India View

By: Deepika Jaitley

Is there a difference between Naxals and terrorists? Is there a difference between Muslims and terrorists? Why is everyone asking everyone else these questions today? Is it because we Indians cannot forget Mumbai, or is it because the Maoist rebels blew up a bus in Chhattisgarh, killing about 35 people including civilians and special police officers, just ten days after they blew up an Army bus, killing 8 soldiers. It seems like killing has become an everyday nuisance for our lives. If its not terrorists and security personnel, its an angry spouse or an angry parent, and even if its none of those, it’s a rich but mentally sick industrialist and his servant. Yes, Moninder Singh Pandher, I’m talking about you. If you think he is an exception, and that India also has its devils, but it has its saints, we all need to look no further than Swami Nithyananda, the latest in a series of world renowned ‘sex swamis’. No, these ‘sex swamis’ are not famous for their exploits in bed; they are only famous for the fake cover of saintliness and hermitage that they use to lure women (‘disciples’) into acts of carnal debauchery. Shame on you, Nithyananda.

What is wrong with India today? Have we already become ‘Talibanized’? Are our social divisions so deep and irreparable that we are luring ourselves into false day dreams of “all is well” (Yes, Aamir Khan, thank you for crystallizing this epitome of neglect and insensitivity that is truly Indian).

Let us return to the most pressing issue for Indian’s sovereignty today; the Naxal movement, also called the Maoist rebels. Maoist rebels blew up a bus carrying civilians and policemen in central India on 18^th May killing at least 27 (and an upward estimation of 35) people, delivering another major strike against a nationwide offensive to drive them from strongholds. The Maoists are truly India’s Taliban, but they are a tad more deadlier; the religion of poverty binds them together. Initially inspired by Maoist ideology, it has pressed a campaign of violence against the government, police and landowners in a class war that seeks to install communist rule.

About 30 civilians and 25 so-called SPOs (special police officers, who are actually civilians recruited to help security forces fight the leftwing guerrillas) were travelling in the bus in the Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh state when it was attacked at about 4:30 p.m., District Collector Reena Kangale said by telephone. At least 13 civilians and 14 special police officers were killed and 15 others injured in the attack, she said. This strike is the biggest since April 6 when the rebels killed 76 police in the same district, the largest death toll from a single incident of Maoist violence in a decades-long conflict. Only on May 8, Maoist rebels blew up an army truck killing eight paramilitary soldiers and wounding two others in a densely forested Bijapur district in Chattisgarh state, said Vishwa Ranjan, the state’s director general of police.

Footage broadcast on the NDTV 24×7 television network today showed the wreckage of the bus, bodies and weapons strewn across a road. The rebels planted and triggered an explosive device that blew up an armored truck in the May 8 attack as well, signaling a heightened sense of improvisation in explosive devices by the Maoists. AP called it an explosive device, while AFP called it a landmine. The same modus operandi seems to have been used on May 18 – IEDs or planting of mines, and then ambushing a convoy or target. However, civilian transport had so far not been targeted in the conflict. A security official told the Financial Times that Maoist rebels had not previously attacked civilian buses. “If you use police transport, they blow up the vehicle,” said the official, who asked not to be identified. “If you have them travelling in a bus with civilians, they won’t blow up the bus.” So it seems that the SPOs, instead of protecting the civilians and helping the deployed police and CRPF, were IN FACT hiding behind civilians and cowering under the guise of targets that the Maoists wouldn’t attack. It also seems that the SPOs are carrying out their logistics this way.

Indian security officials said the Maoist guerrillas, known locally as Naxalites, appeared to have advance knowledge that between 15 and 25 special police officers, who were wearing uniforms, were riding on the civilian passenger bus. The special police officers are low-paid local recruits serving as interpreters, and terrain guides, for regular security forces who are from outside the remote area. The SPOs, many of whom had earlier been part of a more informal anti-Maoist militia known as the Salwa Judum, are particularly loathed by the guerrillas for the role they play in facilitating the police offensive . SPOs are considered collaborators by the Maoist rebels.

The attacks are a setback to Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram’s efforts to rid India’s eastern states of the guerillas and open up regions rich in iron ore, coal, bauxite and manganese to investment. NMDC Ltd. operates its biggest iron-ore mine and Essar Steel Ltd. plans to build a $1.5 billion steel plant in the region. So much for capitalist development and India’s ruling junta touting the capitalist success of India by selling its most rich and prized resources to foreign companies, and becoming the largest servant state in the history of the world. Pretty soon, the West’s laundry will also be outsourced to India.

The crux of this entire story – this tirade, rather – is the state of perceptions that the Indian people are living in. How can one draw a distinction between killers by giving them different names or labels? If a Kasab kills an Indian and a Maoist kills an Indian, that means we hang the Kasab first? I read on IBNLive that “when terrorist attack there is more hue and cry as terrorist attack city and important targets”, whereas “when Maoist attack they only attack security forces and their menace is restricted to a few states”. This esteemed fellow Indian, Vinay Akapran, needs to know that Naxalites are active across approximately 220 districts in twenty states of India, accounting for about 40 percent of India’s geographical area. They are especially concentrated in an area known as the “Red corridor”, where they control 92,000 square kilometers. According to India’s intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) 20,000 armed cadre Naxalites were operating apart from 50,000 regular cadres working in their various mass organizations and millions of sympathizers. If you don’t believe me, let me show you a map I got from Wikipedia:

Indeed, India is incredible when it asks for official superpower status, a seat on the United Nations Security Council and a veto, and more leeway in the G-8 and G-20 global economic organizations. This leaves me incredulous.

Incredible India is not a slogan with an exclamation mark, but with a question mark in the end. Indians need to resolve the basic questions about what it means to be Indian, and whether our interpretations and desires actually conform to the views and perceptions of neither a majority, nor a minority, but to all segments and social classes of Indians.