Maoist Insurgency in West Bengal

Bastar, Dantewada, Rajnandgaon, Dhamtari, and Kanker of Chattisgarh, Gaya of Bihar, Latehar of Jharkhand, Sambalpur of Orissa, and Gadchiroli of Maharashtra are continuously in headlines for the past few days. Dozens of people in these areas have lost their lives to Maoist violence, and schools, hospitals, and community buildings are being destroyed. The concerning aspect is that in recent times, these incidents are being repeated in Jharkhand and Bihar in a manner in which they have been going on in Chattisgarh for a long time.

Lalgarh Tragedy
What is taking place in Lalgarh in West Midnapore District of West Bengal is surprising and frightening. There is mayhem there for the last one week. It does not seem that there is anything like law and order there. The way people carrying traditional arms indulged in sabotage and arson to celebrate victory could not be called a normal people's movement. Incidents like burning down the local police station, destroying the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) office, murder of CPI-M workers, and attacking their homes proves that certainly destructive violent forces are also active there under the banner of the People's Committee against the police atrocities.

Almost all political parties keep giving advice from time-to-time of not solving the problem of Maoist violence in more than half dozen states of the country only from a law and order viewpoint. If it takes years just to understand a problem, words like unified command, federal forces, comprehensive policy, and social change lose their meaning. There is no direct and clear demand of Naxalites or Maoist insurgents on which political or any other kind of discussion could be held.

Path of Violence
The Government often says that discussions are only possible when these insurgents give up the path of violence and come onto the dialogue table keeping faith in India's constitution. As far as the Communist Party of India (Maoist) is concerned, this party has no faith in democratic means, because it believes that this political system is under the control of "capitalist" parties and elections is a meaningless exercise. In the statements released through its spokesperson, this party is continuously giving calls to take retaliatory action against security forces.

Nobody can deny the right to protest peacefully against injustice, but no one can support this kind of attack with weapons and declaration of liberation. There were reports of Maoists becoming active in Singur and Nandigram also, but amid political differences, nobody took the trouble of looking at them. In fact, it is time that all political parties understand the destructive goals of Maoists.

Presence of Violent Insurgents
In fact, Maoists are active there for a long time, and they have made inroads among local adivasis (aborigines). The branches of the CPI-M are active there, and they have trained adivasis. In November 2008, the convoy of Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya was attacked there with bombs when he was returning after laying the foundation stone of a steel factory. That provided proof of the presence of violent insurgents. After that, the police cracked down heavily. It is possible that innocent adivasis would also have become victims of the police atrocities. The local CPI-M workers were there with the police. This way, it turned into a direct confrontation.

Maoists took advantage of this situation. According to a report, Maoists declared a big region as liberated zone. This is a very dangerous situation. All this has been taking place for several days, and the police are not in a position to do anything. The central Government sent battalion of the paramilitary forces from Jharkhand, but they too were not allowed to enter for several hours. This situation is like a state functioning within an authorized state, which must be ended under all circumstances.

Restoring Rule of Law
Despite expressing its likes and dislikes so clearly, if the Government is hoping for a change of heart of these insurgents, then certainly the directionless-ness of today could be called proper, otherwise the lack of any kind of thinking on this problem is clearly visible. In the affected states, there is Congress party Government in Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, Bharatiya Janata Party Government in Chhattisgarh, regional party Biju Janata Dal's Government in Orissa, and no Government in Jharkhand at the moment. In this situation, only a federal initiative becomes important. Among the problems with which union Home Minister P. Chidambaram has started grappling in his new term, Jammu and Kashmir is perhaps the most serious, but he should soon take concrete initiative to give the message that he is also aware of the growing threat of Naxalism-Maoism.

Rule of law must immediately be established in Lalgarh. However, the state and federal Governments must go to the troubled area and try to understand why the situation became so grim. It is necessary to defeat these forces.

Manmohan-Zardari Meeting: India Talks Tough on Terror

A significant meeting between Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari in Yekaterinburg (Russia), shortly after the conclusion of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit, has sent out a clear message that India and Pakistan were edging towards the normalisation of bilateral relations, nearly seven months after the November 2008 Mumbai terror attacks.

Primary Cause of Tension
Dr. told Zardari that the primary cause of the tension between their two countries was the terrorist attacks being launched against India from the Pakistani territory. Dr. Singh was quite forthright in conveying to Zardari, who he had last met in September 2008 on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, the full extent of India’s expectations from Pakistan.

The three conditions laid by Manmohan Singh for the resumption of dialogue were: Pakistan must take strong and effective action against forces representing terrorism, act against the perpetrators of terror attacks in India and dismantle the terrorist infrastructure. He also conveyed to Zardari India’s disappointment over the release of Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, chief of the Jamat-ud-Dawa (Jud), one of the key plotters of the Mumbai carnage.

The beleaguered Pakistan president, who is facing the heat from the Pakistan Army, as well as the Inter- Services Intelligence (ISI) back home, explained to Manmohan Singh the steps being taken by Pakistan to tackle terrorism and the problems the country was facing to deal with the menace.

