Justifying Maoist violence
Maoists are not concerned about problems of the tribals or poor. These are handy excuses to direct violence against the state.
Shrikant Patil, who is very angry after his trip to Sikkim — visibly shaken seeing the vast difference in infrastructure developed on the Chinese and the Indian side — made an interesting point about Maoists in an offline conversation. Some of his acquaintances — few even holding doctorates from Ivy League universities — have been providing intellectual support to the Maoists. They believe that the Maoists provided an expression to the tribals and downtrodden suffering from acute historical social inequities, which was compounded by the apathy of the society and an unresponsive state. Once there was no effort from the government in an independent, democratic India to redress their genuine grievances and no other means made available to them to engage the state peacefully, their reaction found an outlet in the form of LWE violence. In other words, the violence was necessary for the state to sit up and take notice.
The parallel, which Kobad Ghandy seemed to draw as he was being taken to the courts, is that of Bhagat Singh and his group of revolutionaries acting against the British.
It takes a loud voice to make the deaf hear, with these immortal words uttered on a similar occasion by Valiant, a French anarchist martyr, do we strongly justify this action of ours.[Link]
Let us keep the questions about morality of violence, freedom and colonialism away from this debate for a moment. Now that the government has heard their voice and offered to talk with them, where is the need for continued brutal violence by the Maoists against innocent government servants. Isn’t it because all this talk of tribal rights, forests, land acquisition, development — all genuine problems of the downtrodden — is a charade, a convenient excuse available to the murderers, goons, extortionists operating under the label of Maoists and Naxalites, to overthrow the Indian state and capture absolute power by violent means.
These intellectuals — who should be aptly christened OGW – Over Ground Workers of the Maoists — are blinded by their angry opposition to Operation Green Hunt against the Maoists. They should pause for a moment before dismissing the Home Minister’s plans as organised state violence. As it turns out, some thought has been given by the Minister in backing up the security operations with deployment of teams focused on socio-economic development.
The forces deployed in an area would be followed by a back-up team that focuses on socio-economic development. Specialists in various fields, including socio-economic index researchers, development workers, health professionals, educators and others have also been recruited for the operation. “Overall it is a comprehensive operational strategy that would first seek to clear an area of Maoists, occupy it militarily and follow it up with socio-economic development activity. The understanding is that it would take 18 to 4 (?) months in each of the phases to operationalise the strategy and implement it successfully,” said a senior Home Ministry official to Frontline.[Frontline]
While the government is duty-bound to solve the problems of the tribals, the poor and the downtrodden and it must be forced to do so by the citizenry, it is equally responsible for ensuring security and a rule of law for all citizens of the state. The former has no meaning without the latter; in fact, the former can only be assured by ensuring the latter.
“As it turns out, some thought has been given by the Minister in backing up the security operations with deployment of teams focused on socio-economic development.)
The HM will solve the problem. Brilliant and bold, he has it in him. If only he would stop wearing that tight sari_cheongsam and adopt DM Marc Antony’s (scruffy) changshan it would make a more robust impression. Brit General Sir Francis Tuker in his book ‘While Memory Serves’ pub 1950 describes the dhoti (Glossary, Appendix XIV) as ” a length of cotton cloth wound round the body to form a garment, halh skirt, half trouser” so there.
Cannot cross dress like Caesers wife and veni vidi vici.
Why is some random englishman’s opinion on the Indian dhoti/veshti/mundu relevant? People have done very “martial” things attired in a simple dhoti…just because some foreigner has a quaint view of Indian culture, does not mean it needs to be appreciated or acknowledged.
If people think I am kidding, they should try doing some martial stunts with some mundu-wearing Kalaripayattu experts from Kerala….people might start claiming that the mundu/veshti is a garment of war and violence after that experience.
@ .
Comment definitely ‘below the belt’
The HM is brave- No doubt, didn’t flinch a bit when aimed at by the sardar journalist
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwUpKYVRh6U
Jokes apart- he seems to be determined in his speeches regarding the Naxal menace.
Now walk the talk.
As long as the govt. takes care to spread the word first and neutralize maoist propaganda that will flood the airwaves during the initial cleanup phase, it will continue to have public support till the end of the operations. But knowing the level of inferiority complex in the average Indian, there might well be more Indians who shoot at their government’s foot with perfect accuracy under the misguided notion that they are really “helping the poor tribals” by using them as human shields against the Indian security forces. When the maoists use human shields, these Naxal OGWs will provide anti-Indian propaganda blaming the security forces for extreme violence — these Naxal OGWs, as and when they are detected, need to prevented from being able to use the free media to spread maoist propaganda during the clean up phase. They can all yell and scream against the government to their heart’s content after all the maoist controlled districts are functioning normally. None of their yelling and screaming will have any buyers at that point, and they will be seen as the worthless and pointless obstructionists these JNU jholawallahs are.
“Why is some random englishman’s* opinion on the Indian dhoti”
( *Was GOC in C Eastern Command, admired Indian art, literature, Urdu poetry readings etc )
Ok, at least the police and paramilitary must remove Scot bagpipes from their inspirational music even if the colonial faujis refuse to ? Also the largest manufacturers of bagpipes are now based in Pakistan. Why subsidise ‘them’ ? Then, the train stopping enemy with bows and arrows need simple archery countermeasures not heavy artillery ?
“Was GOC in C Eastern Command, admired Indian art, literature, Urdu poetry readings etc”
Maybe, but does not take away from the fact that his views are quaint and misinformed, if he is your authority to pretend that the veshti is “like a skirt” and thus effeminate.
If you do some dhoti research, you will find that there are multiple configurations of a dhoti depending on the kind of activity required — when fighting or doing sporting activity, the dhoti can be worn so that it resembles a pair of shorts than a skirt….but we cannot expect a british GOC to know such things, can we now? Outside of his views as a GOC, his observations on Indians is not really relevant to Indians, even if it is considered “educational” for outsiders.
@ SR Murthy
I see you point Sir, Mr Lal Bahadur Shastri and Mr Jagjivan Ram both wore that cloth version and did a great job sorting out neighbours. Years ago, Mr Kamaraj addressed the DSSC wearing a lungi thingie. No one raised an objection. Way to go.
Seems reasonable if the Paramilitary, Police allow it at least for parades if not while tackling Maoist violence. As a trendsetter may encourage colonial faujis to quit their trousers and cummerbunds, IMFL styles etc. Several years ago one Indian paramilitary force adopted the Nazi style goose step as their official parade marching style (Asian Age newspaper photos) so them can be excluded from dhotis as awkward.
., no need to go overboard and make the dhoti compulsory uniform in the army
, though I can see the dhoti industry getting a leg up if that happened. My only point is that looking at India with an outsider’s point of view is not very useful for an Indian. That is all.