Talking about safe cities, all urban agglomerations around the world today are on terror target. No one in that sense is really safe or secure. It is increased vigilance that will make our cities secure. For example, in the city of London, the one square mile area is protected by what is called the ?ring of steel?. Every vehicle that enters the one square mile area is photographed. The occupants of the front seats and the registration number plate of the vehicle is photographed and the movement of that vehicle as long as it remains within the one square mile area is completely recorded throughout the day. Next time you visit the city of London, if you think you are doing so anonymously or you are leaving that city anonymously, I must correct that notion. That ring of steel is now being extended to the greater London metropolitan area and it is being replicated in cities like Manchester and Birmingham. We have started a safe city programme in Delhi though it is in very early stages. We have just begun to install CCTV cameras in important markets and important places in which large numbers of people gather. But before we have anything similar to the ring of steel, it will be several years and perhaps several billion of rupees.

Urban policing is very different from policing in rural India. In fact, we are now trying to work with New York and London to improve urban policing in India. We are trying to borrow ideas, learn from them to improve the quality of urban policing. Eventually, urban policing will have to depend largely on technology and a swift response. Cameras and helicopters will be necessary to detect potential terrorists or criminals and increase the swiftness of the response. All this naturally leads to fears of big brother watching over you but there is a price to be paid for living in a city, there is a price to be paid for securing a city. I think city dwellers and citizens must be willing to pay that price.

Policing in rural India is very different, save in small towns. You go to rural India and it is not possible for a stranger to enter, hide or live in a village without the villagers asking him, who are you? So, policing in rural India is largely based on human intelligence and networking with village mukhias, village pradhans and village councils. Policing in urban India would have to largely depend on technology. This is an aside. The subject on which I am called upon to speak to you is ?governance inclusion and internal security?. Our government adopted faster and inclusive growth as the driving theme of 11th Five-Year Plan very early in its first term.

I think both the adjectives are important, what we need is faster growth and we also need more inclusive growth. I think we delivered during 2004-09; the average of the five years was 8.5% growth…

I compliment the farmers, the workers, the entrepreneurs, the service industry of this country for this. Government only creates an enabling environment and puts in place right policies. Eventually, it is the entrepreneurial class?be it the entrepreneur who invests money or the entrepreneur who invests labour?that has to produce the goods and services. Ultimately, growth is the sum total of the goods and services produced in the country. We delivered faster growth but did we deliver more inclusive growth?

The answer is that our record is a mixed record. Faster growth is the contribution of the fastest growing states?the states in the south of India, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Delhi and its neighbourhood… The central Indian states where we have serious threats to security are the states that are lagging behind. We want to deliver more inclusive growth there but we face problems. We cannot address these problems through government alone. These problems are better dealt with when the consciousness of society is raised and all resources and all energies are harnessed to address the problem. Let me illustrate, in the Naxal-affected states, the problem is the lack of effective government. Why is there a lack of effective government? Because institutions of government are not present in these areas. In the absence of institutions of government, the government ceases to be the vehicle through which you can deliver goods and services to the people.

Why are institutions of government not present in these areas? Because the people have virtually distanced themselves from the institutions of government; they do not support the government. There is a huge trust deficit between the elected government and the people living in these areas and they tend to rely upon structures of power that are opposed to the government. Now what do we do? For many years, we have argued that both development and police action must go hand in hand. That?s a very trite statement, then the question is raised?should you not have development first before you can win the trust of the people? The opposite question is, how can you have development when you can?t even enter the areas? The question is whether development or police action should come first. In my view, this is an irreverent and metaphysical question. We are not on the plane of metaphysics now; we have to be practical. Despite the difficult security situations, it is possible to take up some of the developmental activities in some areas. For other areas, it is not even possible to enter that area leave alone to speak about development into that area. Therefore, police action must come first.

Two prongs

I am not going to enter that debate now. But it is quite clear now that development and police action are the two prongs by which we can attempt to bring inclusive growth into these areas. So, we devised a very careful strategy. We decided that apart from the normal funding that is made available to these areas, we will allocate a very large amount of money to some specialised sectors. For example, the national highways and state highways will be allocated another Rs 7,300 crore, rural housing Rs 1,100 crore, tribal schools another Rs 500 crore. We have identified 11 schemes that we will monitor in these Naxal-affected districts: supplementary nutrition through ICDS, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, road connectivity through the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana, NREG, Indira Awas Yojana, the NRHM, Rajiv Gandhi Vidyutikaran Yojana, drinking water supply, ashram schools for tribal students, the forest rights Act, national highways and state highways. Money is not a constraint. These programmes devised for the rest of India apply here with whatever local modifications are necessary. What is the result? If we look at eight states, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa and Uttar Pradesh… a third of the money is not spent for a variety of reasons… There are no easy answers…

There is another problem. The Naxals are supposed to be pro-poor, I am supposed to be not pro-poor. The pro-poor Naxals in the year 2009 alone blasted 71 school buildings, 23 panchayat bhavans, 7 transmission poles, 67 telephone and mobile telephone towers. There are 46 instances of damaging railway infrastructure, 2 power plants, 3 mines and 100s of culverts and bridges and long stretches running into 100s of kilometres of roads. They do not do this without a design, there is a method in this madness, they are opposed to schools in these areas, they are opposed to communication facilities, and they are opposed to anything that becomes a symbol of the government… The telephone tower is demolished, who is happy? The Naxal is happy because the people can?t communicate. A road is mined, who is happy? The Naxal is happy because nothing can move in or out of the village. So, on the one hand we have a formidable adversary who clearly targets those items of infrastructure and those symbols of governance that try to deliver some goods and services. On the other hand, we have a weak administration that against formidable odds is trying to deliver some goods and services. We have the people who do not even believe that even that is being delivered.

