Saturday, May 29, 2010
India grapples for response as Maoists grow bolder
India's move violently to find an effective strategy against an more and more violent Maoist rebellion has been an air of extreme anxiety by insurgent’s ramp up the volume and intensity of their activities.
Maoist saboteurs were blamed for Friday's derailment of a high-speed passenger train in West Bengal which collides with an oncoming freight train, killing 138 people.
Coming after a landmine attack earlier this month that killed 35 people, including 24 civilians, but optional the rebels' plan has changed from a previously almost exclusively focused on security forces.
The rising civilian death toll has greater than before public and political control of India's counterinsurgency policy, which until now have the operational responsibility of the person states rather than the state.
An offensive in November in the hardest hit areas by nearly 60,000 paramilitary and state police was coordinated by New Delhi, but it has produced little in the way of concrete results and Maoist attacks have sustained unabated.
After Friday's train wreck that West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya is clear that the States felt it was time for a new move toward.
"We must find ways to contradict this threat, he said." Innocent people are being killed. "
Analysts say the government is hamstrung by internal disagreement over how to proceed, with some urging a more violent policy, and others favor a long-term strategy that addresses the situation of landless tribal people and poor farmers from whom the Maoists withdraw support.
"There is a conflict between the" hawks who want to crush the insurgents and the so-called doves, who want development in Maoist-dominated areas to adjust their support, "said Ajai Sahni, a violence expert.
Home Minister P Chidambaram is seen as belong to the former camp, while the Congress party leader Sonia Gandhi, and has harassed the need to tackle the "causes" of turmoil.
But the conflict is actually a slogan, because neither party seems to have no idea how to flesh out their respective plans, "said Sahni.
"It is absolutely incoherence, whether you are talking about progress and security. There is no chat or agreement on the contents of either strategy, 'he added.
It's not as if India is inexperienced in fighting insurgency.
Revolt of unreliable size and intensity has risen and fallen in various parts of the country for decades, including the 20-year-old separatist struggle in Kashmir has claimed at least 47,000 lives.
But most have been limited to a particular state. The Maoists, however, is spread over a large area and operates out of some of India's most isolated and least developed regions - making the counterinsurgency coordination a difficult challenge.
"Maoists are widespread in areas where management and the police are in a state of decomposition," said KPS Gill, former POLICE COMMISSIONER in Punjab, who was credited with crushing a violent Sikh militants in the 1990s.
Gill, who has advised the government of Maoist-infested state of Chhattisgarh on security issues, said the state administrations lacked the resources to fight the rebels.
"The police simply do not have the will and the numbers they need. You have to better equip the men and took them to take on the Maoists, he said.
Meanwhile, grassroots activists who are working in areas where the Maoists have great power says the government will pay the price for years of indifference to the homeless, marginalized populations left behind by India's economic boom.
"I am against violence, and I think the killing of ordinary people will not endear the Maoists to the masses," said Medha Patkar, a tribal rights activist.
"That said, we want the government to be more responsive to the needs of the people to keep a dialogue to solve the real problems that tribal and poor people face.
"We have taken a non-violent struggle for tribal rights for decades, and the government has turned a deaf ear to us. So it's no wonder some people think violence is the only way to make the government listen," Patkar said.
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