The Centre will shine the light on the causes before it looks for the remedies and in turn the Naxalites are sure to realise there can be no development without peace. Could Home Minister Shivraj Patil possibly be talking about the same brutal, congealed problem that we know of? One that notches a rising toll in innocent lives across the country. Is he talking of the armed insurgents who have sounded a sophisticated and profound challenge to the writ of the Indian state, who now run parallel, unchecked governments in pockets of states too many to count? As the rhetoric from the Centre on the Naxalites gets more and more florid, with mounting evidence of the Centre blinking at the gruesome reality on the ground and urging friendly state governments to do the same, the nation worries.Take the home minister’s recent waffle on the old idea of the ‘‘unified command’’ to confront the Naxalites in different states. It is difficult not to be sceptical about the Centre’s will to take on the outfit with any purpose or seriousness of intent. Ever since the UPA government took charge, the message emanating from the Centre has been irresolute at best and in fact dangerous. The collapsed talks that the Andhra Pradesh government initiated with Naxal ‘‘leaders’’, who flaunted their arms even as they sat at the table, remains the defining image of the UPA’s perilous policy. It isn’t yet over, unfortunately. The recent episode, reported in this paper, of Grey Hound commandos being summoned back at the behest of the political leadership in Hyderabad and New Delhi, from deep inside the Nallamala forest where they had surrounded the top Naxal leadership, reinforces the very disturbing message: the UPA government is tying up the hands of the police forces. It is even willing to protect the Naxals from them. It could be simply a case of some misguided faith in bringing back to the table those who have renounced all respect for human life, and the rules of the game. Or it could be the cynical act of nurturing a political constituency. Whichever it is, the home minister must be served notice that the buck for the renewed violence, as the Naxalites try to enforce poll boycotts in the ongoing round of assembly polls, stops squarely at his table.
