Alive & Kickin'
In Bengal, Maoism did not die with Kishenji. It is still alive and kicking. The Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee herself pointed that out when she visited Jungle Mahal in West Bengal’s West Midnapore district this week. Addressing a large gathering of locals in Belpahari which along with Lalgarh was considered to be one of Jungle Mahal’s most “Maoist-affected” in the not-so-distant past, she urged those “who had come under the influence of the rebel outfit” to give up arms and join the mainstream. This open admission of the presence of Maoists in Jungle Mahal is interesting at two levels. First, Banerjee’s handling of the “Maoist problem” in Bengal has been considered to be one of her success stories so far. The killing of Kishenji, head of the Maoists’ Bengal command, and the arrest of top leaders like Telegu Dipak and more recently Bikram, has seen a lull in Maoist activity in the area. At a time when she has come under criticism of underachievement on several counts— the most prominent of which is her government’s failure to procure a ‘bailout package’ from the centre in the one year that it has been in power in spite of being the UPA government’s largest ally, followed closely by the failure to woo industrial investment because of a hands-off land-acquisition policy — she could very well have played up her success in this area instead of pointing out that the problem is far from solved. In that sense the admission reveals Mamata’s genuine commitment to solving the problems of Jungle Mahal.