The debates raging currently on Maoism are inordinately adversarial. And to go by the battlelines being drawn, the fight is for the right to determine who it is that can speak for the inhabitants of the “red corridor” under the sway of the Maoists. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has stepped away from this pointless confrontation, and reconfigured the debate. To those who sympathise with the Maoists, those “who claim to speak for the tribals”, he has put forth a simple question: do they actually have any “alternate economic or social path that is viable”?

To ask that question is to admit, as the prime minister did, that India has been found wanting in giving its tribal populations a stake in “modern economic processes that inexorably intrude into their living spaces”. And he rallied a conference of chief ministers and state tribal ministers on Wednesday to take the benefits of the development process to tribals. It is in this delivery that the darkest, most sinister aspects of Maoism are made evident. On the map of India, the “red corridor” of Maoist influence overlaps neatly with some of the most under-developed parts of the country. These are also areas rich in forests and mineral wealth, and are inhabited by many of this country’s diverse tribal peoples. With this overlap, a specious connect is often sought to be made by those who justify aspects of the Maoist agenda — that the Maoists are, with their admittedly regrettable use of violence, somehow filling the void left by the state, that they are heeding a moral duty to deliver social goods unavailable to the local populations. Certainly, the Maoists have found it easiest to raise their flag in areas where the state’s footprint is light. But track their record once they are entrenched in an area: it is one of kangaroo courts, extortion, and obstruction to any development work and even to the sparse social services that may be available.

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