DC Edit | Hear grievances in Naxal belt
The most affected districts include Bijapur, Kanker, Narayanpur and Sukma in Chhattisgarh, West Singhbhum in Jharkhand and Gadchiroli in Maharashtra. In Chhattisgarh alone, counter-insurgency operations by central and state governments have killed more than 400 Maoists in the last 15 months, putting the Maoists on the back foot in their stronghold;
A day after Union home minister Amit Shah announced that the government had halved the number of districts most affected by Left-Wing Extremism from 12 to six, the outlawed Communist Party of India (Maoist) proposed a conditional ceasefire, suggesting the telling impact of the government’s counter-insurgency operations in Naxal-affected states.
The most affected districts include Bijapur, Kanker, Narayanpur and Sukma in Chhattisgarh, West Singhbhum in Jharkhand and Gadchiroli in Maharashtra. In Chhattisgarh alone, counter-insurgency operations by central and state governments have killed more than 400 Maoists in the last 15 months, putting the Maoists on the back foot in their stronghold.
The conditions put forth by the Maoists for the ceasefire include halting anti-Naxal operations in Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, and Telangana and stopping the establishment of new camps for armed forces. Police officials believe that the ceasefire offer could be a ruse to reduce the intensity of anti-Naxal operations and use the time to regroup and rearm. As such, the Chhattisgarh government rejected the conditions and stated that it was ready for unconditional peace talks with the Naxalites.
Naxal activities peaked in the late 1990s and early 2000s, culminating in an assassination attempt on the then Andhra Pradesh chief minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu. In response, the Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy government modernised the police force, invested in improving road connectivity to interior regions to deny safe havens to the Naxals, and expanded welfare programmes to wean local support away from the insurgents.
Following the success of Andhra Pradesh’s strategy, all Naxal-affected states followed the AP model, resulting in a considerable decline in the influence of Left-Wing Extremism in India. However, the government and politicians should not forget that discrimination and a lack of avenues to express resentment could promote extremist tendencies among victims. Freedom of expression, with reasonable restrictions as guaranteed in the Constitution, is the only way to prevent extremism from taking root among the people.