For weeks we saw the deployment of security forces in Maoist-affected areas – trucks, fatigues, AK-47 and choppers. Operation Green Hunt unfolded like a badly-made action film. Then 75 soldiers were gunned down in Dantewada. Union Home Minister P Chidambaram was right when he observed that something had gone wrong. When India’s tribal people and hill dwellers cite alienation, they speak the truth. In the first few decades of independence our struggle was finding resources to integrate remote locations. In the years after that, while economic growth produced the required resources, our struggle has been to find people for the job. The teachers, doctors and other representatives of the mainstream, who ought to be at their posts in wilderness, are often absent. A posting to the wilderness has no social standing unless it is a civil servant or army officer. This is a story familiar to anyone who has lived away from cities and the fewer who explored the wilderness. Decades ago, there would have been some revered political figure taking the initiative to end the bloodbath, park oneself at the trouble spot and encourage talks. It hasn’t happened.
Today we have the market and its proxy warriors. So the government takes the Maoists head on, hopefully targeting ideologue and not tribal, in a fight for governance of the land. This is a valid fight for Maoism advocates subversion of India’s democracy. It also justifies violence as means. Should such war be the case, then one hopes that the government’s approach, strategy and commitment would be different from the homesick huddles currently going into battle.
Mohd Ziyaullah Khan
Nagpur, M’rashtra