It was a stunning declaration. There we were in a television studio on Thursday evening debating how to deal with Maoists and whether the state should cut deals with terrorists to secure the release of civilians held hostage by them. The immediate context of the debate was the Odisha Government’s capitulation before Maoists who had kidnapped two Italians.

“We must put moral pressure on the Maoists and legal pressure on the state,” declared one of the ‘social activists’ who had brokered a deal with Maoists in February last year after they had kidnapped the District Collector of Malkangiri. He concluded his lofty though bogus commentary with the astounding claim that it was on account of the ‘moral pressure’ brought upon Maoists in Andhra Pradesh by him and other leading lights of ‘civil society’ that they had given up their bad old ways.