Naxal menace

Prime minister Manmohan Singh does not hide his disdain for Naxalites, whom he chooses to call, rather clinically, as Left wing extremists. That should cheer both the mainstream communist parties as well as the BJP. Addressing the senior police officers’ conference at New Delhi, he let his impatience and irritation show with the police failure to tackle the Naxalite issue. He berated the police in trenchant language: “The measures taken so far have not produced any results. The police need to demonstrate greater resourcefulness and strength on both the intelligence gathering and response time fronts.”

There is need for the police to think over about their inability to face the Naxalite challenge, across a wide swathe of India. It is not enough for Singh and his colleagues to describe Naxalism as the greatest security threat if money is not spent in mobilising the men and arms and state-of-the-art technology. One big reason for the police inability to respond to the Naxalites is their lack of preparedness. Of course, there are incidents like the one on the Andhra Pradesh-Orissa border when the Naxalites ambushed the Greyhounds — Andhra Pradesh’ special force meant to fight leftist militants — and lives of policemen were lost.

What’s missing is a plan to fight the Naxalite phenomenon. While at one end, they have to be countered with overwhelming force, that alone may not work. Experiments like Salwa Judum — creating armed militia of villagers to fight Naxals — have created problems. The prime minister may have to think about whether the major welfare initiatives of the UPA government – the loan waiver for the farmers and the national rural employment guarantee programme – are having their intended impact.

 The root problem lies in the social and economic conditions of rural India where development has not reached or where it has been neglected. Naxals dominate those tracts which are the least developed, in places like Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh and Orissa. People are ripe fodder to be intimidated or indoctrinated by Naxalism. Where roads have been built, where there is access to schools, hospitals and there is a modicum of job opportunity in agriculture and in non-agriculture sectors, people are relatively less tempted.

Singh may want to chart a broader policy framework, of which fighting Naxalites is one of the components, while the other is social and economic development. While it is salutary for Singh to rap the police, it may not be sufficient. Singh and his colleagues will then have to think of broader strategies.