Civil activists shielding inhuman rights

Arundhati Roy had termed the Naxalites-Maoists are "Gandhians with guns". There seems certainly wrong both with her and the civil rights activists who pose to be fighting for human rights. Human rights of whom? Of the Maoists-Naxalites who, as per official records (The Times of India, May 18, 2010), during 2009 killed 590 innocent civilians while in the first four months of 2010 the figure has already touched 195. In the current year they have felt emboldened to mount 810 attacks in the same period against 2,250 in whole year 2009. In the same period these ultras have killed 315 last year and till April this year 146 security personnel employed in the area.

These civil rights respectables should know that every civil society and government does employ police and security personnel for protecting the life and property of its law-abiding citizens and to safeguard its borders from enemies. Therefore, except in exceptional cases, these security and paramilitary personnel have only performed their legal duty in any area diligently and honestly with valour. Therefore, no person however aggrieved has the right to take the law into his own hands to ‘punish' the security personnel performing their civil and constitutional duty. If the civil and human rights activists still champion the rights of all those who commit the ‘inhuman' act of killing innocent civilians and security personnel performing their civil duty to protect the life and property of civilized, innocent citizens, one can only have pity on their intellect and logic.

Sonia blames her dynasty

Congress supremo Mrs. Sonia Gandhi was certainly speaking to the gallery and her electoral constituency when she blamed the lack of development for the rise of Naxalism-Maoism in areas infested with such activities. She was, in fact, without saying it in so many words, blaming none else but her own dynasty -- grandfather-in-law Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, her mother-in-law Mrs. Indira Gandhi, her husband Rajiv Gandhi and now Manmohan government functioning under her thumb. Out of the last 62 years of our independence, the Nehru-Gandhi family ruled the country at the Centre and in the States for 44 years, besides the five years of Congress government of Mr. P. V. Narasimha Rao.

Democracy is the answer to the problems in any civil society. Change the government if that doesn't deliver the goods and fails to come up to your expectations. That is the spirit of democracy and rule a civilized society. By justifying and explaining the rise of Naxalism-Maoison the persons like Mrs. Sonia Gandhi and the civil and human rights activists are championing treason to inspire people to take up arms against a democratically elected government if they, in their narrow perception, feel that a government, a government official, or some other functionary though acting as per law and rules, was not serving their individual or group whims.

It also raises a very pertinent question: Will a government hark to the grievances of only those people who revolt, take up arms and kill innocents, and not of those who raise their voice in a civilized manner peacefully?