The maoist struggle : Solution may be too simple for a national government: Part2

This update has been overdue.
Things have moved on since March.
There has been more casualties on either side. You would almost pause and think whether you can call this a change. Or an update or an evolution. It would certainly seem that it is a state of perpetual war. The only numbers that change is the number of fatalities. The stands do not. The government hardtalk waxes and wanes past cabinet meetings and televised debates. The collective demand for tougher action emerges and disappears between issues.

The issue is grey - and yet the approach presumes a black and white problem. The impossible ambition is to solve the issue. As if it were a riddle. To render a master stroke after which all would be well. Perhaps by annihilation. As was done in ‘70s. That would be a victory. And historically victory is not peace. At every defeat is the beginning of a new battle. Hence here we are. Long after we had thought we had wiped the slate clean in ‘70s.

A modest beginning may probably be the recognition that there is no “solution”. Management is a more correct approach. In small baby steps every single discontent has to be addressed. Poverty, lack of education , lack of health and hygiene - each region has its own set of discontent. In some dark depth of a forest in Andhra some corporate is exploiting natural wealth and the gullible dependents of the forest – is a issue splitting the community in that corner, but cannot be addressed by an all encompassing “national solution”.

When the national and local society starts addressing these issues at every pocket of discontent – the “ solution” will begin to emerge. I am too simple, to make sense of large steps taken in National parliament, that in some distant future in some concocted logic is expected to touch my life. Only when I find that the society is interested in the upkeep of my backyard, do I start to feel the urge to participate in the process.

The execution of this is far from simple. Local problem solving is impossible without universal participation. And sacrifices. This is very tricky indeed. Here the line is thin between the exploiter and the representative of the state. We expect generations of deprived government workers and election winners, used to prosperity out of corruption and exploitation of their poorer neighbours, to be the prime movers in this venture. Convincing them is not easy. Once you get used to profit from exploitation, it is difficult to wake up one morning and walk away from it all.

We survive on hope. Once this impossible mountain has been scaled -in the way of managing : there will be mistakes. In a country where political point scoring from failures is a way of life – there has to be enough tolerance to allow to learn from mistakes. And move on. This is yet another seemingly impossible task.

Only then we, the state as well as Maoists, can “win” this grey war.