Centre’s tacit nod to Salwa Judum

Toeing the Chhattisgarh line over Salwa Judum, the Centre said there was no harm in the village community taking defensive action against the Naxalites. The Centre also favoured the need for the states to have “strong joint operations” against the Red ultras —a suggestion accepted by all the seven states participating in the meeting over the Naxal menace. Making the Centre’s line clear over the controversial Salwa Judum, Union home minister P Chidambaram said: “The special police officers (SPOs) have played a useful role and should be appointed wherever required.” The home minister’s statement marks a U-turn from his stance taken in the Rajya Sabha about a fortnight ago when he mentioned that the government was not in favour of non-state actors taking up the responsibility of maintaining lw and order. In fact, besides the civil rights activists being up in arms against these anti-Naxal operations, the Supreme Court, too, had disapproved of the state arming private persons to fight the Naxalites. Though Chidambaram, while addressing the chief ministers of the seven states, did not specifically mention Salwa Judum, he referred to the statement of Chhattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh. Speaking in favour of the Salwa Judum campaign, Singh said it would continue giving protection to tribals who were involved in the “anti-Maoist” movement in the state. Chhattisgarh has over the years trained a number of SPOs from among the tribals who are part of Salwa Judum in the state which along with Jharkhand witnessed over 65% of the total naxal violence in the country in 2008. Besides Singh, the CMs of Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal also attended the meeting and pitched for an “integrated action plan” to deal with Maoists. Asserting that Naxalism is no longer a state-centric phenomenon, Bihar CM Nitish Kumar said the Centre should “treat it like a national problem and has to...in a big way assist the states” in tackling these problems both in strengthening law-enforcing agencies as well as on the development front. Bihar, along with Jharkhand, also stressed the need for a formal surrender policy to help those ultras who want to join the mainstream. Kumar said his government has already notified a surrender and rehabilitation policy. At the three-hour meeting, Chidambaram agreed that there should be effective joint operations backed by technology support. Noting that use of force alone would not suffice, he said development and police action should go hand in hand. The matter was also referred to by the PM, who said Naxalites were posing challenges of a “different” nature because of change in their ethos—from an ideologically driven movement to one with a military ethos.