OPED | Tuesday, November 10, 2009 | Email | Print | 
Maoist offer worth refusing
Government’s tactics of widely publicising ‘Operation Green Hunt’ has prompted the Maoists to extend the olive branch. Certain sections will be tempted to start a dialogue with the Maoists. However, Government must not venture into talks without reflecting upon the timing and sincerity of the offer made by Maoists, write Ramavtar Yadav and Sushant K Singh
The CPI(Maoist), in a formal statement issued in the name of their Central Committee member Azad early last week, has offered ceasefire if the Centre gave up its “irrational, illogical and absurd stand that Maoists should abjure violence”. On the face of it, it appears that Government’s tactics of widely publicising ‘Operation Green Hunt’ is prompting the Maoists — afraid of suffering serious losses in the coming security offensive — to extend the olive branch. Certain sections of the Government will be tempted — their belief reinforced by public calls from the myriad Leftist intellectuals — to start a dialogue with the Maoists, notwithstanding the current precondition of Maoists abjuring violence before the talks.
India being a vibrant democracy, talks will have to be inevitably held with the Maoists at some stage. However, the Government must not venture into talks without reflecting upon the timing, and sincerity of the offer made by the Maoists.
Here it is instructive to revisit the two rounds of talks held between the Maoists, then going under the moniker of People’s War Group, and the Andhra Pradesh Government. In February 2002, the State Home Minister held several rounds of talks with a representative of the PWG. However, the PWG withdrew from those talks in June 2002 following a police encounter. The PWG had earlier refused to lay down arms and later blamed the police for sabotaging the talks. This thread was taken up by certain political parties, who were also joined by some intellectuals in blaming the Government for lacking sincerity.
In 2004, the Andhra Pradesh Government lifted its ban of the PWG, agreed to a three-month-long cease-fire — even placing the PWG’s ‘non-negotiable’ refusal to surrender arms on the back-burner — and again initiated talks with the PWG leadership. The State Government sincerely tried to work out solutions within the constitutional framework to resolve the socio-economic issues raised by the PWG. To meet the PWG demand of giving “land to the tiller”, the State Government announced the constitution of a high-powered body to identify land for re-distribution among the poor. It promised to do a detailed land inventory, along with a new proposal to rein in land sharks, and a time-bound programme to implement Regulation 1/70 which prohibits non-tribal people from occupying tribal lands. It also implemented a liberal policy on the release of political prisoners, moved in to scrap the rewards on the heads of Maoist leaders and referred all the Prevention of Terrorism Act cases to a review committee. The Government, on its part, had responded to the socio-political dimensions of the problem, whereby controverting all charges of treating Maoism as a mere law and order problem.
However, the cease-fire led to many disturbing developments. Armed cadre of the PWG moved into the villages to re-establish their hold as the police had withdrawn from those areas. These cadre, for the first time, moved into many non-rural areas of the State. The PWG even held a meeting in the heart of Hyderabad which was attended by more than five lakh people; there was a public display of weapons and the State capital was drowned in a sea of red with PWG flags. The State Government had unwittingly allowed the PWG to spread its terror to urban areas.
The free movement of armed cadre extorting money and threatening people forced the Government to recommence police patrolling in those areas to maintain law and order. The ceasefire agreement was not renewed. The Maoists upped the ante by blasting a landmine injuring four policemen.
The PWG leaders at the end of first round of talks picked up their automatic weapons at Chinna Arutla village, 10 km from Srisailam. While taking possession of his weapon, their leader Ramakrishna tellingly proclaimed: “Holding talks is just a part of our strategy. The ultimate goal is armed struggle”.
In hindsight, the Maoist groups wrested the publicity initiative after the first round of talks. They unleashed high-decibel propaganda during the four-day talks which received huge coverage in the mass media. The media not only found nothing wrong in armed Maoist cadre displaying weapons and threatening people blindly, but it also accepted the claim that armed struggle is integral to the Maoist movement. In contrast, the Government emerged from these negotiations in a very poor light. It was singularly blamed by the media for the failure of these talks.
It is worth remembering that on both the occasions when talks were held, the Maoists were losing ground and were on the run. The talks provided a breather to them; they regrouped and emerged stronger thereafter. Talks are thus nothing but tactical pauses for the Maoists in their long-drawn battle to seize political power by military force. They, and their overground workers, will accept or make an offer for talks only when they are down. It is a ploy to buy time, to rebuild their strength, to garner fresh publicity, and to recalibrate their strategy.
Having cleverly employed the ruse of talks earlier, the Maoists have again offered to talk to distract the Government from going ahead with ‘Operation Green Hunt’. In this strategy, they will be actively aided by their overground workers, the so called liberal intellectuals. There will be concerted emotional appeals to the Government: Why not talk? Why shed blood?
If the Government succumbs to this pressure, the Maoists — as witnessed earlier — will have protracted dramatised facade of talks and utilise the time and opportunity to recruit and strengthen their cadres. The talks will invariably fail as their objective is to seize political power by overthrowing the state and nothing short of their stated goal will be acceptable to them.
The Government has to remember these lessons from the past. It cannot allow any digressive offers to derail its plans of exterminating this sore of violent extremism debilitating the nation.
-- Ramavtar Yadav is a retired Director-General of Police from Andhra Pradesh and Sushant K Singh is the contributing editor of Pragati — The Indian National Interest Review.
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