Opinion Red threat
The editorial in the latest issue of Organiser titled Maoists are enemies of the nation. Crush them says: The recent spurt of Maoist violence in Bihar...
The editorial in the latest issue of Organiser titled Maoists are enemies of the nation. Crush them says: The recent spurt of Maoist violence in Bihar,Orissa,Jharkhand and West Bengal is a matter of great alarm. This violence has taken a heavy toll on the lives and morale of the security forces operating in these areas. With counter-insurgency measures taken by the Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh governments inflicting a severe blow on the underground insurgents,they seem to have shifted their concentration to softer terrains where the state administration appears to be addressing this challenge as a simple law and order problem. Although Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh has repeatedly said that the Maoist insurgency is the greatest threat before the nation,the Centre is yet to put in place a strategy to fight these criminal barbarians who have taken control of large swathes of the tribal belt across the country.
It adds: Maoists have succeeded in establishing a multi-layered network through their open and clandestine channels to deflect attention from their real motives. There are Gandhians,civil liberty operators,media personalities,writers and artists who are linked to the Maoist network and they try to camouflage the sinister designs of the Maoists. There is no premium on the lives of thousands of innocent policemen who get killed every year in Maoist violence. The collateral damage to civilian life,industrial growth and development has never been factored into these calculations. Often the big Maoist attacks pass off as isolated incidents in scattered remote terrains. Reports say that the Maoists have joined hands with the jihadi groups,Church outfits and even the ISI to subvert the Indian State. The response of the State is,however,weak,dodged and inadequate.
It concludes: It is high time the government woke up to the Maoist threat as the one that is out to destroy the countrys democracy. One only has to scan the pages of the Maoist Bible,Strategy and Tactics of the Indian Revolution,published by the Central Committee of the CPI (Maoist),to realise how deep and dangerous their ideas are. The Centre cannot afford to leave the fight against Maoists to individual states but it has to evolve an over-all national strategy with a central command and if necessary assistance from the military before it becomes too late.
Vote for CEOs
In a piece titled Rulers now are managers not leaders Jay Dubashi writes: The Congress Party improved its fortunes (in the general election) by a large margin,and has naturally emerged as a winner. This is surprising since even the Congress bigwigs did not expect it to do as well as it did. It is still in a minority,with only 206 seats,nearly seventy short of absolute majority,but in Indias fractured polity,even 200 seats are enough to put you in the winning seat,if you have faithful partners… The year 2009 is as important as 1977,for reasons I shall explain shortly. Actually,there is also another year equally important 1991. These three years 1977,1991 and 2009 are historic years in Indias post-independence period,as historic as 1947 itself. And they have a close link with electoral politics.
He adds: Mrs Gandhi had to beat a retreat (after the Emergency). That was our first political revolution. India decided to go the democratic way,no matter what some people thought or believed,and that is the way India has gone since 1977. The second phase [was in 1991 [when we were forced to abandon the socialist path and decided,not very willingly,to go the market way. Remember that 1991 was also the year the Soviet Union collapsed. These two revolutions political and economic are always followed by a third the managerial revolution. India is now passing through this third phase,the managerial phase,for the first two are now set and so is the overall direction. So people are being asked to vote for managers,not leaders. Leaders are concerned with ideas and concepts. Managers are operators whose job is to manage the show and make it work.
Compiled by Suman K. Jha
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