Click to play videoThe battle rages on between security forces and hundreds of tribals led by Maoists in Lalgarh in West Midnapore, West Bengal. Elite commando units – the Cobra Unit – and paramilitary forces have been pressed into the fight, but the Maoists – organized under the Peoples Committee Against Police Atrocities – have formed a human shield of women and children and the state government faces a tough task.
Naxal leader Koteswar Rao told CNN-IBN in an exclusive interview that they will not give up the fight against the state government. Meanwhile, in Orissa on Thursday, Maoists killed nine security personnel with a landmine.
This leads us to the question that was asked on CNN-IBN show Face The Nation: Operation Lalgarh – are Maoists winning the battle against the security forces?
On the panel of experts to try and answer the question were: CPM leader Nilotpal Basu; MoS Urban Development and Trinamool Congress leader, Saugata Ray; and Director Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, Major General (Retd) Dipankar Banerjee.
At the beginning of the show 72 per cent of the people agreed that Maoists were winning the battle, while 28 per cent disagreed.
Reds vs Reds
The people of Lalgarh are battling security forces and the CPM. They claim it is state repression, the violence by the CPM, which has been reeking on Lalgarh and that has led to this battle. People in the strife-torn area are also saying that West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee is a ‘Hitler’.
Nilotpal Basu kick-started the debate by saying that it was amusing to see the claims of Naxal leaders being legitimised by the media. "The other day, a Naxal announced that they had out a unilateral death sentence against the Chief Minister whom they planned to kill on November 2. Around the country now there is a consensus that this Naxal menace has emerged as a major element of adversity to our internal security. I think it has nothing to do with repression."
He said the menace had emerged because they want to have complete power and not let any political party function. "They are not allowing the police in certain areas and have taken the law in their own hand and they are killing people unilaterally. In the last four days alone, 15 people have been killed by the Maoists. Five bodies are yet to be recovered. This has nothing to do with anything else except that it is a plain and simple attempt to wrest power and challenge the sovereignty of the nation state."
Saugata Ray disagreed saying that the battle had everything to do with CPM repression and that it was certainly not a struggle for power.
"I find it very amusing that CPM leader Nilotpal Basu is now taking about the sovereignty of the nation and about defending the nation state against Maoists. The Maoists are basically an off-shoot of the CPM which everyone knows. The Maoist movement actually branched off from the CPM in 1967. But let me state this quite clearly that this trouble in Lalgarh has been happening for the past six to seven months now, ever since there was a mine explosion on the Chief Minister's route when he was going to Phalguni to the Jindal plant. From that time the police went on a rampage and started torturing innocent villagers. So the villagers formed a committee called the Peoples Committee Against Police Atrocities and that is what they have been doing - fighting against police atrocities. Then in the last week or so, suddenly CPM sent their armed cadres to fight against this Peoples Committee Against Police Atrocities. I do not believe that the ordinary villagers, the tribals and non-tribals are Maoists," he stated.
"I have been to Lalgarh myself several times and we have been allowed in every time. There they simply say, please save us from police torture. They say that Maoists stay in jungles, in Jharkhand. They come here, do some action and go away. Why are we tortured, why are our women insulted, these villagers ask. That is their point," Ray added.
He said that because the CPM cadres began action against the Peoples Committee Against Police Atrocities, many villagers retaliated and that is what drove many villagers into the Maoist cadres. "Now the villagers will resist any effort of the police to get into their territory. Taking the shelter of the villagers, Maoists may resort to some action. But this has all been created by the CPM, the state government and Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee's foolishness," he said.
A failure of the Bengal government?
The Peoples Committee Against Police Atrocities is now acquiring a mass status. It is no longer an insurgency because the villagers are now on the side of this committee.
Major General Banerjee joined the debate at this point saying that the current situation had developed principally because of the absence of governance.
"The ruling CPM in this western part of the state had outsourced governance to lower party members as well as to other elements in that region, so this is a genuine response against them," he stated, adding, "But then the ruling party has the responsibility to deal with a situation such as this in a correct and effective manner – both with a legitimate use of force as well as with good governance."
The Left Front has now resorted to asking for Central help when this is surely a matter for the state police to solve. It seems as if the Left Front is scared that if they take harsh measures and if the police actually goes in to fight this Maoist menace, they may lose even more popular support and they may lose more seats after the poll debacle in which they went from 35 seats to 15 seats.
Many believe that it seems as if the state government simply does not have the resolve and that they want the Congress Government at the Centre to come in and do their work.
