Security enforcement groups, bolstered by the induction of specially trained Cobra personnel, now seek out and engage armed Maoists wherever they find them. They have suffered some casualties, but inflicted more on the Maoists, destroyed many of their camps and are pressing on ever closer to their hideouts in the deep jungles spread over Orissa, Jharkhand and West Bengal. Many weapons and explosives have been recovered during the ongoing operation green hunt, in which four states including Chhattisgarh are co-operating.

One sure sign of the turning tide is that unlike in the past, securing information about the shelters and movement of the Maoists has become easier. This suggests that despite some support among the alienated tribals in the region, Maoists probably overestimated their own acceptance and strength among the rural poor.

This is not to suggest that the Maoists have lost the ability to strike hard during well planned ambush operations against security personnel, or cannot kill individual targets of their wrath like CPI(M) activists, middle rank police officers or “informers.”. But of late, the number of their strikes has dropped, their threats are not so menacing. There is an admission, often implicit, that they have suffered casualties.

It is to be seen how the Maoists regroup and organise to hit back. Presumably, they underestimated the ability of the state police and para-military personnel, who are executing a well planned campaign.

However, authorities would be well advised not to ignore the support base of the Maoists in West Bengal just yet. They could not have virtually taken over the administration in parts of West Midnapore, Purulia and Bankura without appreciable support from the tribals. Also the state government should do its best to activate its moribund administration in these districts and try to meet as effectively as possible the basic needs of the people, which include drinking water and employment opportunities!

Given the performance record of the administration in these areas, coupled with the abysmal failure of the CPI(M)'s much-vaunted organisational network to provide even minimal relief to the people over three decades, expectations are not high that things would improve soon.

A few facts will suffice to underscore the kind of official apathy and neglect that has characterised official performance in these areas. The centre had directed the states to allocate at least 28 per cent of their budgets to the development of areas or regions known to be economically backward.

It appears that only one department, Forests, with an annual budget of Rs 300 crore, has followed this directive in West Bengal. But other major departments like Food and Health, according to media reports, have not done so. Had they done so, the backward areas would have received at least Rs 675 crore annually. Department officials have admitted to media persons that owing to lack of infrastructure, the funds could not be utilised in the earmarked areas and were instead diverted to Kolkata and elsewhere!

Amazingly, despite such deep-rooted negligence at senior administrative levels of the crucial question of empowering backward areas economically, no corrective steps, let alone taken, were even contemplated by the supposedly pro-poor Left front Government. No wonder, 62 years after independence, even drinking water is not available in most tribal villages in Southwest Bengal.

The “withdrawal” of state police forces ordered by Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya from these areas made the Maoists stronger, leaving poor confused people to their fate, sans food, water, jobs or even basic security.

Nature abhors vacuum and people were forced to turn to and fall back on the Maoists as their only point of reference and relief in any situation, as a cowardly administration abdicated its responsibility.

The behaviour of the CPI(M) bigwigs and their local satraps also has been typical. A police camp was set up very close to the residence of the CPI(M)'s Minister Sushanta Ghosh's residence. It was no different with the infamous Silda camp, where a Maoist attack killed 24 EFR personnel on Feb 15—it was located at a virtually unguarded market close to a local CPI(M) office, Most CPI(M) offices are closed and local leaders have fled to the safety of Midnapore town, if not Kolkata.

Midnapore CPI(M) leader Dipak Sarkar, a pillar of the party in south Bengal, often claimed that with a recorded membership of over 25,00,000 people , the CPI(M) and its mass organisations in undivided Midnapore (population of 90 lakhs) was the biggest force in the region.

The growth of the Maoists and the physical desertion of their so-called strongholds in Midnapore by the CPI(M) leaders and cadre, as well as the state administration itself, leaves people with much doubt about tall claims of Sarkar or the administration . (IPA)