<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Ultra-Red Alert
- By Balbir K. Punj
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh correctly assessed the acuteness of the Naxalite-Maoist insurgency in India when he called it the single biggest internal security threat ever faced by the country. Speaking at the second meeting of the standing committee of the Naxal-affected states in New Delhi on April 13, he admitted that parts of 160 districts across the country are slipping out of government control. There is a silver lining in this dark disclosure. Until recently, less than a month earlier, the government was reluctant to recognise the Left-wing extremism of Naxalism-Maoism as a security threat. To quote home secretary V.K. Duggal, "We donât want to look at it as a security issue. Itâs a socio-economic problem. We must have the development faster and have dedicated officers working in the area. Itâs not a security issue" (CNN-IBN Live March 17, 2006, Naxalism no security threat: Government).
CNN-IBN Live serialised a coverage from the Naxal-afflicted zones of India. The channel graphically blew the lid off the<b> red corridor in making from Nepal to Andhra Pradesh. </b>The epicentre of this "compact revolutionary corridor," commonly called Red Corridor, is the Dandakaranya Liberated Zone. <b>The Naxalites, Maoists have an estimated 10,000 strong army that has established its presence in 170 districts across 15 states in the country. </b>In the next five years, by their projection, they will control 30 per cent of the countryâs land.
The dossiers on Maoist violence are getting plumper. Some of these like the Jehanabad jailbreak episode in Bihar on November 14, 2005; the seizing of 628 Down Burwadih-Mughalsarai passenger train with 100 passengers in Latehar district of Jharkhand on March 14, 2006; the blowing up of both the up and down railway tracks near Bansi Nala on Gaya-Kodarma line on April 9 have created national, if not international, ripples.
Just two days before the standing committee meet, the Raman Singh government in Chhattisgarh appointed super cop K.P.S. Gill, the former DGP of Punjab Police, as adviser to the state government on the Maoist issue. BJP chief minister Raman Singh showed timely initiative to appoint him to that post in a state that is one of the most severely affected by the Naxalite menace. More than 100 civilians have lost their lives due to Naxal violence since the beginning of this year. The day Gill landed in Raipur on April 18, some 2,500 armed Naxalites besieged a Chhattisgarhi village on the Andhra Pradesh border as retaliation for the ongoing anti-Naxalite "Salwa Judam" campaign.
A "Task Force" constituted by the All India Congress Committee in October 2004, that submitted its report on April 3, 2005, said that proliferation of Naxalism was because of socio-economic factors, and not because of the ideological content of the movement. The "Task Force" strongly recommended providing sustainable livelihood across Naxal-hit states. The AICC, like the UPA government, one believes, has disappointment in store. The Union Home Ministry Annual Report for 2005-2006, made public on March 16, 2006 indicated that in 2005 casualties of security personnel have shot up by 53 per cent and civilian casualties by 11 per cent in Maoist violence as compared to 2004: 516 civilians and 153 police personnel lost their lives to Maoism in 2005, as against 466 police personnel and 100 policemen in 2004; 76 districts of nine states viz. Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal are "badly affected" by Naxalite violence.
But to call Naxalite violence merely a socio-economic problem will be naïve. <b>There is enough poverty in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan where there is no Naxalite problem. </b><b>The Naxalites, in fact, attack socio-economic development programmes. </b>For instance, in Nepal, the Maoists attacked the local branch of the United Nations Food Programme on March 2; "pressure cooker" bombs were detonated there. On March 22, CPI (Maoists) cadres blasted away the railway track in the Bailadila-Visakhapatnam section and exploded a bomb at a National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC) installation at Kirandul in the Dantewada district. This is the third time since February 1 that the Maoists have targeted NMDC installations in Dantewada district, district police chief Praveer Das disclosed.
<b>Our Leftists â </b>like Prakash Karat who secretly met the Nepalâs Maoist kingpin Dr Baburam Bhattarai last year â<b> vend a theory that Maoism in Nepal is a reaction to the iniquitous monarchy in that country. </b>Many of us swallow this theory hook, line and sinker. But then why are the Maoists wreaking havoc in India that is a functional democracy? Why are districts like Purulia, Bankura and West Midnapore in Left Front-ruled West Bengal hotbeds of Maoism? Are we also to infer that the Left Front rule in West Bengal is as iniquitous as the monarchy in Nepal?
