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India on the verge of a civil war?

Submitted by Sumantra on Sun, 03/07/2010 - 13:24
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I was closely observing my country as it is going through one of the toughest phase in it's history, a history consisting almost solely of violence since the birth of the modern India in 1947.

This phase, highly underreported in World media, and the ruling coalition government consists of terrorist attacks, rise of Maoism, increase in drug related crime, and internal social disturbances due to regional and separatist forces inside the country.

I stumbled across a few interesting facts. Now before you discard this analysis as another Gandhian, "peace is the ultimate weapon" type article, let me assure you, I am not a Gandhian. Regardless of how great the Mahatma was, and whatever he did and achieved for his country, I feel, the way and political movement he practiced is highly outdated and spineless these days. On the contrary, what I am going to say might prove highly controversial, (in fact, I am not sure whether it will see the front page of any publication), but nonetheless, I am a journalist, and so here it goes.

India is suffering from it's worst period of internal disturbances since the early 1970's. The ultra left Maoist extremism or the Naxal movement, as it is commonly known in this part of the World, has already claimed the lives of more than 10,000 people, most of them ironically from the lower income group category, or tribals, who they Maoists claim to be fighting for. 
The Maoists claimed to be fighting a war to overthrow the constitutional machinery that this state is, and demand prisoner of war status and rights for their cadres when caught, the themselves practice beheadings of Police officers in Talibani style.
Self proclaimed moral guardians of the society, or the city based, scotch sipping intellectuals, which include Booker prize winner Arundhati Roy, who is in her own words "left leaning", were mainly silent on the atrocities committed by the Maoists, even though,  being very much vocal about the alleged atrocities by the security forces.
However, the one might question the tilt of these intellectuals when we hear the Maoists themselves want them to be mediators for talks with the Government, before the about-to-be-started Operation Greenhunt, the biggest anti Maoist insurgency operation consisting of almost over a lakh para-millitary personnnel. We might also question the bias of these intellectuals. 
Recent reports also suggested that the Maoists were behind the recent separatist movements of some Indian states.
Before ending, some questions that remain. We will see another incident which can be now be seriously called an upcoming civil war. But no great democratic nation survived with a pacifist attitude. Peace is not for cowards, but that doesn't mean, that when time arises one should not take up arms to defend liberty, democracy, and fight against tyranny. No great nation survived with hostage negotiation policy. I guess, the best way to sum up, should be with Winston Churchill's words. "Let this be our finest hour". "

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