A good tribal is a displaced tribal, ready to move out with folded hands
From: jarjum ete jarjum@gmail.com
Friends,
They say, there are three sides of a story.. mine, yours and the right side.. Someone says there is a fourth side, the wrong side... Another says there is a fifth side, theirs. So, everyone has his or her side of the story. There are many sides to a story. But that side is not the whole story. Who has the perspective ? Who has got the whole story ? Posing the problems is easier than resolving them, with Sincerity. Again, the question is, who is sincere about solving the problems ?
Well, why people take to violence could have many reasons. Even murders are justified, very unfortunately. But am sure no one wants to get killed. Similarly, I believe, not many (except a psycho, perhaps ) would willingly or happily kill if given the opportunity to lead a normal life with an opportunity to live with some dignity.
Who are these Maoists ? As a mother, I know the concerns of a woman who has carried a baby in her womb. Even a tribal woman in the deepest forests has the same dreams of a woman in the most advanced society of this world. And I strongly believe that every parent hopes and dreams for a share of a dignified life for her/his child.. Apparently, our present problem of violence, termed as Maoism or Naxalism in India, has emanated from the fact that our (tribal) children, in those states, have been treated as children, as if of a lesser god. And, all will surely agree, discrimination and injustice, cannot be accepted or tolerated for too long. Some can be exploited and suppressed for sometime. but all cannot be befooled all the time.
In his recent letter to the President of India, dated 17 May 2010, Dr BD Sharma, former Commissioner, SC/ST, has enumerated a list of 20 major broken promises made to the tribals of India. No.19 says "A good tribal is a displaced tribal, ready to move out with folded hands". And he is one of the few authorities on the issues of the tribals of India. As a tribal person, I endorse this view of his. The tribals of this supposed Great Nation have always been expected to move out every time, from their ancestral lands, for the sake of 'so-called development' of the country.
Where are the lakhs of tribals who have been forced to vanish from their homelands over so many decades, leaving their lands for development, in the interest of the nation ? Will the ones who are running away from their homes for their lives, in the violence-ridden areas, ever return to their villages in the future ? I suspect. They will be stuck in some relief camps for �sometime... and then they will dissolve into the vast unknown world, in search of food and medicines for their little children, perhaps.
'If they don't move out of those lands on their own, create a situation which will force them out, flush them out of their holes....make them leave their homes on their own.'... That seems the obvious modus operandi, the mantra for acquisiton of tribal land for 'projects'. Correct me if I am wrong. But this is how it looks like, from this far corner of the country. Perhaps, as a fellow tribal, I empathise more. Perhaps, from this distance, my perspective is clearer. And since I am not directly affected by the neglect, injustices, deprivations and casteist-oppressions in the rest of India, I am able to talk against the violence and violations, the killings and bloodshed unleashed in those affected areas. But I think, if me or my family was one of the victims of the so-called development projects that treat the tribal people like insects (even insects are protected today !), I would have been equally angry and violent and I might not have said no to one of my children joining the cadres of the rebels, despite knowing very well that the Solution never lies in Violence.
Friends, having expressed my solidarity to the oppressed who have turned violent, unfortunately, and having shared my sentiments as a fellow-tribal, I appeal to all of you out there, with your fingers on the keyboards of your computers, please join the faceless voices of concern to build a campaign for a review of the development paradigm in the tribal areas of India. Yes, it is very difficult when our own leaders are using us and exploiting us, but it is possible that our younger ones, who are a little more educated and aware than their parents, would get to be heard. They might feel better if they are able to decide about what they want to do on their lands. Why can't they have that space ?
Have a good day !
In prayer,
Jarjum Ete, activist,
Former Chairperson, Arunachal Pradesh State Commission for Women.
and
President, Galo Welfare Society (GWS), Arunachal Pradesh, Itanagar.
( the Galos, still listed as Gallongs as per the Constitution of India, are one of the tribes of Arunachal Pradesh - we are also working on the correction of our tribe's nomenclature.)
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Friday, May 21, 2010
Green Hunt in Kalinga Nagar
Date: Saturday, 27 March, 2010, 6:14 PM
URGENT: Tata sponsored 'Green Hunt' in Kalinga Nagar to destroy democratic tribal movement
Yesterday the Collector of Jajpur district assured Dabar Kalundia, a tribal leader of Bisthapan Birodhi Jan Manch (BBJM) that he would come to Baligotha village on 28 March for a meeting with the dissenting villagers and find a solution to the prevailing conflict. But within a day the Collector has broken his word as today about 24 platoons of armed policemen have been deployed in Kalinga Nagar to suppress the democratic & non-violent movement of the BBJM. It is feared that there will be bloodshed at a larger scale than 2 Jan 06 when 14 tribal men, women & children were killed in a police shootout. The villagers fear the police will attack tomorrow morning.
For more than 3 months now the resistance villages of Kalinga Nagar have been besieged by police forces who have randomly arrested dozens of villagers who stepped out of their village. People have been framed under false charges. There has been repeated midnight attacks by policemen and Tata goons to annihilate key activists of the BBJM. Hired assassins have also tried to eliminate the tribal leaders of the movement and one such attempt caused the death of Amin Banara of Baligotha village. Recently large number of police forces had been deployed on the pretext of building a road through the villages. Every attempt of the police and administration to quell the dissent of the people has been countered in democratic and non-violent ways by the BBJM.
The BBJM has clarified several times that it is not a Maoist backed organisation and does not want violence. The BBJM has made it clear that it will not accept displacement and mindless industrialisation that is already causing massive pollution in the area leading to widespread disease, crop failure, air, water & sound pollution. The Collector also agreed to the meeting only after the BBJM wrote several letters to him demanding that their concerns be addressed first as the Collector had been announcing in some meetings in the area that the Common Corridor Road would be built at any cost.
Surprisingly the print and electronic media have so far ignored developments in Kalinganagar which itself is a threat to democracy. Mainstream political parties also have reached a consensus with the ruling party which creates concerns among all citizens who understand the implications of mobilization of armed police in kalinganagar villages resisting Tata induced displacement.
