Odisha capitulates before Maoists

Surrendering before terror

Events of a quarter century ago are rarely remembered, especially in a country like India where the masses have a poor sense of history and the classes have a loathing for the past. Yet, at times it is necessary to recall events, if only to highlight how our national resolve has weakened in direct proportion to the strengthening of our economy. It would be facetious to suggest an inevitable correlation between the two, but it could be argued that while the rise of our self-seeking middle classes may have led to the creation of a bazaar which is the world’s envy, they have also sapped the nation of its national spirit to a great extent. A pusillanimous Government, whether in New Delhi or in State capitals, is a natural corollary of this phenomenon. Politically convenient and socially fashionable bunkum about India as a soft power has left the Indian state looking vulnerable as never before.

This is most evident from the response of both society and authority to terrorism, irrespective of the colour of the terrorists’ ideology. Instead of standing up and daring those who use guns and bombs to terrorise people, we meekly surrender, thus exposing ourselves to further violence. But it wasn’t always like this. In February 1984, an Indian diplomat, Ravindra Mhatre, posted at our mission in Birmingham, was kidnapped while returning home by members of the then UK-based Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front. The Government of India had till then faced other hostage situations -- Indian Airlines flights had been hijacked to Pakistan -- but nothing quite similar. The British authorities were nonplussed; officials in New Delhi were stunned.

Within hours of the kidnapping, the abductors issued their list of demands, which included one million pounds in cash and the release of Maqbool Butt, co-founder of the JKLF, who was lodged in Delhi’s Tihar Jail after being sentenced to death for killing personnel of Indian security forces. For two days there were hectic attempts to goad Mrs Indira Gandhi, then Prime Minister, into agreeing to negotiate a deal with Mhatre’s abductors. But Mrs Gandhi remained unmoved and her message was unambiguous: No talks, no deal. On February 6, Mhatre’s body was found in a lane. He had been shot dead after the JKLF realised it was futile to expect Mrs Gandhi to agree to a swap. There were no 24x7 television news channels those days but newspaper reports were sufficient to generate national outrage. A grim-faced Mrs Gandhi struck back. Maqbool Butt was executed five days later on February 11 after President Zail Singh was told to spurn his mercy petition. The JKLF leaders in Birmingham panicked and fled Britain; it’s another matter that British courts failed to fetch justice to Mhatre.

Cynics would suggest that Mrs Gandhi’s audacious tit-for-tat policy did not yield long-term results. That, however, is a fallacious argument, not the least because it overlooks certain crucial facts. Between 1984 and the winter of 1989, the cadre of the JKLF, which was then the sole terrorist organisation demanding azadi, were on the run and their top leaders were in jail. Mrs Gandhi had based her decision on the simple principle that a country as large as India could absorb the loss of one official but it couldn’t countenance the threat posed by terrorists. It worked -- till VP Singh came to power and appointed Mufti Mohammed Sayeed as his Home Minister.

On December 8, 1989, Rubaiya Sayeed, the Mufti’s daughter, was kidnapped in Kashmir by JKLF gunmen who demanded the release of five senior ‘commanders’ of the organisation from prison. VP Singh capitulated and Jammu & Kashmir has never been the same again; nor has the Government been able to stand firm before terrorist demands after that spectacular submission of the authority of the state to fear induced by terrorism. It irreparably broke the national spirit and the will of the Government, as was demonstrated during the week-long saga of shame that followed the hijacking of IC-814 to Kandahar which ended with our setting free three Pakistani terrorists who have since acquired greater infamy through their murderous jihad.

The reason why these events from the past are important to recall and remember is to contextualise the astonishingly timid surrender by the Government of Orissa before the Maoists who abducted the Collector of Malkangiri district R Vineel Krishna and a junior engineer, Pabitra Majhi, 26 years to the month after Mhatre’s kidnapping by terrorists of another ideological persuasion. The Maoists initially made 14 demands, including the immediate halt to counter-insurgency operations, withdrawal of all Central paramilitary forces from areas infested by Red terrorists, release of five of their senior comrades wanted for scores of crimes and cancellation of agreements with multinational corporations.

The Maoists also named their own choice of negotiators to strike a deal with the Government, which meekly complied without even bothering to look into the strategic implications of grovelling before Maoists whose depredations the Prime Minister has repeatedly described as the “biggest threat to India’s national security”. On Wednesday Majhi was set free by the Maoists after one of their most wanted comrades, Ganti Prasadam, accused of more than 100 crimes, was “granted bail”; they next upped the ante and asked for the release of four other jailed comrades, taking the total to nine.

It is immaterial how the Malkangiri story ends. It is equally irrelevant whether the Government later claims that it had to act in a pragmatic, responsible manner. Any justification of the shameful and shaming surrender by the state is so much poppycock and nothing more than that. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik need not have hastened to appease those waging war on the state. He could have taken a cue from the Governments of Bihar and Chhattisgarh which dared the Maoists to kill abducted policemen rather than give in; used negotiations as tactics to locate the abductors and threaten them with an overwhelming response; and, secured the freedom of the hostages without surrendering. Even if that tactical ploy had failed in Orissa, surely India could have absorbed the loss of two men to secure the safety of more than a billion people?

Sadly, the message from Bihar and Chhattisgarh, as also from West Bengal where the Left Front is waging a determined war against Maoists in Lalgarh, admittedly using means that may not be entirely fair or legal, will now be overtaken by the pathetic whimper from Orissa. The memory of 277 men in uniform killed by Maoists in 2010 stands pitilessly ridiculed. Strangely the Union Government refused to step in and prevent the Orissa Government from causing lasting damage to India’s war on terror. Are we then preparing for a grand surrender? Is this 1989 all over again?

[The abducted Collector was freed on Thursday, February 25, 2011 evening.]

[An abridged version of this appeared as my fortnightly column in DNA.]

Privilege of being Arundhati Roy

Since Arundhati Roy believes in a world of equals, why should she be more privileged than Chhatradhar Mahato?

If consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative, as was famously (and tad bitchily) declared by the flamboyant Irish writer Oscar Wilde, then Arundhati Roy qualifies as an author-activist-anarchist lacking in imagination. For she has been consistent in denouncing the Indian nation, questioning the quality of democracy in this country, casting aspersions on the judiciary, promoting secessionism and justifying the murderous campaign by Maoists to capture state power. Outraged as most people are by her passionate espousal of azadi for Kashmir at a convention in the heart of Lutyens’s Delhi last Thursday, they appear to have forgotten her previous assertion of the Kashmiris’ “right to secede” from the Union of India, not once or twice, but many times over. Similarly, this is not the first time that she has ridiculed the nation and the state or poured scorn over India’s democratic credentials which are universally acknowledged as among the best in the world.

“India needs azadi from Kashmir and Kashmir needs azadi from India,” she told an appreciative crowd of secessionists and their supporters, carted in from Aligarh Muslim University, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi University and other such taxpayer-funded institutions of learning that double up as fast-breeders of Muslim separatists and Left extremists for whom nationalism is as offensive as their nationality. But this is not the first time Arundhati Roy has outraged sensitivities. Two years ago, on August 19, 2008, after attending a rally organised by separatists in Srinagar, she had excitedly told mediapersons eager to record her pearls of wisdom: “India needs azadi from Kashmir as much as Kashmir needs azadi from India.” She had then added with a flourish, as is by now her established style of exaggerating a point to sheer banality, “If no one is listening then it is because they don’t want to hear. Because this is a referendum… People don’t need anyone to represent them, they are representing themselves.”

