Last month the Andhra Pradesh Police seized nearly 900 rockets and on October 12 again, there was a huge seizure in Kolkatta of anti-personnel mines - both heading for the Maoists. Not only both seizure were huge in absolute terms, but an insinuation of the changing paradigm of the war against left extremism. And all these years all that the Centre has done is to pass it off as a mere law and order problem which can be handled by the States themselves. But clearly, it is not a mere law and order problem, as is evident from the fact that in the recent years the casualties because of red terror have been more than that from terrorism in Kashmir. So for all the peaceniks who have been advocating that naxalism is nothing but the culmination of poverty and utter destitution, the question is if the Maoists are so much bothered about the poor, then why are they spending their ill-gotten money (through extortion) which on a conservative estimate runs into billions on buying rockets and ruthlessly butchering the hapless tribals of Chhattisgarh?
The reality is that the Maoists are nothing but a terrorist organisation which wants to farther its self serving interests in the guise of social revolution and a mask of intellectualism. The matter of fact as it stands today is simple. If India is to survive as a federal democracy, then it would have to accept the fact that the red terror is a threat and it cannot be just left to the thoroughly unprofessional, under armed, politicised and myopic state police to handle this ever increasing menace. Mere acceptance of this fact would not do as it has to be substantiated with ground level work. Enough people have already been victims of this mindless violence. What is needed is a federal agency which would have a pan India jurisdiction to 'seek and destroy' the terrorists and which would not be hamstrung by the nonsensical restrictions that state police have with respect to crossing the state borders. At times, perhaps, it is better to be self serving as Israel than to be self defeating like India.