We demand that the Govt should stop acting like a hired mercenary of Tata Steel company and withdraw all police forces from the area immediately. If there is any bloodshed the sole responsibility will lie on the Govt. The Govt should also give up the Common Corridor Road project as it will be built on fertile farm land and the community land of the tribals. The Govt should respect the sacrifice of the 14 tribals killed by the police and scrap the Tata project immediately. There should be no further displacement & dispossession of tribal people from their land. The Govt should immediately start working towards restoring peace in the area by assuring the tribals that there will be no attacks on them by the police or Tata goons. A medical team should be sent to the villages immediately as people have not been able to visit doctors for days in fear of arrest.
We appeal to all concerned citizens, progressive groups & media persons to raise their voice against the Fascist tendencies of the Govt and express solidarity with the tribals of Kalinga Nagar.
Prafulla Samnatara, Lok Shakti Abhijan
Lingaraj, Samajbadi Jan Parishad
Radhakant Sethi, CPI-ML Liberation
Prashanta Paikrai, PPSS
Bhalachandra Sadangi, CPI-ML New Democracy
Lingaraj Azad, NSS
URGENT: Tata sponsored 'Green Hunt' in Kalinga Nagar to destroy democratic tribal movement
Yesterday the Collector of Jajpur district assured Dabar Kalundia, a tribal leader of Bisthapan Birodhi Jan Manch (BBJM) that he would come to Baligotha village on 28 March for a meeting with the dissenting villagers and find a solution to the prevailing conflict. But within a day the Collector has broken his word as today about 24 platoons of armed policemen have been deployed in Kalinga Nagar to suppress the democratic & non-violent movement of the BBJM. It is feared that there will be bloodshed at a larger scale than 2 Jan 06 when 14 tribal men, women & children were killed in a police shootout. The villagers fear the police will attack tomorrow morning.
For more than 3 months now the resistance villages of Kalinga Nagar have been besieged by police forces who have randomly arrested dozens of villagers who stepped out of their village. People have been framed under false charges. There has been repeated midnight attacks by policemen and Tata goons to annihilate key activists of the BBJM. Hired assassins have also tried to eliminate the tribal leaders of the movement and one such attempt caused the death of Amin Banara of Baligotha village. Recently large number of police forces had been deployed on the pretext of building a road through the villages. Every attempt of the police and administration to quell the dissent of the people has been countered in democratic and non-violent ways by the BBJM.
The BBJM has clarified several times that it is not a Maoist backed organisation and does not want violence. The BBJM has made it clear that it will not accept displacement and mindless industrialisation that is already causing massive pollution in the area leading to widespread disease, crop failure, air, water & sound pollution. The Collector also agreed to the meeting only after the BBJM wrote several letters to him demanding that their concerns be addressed first as the Collector had been announcing in some meetings in the area that the Common Corridor Road would be built at any cost.
Surprisingly the print and electronic media have so far ignored developments in Kalinganagar which itself is a threat to democracy. Mainstream political parties also have reached a consensus with the ruling party which creates concerns among all citizens who understand the implications of mobilization of armed police in kalinganagar villages resisting Tata induced displacement.
We demand that the Govt should stop acting like a hired mercenary of Tata Steel company and withdraw all police forces from the area immediately. If there is any bloodshed the sole responsibility will lie on the Govt. The Govt should also give up the Common Corridor Road project as it will be built on fertile farm land and the community land of the tribals. The Govt should respect the sacrifice of the 14 tribals killed by the police and scrap the Tata project immediately. There should be no further displacement & dispossession of tribal people from their land. The Govt should immediately start working towards restoring peace in the area by assuring the tribals that there will be no attacks on them by the police or Tata goons. A medical team should be sent to the villages immediately as people have not been able to visit doctors for days in fear of arrest.
We appeal to all concerned citizens, progressive groups & media persons to raise their voice against the Fascist tendencies of the Govt and express solidarity with the tribals of Kalinga Nagar.
Prafulla Samnatara, Lok Shakti Abhijan
Lingaraj, Samajbadi Jan Parishad
Radhakant Sethi, CPI-ML Liberation
Prashanta Paikrai, PPSS
Bhalachandra Sadangi, CPI-ML New Democracy
Lingaraj Azad, NSS
Is 'Chattisgarh' a banned word in Tamil Nadu
SALEM: Noted environmental activist Piyush Sethia, founder of Speak Out Salem, was arrested on Tuesday when he tried to mobilise awareness against Operation Green Hunt at the Republic Day function venue.Detailing the negative fallouts of Operation Green Hunt launched by the Central government against the Maoists, a handbill pointed out that lakhs of tribals were being displaced in the name of flushing out Maoists. It also made angry references to Union Minister P Chidambaram and questioned the spirit behind the Republic Day celebrations.According to Inspector Kennedy, Sethia entered the Gandhi stadium, where the Republic Day celebrations were being held. There, he started to distribute handbills to visitors, which the police said were inflammatory in nature and were against the conduct during a Republic Day celebration.Sethia maintained that he did not enter the stadium and denies distributing any handbill to visitors. He said he was giving a handbill to a police inspector, who was also a friend, when another inspector, Annadurai (City Intelligence Service), snatched it away. Sethia said he was then assaulted and taken to the Hasthampatti police station.The Hasthampatti police have booked cases under non-bailable charges of sedition and the Tamil Nadu Public Area Disfigurement Act. Taking exception to the arrest, activists and lawyers are mobilising legal support to ensure his release.After the handbill distribution, Sethia had planned to go on a cycle campaign up to Sivagangai (P Chidambaram’s constituency) to create awareness against Operation Green Hunt.
