Whose life is it anyway ?

Entire nation was grief-stricken on 28th May 2010, witnessing yet another violent outburst of Maoists that claimed life of 71 innocent people in train accident. The sabotage has clearly established how slow and steady growth of Naxal insurgency has now reached a stage, impossible to ignore. Suddenly, whole country is compelled to notice existence of a section of society we barely recognized in all these years!

Many of us, who were watching the news on television have witnessed the shameless blame game by politicians and have felt betrayed once again by their blatant denial, deceit and seasoned rhetoric! The media has been quite obsessed with the issue but hardly delivered anything beyond "discussions". Sadly, most news channels have missed the epicenter of the issue and focused on how the government should nab the Naxal violence.

In last few years, Maoists have emerged as parallel power structure that now threatens the country from within. After realizing the seriousness of the threat, everyone suddenly wants to "fix" the problem. If we check the history of the tribal issues, we would realize that it has been very clearly mishandled since beginning, a few decades ago. Tragically, it is a case of lethal combination of chronic neglect by government, bureaucracy, greed, filthy politics of power and corruption, exploitation of tribal people by self proclaimed "well wishers" and suppressed dissatisfaction of a segment that has been outcast on its own land where it legitimately belongs. 

Tribal people have lived for generations with perfect harmony with Mother Nature. Most of the resettlement programs have failed to do justice to the pain of sacrifice tribal people had to undergo for the sake of development. For any nation to progress, industrial development is inevitable but when such development robs the very people of the land their lives and means of livelihood, the gravity of situation reaches inhuman proportion which is shame for any society. No society can progress completely if it isn't inclusive of all class of its people.

Politics is not my forte as it is beyond my comprehension. But I strongly feel that if the government is genuinely interested in addressing Naxal issue, it needs to change its approach. It needs sensitive handling of industrial development issues. Providing some land or financial compensation to the people affected in the process of development, is not enough. The government needs to equip tribal people with education and vocational training to survive change.

There is a lot to learn from tribal people if we are open enough to acknowledge and accept their existence. They can teach us great deal about organic living which is required all the more in today's times. However, I must add, I strongly condemn the violence that Naxals have adhered to in past few years. Violence is not an answer for any problem. Is it?