Please fight fire with fire

Security forces can fight Naxalites and liberate areas, but all round development is the key to solving the problem, says KPS Gill

There are currently two principal schools of thought on tackling the Naxalite problem. One advocates treating it as a law and order problem, and the other as problem of development.

Development-oriented solutions normally envisage the building of roads, provision of drinking water, schools, electricity and fair price shops to villages, and the creation of employment, for instance, under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme.

Regrettably, there is no evidence that this ‘development solution’ has succeeded in tackling Naxalism anywhere. Worse, wherever Naxalism has been able to establish a measure of influence, the ‘developmental solution’, in fact, becomes impossible to implement.

Maoists disrupt developmental projects as a matter of strategy, attack government officials and establishments,  and very successfully intimidate all branches of civil administration. Further, even where such a degradation of capacities has not occurred, the impact of various developmental schemes and initiatives have been negligible on the ground, principally because of corruption, and political and administrative ineptitude. On the other hand, stringent action under existing laws has successfully curbed a number of insurgent and terrorist movements in India, including Naxalism in different phases and locations.

The current and very successful campaigns against the Maoists in Andhra Pradesh are a case in point. Such an approach demands the constant, but surgical application of force against narrowly identified targets, and a continuous succession of operations in which many lives are lost on both sides.

Crucially, however, such an approach is not complete in itself. Once the security forces have established dominance, it is imperative that the integrity of civil administration be restored in such areas, and developmental works commence. Regrettably, the record in this regard has been poor, and many hard-won victories have been wasted through subsequent administrative and political failures.

A third stream of response has recently emerged and quickly been consumed by controversy, but deserves greater attention. The Salwa Judum initially surfaced in parts of Bastar in Chhattisgarh as an authentic and peaceful mass response by the people themselves, when they collectively decided to withhold cooperation from the Maoists. Regrettably, the movement lost direction and momentum after political elements and the administration tried to piggyback on its success. Nevertheless, there is tremendous scope for actual popular resistance, and this requires not armed action by ‘people’s groups’, but creation of awareness among the people, their education for resistance to Maoist dictates, and for cooperation with state agencies. The reality is that a mix of all these three measures is required, and will alone be successful.

KPS Gill was advisor, Anti–Naxalite Operations, Chhattisgarh and former director general of police, Punjab