Confronting 'Guns of Peace"
http://www.sacw.net/article1253.html
India: Confronting ’Guns of Peace’ - Bastar faces its worst crisis
Saturday 10 October 2009, by Himanshu Kumar
8 October 2009
As I write this critical note on the worst ever crisis undivided Bastar is facing, ambushes and gun battles between para-military, Salwa Judum and State Police forces and Naxal cadres are being played out in jungles of Dantewada and Bijapur districts of undivided Bastar in South Chhattisgarh. To understand this crisis one needs to have a brief knowledge of the previous crises that have confronted Bastar. It must be stated upfront that since historically this region has been a forested, tribal dominated and physically difficult terrain, it has also been a malgoverned region ! And this malgovernance manifested itself in injustice and denial of rights for the tribals inhabiting this region with the State eyeing it only for its mineral deposits and forest resources. This somewhere laid the ground for the crisis that is unfolding here since June 2005.
In June 2005, as part of a larger plan to tighten control over the rich mineral and forest resources of Bastar, the State, backed by private capital, launched a major offensive on tribals of this region and called it ironically Salwa Judum or peace movement. On the face of it Salwa Judum was a people’s uprising for peace against Naxal violence but the hidden agenda, as is gradually unfolding, was the corporate grabbing of resources. The sum total of four years of Salwa Judum has been the internal and forced displacement of more than 3.5 lakh people from their villages, a 30 fold escalation of violence and a 22 time swell in support base and area under control by the very Naxals whom the Judum aimed at decimating ! But the State never learns from failures – even after unleashing the loosing battle of horrifying violence on tribals of Bastar in name of Salwa Judum, it has launched a phase two in the name of Operation Green Hunt and Operation Godavari in Bastar and adjacent districts of Malkangiri (Orissa). This confrontation of Bastar’s tribals with the ‘guns of peace’ will unleash the worst crisis this region has ever seen or will ever see …. but that is only if remaining tribals ever survive these ‘guns of peace’.
So through this note I am attempting to simply analyse each strategy and act of the State and map its impact on tribals of Bastar and how counterproductively it has benefited the CPI (Maoist) party !
The State launched Salwa Judum in 2005 to counter insurgency by cadres of CPI (Maoist) or Naxalites through civil defense by recruiting and training civilians in ‘armed resistance’
But soon Salwa Judum cadres went beyond the control of para-military and police forces under whom they were supposed to function and began looting, burning, raping, murdering and kidnapping of tribals and remained beyond any accountability due to political support
The State forcefully evicted tribals from 700 villages and dumped them in 30 odd camps built for them and cordorned by security forces – it was protecting people from Naxal violence ! It was following the American counter insurgency strategy of ‘draining the water and killing the fish’ …. State forgot that tribals are not fish and villages are not fish bowls !
But freedom loving and nature-dependent tribals refused to move into camps and fled for fear of being captured, tortured and then deported to camps – reminds one of the Jewish Holocaust. While a meager 50,000 population shifted to camps, about 50,000 fled to the adjacent district in Andhra Pradesh and Orissa where they had relatives and clan families and remaining 2.5 lakh people hid deeper in jungles living a life of fear, hunger and death
Human rights and civil society groups watching over the State’s warfare, challenged its American copy of counter insurgency. And when they were tried to be silenced, they went up to State High Courts and Indian Supreme Court challenging the notions and strategies of mitigating Naxal violence and restoring peace
The State retaliated by creating an imaginary divider, obviously through corporate media houses, in the minds of the middle class. If you are in its camps, you are with the State and if you are in the jungles, then you are Naxalite …. thus declaring the 2.5 lakh tribals hiding in the jungles as Naxalites and thereby justifying training its guns of peace on them ! And another divider declared anyone supporting the ‘Naxal tribals’ as Maoist sympathizers or informers and liable to imprisonment and torture under the draconian Public Securities Act. It unjustly put activists who questioned it behind bars or bulldozed their premises, not even soaring sources of drinking water or simply diverted them by bribing them with funds, contracts and opportunities for sharing the great wealth created through Salwa Judum !
Indian Supreme Court, hearing out petitioners against Salwa Judum ordered the State to reconsider its civil defense strategy and stop evicting tribals from villages. Instead it asked the State to launch a rehabilitation drive to resettle tribals, provide them with basic services and entitlements and asses damages to life and property. This damage assessment was to be followed by compensation and registering of criminal cases against the offenders, in particular Salwa Judum and para-military forces. This was aimed at cleaning up the mess of Salwa Judum and starting afresh all attempts at just and democratic governance
The State responded by blatantly violating the Supreme Court orders,speaking white lies before Court when questioned about its inaction.
It neither attempted rehabilitation efforts nor set up district and State committees to look into damage assessment or filing of cases against offenders and also it did not make any attempts at rethinking its strategies. Rather it continued its forced evictions, its looting, burning, rape, kidnap and murder and printed in bold letters its justification of continuing Salwa Judum. In fact it even went a step further by sabotaging and blocking any civil society attempts at rehabilitation, damage assessment and filing of cases against offenders. It used the Public Securities Act against volunteers working for the rehabilitation of internally displaced tribals !
Tribals who fled their villages and hid in jungles are still living nomadic and terrorized lives. In the face of an inhuman onslaught on them, they clung to the only support they got in the forests …. that of the Maoists who appeared more human to them than persecuting State forces ?! Their attempts at seeking justice and dignity as citizens of this country were met with arrests and abuses. Their faith in the State dwindled and converted into anger and despair. It was therefore natural for them to pick up their traditional weapons in their self-defence because the State had left no option before them
How did the State respond ? Whenever tribals came seeking justice through democratic and legal means, their FIRs were not registered, their court cases were dismissed without a hearing and they were arrested for being Naxalites. And any sympathetic judge or officer to the tribal cause was either sent on forced leave or transferred out. No one was ready to listen …. not even local mediapersons who benefited from State dole outs of contracts, advertisements and general patronage. National media too ignored the Bastar question or made half-hearted attempts at covering truth because they were bankrolled by corporates eyeing the mineral and forest resources of Bastar ! How could they let the cat out of the bag and lock out opportunities of profiteering ? Tribals were isolated and rendered helpless
In such a complex situation of denial and injustice, the State has been expecting tribals to show loyalty to it, abide by its laws and support it in restoring peace. These expectations could be justified and binding on tribals had the State shown respect for the same virtues !
