The following report released by the United News of India news agency on August 16, 2010 is for your kind perusal and the first in a series.
With regards
Abhi
Naxalism: Maj-Gen highlights MNC factor By Abhijit C Chandra
Bhopal, Aug 16 (UNI) Highlighting economic and social discrimination as a cause of naxalism, an Indian Army veteran who combated insurgencies for more than half of his 40 years’ service points out that while a multinational corporation (MNC) earns an average Rs 24,000 per tonne of ore, the local receives only a measly Rs 14 per tonne.
"Now memoranda of understanding are inked with MNCs for minerals found. A nexus exists between politicians, police, bureaucrats, MNCs, local goons and businessmen," Major-General (Retd) Aditya J B Jaini, Ati Vishisht Seva Medal (AVSM), told UNI.
The Panchayat (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act, granting rights to tribal folk over their forests/land, has not witnessed proper enforcement even 14 years after its passage and similar is the fate of the Land Ceiling Act, alleged the veteran who is a member of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, United Service Institution of India, Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies and Centre for Land Warfare Studies.
"Naxalism bears a strong resemblance to the Hukbalahap guerilla insurgency in The Philippines where the issue was land. Political scientist Theda Skocpol’s Model of Revolution, described in her 1994 work ‘Social Revolutions in the Modern World, very much applies to this situation," felt the Maj-General who was Senior Directing Staff (Army) at the National Defence College, New Delhi, before he hung up his boots in 2003.
The dimensions of the Skocpol Model are bureaucratisation (corruption, caste, red-tape, fragmented social control), penetration (lack of penetration by the state) and inclusion (large numbers feel left out of the state’s largesse, education, health and socio-economic development).
"My study of insurgency movements in India reveals that whenever there is deprivation, discrimination, oppression, injustice, inadequacy or inequality of any kind be they political, economic or social, they lead to disappointment, disillusionment, discontent and frustration of all kinds. When such a situation is applied the religious, communal, ideological or even the proverbial foreign hand card, the whole thing becomes highly explosive from the national security point of view," the veteran explained.
Maj-Gen Jaini fought rebels in the Northeast, Jammu and Kashmir. His ''crowning glory'' was being decorated with the AVSM by the President for his distinguished services in anti-militancy operations in Punjab (1992-93).
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