I. Ramamohan Rao

New Delhi, Oct 14 (ANI): Speaking in Mumbai where he had gone to address an election rally, the Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, said the Government of India “was not in favour of using the Armed Forces” against the Naxals as “we have other instruments - the police , the paramilitary forces- which are capable of tackling this menace”.

Defence Minister A.K. Antony echoed a similar sentiment when he said the Government of India was not in favour of getting the Armed Forces involved in the fight against Naxals. The impression given by him was that the Indian Air Force, which had sought the approval of the Defence Ministry to fire against the Naxals, was only permitted to do so in ’self-defence’.

Have the Prime Minister and the Defence Minister spoken a little too early? Will the Naxals give the Government of India a choice? Home Minister P.Chidambaram has stated a number of times that he would be willing to talk to the Naxals if they give up violence. The response from the Naxals has been more violence and threats.

The latest spell of violence by them has been the killing of twenty policemen in Gadchiroli, in Maharashtra, near the border with Chattisgarh. Following the arrest of their leaders Kobad Ghandy in Delhi and Chakradhar Mahato in West Bengal, they have called for repeated shutdowns bringing rail and road traffic in Bihar, Jharkhand and Chattisgarh to a near halt.

The Government of India rushed over 5,500 paramilitary personnel to Gadchiroli where elections were due on October 13. Peace will return to Gadchiroli, but violence will erupt elsewhere in the vast rural belt of the country– in Bihar, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Orissa, Maharashtra, Andhra and Karnataka where the Naxals are active.

Will the Central and State governments be able to contain the violence with the available police and paramilitary forces? The Naxals have made it clear that their objective is to take over power through violent revolution.

My mind goes back twenty years to 1989, when I was the Principal Information Officer of the Government of India. The impact of the proxy war, promoted by Pakistan, had started showing up in Jammu and Kashmir, particularly the Kashmir valley.

Militancy, supported from across the Line of Control, had spread in Srinagar and surrounding areas. To put down the militancy, the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi appointed General (retired) K. V. Krishna Rao as the Governor of Jammu and Kashmir. After studying the situation, General Krishna Rao visited New Delhi to brief Rajiv Gandhi about the situation in the State.

I had served as the Defence Spokesman when General Krishna Rao was the Army Chief. He confided in me what transpired at the meeting that Rajiv Gandhi had taken with him and Home Minister Buta Singh.

After briefing the Prime Minister, General Rao had requested for three battalions of the Central Reserve Police to put down militancy. Buta Singh said he could not spare paramilitary forces as they were required for the conduct of Parliamentary elections and suggested that General Krishna Rao may use the Army.

Krishna Rao said he would not like to use the Army in counter-insurgency operations against Indian citizens in the State. Rajiv Gandhi then decided to postpone the operations till the 1989 Lok Sabha elections were over.

Rajiv Gandhi lost power in the elections and a National Front government headed by V.P.Singh succeeded the Congress. The insurgency got a boost with the kidnapping of Rubiya Sayeed, the daughter of then Home Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed.

The Army’s role then was restricted to ensure the defence of the State against foreign aggression. It did not take long for the situation to deteriorate and ultimately the Army had to be called in to control the situation. For nearly two decades, the Army - and the Rashtriya Rifles composed of officers and men of the Army - have been controlling the situation in the State.

In my long tenure as a communicator with the Government of India, I have seen the Army being used to put down uprisings against the State - in Nagaland , Mizoram, Punjab - during Operation Blue Star in 1984 - and in Assam and Manipur.