To this Basu said, "I think this is being very judgmental. I want to know why ambulances sent in for medical treatment for the villagers and the tribals were blown up by the Maoists. The drivers and the doctors on those ambulances were all tribals. Why then were they attacked? Major General Banerjee talked of development, well I want to tell him that this is one area where Maoists have benefited from re-distribution of land and it is the development plank of the state government that is being targeted by the Maoists."
He added that it was unfortunate that Maoists had been able to confuse a section of the tribals and force them to act as human shields.
Saugata Ray interrupted here repeating what he had said earlier, which was that the people had turned against the state because of police torture. The people, he said, had turned away from the state because the CPM cadre had misused their position to make money.
However, he said that he wanted to make it very clear that the Trinamool Congress had no alliance with the Maoists.
"We do not support their violent activity and nor do we support their philosophy in any way. We are far from all this. We are not even very strong in this area and you must know that the CPM won that seat. During the Lok Sabha elections of 2009, the CPM gave a call for election boycott in those areas and they enforced that boycott so that the tribals did not have a chance to vote against them. We didn't have a candidate from there, the Congress did, but the CPM won from there," he stated.
Ray wanted to ask the CPM how they were not being able to get inside a place where they had won a seat from in the elections. "Nilotpal Basu talks about blowing up of an ambulance, which I agree is a reprehensible act, but what about the starvation deaths in Amlashol? You talk about development and people are still eating roots and ant eggs. That is the real situation. They suffer from deprivation," he said.
Towards the middle of the show, the percentage of people who agreed that the Maoists were indeed winning the battle against the state government went up to 74 per cent, while those who disagreed went down to 26 per cent.
Reclaiming Lalgarh
West Bengal it seems has really not taken the Maoists head on. They have not used adequate force against this menace.
Major General Banerjee said, "Each state government today has adequate forces to deal with a situation like this considering law and order is their responsibility. I doubt that all the home ministers of the respective provinces even know the lump and variety of the active forces that they have."
He alleged the Maoists have sophisticated weapons like AK 47s and they are not the disgruntled professors that were seen in the initial phase of the Naxal movement back in 1967. He said that over the last few years, Maoists had developed sophistication and strategy and they had coordination and cooperation amongst themselves.
"The whole question of these Extremist Communist movements in South Asia were a result of this strategy and coordination. To counter this situation we now require a strategy, specialised forces and political will to deal with the situation both in terms of force and development. Addressing the concerns of the people are fundamental to establishing a regime there. Anything short of this and it is very difficult to win this battle," Banerjee said.
This is a principal battle, he said, adding that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was himself aware of the fact that this was a very grave issue.
"The Prime Minister has said it again and again that this is a principal internal security challenge that the state faces. It is India's war and all of us must collectively address it. Let's not get over-excited about party differences. It's a provincial problem - particularly in this case where it is restricted to the western part of the state - but it's also a larger national and has to be dealt with at that level,” Banerjee said.
Andhra Pradesh has the Greyhound force, other states have the Cobra force, so maybe it is time for West Bengal to stop worrying about politics of harsh measures and raise a specialist force.
Nilotpal Basu said that his party recognises that there are two components in this whole thing. "There are tribal villagers, some of whom have been misled and some of whom have been coerced into joining Maoist forces. We have to demarcate between the Maoists and innocent villagers, so that is why patience is needed. Secondly, as Major General Banerjee was saying, there is a need to build a political consensus. For this consensus, we had to engage with the Peoples Committee Against Police Atrocities and that took time. Now, we have created an atmosphere where people are understanding that this not an operation against tribal villagers but against armed Maoists elements," he said.
However, Banerjee interrupted saying that the political will was lacking. "If you were to go and protect genuine citizens of the state, then the people will be with you. Ask your adequate forces to go in, but in the last few days we have seen that the state police has given up its responsibilities in that area."
Basu shot back saying that this was not correct. "The state government has made it abundantly clear that this is the state government's operation with adequate supplementary support from the Central forces and that point has been made very clear. At the same time we are appealing to the people that this is a battle against Maoists and not against them."
Saugata Ray rounded off the debate by saying that law and order was a complete state responsibility and the state must act in a manner in which it thinks best. However, even though he said that the Trinamool Congress would never side with the Maoists, he also stated that his party would not hold the hand of the state government or bail it out from a situation which the state itself had created.
"They must sort their own problem. We won't comment on how they should do so. All we say is that it is their responsibility," he concluded.
FINAL SMS/WEB POLL: Operation Lalgarh – are Maoists winning the battle against the security forces?
Yes: 74 per cent
No: 26 per cent
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