Nor is this the first time that Arundhati Roy has questioned the quality of democracy in India; she has done so repeatedly. Invited for a book-reading session at New York’s Town Hall, she had stunned the gathering by suddenly launching a vitriolic attack on democracy in India. “The biggest PR myth of all times is that India is a democracy. In reality, it is not… There is no real democracy in India. Several States in India are on the verge of civil war… In Iraq, there are 1,50,000 military personnel, whereas in Kashmir Valley there are some 7,00,000,” she had said. Not surprisingly, she got a standing ovation. Who is to tell the Americans who applauded her that had India not been a democracy she would have been frog-marched to Tihar Jail immediately upon arriving at Indira Gandhi International Airport on her return?

On another occasion, while berating the police for arresting Maoists and charging them with murder, Arundhati Roy had lashed out at democracy in India for not tolerating terrorism in the name of Chairman Mao’s blood-stained ideology. “The concept of Indian democracy is the biggest publicity scam of this century. Holding elections every five years does not necessarily mean that our country enjoys democracy.” Her notion of democracy, presumably, is a system that allows unrestricted lawlessness so long as laws are being followed in the breach by her ilk — deracinated, English-speaking, cliché-mouthing ‘intellectuals’ who wax eloquent on the plight of the unwashed masses but recoil in horror at the very suggestion of being counted with those on whose behalf they claim to speak — and their rage boys who kill and maim, rape and loot, burn and destroy to satiate their perverse desire to see India suffer. It’s fashionable for them to intersperse their accented English with deliberately mispronounced words in Hindi. Hence Arundhati Roy’s description of India as “bhookhey-nangey Hindustan”; she, of course, has known neither dehumanising hunger nor the indignity suffered by a woman in tattered rags. India’s well-heeled radicals who own farm houses built on illegally ‘acquired’ tribal land are not expected to sully their manicured fingers with desi daal-roti.

The issue, therefore, is not about Arundhati Roy trying to shock Indians who are proud of their nation and nationality, Hindustanis who are perfectly at ease with Hindustan, a billion people who wouldn’t want to swap their democracy with a Talibani social order and political system which she obviously admires because she was inconsolable and in unrestrained grief after Mullah Omar and his thugs were chased out of Kabul. Only the naïve and the uninitiated would be offended by her crudity which is designed to infuriate the most tolerant and liberal among us who believe free speech is one of the defining features of democracy. The real issue is the discriminatory attitude of our state which fosters a system where the law, in theory, is the same for all but privileges, in practice, are different. Nothing else explains why Chhatradhar Mahato, a flashily dressed, dimwitted blabbermouth from the boondocks of Lalgarh in West Bengal, should be in jail for aiding and assisting Maoists in waging war on the state and helping propagate their destructive ideology, charged under the amended Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, while Arundhati Roy, a sophisticated self-publicist and articulate propagandist of every conceivable anti-national ‘cause’, should remain untouched by the proverbial long arm of the law.

The UAPA says “secession of a part of the territory of India from the Union includes the assertion of any claim to determine whether such part will remain a part of the territory of India”. The offences listed under this law include any assertion or statement “which is intended, or supports any claim, to bring about, on any ground whatsoever, the cession of a part of the territory of India or the secession of a part of the territory of India from the Union, or which incites any individual or group of individuals to bring about such cession or secession”. Prima facie Arundhati Roy is guilty of these offences when she endorses the separatists call for azadi, incites Kashmiris to break away from India, and urges impressionable young men and women to get “involved in this cause which is their future”.

There’s more. Section 18 of the amended UAPA lays down that “Whoever conspires or attempts to commit, or advocates, abets, advises or incites knowingly facilitates the commission of, a terrorist act or any act preparatory to the commission of a terrorist act, shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than five years but which may extend to imprisonment for life, and shall also be liable to fine.” Section 18B says, “Whoever recruits or causes to be recruited any person or persons for commission of a terrorist act shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than five years but which may extend to imprisonment for life, and shall also be liable to fine.”

If the law of the land were truly applicable to all, then Arundhati Roy would have been in jail by now. Or, if we were to put it another way, had India’s democracy been perfect and not flawed, she would have been denied the presumed right to undermine the Indian state in so brazen a manner. Ironically, what she so crudely berates also affords her the freedom to abuse the very system of which she is a privileged beneficiary. The elite that is India’s bane would be incomplete without Arundhati Roy.

[This appeared as my Sunday column Coffee Break in The Pioneer on October 24, 2010.]

Political instability haunts Nepal

Maoist menace takes its toll!

Kathmandu: The rain-drenched silver-green leaves of the birch outside my room shimmer in the late afternoon light which is rapidly fading as the slate grey sky turns inky black. The birch would have been in splendid isolation, squeezed between a ghastly apartment block and the refreshingly old world Shangri-La, but for the solitary weeping willow, its branches, lush with newly-sprung monsoon leaves, hanging low. Not much remains of the garden Desmond Doig, artist, story-teller and an editor much ahead of his times, had landscaped for the Shangri-La. That was some three decades ago after Junior Statesman was shut down and a heart-broken Desmond Doig moved to his beloved Kathmandu from Kolkata, the other love of his life.

Much of the open space in front of the Shangri-La has now been paved, a virtual parking lot for cars and SUVs. Maintaining a garden, that too one landscaped by Desmond Doig, is not cheap in these hard days as Nepal struggles to come to terms with political instability gnawing at the innards of an economy that was not healthy in the best of times which came to an end with the night of the long knives at Narayanhity Palace a decade ago. Desmond Doig did not live to see the decline and fall of the only Hindu kingdom of modern times, but his presence is felt at the Shangri-La in more ways than one. The coasters are imprinted with his pen-and-ink sketches of a Kathmandu that now exists in the nooks and corners of an over-crowded city; the stationery folder contains two picture postcards with his breath-taking watercolour painting of Shekha Narayan temple; and the lobby has huge framed drawings, possibly working sketches that he left behind in his studio at the hotel.

“No PM, no surprise, no shame!” runs the headline in The Himalayan, Kathmandu’s popular English language daily. The story is about the Constituent Assembly failing, for the fourth time, to elect a Prime Minister to head a coalition Government and steer the long-pending task of framing and adopting a Constitution for the Secular Democratic Republic of Nepal. After the storming of the Singha Darbar in 2006, the Maobadis, the Communist Party of Nepal (UML) and the Nepali Congress were quick to dethrone the King and declare the birth of a ‘new’ Nepal. But the ‘new’ Nepal still awaits a constitutional structure to set it apart from the ‘old’ Nepal and put the country firmly on the path of multi-party democracy.

The Maobadis, who have been operating under the banner of the UCPN (Maoist) after giving up their armed insurgency and joining mainstream politics, have never quite allowed themselves to be reconciled with their till-now unsuccessful revolution. Mr Pushpa Kamal Dahal and his comrades, backed by their People’s Liberation Army, had hoped to capture power and convert the Himalayan kingdom into a Communist state modelled along the lines of China; critics say they had dreamt of establishing a Pol Pot-like regime. Instead, they have had to contest elections and conform to the norms of parliamentary politics. Maobadis, like conservative Communists, may make a show of ‘internal debate’ but have neither the time nor the inclination for decisions arrived at through discussion and deliberation with the other main players in Nepal’s politics, namely the Nepali Congress and the CPN (UML). Nor do they concede the fact that someone not from their ranks could head the Government.

Therefore, it is not surprising that the Maobadis have done everything possible to hobble the Government of Nepal, such as it is, after Mr Dahal had to resign as Prime Minister following his unseemly spat with the President, Mr Ram Baran Yadav, over the Army chief refusing to allow the wholesale transformation of what used to be the Royal Nepal Army into the People’s Liberation Army by admitting to its ranks demobbed insurgents. Despite his best efforts, Mr Madhav Kumar Nepal, who succeeded Mr Dahal, found himself managing street agitations by the Maobadis instead of governing his country. The only decisive action he could take was to get the term of the Constituent Assembly, which was to expire this summer, extended for a year. A recalcitrant Prachanda has forced Mr Nepal to resign from office; for more than a month now he has been Nepal’s caretaker Prime Minister, waiting to hand over charge to a Prime Minister elected by the Constituent Assembly.

