Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Is use of Military force justified to subdue the Naxals?

The answer comes to my mind is that NO. Some say we can use limited Air force i.e. for reconnaissance but will it help. To use the Air force effectively for reconnaissance will require lot of communication between Air force and our paramilitary forces fighting on the ground. It has been observed lot of times that even Army and Air force do not have good communication. In the Kargil war even the infiltration by terrorists was not spotted by the Satellites but our intelligence agencies had the information and it was not properly coordinated to know the intentions of the terrorists.
So will Airforce make the lot of difference in the dense forests? Some analysts have already given example of Andhra Pradesh which successfully handled the Naxals. They created police force named GreyHounds which chased the Naxals gathered intelligence information and won the trust of locals with some projects government took to create employment. Why not follow this Model. It does not have to replicated exactly some changes can always be made according to the situation. But using Army is not the option at all. Because Army will cause more headache than solution. In the North East Indian Army is the ruler by the special amendment in the constitution (Armed forces special power act). Its like martial law where Military can arrest any person on the suspicion of having link to the terrorist organization. But it has not helped to improve the situation. Why ?? The reason is same people there feel alienated from India sometimes even they do not call themselves Indian. Thats the same case with adivasis. They are not absorbed in the society and using Military on them will only result in attracting their fury because Military uses force very brutally. There have been naked march by Women in the Assam because many Jawans raped women to get the information or to create the terror (so that no one would go to the other side) or sometimes out of anger. But it has not worked and it should not happen on the Bengal or Orissa.
Bringing Army in the Naxal hit areas will be the biggest folly. It will only give Naxals reason to incite the Adivasis. Laready they have reason because according to them paramilitary forces misuse their power. Do not give them anymore reason. If Andhra has done it any state can do it. Even Maharashtra has done in the past. I think our Home Minister needs some time to handle the Naxals his way. But some elements in the government are not letting him to do the work. He is arrogant but you need people like him to do the work like this. He did well against Islamic Terrorists. So he is capable of doing this job. Also there is another reason why Maoists seems to have free reign in the Bengal because of the sympathy of the Leftist government and Mamata who wants the power is using Maoists as the way to get the votes of Adivasis. So politics is making police force incapable of acting against Maoists. Bengal is the only state who has rejected the offer by Central Government to allows police of the other states to chase the Naxals in their state. Actually it was good proposal where Bengal police would have been able to chase maoists in Orissa and vice versa. But internal politics is hampering the action against the maoists.
The Maoist problem is grave danger to the Nation and has be dealt immediately before it goes out of hand. I only hope god give these politicians some common sense to not to play to with the future of the nation.