Despite Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's description of Maoist extremism in India as the gravest internal security threat, there is still inadequate appreciation of the danger. One reason is the ideological solidarity expressed by left-leaning individuals who echo the Maoist claim to speak for the poor, underlining their virtual rejection of parliamentary democracy.

Apart from celebrities like Booker prize winner Arundhati Roy and noted Bengali writer Mahasweta Devi, there are people like Trinamool Congress MP Kabir Suman who have opposed the government's forthcoming drive against the Maoists.

In case these are well-meaning if naﶥ people, who seem to believe that the rebels are engaged in launching a revolution, like the communists in Russia in 1917 and in China in the 1940s, there are other supporters whose motives are not all that salutary. Their cynicism is the second reason why the centre's long-awaited offensive against the Maoists is facing hurdles.

One of those who has chosen to set up roadblocks to stall the drive is the newly-elected Chief Minister of Jharkhand, Shibu Soren. Although his explanation for aborting the operation is that he favours negotiations rather than police action, the real reason is something else. It is probably the subterranean links which he maintains with the Maoists in order to use their influence on the tribals, who are in a majority in Jharkhand, for his own political advantage.

It is worth noting that Soren fielded three former Maoists as candidates of his party, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), in the last election, of whom one emerged victorious.

Like the Jharkhand chief minister, Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee, too, was known to have used the Maoists during the agitation launched by her party in Singur and Nandigram against the West Bengal government. She had also warned that West Bengal would burn if Mahasweta Devi was arrested.

It is cynical understandings of this kind between mainstream politicians and the violent insurrectionists which first allowed these radicals to establish their bases in remote areas and then thrive by terrorising the innocent locals. It is clear that as long as the misplaced sympathy of the liberal intelligentsia and opportunistic manoeuvres of crafty politicians are not roundly condemned and eventually ignored by the centre, it will not be possible to eliminate the menace.

That the government under the proactive home minister, P.Chidambaram, has now begun the operation in right earnest is a good sign, but it has come rather late in the day when the Maoists are said to have entrenched themselves in around 200 of the country's 600-odd administrative districts.

However, much of this so-called "red corridor", which stretches from Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh in the heart of the country to Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa and West Bengal, is notional. The Maoists are there only because there was always a minimal police presence in these areas.

Whatever signs of officialdom were there comprised undermanned and under-equipped police stations and ill-paid block development officers. It wasn't difficult, therefore, for a band of ideologically driven insurgents - even if their dogma was a garbled version of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought - to establish themselves by convincing the poor tribals that they were their protectors against government "oppression".

Even if the government has long been guilty of neglecting these regions, where some of India's poorest people live, only the gullible or an inveterate leftist will believe in the Maoist promise of a new dawn.

However, the government's apathetic attitude has always given an opportunity to its critics to argue that instead of unleashing the armed police on the hapless tribals, it will be better to wean them away from the Maoists by undertaking development work. As a result of this argument, the government has generally been hesitant about launching an offensive. The knowledge that the police often tend to act with considerable brutality during such drives may have also acted as a dissuading factor.

If the government has finally chosen to act - despite Shibu Soren's objections - the reason is the realisation that the threat has seemingly started to assume unmanageable proportions. Not only are the Maoists spreading their tentacles over larger areas, they are also engaging with increasing frequency in hit-and-run tactics, killing policemen, uprooting railway lines and blowing up transmission towers. With the threat of Islamist terrorism a perpetual worry, the government simply cannot allow large parts of the country to remain virtually out of its control.

Besides, it is possibly also believed that the Maoists do not really have a base in these areas. Their presence is the result of intimidation and worse by which they have succeeded in keeping the tribals quiescent. Once the forces of law and order move in - and act with restraint - the Maoists, and their intellectual backers, will discover that the tribal support for them is a myth.

It is worth recalling that the Nobel laureate, Amartya Sen, is not starry-eyed about the Maoists. He calls them "social bandits".

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