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What is cooking?
“America will burn”, said the Pak Taiban. The Maoists in India have warned of more ‘Dantewadas’ (where 76 security personnel were killed two months back). According to a report in the Washington Post, Pakistan produces 10000 jihadis per year. 935 mataharis (women spy) are being trained in Pakistan to honey-trap Indians and also to don the role of terrorists if required. The Talibans have fixed US$ 2400 per NATO soldier killed in Afghanistan. The Indian government have cautioned their ministries about cyber threat originating from China. On receipt of reports, the ban on the LTTE was reimposed in India.
A terror bid by Pakistan-origin American in Times Square in New York was foiled. There was a wave of terror attacks in Iraq, indicating absence of any stable government yet in the country. The Talibans stormed two mosques in Lahore, killing 80 people. There was yet another gas attack on a girls’ school in Afghanistan. A Mumbai-like (26/11) act of terror was foiled in Jakarta (Indonesia). The Maoists in India continued to indulge in violent depredations. A bus was blown up, killing over 40 people. Their hand is suspected in an act of sabotage on railway track in West Bengal (India), killing over 140 men, women and children. The Maoists resorted to systematic kidnapping and killing on grounds of victims having been police informers. There were again reports of Maoist presence in Punjab. The possibility of the ISI-backed Khalistan Commando Force remerging was reported.
An air-crash in Mangalore (India) killed over 140 people. A new Prime Minister headed a coalition government in UK – the first such coalition in the UK in the postwar world. The Maoist supremo in Nepal Prachanda announced that he was prepared to disband the Maoist Guerilla Army in the interest of bringing in a solution to the problems facing the country. The US President has since appointed a 4-star general in charge of the recently-created Cyber Command.
The scientists are on the verge of creating a magic pill that would help increase human longevity to 100 years. Synthetic life has also been created in the laboratories. There are excellent stories in the General File, including the one on how big or serious is one’s own problem. An educative mail has been received, highlighting some measures of caution in the use of cell phones – worth knowing. ‘May also like to read an excellent write-up that the Maoist violence has to be fought ideologically too.
Thanking you and with best regards,
D. C. Nath, IPS (Retd.)
Former Special Director, IB (MHA), Govt. of India,
Editor-cum-President & Director General,
International Institute of Security and Safety Management,
New Delhi, India.
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‘May like to glance through the input below from The Hindu and Hindustan Times:
The Maoists need to be fought ideologically too
Dr. Chandan Yadav
On a tour of Jharkhand a couple of years ago, I was engaged in a conversation with one of the Naxalite leaders. I tried to convince him of the futility of their fight against the state, and the fact that only a parliamentary democracy would be able to solve issues. He was not convinced and, in fact, confidently asserted: “We will overcome and one day victory will be ours. We will overthrow the state.”
I am reminded of this conversation and the audacity of the Naxalites as they massacred 76 CRPF jawans in Dantewada, Chhattisgarh, in April and again 31 people in the latest incident in the same district. The attacks have only reopened the age-old debate on the root cause of the problem — lack of socio-economic development or law and order. The accepted view is to treat it on both these counts. However, there is a third viewpoint that is not getting much of importance — that is, combating the issue ideologically too.
As a political activist working in the NSUI and the Indian Youth Congress (IYC), I have personally had ample opportunity to observe the workings of Naxalites; first in the JNU, later as a national secretary and then as a national general secretary of the Youth Congress in charge of Jharkhand and Orissa. My home district, Khagaria, in Bihar, too has seen a spate of Naxal attacks in recent times. During the period when I was in charge, I travelled to almost every Naxal-affected district in Jharkhand and Orissa. I even stayed in these areas and interacted with a few of the cadre and leaders, from the level of the zonal commander to the common member. What came out of these meetings had a common thread — the lack of basic infrastructure and amenities and the absence of law and order in the area. Also, the administration was not sensitive to their problems.
Consequently, the youth of the area, frustrated and with no opportunity to earn their livelihood, fell easy prey to the Naxal ideology. Taking up arms and becoming part of the ‘cause' takes care of their livelihood issues; they are also brainwashed into believing that only a change of the present political system, which is biased against them, will lead to their dreams being fulfilled. The cadre said they had no choice; even if they wished to give up arms and return to the ‘mainstream', it was made difficult for them. In fact, many of those who wished to return were punished; at times with death. Therefore, for the common members, it is all a question of livelihood and opportunities. The Naxalites are a strong cadre-based organisation, the members are ideologically committed and well-trained and even the ordinary members are well aware of the party's position on issues. In a nutshell, their members get their strength and motivation from their ideology unlike other political parties, where material motivation and political opportunism seem to be the order. No member can get into decision-making without a proven track record on his commitment and ideology. Membership too is ideologically driven.