The State talks of loyalty when it has itself distrusted its own tribal citizens and branded them Naxals when they have come seeking justice at its doors … State talks of abiding by its laws when it has itself made a mockery of its own laws – holding Gram Sabhas at gun point to coerce tribals into giving away their lands to mining corporations, subverting laws protecting the tribals’ rights to land and forests as stated in PESA, disrespecting Supreme Court’s orders to rehabilitate villages, deliver entitlements and services, co-opting judiciary, executive and legislature to ratify and justify violence and terror by its forces and so on. In fact the State has been attacking its poor to secure the interests of the rich and still it expects the poor to abide by, put faith in it and support it ? There are thousands of cases where the law of the land has been bent backwards to accommodate corporate interests but when it comes to tribals State puts on false pretence of legal systems and democracy !
The State wants tribals to help it in restoring peace – but when did the State believe that peace was possible without justice or that tribals could make peace with guns firing around them – does the State believe that tribals will confront its guns of peace without first arming themselves in their self-defence ? And what peace is the State talking of restoring – had it wanted peace it would have allowed rehabilitation, it would have allowed the nation to know the truth of Bastar, it would have respected its laws and would have adhered to the democratic governance systems it has put in place ??
Despite all that I have stated above (not that people in the State do not know what I have stated ?), the State has launched its second Salwa Judum through its strategic military operations called Green Hunt (hunting whom ?) and Godavari. But what will be the net impact of this Salwa Judum II ? The same, if not worse. The crisis will just deepen, the tribals will get further terrorized, Naxals will further consolidate their support base and area under control and voices of sanity among civil society and human rights groups will further get silenced and decimated. This military offensive will only isolate the tribals more and they will begin to look upon every non-tribal as an aggressor. And do we believe that in such a situation peace and democracy can prevail ? Thus military operation will simply push democracy further away and endanger the Indian socio-political system.
Thus, as tribals continue resisting corporate grab of land and resources in the garb of Salwa Judum and Operation Green Hunt, State repression will just rise manifold. One must remember that it is not as if repression never happened but it has got heightened with dash of corporates to set up mining and industrial units while the great global market goes booming. Corporates are just making hay while the sun is shining and all this at expenses of the State ! And Governments have also readily complied by disposing off their socialist agenda to follow routes tread by private capital. And to make this a reality, these proxy wars are being fought on tribal territory. But who really will be targeted ? Not Naxals who are deft at guerilla warfare and will escape bullets of Salwa Judum and para military forces. It will be the tribals who will be caught in the crossfire.
Salwa Judum (Phase I) resulted in a near civil war that destroyed over 644 villages and displaced 3.5 lakh tribals in one way or the other and filled the lives of tribals with fake encounters, gangrape of tribal women, looting and burning of livestock and belongings of poor tribals, brutal suppression of any resistance or protest has become the order of the day in the name of combating Naxals. This makes us wonder whether they are still bonafide denizens of this country or have they been obliterated as people of India !?
We have gone to villages to understand the truth behind encounters, have interviewed dozens of tribal women gangraped or enslaved for months by Salwa Judum and para military forces and witnessed the total demolition of my house and office premises because we dared to expose these acts of violence through several cases filed in Chhattisgarh High Court. Is this the democracy and tribal development our Governments want us to espouse? I shudder to think what will be the outcome of Salwa Judum (Phase II) …….. yet another fake encounters, yet more gangrapes and yet more souls gone down fighting injustice and repression in the name of peace and democracy ?
But for how long are tribals going to bear the brunt of a brutal and inhuman police force? For how long will tribals stand in the crossfire between Naxals, a militarized State and a demonized police? For how long will middle class ‘bhadralok’ remain silent spectators to State’s colonization of tribal territory to subsidize urban growth in the name of ‘tribal development‘ ? And for how long will we look on helplessly as tribals get butchered, raped and exterminated? We believe that some day the tribal specter will rise and fall heavily on those who repress loot and pauperize them. But who will get sacrificed and who will survive? The fittest … as Darwin eulogized evolution? The question is who is fitter – you and me who enjoy privileges of a subsidized consumer culture or tribals whom we have hanged giving them the name of savage, backward and poor ? I guess we all know the answers …. but don’t want to articulate it, preferring to ignore it exists. But we cannot so this and so we strive to call the State’s bluff and turn every stone in our path in the attempt to bring justice, peace, dignity and democracy into Bastar so that we never have to confront the guns of peace !
Himanshu Kumar -Vanvasi Chetna Ashram -Dantewada
India: Confronting ’Guns of Peace’ - Bastar faces its worst crisis
Saturday 10 October 2009, by Himanshu Kumar
8 October 2009
As I write this critical note on the worst ever crisis undivided Bastar is facing, ambushes and gun battles between para-military, Salwa Judum and State Police forces and Naxal cadres are being played out in jungles of Dantewada and Bijapur districts of undivided Bastar in South Chhattisgarh. To understand this crisis one needs to have a brief knowledge of the previous crises that have confronted Bastar. It must be stated upfront that since historically this region has been a forested, tribal dominated and physically difficult terrain, it has also been a malgoverned region ! And this malgovernance manifested itself in injustice and denial of rights for the tribals inhabiting this region with the State eyeing it only for its mineral deposits and forest resources. This somewhere laid the ground for the crisis that is unfolding here since June 2005.