<b>The Congress government, on coming to power in Andhra Pradesh in May 2004, rescinded the ban on the Peopleâs War Group imposed by the previous state government of Telugu Desam. </b>At that time, the Maoists and Naxalites had access to only 49 districts in India. The Peopleâs War Groupâs underground state secretary Ramakrishna, alias Akkiraju Haragopal, emerged from the forests and started calling the shots. When Ramakrishna, along with 35 other unarmed activists of the Left-extremist groups PWG and Janashakthi leaders came to Hyderabad to talk to Andhra home minister K. Jana Reddy, they made no secret of their agenda. They said that dialogue with the state was intended to be temporary to sort out some problems. Otherwise, they had not abandoned their long term goal of capturing power through armed struggle. In fact, they blamed the Congress for creating all the mess. On September 21, 2004, the Peopleâs War Group that worked in the South, and the Maoist Communist Centre that worked in Central and East India, merged to form the Communist Party of India (Maoist). The merger was announced on October 14.
The Andhra Pradesh government was speaking with a forked tongue, with its home minister, K. Jana Reddy, fawning on the Naxalites and <b>chief minister Y.S.R. Reddy</b> asking for disarmament before the talks could be held. The talks came to naught, but the Naxalite-Maoist menace proliferated like never before from that cut-off date. The Times of India (April 10, 2006) had a front-page news item, "Naxal terror goes hi-tech." It says that INSAS, SLR and AK-47 rifles of single and double-barrel guns are now being used by Maoists. <b>They now have an armed cadre of 10,000 men in addition to an overground cadre of 45,000 men.</b><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Note YSR is a Jesuit-educated agent involved in missionary assault upon AP temple complexes.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->To call the Naxalite movement a socio-economic problem without an ideological content, is naïve, lethargic and to deny the problem. The Naxalites would have formed cooperative societies and stressed on self-employment if they were asking for the removal of poverty. But they remain wedded to their goal of "revolutionary government" which they want to establish with armed means. Their movement, like any extremist movement, revolves around dogmas â bourgeois, reactionary, neo-imperialist, proletariat, democratic centralism (nothing democratic about that concept). The writings of Karl Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao etc., form the core of their teachings. They are the "gods that failed."
<b>In November last, China offered India assistance to crush the Maoists. China is providing munitions and money to the Royal Nepalese government to tackle its Maoist problem. </b>China has learnt the hard way, after losing hundreds of thousands of lives, the futility of Maoism. <i>If our Communists are given a long rope, the country would only head towards Pol Potâs Cambodia. While we need socio-economic approach to neutralise Maoism, the role of military and counter-ideological approach cannot be overemphasised. </i><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
China offering money to counter naxals?? PAkistan has also offered its help in countering the terrorist camps!!!
- By Balbir K. Punj
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh correctly assessed the acuteness of the Naxalite-Maoist insurgency in India when he called it the single biggest internal security threat ever faced by the country. Speaking at the second meeting of the standing committee of the Naxal-affected states in New Delhi on April 13, he admitted that parts of 160 districts across the country are slipping out of government control. There is a silver lining in this dark disclosure. Until recently, less than a month earlier, the government was reluctant to recognise the Left-wing extremism of Naxalism-Maoism as a security threat. To quote home secretary V.K. Duggal, "We donât want to look at it as a security issue. Itâs a socio-economic problem. We must have the development faster and have dedicated officers working in the area. Itâs not a security issue" (CNN-IBN Live March 17, 2006, Naxalism no security threat: Government).
CNN-IBN Live serialised a coverage from the Naxal-afflicted zones of India. The channel graphically blew the lid off the<b> red corridor in making from Nepal to Andhra Pradesh. </b>The epicentre of this "compact revolutionary corridor," commonly called Red Corridor, is the Dandakaranya Liberated Zone. <b>The Naxalites, Maoists have an estimated 10,000 strong army that has established its presence in 170 districts across 15 states in the country. </b>In the next five years, by their projection, they will control 30 per cent of the countryâs land.
The dossiers on Maoist violence are getting plumper. Some of these like the Jehanabad jailbreak episode in Bihar on November 14, 2005; the seizing of 628 Down Burwadih-Mughalsarai passenger train with 100 passengers in Latehar district of Jharkhand on March 14, 2006; the blowing up of both the up and down railway tracks near Bansi Nala on Gaya-Kodarma line on April 9 have created national, if not international, ripples.
Just two days before the standing committee meet, the Raman Singh government in Chhattisgarh appointed super cop K.P.S. Gill, the former DGP of Punjab Police, as adviser to the state government on the Maoist issue. BJP chief minister Raman Singh showed timely initiative to appoint him to that post in a state that is one of the most severely affected by the Naxalite menace. More than 100 civilians have lost their lives due to Naxal violence since the beginning of this year. The day Gill landed in Raipur on April 18, some 2,500 armed Naxalites besieged a Chhattisgarhi village on the Andhra Pradesh border as retaliation for the ongoing anti-Naxalite "Salwa Judam" campaign.