That wait has just got longer, with neither Mr Dahal, who wants to become Prime Minister again, nor Mr Ramchandra Paudel of the Nepali Congress, who believes that with the Maobadis and the CPN (UML) having failed to provide political stability, his party should now get a chance to lead the Government. On the face of it, Mr Paudel has a point: After all the Nepali Congress is far more experienced in dealing with political crisis and adept at the game of co-opting dissenters. It could succeed where both the Maobadis and the CPN (UML) have abysmally failed.

There’s a problem, though. The polls to elect a Constituent Assembly gave nobody a majority; the smaller parties, especially those representing Madhesi interests, are not easy to deal with; and, among the top three parties there’s virtually very little, if at all any, consensus on any issue of consequence, leave alone who should lead the Government. As much was evident last Friday when Mr Dahal polled 213 votes (of which 204 came from his party legislators) and Mr Paudel got 121 votes.

In the 601-member Constituent Assembly, this is way behind the halfway mark. From the votes cast against Mr Paudel it would seem the CNP (UML) is not on the same page with him. As the rule says the Constituent Assembly shall keep on voting till one of the contenders is able to secure a majority, the Speaker has called for a fresh election, the fifth, on August 18. A week is a long time in politics and much could change between my arrival in and exit from Kathmandu later this week. But those who should know are reluctant to hazard a guess.

Tail piece: The priests at Pashupatinath temple are not to be trifled with, as Kishen Thapa learned to his shock, pain and agony. Infuriated at Mr Thapa’s callous disregard of rites and rituals — he broke a coconut at the western gate of the hallowed shrine, which apparently is strictly not allowed — Harihar Bhandari, a temple priest, banged the puja thaali he was carrying on the pilgrim’s head. Mr Thapa is presently nursing a split scalp which required to be stitched up by doctors.

Red Terror unabated, India watches football

Maobadis slaughter 27 CRPF jawans
UPDATE

.According to Chhattisgarh DGP Viswa Ranjan, at least 15 Maobadis were possibly killed when CRPF personnel retaliated during the ambush. The bodies of the Maobadis have however not been found. Maobadis are known to take away the bodies of their cadre killed in encounters with security forces.
.Around 100 Maobadis, who struck with automatic rifles, were involved in the ambush and the gunbattle lasted for two to three hours.
.The death toll in Tuesday's attack on CRPF personnel has gone up to 27 after the body of a CRPF constable was found by search parties.

Maobadis have struck again, this time in Chhattisgarh, killing 27 CRPF jawans in a deadly ambush on Tuesday, June 29. Eight security personnel (among them four SPOs of Chhattisgarh Police) were injured, five of them seriously. The attack took place while the CRPF jawans were returning after clearing a road in a remote area of Chhattisgarh's Narayanpur district. Among the dead is Assistant Commandant of the force Jatin Gulati.

Union Home Secretary GK Pillai said in New Delhi: “A large number of heavily-armed Maoists, perched on a hilltop, opened fire from automatic weapons on a 63-member security contingent which was returning on foot from road opening duty.”

The latest attack by Maobadis comes three months after the massacre of 75 CRPF jawans and one Chhattisgarh policeman in Dantewada district on April 6. On May 17, Maobadis blew up a bus carrying 50 people, including 18 special police officers, near Sukma in Dantewada. Only six people -- all seriously injured – were believed to have survived that attack; the rest, including women and children, were killed. On May 8, eight men of the CRPF were killed when Maobadis blew up a vehicle in Narayanpur district.

On May 28, Gyaneswari Express was derailed in West Bengal’s Midnapore district after men of the PCPA, a Maobadi front organisations, damaged the tracks. At least 141 passengers died after a goods train came and rammed into the derailed express almost immediately.

[My views on Maobadi attack on Gyaneswari Express on NDTV special programme.]

Some points to ponder upon:

. UPA Government continues to flounder in its search for an effective counter-Maobadi strategy.
. Ongoing security offensive remains largely ineffective as there are no well-defined objectives.
. In the absence of well-thought out tactics, Maobadis continue to have the upper hand.
. The Prime Minister is either indifferent or incompetent to deal with the Maobadi challenge.
. Manmohan Singh says Maobadis pose ‘single biggest threat to internal security’; does nothing.
. Home Minister P Chidambaram’s efforts to launch a fight-back are stymied by a ‘limited mandate’.
. CCS meets and disperses without even discussing counter-Maobadi strategy.
. Army and IAF chiefs speak out of turn ruling out military intervention.
. Coordination among States remains abysmally poor, near absent.
. Senior Ministers continue to speak in different voices on how to confont the menace.
. Sonia Gandhi and her cronies like Digvijay Singh are pushing for ‘dialogue’ and a soft line.
. Congress is a divided house: Nobody wants to take a firm stand.
. Congress’s ally Trinamool Congress won’t let UPA act with firm determination.
. Mamata Banerjee refused to blame Maobadis for Gyaneswari derailment.
. CBI inquiry shows PCPA (a Maobadi front) planned and executed Gyaneswari disaster.
. Maobadis continue to enjoy upper hand; jawans, innocents regularly with impunity.
.India continues to bleed. Urban middleclasses, since they are not affected, are not bothered.
. Media glosses over Maobadi crimes, offers platform for ‘intellectuals’ to propagate Maobadi ideology.

Trust the National Human Rights Commission, now headed by retired Chief Justice of India KG Balakrishnan, to claim the ‘human rights’ of Maobadis are being violated by security forces! A statement issued by NHRC on Tuesday, June 29, says:

The National Human Rights Commission has taken suo motu cognizance of media reports depicting photographs of security men carrying the bodies of Naxalites, including women, with their hands and feet tied to bamboo poles.
The report was published on the 18th June, 2010. It was alleged that the photograph was taken following an anti-Naxal operation in West Midnapore, West Bengal.
The Commission in its proceedings on the 21st June, 2010, observed that the report, if true, raises a serious issue of violation of human rights of the victims.
A notice has been issued to the Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India inviting factual report in the matter by the 27th July, 2010.
In a major success, security forces had gunned down 12 Maoists, including three women (among them one who had led the attack on the EFR camp at Sildah, West Bengal, in which 24 jawans were killed) in a fierce encounter in Ranja forest of Salboni in West Midnapore on June 16.

Since NHRC is so bothered about the ‘human rights’ of the practitioners of inhuman barbarity, they should take note of this story from Jhargram, West Bengal, filed by PTI on June 29:

A 10th class student was killed by Maoists at Jamirdiha village in West Midnapore district. Police said the bullet-riddled body of Phulchand Mahato, still in his school uniform, was found on the side of Kasmar canal Tuesday morning. The Maoists left a poster near the body proclaiming Mahto as a ‘police informer’.
Mahto had attended classes on Monday and left his Banspahari High School building in the afternoon but remained untraced ever since, prompting his family to lodge a missing report at Belhapari police station Monday night. The family identified the body on Tuesday.

It may be recalled Maobadis had raped a 16-year-old girl in Jharkhand for daring to stand up to them, and threatened to kill her if she went to the police.
Whose side is NHRC on? The people of India or those who are waging war on the state and the people of India?
Another report says:

Five Maoists, including a top aide of the outfit's senior leaders Kishenji and Telugu Dipak, were arrested from the outskirts of Kolkata on Tuesday. Acting on a tip off, five Maoists were arrested from South 24 Parganas. Of the arrested Maoists, Madhusudhan Mondal alias Narayan, Rajesh Mondal, Sachin Ghosal were arrested from Amtala, while Siddhartha and Sanjay from Garia in the district. Madhusudhan alias Narayan was the zonal committee secretary of the Maoists during the Nandigram movement and was close to Kishenji and Telugu Dipak. He arranged the stay of Kishenji when he went to Nandigram.

