The attack on Congress leaders in Bastar should have finally driven home the reality of the Red terrorists to the Congress chief and her various apologists in the National Advisory Council
Pro-poor activist Aruna Roy has quit the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council around the same time that the Congress president described the Maoist massacre of her party State leaders in Chhattisgarh as an attack on democracy. This may seem like a coincidence, but it may not be entirely accidental.
In a recent interview, Ms Roy said that within the UPA2 regime, “Policy is strongly influenced by the hands of rich people whose clear targets are profit and money in which social welfare and even the concern for others plays a very small role.” Now, that is a particularly damning statement for the Manmohan Singh-led Government which claims to be pro-poor. For all practical purposes, the NAC is a sort of super-Cabinet and, with Ms Gandhi heading it, the Government has no choice but to accept its ‘advice’ as the gospel command. Therefore, either Mr Singh is correct or Ms Roy is right.
Also, interestingly, despite her scathing criticism for the Government, Ms Roy has been full of praise for Ms Gandhi’s “pro-poor commitment”. The activist draws a clear distinction between the Congress president and the Government led by her party — thus, indicating a sense of ‘double think’ within the UPA regime. A review of the Budget Session of Parliament which concluded early last month will help reiterate this.
Take for instance, the landmark National Food Security Bill. As the principal Opposition party, the BJP had already agreed to it in principle, and the Bill could possibly have been passed in the Budget Session. However, mid-way through the session the corruption scam involving the Railways Minister’s nephew was exposed, and so was the role of then Union Minister for law and Justice in influencing the CBI’s probe report on the coal blocks’ allocation scam. When the Opposition demanded the resignation of the Ministers, Mr Singh resisted. And that then led to the disruption of Parliament which eventually had to be adjourned sine die two days before its scheduled close. Finally, however, the Ministerial resignations came through and were accepted. So, who is to be blamed for the washout of the SessionIJ
The crisis also lead to much talk about the apparent divide between the Prime Minister and the Congress chief. Both Ministers were known to be close to the Prime Minister. And, therefore, even as the Congress was pressing for their resignation, Mr Singh sought to protect them till the very end. Analysts rightly suspected differences between Mr Singh and Ms Gandhi at this point.
Coming back to the matter of Ms Roy, she was clearly on the same page with Ms Gandhi until very recently. So, what caused the divorceIJ It stands to reason that the final straw that forced this separation must have been Ms Gandhi’s description of the Maoist attack on her party leaders as an attempt to destroy democracy.
Observers should recall what Ms Gandhi said on May 14, 2010. She refuted the position that many in her party — including then Union Minister for Home Affairs P Chidambaram — and outside were trying to hammer home. According to them, the Maoist threat to the Indian state was not just the result of a development deficit of the tribal areas. Instead, it was the Marxist-Maoist ideology that was against a multi-party democratic system and propagated the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’. In her famous letter to her partymen, written when the origins of the Maoist faith were being debated within the Congress, Ms Gandhi dismissed this argument and said that the Red threat was the result of “extreme neglect” of tribal areas.
This prompted the then Home Minister to elaborate on how Government funds for the so-called ‘Red corridor’ remained unused, as the Maoists would not allow any developmental activities. Incidentally, both Maoists and Islamists don’t want a democracy where people can choose from multi-party agendas. Both justify resorting to violence as a rightful means to overthrow the entire edifice of the state as it exists today.
Since the killing of Congress leaders by Maoists in Bastar, reports have emerged that lead one to suspect of an internal rift within the Chhattisgarh Congress unit. For instance, the killers first sought the identity of each member of the group and then went on to shoot them. They specifically spared MlA Kavasi lakhna and his driver. Interestingly, Mr lakhna is known to be the ‘Man Friday’ of former Congress Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh Ajit Jogi, whom Ms Gandhi had pitchforked into power when the State was formed, while sidelining the natural leader of the party there, Mr Vidya Charan Shukla. This injustice had, at one point, even forced Mr Shukla to leave the Congress and join the NCP.
The timeline of the event shows that the Congress procession went back to Jagdalpur via the same route by which it had gone to Sukma, even after the leaders were warned of Maoist activity in the area. Who persuaded the change of routeIJ The previously determined route of return was well-guarded by security forces. Did some evil minds use their proximity to the Maoists to eliminate the politically inconvenientIJ Also, are local Congress leaders seeking to politicise the event to hide their own roleIJ
Most importantly, an inquiry is needed on how extra-constitutional authorities like the NAC have been enabling Maoists to survive and prosper over the last nine years, by supporting apologists and sympathisers within core policy-making groups at the highest levels of Government. Justifying the violence and the killing, Maoist leader Sukhdev (he has many aliases) says, “What we are doing is not violence, it is counter-violence”. This suggests that the Maoists are merely protecting people from Government-sponsored violence and capitalistic exploitation.
leftist writers, some of whom work as the above-ground face of Red terror, had spread the word that the Government was on the side of contractors, miners and industrialists — all of who were looking to utilise the mineral wealth and forest resources found in tribal areas and in the process, destroy the livelihoods of tribal communities. The fact is that Maoists are against any development in tribal areas. All efforts to bring education and healthcare services, for example, to the people have been met by Maoist violence and mayhem.
It is no wonder then that Ms Gandhi’s letter of endorsement for the Maoists’ blood-smeared game plan was then hailed by crypto-communists like Justice VR Krishna Iyer, jholawallahs like author Mahasweta Devi, Arundhati Roy, who is a self-confessed opponent of the Indian state (she takes pride in campaigning with India-haters) and Romila Thapar, the leftist historian who sees nothing wrong in Muslim invaders looting temples in India and killing thousands of people.
With a large section of the all-powerful NAC sold on to the justifications Maoists advance for their bullet sprays, how can India expect any security from the Maoist threatIJ After all, the Union Government is led by the same party that has also propped up the NAC.