DNA Edit: Maoist violence - India needs to talk to radicals, however misguided they are

If the deadly Maoist attack in the Gadhchiroli district of Maharashtra that claimed 15 lives of security personnel is any indication, then the central and state governments’ boast of neutralising the extreme-Left movement in India are premature and hollow.

The premeditated attack show that the Maoists are not just highly violent and well armed, they are willing to go to any length to prove their point. That such an attack should have taken place at the height of election season, when the movement of troops is nearly continuous, suggests that the state administration had let its guard down and paid a price for it.

There is little point in Maharashtra’s director general of police (DGP) promising a ‘befitting reply’ when the bird has flown the coop. It reveals misplaced bravado, sadly, at the cost of several precious human lives. The central and several state governments have repeatedly scoffed at the idea of holding talks with Maoists or Naxalites.

It is time the government look at their legitimate demands and see if these radical Leftists — even if misguided — can be brought into the mainstream of Indian politics. If there is one reason why intermittent Maoist violence in India has grabbed lesser eyeballs than it should have, it is because the brutalities have taken place in the Indian hinterland, far away from the prying eyes of the media and civil society.

The May Day killings with the help of improvised explosive devices (IED) was the 53rd incident of Maoist-related violence across the country this year, data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP) reveal. At least 107 persons have been killed in Left-wing extremist violence across the country this year, including in Gadchiroli.

It puts paid to claims made by top government functionaries that India has been spared any internal terrorist violence — obviously lives lost in Maoist IED blasts is not considered extremist violence. According to information, between 2014 and 2019, there have been 942 Naxal/Maoist attacks. These attacks have claimed 451 lives while 1,589 have been injured.

Can this be described as peaceful and ‘relatively non-violent?’ If the situation on the international border is unsafe with its steady quota of killings, conditions in the heart of India, can be described as equally precarious. In the tribal districts that run through mineral-rich Jharkhand, MP, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Maharashtra, the Maoist movement has not ebbed, as has been repeatedly suggested.

If anything, the attacks are becoming more sophisticated and daring. It suggests that the fruits of economic development have by and large remained confined to the urban metropolises and their satellite towns. The vast swathe of rural India — particularly its tribal heartland — has remained relatively untouched by India’s growth story.

Efforts must be made to take this down to the lowest common denominator, if this famed growth story has to reach its logical conclusion. If this does not happen, then the great economic drama unfolding in the rest of the country will be perpetually threatened by the Maoist sword. The Indian establishment has to be prepared to take all stakeholders into consideration.