|
Red terror: who is fighting who |
 |
While the security forces are making slow but steady progress in their operation to clear the Lalgarh and surrounding areas in West Bengal of Maoist clutches, the political cat-fight over the crisis is becoming murkier. Who is fighting whom and who is aligned with whom is becoming difficult to fathom, with both the ruling CPI(M) and the main opposition Trinamul Congress accusing each other of having been hand in gloves with the Naxalites.
Mercurial Trinamul Congress chief Mamata Banerjee has, in no uncertain terms, expressed her unhappiness at the Centre coming to the rescue of the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government, allowing the use of paramilitary forces to reclaim large parts of West Midnapore district, where the state government writ had ceased to run. Even policemen had abandoned their posts in the area, allowing the Maoists to virtually establish a parallel government, with its own justice, social welfare and development delivery systems in place.
At her meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to discuss the coming Railway Budget, Mamata Banerjee used the opportunity to drive home her view that the Centre is being taken for a ride by the Left Front government in West Bengal, especially by the CPI (M), which heads the government. She said that the Marxists and Maoists are two sides of the same coin as most Maoists are dissident CPI (M) workers and leaders.
The Trinamul Congress chief told the Prime Minister that the Lalgarh episode is a CPI (M) sponsored and managed drama to divert people’s attention from the Left’s poll debacle.
Even before meeting the Prime Minister, Mamata Banerjee, speaking in Kolkata, had said that the CPI (M) in the guise of Maoists had been creating terror in the districts of West Midnapore, Bankura and Purulia. She wanted the three districts to be declared a disturbed area under the Disturbed Areas Act, which will enable the Centre to play a more active role in brining about peace there.
The CPI (M) on the other hand has been accusing Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamul Congress of taking the help of Naxalite elements during the agitations over land acquisition in Nandigram and Singur. The Left parties also alleged that the Naxalites helped the Trinamul Congress in the Lok Sabha elections.
Historically, the CPI (M)-led state governments, especially that in West Bengal, have often used state apparatus to buffer up party support, especially during elections. Opposition parties have accused the CPI (M) of what they called scientific rigging to win the elections. The CPI (M), of course, has always denied the charge.
Analysts say that both the CPI (M) and the Trinamul Congress have often taken the help of extremist groups to fight their battles on various fronts in the past ten years. Both of them are now targeting the Maoists only because the extremists have gone one up on them and want to enforce and carry out their own political agenda.
In the recently held Lok Sabha elections, the Maoists aligned with the CPI (M) as well as the Trinamul Congress in different segments of the state to further their designs. But over the recent past, they have been moving towards the Trinamul Congress as the CPI(M) has become too much linked with repression and oppression associated with the state apparatus. Significantly, the Maoists in the Lalgarh area draw a significant amount of strength from the group fighting police repression and torture.
Even while the security forces are fighting the Maoists in Lalgarh, the CPI (M) is hedging its bets. State Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has said that his government will implement in its own way the Centre’s ban on CPI Maoist under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Amendment Act. This shows that the Left does not want to burn all its bridges with the Maoists. They would not mind taking the help of the Maoists in fighting the challenge from the Trinamul Congress, if an occasion arises in the future.
The Centre is helping West Bengal in tackling the challenge of Maoist extremism, perhaps the most serious internal security threat to the country. At the same time, care has to be taken to see that the CPI (M) and allied forces do not use the emerging scenario to pull their political chest nuts out of the fire. The CPI (M) itself has given rise to extremism by not providing good governance. The CPI(M)-led Left Front has had an unbroken run of over thirty years in the state, but the people are now coming to realize that it had become an instrument of oppression. Power, which everybody thought could not be challenged, went to the CPI(M)’s head, as even some of its allies have been saying. The ruling elite in West Bengal became associated or were seen to be associated with the people’s oppressors.
Mamata Banerjee’s fury at what she sees as an attempt to bale out the CPI (M) from the crisis, which it is facing, is understandable. She does not want the anti-Left mood, which came to the fore during the Lok Sabha elections, to be dissipated. The Centre will have to do some tight rope walking to keep its West Bengal ally happy while not giving up on the fight against extremists who are holding a large part of the country, not only West Bengal, to ransom.
|
