07-12-2006, 05:43 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->http://www.samachar.com/features/100706-features.html
<b>Prevent spread of Maoists: Support patriotic Adivasis of Chattisgarh</b>
By Swapan Das Gupta
Those familiar with diplomatic gobbledygook will have noticed the
generous overuse of the term "calibrated" to describe a prevailing
confusion or tentativeness of existing policy.
Often used as a euphemism for "nuanced", a "calibrated" strategy
invariably involves moving in one direction without any clear sense of
purpose, and with one eye on a possible exit route. It would be
ungenerous to suggest that the Left approach to the exercise of
political power at the Centre is whimsically calibrated.
On paper, the Communists are in the twilight zone between wielding
power at the Centre and being in opposition-the only caveat being that
they will not allow the UPA Government to collapse in a hurry.
At the same time, they have ensured that a generous clutch of their
fellow-travellers-the "eminent historians", the professional
seminarists and the custodians of left-liberal conscience have found
their way into advisory committees and governmentfunded quangos. From
these watchtowers of the establishment, they have begun the battle to
shape the ideological debate in the country. ( COMMENT: PLEASE READ
ARUN SHOURIE'S "EMINENT HISTORIANS-THEIR LINE-THEIR TECHNOLOGY-THEIR
FRAUD" TO GET A SENSE OF THEIR ANTI-NATIONAL WRITINGS. THE LIKES OF
ROMILA THAPAR/ R.N.SHARMA/ BIPAN CHANDRA/K.N.PANNICKAR ETC)
In the past month, many of the usual suspects who are otherwise
battling Narendra Modi and supporting terrorists have initiated a
campaign to rubbish the robust, one-year-old Salwa Judum campaign
against Maoist terror launched by the adivasis of Chhattisgarh.
Beginning with a press conference in Delhi by members of an
Independent Citizen's Initiative, the mainstream media has been
inundated by demands that the Salwa Judum camps be disbanded and a
cease-fire offered to the CPI(Maoist)-an insurgent group described by
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as the "single biggest internal
challenge" faced by the Republic.
These demands have been endorsed by the Communists and a section of
the Congress which hopes to benefit politically from an expedient
understanding with the Maoists.
It is only a matter of time before the human rights industry now
descends on Chhattisgarh to plead the terrorists' case. Given the
array of forces ranged against Salwa Judum, it is apparent that the
patriotic adivasis of Chhattisgarh are doing something right. It has
long been said that left-wing extremism cannot be countered as a
purely law and order problem.
There is no empirical basis to sustain the argument that winning a
civil war against a non-ethnic insurgency involves delving into
complex socio-economic formulations.
The Naxalites in West Bengal in the 1970s, the JVP in Sri Lanka in the
late-1980s and the Khalistani secessionists in the early-1990s were
crushed by the effective use of the coercive arms of the state. But
inspirational policemen like Ranjit Gupta in West Bengal and
J.F.Rebeiro and K.P.S. Gill in Punjab also used civil society groups
adroitly to combat terrorism.
Leaders like Siddhartha Shankar Ray and Priya Ranjan Das Munshi also
led the political charge against Red terror in West Bengal. It is this
aspect of the anti-terrorist operations which scare Maoists. The
Maoists have traditionally used their guns to intimidate villagers
into submission.
By temporarily resettling locals into camps-a technique first tried
with great success in the anti- Communist drive in Malaya in the
early-1950s-the Salwa Judum campaign has created the opening for
effective police action. It has even led to the surrender of some
2,638 Maoist foot-soldiers, a better term would be cannon-fodder, who
joined the movement for no apparent ideological reason.
Salwa Judum is not the be-all and end-all of counter-insurgency; it
has secured an environment for the effective use of force. The Maoists
want Salwa Judum called off for two reasons.
First, it will send a powerful signal to the adivasis that the Maoists
have the necessary political clout to supplement their guns and
claymore mines. Those who took the initiative to fight terror will end
up as sitting duck targets of the Maoists.
The Maoists have already murdered some 268 villagers for participating
in the Salwa Judum. If the movement is called off, it will be
accompanied by the ruthless killings of the entire anti-Maoist
leadership.
