The answer is simply no! Well, in the scheme of the Constitution of India and the rule of law based democratic system of our governance, people are the sovereign masters, who elect the Government of the day, which is accountable to its sovereign masters. This being the established position, the Government elected by the people, does not have mandate to use Defence Forces against its people. It is just learnt authoritatively that the Government has since decided not to use Armed Forces against the naxals for now. However, ex-servicemen will be reemployed for providing training and logistic support to the Central Para Military Forces and State police in combating the naxalites.

The spurt in naxalites activities is mainly on account of neglect of the poor, the tribals and other disadvantaged group of people by the successive Central and State Governments since Independence. The naxals have deep rooted public support. They espouse local demands, propagate inadequacy of administrative and political institutions, nurse wide scale prevalent dissatisfaction and feelings of injustices among the exploited, suppressed, oppressed, dispossessed, deprived and alienated masses comprising the poor, the disadvantaged and other weaker sections including the tribals, aided and abated by compounding atrocities of the state police and the growing inability of the affected states to stem the brutalities of the police. According to the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, the current naxal menace has reached the peak of 1971 and become monstrous in proportion.

Main factors behind the rise of naxalites are lack of development with human face, the professed planned development policy in democratic India, a skewed mining policy and growing creation of Special Economic Zones (SEZs), dispossessing the poor and the tribals without their proper resettlements and rehabilitations, while allowing Corporates to rake in super profits. In the process, rights of the sons of soil are held hostages to corporate greed with the connivance of political and bureaucratic outfits as there is nexus between them. In fact, there is big money in the skewed developments, which deprives the poor of their rightful share in the national cake of development, thus alienating them to the creation and explosion of naxalites.

Often it is claimed by the Government that naxalites are opposed to developments, which is far from the truth. In fact the left wing extremists target those symbols of development, which are used by the security agencies against them. For example, public buildings like schools, health care centres, panchayat bhawans, roads, railways and forest guest houses, telecom towers etc. commonly used by security forces, are targeted by the naxals. There is no proof that naxals are anti-development per se.

The other factors that give rise to naxal movement are lack of provision of livelihood, land and proper wages, good governance, proper utilisation of funds allocated to the States for various governments sponsored development schemes, lack of sufficient employment opportunities, educational facilities, health care, lack of electricity, lack of justice delivery system, rampant corruption in the state apparatus, police atrocities and so on. According to an Expert Group of the Planning Commission, the naxals, by and large, take up issues, which are basically related to poverty, deprivation and alienation of the poor and the landless. This explains beyond doubt that naxalism is a people's movement and not an ordinary law and order problem. And this must be solved accordingly and not with the present flawed and squint eyed approach!

According to the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, there was an increase in naxal incidents by 42.96 per cent, civilian casualties by 7.57 per cent and casualties of security forces by 42.86 per cent in the calendar year 2009 as compared to January 1- August 31, 2008. On the other hand, there was a decrease in the number of naxalites neutralized by 2.90 per cent, while the number of naxalites increased by 5.39 per cent in 2009 compared to 2008 during the same period. Official figures show that 1678 naxal incidents occurred in 2005 with 877 deaths, followed by 1509 such incidents in 2006 with 678 casualties, 1565 incidents in 2007 with 696 deaths, 1591 incidents in 2008 with 721 casualties, and 1431 incidents from January I to August 31, 2009 with 591 deaths.

While taking an overview of the naxal movement, it is clear that the left wing extremism has spread its influence in large part of the country. Besides, the nation's substantial geological wealth, forest resources and agrarian land are concentrated in the left wing extremists affected states, which impede seriously economic growth and poverty alleviation. The problems are further aggravated as the arterial network of the country's surface transport passes through the naxal affected regions.

The Government's existing approach to tackle the problem by using 'hot pursuit' will not work. Let the Government not be influenced by the so called urban oriented media propaganda serving largely the corporate interests. The problem requires its addressing with a holistic and wholesome approach, an altogether new planned development frame redistributing resources afresh on a war footing, direct political level talks with the left wing extremists, shorn of bureaucratic and unrealistic intelligence by security agencies, to work out a negotiated solution of the problems, without conditions, let or hindrance lest the menace should be growing unmanageable and to the imminent demise of the present democratic system of governance.