Stern Warning to Pakistan
Dr. Singh gave a stern warning to Zardari in the presence of media. He demanded that Pakistani soil must not be used for terrorist activities against India. The Indian Prime Minister should be congratulated for this bold stand. An unreliable country, expert at making excuses, does not deserve a better treatment. Dr. Singh has proved that he can be as firm as he is modest. He must maintain this firm attitude in the future also since Pakistan can never be depended upon.

The Prime Minister's strong stand leaves no scope for any doubt that he had made the decision for talks under US pressure. Whatever might be the US intention, the Prime Minister's sternness has proved that India would brook no indifference to its interests. Had the Indian leadership taken a similar stand against Pakistan in the past, matters would, perhaps, not come to this stage.

Agenda for Future Talks
Dr. Singh and Zardari directed their Foreign Secretaries to meet within the next one month and discuss the “primary issue of terrorism” before the two leaders meet again on the margins of the NAM Summit in Egypt on July 15-16.

However, it was necessary for India to spell out that any future talks with Pakistan would have the single agenda of terrorism. This is certainly an indication of a basic change in Indian diplomacy, which should yield positive results. However, Zardari's statement in context of use of Pakistan territory for anti-Indian activities alone cannot cause much satisfaction. His predecessors had given similar assurances. In fact, former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf had given a written assurance to India in 2004 to this effect. Yet, the experience of the past five years shows that Pakistan has knowingly gone back on this commitment. The terrible Mumbai attacks prove this fact.

There is no reason to believe in Pakistan's promises. It had pledged to punish the conspirators of the Mumbai attacks, but it did just the reverse. As a result, terrorist leader Saeed, believed to be the mastermind behind the plot, was set free for want of evidence. Since Pakistan will not easily shed off its anti-Indian attitude, it will be necessary to move cautiously in discussions on terrorism. There is also reason to believe that Pakistan will once again harp on the old irrelevant issue of solving the Kashmir problem immediately.

Opportunity for Pakistan
It is high time for India to stop being in the defensive on this issue; Kashmir has certainly been a bone of contention between India and Pakistan. But the party that has to take a defensive stand on it has to be Pakistan.

By shaking hands with Pakistani President Zardari, Prime Minister Dr. Singh has proved that despite committing so many crimes, India is ready to give it one more opportunity. Now, it depends on Pakistan whether it uses the opportunity to restore its credibility around the world, or lets its narrow selfish interests and deep-rooted enmity get the better of it.

Israel Endorses Palestinian Statehood

Under pressure from the US Administration, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has for the first time endorsed a two-state solution in the Middle East, drawing praise from the West but flak from Palestinians who rejected the offer citing the tough conditions attached. The move was aimed at pleasing the US.

In a policy speech that came a week after US President Barack Obama’s address to the Islamic world, Netanyahu said the “Palestinian state” would have to be demilitarised and recognise Israel as a state of the Jewish people.

The hardliner Israeli Prime Minister has resisted agreeing to a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict all through his political career and his veiled acceptance was couched under several other conditions, including refusal to allow Palestinian refugees to settle in Israel and keeping united Jerusalem the capital of the Jewish state.

Step in Right Direction
With all these conditions, Israel “will be ready in a future peace agreement to reach a solution where a demilitarised Palestinian state exists alongside the Jewish state,” Netanyahu said.

The address at Bar Ilan university, considered the bastion of Israeli right, came in the wake of Obama’s insistence that Israel impose a complete freeze on West Bank settlement construction and recognise the two-state solution.

The White House said Obama welcomed the speech as an “important step forward” while the European Union described it as “a step in the right direction”.

However, the Palestinians were skeptic and angry. “Netanyahu’s remarks have sabotaged all initiatives, paralysed all efforts being made and challenges the Palestinian, Arab and American positions.

Israel does not have any desperate need, to say the least, for more unilateral concessions. Time is on Israel’s side. It is the other side which faces disaster-social breakdown, economic stagnation, high levels of civil conflict.

Real Danger Point
The greatest danger confronting Israel, West Asia, the entire world and human race, is the nexus between radical Islam and nuclear weapons. The greatest danger confronting Israel, etc, is not the Palestinian problem, nor is it Islamophobia, nor an insufficient supply of American apologies and empathy.

There is a real danger that an armed Palestinian state would emerge that would become another terrorist base against the Jewish state, such as the one in Gaza. In order to achieve peace, we must ensure that Palestinians will not be able to import missiles into their territory, to field an army, to close their airspace to us, or to make pacts with the likes of Hezbullah and Iran… Without this, sooner or later, these territories will become another Hamastan.

There must also be a clear understanding that the Palestinian refugee problem will be resolved outside Israel’s borders. For it is clear that any demand for resettling Palestinian refugees within Israel undermines Israel’s continued existence as the state of the Jewish people.

Two-State Solution
However, the fact is that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accepted the two-state solution back in 1997 when he took over in the midst of the Oslo agreement peace process and committed himself to all preceding agreements.

This is not the real issue. The real issue is this: Much of the world wants Israel to agree in advance to give the Palestinian Authority what they think it wants without any concessions or demonstration of serious intent on its part.

The most important is the demand that any Palestinian who lived or whose ancestors ever lived on what is now Israeli territory can come and live in Israel. This is correctly seen as a ploy to destroy Israel. The other is that borders must be precisely those of 1967. If there is room for discussion then Israel will discuss this plan; if it’s take-it-or-leave-it, there is no alternative but the latter.