Complete breakdown

Sat, Oct 24 06:49 AM

On Thursday night, the Maoists threw down the gauntlet more firmly than ever before. They released a West Bengal policeman at a time and place of their choosing. They did it with the media brazenly trekked in, in well-planned attendance. And Atindranath Dutta was released from captivity on Indian soil, with the legend "P.O.W." hung around his neck. With this the CPI(Maoist) made its most graphic assertion so far of what is at stake, and of the position of strength its cadres operate from. Prisoners of war are usually held on enemy territory, and with the choreography of Dutta's release, the Maoists showed how well-entrenched they are territorially. This, India's second "Rubaiya Sayeed" moment, does not just have the potential to swing the morale away from the state apparatus. It is as glaring an indictment as can

be had of the state machinery in West Bengal.

Denials of prisoner swaps are usually put forth by official agencies. But the absurdity of this week's developments was capped Thursday night by Kishenji, a Maoist leader currently coordinating their media interactions. There was no deal, he said, referring to the 22 prisoners, held during anti-Naxal operations, released by the state police simultaneously. In contrast, West Bengal DGP Bhupinder Singh evaded queries about negotiation with the Maoists, saying the state government could answer them. The Left Front government has been in visible free-fall since June, when it began anti-Maoist operations in West Midnapore district, and it is now clear that not only is it not meeting its constitutional obligations; it is not even politically capable of trying. It is, in effect, a fit case for the application of Article 356, and the imposition of Central rule.

Bengal's has been a 32-year reign in which government has been replaced by party, a Stalinist-lite project in which the party's (essentially the CPM's) grip on administration and its hold on political power fed off each other. This status quo was shaken during the Singur and Nandigram standoffs when the state was not able to draw a line between administration and party to deal with the sit-ins by a motley groups of agitators, including from mainstream parties like the Trinamool and with foot soldiers supplied by the Naxals. But this fragile arrangement really snapped after this May's Lok Sabha verdict when political power swung away from the Left Front, resulting in a spiral of reprisals between its and the Trinamool's cadres. The fragility of the constitutional

machinery in West Bengal has been subsequently shown in the inability of the LF government to draw thick lines between administration/police and party to successfully begin restoring the writ of the state in Naxal-dominated areas. That task, it is clear, can now only begin under Central rule.

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