The abduction of 4 policemen in Bihar, and the confirmed execution of one of them, by Maoists in Bihar is an outrage. That the Maoists continue to use tactics?in this case abduction followed by a demand for a prisoner exchange?that befit a gang out of ruthless outlaws or indeed terrorists, and not a serious political movement, is unlikely to change the minds of those who believe in tackling the ?root causes? of Maoist activity (read under-development) eschewing a more aggressive, armed, approach to quelling the menace.
Let us for a moment ignore the view taken by many, including your columnist, that no development activity can take place in Maoist-infested areas until they are first brought under the complete control of state authorities (and that will obviously require police/paramilitary action). Let us go straight to what the ?root causers? would like to do: presumably build physical infrastructure like roads and power plants, and social infrastructure like schools and hospitals and bring ?development? to these backward areas.
And then, one rather obvious question pops up. How do you bring development to these most backward regions, many of them populated largely by tribals, when you take policy positions like the one on the mining controversy in Niyamgiri? Sure, the decision to ban mining activity in Niyamgiri may have been taken purely on legal grounds?there was, of course, more than a little evidence of skirting the rules on the part of both the private sector Vedanta Group and the government of Orissa. But the circumvention of certain rules simply provided the fig leaf to what was essentially a political decision to ?leave the tribals alone?.
Just sift through the many pages of the NC Saxena report on which the ministry of environment based its final decision on Niyamgiri and you will find, apart from the bits listing the legal circumventions, plenty of text devoted to preventing any disruption of the tribal way of life, even if that life essentially boils down to picking nature?s produce for subsistence. It would be a fair assumption to argue that those sympathetic to the Saxena report would also fall into the category of the root causers on the Maoist issue.
But there is a contradiction. Where tribals have been left alone to their own devices and ways of life, they have apparently turned sympathetic to the Maoist cause, precisely because they have been left out of the fruits of development. Yet, in Niyamgiri, that is precisely what the tribals are being condemned to, by the very people who believe that bringing development is the only way to reintegrate the Maoist-infested areas into the mainstream.
Sure, they may have been political points to score against one particular corporate-government nexus that was cutting corners and not delivering what was needed to uplift the local communities as the mining began. But scoring that short-term political point risks creating a dangerous vacuum in Niyamgiri, and potentially in other ?Niyamgiris?, that would leave them ripe for Maoist takeover. We don?t need more evidence of the dangers of tribal isolation than we already have across the approximately 200 Maoist-infested districts.
The root causers have therefore scored a spectacular self-goal in Niyamgiri if only they viewed it, not as a few thousand votes gained somewhere in Orissa, but from the broader political prism of finding genuine solutions to the genuine problems faced by India?s most isolated and ignored communities.
It is also a matter of great concern that the root causers heap all the blame for the problems of the most deprived sections of the population on private capital, which has been largely absent from most of the troubled areas. Again, that is nothing but a fig leaf to cover the State?s own embarrassing failure in governing India?s most backward regions. In Orissa, it may have been the BJD that was at the receiving end from the Congress. But elsewhere, it could as well be the BJP to blame or indeed the Congress itself. It is difficult for any section of the political class to absolve itself from blame. There has been little attempt to actually persuade the tribals that industrialisation is the best option to a better life. Politics is about providing leadership and ideas and carrying people along. Naveen Patnaik, for all his strengths and popularity, failed to display it in Niyamgiri.
But there is little point in blaming Patnaik alone. At the moment, at least on the issue of how to deal with India?s most backward areas, politics seems to be caught between moving towards development by cutting corners (and often promoting unacceptable crony capitalism) or by insisting on leaving the isolated areas to their own devices. Either way, the only group that will be pleased to bits with the cross-connected (and working at cross purposes) political class are the Maoists.
That is bad news for the country?s most backward areas, the people who inhabit them and indeed for the country itself.
dhiraj.nayyar@ expressindia.com