In June 2005, as part of a larger plan to tighten control over the rich mineral and forest resources of Bastar, the State, backed by private capital, launched a major offensive on tribals of this region and called it ironically Salwa Judum or peace movement. On the face of it Salwa Judum was a people’s uprising for peace against Naxal violence but the hidden agenda, as is gradually unfolding, was the corporate grabbing of resources. The sum total of four years of Salwa Judum has been the internal and forced displacement of more than 3.5 lakh people from their villages, a 30 fold escalation of violence and a 22 time swell in support base and area under control by the very Naxals whom the Judum aimed at decimating ! But the State never learns from failures – even after unleashing the loosing battle of horrifying violence on tribals of Bastar in name of Salwa Judum, it has launched a phase two in the name of Operation Green Hunt and Operation Godavari in Bastar and adjacent districts of Malkangiri (Orissa). This confrontation of Bastar’s tribals with the ‘guns of peace’ will unleash the worst crisis this region has ever seen or will ever see …. but that is only if remaining tribals ever survive these ‘guns of peace’.
So through this note I am attempting to simply analyse each strategy and act of the State and map its impact on tribals of Bastar and how counterproductively it has benefited the CPI (Maoist) party !
The State launched Salwa Judum in 2005 to counter insurgency by cadres of CPI (Maoist) or Naxalites through civil defense by recruiting and training civilians in ‘armed resistance’
But soon Salwa Judum cadres went beyond the control of para-military and police forces under whom they were supposed to function and began looting, burning, raping, murdering and kidnapping of tribals and remained beyond any accountability due to political support
The State forcefully evicted tribals from 700 villages and dumped them in 30 odd camps built for them and cordorned by security forces – it was protecting people from Naxal violence ! It was following the American counter insurgency strategy of ‘draining the water and killing the fish’ …. State forgot that tribals are not fish and villages are not fish bowls !
But freedom loving and nature-dependent tribals refused to move into camps and fled for fear of being captured, tortured and then deported to camps – reminds one of the Jewish Holocaust. While a meager 50,000 population shifted to camps, about 50,000 fled to the adjacent district in Andhra Pradesh and Orissa where they had relatives and clan families and remaining 2.5 lakh people hid deeper in jungles living a life of fear, hunger and death
Human rights and civil society groups watching over the State’s warfare, challenged its American copy of counter insurgency. And when they were tried to be silenced, they went up to State High Courts and Indian Supreme Court challenging the notions and strategies of mitigating Naxal violence and restoring peace
The State retaliated by creating an imaginary divider, obviously through corporate media houses, in the minds of the middle class. If you are in its camps, you are with the State and if you are in the jungles, then you are Naxalite …. thus declaring the 2.5 lakh tribals hiding in the jungles as Naxalites and thereby justifying training its guns of peace on them ! And another divider declared anyone supporting the ‘Naxal tribals’ as Maoist sympathizers or informers and liable to imprisonment and torture under the draconian Public Securities Act. It unjustly put activists who questioned it behind bars or bulldozed their premises, not even soaring sources of drinking water or simply diverted them by bribing them with funds, contracts and opportunities for sharing the great wealth created through Salwa Judum !
Indian Supreme Court, hearing out petitioners against Salwa Judum ordered the State to reconsider its civil defense strategy and stop evicting tribals from villages. Instead it asked the State to launch a rehabilitation drive to resettle tribals, provide them with basic services and entitlements and asses damages to life and property. This damage assessment was to be followed by compensation and registering of criminal cases against the offenders, in particular Salwa Judum and para-military forces. This was aimed at cleaning up the mess of Salwa Judum and starting afresh all attempts at just and democratic governance
The State responded by blatantly violating the Supreme Court orders,speaking white lies before Court when questioned about its inaction.
It neither attempted rehabilitation efforts nor set up district and State committees to look into damage assessment or filing of cases against offenders and also it did not make any attempts at rethinking its strategies. Rather it continued its forced evictions, its looting, burning, rape, kidnap and murder and printed in bold letters its justification of continuing Salwa Judum. In fact it even went a step further by sabotaging and blocking any civil society attempts at rehabilitation, damage assessment and filing of cases against offenders. It used the Public Securities Act against volunteers working for the rehabilitation of internally displaced tribals !
Tribals who fled their villages and hid in jungles are still living nomadic and terrorized lives. In the face of an inhuman onslaught on them, they clung to the only support they got in the forests …. that of the Maoists who appeared more human to them than persecuting State forces ?! Their attempts at seeking justice and dignity as citizens of this country were met with arrests and abuses. Their faith in the State dwindled and converted into anger and despair. It was therefore natural for them to pick up their traditional weapons in their self-defence because the State had left no option before them
How did the State respond ? Whenever tribals came seeking justice through democratic and legal means, their FIRs were not registered, their court cases were dismissed without a hearing and they were arrested for being Naxalites. And any sympathetic judge or officer to the tribal cause was either sent on forced leave or transferred out. No one was ready to listen …. not even local mediapersons who benefited from State dole outs of contracts, advertisements and general patronage. National media too ignored the Bastar question or made half-hearted attempts at covering truth because they were bankrolled by corporates eyeing the mineral and forest resources of Bastar ! How could they let the cat out of the bag and lock out opportunities of profiteering ? Tribals were isolated and rendered helpless
In such a complex situation of denial and injustice, the State has been expecting tribals to show loyalty to it, abide by its laws and support it in restoring peace. These expectations could be justified and binding on tribals had the State shown respect for the same virtues !
The State talks of loyalty when it has itself distrusted its own tribal citizens and branded them Naxals when they have come seeking justice at its doors … State talks of abiding by its laws when it has itself made a mockery of its own laws – holding Gram Sabhas at gun point to coerce tribals into giving away their lands to mining corporations, subverting laws protecting the tribals’ rights to land and forests as stated in PESA, disrespecting Supreme Court’s orders to rehabilitate villages, deliver entitlements and services, co-opting judiciary, executive and legislature to ratify and justify violence and terror by its forces and so on. In fact the State has been attacking its poor to secure the interests of the rich and still it expects the poor to abide by, put faith in it and support it ? There are thousands of cases where the law of the land has been bent backwards to accommodate corporate interests but when it comes to tribals State puts on false pretence of legal systems and democracy !
The State wants tribals to help it in restoring peace – but when did the State believe that peace was possible without justice or that tribals could make peace with guns firing around them – does the State believe that tribals will confront its guns of peace without first arming themselves in their self-defence ? And what peace is the State talking of restoring – had it wanted peace it would have allowed rehabilitation, it would have allowed the nation to know the truth of Bastar, it would have respected its laws and would have adhered to the democratic governance systems it has put in place ??
