RED ALERT :How to tackle the Maoist menace...

The defining image of the week is of a victorious West Bengal police officer carrying a bamboo pole, the corpse of a slain Naxalite tied to it, his face exultant, his body language (appallingly) euphoric. To quote the Times of India, “The Centre rightly criticises the way the bodies were borne. Suggesting lack of respect for the dead, the images aren’t good PR.”
This unspeakably barbaric, insensitive act, apart from bringing a bad name to security personnel, also indicates a failure of the imagination: is this the way we are going to fight the (in the Prime Minister’s words) “gravest internal security threat” facing the country? It seems as if security personnel are whipping themselves up to a frenzy of ‘korbo, lorbo, jitbo re’ (We’ll do it, we’ll fight it out, we’ll win!), a credo which is every bit as ineffectual as in the IPL for the hopeless Knight Riders. Even the army is---unfortunately--- following suit. It is reportedly drawing up plans to raise five divisions, or 50,000 soldiers, of crack anti-Naxalite commandos.
They are losing the bigger picture...Sorry; WE are losing the bigger picture. The fight against the Maoist menace is an exercise in tightrope walking, not an out-and-out conventional war. We are trying to redress a long history of torture. We seek to bring disillusioned tribals into democracy’s fold. And the path, ladies and gentlemen, is NOT a straight one.
The Naxalite problem is basically the result of terrible misgovernance in tribal areas. Corrupt officials/policemen/politicians (take your pick), unscrupulous forest contractors/land-grabbers (take your pick again!) and illegal mining have forced young tribals to take to arms out of sheer desperation. And to think, we expect to reverse all this through mere force... As in the northeast, as in Jammu & Kashmir, the deployment of the military can only aggravate the problem, creating a perception of the Indian state at war with its own people. This, interestingly, is PRECISELY what the rebels want. Are we willing to concede them this victory?
Yes, the Red Corridor needs to be won back inch by inch.Yes, we need an iron hand sometimes. But the only road ahead is one by which tribals can finally get the security, development and good governance they deserve. Easier said than done, but that is the only way out, the ONLY way to address the grievances of the tribal populace. Individual states have to raise highly trained local anti-Naxalite commando force in the Greyhounds to tackle the Maoists, following it up with development (not just promises now, we need the REAL stuff, and quick) and an attractive surrender-and-rehabilitation scheme to wean off middle-level Naxalite cadre, a la Andhra Pradesh( the only state to have beaten the scourge so far).
Tribals make up a microscopic, if significant, minority of the population. Even the so-called “tribal states”, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, are only 26 per cent and 32 per cent tribal,respectively.So,the tribal colour is perpetually (and we realise now, conspicuously) absent in the Great Indian Political Rainbow.Tribals cannot look up to a Mayawati or a Mamata or a Karunanidhi for deliverance. This lack of political space creates a sense of emptiness that the Naxals, dressed up as Guevaras, so readily fill up. Grassroots-level inductment of tribal youth in local politics will succeed much more than a hundred armed commandos in furthering the counter-insurgency agenda.
Till then, we can best avoid parading corpses as trophies. In the war against the inhuman Maoists (who blew up the Jnaneshwari Express not so long ago), let our humanity prevail.