It has now been a week or two since the Naxals or the Maoists stopped the Bhubaneswar-Delhi Rajdhani Express near Midnapore in West Bengal. They stopped the train and took the driver and the assistant driver with them inside the forest as their captives. Then after this whole Hostage Drama came to an end after five hours at five or five thirty in the evening, they left the two drivers but warned them not to take the train even a single inch ahead without their permission and went back inside the forest not before writing there demands on the train in red. Their demand was to leave the leader of People’s Committee against Police Atrocities (P.C.P.A.) Chitradhar Mahato who was captured by the police forces in the Operation Lalgragh.
But this is not the first time that the Maoists have done such an incidence. They have done this even before many times. But the point is that the frequency of their attack has increased. Just before the Maharashtra Vidhan Sabha Elections the Maoists attacked a police station in Gadchiroli district and the forty to fifty Maoists killed seventeen policemen. Then there was the case a Bengali Policeman being captured by them and the even released. Also some policemen were attacked in Andhra and killed, then, there was the beheading of a Police Francisco Indurwar and many others. All these incidences have occurred in an interval of some weeks. Earlier their use to be attacks of this kind once in two or three months but now open any newspaper and you’ll find that the Naxals or Maoists are the biggest consistent newsmakers in this year. This clearly shows that the power and influence of the Maoists has indeed increased a lot in recent times.
But the bigger worries are still to come. The Government. The government has done almost nothing on long term basis to deal with this growing power and influence of the Maoists. Yes there was this operation undertaken by the government to capture the Lalgragh Police Station from the Maoists. And it too was successful. The police station was captured but then here is what I mean by long term basis. Though it has now been captured by the police and it is with the police now the lawlessness in Lalgragh still exists there as much as it was before. And even after some time the Police Station might be recaptured by the Maoists because there is no proper provisions of any back up in case of an attack or any communication system like Sat. Phones etc. The Home Minister might some time talk tough on this issue i.e. ‘I would like request all the sympathizers of the Maoist Movement to think about supporting it again because they are not going to do anything for the adivasis.’ (What a strong statement isn’t?)
Then also there is a problem of decision making. All our minister and bureaucrats have such a poor decision making ability in them that they cannot take any small decision of their own. They need the advice of their advisers for taking any action, and then there is this big problem of Parliamentary Democracy, meetings. Not a single decision is taken before meetings that last for at least hours. If any attack likes these happen then there are at least three meetings that take place, one in Delhi of Central Government, second in the state capital of State Government and the other in Police Headquarter or RPF Headquarter etc of the respective departments. And the sad story is that no action is taken by the government or police forces before these hours long meetings end. And that is the reason why there was delay in sending additional NSG Commandos to Mumbai at 26/11 attacks last year. This too happened at the time of this incidence at Midnapore the security forces reached the spot long after the media reached there and long after the Maoists ran back in the forest when it was dark. Why this delay?
This clearly shows India’s weak stand on the Maoist activities, when the Maoists have clearly said- ‘Our aim is to hoist the red flag in Delhi and we will do it.’ Any other country would have launched strong operations on them after listening this. And when I say strong operations I mean that an operation that would eradicate Naxal influence or Naxal holds on that region permanently and not like what was done in Lalgragh.
I can understand that the foreign policies of India are made at and 1600, Avenue, so we cannot take action against the Pak operated Terrorism but at least we can take action against Naxals or are our internal affairs policies and made in Beijing and Islamabad? The Government says that this issue has to be solved by discussion with the Maoists and not by armed action. Many Human Rights Activists too support this but I don’t understand how can that happen? When the Maoists themselves have said that they want to hoist red flag in Delhi how can the government say so? From this statement it is clear that their objective is no more protection of tribals of the area but to conquer the capital and establish red rule in India and then make India a slave of China. How can the government say that knowing this? We must act now before the situation gets worse and we face situations like Sri Lanka faced due to growing influence of Tamils Extremists or Colombia is facing due to Communist Movement there. Both these movements have stop pr hampered the development in those countries. If this Naxal or Maoist Movement goes out of hand then the same might happen to us.
And some thing more worrying is that there is extremely less awareness about this i.e. growing Naxal Influence, its consequences, and the soft approach of government about this in the people. It is only discussed when such type of Maoist attacks or Violence occurs.
