How The Worm Turns

How The Worm Turns

The LTTE killed Rajiv Gandhi. The self- same with whom he signed an accord, a veritable Faustian compact with V.Prabhakaran that achieved, in hindsight, little more than the death of several IPKF commandos in Sri Lanka, bad blood with the Sri Lankan Government and the LTTE alike, and then Rajiv Gandhi’s own cruel, undeserved, assassination.

The whole thing was a failure of both diplomacy and a military misadventure, with resonances that affect domestic politics in Chennai to this day. The central Government, and even the much- in- the- news IPL, responds tamely when there are shows of solidarity with the Sri Lankan Tamils in Tamil Nadu and localised bans on Sri Lankan cricketers.

Long after Sri Lanka’s civil war and the overcoming of the LTTE, there are relatively few cries for an independent Eelam, but the issue of Tamil suppression in Sri Lanka is still very much alive in Tamil Nadu.

This is borne out when a Kashmiri radical like Geelani suddenly announces his support for the Tamils of Sri Lanka recently. That we are commenting at various levels on the internal affairs of a neighbouring country is being ignored. But the sensitivities are aroused when the same is done to us, particularly by Pakistan, and with regard to Kashmir. 

Likewise, the Leftists in the Congress Party, of which there are quite a few, and indeed the CPM too, obliquely side with the Maoists. And now a massacre has taken place with over 20 deaths in Jagdalpur district of Chattisgarh.

Revolution, rag-tag or otherwise, does tend to eat its acolytes. As a country we are at least for the moment united in our condemnation of the massacre, but for how long? Instead of treating the menace spread over several states as a sizeable armed rebellion with well- trained cadres, we are tempted to blame the Salwa Judum movement.

But even in this massacre, the Maoists killed both the PCC President and his son as well as Mahendra Karma, erstwhile of the Salwa Judum. So they don’t want elections in Bastar and they don’t want anyone trying to curb their growth and dominance in the area either.

India has been underestimating the Maoist strategic and tactical resolve and execution. We don’t seem to know very much about the Maoists in our intelligence community, and our attempts to win their support base over has been rebuffed several times so far with sudden and bloody retaliation on their part.

All in all a course correction for the Left-liberal should be in the offing. When it pinches close to the bone the only thing to do is change tack, and yet there does not seem to be much stomach for dealing with the Maoists as a military threat.

But India thinks, implicitly, that human life is cheap. The rest is only a matter of acting out one’s preferences.

Do we begin to win when we see the problem clearly? Definitely, but do we really want to? Do we have the political will, and is there a political dividend in putting down the Maoists?

The deeper question that underlies such prevarication and desire to appease is how not reacting appropriately to a problem in its infancy turns it into an intractable one over time. It happened in Bhindranwale’s Punjab and matters would have slipped out of control with Pakistan’s aid and abetment if it weren’t for a very determined Mrs Indira Gandhi. It is playing out in Kashmir today but we have no one in the political arena with the possible exception of Narendra Modi with the courage and determination to tackle the issue.

In Kashmir the core issue is the special status the state enjoys. This has long been a political bone of contention but no one has seen fit to revoke it by developing a two- thirds consensus for the lifting of article 370 in parliament.  

Talk of revoking Article 370 in J&K has always been viewed as a communally sensitive issue with an eye on the 170 million plus Muslim population of India. But to regard the Indian Muslim as somehow less than patriotic is an insult to them, and to the many Muslims that serve in our armed and Para- military forces.

Somehow this does not seem to matter to some of our politicians in the ruling establishment and the Left- Liberal intelligentsia, who even believe it is not a good idea to go after  Islamic terrorists with too much determination.

This lot tries to equate Islamic terrorism, much greater in intensity and frequency, with a foreign induced component more often than not, on par with “Hindu terrorism”, necessarily home- grown. This politics-as-usual approach is doing the country as a whole irreparable harm.

The local politicians in J&K, which includes the nowadays frequently threatened Ladakh area, have grown intractable over time. The local population in the Valley are dangerously politicised and prone to disruption. The state laws prevent free access to this potential paradise in terms of buying and owning property there for the rest of the Indians.

And Pakistan, even China, fishes constantly in troubled waters. China is now developing infrastructure in POK and stationing troops there. And yet we cannot find enough determination to change the political and demographic complexion of Kashmir and make it an integral part of India on par with any other state.

And when it comes to the Maoists, there is a dilemma at the heart of the Left- wing politics prevailing in this country from the National Advisory Council downwards. Every political party professes its support for the poor in much the same manner.  In a country where one third of the population is very poor this is sensible, but sops and doles are not going to solve the problem. Development of rural infrastructure is the answer and not enough is being done in this regard.

The Government is embarked instead on a major thrust of Welfarism and sees it as promotion of equity and justice for the poor who must not be left behind. And, of course, it hopes for a political dividend from this largesse that returns it to power yet again.

The various supporting parties within and without the UPA feel likewise. The Opposition BJP implements the welfare projects in its states and hopes it will return them to power as well. The CPM may not have any states to run at present but is definitely a champion of the poor. The Trinamool Congress has had fairly cordial relations with the Maoists in West Bengal and adjoining states. All across the Leftist spectrum, people are loathe to regard the Maoists as the enemy.

And so the menace grows.

(1,107 words)

May 29^th, 2013

Gautam Mukherjee