There is a contention in the public sphere regarding the how the Naxal ‘threat’ should be tackled. The government and a sizeable chunk of public policy and security analysts have a clear stand: While there is room for non-violent discourse if the ‘Rebels’ even temporarily abjure violence, every blow on the Indian state must be met with an equal retaliation. There is also, however, a group of intellectuals and human rights activist, who justify the movement on grounds of inequitable development in the Indian Union, and insist that the resolution must be through dialogue (which may need to be initiated by the state). They contend that, even in the present scenario of heightened violence by the naxalites, retaliatory state violence will only further hurt the adivasis. The former strand of thought, however, believes this to be contradictory, as they argue that the insurgency is inhibiting development and developmental activities can proceed only when order, peace and permanence is established. An important point is in order here: both sides agree that violence on the part of Naxals is categorically wrong, and their actions, be they for whatever reason undermine their objective. Where they differ is on consequentialist grounds – how will an armed retaliation affect the welfare of tribals. And while the Naxalite ‘sympathizers’ may be accused of an agenda against the State and the actions of the State (as most glamorously captured by ‘Operation Greenhunt’) be justified on numerous grounds, perhaps what the former are making is a stronger, more subtle point – the manifestly good intentions of the state in performing its welfare duties may in fact have negative, unintended consequences on the ground. Thus, ironically, those being blamed for being detached from reality in justifying a ‘political’ solution, might actually be anticipating a more consequential reality.
Though it may seem a little heretic, at least in two ways a case can be made for justifying the means adopted by the Naxalites. One argument that was once put before me some time time ago (and so is obviously borrowed) was fashioned as follows: ‘They had a choice to live with arms or die without them. What could have they chosen?’ Another reason, which I can vie to be partially novel, draws on a sense of karmic balance. It has been contented by several influential scholars that not only has progress in any form has bypassed tribal regions more than sixty years of independent Indian polity, but a steady process of deprivation has been instituted by the State (See This Fissured Land by Gadgil and Guha and Environment and Ethnicity in India by Sumit Guha). Not only have the tribals been dispossessed of their land, they have been disenfranchised of their basic means of subsistence by the State having restricted their access to traditionally shared forests and commons. The effects of a misguided continuation of ‘scientific’ colonial forestry post 1947 era appear to have been accentuated by rent seeking and formation of power clouts and nexuses. This has clearly meant slow but sure death for several communities over time. If the Indian state, which is supposed to have perpetrated this form of social penury, is taken to represent the civil society as a whole in a democracy, then perhaps by some standards a violent confrontation may be justified.
However, this rationalization can be severely dented if viewed in light of the present. It has been well established that in Naxal dominated areas, basic amenities, schools and hospitals are almost non-functional. Moreover, there have been allegations of cold blooded murder of the tribals themselves, and then attempts to cover them up by labelling the victims as ‘police informers’. This would make the Naxalite Movement liable for accusations of losing track, of first, becoming an angry vendetta, and then transforming into a bloody battle for power. Such actions undermine the very motive of the movement, and thus, disrobe it off a possible legitimacy of violence.
Each time a brutal attack is carried out, the media, the experts and the public, almost unanimously display anger, angst and outrage. It is a frenzied incidence of public emotion. But this opinion is definitely not the best one to consult for formation of policy. In a digression, McCloskey, in one of his popular columns in the Eastern Economic Journal, concedes that expecting undergraduates to ‘think like economists’ is fruitless for “economics, like philosophy, cannot be taught to nineteen-year olds. It is an old man's field. Nineteen-year olds are, most of them, romantics, capable of memorizing and emoting, but not capable of thinking coldly in the cost-and-benefit way.”[1] Public policy is not far removed from economics. Such words are disheartening when someone, marginally older than nineteen attempts to do moral philosophy in the domain of Public Policy. But then, it isn’t the nineteen year-olds only who are capable of ‘memorizing and emoting’.
[1] McCloskey, D. (1992). ‘Other Things Equal: The Natural’, Eastern Economic Journal, Vol. 18, No. 2 (Spring, 1992), pp. 237-239
