When will the Governments of India learn their lesson.. ? Be it the Central Government or State Governments..
Be it the Naxal menace, Kashmir problems, Maoist threats, Poverty, Pollution, Corruption, Inflation, Governments sleep over everything and follow the principle ‘This too shall pass’.
And in the process, they strengthen the threats that face this nation willingly and unwillingly.
When politicians of ruling and opposition parties, experts on security come up on Television screen and scream about the need of not surrendering to Naxalites, the people of this country have real reason to be angry with them. And I am one of those getting angry with these politicians. I am not one of those who tweet about not surrendering to Naxalites and winning over them with the lives of these poor policemen.
Yes. Agreed, it is surrendering to Naxalites, if we submit to their demands of release of naxalites. But what were the successive governments doing about this menace all the time..? What actions they initiated either to subdue or win over these movements, be it Kashmir, Maoists or Naxals.
Nothing all these years. Kashmir was silent for a long time. Governments did not move swiftly to divide and rule the Kashmir seccessionist elements. Naxals and Maoists have been gathering strength over the last decade. Governments did not move swiftly to address the basic issues in Maoist and Naxalite movements. They did not even address the flow of arms into these groups. They did not address social issues that provide support to these movements.
But now they put a brave stand, just because the people abducted are commoners.
Assume a politician of ruling class has been abducted. Like Rubaiya Sayeed, a scion of a minister. Or a minister or MP himself/herself. God forbid, say Rahul is abducted by Naxals, for a moment. Or just assume a cine-star, who only depict policemen on screen, is abducted.
Will this be the response of our politicians..?
Remember, the battle with these forces is not about winning a war. With these forces the only policy that would succeed is divide and rule.
We need to win over some people in these movements to our side. We need to address key issues that drive people to support these movements.
These forces are a combination of forces and not real ‘One’ force as media portrays. There are varied interests in every movement. There are interests in these movements that are out after power. There are interests in these movements that are truly fighting for the oppressed people. There are interests in these movements that are disgruntled.
So it is possible to engineer splits, address critical issues of people and weaken these movements. But Governments do not do anything unless they are shaken up.
But if Naxals believe they can shake up the Government by killing poor policemen, they are plain wrong. Our power drunk politicians can never be shaken up over loss of lives of few policemen.
I appeal to Naxals to release these poor policemen. They should know that no matter they kill these policemen, they are not going to achieve anything. These policemen are no cine-actors earning in crores or MPs earning in lakhs or scions of ministers, for whom Governments will come down and negotiate. These are poorly paid policemen, put out in the front.
In fact the Governments are not even going to get incited with these killings. If they would have got incited, they would have got incited when 80 CRPF soldiers got killed in Dantewada or when a busload of policemen were killed later. Policemen getting killed is ONLY statistics for our Governments.
Governments will give some compensation to the poor families and forget about it. Poorly endowed policemen may be easy fodder for Naxal anger. But except for quenching their thirst for blood, the lives of these poor policemen would yield nothing to them.
I appeal to Government to think that these 3 policemen abducted are LK Advani, Sonia Gandhi and Shah Rukh Khan. They are not some abhay, prasad and yadav. And with these names in mind, plan your reaction.
And more important, please act, not re-act.
-TBT
