Naxals up, Govt deeper in the Red

Last week I saw my first Naxalite document in the office of a think tank called the Institute of Conflict Management. It chilled me to the core of my being. Not just because of the Maoist revolution being planned in India, along the brutal lines of what we have seen in Nepal, but also because I cannot think of any government in India that could produce a paper as efficient or methodical. Certainly not the governments that rule in the Naxalite-infested states.

The document I saw contained a strategy to expand Naxalite activities and in it were details you would not find in a census by the Government of India. Details of caste, class and economic status of every household in the villages in which the expansion was planned. Detailed economic and political information and even details of temples and mutts and the kind of priests who ran them. Were they good priests or bad ones, did the community love them or not. Ajay Sahni, whom I consider one of our best informed experts on terrorism in South Asia, said there were thousands of such secret documents around so the Home Ministry must have seen them. In which case, why is it doing nothing?

For the same reason that it is not really doing much to fight the jihadis. We have a weak, dithering government in Delhi and an opposition that is looking increasingly ridiculous. To see aged BJP leaders banging pots and pans in the streets of Delhi like hysterical housewives was for me the last straw. We cannot expect anything from the mighty Hindu nationalist party. The BJP party is over.

So, I write this in the hope that either the Prime Minister or the ''high command'' notices that between the jihadis and the Naxalites we face a situation in which the very existence of India is under threat. If you think I am being alarmist, read on.

... contd.

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