Who are the Naxalites and the recurrence of Naxalism?
The face of Naxalism that we see today is nothing similar to what once started as a people’s revolution against atrocities. What we see today is an ugly ferocious face of a hybrid of Naxalism and Terrorism, probably a Frankenstein’s monster born in the 1960s in Naxalbari (hence the name), a remote village in West Bengal. What we saw then was a splintering out of a radical Communist faction, who took up arms for their rights.
Nowadays Naxalism in India has been synonymous to terror. When the first Marxist-Leninist movement in Telangana was called off on Soviet Union’s suggestion in 1951, no one would have thought that a Mao-inspired revolution would erupt in a remote place in West Bengal a decade and half later. This revolution came at a time when advocates of the Left-wing decided to enter the parliamentary democracy. After the famed Naxalbari movement of 1972 was crushed no one imagined a People’s War emerging in less than a decade.
The ‘Red Corridor’ has gradually spread its tentacles to 13 states and 155 districts in two decades. With a more than 55,000 well-trained cadres, well equipped with high-tech weapons and a well honed guerilla strategy in its compact ‘remote’ territory the power of the Naxals can be easily estimated.
Why is the phenomenal growth happening?
If the Naxals are tagged as terrorists, the question of their phenomenal growth still remains. The liberalization of the economy, total disappearance of the land reforms and the constant focus on the rural development programmes via industrialization have kept the Naxal agenda relevant for the rural poor. Food-for-work programmes, the NREGS and other such schemes have never addressed the question of land reforms in rural India.
Further commercialization of the forest resources has alienated the Adivasis/Girijans from the forest produce. Mining and construction have caused major displacement of the tribals without proper resettlement policies.
What has the government done to tackle Naxalites?
The states have been struggling with various security options with innovations like ‘Salwa Judum’ in Chattisgarh to ‘Girijan Greyhound’ in Andhra Pradesh. However these options have been failing in the face of growing might of Naxalites.
India has long been called as ‘soft-state’ when it comes to tackling of its internal conflicts for nation’s interest. After years of the central government pretending the Naxalism to be a state-level issue it has accepted Naxalism a national problem. The government finally formulated a grand plan to solve this problem which would hugely increase boots on the ground and gun-fires in the air. But is this the solution we are looking for quite often being oblivious of human rights violations.
Finding the solution.
Although a necessary evil hitting back with firepower sadly will not be enough. The origins of Naxalism might lie in the socio-economic injustices, but the movement has long since gone past the stage of fighting for social justice and development. Also problem couldn’t be solved the way it was done in Punjab before terrorism was wiped off from there. The alternative, as used in other militant movements- in the North East for instance- can be a resolute military action along with discussions could help bring them into the mainstream. Meanwhile states should continue working on the public grievance redressal system and organizing self-help groups in these areas. That is where we could hope to make a difference.