How much are we concerned about what is happening in central India? How much concern have we shown? As far as you are concerned, business people, let me tell you?from all that I have gathered?whatever may be the reason, the people living in these areas have no faith in the good sense or the good objectives of Indian business, nor do they have too much faith in the good sense or the good intentions of the government. A 100 years ago, Jamshedji Tata could go to a place that is more or less like the other places today and win over people in order to mine iron ore and put up a steel plant. What Mr Tata could do a 100 years ago simply cannot be done today by anyone who wants to put up a steel plant. Why? Was it because there was a bond of trust between Mr Tata and the tribal people, or was it because the tribal people were even poorer, even less informed, even less literate when they accepted what Mr Tata promised to bring them. The Tatas today cannot do what they did a 100 years ago in Jamshedpur. There is a serious problem here and I think enlightened, progressive sections of Indian society are not fully alive to the problem.

Why does the PM say that Naxalism poses the gravest internal security threat to India? We must find a way in which we can bridge this trust deficit, we must find a way in which money can actually flow into these areas, we must find a way in which the structures of governance are placed in these areas, we must find a way in which goods and services are delivered in these areas, we must find a way in which people?s representative are able to go back to the people and say, whatever happened in the past has happened, we are here to help you, bring you the goods and services that will make life better.

I am totally convinced about this, surely, no tribal family wants to remain illiterate, poor and malnourished. The worst infant mortality rates, the worst maternal mortality rates, the worst rates of illiteracy are in these areas. Surely no mother, no father would want their children to be illiterate, poor and malnourished for the rest of their lives. That goes against all our understanding of human nature and human aspirations, yet if they are willing to fight government, if they are willing to say let government stay out, if they are willing to say let industry and investments stay out, we must ask ourselves, why are they saying this? If they remain what they are, they are not going to become rich, their children are not going to get better food…

I think this is a wakeup call for all of us. Let us ask ourselves why …is there such a distrust between the people of India and those who want to bring development in the form of industry and jobs to those areas. This is what I would like to ask CII to ponder over while the government will continue to address the problem through a two-pronged approach?calibrated, controlled police action in order to reassert civilian authority over these areas and bringing development via roads, bridges, schools, primary health care, electricity to these areas.

And two civil camps

It seems to me that civil society is divided into two camps. One camp, obviously the smaller camp, and I hope it is the smaller camp, clearly holds the view that government is bad, government is the enemy, government must be fought at every stage, at every level and at every place and as a result of that fight if an armed liberation takes place in this country, so be it… The other section of civil society, which I fervently hope that you belong to, is, to put it charitably, quiet, to put it uncharitably, totally unconcerned. How many of you have raised your voices and spoken in favour of development? How many of you have travelled in these areas? How many of you have asked your executives in these areas to come and tell you what?s happening and what can be done? How many of you are willing to spend money to counter the propaganda of the smaller section of the civil society? Are we content with our profit and loss accounts, our balance sheets, our share of parties, and our daily dose of entertainment in the form of T20 matches? Are we lulling ourselves into complacency and contentment when a major part of India is in deep distress and is virtually a conflict zone?

?As I speak to you, there are at least 16 plants that are in deep trouble because the local people do not want a power plant in that area. They do not want a nuclear power plant or a thermal or a hydel power plant. They want power but they do not want a power plant. If you go to them, they will say we have huge shortage of power, there are unplanned, unannounced power cuts, we don?t have power for our pump sets, we don?t get power for our homes, we want power, what is your government doing? Why can?t you give us electricity? They want power but they don?t want power plants. What is the thinking, progressive section of civil society doing about it?

?I am afraid inclusive growth is a difficult objective unless all of civil society pulls its weight together. There is a proverb in Tamil?the only way a temple rath can be taken from its shed round the temple and back to its shed is when all the people of the village join in pulling the rath rope. It is a very trite proverb. If half the village or half the devotees of that temple stay away, then you cannot pull the rath from where it stands round the temple to its shed. If one half opposes it, you cannot pull it at all. The whole village must join in pulling the temple rath. I think business organisations like CII must go beyond the confines of balance sheets and profit and loss accounts and look at what is happening in several parts of India and try to help the government… communicate with the people so that we can have inclusive growth.

This the excerpted text of the speech the Union home minister gave at the annual session of Confederation of Indian Industry