A "Task Force" constituted by the All India Congress Committee in October 2004, that submitted its report on April 3, 2005, said that proliferation of Naxalism was because of socio-economic factors, and not because of the ideological content of the movement. The "Task Force" strongly recommended providing sustainable livelihood across Naxal-hit states. The AICC, like the UPA government, one believes, has disappointment in store. The Union Home Ministry Annual Report for 2005-2006, made public on March 16, 2006 indicated that in 2005 casualties of security personnel have shot up by 53 per cent and civilian casualties by 11 per cent in Maoist violence as compared to 2004: 516 civilians and 153 police personnel lost their lives to Maoism in 2005, as against 466 police personnel and 100 policemen in 2004; 76 districts of nine states viz. Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal are "badly affected" by Naxalite violence.
But to call Naxalite violence merely a socio-economic problem will be naïve. <b>There is enough poverty in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan where there is no Naxalite problem. </b><b>The Naxalites, in fact, attack socio-economic development programmes. </b>For instance, in Nepal, the Maoists attacked the local branch of the United Nations Food Programme on March 2; "pressure cooker" bombs were detonated there. On March 22, CPI (Maoists) cadres blasted away the railway track in the Bailadila-Visakhapatnam section and exploded a bomb at a National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC) installation at Kirandul in the Dantewada district. This is the third time since February 1 that the Maoists have targeted NMDC installations in Dantewada district, district police chief Praveer Das disclosed.
<b>Our Leftists â </b>like Prakash Karat who secretly met the Nepalâs Maoist kingpin Dr Baburam Bhattarai last year â<b> vend a theory that Maoism in Nepal is a reaction to the iniquitous monarchy in that country. </b>Many of us swallow this theory hook, line and sinker. But then why are the Maoists wreaking havoc in India that is a functional democracy? Why are districts like Purulia, Bankura and West Midnapore in Left Front-ruled West Bengal hotbeds of Maoism? Are we also to infer that the Left Front rule in West Bengal is as iniquitous as the monarchy in Nepal?
<b>The Congress government, on coming to power in Andhra Pradesh in May 2004, rescinded the ban on the Peopleâs War Group imposed by the previous state government of Telugu Desam. </b>At that time, the Maoists and Naxalites had access to only 49 districts in India. The Peopleâs War Groupâs underground state secretary Ramakrishna, alias Akkiraju Haragopal, emerged from the forests and started calling the shots. When Ramakrishna, along with 35 other unarmed activists of the Left-extremist groups PWG and Janashakthi leaders came to Hyderabad to talk to Andhra home minister K. Jana Reddy, they made no secret of their agenda. They said that dialogue with the state was intended to be temporary to sort out some problems. Otherwise, they had not abandoned their long term goal of capturing power through armed struggle. In fact, they blamed the Congress for creating all the mess. On September 21, 2004, the Peopleâs War Group that worked in the South, and the Maoist Communist Centre that worked in Central and East India, merged to form the Communist Party of India (Maoist). The merger was announced on October 14.
The Andhra Pradesh government was speaking with a forked tongue, with its home minister, K. Jana Reddy, fawning on the Naxalites and <b>chief minister Y.S.R. Reddy</b> asking for disarmament before the talks could be held. The talks came to naught, but the Naxalite-Maoist menace proliferated like never before from that cut-off date. The Times of India (April 10, 2006) had a front-page news item, "Naxal terror goes hi-tech." It says that INSAS, SLR and AK-47 rifles of single and double-barrel guns are now being used by Maoists. <b>They now have an armed cadre of 10,000 men in addition to an overground cadre of 45,000 men.</b><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Note YSR is a Jesuit-educated agent involved in missionary assault upon AP temple complexes.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->To call the Naxalite movement a socio-economic problem without an ideological content, is naïve, lethargic and to deny the problem. The Naxalites would have formed cooperative societies and stressed on self-employment if they were asking for the removal of poverty. But they remain wedded to their goal of "revolutionary government" which they want to establish with armed means. Their movement, like any extremist movement, revolves around dogmas â bourgeois, reactionary, neo-imperialist, proletariat, democratic centralism (nothing democratic about that concept). The writings of Karl Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao etc., form the core of their teachings. They are the "gods that failed."
<b>In November last, China offered India assistance to crush the Maoists. China is providing munitions and money to the Royal Nepalese government to tackle its Maoist problem. </b>China has learnt the hard way, after losing hundreds of thousands of lives, the futility of Maoism. <i>If our Communists are given a long rope, the country would only head towards Pol Potâs Cambodia. While we need socio-economic approach to neutralise Maoism, the role of military and counter-ideological approach cannot be overemphasised. </i><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
China offering money to counter naxals?? PAkistan has also offered its help in countering the terrorist camps!!!