While growing up as a student, I was inundated with umpteen 'isms', all of them caricatured out of the text books to find a permanent place in our psyche. However, as things most probably don't turn out the way they are always supposed to, a vast majority of these concepts relinquished their positions to give way for other things. A seemingly veritable reason for their exodus could be understood in our experiences of not having them faced or seen/felt those 'isms' as it is. Unless you have been through what a concept stands to conceptualize, its imprints are hard not to be eroded by passage of time. A retreat to the yellowish pages of our history books would present us with various names sans any soul, primarily because they have been a part of history, things we could have never lived through. A vicarious thrill is easy to come by, but its essence will again be insignificant and one we could never relate to the experiences of our times. The path to glory for a progressive India is fraught with uncertainties and problems, both extrinsic and intrinsic. The media glare for things headed our way from outside has been ubiquitous. I would like to ponder over issues which come from within, and probably have greater firepower to weaken us from inside.
Tracing the roots of Naxalism won't yield the right results in the current scenario. The ideologies have undergone a sea of change, and as they stand right now, there are no strings attached to the original plans. It's in no way reflective of a total abandonment of original ways, but just that there are few more radical faces of their modus operandi in this millennium. They had always been institutionally quite limited in how they wanted to express themselves, but with the passage of time and their feel of the current pulse, we have seen some outrageous expressions from their side. From their rudimentary stages of inflicting damage only on police and the government, they have shown a handful of temerity to strike against the general public in some cases to important Industrial bases. This militant form of their operations is what we have to keep an eye on. Their movement has been in our opposition for quite a long time, and I must admit, that we have not done enough for them to stop in their strides. And the result is being manifested in their zealous attacks on institutions which are an important constituent of our economic fabric. We must own the responsibility of not being able to check their resurgence in various ways, our incompetence in not being able to handle them efficiently and in our inability to have thought over a well chalked out plan to counter them. The home ministries of yore are culpable of not being far-sighted and not being able to put an exemplary intelligence machinery to track naxalites' movements and plans. There are various fronts which could be brought about as a paradigm of utter failure on the ministries of past. But, that's not going to serve any purpose going further, apart from the fact that we may have a lot of things to learn when we sit to examine the rubble. Let's come up with a steely resolution and a fool proof plan to counter them effectively. Here's my take on what we could think of doing:
1. We are all cognizant of the fact that all naxals find a soft corner in the hearts of people in rural belts from where they operate. They in the garb of being their messiah, always find a safe shelter and escape route whenever required. The fight is in the name of rights and opportunities. Government must appoint cells who would go and closely work with the villagers to find out their issues, and in turn, give them assurances that proper action would be taken for their betterment.
2. Engage the educated as well as uneducated youth in these belts to let them have a feeling that they are considered important, and that the government cares for them. If we can have even a semblance of success in achieving what we propose, we would know we have ventured out on the correct path.
3. Take the dwellers in these belts into confidence and start developmental schemes which would help them directly - give opportunities to the villagers to be able to earn good wages by engaging them in such schemes, allay all fears of not having any security net over them, empower them suitably so that they can work with the government for development. Opportunities will entice the youth away from guns.
4. Infrastructure building in such areas would automatically weaken naxalite movements as our forces would have the liberty and easy access to resources in a known environment.
5. Provide for the education and rehabilitation of young ones in such areas. It would go a long way in defining what the future holds for us in this battle.
6. Establish a strong intelligence network to thwart any naxal movements in such areas. This again would come in handy if we work simultaneously on the infrastructure front as well. Such a network should have a representation form the dwellers of such belts. Their knowledge of the surrounding areas will always come in handy.
To summarize all of it, we must ensure that we build good infrastructure in such areas, engage the local population in development activities and intelligence network building, provide for education to the young ones, ensure that the needy have a safe access to wages and that the villagers' grievances are properly heeded to with a provision for good compensation and rehabilitation schemes. The onus lies on our governments, their willingness to dig themselves out of this hole and provide conclusive answers to problems of this nature which are threating to breach national security. It will be equally good if we could evince enough support form all the sides - central state partnership, public private partnership, government NGO partnership etc. At the end of it, it is us, Indians, who are going to be benefited out of this. So there's a role for everyone to play. We have to ensure that no one shirks away from his/her responsibility, and that would come with a need to identify ourselves with such problems.
No comments:
Post a Comment