The recently held high-level conference on internal security gave a call to crush the rising power of the Naxal's in several states. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's proposal to increase the police force of the Naxal-affected states which with a favorable response from all the chief ministers attending the conference, be they from the Congress, the BJP or the CPM. While the state continues to adopt a law and order approach to the Naxal problem, a visit to the "affected" areas in Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra makes it amply clear that the sinews of the state are hardly capable of quelling any armed assault upon it. Ironically, while the khaki-wearing police, forest and excise departments are the only 'government' the common people encounter, they are not only hated by them but have also been on the receiving end over the past few months. The Naxals are today employed with better weaponry and technology and are no longer disadvantaged as before.

The rapid spread of the Naxal problem in India can be substantially attributed to the total neglect of India's vast tribal population. A sense of desperation and alienation has swept across the Adivasis who have been systematically marginalized and dispossessed in their homelands. The late Prof. Nihar Ranjan Ray, a distinguished historian, described the central Indian Adivasis as "the original autochthonous people of India," meaning that their presence in India pre-dated by far the Dravidians, the Aryans and whoever else settled in this country. The anthropologist, Verrier Elwin, states this more emphatically, "These are the real swadeshi products of India, in whose presence all others are foreign. These are the ancient people with moral rights and claims thousands of years old. They were here first and should come first in our regard."

Unfortunately, like indigenous peoples all over the world, India's Adivasis too have been savaged and ravaged since Independence. For one, the state presence in the tribal areas is glaringly low, and whatever little interaction the people at the bottom have with the state is usually an unhappy one. In the vast Central Indian highlands, the occasional visit of an official invariably means extraction by coercion of what little the poor people have. It does not just end with a chicken or a goat or a bottle of mahua, it often includes all these and the modesties of the womenfolk. In the Bastar area of Chhattisgarh, the hotbed of the Naxal movement, the only sign of the state while driving from Narayangarh to Chota Dongar deep in the jungles, are the pockmarked buildings that once housed government offices. Instead of police patrols, it is the Naxal patrol that is found conducting security checks on travelers. The local police force is often found harassing people under the effect of alcohol.

Moreover, Adivasi homelands that boast of rich natural resources have been exploited by the state for its own benefits without any contribution towards social welfare and rural development schemes. At last count, the total wage bill of India's government was a monstrous Rs.193,000 crores or about 5.6 per cent of the GNP. The state of Orissa provides an embarrassing instance of this where a sum of Rs.2,000 crores allocated for the development of its eight tribal majority districts including Kalahandi, Bolangir and Koraput during the past three years has just vanished! Most tribal villages and settlements have no access to schools and medical care. Very few are connected with all-weather roads, and most continue to exist without electricity even though all the coal and most of the hydel projects to generate electricity are in the tribal regions. The forests have been pillaged and virgin forests thick with giant teak and sal trees are things of the past. As a result, 45.86 per cent of all Adivasis continue to live below the poverty line.

In such conditions, the Prime Minister's proposal to increase the police force stands to serve no purpose. Quite clearly the solutions lie elsewhere. There are several paradoxes that must be dealt with, the foremost being to provide good government in the worst of law and order environments. A better civil administration structure must be put in place whereby, instead of the state capital-controlled government, the instruments of government dealing with education, health, irrigation, roads and land records must be handed over to local government structures. The police must also be made answerable to local elected officials and not be a law unto themselves. The local community must also get all the royalties for the minerals extracted from their areas.

When Manmohan Singh first became Prime Minister, he promised that the reform of government was his number one priority. He promised us a government by the people and for the people. Instead of devoting himself to this he seems to have frittered his time schmoozing with the fat cats of the CII and World Economic Forum and running a government for them alone.