Romancing the ultras

The entire nation watched in shock and disbelief as the Maoists detained Bhubaneswar-Delhi Rajdhani Express for several hours in a forested stretch of West Bengal’s West Midnapur district. Some of the details about the entire hostage drama are fuzzy but what is clear is that members of the People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCPA), which is a front of the Maoists operating in the area, detained the train and took the driver of the train hostage. Two persons, a passenger and driver of a police vehicle were injured, and there were telltale marks to show that the train had been attacked. Presumably, the Maoists fled as the local police and paramilitary forces closed in. As words spread that the Maoists wanted PCPA leader Chatradhar Mahato to be released, West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee made a brave declaration that there would be no swapping of prisoners this time. It was clear that Union Home Minister P Chidambaram was in charge and was closely guiding and monitoring the situation. The only persons found missing from the scene were the civil society activists like Arundhati Roy and Nandini Sunder who had sprung to the defence of the Maoists when the Centre decided to mobilize additional paramilitary forces to crush them. Also missing were Mahashweta Devi, Aparna Sen and other West Bengal intellectuals who had earlier travelled to Lalgarh to show solidarity with Chatradhar Mahatao. Nothing surprising in that. They were all missing when the PCPA killed two cops and abducted another a few days back to secure release of 21 detained Maoists. Or earlier when 17 cops on election duty were gunned down in Gadchiroli. In fact, whenever the Maoists indulge in violence, which is pretty frequent in recent years, the civil society groups found missing. When they wrote a protest letter to Chidambaram, asking him to initiate an ‘unconditional dialogue’ with the Maoists, not a word was said about the Gadchiroli incident or violence unleashed by the ultras. They betray a romantic notion towards the ‘revolutionaries’ that characterized 1970s and has only emboldened the ultras to indulge in more mindless violence. The Rajdhani Express incident is only the latest. More would follow if these civil society groups and intellectuals don’t shut up and let the state deal with the ultras in an appropriate manner. Needless to say, the only right way to deal with a group bent on using violence for whatever goal it has in mind is to use force in a decisive manner. Let Punjab be the shining example of buying peace with the extremists.