After gunbattles, Naxals have engaged security forces in language war in the insurgency-hit Bastar region of Chhattisgarh.
Almost following footsteps of Naxals, security forces are now learning tribal dialects through a crash course to be able to connect better with the local tribals in the conflict zone. Linguists have been hired to train the Central paramilitary troopers in different tribal languages of Bastar.
“We have already finished crash courses on tribal languages for two batches of CRPF personnel in Bastar region. We are going to give a crash course to the next batch in the third week of June,” a linguist involved in the project told this newspaper requesting anonymity for fear for threats from Maoists.
The idea to educate the security forces, engaged in anti-Maoist operations, on local tribal dialects struck the bosses of Central Para Military Forces (CPMF) after a large number of dictionaries on different tribal languages were seized from a Naxal camp by security personnel in Abujhmad (means unknown place when loosely translated) in Bastar region recently, police sources told this newspaper on Wednesday.
Further inquiry has found that the Naxals have, of late, started giving courses on different tribal dialects to the cadres to help them assimilate better with the local populace.
“The Maoists have prepared dictionaries on different tribal dialects for circulation among their cadres. We have seized a large number of such dictionaries during a raid in a Naxal camp,” Bijapur district SP said.