DEMANDS OF NAXALITES AND MAOISTS IN INDIA: -Should They become social Euntrepreneurs?

Naxalism is said to be the biggest security threat that India faces. Yet I never hear in Indian Media what are the demand of naxalites. I googled a little and I found out their demands. Here I'm listing them in bold and my response to them which is in clear font.

Here is a set of RECKLESS demands of the Naxalites,listed under 9 categories. I came across them while reading an old edition of frontline. I went through them and here you will find what I think about them.
I. A democratic atmosphere should be created in the State. The government should respect people's right to fight for their democratic demands.

· The government should not prevent agitations, peaceful demonstrations and meetings.

· This demand should be allowed in any democratic society and thus I see no problem in accepting it.

· Lift the ban on the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) P.W. and other organisations.

· If you are trying to broker peace with an organization you cannot outlaw them. Can you? So this condition should also be accepted.

· Scrap the system of rewards on workers of P.W., People's Guerilla Army and other mass organisations

· Same reason as the previous point. Can be accepted

· Scrap the system of giving acceleratory promotions and unofficial incentives to police officers who kill naxalites in fake encounters.

· Same reason as the previous point. Can be accepted.

· Scrap the informant network in villages. The government should end the practice of winning over P.W. workers and using them as covert agents.

· Can be accepted as well.

· Scrap Grey Hounds, Special Security Forces, and the Special Intelligence Branch (SIB) and withdraw the Central paramilitary forces.

· Grey Hound, Special Security Forces, SIB are forces which are naxalites focussed forces. If you assume that naxalites are gonna lay down the arm then we can disband the forces. Similarly Central paramilitary forces can go back to the camp. Can be accepted.

· Release all political prisoners.

· 'Political Prisoner' is a term which is hard to define. The naxalites' definition will almost certainly not concur with the police's one. Naxalite would claim all naxalite to be 'political prisoners' while police would claim that none are. Demand can be a deal breaker.

· Control `lumpen' gangs such as Green Tigers, Kranti Sena, Palnadu Tigers, Tirumala Tigers and Nayeem Gang.

· Firstly I am strongly opposed to creating private armies to fight naxalites. In my opinion salwa judum, ranveer sena, Green Tigers etc. They have the potential of causing the same type of problem as Taliban as causing for Pakistan. Secondly if naxalites join the mainstream we won't need them anyway. So they can be disbanded.

· Order a judicial probe into all fake encounters and punish the police officers responsible.

· Fake encounter although illegal but have been used by our police forces to combat all kind of crimes be it Terrorism, organized crime or naxalism. Accepting this demand would greatly damage the moral of the police force. Condition hard to accept.

· Lift all cases registered against workers of mass organisations and other revolutionary parties.

· Hmm another tough one. A possible solution can be merging this and the previous demand so that both naxalites and police force can agree to a possible solution.

· II. Implement reforms in the agricultural sector

· Implement land reforms. Handover to the occupants the endowment, government, and forest land and lands belonging to landlords already occupied by people.

· Land reform is an act that should have been passed 50 years back. We have millions of landless labors. Zamindari system (my forefathers were also zamindars but albeit in WB where land reform have already taken place) meant land is concentrated in the hand of the few. It would be more human.

· Implement the Land Ceiling Act.

· Land ceiling act is a regressive act. This would adverselly affect setting up of industry and hence should not be implemented. Distribution of land is a good enough move which can make naxalites withdraw this demand.

· Complete all pending irrigation projects. Farmers should be given irrigation facilities and supplied adequate power.

· Need I say that this should have never figured in a list of demands of any revolutionary group. This is governments duty. Better late than never lets do it now.

· Waive all private loans taken by the farming community to stop suicides by farmers.

· Difficult to waive private loan but rural credit should be made available so that they can pay back this loan. I think the relief is enough for naxalites to withdraw this demand as well.

· Prepare a permanent and integrated plan for tackling the drought situation.

· After 60 years of independence an agrarian economy like India should have a plan to tackle both drought and floods. So demand should be accepted.

· Scrap corporate agriculture.

· Not possible, and should not be done.

· III. Implement policies of industrialisation and other schemes based on local resources in place of the liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation policies being followed now.

· Withdraw all World Bank projects and schemes supported by imperialists

· If to bring peace all projects are taken over by government. It cannot hurt.

· Stop the retrenchment of workers and the privatisation of public sector enterprises (PSEs)

· Public enterprise have been proven to be inherently inefficient. Thus this demand should not be accepted. Yet we have to ponder over the fact that why do naxalites oppose private capitalists. This is because in the past private entrepreneur have exploited the poor and the down trodden. Looted the resources. The poor are more susceptible to this kind of exploitation. We have to recognize this. Thus private entreprenurs should be subject to regulation.

· Protect small- and medium-scale industries from competition by multinational companies (MNCs) and revive cooperative and other PSEs

· The post 1991 experience has proven that we underestimate our own capabilities. Condition should not be accepted.

· Withdraw user charges on drinking water, education and health services

· Should be accepted and implemented in all backwards and remote areas.

· Scrap all agreements with the World Bank, MNCs and other countries

· Were naxalites out of their mind when they made this demand?

· IV. Recognise the tribal people's rights on forest.

· Announce autonomy for the tribal people

· The weakest section should be protected. Tribals have a way of live and we should respect that. Forest is their home and sooner we accept it better for all of us. This demand can be accepted.

· Implement the "1/70 Act", which provides protection against the alienation of land held by tribal people in scheduled areas to non-tribal people. Stop settling of non-tribal people in areas inhabited by tribal people.

· Declare forest area as restricted area and let the tribals guard the forest. . This will lead to conservation of forest

· Initiate steps to develop and support tribal language

· A democracy means giving space to every sect of people. Tribals have their ethnic culture and languages and we should try to preserve them.

· V. Formulate an integrated plan for the development of backward regions of North Coastal and Rayalasseema areas.

·

Grant this demand and then form plans for development of every region of this nation. Shouldn't that have been done in the past 60 years anyway?

These demands are totally absurd and infact they have no demand.

It is a matter of Irony that most of the naxalites are not aware that what are their demands and for what are they fighting?They are simply illiterate and foolish people who gun down the lives of people for livelyhood.This is the case with almost all the naxalites working at ground level.The whole naxal community is comprised of socially outcasted or unemployed youths who do no want to earn for their livelyhood.Instead they want to loot the people and fulfill their own neads. If they really want to transform the society or nation,they can do by becoming the social entrepreneurs.

Referances: Frontline magazine,The Hindu and others