Amit Sinha for BeyondHeadlines
The state government in Bihar has been deliberately avoiding the naxalism for quite a long time. In the meantime it fails to gauge the enormity of the problem as well. Out of a total of the 38 districts of Bihar, 34 of them are Naxal affected.
It’s the eighth year of the good governance in Bihar, still the problem remains as it was before the ruling JDU came to power in November, 2005. In fact this idol of good governance has drastically failed to fight this menace. Better to say Nitish Kumar himself knew his boundaries.
The issue is more a political one and the Nitish Kumar needs it to continue to remain in power. Naxalism is his political compulsion to go hand-in-hand with to roam in the power lane. It’s not for nothing that Bihar has not allowed the center to execute the ‘Operation Green Hunt’ despite the region need such stringency.
Undoubtedly, this helps the Naxals to rapidly spread thoroughly covering new districts. If intelligence sources are to believe the Naxal attacks has been manifolded comparing it to the last year alone. This year alone more than 60 men in uniform have lost their lives and dozens of civilians are either bombed or untraced.
The most dangerous phenomenon attached with these attacks is that weapons of security forces are taken away. At occasions group of Naxals disarms the security forces by overpowering them. This is more embarrassing. This trend is witnessed very often in Bihar.
The total arms snatched from the security forces by the Naxals in India, Bihar contributes half of them.
Due to inept policy and deliberate negligence by the state government the Bihar police is deeply discouraged. As the year 2013 is about to pass the Bihar police has failed to get a single arrest. Still the epitome of good governance prefers not to speak on the issue.
There is no specific drive to uproot Naxals’ by any of the state’s forces. But why? It does mean that Nitish Kumar lacks the political will. Doesn’t it.
It’s beyond logic that why a government with full majority is reluctant to fight Naxalism. After every major Naxal attack in the region the Bihar government pretends of working on analysis to make a comprehensive policy framework to curb naxalism. With eight years on this must be a ‘paralysis of analysis’.
It’s the high time that Nitish comes out with some solid action besides doing meetings and media releases.
This very year, the Chief Minister himself quoted ‘Naxalism is not a big deal for us (Bihar). They (Naxals) are our own people’. Will Mr. Kumar takes note of his own statement now when 7 braved jawans lost their lives in a gruesome Naxal attack in Aurangabad on Tuesday. Just two days ago, Three GRP jawans were also killed in another Naxal attack on a Sahebganj intercity train near Jamalpur station.
The perpetual attack by the Naxals in a state where they are not getting any deterrence from the state is needed to understand carefully. The message need to be decrypted by this idol of good governance. Moreover their access to the new geography is a dangerous warning and need to be responded with similar frequency.
