Those who have lost faith in faith take up arms. The tribal district of Gadhchiroli, for instance, has been a hotbed of Naxalite activity for three decades now. In February, 15 police personnel were shot dead; last week, three more policemen fell to Naxal bullets.
The Left-oriented Naxals target everyone. April 10, we came upon the corpse of a poor tribal near Chatgaon. The situation in the region is so hostile that the police had to create a three-ring cordon of security personnel before they could investigate the dead body and file the first information report. The operation required 100 policemen.
The dead tribal is unidentified at the time of writing this; no one has come forward to claim his body. What is known is that this is yet another killing intended to enforce the Naxal-driven boycott of the 2009 Lok Sabha elections.
If the people are helplessly crushed between poverty on one side and Naxalite violence on the other, the police profess themselves even more helpless. When one policeman wants to go home, 10 others accompany him, they say.
Left to their own devices, the locals will earn a living out of the betel crop that is profuse in the area, says a local forest officer -- the catch is, the Naxals won't let them, as they have a stake in keeping the people poor.
Civic amenities are a long-forgotten dream. The 249-mile area has a bare 10 miles of railway tracks; the only option is buses, of uncertain frequency, traveling on roads where random death awaits.
Over 500 people have died in Naxal-fuelled violence in the last decade alone. Today, you live in Vidarbha only if you have no place else to go. Police mount desultory patrols because they have to; no other government official comes to the area. Revenue officers, teachers, doctors — they all pay token visits to the 300 villages in the area about twice a year, at best.
Image: Water is one of the scare resources in Vidarbha.
Also see: Coastal Andhra looks to Chiru for change | India Votes 2009
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