political power through the barrel of a Gun ….the very ideology, world has rejected outright!

If the Naxal’s were so much genuinely concern for the poor and marginalized society, they would have been working towards economic upliftment and would have forced local Govt’s to undertake developmental works. It’s rather strange that this movement survives by the protection money mustered from contractors of different shades ………….outwardly the same group is the target of their irk! God knows how gullible people are in trusting these thugs!

Do we look the other way?

I don’t think we can afford . Nor should we react in a knee jerk manner by sending Armed forces or the bombing the area! The task that needs to be undertaken to overcome this menace is as follows:-

· Stop politicization, Naxals should be treated on par with insurgents and eliminated; any political party supporting them should be banned as the Naxal objective is unconstitutional.

· Get a special force raised from the police formations; Grey Hounds of AP is a successful standing example.

· Train and equip them to handle situations, simultaneously all those areas’s retrieved must have a honest and people friendly Govt machinery to support.

· Isolate the leadership and eliminate them by fair or foul means………don’t kill the innocent tribals

· Never ever get Armed forces involved in such conflict, except for training the police personnel.

· Don’t show knee jerk reactions by throwing disorganized and ill trained forces in the battle zone

· Get all state Govts onboard, or evoke article 356 in case any Govt soft paddles the issue! Today, Jharkhand & Bihar state Govts are soft peddling the issue.

· Treat the suspected civil rights groups and highly vocal sympathizers as per law for supporting unconstitutional ideologies.

· Don’t hold talks, unless its useful for assessment of the situation, don’t be nave in believing this problem will ever find solution through peace talks

· Disallow sympathizers to misuse public platform for propaganda

· Build credible leadership among bureaucrats & policemen to tackle the menace on long term basis !

· Stop exploitation of tribals, if required bring up legislation and implement it sincerely, mind you they are our people not the enemy……….the real enemy is the Naxal leadership!

· Build counter movements like Salwa judum to take on the enemy! don’t fool around in talking in two voice ………as was the case of Salwa Judum………….the movement was termed illegal by the supreme court as the union Govt acted in partisan manner in supporting the petition of Naxal Sympathizers in declaring Salwa Judum as illegal.