The first version of this article talked about why the Maoist problem has grown to such a large degree, and how the lack of development, and percolating of the forward movement of the Indian economy to backward and tribal areas is important. In the second part, we address how serious the issue is, and what needs to be done.
The Maoist problem is indeed a massive problem, especially when you consider that the Maoist occupy huge chunks of the land area of the country, and are now emerging in a position to hold hostage many of the crucial economic links that the country depends upon. What are these ? The Maoists have given a good example of what all they can do. In the past, they have shown that they attack police stations in many areas of the country, sometimes in masses of 100’s. They over-run smaller towns and habitations, destroy police stations, loot these stations of their weapons, and also loot banks of money. They do targeted attacks of police and para-military companies, killing patrolling parties through a combination of land-mines, direct attacks and sneaking attacks, and then attacking the reinforcements. Further, many of these encounters take place in remote areas where sending reinforcements take time, while the Maoists know the jungle.
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A lot of problems that India faces in terms of internal disturbances are ignored till they are almost too late to solve. So, the Punjab problem was allowed to grow without actions being taken to stop or take concrete actions to stop the problem, the same with the Kashmir problem. Now, we have seen the same problem with the Maoists. Over the past many years, it has been proclaimed that the huge zone that the Marxists control in the backward, densely forested areas of the country was a problem to the security of the country, but there were no concrete actions taken to stop this growth, or address the root of these issues.
Even more so than the Punjab and Kashmir problem, the problems leading to the growth of the Red problem in states such as Andhra Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkand, West Bengal, Orissa, Bihar and Maharashtra are basically problems related to governance and political issues. It is no coincidence that the ultra-left group has grown in areas where there are low levels of development, where the state institutions (police, babudom) are seen as heavy-handed or absent. It is this feeling of a separateness from the overall economic development happening in the country that is feeding the ultra-Marxists growth. All these are issues that the state needs to address, and different state Governments have responded differently. So, for example, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh have a much more nuanced strategy that has evolved in the recent years of combining police action with a development based strategy.
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