Chidambaram

New Delhi, Nov. 9: There appears to be a meditated strategy to the Centre’s consistent doublespeak on the security offensive against Maoist guerrillas — keep the fig-leaf of talks prominently dangled, keep building forces along pressure points in preparation for major strikes.

Tactically, it’s a smart perch between political compulsions which require the Centre to establish it gave dialogue more than a chance, and security imperatives that are inevitably pushing it towards confronting armed Maoists.

“Talks are a political decision,” an officer involved with anti-Maoist operations told The Telegraph. “Our job is to meet violation of the law as and where. If there is a challenge today, it will have to be met today, and that is happening. It can’t be any other way.”

On the face of it, the Union home ministry has discernibly tempered its threat rhetoric over the past fortnight. From handing out an unequivocal ultimatum to the Maoists, home minister P. Chidambaram has twice revised his appeal to them — first, an offer for talks if they abjured violence, and then, a repeated proposal if they only halted bloodshed.

Insiders maintain, though, that both positions were calibrated, made in the anticipation that the Maoists would reject them and clear the way for the exercise of hard options. In short, the sabre-rattling has stopped, but the sabres are still out.

“It’s clear that the Maoists are not buying the dialogue offer,” a top official said. “What the government does in the coming days and weeks will be with a clean sense that we exhausted the dialogue option, and had no choice but to use force.”

He admitted, though, that following the home ministry’s “virtual declaration of war” on the Maoists a few weeks back, “some political and civil society pressure was built” in order to find middle ground.

Although he did not mention specifics, he was probably referring to urgent appeals by rights groups such as the Citizens’ Initiative for Peace and to a statement by Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi that lack of governance had fed the Maoist upsurge. Sections within the Congress had also lobbied the party leadership to prevent the Centre from rushing into an armed conflict, warning that the consequences could be counterproductive and could further alienate the “aam aadmi” constituency.

Former Chhattisgarh chief minister Ajit Jogi was among those who wrote to party boss Sonia Gandhi cautioning against a rash resort to violence.

However, unabated Maoist violence — and their refusal to talk unless the government withdraws forces from their areas of dominance — is consistently strengthening the pro-action sections of the government. And preparations on the ground are proceeding in earnest. Green Hunt, which is specific to Chhattisgarh — and not to be confused with the joint cross-state operations being coordinated by New Delhi — has been under way for quite a while now in the jungles of South Bastar.

Raipur was also the staging post last week of the first “induction” sessions of central paramilitary units into the effort. A joint command centre has been created in Raipur, and new formations — the BSF and ITBP in Bastar’s case — are under deployment to key sectors. Their officers have had fairly detailed briefings on Maoist warfare training and tactics and have been asked to keep their forces in readiness. As one senior Chhattisgarh police officer said: “We cannot wait in a limbo for the Naxalites to decide whether they want to talk with the government or not, our job is to be ready. In fact, at the state level we have operationalised Green Hunt, the central forces will only expand the assault on the Naxalites.”

On the ground, in fact, security forces are feeling upgraded Maoist heat. Enough, for instance, for Orissa, a key Maoist base, to complain that it hasn’t been given enough attention and assistance by New Delhi.

“There are reports of a substantial build-up of Maoists, particularly in our southern districts adjoining Dantewada, but because of the lack of adequate forces we have not been able to do much,” Prakash Mishra, DG (intelligence and operations) of Orissa said today. “Our chief minister has been asking for 7-8 more battalions of central paramilitary forces for quite a while, but nothing has happened.”

Mishra denied reports that Orissa had temporarily withdrawn from anti-Maoist operations for lack of boots on the ground, but said: “We do need additional forces. Without them, we are quite handicapped.” He argued that Orissa was virtually “land-locked” by Maoist-affected states — Jharkhand and West Bengal to the north, Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh to the south — and said that recent pressure created by security forces in Lalgarh and Dantewada had led to a “lot of Maoists moving base into our jungle regions”.

Like the Greyhounds of Andhra, Orissa has a Special Operations Group (SOG) to keep a check on Maoist guerrillas, but the state police has expressed its inability to take “effective enough action” in the absence of backup forces.

“We are doing what we can, and have had a measure of success, but without additional paramilitary, we just do not have enough biting power,” an Orissa police officer said.

He too made light of suggestions emanating from New Delhi that there wasn’t a security offensive against Maoists in the works. “That could be part of some propaganda offensive, but really, there is no way out but to conduct security operations against them,” the office said, “Operations may have this name or that, but it all means the same thing — there is a battle on.”