Who146;ll halt the red train?

The hijacking of the Barwadih-Mughalsarai train by Maoists near Hehegarh in Jharkhand two days ago is the latest in the recent chain of serious incidents of Maoists violence.

The hijacking of the Barwadih-Mughalsarai train by Maoists near Hehegarh in Jharkhand two days ago is the latest in the recent chain of seriousnbsp; incidents of Maoists violence. That the Maoists released the train onnbsp; Tuesday does not in any way dilute the seriousness of the incident. Over the past month they have killed over 30 people, including 10 police personnel, and injured many more in three daring attacks in Chhattisgarh alone. The attack on the Jehanabad jail in November last year should have sounded alarm bell in Delhi and in the capitals of the affected states, but our rulers remain unfazed: the chief minister was hosting a dinner celebrating his one year of office at the time of the hijack. How does it matter if the area over which the chief minister8217;s writ runs is fast shrinking? Why bother about small things, like water, power, health, education and roads in the rural area if one can sign MOUs with big industrialists?

And this is not only about inaccessible interior areas. Ranchi, for example, is encircled by Maoists from all sides. Police vehicles are afraid to travel the roads leading out of Ranchi at night. Jehanabad is not an interior area, being less than two hours8217; drive from Patna on the main highway. The Maoists have the capability, which they exercise periodically, to bring the road and rail traffic to a halt even on main routes, including the GT Road. No large development project can take shape without their concurrence. They decide in many constituencies who will win and who will lose. All this is taking place not in the 8216;remote8217; Northeast or in Jammu and Kashmir, but in the country8217;s heartland.

What is worse, the extremists meet with hardly any resistance from the security forces. The police forces have suffered heavy casualties in recent years. According to the latest report for 2005 released by the ministry of home affairs, the number of police personnel killed by Maoists in 2005 rose to 153 from 100 in 2004 8212;nbsp; an increase of over 50 per cent in one year. It would be no surprise if the police is found to be suffering from a siege mentality. The extremists are no longernbsp; content with ambushes. They now openly challenge the state authority in many parts of the country.

A revolutionary movement has been building up for some years. Now it has entered a new phase. In the guerilla tactics vocabulary it is called 8216;mobile warfare phase8217;, when the civilians are successfully mobilised in the 8216;liberation struggle8217;. This is in spite of the fact that the Maoists, unlike the extremists in the Northeast and Jamp;K, are still not using too many sophisticated arms and explosives. It does not take much imagination to know what would happen when the stage is set for the armed struggle against the state with sophisticated weapons and explosives. That stage is not very far away.

Maoistsnbsp; are in possession of funds running into hundreds of crores of rupees, which they have collected through extortion. There are reports of their establishing links with neighbouring countries, some of them willing to give Maoists sanctuary and support to carry out more deadly insurgencies in India. 8216;Positional warfare8217; is already on. They have established liberated zones. Security forces hesitate to enter these areas. Police stations do not function there after sunset. Maoists, who dominate the coal and iron ore belt, are working towards establishing a 8216;red corridor8217; from Nepal to Sri Lanka, and the way things are going for them, they are likely to achieve their goal in near future. The Maoist cadres are settling down on both sides of the porous Indo-Nepal border. They are also working towards establishing links with Bangladesh and Myanmar and other terrorist organisations in the region.

The government response has so far been on predictable partisan political lines, with the Centre and the state governments playing the blame game. A successful counter-terrorism blueprint requires a broad political consensus and a coordinated approach, which takes into consideration all aspects 8212; social, economic, political and ethnic. The central government must assume its own responsibility and play a lead role in developing an effective strategy for dealing with the insurgency. The various insurgent groups are cooperating in a broad network supported by the ISI of Pakistan. The Center cannot afford to pass on the responsibility to the state governments, arguing law and order is a state subject. The Constitution clearly vests in the union government the responsibility to protect the states against security threats, internal or external.

We need special laws, special force trained to fight guerilla warfare, a sharper intelligence network and improved weaponry, but most of all we need the support of the people. With the state machinery virtually vacating the space in large parts of the rural areas, it was to be a matter of time before the extremists filled the vacuum. Sorting out the many land disputes and giving legal rights of land to the actual tiller is another step to wean the people off the insurgent embrace. Unfortunately, the police leadership is too politicised to attend to its professional needs. What is happening in Nepal should be a warning to us.

The writer is a former governor of Jharkhand