Banana Republic

 Today, the Maoists in Odisha (Orissa) produced abducted MLA; Jhina Hikaka in the ‘praja court’ (people’s court) for a hearing. Just a few facts before we go on:
·         Orissa is a state within India
·         It is 2012 A.D (some 60+ years since independence)
·         We have an Army

Now I don’t want to get into the reasons behind why the Maoists are protesting; the Indian government’s prolonged marginalization, skewed policies, the Maoists own primitive agenda, etc etc. I just want to highlight how inept and emasculated our government is. The Government of India, minus of course parts of Orissa, Andhra, all of North-east India, J&K…you get the picture.

An elected representative has been abducted and produced before a parallel court; while we struggle to get known criminals in our own courts. Maybe those little people in the jungles are onto something! However, on the day we are proudly showing off the Agni 5, we must zoom out from the farthest stretches of China and zoom in within our own boundaries.

To say that the Maoists are making the government look silly is not accurate; this government has done that enough times on its own. They (the Maoists) are however very ably pointing it out to the people and the world that we really don’t have a fully functional government or a working democratic setup. The powers that be have for long ignored the Maoist problem and the issues nudging them towards rebellion. There seems to be no shame, no sense of responsibility or duty to find a solution. The state government, in its selfishness has displayed an unmatched eagerness to capitulate; since we were made aware of Hansie Cronje’s decision to choose an alternate career.

It is not that this is the first time since someone of significance has been kidnapped. It definitely isn’t the last. But the governments at the centre and the federal level continue to operate on an ‘as and when it happens’ basis. There are no policies defining how to engage with Maoists or terrorists in case of abductions/hostage scenarios, there are no clear definitions of ‘no-go’ areas, there are any meaningful channels of communication with known aggrieved parties to avoid repetition of such acts in the future. The government continues to deploy armed forces to fight its own people. And people continue die on both sides. Imagine the frustration of a soldier deployed by the government to fight these people, when another arm of the establishment agrees to free 13 of those people. Makes one wonder, what is the point of deploying our forces in the first place?

Apart from some noises Dr. Singh and his predecessors have made at regular intervals about how the Maoist problem is the biggest threat to the nation, they haven’t done much else. We need to be focused on issues; affecting our own people at a daily level, rather than spending considerable effort and resources plotting foreign policy and shoring up defences to counter external strengths. It is imperative we have policies in place, a mechanism to engage the dissidents and a clear vision regarding what we want to make of the situation at hand. The way we function is absolutely clear that we haven’t given any thought, to quote Dr. Singh to ‘The single biggest internal security challenge ever faced by our country’. About time we give it thought and more.  Else the people’s court won’t stay limited to the jungles of our forgotten states.