Despite all that I have stated above (not that people in the State do not know what I have stated ?), the State has launched its second Salwa Judum through its strategic military operations called Green Hunt (hunting whom ?) and Godavari. But what will be the net impact of this Salwa Judum II ? The same, if not worse. The crisis will just deepen, the tribals will get further terrorized, Naxals will further consolidate their support base and area under control and voices of sanity among civil society and human rights groups will further get silenced and decimated. This military offensive will only isolate the tribals more and they will begin to look upon every non-tribal as an aggressor. And do we believe that in such a situation peace and democracy can prevail ? Thus military operation will simply push democracy further away and endanger the Indian socio-political system.
Thus, as tribals continue resisting corporate grab of land and resources in the garb of Salwa Judum and Operation Green Hunt, State repression will just rise manifold. One must remember that it is not as if repression never happened but it has got heightened with dash of corporates to set up mining and industrial units while the great global market goes booming. Corporates are just making hay while the sun is shining and all this at expenses of the State ! And Governments have also readily complied by disposing off their socialist agenda to follow routes tread by private capital. And to make this a reality, these proxy wars are being fought on tribal territory. But who really will be targeted ? Not Naxals who are deft at guerilla warfare and will escape bullets of Salwa Judum and para military forces. It will be the tribals who will be caught in the crossfire.
Salwa Judum (Phase I) resulted in a near civil war that destroyed over 644 villages and displaced 3.5 lakh tribals in one way or the other and filled the lives of tribals with fake encounters, gangrape of tribal women, looting and burning of livestock and belongings of poor tribals, brutal suppression of any resistance or protest has become the order of the day in the name of combating Naxals. This makes us wonder whether they are still bonafide denizens of this country or have they been obliterated as people of India !?
We have gone to villages to understand the truth behind encounters, have interviewed dozens of tribal women gangraped or enslaved for months by Salwa Judum and para military forces and witnessed the total demolition of my house and office premises because we dared to expose these acts of violence through several cases filed in Chhattisgarh High Court. Is this the democracy and tribal development our Governments want us to espouse? I shudder to think what will be the outcome of Salwa Judum (Phase II) …….. yet another fake encounters, yet more gangrapes and yet more souls gone down fighting injustice and repression in the name of peace and democracy ?
But for how long are tribals going to bear the brunt of a brutal and inhuman police force? For how long will tribals stand in the crossfire between Naxals, a militarized State and a demonized police? For how long will middle class ‘bhadralok’ remain silent spectators to State’s colonization of tribal territory to subsidize urban growth in the name of ‘tribal development‘ ? And for how long will we look on helplessly as tribals get butchered, raped and exterminated? We believe that some day the tribal specter will rise and fall heavily on those who repress loot and pauperize them. But who will get sacrificed and who will survive? The fittest … as Darwin eulogized evolution? The question is who is fitter – you and me who enjoy privileges of a subsidized consumer culture or tribals whom we have hanged giving them the name of savage, backward and poor ? I guess we all know the answers …. but don’t want to articulate it, preferring to ignore it exists. But we cannot so this and so we strive to call the State’s bluff and turn every stone in our path in the attempt to bring justice, peace, dignity and democracy into Bastar so that we never have to confront the guns of peace !
Himanshu Kumar -Vanvasi Chetna Ashram -Dantewada
Tehelka article about Himanshu Kumar's story of resisting the Chattisgarh state
Life Behind The Iron Curtain
The hounding of activist Himanshu Kumar is a parable about the war and panic in Chhattisgarh and the complete blackout of information, reports TUSHA MITTAL
Time out, Gandhi Himanshu fasting; December 2009. His ashram was rubbled by the State in May
PHOTOS: TARUN SEHRAWAT
HIMANSHU KUMAR is shaving his moustache to become more unrecognisable. Instead of the usual white kurta, he’s wearing a red shirt and jeans. The lights in his two-room rented house have been turned off. If you chanced upon him on a winter night in Dantewada, Chhattisgarh, speaking in hushed whispers about jumping off the back wall and disappearing into the darkness, you might have mistaken this Gandhian activist for a fugitive.
For the last 18 years, Himanshu has been trudging through the jungles of rural Chhattisgarh, empowering tribals, teaching them how to vote and bringing them access to food and healthcare through his Vanvasi Chetna Ashram (VCA). When his wife first joined him, he told her to replace her make-up kit with medicines. Despite living in this Maoist-dominated conflict zone for nearly two decades, despite its many intimidations, Kumar has never felt the urge to flee. Until now that is – when the might of the State is upon him.
Trouble first began to escalate in 2005 when the infamous Salwa Judum was launched. The VCA filed at least 600 complaints against human rights violations by the State and fake encounters by the police. Himanshu Kumar was transformed in the State’s eyes from trusted aide to adversary. In May 2009, his ashram was brutally demolished by the police. Now suddenly, the Gandhian activist has lost his liberty. He lives in a free country, but does not have the freedom to walk out through the front door of his own house.
“Should I get arrested and become a martyr or should I leave before they catch me?” Himanshu Kumar wonders out loud on the morning of January 4. He knows what happened to Binayak Sen. He knows he could be next. “I’m worried the police will implicate me in a false case. They could arrest me anytime now,” he says.
