Tough talk has little effect on Naxalites in eastern states

Efforts for conflict resolution

With the latest Naxalite strikes that left 17 policemen dead in Maharashtra three days ago preceded by the beheading of an inspector in Jharkhand, the Centre's tough talk seems to have had little effect on the left wing ultras in Naxal-hit states.

Top Naxalite leader Koteswar Rao alias Kisenji has refused to forsake the gun and violence even after Union Home Minister P Chidambaram warned that as long as the ultras continued to believe in an armed liberation struggle the police would go after them. “The Naxalites emerged in West Bengal in the late 1960s when India had problems with China,” an expert on Naxalites, Lt Gen (retd) R Mukherjee said.

Naxalites followed hit and run policy of Mao Tse Tung and it is difficult to combat them with traditional organised forces as evidenced in Lalgarh in West Midnapore district, a senior police official said.Even state Home Secretary Ardhendu Sen went on record to state that anti-Maoist operations in Lalgarh by central paramiltary and state police forces were below expectations.

"There was a time when China was ideologically close to us because they believed in the same form of society which we believe in. But in the last 30 years they have moved closer to a capitalist form of government. Naturally there is no question of taking of financial or any other kind of aid from China," Kishneji said.

The Naxalite movement started when an extremist section of CPI(M)) led by Charu Majumdar and Kanu Sanyal attacked the police on May 25, 1967 in Naxalbari village in North Bengal after a farmer was killed by miscreants over a land dispute. The same year the Naxalites organised the All India Coordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries (AICCCR), and later broke away from CPI(M). Today, Naxalites are active in Lalgarh area, Bankura, Purulia and Birbhum districts in West Bengal.