The hitherto low-intensity naxal operations in Karnataka appear to be taking a disturbing turn towards intensification of activities. For, this is not an isolated incident although it appears to be one. It is a scarier scenario of a movement beginning to grow in the Malnad region of Karnataka. The region provides an ideal hilly forest cover for Naxals; and what with the known Naxal-infested areas in other states coming under the security scanner.
The late Saturday night encounter between the Anti-Naxal Force (ANF) and the naxals near Belthangady is a disturbing trend for more than one reason. The state government knows for sure what this incident means to the future of peace in Karnataka, at least as far as naxalism is concerned.
Not surprisingly, despite exuding confidence over being able to tackle Naxalism in Karnataka, Chief Minister DV Sadananda Gowda and home minister R Ashoka are disturbed men.
They know that although this was no Dantewada kind of a massacre, the dangerous seed for the menacing tree of naxalism
to grow out of may well have just been sowed.
Ashoka is also beginning to suspect “outside involvement”, saying that the naxals who carried out the attack on the ANF combing party were not from Karnataka, but could be from Tamil Nadu. And Gowda knows the full implication of this incident, too, ordering the police top brass to go all out against naxals in the state.
They are trying to nip the menace in the bud, knowing well that failing to do so would mean gifting Karnataka - with Malnad region as the epicentre - on a platter as an alternative location to the already established naxal strongholds in other states.
The encounter, leading to the killing of the ANF constable, also exposes the bluff by many a government official given to media on different occasions that Karnataka did not face a naxal problem. In fact, Malnad region has all it requires to muster up a recipe for the growth of naxalism in the state. Concentration of wealth in the hands of a few, including those owning large estates, compared to the large majority of deprived rural masses, presents the naxals the ideal gunpowder to popularise their way of thinking among the people.
The Saturday night encounter, therefore, should be an eye-opener for the state government to move at lightning pace in devising and implementing welfare scheme (many of them pending since years) targeted at the rural masses. The state government must realise that rural outback in the state is the fertile mass that the naxals will sow the seeds of discontent into to gain ground for themselves.
Delay on a welfare approach for people in these regions could prove very costly for the state… and for the first BJP government in South India.
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