So Nandigram wasn't a 'people's movement' after all!

And here is a chronology of Maobadi terrorism in the past couple of years:
June 29, 2008: Maoists attack a boat on Balimela reservoir in Orissa carrying four anti-Maoist police officials and 60 Greyhound commandos, killing 38 troops.
July 16, 2008: 21 policemen killed when a police van is blown up in a landmine blast in Malkangiri district of Orissa.
April 13, 2009: 10 paramilitary troops killed in eastern Orissa when Maoists attack a bauxite mine in Koraput district.
April 22, 2009: Maoists hijack a train with at least 300 people on board in Jharkhand and force it to Latehar district before fleeing.
May 22, 2009: Maoists kill 16 policemen in the jungles of Gadchiroli district in Maharashtra.
June 10, 2009: Nine policemen, including CRPF troops and officers, ambushed by Maoists during a routine patrol in Saranda jungles in Jharkhand.
June 13, 2009: Maoists launch two landmine and bomb attacks in a small town close to Bokaro, killing 10 policemen and injuring several others.
June 16, 2009: Maoists kill 11 police officers in a landmine attack followed by armed assault. In a separate attack, four policemen were killed and two others seriously injured when Maoists ambush them at Beherakhand in Palamau district.
June 23, 2009: A group of motorcycle-borne armed Maoists open fire on Lakhisarai district court premises in Bihar and free four of their comrades including the self-style Zonal Commander of Ranchi.
July 18, 2009: Maoists kill a villager in Bastar and in a separate incident torch a vehicle engaged in road construction work in Bijapur district of Chhattisgarh.
July 27, 2009: Six persons killed when Maoists trigger a landmine blast at Dantewada district in Chhattisgarh.
July 31, 2009: A special police officer and another person killed by Maoists in Bijapur district.
Sep 4, 2009: Maoists kill four villagers in a forest in Aaded village in Chhattisgarh's Bijapur district.
Sep 26, 2009: Maoists kill BJP MP from Balaghat Baliram Kashyap's sons at Pairaguda village in Jagdalpur (Chhattisgarh).
Sep 30, 2009: Maoists set ablaze Gram Panchayat offices at Korchi and Belgaon in Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra.
Oct 8, 2009: 17 policemen killed when Maoists ambushed them at Laheri police station in Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra.
Feb 15, 2010: 24 personnel of the Eastern Frontier Rifles (EFR) killed as Maoists attack their camp in Silda in West Midnapore district of West Bengal.
April 4, 2010: Maoists trigger a landmine blast killing 11 security personnel of the elite anti-Maoist force Special Operations Group (SOG) in Koraput district of Orrisa.
April 6, 2010: 75 CRPF personnel and a Chhattisgarh police official killed in a Maoist attack in Dantewada district.
May 8, 2010: Eight CRPF jawans were killed when Maoists blow up a bullet-proof vehicle in Bijapur district of Chhhattisgarh.
June 29, 2010: At least 15 CRPF personnel killed in a Maoist ambush in Naraynpur district of Chhattisgarh.

[Bus attack photograph courtesy ANI.]

In war on Red terror, blood shall be spilled

We should be resolute in exterminating Maoists to the last cadre. India has to win this war for the sake of liberty and democracy.

The reaction to Tuesday’s (April 6) ghastly Maoist attack on CRPF jawans deep in the densely forested Abujhmad region of Dantewada in Chhattisgarh has been predictable. There’s outrage across the country that the lives of 76 security forces personnel should have been so cruelly snuffed out. Politicians have responded with lachrymose statements; some have pretended anger at Government’s ‘flawed’ policy of using security forces as cannon fodder in the war on Red terror. Strangely, or perhaps not, Union Home Minister P Chidambaram has been criticised by colleagues in the Congress for “provoking” the Maoists into striking with such ferocity. Security experts have been prompt in pointing out faultlines in the overall strategy and ground level tactics, not so subtly suggesting they could have done a better job. Sympathisers of the Left extremists, who masquerade as ‘intellectuals’, have had no compunctions about using friendly media outlets, including television channels, to slyly justify the slaughter. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister has expressed “shock and grief”, which really amounts to saying nothing.
While the sense of outrage (tinged with frustration) that prevails among the people is genuine, it is doubtful whether the reaction of the political class is motivated by concern for national security. Mr Chidambaram’s colleagues in the Congress, no doubt displeased that he should have emerged as an effective Minister on whom praise is lavished frequently, have seized upon the opportunity to try and run him down. Those in the Opposition who mock at the Government do so unthinkingly. Their own track record in tackling the Maoist menace is a tale of callous indifference or, worse, shameful capitulation. The JD(U) spokesman would do well to bear in mind that Maoists have ‘liberated’ large stretches of Bihar from the civil administration where the writ of the state no longer runs. As for our security experts, it is possible that their criticism of the Government’s strategy and tactics is well-meaning, but the course of an asymmetric war cannot be predicted by the best strategists and tacticians.
Could Tuesday’s massacre have been prevented? In hindsight, the answer to this question would be, yes. If only the CRPF jawans had been more cautious, if only they had not used a vehicle in a terrain likely to have been laid with landmines, if only they had not under-estimated the firepower of the Maoists, if only they had not ventured out at that hour of dawn, if only… If ifs and buts were pots and pans, there would be no need for tinkers’ hands. Or, as another version of the proverb goes, if ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we would all have a Merry Christmas. The point is, ifs and buts are neither pots and pans, nor are they candy and nuts. In battling insurgency, the best laid plans can go wrong and fatalities can be high, just as collateral damage cannot be entirely ruled out.
Those who are suddenly mindful of the fact that 76 jawans have been killed should look at the statistics of Maoist violence over the past few years. In 2009, Maoist violence and encounters with security forces witnessed a spurt in casualties, and fatalities added up to a whopping 998. Among the dead were 292 Maoist cadre, 312 security forces personnel (including policemen) and 392 civilians. It would be absurd to suggest that since more security forces personnel have died than Maoists, or because civilian casualty is so high, the state is losing the war on Red terror. Insurgency driven by ideology extracts a terrible toll; if we are to win the war, we should stop counting the body bags. Excessive focus on casualties of war weakens national resolve. Maudlin sentiments have never helped anybody win a battle, leave alone a protracted war which the offensive against the Maoists is going to be: The ‘liberated zones’ won’t be liberated from Red terror overnight; it will take at least a decade to re-establish the authority of the state where Maoists now rule the roast.

