On a map of Maharashtra, Gadchiroli district is the bit in the extreme east of the state that juts downward, like a spike between Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. Its location is crucial to understanding its recent troubles — troubles once again brought disturbingly to the fore by the shocking ambush of a 25-man police patrol in Bhamragarh by what could have been as many as 200 Naxalites. On one level, this is another reminder of the laziness that has marked the attitude of the Congress/ NCP government in Mumbai to all Maharashtra’s pressing problems, and explodes the myth the Congress has been quietly peddling that left-wing extremism is a real problem only in opposition-ruled states. On another level, what shouldn’t be missed is that Gadchiroli nominally being ruled from Mumbai means little on the ground; lines on a map have little tangible reality in the trackless forests of India’s interior.

Yet our politics and our institutions have not changed to reflect this basic truth. The Naxalites who murdered these policemen might well melt away across state lines to safe havens in Dantewada or Bastar districts. But their pursuit across those lines will not follow with such ease. After all, law and order is a state subject, as former Home Minister Shivraj Patil notoriously said in 2005 as he dissolved the Joint Co-

ordination Committee between the six most affected states. But that sort of myopic, visionless thinking is what has brought us to this moment, when every day the policemen we send out to keep the peace have to worry that they have become, instead, targets.

... contd.