With the announcement of elections to the Chattisghar assembly by the Election Commission of India and campaign is picking up the issue of Maoist activity in the state is likely to be main issue for both the ruling Congress and opposition BJP. With tribals choosing to have their own political outfits lie Gondwana Ganatantra Party and joining hand with BSP the Maoist issue in many hues will be presented before the voters. The Home Minister Amit Shah’s election campaign speech accusing the Chattisghar government headed by Bhupesh Bhagel of its failure to contain the Maoist menace and the counter from the Congress party retorting of not giving enough co-operation to act against the Left extremists confirms the way the campaign is going to be around the law and order situation in Chattisghar.
The Home Ministry convening a meeting, last week, the CMs of naxal infested states saw the skipping by the CM of Chattisghar, the highly infested state, is indicative of the electoral combat on this Maoist issue. The Home Minister Amit Shah spoke about the Modi government’s intention to rid the country of Maoism menace before the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. His assertion that fight against Naxalism has reached its final stage and needs to be accelerated to bring an end to this menace within a year and his appeal to the Chief Ministers of Naxal infested states to cooperate with the centre and initiate the suggested actions in their own states is to be seen as the speech made keeping Chattisghar in mind. His call for new approach of replacing the “Roti, Kapada aur Makan” with the “road, telecommunication and schools” in addition to the joint operations by the security forces in innovative and result yielding. The new approach is sure to enthuse the tribal population buffeted between the Naxals and security forces to be part of the development and enjoy the fruits of schemes offered by the union and state governments. Though the timing of projection of new approach is seen by some as politically oriented the sincerity of the Home Minister who on the day one of his taking over the ministry responsibility proclaiming his top priority in curbing the menace of Maoists can’t be doubted.
The new approach of Modi governance has saw the sanction of 17.600 Kms road in the Maoists infested area and out of that near 9,500 Kms roads are already completed. 2,343 new mobile towers are installed and additional 2,542 tower are to be installed before 2024-25 financial year ending. The financial inclusion of LWE impacted area people is taken care by opening 1,200 bank branches, and offering near 1100 ATM services for the people in their area. More than 10,000 projects have been sanctioned under the special central assistance scheme for LWE affected districts. The sanctioning of 234 Ekalavya Model Schools and functioning of 120 schools in those areas is a game changer in inculcating knowledge to the tribal youth and weaning away them from the false narrations from the Leftist and anti-national story tellers.
Maoist menace is a national issue and can’t be viewed from a political prism. The multi fanged attacks on the money and material supply chain of Maoists and their network in the urban areas by NIA is yielding the desired results. The term Urban Naxals is quite popular in the negative sense as people perceive them to be more dangerous with their anti-national activities. There are many people in many places under garb of activism doing things inimical to the interests of India. They are in the media, civil liberties movement, martyrs welfare committee, caste eradication teams etc. All those names are a façade to hide their real activities of helping those hiding in the forests and involved in the mindless killing. The very fact they create a commotion when a Maoist is apprehended or killed confirms their heart is in the violence and pro-China and anti-India agitations. These urban Naxals are the conduit between their masters in China and the comrades in the forests. The special focus put on these urban Naxal gangs by the home ministry are yielding results. The recruitment into Maoist movement dwindled as the educated youth have more opportunities for their growth in a profession or entrepreneurship. The monetary assistance liberally offered by the Modi government for the new generation graduates is offering immense opportunities to choose any field of their choice.
Secondly those who were already into the Maoist movement realised their misguided path is taking them nowhere beyond mass destruction of property and massacre of innocents. The exploitation is much more in the Maoists rather than outside the forests and that is what the surrendered Maoists are saying. The sexual exploitation by the top Maoists are given in graphic details by the women cadre on their surrender. Rajani, the women who surrendered in Septemeber this year said that “women are discriminated against by senior Maoist. Married women cadre are not allowed to live independent married life”. The women in Maoist movement are trapped into sex slavery with the forced prostitution on them. Having suffered immensely and exploited bodily the surrendered women Maoists appeal to the young woman “not to fall prey to the urban naxal sweet talk of revenge on the society from the forest hideouts” and lose their freedom to move, freedom to have married life and enjoy the family relations. The surrendered Naxal men spoke about the existence of more caste hierarchy and feudal mentality in the forest movement and the sense of participation is denied for the recruits from lower castes. The tribal people now realised the usage of them as ‘bio shield’ for top leadership.
The statistics speaks about the success of Narendra Modi government in containing the Left Wing Extremism (LWE). From 2,258 incidents in 2009 to 509 in 2021 and deaths due to LWE got reduced to less than 200 and the Naxal menace has been restricted to 45 districts from the 96 districts. The threat of ‘Red corridor’ from the south India to Nepal is no more in circulation. Those Chief Ministers who are in co-operation with the Centre and are implementing the suggested schemes are happy that their states have nearly eliminated naxal menace. The CM of Andhra Pradesh Y.S. Jagan has said that “Left extremism is on the wane in AP and Maoist activities are contained to a few pockets of agency area, while Odisha CM Navin Patnaik talked about the “successful restriction of Maoists to three districts” in his state. Telangana also spoke about the countering the Naxal menace through their developmental activities and social welfare programs. Their complaint is against the failure of the neighbouring state of Chattisghad as the infiltration into that state is the problem faced by AP, Odisha and Telangana.
Extremism of all kinds is now abhorred by the world. Instead of scoring political points all the political parties should condemn, control and decimate extremism thus delivering a message to Maoists against their ideology of killing and make it clear for them that there is no other way but to join the main stream. This election time the correct time to send that national message to not only Maoists but also the urban naxals that there ideological game and violent practices has no place in the civilised world.
By Dr. Duggaraju Srinivasa Rao
(The content of this article reflects the views of writers and contributors, not necessarily those of the publisher and editor. All disputes are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of competent courts and forums in Delhi/New Delhi only)
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