This is not to suggest that the lives of our security forces are expendable, or that they can be sacrificed without any concern on the altar of belligerent extremism, but to underscore the fact that the Indian state’s success in overcoming several challenges to the nation’s unity and integrity have not been without the loss of lives — of security forces personnel, of civilians and of those waging war on the state. Public memory being notoriously short, few would recall the terrible price that had to be paid to put down insurgency in the North-East, or restore peace in Punjab. Young officers and jawans in the prime of their lives are routinely killed while fighting terrorists in Jammu & Kashmir or while preventing jihadis from crossing the Line of Control into India. If we must shed tears, we should do so for all our men in uniform who have laid down their lives for their country and their people, and steel our resolve to avenge their deaths by exterminating the practitioners of violence, no matter what the shade of their evil ideology or their purported cause.
No purpose, however, would be served if the state were to take recourse to either senseless bravado or a bull-headed response to grisly blood-letting by the Maoists, irrespective of whether the victims of their butchery are civilians or security forces. The state must move stealthily, it must strategise with absolute clarity about what it seeks to achieve, and, most important, it must adopt tactics that will enable the security forces to outmanoeuvre the insurgents at every step. There will be errors of judgement, there will be mistakes and there will be slip-ups. Those strategising and fighting the war on Red terror will have to learn from these and recalibrate their tactics accordingly.
Mr Chidambaram has rightly cautioned against any “knee-jerk reaction” to Tuesday’s savagery by the rabid ilk of Koteswara Rao and advised that “at this moment we must remain calm and hold our nerves in the fight to rid India of the grave threat of Maoists and to save democracy”. Successive strikes by the Maoists in recent months — Sildah in West Bengal where 24 jawans of the Eastern Frontier Rifles were killed; Koraput in Odisha where 11 CRPF jawans died after their vehicle hit a landmine; and, now Dantewada in Chhattisgarh — suggest the need for course correction by those strategising the war on Red terror. Once this is done, the Government must stay the course and press on till the objective of ridding India of those who wish to supplant our democracy with a totalitarian state no different from Pol Pot’s regime is achieved. Liberty comes attached with a price tag and we should be willing to pay the price, no matter how high.

[This appeared as the main article on the Edit Page of The Pioneer on April 8, 2010.]

Please see: This is war by Ajai Sahni & Ajit Kumar Singh on why there's no other option but to smash the Maobadis.

Lakshmanpur-Bathe victims get justice

A Bihar court on April 7 sentenced to death 16 of 26 convicted persons in the Lakshmanpur-Bathe carnage in Jehanabad district in which 61 people, all Dalits, were killed by a private militia of landlords in December 1997. Announcing the judgement, Additional District Judge Vijay Prakash Mishra sentenced to life imprisonment the remaining 10 convicts and imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 on each. The trial in the case had concluded on April 1.

[My report on the Lakshmanpur-Bathe massacre of 1997. It was commissioned by Rediff.com.]

The Stench of Death

Lakshmanpur-Bathe (Jehanabad district, Bihar): It has been raining for the past few days and the air is laden with the cold moisture of winter showers. The fields are a soggy brown. The Sone river shimmers is the dull winter daylight, lazily flowing through wide banks of sand.

In normal times, a village like Lakshmanpur-Bathe would be full of sounds that you do not hear in urban India. But these are not normal times. And you do not hear children shrieking to their hearts's delight, the gentle mooing of cows or the bleating of goats. There are no snot-nosed children staring at you in wide-eyed amazement or giggling women in dark doorways. There is no whiff of woodfire in the air.

In this emptiness you can feel strains of sorrow; if you hear hard enough, you can hear the silent, grievous sobbing of women, you can smell the staleness of death. The day before was daswi, the tenth day when rituals are performed for the soul of the departed in rural Bihar so that the journey into the other world is unhindered and peaceful. But what peace can you pray for when the soul is that of a young mother who was shot dead with her infant suckling at her breast? And how do you bade the infant goodbye?

Sixty-one people were shot dead in this village on the night of December 1 by armed criminals who came from across the river. Entire families of three generations wiped out by gunfire. All of them were poor, perhaps the poorest of the poor. They belonged to that vast underclass of Indians who, 50 years after Independence, are yet to realise what freedom means. They were born into oppression, they lived in oppression and their brutal slaughter is the ultimate symbol of oppression.

No, all of them were not dalits. The five boatmen -- three of whom ferried the marauders across the Sone -- whose threats were slit by the killers so that there would be no witnesses to the crime, were Nishads. Among those who were shot dead, were men and women who in life enjoyed a social status higher than that of harijans but in death were united by the economic criterion of unrelenting poverty that stalks the landless peasantry of Bihar.

The villagers of Lakshmanpur-Bathe, caught in the time warp of feudal India, refer to you as 'sarkar.' The landlords in whose fields they work for a kg of foodgrains a day, the petty government officials who make occasional forays, the uniformed policemen and the local politicians are their 'mai-baap.'

Fifty years after India kept its tryst with destiny, these villagers, like millions of villagers in thousands of other villages all over the country, are yet to see the miraculous healing powers of modern medicine or the magic of switching on an electric light. They are yet to learn how to read and write or to explore the world beyond Lakshmanpur-Bathe by travelling down pucca roads, Globalisation may have made the world into a small village, but the only village they are aware of is Lakshmanpur-Bathe.

Like giant concrete totems, electricity poles stick out from the blood-soaked soil of Lakshmanpur-Bathe, inert sentries of modernity that never existed. A politician in Patna, looking for ways and means to make some quick money from sources other than animal fodder, must have ordered the erection of these electricity poles. After paying off the contractor's enormously inflated bill, there was not enough money to string these poles with cables. Not that it would have made any difference. Bihar's towns and villages that have both poles and cables do not have electricity.

The only ray of hope in the benighted lives of these underclothed, underfed, underpaid people who were unlucky enough to be born in villages like Lakshmanpur-Bathe is provided by the revolutionary fervour of groups that profess Marxism-Leninism or dream of a Maoist transformation of rural Bihar society and economy. The Naxalbari movement in rural Bengal triggered the imagination of these men and women, mostly men, in rural Bihar.

Initiated by Jagdish Mahto and Rameshwar Ahir in Bhojpur district, the Naxalite movement in Bihar has taken several twists and turns. And like the Naxal movement in Bengal or Andhra Pradesh, in Bihar too it has splintered over the years, giving birth to three main streams: The Maoist Coordination Committee swears by Maoist tactics while the two CPI-ML factions, Liberation and Party Unity, continue to persist with Marxism-Leninism.

Each has carved out an area for its 'operations' that largely concentrate on securing a better deal for the landless peasantry but often focuses on retributive justice based on the principle of eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, limb for a limb and life for a life.

Like everything else in Bihar, the haves and have-nots are also divided along caste lines. The oppressor, the landlord, is a Rajput, a Bhumihar or a Kurmi. The oppressed is a Paswan, Koeri, Majhi, Musahar, Chamar or, in some cases, even a Yadav. Class and caste have nearly coalesced, defying conventional Left wisdom that seeks to segregate caste from class and draws a line between caste war and class war. In Bihar, class war is also caste war.

And with the virtual withering away of the State, the disappearance of any semblance of constitutional rule of law, the oppressor and oppressed have organised their own lines of defence. The landlords have created brutal private armies like the Ranvir Sena and Sunlight Sena, whose soldiers have a tremendous capacity for brutality. The landless are protected by the Naxal groups whose armed cadre have no less an appetite for bloodletting.

The designated guardian of both the landlords and the landless, the police, is a pathetic carricature of law-keepers. Policemen in Bihar are scared to confront either the extremist groups or the landlord's armies. They would rather disappear from the scene of a carnage and reappear after the killings are over.

Policemen who thought that valour was more important than discretion have both their lives and their weapons. In Patna and elsewhere, policemen refuse to carry weapons, scared that their outdated .303 rifles will attract the attention of either the private armies or the extremist groups whose armoury comprises looted police weaponry. Unarmed policemen can at least plead mercy and run for their lives.

The unending cycle of violence in Bihar where the not-so-poor kill the poor and the poor kill the very poor in a relentless caste/class war, in a sense, provides macabre, black humour in an otherwise unexciting saga of political intrigue and financial misdemeanour. But frivolity apart, the Republic of Bihar today is a grim reminder that all is not well with the Republic of India.

Lakshmanpur-Bathe is a blot on the collective conscience of the nation. The barbarity of the massacre should have stirred us as never before. The entire nation should have grieved along with the grieving men and women who saw their flesh and blood being butchered but dare not raise their voice in protest, lest their mai-baap, their sarkar forsake them forever.

