Be hard on Naxals.

Taking this article from my favorite weekly mag:

WHEN will all these Maoist killings stop? Is there no end to their brutality? Of course, the blame lies entirely on the far-Left radical communists supportive of Maoist political sentiment and ideology. Mao, like Stalin, was not a simple ideologist. He was a murderer, responsible for the deaths of millions of his countrymen in cold blood. He was no friend of the poor. Nor are today’s Maoists in India, the so-called Naxalites. They are professional murderers in the name of seeking justice for the tribals. They are believers in armed liberation whatever that means. Home Minister P Chidamabram says that is it not his intention to kill Naxalites because "they are our own people". Nonsense. The Naxals don’t treat innocent fellow citizens as "our people". The killing of innocent people has been going on since 1996 when 156 were murdered.

According to Home Ministry records, in the last twenty years the Naxalites have killed more than 6,000 people and expressed no regrets. The most recent killings at Sildah in West Bengal resulting in 21 jawans being charred to death is true to Maoist character. They understand only one language: State force. West Bengal is a pathetic case. Under the guidance of the CPM and of its face mask the late Jyoti Basu, police were inveigled into Marxism and the CPM ideology in the 1970s. In the circumstances they have shown a marked reluctance to fight Naxalites. The policemen in Sildah were totally unprepared for the Naxal onslaught. Even their rifles were not in working order. They could not shoot more than one bullet. It is not their fault. The fault lies squarely with the Communist Buddhadev Government which, by now, has destroyed police commitment to their profession.

To destroy Naxalism, one must first totally eliminate communism from our political system, making it illegal. The State must show no mercy to professional killers who, according to India’s Intelligency Agency, the Research & Analysis Wing (RAW) exercise control over 92,000 square kms in 220 districts spread in twenty states. There apparently are 20,000 Naxalite armed cadres actively engaged in carrying out a "war", aided and abetted by some 50,000 civil caders working in various mass organisations under spurious names. And supporting these gangsters are hundreds of "intellectuals" who should know better.

The worst enemies of India are not the tribesmen in whose name Naxalies kill and loot, but our misled "intellectuals" whose icon is Charu Mazumdar who divided people along class lines, naming police, landlords and corrupt politicians as "class enemies" to be eliminated. The viciousness of the Naxalites extends beyond the so-called "class enemies". According to United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), Maoists blew up nearly 300 schools in India between 2006 and 2009. This was followed by Naxalites recruiting children to do the dirty work. The trouble is that, apart from West Bengal where police have literally ceased to be police, in other States police/population ratio is pathetic.

Consider these facts: New Delhi has 3953 police officers to every square mile of its territory, while Chhattisgarh has just 22, Jharkhand 50 and Bihar 59. The United Nations has recommended that 220 police officers be available for every 10,000 population. India has an average of just 125. In a major study on police Reform in India, JY Umranikar IPS has noted that there are only 518 rural police stations in Maharashtra as against 3,035 recommended by the National Police Commission. What is worse is the fact pointed out by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs in its 88th report that "today we have a police force which is highly politicized and politically polarized (which) has become a pawn in the hands of its masters". In return, the Report said, "the policemen get political patronage, which has become necessary for their survival". But things apparently are changing.

According to Express News Service (February 14), five Border Security Force (BSF) battalions - about 5,000 personnel will be moving into Malkangiri District and adjoining areas in Orissa to counter Naxals who are desperately seeking a safe haven following operations in Chhattisgarh. The inter-State border will be sealed with check points, just as it is being done on the Maharashtra side. In Maharashtra’s Gadchiroli district- the worst Maoist-affected in the state - the government has apparently agreed to recruit some 3,000 tribes people into the police force to be trained for anti-Naxal operations. Home Secretary GK Pillai is quoted as saying that "once the full employment of forces come, we should be able to clear Gadchiroli of all Naxal elements within a year".

It is not clear what kind of training the tribes people will get, considering most of the Naxalites are tribes people themselves. How prepared the Security Establishment is to tackle Naxalite terror was last exposed on March 15, 2007 when Naxalites attacked and killed 55 Security Personnel in Chhattisgarh. According to a report, "cowardice, desertion by Security Personnel, too much dependence on locally-recruited Special Police Officers (SPOs), delayed rescue operations, lack of proper training were identified as the key reasons for the killings by Naxalites. In the circumstances hiring tribals to fight tribals cannot be a recommended suggestion. One suggestion put forward to control the Naxalites is to "saturate" tribal areas with development plans. A better idea would be to create an entirely tribal administrative service (TAS) with powers to locate areas needing development and authority to use appropriate funds without having to go through administrative hassles. But first and foremost, the government must dislodge the so-called "instigating the tribals to armed revolt. The enemy of the country is not the poor uneducated tribal but the well-educated urban intellectual who has sold his soul to the long-exposed inhuman ideology of western societies - a mocking of which was made in China by a barbarian called Mao-Tse-Tung. We don’t have to be soft towards such characters who, behind the veneer of toplevel education, are traitors seeking to destroy the essential unity of the country and deserve no pity. Of late Mr Chidambram seems to have realised it. As he told the New Delhi Indian Women’s Press Crops recently, there can be no "half-way approach" towards the CPI (Maoists). Those who take up the sword must perish by the sword.