Learn from the younger bro'

 

 

Are there lessons for India from the recently concluded conflict in Sri Lanka? Well, the answer is unabashedly and blatantly in the affirmative. There might be a sudden feel good factor in India because of the hopes of a stable government coming up at the centre, but that in anyway doesn’t dilute the fact that for India, there are certain clear and present dangers staring at her face. Just as the political capital was abuzz with the speculations on who all would be inducted in the ministry, on May 21, 2009, Naxals gunned down 16 police personnel in Gadhchiroli district of Maharashtra. Around ten days before that, 13 cops were killed by Naxals in Chhattisgarh while more than 40 paramilitary personnel had to give up their lives to make sure that elections could be held seamlessly in the Naxal strongholds.

In the 25 year long battle, around 80,000-100000 people were killed in Sri Lanka. The figures wouldn’t have been so high had Sri Lanka nipped LTTE in the bud. But Sri Lanka being a small nation had its own limitations when it came to firepower which was scaled up drastically only in the recent past. Besides, the LTTE was a formidable force. India is no Sri Lanka when it comes to military power. In fact even if one keeps aside the futile comparison with India’s 1.3 million strong army, each of India’s paramilitary forces like BSF, CRPF or CISF has more personnel than Sri Lankan Army. Yet one wonders as to why India is letting the Naxal issue go out of hand. The way the Naxals have been growing, soon it would pose such a big threat to the sovereignty of India that the state would have no option left but to wage a full fledged war. Casualties then would be apocalyptic which can be easily avoided if this menace is taken by horn right away instead of waiting for it to gather enough firepower to attempt a strike in Delhi or Mumbai in future.

Much akin to the LTTE, the Naxals are a ruthless force who do not believe in democracy or voices against them. Forceful conscriptions, kangaroo courts, preventing development, abuse of human rights, wrong indoctrinations and a blind hatred towards the Indian state is how the Naxals can be defined. Just as the LTTE had hijacked the tamil issue for their benefit and ruthlessly killed all the moderate voices of the tamil cause, Naxals too have hijacked the issue of lack of development in rural India for their own agenda to the extent that today they would not even allow any development to take place lest it reduces their hold. Unless India acts fast against Naxals, it would only add up to the number of body bags in the future. And the next lesson to be learned from the Sri Lankan saga is that it makes sense to finish off a war than to just contain it by calling ceasefires. But one wonders whether Indian polity would have the resilience that was shown by the Sri Lankan Government. Like the LTTE, the Naxals and the likes of ULFA tend to go for ceasefire when the tide goes against them only to regroup and hit back with more force. This world is indeed strange. The big talks of war against terrorism notwithstanding, the moment a state goes for an all out war, the propaganda machinery of the terror organisations would somehow swing the global opinion against the war. Unless India learns to withstand global pressure and take fights to the finish, not so pleasant days are waiting for India, the current feel good factors notwithstanding.