Strategy to deal with Naxal Violence: CAN Gandhian methods still help?
A few lessons from insurgency around the world may be helpful in looking at this problem in our own country too. Red shirt protectors may have lost out to yellow shirt people in Thailand for the time being but since the root problem has not been addressed, the problems are likely to erupt again. And may be this will happen with greater vehemence this time. The exclusion of poor from health, education and other basic needs for a long period cannot be sustained by force for too long. In Afghanistan, the western forces are trying to wean ‘good’ Talibans from the ‘bad’ ones. In Peru, the Shining Path really lost out when support of local people was no longer available to the insurgents/revolutionaries. In Punjab, it was not force that contained the problem. It was the realization by the local communities which hitherto had been supporting the insurgents that even their daughters were not safe anymore at the hands of these so called liberators. Once the support was lost, the movement could be checked and contained. Its roots lay in the reduction of proportion of Sikhs in the army (though they always made much larger sacrifice than their proportion in terms of numbers, in any war for the nation in any war) and the false declaration by many people in census that their mother tongue was Hindi when actually they could neither read or write it at all. The threat to identity and lack of viable opportunities for youth fuelled the separatist cries.
Handing over power to insurgents in Assam after the agitation and in Mizoram to the leader of disaffected party by the ruling chief minister despite having majority in assembly were gestures which held the nation together. In Nagaland, the peace interlocutors/keepers ( former Army generals) could maintain order despite the intransigence of the Home Ministry officials because of their human approach. They did not mind helping the family of the rebels when in trouble or in need of emergency health care purely on humanitarian basis. After all, their families had done no wrong. That kind of human touch made even the rebels listen to these peace keeping hamstrung generals. If we need help of ex army officers, we need help of such peace keepers and not the hawks.
Lot of people in Bastar feel hard-pressed or sandwiched between generally insensitive police and externally led naxalites many of whom are hand in glove with contractors and corrupt officials of industry as well as administration at local level. Since there are many naxalites who genuinely want the social inequity to be bridged, there are also many civil administrators also wish development to take place ( see mitanin scheme of health workers in Bastar, an outstanding example of system at work). Gandhian dialogue with saner elements, supported by urgent reforms in administration and strong thrust towards education, irrigation and water harvesting, in situ value addition, etc., can make a difference. The cock fights to promote sale of liquor have to be stopped by empowering women. Can quality of education ( we saw drunk teachers in school) and skill development be urgently pushed with the help of local youth leadership, majority of whom are peace loving and have aspirations to have a small part of the sky, which i and you share. Bastar is the cleanliness capital of India ( we did not see so many clean houses and their surroundings any where else), let us help it become the sanctuary of love and peace through justice and admission of guilt.
Anil K Gupta
