The road to Lalgarh, in the heart of West Bengal’s Naxal badlands, is now secure. But it is still a distance too far for many of the districts' administrators to travel.
It is mid-afternoon and there is a gathering before the Lalgarh Block Development Officer’s workplace. Inside, a lone policeman stands guard, as a data entry operator works in solitude. This isn't an aberration, the crowd outside claims. The presence of the district administration at this office is as ephemeral as the fleet-footed Leftist ultras the government is battling against.
“I applied for a ration card in July and was told that I could collect it in September. Now, it is November and I still haven't received my card. I have come to the BDO office almost every week but the officer is never here,” says Tarun Pratihar of Khosa village, some eight km away from Lalgarh town. The slip of paper in his hand clearly mentions the date of application and delivery, as well as the signature and stamp of the Sub-Inspector (Food & Supply).
The Sub-Inspector earlier said he’d come to the Lalgarh office every Wednesday and Friday, explains Ramgarh resident Abdul Mazid, but he has been hard to find for the past few months. “We even told the BDO when he was here, but the officer still didn't come. I have to travel 12 km to come here. It takes time and costs money,” he says.
Mazid, too, needs a new ration card. But, the glaring absence of key officials is ensuring the government machinery in this impoverished region remains stalled. Though ration supplies have been coming to their villages regularly, an improvement of logistics triggered by the arrival of mandarins from Kolkata in July last year, the West Bengal administration’s development offensive is all but floundering, as the piece of paper required to procure food and fuel is hard to get.
But the hearts and minds of those at the Lalgarh BDO office can still be won; their belief in the vestige of India's democracy that functions there is what brings them to demand their rights. However, there are those who have given up. They have chosen to forget the state, just as it has forgotten them.
At Narchi village, not far from where People's Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCPA) leader Chhatradhar Mahato was arrested in September, Savita Murmu minces no words about her disdain for the government and its agents.
“There is no government work here. We all have (NREGA) cards but what use is it if there is no employment? I could earn some Rs 25-30 every day by selling wood from the forest and stitching leaves. But now we can't even go anywhere. I rather go hungry than be beaten up by the police,” she says.
According to NREGA data available, no employment has been provided in the Lalgarh panchayat despite the issuance of job cards to 3,228 households. Only 200 households of the Binpur panchayat in the entire Binpur-I block, of which Lalgarh is a part, have been employed under NREGA.
Not a word about the PCPA or the Naxals from the people, though. The reluctance to talk about them is palpable. In Lalgarh, loose tongues are a liability.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has repeatedly called for a two-pronged approach, consisting of law and order enforcement coupled with social and economic development, to deal with the problem, a line that West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has attempted at toeing.
But the ire against state is evident. Already reeling under the crossfire between the state and the Maoists, further resentment is brewing in West Bengal's Naxal core as the government is failing to deliver, even as it promises to fill the developmental vacuum that has fuelled India's most potent internal security threat.