But nobody is perturbed, least of all in New Delhi from where the world of McDonalds and Pizza Hut looks so beautiful.

How legitimate are targeted killings?

What is a legitimate killing? And what makes a killing illegitimate? On the face of it, these are not difficult questions to answer. Those who take an absolutist position on right to life would argue that any killing is illegitimate. On the other end of the absolutist spectrum are those who would insist that when the state kills, no matter what the reason, it is legitimate; when individuals kill, unless they do so in self-defence, it is illegitimate. Then there are those who would cite the law to justify certain killings — for instance, killing enemy soldiers on the battlefield; executing those found guilty of committing capital offences; and, killing criminals who resist arrest or attack the police — but insist that extrajudicial killings by the state or agencies of the state are illegitimate. Human rights activists would strangely argue that while it is legitimate for ‘armed opposition groups’ to resort to violence and even indulge in senseless killings, the state, as the protector of human life and liberty, does not have the right to kill.

Macabre and distasteful as it might be, the debate over what is and is not legitimate killing came up, although fleetingly, during a recent television discussion on Maoist violence. The human rights activists who were present in the studio were most emphatic in asserting that the state, in this case represented by security forces, has no right to kill even if those who are targeted are known to have indulged in killing innocent people and policemen or, unless put down, can be expected to shed human blood in the future. Of course, this is an absurd proposition. If it is the state’s responsibility to ensure the security of its citizens, then it is equally its responsibility to take any measure that it may deem fit to protect them from marauders.

The argument proffered by human rights activists is fallacious for a second reason. Implicit in what they say is the suggestion that men and women in uniform (whether of the police or the military) are fair targets for ‘armed opposition groups’ — or ‘gunmen’, as terrorists are referred to by politically correct sections of ‘civil society’ — since they represent the state and hence the ‘enemy’. As if that robs them of the right to life which, for everybody else, is considered inviolable. This is not only chillingly callous, but also downright sinister. Thankfully, in real life it doesn’t quite work that way.

The reason why I have raised this issue is not to discuss whether it is right or wrong to adopt tough measures against Maoists; that’s a settled point and little or no purpose is served by endlessly debating it. Maoists must be crushed with minimum, if at all any, collateral damage. But we need to look beyond what has come to be accepted as the normal, textbook response to terrorism, never mind the shade of terror, which could range from shimmering green to dazzling red. Must the state entirely depend on ‘massive deployment’ of security forces? Should action be always visible to the people? Or has the time come to consider the adoption of strategic responses, for instance targeted killings, which could be more effective and virtually rule out the possibility of collateral damage?

After all, if the top leaders of an insurgency, Islamist or Maoist, were to be neutralised through surgical strikes, there would be disarray and demoralisation in the ranks and the cadre, no matter how motivated, would feel deterred from persisting with the ‘cause’. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eeelam did not become extinct because fighters were killed in scores if not hundreds. The LTTE became history only after its top leadership was annihilated. Till the moment the Sri Lankan Government released photographs of V Prabhakaran’s lifeless body, the Tigers fought back fiercely. Similarly, in Punjab the guns fell silent after the top leaders of the Khalistani insurgency were methodically neutralised. Perhaps far fewer lives would have been lost had this approach been adopted in the early days of separatist violence in Punjab — and in Jammu & Kashmir.

These thoughts come to mind while reading about the targeted killing of Hamas’s top military commander Mahmoud Al Mabhouh in Dubai on January 20 and subsequent investigations by the emirate’s police. The Government of Israel has refused to comment on what is widely perceived to have been a Mossad operation. No other organisation could have carried out such a daring and flawless execution, that too on hostile territory. If details pieced together from closed-circuit television camera footage collated from various spots and released by the authorities of Dubai are to be believed, a group of men and women travelled from foreign destinations on forged passports a day before Mabhouh arrived in the emirate. Apparently, he had come to Dubai to meet someone who had offered to sell arms to Hamas. It may have been a trap set up by his assassins who tracked their quarry to his hotel room and killed him before he could raise an alarm. Their mission accomplished, the assassins flew out of Dubai the same afternoon.

It could be argued that Mabhouh’s assassination will not lead to the collapse of Hamas or end its rule of terror in Gaza, just as ‘Operation Wrath of God’ and ‘Operation Spring of Youth’ did not result in the destruction of the PLO, although they did serve to revive and reinforce the fear of Gideon in rage. Mabhouh is not the first Hamas leader to be killed. Salah Shahade was assassinated in 2002; Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, a wheelchair-bound quadriplegic who would remorselessly direct suicide bombers to murder Israeli civilians, was killed in March 2004; within a month, Sheikh Yassin’s successor, Abdel Aziz Al Rantissi, was assassinated; and, in October that year, another senior Hamas leader, Adnan Al Ghoul, was put down. Hamas was no doubt shaken, but not necessarily deterred, or else there would have been no need for ‘Operation Cast Lead’. Although, the killing of Nizar Rayyan on January 1, 2009, during the Gaza raid did result in a hudna which is still holding.

Was Mabhouh despatched before he could acquire sufficient weapons for Hamas to break the truce and launch a fresh attack on Israel? Will his killing revive the fear of Gideon the righteous destroyer and reinforce the idea of Israel as a mighty warrior? Whatever the answer, the utility of targeted killing of terrorists — we need not go into the morality or legality of such counter-insurgency measures since terrorism is neither morally right nor a legal expression of dissent — is demonstrated by the fact that Israel has survived six decades of relentless and fierce hostility without ever feeling the need to capitulate before its enemies.

PS: Ever since Mabhouh’s assassination, there has been a phenomenal increase in the demand for custom-made T-shirts emblazoned with Mossad’s logo sold by an Israeli firm. Orders have been pouring in from countries across the world, including, hold your breath, India.

[This appeared as my Sunday column Coffee Break in The Pioneer on February 28, 2010]

Two eyes for an eye...

Exterminate Maobadi terror now!

This picture was taken at the Silda Eastern Frontier Rifles camp in West Midnapore district, West Bengal, after Monday's (February 15) raid by Maobadis, reportedly led by a woman Maobadi with the "eyes of a cobra". The Maobadi raid left 24 security personnel dead.

A marauding horde of Maobadis descended on Phulwaria Karasi village in Bihar’s Jamui district on Wednesday night and slaughtered 12 tribals. Reports say that the Maobadis have abducted several villagers. Their fate is not known.
On Monday, Maobadis killed 24 jawans of Eastern Frontier Rifles at Shilda in West Bengal's West Midnapore district. Many of them were charred alive. Crucial, actionable, real time intelligence input received by the West Bengal Police at least three hours before the attack was not passed on to the EFR camp.
The attack was led by a woman Maobadi, Jagari Baskey, who is said to have the “eyes of a cobra”. Maobadi leader Koteswara Rao, also known as ‘Kishenji’, who is in regular contact with mediapersons, issued a statement after the attack: “”We have attacked the camp and this is our answer to P Chidambaram’s Operation Green Hunt… unless the Centre stops this inhuman military operation we are going to answer this way only.”
Maobadis, coyly described as ‘Left-wing extremists’ by the Government of India but in reality thugs and criminals masquerading as champions of tribals whom they terrorise with guns, loot, rape and murder at will, now have a free run of at least 25 per cent of all districts in the country.
The worst affected States are Chhattisgarh, Odisha, West Bengal, Jharkhand and Bihar.
The much-touted and talked about Operation Green Hunt is yet to be launched. The Government’s hand, it would seem, is being held back by the Left-liberal intelligentsia which monopolises television studios and provides an ‘intellectual’ cover for Maobadi terrorism, romancing their criminal misdeeds and justifying murder in the name of Mao.
If the Union Government is hesitant to act against what the Prime Minister has repeatedly described as the “gravest internal security threat” which India faces, then State Governments, barring the Government of Chhattisgarh, have proved to be equally pusillanimous in their approach.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar refuses to crack down on Maobadis. Jharkhand Chief Minister Shibu Soren is equally reluctant. Neither of them attended a recent meeting in Kolkata chaired by Union Home Minister to review the Maobadi situation in Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Odisha and work on a blueprint or inter-State coordinated action against Red terror.
Soren has agreed to free wanted Maobadis from prison to secure the release of an abducted BDO. The Union Government has conveyed its approval! Strangely, a Cabinet Minister, Mamata Banerjee, claims that there are no Maobadis and hence there is no need for police action. The Trinamool Congress is long suspected of being backed by Maobadis in rural West Bengal. A Trinamool MP, Kabir Suman, who sits in the Lok Sabha and has sworn to uphold the Constitution of India, has recently released a music CD extolling a Maobadi, Chhatradhar Mahato, now in police custody.
Just how grim the situation is can be gauged from what Chidambaram said while presenting his Ministry’s report card for January 2010:

