The
'Andhra Way' Of Countering
The Naxalite ‘Menace’
By Subhash Gatade
10 April, 2006
Countercurrents.org
The
Prime Minister is going to address a meeting of states affected with
Naxalite ‘menace’ on 13 th April. Media is also agog with
news of ‘Centre Getting Tough Action Plan to Curb Naxalism’.
An inkling of the way the powers that be look at the situation could
be had from a recent meeting held in Delhi.
The recent interaction of
senior police officers belonging to states suffereing from the naxalite
‘menace’ with the top echleons of the internal security
establishment proved to be a rehash of the same old mindset which pervades
the custodians of law and order. Looking at the quantum jump in the
activities of the militant formations and the talk of ‘red corridor’
gaining currency, one was expecting a refreshingly novel approach, but
it proved to be disappointing. To top it all, the police officials from
West Bengal, Orissa, Chhatisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand etc were advised
to follow the ‘Andhra Way’ supposedly to the curb the ‘menace’.
(Naxaliyon se Nipatane Mein Andhra ka Tarika Apnaye, Jansatta, 27 th
March 2006) Ofcourse it was not for the first time that there was singing
of eulogies about the Andhra model. The meeting of home ministers of
the concerned states held under the aegis of the present home minister
last year also saw the projection of the southern state in taking up
steps to achieve zero tolerance. It is a different matter that the same
home minister on the floor of the house had rather conceded the limits
of this approach when he admitted that despite best efforts it 'was
not able to bring down the level of naxalite activities as successfully
as it had tackled terrorism' ( The Hindu, 30 Nov 2005). What is so significant
about the way in which A.P. has taken up steps to curb the activities
?
A glimpse of way in which
state looks at the problem can be had from a few month old petition
duly signed by many a eminent intellectuals and activists (www.petitiononline.com)
addressed to the President of India which makes chilling reading. Giving
details of some happenings in the state it had requested the President
to intervene informing him about the 'cruel and inhuman anti insurgency
strategy being adopted by the state government.' According to the petition
the state police department has engaged a criminal mafia gang called
‘Black Cobra’ . This gang has been issuing ‘death
lists’ in media and brutally hacking those on the lists.' And
this gang has already killed two intellectuals – Mr. Kanakachari,
a teacher by profession, human rights activist and co-convener of Telangana
Jana Sabha and, Mr. M. Prasad, a bank employee and District leader of
Kula Nirmoolana Poraata Samithi, an organization fighting against caste
system - who were brutally hacked to death within a span of two weeks.
The petition informs the
President that when a delegation of intellectuals and journalists complained
to Lok-Ayukta (an ombudsman-like authority to enforce ethics and accountability
in public office), that the state Home Minister and Director General
of Police have failed to discharge their duties with respect to the
‘Cobra Killings’, the Cobra gang had started calling up
those who were part of that delegation. This is ample proof that the
police are hand-in-glove with this criminal gang. And the petition rightly
raises the question " rearing ‘vigilante’ criminal
groups and using them to bump off detractors is a strategy used by cruel
dictators. It is sad that such inhuman ‘strategies’ are
being used in one of the most revered democracies in the world."
Close on the heels of the
killings had also come the news of the attack on the house of Prof S
Seshaiah, Head of the Department of Law in Sri Krishnadevaraya University
in Anantpur, who happens to be general secretary of APCLC. It has been
reported that five unidentified persons attacked the house of Prof Seshaiah
on 23 November at 10.30 p.m. and also tried to break open the door of
the house. The next day an unknown outfit 'Rayalseema Tigers' claimed
responsibility of the attack and in a letter found outside his house
it demanded that Prof Seshaiah resign from the APCLC or get ready to
face the consequences.
May it be case of 'Black
Cobra' or for that matter the 'Rayalseema Tigers' one is witness to
the sudden emergence of many such outfits during last few months only,
especially after the breaking down of talks between the Naxals and the
government, who are engaged in targetting people sympathetic to the
movement. Their modus operandi is similar, they release list of people
affiliated to different civil and democratic rights organisation and
ask them to leave the organisation or face consequences.
It would be naive to state
that without the goverment's official patronage all these things can
happen. It cannot be denied this killing spree by these secret groups
has definitely dampned the people's spirits at least for now. People
are asking if it can happen to a Professor who has been a backbone of
the civil liberty movement for the last twenty years and who a year
ago was one of the mediators in facilitating the aborted talks between
the Naxals and the Government of Andhra Pradesh then it can happen to
anyone.
Definitely the anger of the
state machinery vis-a-vis the APCLC is easy to comprehend. It is an
open secret that the police engages in encounters at will of innocent
persons supposedly to curb the 'menace' of Naxalism. And while the police
frequently release the statistics on naxalite violence, they avoid mentioning
the victims of their own violence. The Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties
Committee (APCLC), the prime human rights body has been keeping track
of the police killings and two year back it had listed more than 4,000
deaths, 2,000 of them in the last eight years alone.
The aborted session of the
Parliament also saw the tabling of a document detailing the Centre’s
policy on the naxalite problem. ( 13 th March) by the Home Minister.
The parliament was also informed that the said policy has been formulated
looking at the foremost demands of the Chief Ministers of the affecteted
different states.
Can it be then said that
the paying lip sympathy to the concerns of the deprived and the dispriviledged
the powers that be have finally zeroed in on the Andhra model in its
national roadmap to curb naxalism. Is not it time that they are told
that it is just a rechristening of the nearly fourty year old track
which would lead them to further blind alleys.
Definitely it is hight time one heeds to the advice rendered by the
legendary civil rights activist K.G. Kannabiran, President of People’s
Union For Civil Liberties to the then Andhra Chief Minister Chandrababu
Naidu after there was an attempt on his life. In the letter Kannabiran
had plainly stated : “Unless social deprivation is attended to
on a war footing, the disaffection engendered by it may continue to
fester fuelling never ending spirals of violence”.
One does not know whether
all those people who have been singing euologies to the Andhra model
in curbing the ‘menace’ have ever bothered to look for themselves
how ferocious it looks at the ground level. One does not know whether
they comprehend that the mechanisms to be put in place would just be
another name for instituting death squad regime under the canopy of
democracy.