The thin red line

Yet,everything that appears impossible in Chhattisgarh is humming along nicely in Maharashtra roads are durable,schools and health centres work and,most importantly,the police know that it is fully backed. As a series of reports in this newspaper reveals,Chhattisgarhs myths about Abhujmaad only reinforce the destructive dynamic at the root of the Maoist problem. Daunted by Naxal determination,it makes no real attempt to establish its presence there,offering neither the solid protection of the state nor basic development in turn allowing Naxals to justify their violence.

The CRPFs attempt was to demystify the idea of such lawless enclaves,vast stretches where the states writ does not operate. There is no excuse for abandoning a whole region larger than the state of Goa and its population,depriving them of their entitlements,by admitting that these are liberated zones. The CRPF operation has made it clear that Abhujmaad is not off-limits to a determined force: the Chhattisgarh administration should build on its new insight into the area,go in there with all the resources at its command,and give the people a stake in their state and nation. It has no business entertaining self-defeating notions about what is possible in Abhujmaad.