“The situation in the States affected by Left Wing Extremism continues to be a cause of grave concern. The number of deaths in 2009 amongst civilians (591), security forces (317) and militants (217) indicated a rising trend. The increase in the number of incidents and casualties is not surprising because, after a review of the policy, State Governments decided to deploy a larger number of security forces and engage the naxalites in the districts dominated by them with a view to re-establish the authority of the civilian government. I expect this trend to continue in 2010.”

[Data regarding Maobadi violence can be accessed here. Assessments of the threat posed by Maobadis in various States can be read here.]
The time to discuss and strategise the state’s response to Maobadi terror is long past. The Government cannot be seen to be abdicating its primary responsibility of protecting citizens from criminal excesses. It must act with the fully fury of the state, and act now.

. Maobadis are thugs and criminals who deserve to be hunted down.
. Maobadis are pursuing the path of armed insurrection to overthrow the state.
. Maobadis do not respect human rights yet their protectors in the Left-liberal intelligentsia wax eloquent on the need to protect the human rights of Maobadis!
After such knowledge, what forgiveness?

The argument about fighting Maobadis with development is fallacious. Maobadis are the biggest impediment to development projects. They have been blowing up schools, hostels, health centres, roads and panchayat buildings, thus destroying crucial infrastructure for taking development to the rural hinterland inhabited by tribals. They are anti-development, yet claim they are fighting for tribal welfare! The photograph reproduced below is of a school building blown up by Maobadis in a remote area of Jharkhand -- it was the only school in the area.

[My comments on Barkha Dutt's NDTV programme Buck Stops Here on February 16 on intellectuals romanticising Maobadi violence can be watched here http://www.ndtv.com/news/videos/video_player.php?id=1201939 ]
[My comments on Vikram Chandra's NDTV programme, Big Fight, on February 20 can be watched here http://www.ndtv.com/news/videos/video_player.php?id=1203542 ]
[My comments on Barkha Dutt's NDTV programme We the People on February 21 on Maobadi violence can be watched here http://www.ndtv.com/news/videos/video_player.php?id=1203629 ]

The Left-liberal intelligentsia’s demand that Government should talk to the Maobadis is absurd. What will the Government negotiate? The takeover of the Indian state by Maobadis? To allow them full control over vast swaths of Indian territory?
The Government’s response must be harsh, relentless and unforgiving: Two eyes for an eye; a jaw for a tooth. Terror must be met with overwhelming force. Jolawallahs should be asked to go take a walk, or join Khobad Gandi in his prison cell.
Unless the Maobadi menace is put down mercilessly now, we will end up with a situation similar to the one that prevailed in Sri Lanka till the LTTE was exterminated. Surely we don’t need a civil war to establish the primacy of the Constitution of India, do we?
What do you think?

News Updates

Two get bail
Jamshedpur, Feb 20 (PTI) Two of the 14 people whose release was demanded by the CPI (Maoist) as a condition for the release of abducted BDO of Dalbhumgarh Prashant Layek were today granted bail by a court in Ghatsila here. Additional District Judge M M Singh granted bail to Jasmi Mardi and her father Bahadur Mardi after hearing the case, which was re-investigated recently following the directives from Home department of Jharkhand. Mardi's lawyer M Haque said the two were released on a bond of Rs 10,000 each and will be released from Ghatsila sub-divisional jail later in the day.
Referring to Mardi's case, Haque claimed they alongwith other accused were falsely implicated in the case by Jasmi's husband Ramrai Hembram, a police constable, following the murder of Hembram's brother Dukhia Hembram last year.
Layek, who was kidnapped by Maoists from his office in Dalbhumgarh on Saturday last, was released yesterday at Hadian village under Ghatsila sub-division.
Picture below shows the kidnapped BDO Prashant Lakak with a Maobadi at Ghatshila:

Rs 25 lakh demanded for safety of BSNL towers
Rourkela (Orissa), Feb 20 (PTI) In a letter, written by the Maoists, the rebels have threatened to blow up BSNL's mobile towers at Maoist affected Biramitrapur in Sundargarh district, if the authorities did not pay Rs 25 lakh. B K Jog, general manager, BSNL Rourkela, today said an open envelop containing the letter was found from the commercial section of the office.
The letter written in Oriya with red ink was not addressed to any officer of the department. After receiving the letter, the GM said he has requested the superintendent of police to investigate. The police said an investigation has been ordered to verify the authenticity of the letter.

Blame Maobadis for mess in Nepal

Prachanda’s folly, not Nepal’s

Kanchan Gupta

Left to himself, it is possible that Mr Pushpa Kamal Dahal, also known as Prachanda, the Maoist Prime Minister of Nepal who walked out of his office on Monday, would not have precipitated a political crisis by locking horns with the Army chief, Gen Rukmangad Katawal. If blame must be apportioned, most of it should be shared by Mr Dahal’s comrades in the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist). For, it is the Maobadis outside the Government, nearly all of them impulsively intolerant of the democratic process, who pushed Mr Dahal into taking a position from where he could not retreat without being seen to have suffered a humiliating defeat.

The crisis that reached flashpoint on Monday has long been in making. The Maoists have never been comfortable with Nepal’s Army, their principal enemy during the bloody insurrection that ultimately led to the passage of Singha Durbar into the annals of history. The demise of the 240-year-old monarchy, founded in 1768 by Prithvi Narayan Shah who forged warring fiefdoms into a unified kingdom, was a logical, if undesirable, conclusion of relentless political strife and disruptive social discord.

King Gyanendra’s unceremonious eviction from Narayanhity Palace, which has been converted into a national museum and where relics now gather dust, should have marked a rupture with the past. But the Maobadis did not quite see it that way. Nor did their participation in the Constituent Assembly election, which, contrary to the expectations of the Maobadis, did not fetch them a parliamentary majority, and subsequently forming a Government with the Communist Party of Nepal (UML) rid them of their insecurities, primarily their fear of the Army seizing power sooner or later and reinstating the dethroned King.

To prevent such an eventuality, the Maobadis insisted that 19,000 demobbed members of their ‘People’s Liberation Army’ should be absorbed in the Nepal Army. That would be the first step towards converting the Army into a loyalist force, to be used for perpetuating Maoist rule and eventually converting Nepal into a Maoist state. But Gen Katawal refused to play ball with the Maobadis; whatever his personal predilection — he is believed to be close to King Gyanendra — even his detractors would concede that he is a professional soldier whose primary loyalty is to Nepal.

While accepting the supremacy of the civilian Government, he firmly rebuffed all attempts to undermine the Army and pack it with yesterday’s guerrillas steeped in Maoist ideology and scornful of an established command and control structure. To browbeat Gen Katawal, Mr Dahal used his powers as Prime Minister to forcibly retire eight senior Generals perceived to be close to the Army chief. That order was rendered ineffective by Gen Katawal who sought judicial intervention.

