Comments on: Chhattisgarh: “More Depressing than Afghanistan”

By: H.Murmu

H.Murmu — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 20:43:46 +0000

Most of the people when come to such issues try to gather information from foreign/so called indian intellectual elite sources who have neither have been there or have a just outsider experience. The first thing these Naxalites do after entering into a village is attack on the religious book and enforcing folks to eat nonveg food. There is a strong element of christian misionaries backing the naxalite movement same as they are doing in North- East (Nagaland,Manipur, Mizoram all tribal groups are getting money from christian missionaries for waging war against India). My sincere request for others is to stop buying readymade fake intellectual information from english media, infact this is the sole reason why these problems are still unsolved. We have to solve our problems by helping our state in development and law/order maintenance and nor by putting them under pressure of human rights issues. Where these human rights activists go when naxalites kill people in row. In fact they are killing poor people and not poverty.

By: Mr.Wise

Mr.Wise — Thu, 03 May 2007 19:08:49 +0000

Nanda Kishore, you are right about the fact that YSR’s ‘peace talks’ allowed the Naxals to regroup, but perhaps in his defense, you do have to atleast try to talk peace some times. The Naxals have been around for almost 20 years now, and there might be a chance that they are actually interested in peace. I guess he gave it a shot, and the Naxals used this opening to their advantage. And as for the pockets in Telengana, etc that you mentioned, there are other reasons why the Naxals still have some support there.

By: Nanda Kishore

Nanda Kishore — Thu, 03 May 2007 18:20:55 +0000

Mr.Wise, I agree the situation in is relatively better now, but there are still pockets in Telangana and even in Srikakulam and Vizianagaram districts where Naxals have strength. YSR’s peace talks were a farce. Crucially, YSR’s political machinations allowed Naxals to regroup when they were being beaten back. Now he’s trying to undo the damage.

By: Mr.Wise

Mr.Wise — Thu, 03 May 2007 16:28:29 +0000

Actually, Nanda Kishore, the AP state police has now been given a free hand to go after the Naxals. The phase of ‘looking away’ which you referred to, is now over, since this was during the abortive peace talks that YSR Reddy held when he came to power. In any case, the Naxals in AP have been on the backfoot for a long time because most AP administrations have been really diligent in chasing them down. They do occasionally make headlines like that failed attack on Chandrababu Naidu, but for the most part, they just try to avoid getting killed. This, however, is not the case in Orissa/Jharkand, sadly.

By: Nanda Kishore

Nanda Kishore — Thu, 03 May 2007 09:59:08 +0000

The only problem I have with the Salwa Judum style of counter insurgency operations is, as someone else mentioned, that Salwa Judum ‘cadre’ are lambs to the slaughter. Nothing short of a ruthless nationwide operation is going to bring down the naxals, and that operation will never see the light of the day as long as political outfits have clandestine pacts with naxal leaders.

By: Nanda Kishore

Nanda Kishore — Thu, 03 May 2007 09:53:50 +0000

Not to trivialize the problem, but the government's approach with Salwa Judum sounds like an overreaction, and they'd be better served by just doing what they should be doing - providing rural India with infrastructure (roads first, water second, etc).

State administrations have largely failed in most parts of India in bringing basic services to people. It's of course a lot more acute in remote rural areas. It would have been fine if that (among other things) was what Maoists were fighting for (really, what are they fighting for?). Entire sections of Chattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, AP and Orissa are or have been terrorised by these groups and state police are either told to look away (as in the case of AP when YSR Reddy first came to power) or are simply no match for naxals (e.g., Orissa). The fatality numbers don't quite tell the whole story. Jehanabad-style raids have been mounted elsewhere, but don't get reported widely.

By: fsowalla

fsowalla — Thu, 03 May 2007 08:18:12 +0000

The Maoists/Naxalites problem appears to be something that teh government of India is unwilling to face because it means facing the reality of the severe under-devlopment in Maoist dominated areas and failure of the government to provide basics for 2/3 of its citizens.

Add to that the growing links between Maoists in India and in Nepal. Sadly, the Maoists don't offer much better than the government does to the people they claim to be helping.

By: Nanda Kishore

Nanda Kishore — Thu, 03 May 2007 07:13:02 +0000

The truth is that the current dispensation at the centre is shackled (presuming that they have the will) by its own political compulsions. The Naxal problem has to be attacked on both fronts – socio-economic changes and law enforcement, otherwise we will just be left with mouthing platitudes about peace while they take over our villages (something that has already happened in many parts).

By: Nanda Kishore

Nanda Kishore — Thu, 03 May 2007 06:20:40 +0000

Prema, do you just make these comments to get off on the reactions?

By: Kurma

Kurma — Thu, 03 May 2007 05:57:46 +0000

I’ve not got much to comment, but thank you, Amardeep, for posting this.