Facts often become a casualty when politics starts dominating policy debates. A case in point is the ongoing wrangle over whether the West Bengal government should have let off some tribal women to obtain the release of one of its police officers, abducted by the Maoists operating in that region. Odious comparisons have been drawn between this incident and the release of hard-core terrorists in return of passengers of the Indian Airlines plane hijacked to Kandahar in Afghanistan about a decade ago. The reality is somewhat different. No proclaimed terrorists or convicted criminals have been released to obtain the freedom of the West Bengal police officer. The tribal women released by the government are neither members of the Maoist groups nor have they on their own indulged in terrorist activities. They were only mobilised by the Maoist groups in support of the latter’s cause. In any case, the release of the tribal women should be seen in the larger context of the several successful attacks launched by the Maoists against the police forces and government establishments in recent weeks. The need of the hour was to shore up the confidence of a visibly demotivated police force that saw many of its senior members either ambushed or killed. In these circumstances, it had become imperative to avoid the killing of another senior police officer. That the state government managed to do just that by simply not opposing the bail application of some tribal women in the court, therefore, should not become an instrument of political gamesmanship. Instead, the state government should be allowed to remain focused on what needs to be done to strengthen its police forces so that they can face up to the Maoist challenge.
Indeed, the Maoist challenge is a threat whose magnitude can hardly be underestimated. While economic development of areas where Maoist groups have spread their influence is a long-term solution and a strong police force is a necessary concomitant of that process, a more immediate challenge lies with the Centre and the state governments. Large sections of people in West Bengal and the neighbouring states of Chattisgarh and Jharkhand have reaped virtually no benefit from the economic growth that the country’s other regions have seen in the last couple of decades. Land reforms did help a generation of land-less farmers in West Bengal. But that was more than two decades ago. Relative stagnation in agriculture and the absence of any viable alternatives for the new generation of farmers have fuelled their resentment against governments that have remained unresponsive to their problems. This was a fertile ground for the Maoists, who exploited the existing political vacuum to the hilt by raising among these people visions of empowerment. It is, therefore, gratifying to note that West Bengal’s ruling political party, the Communist Party of India- Marxist (CPI-M), has recognised the need to counter the Maoist challenge politically and ideologically. CPI-M General Secretary Prakash Karat has rightly conceded that the problem of backwardness in remote tribal areas has been neglected for long and both the Centre and the state government (including, hopefully his own party’s government in West Bengal) should develop a comprehensive package to deal with the Maoists challenge. Governments need to strengthen their police forces to combat the Maoist insurgents. However, such measures will yield durable results only when they are accompanied by a substantive economic package for farmers of this region.
