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Can peace with Maoists be achieved? by Marcus Dam

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has promptly responded to the letter in which the State-appointed interlocutors for talks with Maoists have sought to be relieved of their responsibilities. She has called a meeting with the interlocutors on Saturday. But that does not clear away the clouds gathering over the peace process.

While both the government and the Maoists insist that it is in their mutual interest to sit at the negotiation table, the ground realities tell a different story even as Ms. Banerjee maintains that the search for peace in the Maoist-affected Jangalmahal region is a “continuous process.”

Will the glimmer of hope that had been raised with the interlocutors being assigned their job survive the recent posturing of the government and the Maoists?

Much will depend on Saturday's meeting. A gridlock, Ms. Banerjee is well aware, would be difficult to unscramble. The interlocutors will be expecting an assurance from the government that it will exercise “restraint” in security operations which will help them persuade the Maoists to do the same.

Over the recent weeks, the Left-wing extremists have gone back to their violent ways — they were responsible for the killing of four men over the past fortnight alone. As for the security forces, they appear to have been galvanised into launching a fresh offensive against the Maoists after, by Ms. Banerjee's own admission, lying low for five months since her government assumed power. What has been going on all the while are “intelligence-based operations,” say security officials.

Whether the decision to, as she claims, “suspend” security operations during that period was strategically flawed — providing the Left-wing extremists to regroup and consolidate base after having been forced into retreat since the Central forces were drafted to supplement the local police in June 2009 — continues to be a matter of debate, particularly in political circles. But if it was the Chief Minister's idea of giving peace a chance in the region, it obviously has not yielded the desired result so far.

The developments earlier this week in the Balarampur area of Purulia district in which four persons — two belonging to the family of a Trinamool Congress activist and two Maoist rebels — were killed could well be ominous, an indication of things to come.

Disappointed

Whether or not Jangalmahal becomes the war zone that it was, the casualty has been the peace process which lies severely bruised. The interlocutors seem to have read the writing on the wall. Neither have they concealed their disappointment over the failure of both the government and the Maoists to take any tangible initiative towards creating, what they have been asserting, the “mutual trust” which, they have pointed out, is a prerequisite for any future dialogue.

Even before the interlocutors formally sought to be relieved of their responsibilities on Wednesday, a perception was being circulated among them that the peace process they had initiated, which is still finding its feet, is on very shaky ground indeed. The developments in Purulia district got them finally to ask whether not just the Maoists but also the State government are in any “mood” to take a more conciliatory posture.

Two members of the team had even put their signatures alongside Communist Party of India (Maoist) State Secretary Akash to a joint statement stating the Maoist's offer of a month-long truce, beginning September 30, on the condition that security operations are suspended for that period. Eyebrows were raised in various government circles on this issue.

And then came the letter from the Maoist leadership to the interlocutors on October 31 pointing out that the truce period was over as no commitment was forthcoming from either them or the State government.

While the immediate issue before the State government is to salvage the peace process even as it clamps down on violence and aims at restoring a semblance of normality in the strife-torn region, Ms. Banerjee's rhetoric continues to spew venom against the Communist Party of India (Marxist). Once having accused the party of using the security operations against the Maoists as just another pretext for retrieving the lost political ground, she now sees in the CPI(M) a colluder with the ultras. Engaging in such political gamesmanship is very unlikely to serve the cause of the peace process.