1. Maoist Insurgency: Pivoting from Security to Governance
- UPSC Relevance: GS-III (Internal Security, Linkages between Development and Spread of Extremism), GS-II (Government Policies).
- Context and Introduction: The editorial acknowledges the significant success of the multi-pronged strategy (security and development) in reducing the geographical spread and intensity of Left Wing Extremism (LWE). However, it cautions that this military “terminal phase” must be followed by a comprehensive governance and justice pivot to prevent ideological revival.
- Successes of the Current Strategy:
- Decimation of Military Structure: Effective deployment of specialized forces like CoBRA, improved intelligence gathering, and surgical operations have severely dismantled the central military leadership (PLGA) of the Maoists.
- Infrastructure Penetration: Rapid expansion of roads, telecommunications, and banking services under schemes like the Security Related Expenditure (SRE) scheme has broken the isolation of remote areas, which were the traditional Maoist strongholds.
- Surrender Policies: Effective surrender and rehabilitation policies have encouraged the collapse of the rank and file by providing alternative livelihoods and social reintegration.
- The Unaddressed Roots of Conflict (Ideological Persistence):
- Governance and Corruption Deficit: In many tribal areas, the administration remains unresponsive, distant, and plagued by corruption, reinforcing the Maoist narrative of the ‘oppressive state.’
- Land and Resource Exploitation: The non-implementation or poor implementation of key protective laws like the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act (PESA), 1996, and the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006, continues to fuel grievances over forced displacement due to mining and denial of customary forest rights.
- Socio-Economic Disparity: Deep-seated poverty, poor Human Development Indicators (HDI), and chronic malnutrition persist, providing fertile ground for recruitment among impoverished youth.
- Way Forward (Policy Recommendations):
- Empowering PESA and FRA: The core focus must shift to ensuring decentralized governance by empowering the Gram Sabhas under PESA with real control over local resources (land, water, minerals) and fast-tracking the recognition of individual and community rights under FRA.
- Integrated Public Services: Prioritize investments in social infrastructure—health and education—rather than only hard infrastructure like roads. Focus on last-mile delivery and quality of services.
- Accountability and Justice: Set up fast-track courts to resolve long-pending land disputes and ensure stringent action against corrupt officials who exploit the marginalized communities.
- Dialogue and Social Integration: Foster political and social dialogue to address the genuine grievances of the tribal population, ensuring they feel integrated into the national mainstream and not merely objects of security operations.
2. Electoral Roll Revision: The SIR, Trust Deficit, and Digital Governance
- UPSC Relevance: GS-II (Salient features of the Representation of People’s Act, Electoral Reforms, Governance issues).
- Context and Introduction: The editorial analyzes the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, acknowledging its necessity for cleansing voter lists but raising concerns about the methodology, transparency, and potential for disenfranchisement, which could damage public trust in the Election Commission of India (ECI).
- Imperative for Roll Cleaning:
- Electoral Integrity: An updated roll is essential to uphold the ‘One Person, One Vote’ principle by eliminating duplicate entries, deceased voters, and non-resident entries.
- Addressing Anomalies: The scale of migration and urbanization often creates significant error rates in rolls, necessitating periodic, large-scale clean-up operations like the SIR.
- Challenges and Threats to Integrity:
- Trust Deficit and Transparency: The key issue is the perceived lack of public transparency regarding the criteria and processes used for deletion and modification, fueling political suspicion and accusations of partisan motivation.
- Exclusion Risk (Type II Error): A hurried, large-scale SIR increases the risk of Type-II errors—the wrongful exclusion of genuine voters, which disproportionately impacts marginalized, mobile, or low-literacy populations.
- Data Security and Privacy: The push towards linking voter ID with Aadhaar (even if voluntary) and other digital databases raises significant concerns about creating a single, vulnerable data profile and the potential for surveillance or misuse of voter data, underscoring the need for a robust Data Protection Law.
- Jurisdictional Ambiguity: In certain sensitive states, the revision process has overlapped with local citizenship-related controversies, blurring the lines of the ECI’s mandate and exacerbating community-level fears.
- Policy Recommendations/Way Forward:
- Mandatory Transparency: The ECI must release the full, accessible methodology, including a clear, user-friendly, and well-publicized mechanism for grievance redressal and appeals in all local languages.
- Strengthening Human Verification: The role of the Booth Level Officers (BLOs) must be prioritized and professionalized. Field verification, rather than purely digital matching, should remain the cornerstone of deletion decisions to minimize Type-II errors.
- Robust Data Governance: Implementation of a strict data protection framework for all electoral information is non-negotiable to safeguard voter privacy and prevent the misuse of linked digital data.
- Consensus Building: Major electoral reforms, including mass roll revisions, should be undertaken after consultation with all recognized political parties and civil society organizations to build confidence in the ECI’s institutional neutrality.