Abject poverty and underdevelopment help breed this kind of ideology. New members are given individual attention until they are convinced. Also, comradeship among members means that hierarchy exists only in decision-making; in everything else, they are equal. (In a lighter vein, they even share the same cigarette).
It is interesting to note that a majority of the Naxalite and Maoist leaders and sympathisers are highly educated from reputed institutions across the world and are from well-off families. Their ideological motivation is so strong that their minds are closed to any alternative argument. They live in a trance-like state, to them the present system and its leaders are enemies.
Based on my personal experience in these affected areas, I strongly feel that apart from treating this as a socio-economic and law and order issue, we need to look at ways of combating the Naxalites ideologically. The first two aspects will ensure that there is no chance for the Naxalites/Maoists to breed and multiply their numbers. The last method will help to counter the leaders and their sympathisers. One cannot deny that disparities in development are a major cause for the spread of the Naxalite ideology. However, the developmental approach will succeed only if we believe that disparities in development will be bridged soon.
But to my understanding this will not be the case for two reasons — (a) the disparity and the area for development are huge and (b) other problems and markers of identity such as religion, caste and region. The poor and the Dalits may today have access to the well in a village, but the disparity has now moved down to an issue of access to safe drinking water.
Similarly, the telecom revolution has meant that while even people in rural areas have a mobile phone, the mobile has today become much more than a calling tool for a segment of the population, with Blackberry, 3G and other such services.
Therefore, development and disparity as an issue will continue to exist and, over the years, one can aim at decreasing the gap between the two. The argument that lack of development alone leads to Naxalism cannot be entirely true. In the last 62 years, there has been development and many poor people have benefited from a slew of pro-poor development schemes. However, the parameters of disparity keep changing. It is, therefore, also the ideological bent of the leadership of this movement that has been instrumental in its being able to spread its wings in the years since Independence.
However, it is disheartening to see that politics today has seemingly become a platform for crass opportunism instead of being ideology-driven. Of course, this is not to say that all parties and all leaders are devoid of ideology. Political parties need to revert to ideology-based politics, along with a development agenda. The challenge before all mainstream parties is to rise to the occasion and engage in efforts to humanise society. The idea of an India based on the concept of parliamentary democracy, respect for all religions, unity in diversity, brotherhood, etc. — as dreamt by our forefathers at the time of Independence — needs to be inculcated in the minds of the people, right down to the grass-roots. Only by doing so can they instil faith in the people and ensure the success of the principles of adhering to the Constitution.
(The writer, who got his Ph.D. from the Jawaharlal Nehru University, is a former national general secretary, Indian Youth Congress. Email: chandanjnu@rediffmail.com)
The Hindu, May 30, 2010
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At the heart of darkness
The murder of more than 100 passengers on the ill-fated Gyaneshwari Express re-confirms that there is a war on against the Indian State. If some people have been busy cherry-picking what constitutes the Indian State — soldiers, para-military forces, police and government officials somehow being perceived ludicrously as fair game as targets — with the Maoist leadership claiming that it wasn’t behind Friday’s attack, questions about what constitutes the Maoist machinery are now being asked.
As this paper has been underlining, the very principle by which Maoist violence operates is the ‘fish in water’ way of making guerrilla soldiers indistinguishable from common citizens. In this asymmetrical war involving psycho-optical illusions, the government has, therefore, indeed a ‘limited mandate’, if in the sense of having to tread carefully to first identify the enemy and then deal with him.
The latest attack, like the one 11 days ago, has added another layer to this war by paradoxically removing the layer separating ‘civilians’ from the more visible representatives of the Indian State. Strategically, this may put the Maoists in a less comfortable position than before when they had a ‘class target’. But the real question that now arises is whether the Maoist movement — till now under the aegis of the People's Liberation Guerrilla Army and the Communist Party of India (Maoist) — is in control of ‘Maoist violence’.
The fact that local elements of the Maoist frontal organisation, the People's Committee against Police Atrocities (PCPA) may have carried out the train attack — although the presence of PCPA pamphlets at the wreckage site may have been planted, considering that the organisation’s leadership has denied targeting common citizens — is doubly worrying.
The organisational control of the Maoists at least meant the presence of a structure, a strategy — if not any real objective to their violence. A hydra-headed phenomenon, with the whole not knowing what the parts are up to and using 'Maoism' as a loose calling card, is not something that will be easy to tackle or contain.
Which is why it becomes imperative more than ever before that the central and state governments quickly forge a policy — a military one, if need be — to show that acts of Maoist violence will not be tolerated. It will have to send out the message loud, wide and clear that there will be consequences for making targets of the people of India.
Hindustan Times, May 31, 2010
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