Second, the Maoists have overextended themselves and need a little
respite to regroup, rearm and re-fund their units. Cease-fire, as
experience shows, is invariably a ruse to prepare for the next phase
of political terrorism. In Andhra Pradesh, for example, the Maoists
used the first six months of their short-lived cease-fire with the
government to extort between Rs 50 and 60 crores from traders and
businessmen.
At present, the CPI(Maoist) wants a breather to take advantage of the
transition in Nepal. If there is some deal, which the CPI(M) is
seeking to broker, to legitimise the People's Liberation Army as a
parallel force to the Royal Nepal Army, the surplus weapons of the
Nepal Maoists will start flowing to the Indian Maoists.
As things stand today, the Maoists are progressively acquiring more
and more sophisticated weapons with each passing day. The Claymore
mines, for example, are now supplemented with US-made IC-V8 wireless
equipment which allows explosives to be remote-controlled from a
distance of five kilometres.
Against this, the local police, except in Andhra Pradesh, lack
technology, fire power, training and motivation. Chhattisgarh's demand
for airborne reconnaissance was peremptorily turned down by the
Centre. There is nothing "calibrated" about the CPI(M) simultaneously
playing interlocutor with Nepal's Maoists and facilitating India's
home-grown terror in Chhattisgarh. Both amount to the same thing.
West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, for example, is a
hardliner when it comes to keeping the Maoists out of West Bengal. His
party, however, speaks another language when it comes to Maoists in
Orissa, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Bihar.
At the UPA-Left coordination committee meeting earlier this month to
discuss price rise, the Left devoted much of its time demanding the
Government take action to force the Chhattisgarh government to
disperse the 50,000 or so people living in protected resettled
villages.
The joker of calibration is the Congress which wants to fight
Maoists-recall the Prime Minister's spirited assurance on April 14
that "There can be no political compromise with terror"- but can't
resist the temptation of cutting short-term deals with them to
unsettle a state government run by the BJP.
No wonder, the Maoist insurgency has spread to 165 districts in the
country and affect 17 per cent of the population.
In the past three months, more people have died from Maoist-related
violence than from terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir. And yet, the
liberals keep repeating the same discredited mantra of killing them
with kindness.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<b>Prevent spread of Maoists: Support patriotic Adivasis of Chattisgarh</b>
By Swapan Das Gupta
Those familiar with diplomatic gobbledygook will have noticed the
generous overuse of the term "calibrated" to describe a prevailing
confusion or tentativeness of existing policy.
Often used as a euphemism for "nuanced", a "calibrated" strategy
invariably involves moving in one direction without any clear sense of
purpose, and with one eye on a possible exit route. It would be
ungenerous to suggest that the Left approach to the exercise of
political power at the Centre is whimsically calibrated.
On paper, the Communists are in the twilight zone between wielding
power at the Centre and being in opposition-the only caveat being that
they will not allow the UPA Government to collapse in a hurry.
At the same time, they have ensured that a generous clutch of their
fellow-travellers-the "eminent historians", the professional
seminarists and the custodians of left-liberal conscience have found
their way into advisory committees and governmentfunded quangos. From
these watchtowers of the establishment, they have begun the battle to
shape the ideological debate in the country. ( COMMENT: PLEASE READ
ARUN SHOURIE'S "EMINENT HISTORIANS-THEIR LINE-THEIR TECHNOLOGY-THEIR
FRAUD" TO GET A SENSE OF THEIR ANTI-NATIONAL WRITINGS. THE LIKES OF
ROMILA THAPAR/ R.N.SHARMA/ BIPAN CHANDRA/K.N.PANNICKAR ETC)
In the past month, many of the usual suspects who are otherwise
battling Narendra Modi and supporting terrorists have initiated a
campaign to rubbish the robust, one-year-old Salwa Judum campaign
against Maoist terror launched by the adivasis of Chhattisgarh.
Beginning with a press conference in Delhi by members of an
Independent Citizen's Initiative, the mainstream media has been
inundated by demands that the Salwa Judum camps be disbanded and a
cease-fire offered to the CPI(Maoist)-an insurgent group described by
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as the "single biggest internal
challenge" faced by the Republic.
These demands have been endorsed by the Communists and a section of
the Congress which hopes to benefit politically from an expedient
understanding with the Maoists.