Meanwhile, the Maobadis, increasingly restless, took to taunting Mr Dahal for not being able to promote his party’s interests — serving Nepal’s interests was of no importance to them; they wanted him to act or quit. And so push came to shove with Mr Dahal trying to sack Gen Katawal; the Army chief refusing to accept marching orders; and, finally, President Ram Baran Yadav, a veteran politician in the traditional mould, stepping in and using his powers as the Supreme Commander-in-Chief to rescind the Prime Minister’s impetuous firman. By then, of course, the Government headed by Mr Dahal had lost its majority with the CPN (UML) pulling out of what was clearly an uneasy alliance between two parties with little in common apart from their hostility to the monarchy.

But if Mr Dahal, notwithstanding his maudlin declaration that he was resigning to “create a positive environment, to save democracy, nationalism and the peace process”, thought that his dramatic exit would cause sufficient political disarray and popular outrage to force the President to let him have his way, he was utterly wrong. If he acted on advice, it was entirely misplaced; if he allowed his comrades to get the better of him, then he is likely to suffer loss of stature in the ranks. Neither is a happy prospect.

Instead of allowing the political crisis to deepen, Mr Yadav has acted swiftly and in a commendable manner. He has asked the other political parties to form a Government by Saturday, and they have responded with near unanimity. By Tuesday evening, 21 parties, which have collaborated in the past, had decided to form a ‘national’ Government under the leadership of the CPN (UML). Together, these parties, including the Nepali Congress, the Terai Madhes Democratic Party, the Sadbhavna Party and the Rashtriya Prajatantra Party, have 280 MPs in the 601-member Constituent Assembly. Sensing an opportunity, most of the 53 MPs of the Madhesi People’s Rights Forum are believed to have expressed their desire to join the Government — in true South Asian style, they are willing to split the parent organisation if it does not endorse participation in the new Government.

The Maobadis, presumably, did not factor in ‘horse-trading’, the key to political stability in this part of the world when parliamentary majority eludes any single party or alliance. Presumably they also realise that there is no percentage in crying foul at this stage, not least because the anticipated street protests have not quite materialised. Whether that precludes political violence cannot be said with any certitude. That could follow once the implications of loss of power have sunk in. The CPN (UML), in a grand gesture, has said that Maoist cooperation is “necessary for permanent peace”, but only the naïve will read a deep political message in this.

If the remarkably quick response of the political parties to the crisis precipitated by Mr Dahal is worthy of praise, so is the overwhelming rejection of the Maobadis’ attempt to rouse public passions by slyly suggesting that India caused the problem by ‘interfering’ in Nepal’s internal affairs. Despite stories being planted to the effect that India’s Ambassador tried to persuade Mr Dahal into abandoning his plan to sack Gen Katawal, there has been little or no demonstration of anti-India sentiments.

On the contrary, Kathmandu’s intellectuals have come forward to forthrightly reject all such suggestions of ‘interference’ by India and pointed out that it was Mr Dahal who had recently “summoned” the Ambassadors of eight countries to seek their support for his move to sack the Army chief. But none of them was willing to endorse his action. According to noted civil society activist and Constituent Assembly member Nilamber Acharya, “Prachanda (Mr Dahal) himself met India’s Ambassador Rakesh Sood half-a-dozen times in connection with the issue of Army chief and when he did not get a favourable response, he is talking about foreign intervention, which is ridiculous.”

Yet Mr Dahal and the Maobadis are not entirely friendless, at least in India. The people and politicians of Nepal may scoff at the suggestion of “foreign intervention”, but Mr Sitaram Yechury has been prompt in warning India that it should steer clear of interfering in Nepal’s affairs. It’s not easy to reconcile yourself to the fact that you no longer have access to the corridors of power — neither in New Delhi, nor in Kathmandu.

The Pioneer | EDIT Page Main Article | Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Piqued Prachanda resigns, accuses India of 'interference'

Confrontation with Army chief ends in political crisis; India says it is Nepal's internal affair

Nepal's Maoist Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, also known by his nom de guerre 'Prachanda', resigned from office on Monday May 4, 2009. The immediate 'provocation' was President Ram Baran Yadav's intervention to rescind the Prime Minister's impetuous firman sacking Army chief Gen Rukmangad Katawal. Earlier, two allies of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)-led regime, including the Communist Party of Nepal (UML) had pulled out of the Government to protest Prachanda's unilateral action. By the time Prachanda resigned, his Government had lost its parliamentary majority.

In the 601-member Constituent Assembly, elected through direct and proportional representation, the parliamentary strength of the main parties is as follows:

CPN (Maoists): 238
Nepali Congress: 112
CPN (UML): 108
Madhesi People's Rights Forum: 53
Terai Madhes Democratic Party: 21
Sadhbhavna Party: 9

Among the reasons Prachanda cited was 'international interference', and said, "such interference is not acceptable to us". He was darkly hinting at India, whose Ambassador is said to have counselled him against proceeding on a collision course by taking on the Army chief. Prachanda's deputy, Baburam Bhattarai, was less circumspect. In an interview to a television channel, he accused India of being "directly responsible for stalling the dismissal of Katawal" and "instigating the President to go against the Constitution". On both counts he is absolutely wrong. Both Prachanda and Bhattarai were obviously trying to generate anti-India hysteria and thus make political capital out of a crisis precipitated by the Maobadis who clearly have no appetite for the democratic process.

India's Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee refuted the charge in a statement issued on Monday evening: "What is happening in Nepal is internal to Nepal. We wish Nepal well in its transition to a fully democratic polity and would hope the present crisis is resolved in a manner that contributes to the early conclusion of the peace process."

Interestingly, though, Kathmandu's intelligentsia, which in the past has not hesitated to blame India for Nepal's problems, has refused to accept the Maobadi claim of 'Indian interference'. Shirish B Pradhan, PTI's correspondent in Kathmandu, filed this report on Tuesday, May 6:

Politicians, analysts reject Indian intervention theory

Shirish B Pradhan
Kathmandu

Opposition politicians and independent analysts in Nepal have rejected the Maoist Government's charge of Indian intervention in the country's internal affairs, terming it as "lack of political wisdom".
According to political analysts, the blame game by the Maoists displays a long prevalent tendency in the country to blame foreign countries, including India, for troubles in Nepal.
"This shows lack of political wisdom on the part of the Maoist leadership," said senior lawyer Dinesh Tripathi, adding, "there has been a tendency of blaming the neighbouring country for every rise and fall of governments in the past".
During his address to the nation while quitting Government, Prime Minister Prachanda blamed foreign powers for the trouble in the country, pointing indirectly towards India. “I will better quit power than to bow to foreign powers to remain in the office,” he said.
The Maoists' number two leader Baburam Bhattarai said that "India did a blunder" by supporting the Army and the President in their “unconstitutional acts”.
Nepali Congress' chief whip in the Constituent Assembly, Laxman Ghimire, said the Maoists had themselves sought foreign support for their move to sack the Army chief.
Prachanda had recently summoned ambassadors of eight countries to seek support for his move to sack the army chief. "But when they did not endorse his idea, he made a hue and cry over foreign intervention in the affairs of the country," Ghimire said.
Civil society leader and Constituent Assembly member Nilamber Acharya said the Maoists have themselves chosen the path of confrontation by sacking the army chief unilaterally, and the Prime Minister was falsely accusing foreign and internal forces for toppling his Government.
"Prachanda himself met Indian Ambassador Rakesh Sood for half-a-dozen times in connection with the issue of Army chief and when he did not get a favourable response he is talking about foreign intervention, which is ridiculous," he said.