All in the family

Sir — There seems to be alarm at the prospect of Amit Jogi taking over the campaign in his father’s fief (“Chhattisgarh’s Sanjay dons Jogi mantle”, April 13). Yet in Amit Jogi, India doesn’t have anything it hasn’t seen already — spoilt child, corrupt son, unscrupulous politician and voracious eater. All over India, politician parents are happily furthering the careers of their ambitious sons, and sons their parents’ — in Mulayam Yadav’s Uttar Pradesh, in Vasundhara Raje Scindia’s Rajasthan and so on. It can be put down to the singular bad luck of the Jogis in Chhattisgarh that their gambit backfired — first the dissent over Amit’s overreaching influence, and then the ultimate flop of the video blitz against Dilip Singh Judeo. The Indian electorate is so well-disposed to family affairs that father-son duos have got away with worse, sometimes even murder. Even now, if Amit manages to turn the tide in Chhattisgarh, there are chances of his coming to be celebrated as Chhattisgarh’s Rajiv.

Yours faithfully,
J. Acharya, Calcutta

Striking without force

Sir — There is no doubt that the Naxalite ambush at Chaibasa caught the police napping (“Sitting ducks cry for flight to safety”, April 8). A force cannot move blindly along a one-way route in an insurgent-infested area. The police personnel should have identified the likely ambush sites, such as the ones the insurgents used in the recent incident, on a route which has points of higher elevation on both sides. The police ought to have sent an advance search party before the actual convoy moved in.

Even when one comes under fire, there are drills to break such ambushes. As a retired lieutenant colonel, I know that the Indian army has been carrying out such operations in the insurgency-prone areas of the North-east and Kashmir. One fully understands the concerns of the Jharkhand Policemen’s Association for more sophisticated weapons and intelligence-gathering systems. But no modern system can be useful till the personnel are given adequate training. For this, the Jharkhand government should take assistance from the army and conduct courses in counter-insurgency at Vairengta, Mizoram.

Yours faithfully,
S.R. Banerjee, via email

Sir — The editorial, “Brutally poor” (April 12) rightly points to the root cause of insurgency that subsequently leads to “terrorism”. Poverty, casteism, siphoning of development funds and such problems cannot be tackled by merely deploying security forces. There needs to be a radical change in the method of governance.

There could be two solutions to the problem. One, politicians could be excluded from the development process altogether. Funds for development should be channelized by the Centre directly through the district magistrates of the regions concerned, thereby barring legislators and parliamentarians from having any say in the matter. The district magistrate should be directly accountable to the Centre. Two, law and order should be made a Central subject to be overseen by a cabinet minister with independent charge. All police forces currently under the states should be put under Central control. One of our biggest administrative mistakes after independence has been to make law and order a state subject.

Yours faithfully,
J.K. Dutt, Calcutta

Sir — The report, “Ballot boycott bands strike” (April 9), should set alarm bells ringing for the ruling party in neighbouring West Bengal. There is enough evidence of Maoist infiltration into the state. Attacks of the West Singbhum kind can happen any day in this state. Is the West Bengal government taking necessary steps to prevent the spectre of Naxalism haunting it again?

Yours faithfully,
T.R. Anand, Calcutta

Sir — The killing of policemen in Baliba might have shocked the administration but we cannot discount the public support for the Maoist rebels. Their revolution in fact is carried out in the name of the people and for their right to food, shelter and clothing. Without the presence of the Naxals, there would have been more corruption and more oppression in remote rural areas. Moreover, as the editorial, “Brutally poor”, pointed out, poverty and unemployment are fuelling such uprisings. Unless the government, both Central and state, does something concrete about these problems, bullets will not bring relief.

Yours faithfully,
Jang Bahadur Singh, Jamshedpur

Sir — The attack on the police convoy in West Singhbhum highlights several drawbacks in the counter-insurgency operation in the state. The convoy had no protection. The police vehicles did not maintain the necessary distance between each other, which is why most of them were caught in the crossfire. The vehicles need to keep a machine gun-armed lookout man over the driver’s cabin when on the move. Moreover, carrying out raids and searches during the day is a questionable practice. Finally, the superintendent of police of West Singhbhum should have displayed more courage instead of escaping with his escort after the blast. The fact that he was not seriously injured is evident from the photograph on the front page (April 9).

Yours faithfully,
Ranjit Barkakoty, via email

Parting shot

Sir — A member of parliament contesting the elections from the prestigious Ghai constituency in Guwahati recently said that he does not know when India gained independence. So much for a shining India.

Yours faithfully,
Debashish Sharma, Shillong