If the injured Shambo reached Delhi, she could be a big embarrassment
This is not misplaced paranoia. Himanshu’s makeshift ashram is under constant police surveillance. On January 3, his car was stopped by the police as it sped from Dantewada to Raipur carrying Sodi Shambo, 28, a tribal woman with a fractured leg held together by a metal rod. Shambo’s husband was tilling the fields on the morning of October 1, 2009, when Salwa Judum SPOs barged into Goompad village. One bullet from their guns split open her leg. Her children leapt towards her, covering her body. That could be why she is still alive. Nine others were killed during combing operations. Most were those who could not run away — Madvi Yankaiya, 50; Madvi Bajaar 50 and his wife Madvi Subhi, 45; their daughters Madvi Kanama, 20 and eight-year-old Madvi Mooti; and a newly married couple Soyam Subaiya, 20 and Soyam Subhi, 18. Another 2-year-old boy was found with his fingers missing. The Dantewada SP announced that nine Naxalites had been killed in an encounter in Goompad village. This is the tale the outside world would have believed, had Himanshu not met Shambo during a regular public hearing in the forest. She told him about the massacre she had witnessed; he ensured she filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court. The court accepted her petition and directed the state to file a response.
Had Shambo reached Delhi, where she was headed for medical treatment, she could have become a major embarrassment for the Chhattisgarh government. This is why Himanshu and Shambo were suddenly surrounded by police on the highway and detained at Kanker police station. There was an order from the Dantewada SP that Shambo be produced in the police station to record her statement on the Goompad killings. Shambo had been living openly in Himanshu’s ashram in Dantewada for the last two months but the police had not approached her for a statement. “We did not know where she was. We were trying to find her,” says SP Amaresh Mishra ingenuously. “I found out through an Internet forum that Himanshu was taking her to Raipur. I also got a letter from Shambo’s masi two days ago accusing Himanshu of vanishing Shambo all this while.” This was a patently concocted assertion given that Himanshu had presented Shambo to the media at a big press conference in Delhi in October. Clearly, a false case of abduction against Kumar was in the works. According to Colin Gonsalves, a senior advocate who has filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court on the Shambo case, it’s actually the other way around. “This amounts to illegal abduction by the police. Shambo is not an accused. She cannot be forced to go anywhere,” said he.
On January 4, Shambo was sent to Maharani Hospital in Jagdalpur for further treatment under police “security.” Sudhir Thakhur, the doctor responsible, admitted the hospital did not have the required medical facility to perform Shambo’s surgery. TEHELKAwas not allowed to speak to Shambo at the hospital, despite a guarantee from the Dantewada SP that she was not being kept in confinement. Even after the director of the hospital gave permission, police personnel guarding Shambo’s bed refused to let us near her. When we tried to talk to the ward nurse, the police ensured they overheard the conversation.
As Himanshu shaves off his moustache in the darkness, it is almost as if he is at a tipping point. Caught in a pool of quicksand, he must leap out immediately or sink. “My faith is not shaken. I’m just feeling trapped inside a web. To break this perhaps it is necessary for me to go fight from a new place. I am not running away. I just need to change my location.”
THE BATTLE between the State and Maoists is well known. But in Chhattisgarh, another battle has been fast gathering steam — between the State and civil society, between a policed existence and the idea of democracy, between a coerced media and free speech. Himanshu Kumar is now at the centre of that battle. Over the years, he had become one of the few bridges that link the rest of India to the remote jungles of Chhattisgarh. Given the national media’s neglect, and the absence of a robust local press, he was perhaps the only disseminator of an alternate reality. Without him and a few other activists working in the area, there would be only one version — that of the State. This is what the Chhattisgarh government is now trying to create. Every few days there is news of an encounter — six killed in Jagargunda, another six killed in Gumyipal. No one knows if these are Naxals or ordinary tribals. The State doesn’t seem to want anyone to find out.
At a recent press conference in Raipur, Chhattisgarh DGP Vishwa Ranjan told journalists on record that there could be police action against them if they wrote in favour of Naxalites. Two weeks ago in Dantewada, DIG SR Kalluri called journalists into his office for one-on-one sessions. “He told us not to write in favour of the Naxals (euphemism for not writing anything against the State) and said the police have their eyes on us,” says NRK Pillai, vice-president of the Chhattisgarh Working Journalists Union. “The atmosphere isn’t conducive. There’s no one really to back us. Press owners will not stand by us. There’s always the fear of what will happen to our families.”
The State has declared war not just on Maoists but also on civil society
In the last two months, as Operation Green Hunt has got underway, the Chhattisgarh government has upped the ante in its efforts to squash any space for dissent and democratic protest. Stories from the jungles are not being allowed out; neutral outsiders are not being allowed in.
In a free state Shambo and Himanshu Kumar detained at Kanker police station on January 3
On December 29, 2009, Delhi University professor of sociology Nandini Sundar and political science professor Ujjwal Kumar Singh arrived in Bastar to undertake an independent survey of the situation. They found all the hotel rooms in the small towns of Dantewada and Sukma mysteriously full, out of bounds for them. The professors had to spend the night in a jeep, before they got accommodation at a boys’ hostel. There too, seven armed SPOs barged into Sundar’s room, then spent the night patrolling the grounds outside. The next day two jeeps of armed SPOs followed the professors around until they left Chhattisgarh, ensuring they could make no neutral enquiries from villagers about what was happening on the ground.
TEHELKA was meted the same treatment. On January 4, we were denied the right to stay at Madhuban Lodge, the only hotel in Dantewada. The receptionist opened rooms for us at first, but suddenly changed his mind when he got a call from his manager. The manager said the hotel had orders from the police not to give rooms to journalists without a “proper enquiry.” Dantewada ASP Rajendra Jaiswal denied that any such order exists but refused to call the hotel to clarify this. “Why should I help a stranger?” he told TEHELKA. Later, the hotel owner said all the rooms were needed for a family function.
On January 6, a band of activists, including Medha Patkar and Magsaysay award winner Sandeep Pandey, were assaulted with stones and eggs as they marched to the SP’s office in Dantewada for some answers. The police looked on.
Though there is little clarity on whether the offensive against the Naxals – Operation Green Hunt – has officially begun, another kind of assault certainly has. So far, Himanshu Kumar has certainly borne the brunt of it.
