Yet another naxal encounter. But we refuse to learn.

The Dantewada massacre resulted in the death of 75 ill-equipped, inadequately trained CRPF personnel. Was this avoidable? Yes. But the government refuses to learn from such attacks. All that happened was a political drama staged by the home minister. Like 26/11 we just refuse to take appropriate action All the people, including our beloved prime minister just talk. But what is missing is real action on the ground.

To start with, let us delve into India's history to understand how we have handled such insurgencies in the past. The problem in the north-east is the best example. There we have the bodo problem, problem in Nagaland, Tripura, & pretty much the whole of north-east. The root cause of the problem is exploitation of the natural resources of the region without the natives getting anything in return. It is this unfair treatment which has made people revolt against the establishment. The government has still not figured out the best way to handle the situation there. How can we expect it to handle similar uprisings well?

The naxal movement in Telengana (Andhra Pradesh) is another example where the state government managed to (that is what they claim!) suppress the naxal movement. The end result was that the naxal leaders migrated to other parts of India. What was Telengana's problem yesterday became some other state's problem. Unless the government tries to address the root cause, there is no end to this problem and it will surely hurt the long-term development prospects of the country.

What should the government do? Whenever massive projects are conceived, the government must take the people in the affected region into confidence and make them party to the decision-making process. They should figure out a way to make these people stake-holders in these projects so that they will be able to reap the long-term benefits that accrue because of undertaking the project. The land-acquisition & the rehabilitation process should be transparent unlike what is prevalent today wherein only some middlemen benefit.

What would happen if the government takes the casual approach towards this issue? Like what has happened in heavily naxal-infected areas in north-east & Bengal, people would hesitate to invest in those areas. Already the naxal problem has spread to almost half of the country. In no time, it would spread to the rest of the country unless urgent measures are taken to address the root cause of the problem, which, in my view looks very unlikely.

In summary, the central and state governments in India are not taking a proper approach to solving the naxal problem. Instead, all the measures that are being taken is making the problem bigger and probably reach unmanageable proportions. Unless this changes, we may not see any improvement in the situation on the ground.