Dear all,
By praying before the Maoists to release the abducted Collector and JE, we implicitly accord a sovereign status to the Maoist outfit- the very status exclusively reserved for the political State. As students of political science we know that sovereignty is absolute and indivisible, in the sense that it can't be shared by the State with any other entity. But here is a situation where the State actors by entreating before an outfit banned by them, seem to abdicate their sovereign-like position and thereby lend legitimacy to the proscribed outfit as a formidable share-holder of State sovereignty. If today the CM Navin Patnaik 'appeals' before the Maoists for release of his two officers or some civil society groups 'pray' in chorus or school students 'demand' at tandem, will it be wrong on the part of a poor man tomorrow to approach the Maoists for getting his legitimate dues achieved- may be, for releasing his land from the clutches of a land mafia or his mortgaged property from that of a Sahukar? Again, will it be wrong on the part of a women's group in a Scheduled Area, say for instance, to approach the Maoists to demolish Liquor Bhatis (Outstills), which have been illegally set up by the Govt in such areas? Not at all. This is how the elements of sovereignty slip off from the State actors to non-State, even counter-State actors.
Whether the Maoists release or not the abducted Officers, the very act of CM's 'appeal' and that too in a scaled-down voice and in naked contrast to his hyped attrition of yesterdays against the extremists has already bruised the sovereign status of the State, and that is the larger question we ought not to miss out at this moment of trial. When I say 'the moment of trial', I mean the moment of trial for the very conception of the State that is embodied in Preamble or Article 12 of the Constitution. The repeated appeals by the CM, prayers by religious groups and demands by the public rallies - all this merely lends legitimacy and credence to the Maoist outfit as a counter-instrument of a non-delivering State. The net fall-out of all this in public perception would be- where the State fails in its mandates, the Maoists would rush forth to fulfill them. .
This doesn't mean the State won't concern itself with the agenda of the moment- how to get the two of its abducted Officers released from the control of Maoists? Far from it. But the State must provide a calibrated political response, in which 'appeal', ' prayer' or 'demand' before its bete noire have no place at all. What does 'the political response' mean here? It means the State ought to articulate its positions on the very issues of public interest raised by the abductors. For instance, a demand has been raised by the Maoists for holding a judicial enquiry into the so-called encounter killings. What is harm in immediately setting up such a Commission? Another demand is the lifting of ban on certain organisations like Daman Pratirodh Manch of Dandapani Mohanty. If the State at all seeks to use his good auspices for negotiating with the abductor Maoists, it is simply a common sense that it has to withdraw the ban on his outfit. If they demand immediate cessation of mining and industrial activities by private companies in certain places in Scheduled Areas, the State should immediately comply with it, because going by the very verdict of Samatha Judgement 1997 of the apex Court, all these pro-Company interventions by the Government were ultra vires the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution and PESA Act 1996. Again, if they demand immediate release of a number of prisoners, the State should comply with it at least in respect of the under-trial cases, because not only the Maoist feeling but also public perception is that quite many innocent persons have been arrested and imprisoned in the name of booking the Maoists. Similarly, if they demand restoration of tribal land to the concerned tribal owners in Narayan Patana, the State shouldn't have any hesitation in doing so, because thereby the State would be fulfilling its own mandate as enjoined upon by the Regulation-2 of 1956. These are only a few exemplary issues picked up for the sake of illustration from a long list of demands the Maoists have been vouching for in recent years. It is the State itself who has to draw up an exhaustive list of Maoist demands with bearing on public interest and show a proactive gesture by fulfilling some of them at once. Negotiators may at best facilitate the interaction between the Maoists and the State, but it is the State action in the shape of a political response calibrated in the above light that would surely succeed in prevailing on the Maoists for release of the abducted officers. Other than this political response, any move by way of 'appeal' or 'prayer' is sure to fail in the short run while further eroding the legitimacy of the State as a sovereign entity in the long run.
Chitta Behera
Cuttack, Dt 20.02.2011
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