Author: K.P.S. Gill
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: April 28, 2007
There is much focus now on the Maoist threat
in India and, despite entirely inconsistent assessments by various Government
agencies, an increasing consensus around the view that this is the greatest
internal security challenge confronting the country. At the same time - and
particularly in the aftermath of the major incidents that are all-too-frequently
engineered by the Maoists - there is rising concern at the 'police failure'
or 'security forces failure' to contain this rising menace.
It needs to be recognised at the outset that
a professional and motivated police force, with a sufficient numerical strength
and adequate material and technological resources, and with a clear political
mandate, can defeat any insurgency in India, including this latest bogey -
the Maoist 'protracted war'. If there is a failure to contain and defeat the
Maoists, it is because the necessary capacities and mandate are deliberately
kept in abeyance; indeed, the limited and entirely deficient capacities that
do currently exist are systematically undermined by a cabal of corrupt political,
administrative and police leaderships that have developed a deep vested interest
in the persistence of the Maoist insurgency. Unless the dynamics of the implicit
or explicit nexus between this leadership group and Maoist violence is understood
and neutralised, an effective strategy to defeat the Naxalites can neither
be framed, nor implemented.
The reality of the situation on the ground
- irrespective of the theoretical and supposedly ideological constructs that
are given currency in the mock discourse among the 'intelligentsia' - is that
this is a fight between two corrupt entities that find mutual benefit and
enrichment in fake engagements which can be sustained in perpetuity. A few
hapless members of the constabulary and subordinate ranks in the security
forces, and equally luckless cadres of the so-called revolutionaries are,
of course, killed off from time to time. But no one is really concerned about
the occasional massacre - despite the brouhaha that is raised in the media
after each major incident.
Fatality figures, in fact, can be used to
support whatever thesis is calculated to augment the flow of funds to personal
or party coffers. A close scrutiny of the operational situation and the conditions
under which the forces are working will demonstrate unambiguously that, in
most States and areas, nothing really changes on the ground in the wake of
major incidents.
This is the reason why almost no State - and
some have been at it for 40 years and more - has been able to entirely and
permanently eradicate Left-wing extremism. The Maoist movement, over the past
decades, has steadily augmented to attain the status of a massive trans-State
exercise in organised extortion and protection racketeering. And everywhere,
opportunistic alliances between the Maoists and 'overground' political parties
and entities are in place, most visibly around each electoral exercise, but
in a constant intercourse at all times.
Almost all political parties have become mirror
images of each other in India today, but in this regard they are even more
so, with a multiplicity of corrupt parties and organisations woven together
in a complex tapestry of duplicity and fraud that entrenches the ruling elite
- an elite that grows increasingly more dynastic in all parties over time.
Small cabals of violently criminal adventurers manage to break into the charmed
circle of political privilege, from time to time, by their sheer ferocity
and lack of restraint. The Maoist leadership and the many criminals in the
State and national legislatures fall, naturally, into the latter category.
Drumming up a sense of crisis has become an
integral part of the efforts at 'resource mobilisation' in this broad enterprise,
and that is why the 'developmental solution' to Naxalism finds such strong
advocacy among political leaders and state bureaucracies everywhere. Long
years ago, Rajiv Gandhi noted that barely 15 paisa in each rupee of developmental
funding actually reached its intended beneficiaries; the rest was swallowed
up by the black hole of 'power brokers'. In insurgency affected areas, the
proportion of developmental funds that is actually utilised for intended purposes
would be even smaller - virtually the entire sums, totalling thousands of
crores, find their way into the pockets of corrupt politicians, bureaucrats
and their hangers on, and through their symbiotic relationship with the 'insurgents'
into the pockets of the Maoists as well.
Among the multiplicity of reasons for the
military debacle in the Indo-China war of 1962, it was found that the Border
Roads Organisation had 'constructed' many roads that existed only on maps,
but of which there was no evidence on the ground. Forty-five years later,
the same formula is now being applied in Naxalite areas, and it is difficult
even to imagine how much of the exchequer's money has been spent on roads
that were never constructed, but for which payments have been made and distributed
among the local 'stakeholders', with the Naxalites cornering a considerable
share to bolster up their 'revolution'.
The Centre now underwrites virtually all security
related expenditure in Maoist afflicted States, providing support for police
modernisation and force augmentation. Yet, States fail to create the necessary
capacities to counter the Maoist threat. Even where significant disbursal
of such funds occurs, their utilisation remains inefficient, and diversion
to other, often unauthorised uses, is endemic.
The tragedy of existing or newly created capacities
is as great. The State police leaderships are raising new battalions of armed
forces, but recruitment is marred by widespread bribery. You cannot expect
a man who secures his position in a police force through bribery to actually
risk his life fighting the Naxalites. So the next stage is inevitable: Policemen
pay bribes to the police leadership to secure postings outside the Naxalite
affected 'conflict' areas, and in 'soft' areas and duties. The amounts collected
through these and other 'administrative' channels - including the continuous
business of transfers and postings - total in the hundreds of crores, and
are naturally shared with the political leadership that enables corrupt officers
to retain 'lucrative' positions, where they can continue with this despicable
commerce. That is why, even in State's where there has been a visible augmentation
of forces over the past years, deployment in the 'conflict' areas remains
disproportionately deficient.
These are 'snapshots' of the objective situation
on the ground. How are we to extricate the nation from this predicament? The
cabals that are currently exploiting the situation to the hilt will have to
be broken. The right individuals - from constables to the highest force commanders
- will have to be identified and correctly located. Political leaders will
have to look beyond party coffers and the next election, to a future in which
people can live without fear. If this does not happen, the corrupt state will
continue to fight the corrupt 'revolutionary', with mounting casualties in
widening theatres, till the collapse of governance reaches a point where the
venality of the national elite threatens its own existence.