Kill The Robin Hood

Step out ‘ol man and hand over your belongings to us. You will not be harmed.

But, who are you sir?

I am Robin Hood, protector of the weak and poor!

(whimpering) O take it take it I need none of this!

Be off ‘ol chap and be good. Have a good journey!

Fancy story eh! Now lets change the setting --- Its central India, the ‘ol man is the Indian Government AND Indian people and the self proclaimed Robin Hood is not green but red; draped all red in the flags of Maoism. Now the story is no longer a fancy one but one of murder, loot, kidnapping and extreme oppression.

With the recent attack on CRPF personnel in Bijapur and killing 8 of them after only a month of their single biggest blow of damage magnitude 76 in Dantewada, two things are quite clear – 1. Maoists have planned their moves well 2. Indian Government has failed to do so. The Dantewada incident raised a storm of political sympathy and promised to be a reason of strong counter-attack from our side. Many words were said, debates were held, strategies were made and they all resulted in Bijapur damge magnitude 8. The political fools must realize, the sooner the better, that plans are made on both sides but the red army puts them to reality too.

The Maoist not only murder our forces but they do so with our own weapons. They believe in “using enemies’ weapons against them and in doing so rendering them weaponless”. That is the reason why so much looting of rifles, ammunitions etc. happens across the red districts. CRPF stand no chance if they are always ambushed as such. What needs to be done is that they should be retrained in guerilla warfare, given better weapons and develop a widespread local intelligence and surveillance system to monitor Maoist movements.

But for any success the people who knowingly or unknowingly support the Maoists have to be made aware about the hazards of the red movement. Frankly we can’t blame them. For a region which hasn’t seen the footsteps of the Government for ages, Maoist propaganda lets them believe it to be the only glimmer of hope to liberate them of their problems. Here we see the “softer” Maoism in action, playing on people’s minds and easily getting them to their own support. Where people are aware of the red barbaric activity but have no one else to help them against them, we see the “actual” Maoism, kidnap and ransom, threats etc. to get their supplies.

Government has got so much to do against this insurgence that they may well start on strong notes. Induct Air power I say! Why shy away from the easiest option to demolish their strongholds. Push in more units in the area and funds to support the development, thrust the awareness about Maoism to everyone’s doorstep. When in Sri Lanka, they were chasing the LTTE, India was the first to offer their support. Hey man! first check out the monsters under your own bed willya! Sri Lanka did a cleansweep in no time and we are still nowhere.

What the government needs to realize is that Maoists are no brainless brats brandishing whatever weapons they could get hold of. They have leaders who have a single priority of overthrowing Indian Government and so they need to be taken care of first.Stop chasing the tail. Show some guts and WAKE UP!