Is this latest Red attack in Orissa a precursor of sorts?
A day after Naxals launched massive attacks in Orissa killing 15 people, security forces are intensifying pressure on them
But the Naxals now seem to be shifting targets. The Tata Group is now at the top of their hit list. And as recent attacks show, so are urban areas.
Forget its dismal failure on the security front. I’m pointing again to how the UPA buffons refuse to
open their eyes to the real Naxal threat. Recall that in a superb article written around when the UPA came to power, Arun Shourie had exposed in detail the Maoist pan-Indian design. Ironically–or maybe as expected, the UPA chose to ignore that. The Maoist plan was to encircle and eventually take over urban India by first dominating the countryside, and then graduating to smaller towns.
The Orissa attack represents the first step in this graduation.
But the DisHonourable Home Minister refuses to believe it.
Naxalism is not the single biggest threat to the country, home minister Shivraj Patil has said, a view that runs contrary to the assertion by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh [Images].
“I don’t think so,” Patil said in an interview to Karan Thapar’s Devil’s Advocate programme…
In a rare display of intelligence, he uses statistics to support his “view.”
The home minister said there were various ways of looking at the naxal problem . If one said ten states were affected, it would mean 30 per cent of the country. If one went by 130 districts affected, it would mean 25 per cent. But if one took into account the number of police stations, it would give a picture of only three per cent, he explained.
I’ll leave it up to you to decipher this nonsense. But consider what Karnataka, one of the most peaceful states in the country, faces.
- A majority of the forests of the Western Ghats/Malnad region is infested with Naxals. Once a trekkers’ paradise, public entry to parts of Kuduremukh are now banned.
- A drive from Sringeri to Hornad via the Kudremukh forest shows you large numbers of uniformed people standing guard.
- Estate/land owners are migrating mostly to Bangalore and elsewhere fearing their lives. According to local sources, Naxals then move in and take over their lands and probably “redistribute” them among the oppressed.
- Although it is low-key and stray at the moment, incidents of Naxal-sponsored violence are growing in that belt. Recall that about a year ago, they killed an old man because he was suspected to be a police informer.
In Karnataka, university professors, local mediamen, writers, et al have become the intellectual defenders of murders Naxalites. To refresh our memories, recall their behaviour when the cops killed Saketh Rajan, a firebrand Naxal. They tore the government apart with massive invectives. A television-serial killer maker devoted a few episodes that bordered on the veneer of supporting Naxalism. However, when the government began making discreet inquiries, these academic worthies bolted. The serial-maker quietly ended the Naxal thread in an otherwise okay serial.
Nothing blood-curdling but as I said, a deadly precursor if the likes of Shivraj Patil continue to feed Ostrich eggs to the nation.
What is unsaid but well-known is the support these murderers have from their political bosses–that includes almost the entire spectrum of the CPI mafia.
“If Sonuji (a CPI (Maoist) Politburo member) is making the statements on behalf of the Maoists, that’s their point of view. My job is to push them back,” Vishwa Ranjan, Director General of Police, Chattisgarh says.
Sonuji and others like him will defend these murderers. There is just too much at stake and too little time before the next polls are announced. More importantly, this is the Left’s last shot at power. From the horse’s mouth:
At the moment, the Maoists insist they are a step ahead in their war on the Indian state.
Can urban India afford to still relax? Or can it force Lunatics Inc at the centre to act. If not for anything but to safeguard the wealth it is successfully creating, which these misguided missiles want to redistribute?
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You may like Shlok Vaidya’s analysis at http://www.naxaliterage.com. He’s been covering that evolution for a while now. It’s good reading.
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[...] Even where there was significant public outcry, the UPA government decided that its perceived vote-banks were more important than national security: it is not half as serious about the jihadi threat as it should be. But where there was lesser public attention, it literally abdicated its responsibility. The presence of the incompetent Shivraj Patil at the home ministry didn’t help. So while the Naxalites consolidated into a nationwide movement years ago, the central government continues to claim that this is essentially a matter for the states, and it would only play a co-ordinating role. [...]