Maoist rebellion: policy fade-out, policy fade-in (Mint)

Mains Paper 3:- Defense and Security
Prelims level:-
Mains level:- Challenges associated with Naxalism

Context:

• With surging protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019 and the National Register of Citizens, and the government’s knee-jerk approach to dealing with democratic queries of its own citizens.
• It may appear that the Maoist rebellion is no longer considered by the government to be India’s greatest internal security threat.
• 2020 will mirror the previous year’s approach of attrition, and steadfast avoidance of peace talks with Maoist rebels which is strange.

Maoist rebellion-affected states:

• In 2019, officially designated as 11, with 90 affected districts—will largely be left to their own devices to combat and contain Maoist rebels.
• This is because policing and maintaining law and order are matters devolved to states.

Approach taken by the government:

• In the ministry of home affairs’ (MHA) own words, the Maoist rebellion is dealt with “primarily by capacity building of the state governments, both in areas of security and development".
• As in the past dozen years, this will continue with better police training, better intelligence gathering, reinforcing police stations in conflict zones, and recruiting locals into auxiliary forces.
• MHA will continue to provide as additional hammers, the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and other paramilitaries under its command.
• MHA will monitor the big picture even as it secures for states and joint forces the chisel of intelligence gathering outfits such as the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO), which has in the past year increased drone surveillance over the densely forested Abujhmad area in southwest Chhattisgarh, which remains the main rebel hub.
• Across 90 affected districts (of which 19 are in Jharkhand, 16 in Bihar, 15 in Odisha, 14 in Chhattisgarh, 14 across Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, 3 in Maharashtra, with the remainder in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, and one in West Bengal).
• Most Maoist-affected states in India have a surrender and rehabilitation policy, and it rides in tandem with search-and-destroy missions that police and paramilitaries provide.
• This pincer has massively depleted rebel leadership and ranks with regular killings, arrests, and surrender of its leaders and cadres.

Way forward:

• The central government and its cohorts would do well to focus here and in beginning negotiations for peace.
• Instead of bolstering the mythology of the Urban Naxal, a species that exists not to undermine India, but to evidently provide government spinmeisters a catchy hashtag along with a rickety windmill.

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Prelims Questions:

Q1. With reference to the ICGS Annie Besant and ICGS Amrit Kaur, consider the following statements:
1. ICGS Annie Besant will be based at Chennai and ICGS Amrit Kaur will be based at Haldia.
2. The ships are built indigenously by the Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers (GRSE) Ltd, Kolkata.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
(a) 1 only
(b) 2 only
(c) Both 1 and 2
(d) Neither 1 nor 2

Answer: C
Mains Questions:
Q1. What are the various challenges associated with upsurging the Urban Naxalism? What are the measure needed to control them?