End lip service on Naxalism and Kashmir

End lip service on Naxalism and Kashmir

Kamlendra KanwarUpdated: Monday, June 24, 2019, 11:17 AM IST
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While the Narendra Modi government justifiably gloats over its recent wins in Assembly elections in UP and Uttarakhand, its spectacular civic polls success in Delhi and its strategic conversion of defeats in Goa and Manipur into wins, it must not lose sight of the fact that it has failed to measure up to the two key internal security challenges—Kashmir and Naxalism. In both, its role leaves a lot to be desired.

In Kashmir its policy has been muddled and ineffective and it needs to pull up its socks. Forming a coalition of the PDP and the BJP was not intrinsically bad, considering that it brought a party that was flirting with separatists in fits and starts into the mainstream of development and counter-insurgency. But the Mehbooba Mufti government failed to deliver on the ground and grossly mismanaged the insurgency and terror export from Pakistan.
On Naxalism in the vulnerable Maoist belt of Maharashtra, Chhatisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal, there has been a lot of lip service but no tangible results in the war on extremism. If anything, the ferocity of Naxal attacks on the security forces has sharpened due as much to unimaginative handling as to lack of coordination among states, intelligence failures and poor combat readiness.

The recent attack on men of the Central Reserve Police Force by Naxals in the Sukma jungles in Chhatisgarh sandwiched between Odisha and Andhra Pradesh in which 25 CRPF jawans were mowed down and their arms looted was an unpardonable failure of intelligence besides being a major blot on the CRPF command’s sense of altertness. That this ambush came a little over a month after 13 policemen of the CRPF were killed in a similar attack close by shows that no correctives were put in place by the Centre or the Chhatisgarh government.

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh has, in a typical reflex action, promised the overhaul of the Naxal policy and has assured the country that the sacrifices of the jawans will not go in vain but such statements have been made ad nauseam by this government and even by the erstwhile Congress government. Likewise, brainstorming sessions with the bureaucracy and the security forces have been held after every major incident but we seem to be still going around in circles.

Had Rajnath Singh meant business this time around and had he sought to drill a sense of urgency in the minds of the officials and politicians alike, he would have called the ‘high-level’ meeting of representatives of states and concerned Central reps as also of security and intelligence services within four or five days of the ghastly event and impressed upon them that the problem needed to be tackled on a war footing.

Instead, the Home Minister has called the meeting on May 8, two weeks after the snuffing out of 25 precious lives. But that is typical of the speed at which our governments work. It has now been revealed by the CRPF (quoted in the media) that a kilometre of road in the jungles of Sukma (where the attack took place) had taken 15-20 days to construct. That gave ample time to the Naxals to plan and execute their attack with our intelligence blissfully unaware of the scheming that was going on.

A proposal to adopt a new technology that would cut the time taken to construct a one-kilometre stretch to two days has been gathering dust with the Chhatisgarh government for the last three years. Where is the accountability? Shouldn’t the state government of Raman Singh be hauled up for this lapse? Shouldn’t some heads roll, perhaps also that of the chief minister? Must we continue to be such a passive establishment especially when the government in the state is that of the same party as that at the Centre?

Two months ago, Naxals had killed the sarpanch of the area where the massacre occurred. This is being cited as one reason why the intelligence was so poor. The sarpanch was the link between the local administration and the intelligence machinery. Shouldn’t the replacement have been found post haste since this was such a stronghold of the Naxalites?

It is known to the Union Home Ministry and to the state government that there are regular channels between Chinese and Pakistani agencies on one hand and the Naxals on the other for supply of armaments. Has anything been done to plug these channels and choke the supply of vital arms and ammunition? While the extremists get regular supply of arms, the security forces receive scanty supply of sophisticated equipment due to governmental red tape and lack of helpful attitude of the authorities. The politicians pay lip service to the sacrifices of martyrs but are they doing enough to make the task of the security forces any simpler? The answer is a big ‘no.’

It is not as though the action against the Naxals is a lost cause. Far from it. An all-out war against them with security forces properly equipped with arms and ammunition combined with the construction of roads, police stations, schools and healthcare centres in the areas of Naxalite activity is the need of the hour. Andhra Pradesh showed the way under YSR Reddy’s chief ministership when it virtually eliminated the Naxal problem.

The Modi government has the wherewithal to successfully combat this problem. It must devote its attention to this long-festering issue and root it out lock, stock and barrel. The time to act is now. It is to be hoped that the May 8 high-level meeting will yield results. If coordination between states is an issue, the Centre must seek to amend the law to take on a more active role.

The author is a political commentator and columnist.
He has authored four books

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