Cong works out how to curb menace

NEW DELHI: As the Centre readies itself to launch an offensive against murderous Maoists, the demand for a more nuanced, multi-pronged approach is getting louder in the Congress.

Party general secretary Rahul Gandhi���s statement that Naxalites reflect failure of the state to deliver development gives added strength to those raising this demand.

The Congress has a huge political stake in how Maoists are tackled in many districts of Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Orissa, where tribal people are a significant part of the population. Some senior Congress leaders have urged the high command to convene a Congress Working Committee meeting specially to discuss the matter and harmonise the party-government line on the subject.

It comes in the wake the Union home minister P Chidambaram signalling the government���s determination to launch an offensive against Maoists, with a rider that the Centre would also keep the door of dialogue open to extremists if they shun violence and lay down their arms. This is being interpreted in the party circles as a way of signalling a two-pronged approach.

Mr Chidambaram���s remarks also coincided with party general secretary Rahul Gandhi underlining the need for better administration and delivery mechanism to prevent the poor from being won over by the Maoists. Mr Gandhi, at the same time, added that those in the government ���are better informed��� to decide on the most effective ways to combat Maoists.
���I am not an expert on the Naxalite issue,��� he said.

The in-house Congress debate reflects a government-party divergence on the subject. This debate has also revived a sensitive topic that the AICC had sought to settle before the 2004 Lok Sabha polls through a party task committee that went into the Naxalite issue.

Many senior party leaders, who are also ministers and thus have direct access to vital security inputs from Maoists-hit areas, feel the scale of the challenge has to be properly understood, taking into account the multi-dimensional character and danger of the `red corridor���.

They acknowledge that socio-economic backwardness of the these areas, the result of long years of administrative negligence, has made it easy for Maoists to expand influence in the tribal belt. At the same time, they feel it would be too simplistic to see Maoists threat only through a socio-economic prism. The massive funding, arming with sophisticated weaponry and suspected international connections of Maoists, they feel, have to be taken into account. They are also sensitive to the safety and morale of security personnel who are in the line of Maoist firing.

What makes the Congress organisational establishment cautious is the fact Maoists operate in many states where the party has high political stakes among tribal communities and other socially backward sections who once used to be solid supporters of the Congress. The party���s regional satraps in these states are pushing for a ���careful��� and ���sensitive��� ���multi-pronged approach���.

CWC member and former Chhattisgarh chief minister Ajit Jogi, himself a member of a Scheduled Tribe community, and possessing considerable administrative experience in dealing with Naxalite issue, told ET: ���The tackling of Maoists has to have a three-pronged approach, socio-economic, political and administrative. The difference between ���Maoist sympathisers��� among the poor and ���activists��� who take up arms should be understood with an historic perspective. The government should take long-term imaginative and sensitive social, economic and political measures for the upliftment of the poor and tribals to help them come out of the Maoists grip. Along with these steps, the government can take on those who are unleashing violence under the garb of helping the poor and pushing them into the line of fire.���

Mr Jogi said, the ���failure��� of Salwa Judum is proof of the perils of treating the Naxalite issue only as a law and order problem. ���See the havoc left behind by the Salwa Judum experiment. It has uprooted thousands of tribals from hundreds of remote villages and left them to live like animals in inhuman camps. Their abandoned villages are now under the unchallenged control of Naxalites.���

AICC in-charge of Jharkhand and West Bengal, K Keshava Rao, who as former Andhra Pradesh PCC chief was part of the YSR government���s peace-talks with Naxalites said: ���Maoists should realise there can���t be any place for violent in a democracy. I support the home minister���s statement that government will talk to those who give up arms. I am of the firm view that the people in Delhi should take a comprehensive view on the issue of Maoists. A bullet-for-bullet approach, treating it only as a law and order problem will not work as the socio-economic complexity of the issue should be understood. In Andhra Pradesh our state government successfully implemented a policy, with a socio-economic-security framework. There are lessons to be learned from the AP experiment. I am planning to meet Mr Chidambaram in a day or two to discuss the issue of Maoists, especially since the two states I am looking after also face the same problem. The party leadership will also discuss it.���