THE importance of the decision of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) to set up as many as 125 security posts deep inside Naxal-affected areas across the country, needs to be judged not by the number but by the resoluteness of the CRPF to enter deep inside the areas where no Government agency or personnel could ever go until late. For decades on end, those areas were out of bounds for any Government personnel simply because the Naxals enjoyed a complete domination over those areas. The Naxals often boasted that those areas had been ‘freed’ by them from the clutches of the Government in India. That boast stands punctured in the past four years. We would list this as a very major achievement of the Government in its plan to defeat Naxalism from the country. Aiming to dislodge the lawfully-established Government of the country through armed rebellion, the Naxals were taking hostage innocent civilians in forested hinterland of the country’s central parts. Security Forces often found themselves helpless in initial years and could not penetrate deep into the Naxal-affected hinterland.

 

That picture is changing rapidly now -- particularly after the CRPF started setting up security posts deep inside the Naxal-affected areas. Seen from this angle of high degree of difficulty, the number 125 of the security posts is not a small achievement. For, every post has come up braving the Naxal threats and actual armed action. It is quite possible that elimination of Naxalites in good numbers in the past some time needs to be credited to the new network of security posts deep inside the Naxal-affected areas. It is also quite possible that the Naxal cadres and dalams have not been able to find an effective answer to this new strategy of the CRPF. In sum and substance, thus, it is possible to understand now what thought and action are leading the Government to success in the fight against terror-based Naxalite activity. In time, the number of security posts in deep Naxal areas is bound to go up. But suffice it is to say at this juncture that each of those 125 posts must be acting as an expanding centre of circles of official influence in the area where no Government official could even step in previously. If the Government continues with its resolve to expand its network of security posts, then an effective curb on Naxalite activity can be expected in due course of time.

 

It is necessary to applaud the Government’s overall approach to sorting out the Naxalite problem through multiple channels. In the last decade or so, the Government’s steps to curb Naxalism have yielded good results simply because its strategic thinkers could rise above political considerations and adopt a cut-and-dried professional approach. The same approach needs to be continued in full intensity in the near and far future as well -- so much so that the Naxals should find it all the more difficult to withstand the Government pressure -- and subsequently succumb to it. This is both, a game of patience and a game of aggressive hustling of the Naxalite cadres and leadership everywhere possible. There should, therefore, no relenting in the effort. For, any let up could mean indirectly helping the Naxals to regroup themselves. There are clear indications available that the Naxals are beginning to lose their patience and their ability to hold their cadres together -- thanks to the relentless pressure of the Government forces. On the political and administrative of governance fronts, too, the Government must work out an aggressive plan to nullify the Naxalite influence. That task should not be difficult as it might have been previously.