Our Naxal/Maoist friends have struck again. In Jharkhand.

Fifteen persons were killed by suspected naxalities at Bhincaghati in Giridh district, Deputy Inspector General Neeraj Sinha said on Monday. The deceased were said to be villagers and details are yet to be known, Sinha, before rushing to the spot, said.

Over a 100 armed naxalities raided the village under Beuri police station in the wee hours of Monday and attacked it, Sinha said.

The Home Minister, Shivraj Patil had thundered a few months ago about tackling the Naxal menace with yet another braindead strategy.

UNION Home Minister Shivraj Patil’s proposal for a unified command to tackle the Naxalite menace is timely, though the idea itself is not new. Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was in favour of such a command for effective inter and intra-state coordination in tackling the menace. The problem has only worsened during the last few weeks. The CPI (Maoist) activists stepped up violence in the first phase of the Assembly elections in Bihar and Jharkhand. There is tension in Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and Karnataka. The situation in neighbouring Nepal is alarming. India will have to prevent a regrouping of the CPI (Maoist) groups in both countries.

Why doesn’t anybody ask the vital question: why this sudden esclation in Naxal violence? Better still, why doesn’t anybody take pains to study the problem at its roots: the origins and evolution of Naxalism, which started at Naxalbari in West Bengal and then acquired a gigantic magnitude in Andhra? Plentiful literature on Naxalism’s roots is available. This problem too, as we see it, is being tackled in much the same manner as others, for example, Mrs.Gandhi’s handling of Punjab terrorism.

The only solution our “statesmen” seem to think of is clouded by short-sightedness, and consequently, they become short-term solutions. 15 killed in Jharkhand: send out cops there, make them wait for the next ambush–don’t the Naxals know better than that?–and if nothing happens for 3 months, withdraw the contingent. Meanwhile, innocent lives would have been lost elsewhere. And if that was not enough, we have an Eminence, Mr. YSR who put an open display of cowardice by inviting terrorists to tea. They returned favour in several ways:

• Not satisfied with talks: Naxals
• IPS officer killed by Bihar naxalites cremated in AP
• Naxalite killings: CPI(Maoist) to retaliate
• and finally: AP: Maoists pull out of peace talks

It doesn’t take a genius to conclude that none of these measures will work. As cursory evidence, look at the response to Shivraj Patil’s latest call to curb Naxal activities:

Only three chief ministers have confirmed their participation in the one-day conference on Tuesday September 21 of nine Naxalite-affected states convened by Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil in Hyderabad to deliberate on the initiatives taken by various state governments to tackle the menace and its impact on other states.

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Dr Y S Rajasekhar Reddy, Orissa’s Naveen Patnaik and Jharkhand’s Arjun Munda will not have the benefit of interacting with their counterparts from Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.

The Indian state has repeatedly failed to use strong arm techniques be it with Pakistan or Bangladesh or the Naxals until it is too late.