Daily Times Editorial Nov 11, 2009

The Maoist threat in India

The Maoist revolutionary movement is increasingly posing the most serious internal threat to India’s present order since independence. Resurrected from the unlikely soil of the defeated Naxalite movement of the 1960s and 70s, the Maoists have not only regrouped, in the words of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, they represent a critical challenge to India’s much vaunted democracy. In a ‘red’ arc stretching from West Bengal down to Andhra Pradesh, enfolding en route such states as Bihar, Orissa and Jharkhand and infesting in all nine states, the Maoists, albeit divided into at least four factions, have found a modicum of unity and cooperation for the task of waging a guerrilla struggle for the rights of the downtrodden and marginalized and for the creation of a socialist state.
The threat is by now acute enough to prompt calls for transferring some Indian troops deployed since long in Indian Held Kashmir to the Maoist-hit states. The call came from Home Minister P Chidambaram, but unfortunately for him and the police and paramilitary forces battling the Maoist guerrillas, has been turned down by the Defence Ministry. The ministry and army headquarters are reluctant to accede to the demand that Rashtriya Rifles battalions be involved in direct action against the Maoists entrenched in the forests of the ‘red’ arc. The home minister’s view, in the light of the mixed record of the police and paramilitary forces in combating the insurgency, is that the army will have to get involve d sooner or later, such is the growing alarm over the spread and consolidation of the Maoist revolutionary wave. The military has so far held firmly to its position that the army should only be used as a last resort for internal security matters. However, an army commanders’ conference last month has responded to the home ministry’s request by suggesting deployment of the newly raised 120 paramilitary battalions before seeking a role for the army. Further, the army has suggested the establishment of a national anti-Naxal operations training centre under the supervision of the army and the appointment of military advisers of the rank of brigadiers and major generals for the affected states.
Although talk of a gradual withdrawal of some troops from Indian Held Kashmir has been in the air for some time given the decline in the level of militancy in the area, to be replaced by police and paramilitaries, the military seems to be going slow on this policy, partly perhaps because of tensions with Pakistan since the Mumbai attacks, partly because the record of neither the military nor the police and paramilitary forces in quelling the insurgency in Indian Held Kashmir smells of roses as far as human rights are concerned. It is unlikely the Indian high command would seriously contemplate pulling some of its forces out of Indian Held Kashmir so long as relations do not improve with Pakistan and, even more significantly, the recent dialogue offer to the dissident parties in IHK, which has received a mixed response, does not show signs of promise of a political settlement with those demanding the right of self-determination.