[Reader-list] Reg: Naxalism

[Rakesh Iyer]

Dear Rajendra

My response to your mail as follows:

1) It is and should be my right to decide what I want to do with land owned
by me. Just because somebody feels an industry can help doesn't mean I am
stripped of my land and asked to take a compensation and go away. I am
sorry, I can't tolerate it. Why should I pay because somebody wants an
industry or a power plant? What do I get from it? I have an emotional
attachment with my land, and I can't be just asked to leave it.

I am against this kind of land acquisition acts done by both the state and
private players. Besides there are huge acres of land under State Industrial
Corporation. Why can't they use that?

If private players can get land only by grabbing, then they need not have
land. They can go to other nations and get land there. When land is given or
used for such projects, neither should there be any amount of forcing, nor
should there be any govt. money spending. Let private players give
compensation as well as certain shares to the landholders in the company, as
well as take the land only for lease and return it to them if they are not
able to set up the land in the stipulated time.

2) The top leadership of Naxalites is indeed in ad-hoc with some politicians
and this needs to be curbed. But the problem is also genuine and is not a
case of just criminalization of politics. This is not like the Lalu
Yadav-crime brigade where people in his party indulged in crime and his
administration looked the other way. These are a set of people who indulge
in crime due to their victimization and loss of dignity at the hands of the
Indian state. And they will continue to fight it.

Today they do so in villages. Tomorrow with confidence they can attack your
cities as well. They don't care for their lives, and are ready to die. What
can you give them? Death? They don't care at all. They will take your lives
too.

So since you care for your life, think as to how to solve this problem in a
constructive way, and then go about implementing it and removing obstacles
and problems in the path of implementation.

3) Yes the administration has been sleeping and has been responsible for the
lack of dignity of the tribals. They should be taken to task. The
administration has to be reformed. And things have to change.

I would also like to say one thing. I had, in one of my mails said that the
time for talking to Maoists is gone now. However, having had discussions
with one of my professors, I would be honest enough to state that I have
changed my opinion. It was a quite useful discussion, where he told me that
Indian police and administration has no capability whatsoever to take on the
Maoists, and the CRPF and the other batallions too are incapable in this
regard. What's more, the armed forces (the army, navy and air force) are
only capable of fighting an aggressive war and not a defensive war (meaning
they will kill all people in the area rather than waiting to receive fire
from Maoists and then opening fire to protect themselves).

Also, the changes which I had suggested, along with better training and
equipment for the personnel fighting out, according to him, would take a
minimum of 10-12 years for the effect to be seen on the ground, which would
be a quite long time, by when many more people would have lost their lives.
According to him, and he is a strategic thinker, the Indian govt. should
invite Maoists for talks and during these talks strengthen its intelligence
network to know about the top leadership functioning and their residences
and areas. They should simultaneously bring about changes in administration
and other areas, not only in Maoist-affected areas but also across the rest
of the nation.

He was categorical that use of air power is not going to help, and very
clearly stated that use of excessive force against tribals is only going to
enlarge the specter of violence. According to him, Chidambaram is only fit
for giving media interviews rather than understanding things. This will also
save our soldiers from unnecessarily losing our lives and not dampen further
their morale, which can create further problems.

Armed with facts and figures, he seemed reasonable to me. And I feel it's
high time we do go back to talks. I know it seems awkward after such a
massacre, and people may not necessarily be ready, but if we can talk to
Pakistan, we should talk to our own citizens. At least the time can be used
to ensure this leadership comes out and we can collect better intelligence
on them in case we wish to solve this problem in future if it turns to armed
intervention requirement.

Because my professor and I both agreed, that ultimately, solving Naxalism
would involve force, the extent of which may be different.


Rakesh