Centre spares Naxalite ‘friends’

Comrades the madness and paranoia that we keep whining
about on this blog is no figment of our imagination but is
spreading at an alarming rate throughout the rotten corpse
of the government,just like how rigor mortis spreads in a
dead body.

We estimate that an emergency like situation could emerge
towards the end of this year.

Link via Bhumkal

Centre spares Naxalite ‘friends’

MANAN KUMAR
New Delhi, April 10: A crackdown that might have been
labelled “India’s McCarthyism” was about to unfold early this
year but for a “top-level intervention”.

The home ministry came under intense pressure in February
to act against academics and bureaucrats perceived to be Naxalite
sympathisers, it emerged today. Those on the undeclared blacklist
included several senior serving and retired bureaucrats.

A section of the home ministry officials, advocating a tough line
against “overground” sympathisers of Naxalites, raised the
pitch after arming itself with a report on a seminar held in January
on the campus of a university in Delhi.

The report, drawn up by home ministry officials, said the
tenor of the seminar was “pro-Naxalite”. The participants, who included
bureaucrats, academics and students, engaged themselves in
“anti-state” discussions that seemed to justify armed uprising, it said.

By February, the officials behind the initiative had begun to
discuss specific punitive measures that could be taken against the
“sympathisers”. Penalties put on the table included shunting officials
to nondescript areas and cutting down retirement benefits.

However, “intervention from the top” — sources would not identify
the person but would only say no politician was involved — nipped
the plan.

A near-certain public furore and the ruling establishment’s
well-known eagerness to preserve its liberal credentials were the
primary factors that forced the rethink, the sources said.

A clampdown would have drawn comparisons with Senator
Joseph McCarthy’s communist witch-hunt in the US in the 1950s.
Then too, the prime targets were bureaucrats and teachers,
besides showbiz personalities.

Suspicion of growing Naxalite influence in urban areas had
prompted central intelligence units to draw up a list of 664
organisations and their functionaries for scrutiny.

The drive assumed urgency after pockets of protests began
mushrooming against land acquisition for industry in several parts
of the country.

The Centre feels that industrial belts such as Gurgaon and
Faridabad would become a fertile ground for Naxalites to strike root
with the help of the urban support groups.

Telegraph