It is only a matter of time before the human rights industry now
descends on Chhattisgarh to plead the terrorists' case. Given the
array of forces ranged against Salwa Judum, it is apparent that the
patriotic adivasis of Chhattisgarh are doing something right. It has
long been said that left-wing extremism cannot be countered as a
purely law and order problem.
There is no empirical basis to sustain the argument that winning a
civil war against a non-ethnic insurgency involves delving into
complex socio-economic formulations.
The Naxalites in West Bengal in the 1970s, the JVP in Sri Lanka in the
late-1980s and the Khalistani secessionists in the early-1990s were
crushed by the effective use of the coercive arms of the state. But
inspirational policemen like Ranjit Gupta in West Bengal and
J.F.Rebeiro and K.P.S. Gill in Punjab also used civil society groups
adroitly to combat terrorism.
Leaders like Siddhartha Shankar Ray and Priya Ranjan Das Munshi also
led the political charge against Red terror in West Bengal. It is this
aspect of the anti-terrorist operations which scare Maoists. The
Maoists have traditionally used their guns to intimidate villagers
into submission.
By temporarily resettling locals into camps-a technique first tried
with great success in the anti- Communist drive in Malaya in the
early-1950s-the Salwa Judum campaign has created the opening for
effective police action. It has even led to the surrender of some
2,638 Maoist foot-soldiers, a better term would be cannon-fodder, who
joined the movement for no apparent ideological reason.
Salwa Judum is not the be-all and end-all of counter-insurgency; it
has secured an environment for the effective use of force. The Maoists
want Salwa Judum called off for two reasons.
First, it will send a powerful signal to the adivasis that the Maoists
have the necessary political clout to supplement their guns and
claymore mines. Those who took the initiative to fight terror will end
up as sitting duck targets of the Maoists.
The Maoists have already murdered some 268 villagers for participating
in the Salwa Judum. If the movement is called off, it will be
accompanied by the ruthless killings of the entire anti-Maoist
leadership.
Second, the Maoists have overextended themselves and need a little
respite to regroup, rearm and re-fund their units. Cease-fire, as
experience shows, is invariably a ruse to prepare for the next phase
of political terrorism. In Andhra Pradesh, for example, the Maoists
used the first six months of their short-lived cease-fire with the
government to extort between Rs 50 and 60 crores from traders and
businessmen.
At present, the CPI(Maoist) wants a breather to take advantage of the
transition in Nepal. If there is some deal, which the CPI(M) is
seeking to broker, to legitimise the People's Liberation Army as a
parallel force to the Royal Nepal Army, the surplus weapons of the
Nepal Maoists will start flowing to the Indian Maoists.
As things stand today, the Maoists are progressively acquiring more
and more sophisticated weapons with each passing day. The Claymore
mines, for example, are now supplemented with US-made IC-V8 wireless
equipment which allows explosives to be remote-controlled from a
distance of five kilometres.
Against this, the local police, except in Andhra Pradesh, lack
technology, fire power, training and motivation. Chhattisgarh's demand
for airborne reconnaissance was peremptorily turned down by the
Centre. There is nothing "calibrated" about the CPI(M) simultaneously
playing interlocutor with Nepal's Maoists and facilitating India's
home-grown terror in Chhattisgarh. Both amount to the same thing.
West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, for example, is a
hardliner when it comes to keeping the Maoists out of West Bengal. His
party, however, speaks another language when it comes to Maoists in
Orissa, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Bihar.
At the UPA-Left coordination committee meeting earlier this month to
discuss price rise, the Left devoted much of its time demanding the
Government take action to force the Chhattisgarh government to
disperse the 50,000 or so people living in protected resettled
villages.
The joker of calibration is the Congress which wants to fight
Maoists-recall the Prime Minister's spirited assurance on April 14
that "There can be no political compromise with terror"- but can't
resist the temptation of cutting short-term deals with them to
unsettle a state government run by the BJP.
No wonder, the Maoist insurgency has spread to 165 districts in the
country and affect 17 per cent of the population.
In the past three months, more people have died from Maoist-related
violence than from terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir. And yet, the
liberals keep repeating the same discredited mantra of killing them
with kindness.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->