The Maoist Fear

The slaughter of policemen by Maoists in the Midnapore district of West Bengal points once again to the obvious failure of the government in the state. Not only were they ambushed but were without adequate means to defend themselves. This is unpardonable. The larger question for the Left Front government is why and how the Naxal menace has come back in West Bengal more than three decades after it was apparently not just wiped out but solid reforms were undertaken. This is what they have been telling and have made us believe so long. When they came to power in 1977, it was the state’s rural areas that they concentrated on, while neglecting Kolkata and other cities. The message at that time was clear: fair distribution of land was needed to correct the class and caste discriminations of the past. The other concerns of society were of no great concern and left best ignored.

But exposure of the past few years since the protests of Nandigram and Singur only suggest that 33 years of communist rule not only drove industry out of Bengal but also neglected the villages. Self-satisfaction and arrogance became the hallmarks of the communist cadre as election after election seemed to prove that the Left was sacrosanct in Bengal. They took their prolonged existence and stability as an excuse for lack of action. They started to believe that it was greater than the country itself. It took a few electoral shocks for the party to get back on track.

It was the protest by farmers against industrial takeover of their lands – with the full involvement of the government – which turned our eye to the actual story of the years of neglect and apathy that the people of Bengal have suffered from. The state has not done too well on many social and human development indicators. This Maoist resurrection comes from general social discontent and despair. In its arrogance or even its apathy, the government has not managed to join the counter attack on Maoists launched by the Centre, even though it has faced the violent impact of their attacks. For years, the refrain in Bengal was that although its own village of Naxalbari started the movement, Naxalites had no footing in that state. That is no longer no true. And a government under attack does not seem to have the answers or the purpose to deal with this renewed threat.