On December 14, 2009, a mob several hundred-strong surrounded Himanshu’s ashram, shouting slogans like “Himanshu Bhagao, Bastar Bachao”. They were protesting a padyatrahe was about to undertake to engage with the tribals. Such an expedition would boost the morale of the Maoists and dampen that of the security forces, they alleged. According to Himanshu, the mob consisted of SPOs and tribals lifted from Salwa Judum camps to stage a demonstration. The padyatra was to be followed by a satyagraha to protest police excesses and a jan sunvai(public hearing) to take stock of ground realities post the declaration of Operation Green Hunt. In what was being perceived as a sign of positive intent, Home Minister P Chidam baram had agreed to attend the public hearing. Human rights groups from across the country were scheduled to participate. But that came crashing down when the State decided it would not allow anyone to explore its territory.
Hotels have orders from the police not to give rooms to any journalist
HIMANSHU RECEIVED a notice from Reena Kangale, the Dantewada collector, prohibiting him from initiating any public assembly. “Section 144 was imposed because of municipal elections,” says Kangale. “I denied permission for a padyatra and issued a prohibitory order stating the police can take action if any public meetings happen without my consent.” On December 13, an all-women fact-finding team was stopped at several points enroute to Dantewada and not allowed access inside. The Chhattisgarh Governor advised Chidambaram not to attend the jan sunvayi for safety reasons. The Home Minister stayed put.
The mob attack from “tribals” was also used as a pretext to send a jeep of armed SPOs as security for Himanshu. “There is a threat to his life. The tribals are unhappy with him. We are giving him police protection,” Dantewada SP Amaresh Mishra told TEHELKA. That Himanshu himself has written to the SP stating he does not want this protection is irrelevant.
The police “protection” has successfully hampered Himanshu’s work. He is unable to visit villages on fact-finding missions. Any complaints from tribals against the State bring instant reprisals. There have been other intimidations. Under pressure, Himanshu’s current landlord, an employee of the local district council, asked him to vacate the house in a few weeks.
To disable Himanshu further, his key aide Kopa Kunjam was arrested on December 10 on charges of murdering a former sarpanch, Punem Honga. Honga was abducted by Maoists along with another sarpanch who had been traveling with Kopa on his bike on July 2, 2009. According to VCA, the night before he was arrested, Kopa was offered Rs 25,000 to quit working with Himanshu and warned of dire consequences if he continues. Kopa refused the money. Sukhdev, another backbone of the VCA, was threatened with a similar fate after Kopa’s arrest. He quit. Lingu, another aide who also quit, confirmed to TEHELKA that he was with Kopa at the Dantewada police station the day before Kopa’s arrest, and was present when the police tried to convince Kopa to take up “other more meaningful work”.
The Maoists are not willing to talk, and the State is clearly not allowing any other dialogue. Himanshu’s struggle becomes more poignant in the backdrop of the violence being unleashed all around it. The Maoists continue to fell trees, block trains, abduct and kill. The Salwa Judum continues to rape women, burn houses, loot and kill. Amid all the chaos, as the year ended, one man sat in a white kurta, under a sprawling tree, spooling a loom of thread. He had not been allowed a padyatra or a satyagraha or a jan sunvai, so he was fasting to protest State atrocities. But events over the last two days have forced the man in the white kurta to shave his moustache and turn into a man in red shirt and jeans — a reminder of an original freedom struggle, being scuttled all over again.
WRITER’S EMAIL
tusha@tehelka.com
--
Tusha Mittal
Senior Correspondent, Tehelka
( 011) 40575757: Extn 228
www.tehelka.com
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main43.asp?filename=Ne160110life_behind.asp
The hounding of activist Himanshu Kumar is a parable about the war and panic in Chhattisgarh and the complete blackout of information, reports TUSHA MITTAL
Time out, Gandhi Himanshu fasting; December 2009. His ashram was rubbled by the State in May
PHOTOS: TARUN SEHRAWAT
HIMANSHU KUMAR is shaving his moustache to become more unrecognisable. Instead of the usual white kurta, he’s wearing a red shirt and jeans. The lights in his two-room rented house have been turned off. If you chanced upon him on a winter night in Dantewada, Chhattisgarh, speaking in hushed whispers about jumping off the back wall and disappearing into the darkness, you might have mistaken this Gandhian activist for a fugitive.
For the last 18 years, Himanshu has been trudging through the jungles of rural Chhattisgarh, empowering tribals, teaching them how to vote and bringing them access to food and healthcare through his Vanvasi Chetna Ashram (VCA). When his wife first joined him, he told her to replace her make-up kit with medicines. Despite living in this Maoist-dominated conflict zone for nearly two decades, despite its many intimidations, Kumar has never felt the urge to flee. Until now that is – when the might of the State is upon him.
Trouble first began to escalate in 2005 when the infamous Salwa Judum was launched. The VCA filed at least 600 complaints against human rights violations by the State and fake encounters by the police. Himanshu Kumar was transformed in the State’s eyes from trusted aide to adversary. In May 2009, his ashram was brutally demolished by the police. Now suddenly, the Gandhian activist has lost his liberty. He lives in a free country, but does not have the freedom to walk out through the front door of his own house.
“Should I get arrested and become a martyr or should I leave before they catch me?” Himanshu Kumar wonders out loud on the morning of January 4. He knows what happened to Binayak Sen. He knows he could be next. “I’m worried the police will implicate me in a false case. They could arrest me anytime now,” he says.
If the injured Shambo reached Delhi, she could be a big embarrassment
This is not misplaced paranoia. Himanshu’s makeshift ashram is under constant police surveillance. On January 3, his car was stopped by the police as it sped from Dantewada to Raipur carrying Sodi Shambo, 28, a tribal woman with a fractured leg held together by a metal rod. Shambo’s husband was tilling the fields on the morning of October 1, 2009, when Salwa Judum SPOs barged into Goompad village. One bullet from their guns split open her leg. Her children leapt towards her, covering her body. That could be why she is still alive. Nine others were killed during combing operations. Most were those who could not run away — Madvi Yankaiya, 50; Madvi Bajaar 50 and his wife Madvi Subhi, 45; their daughters Madvi Kanama, 20 and eight-year-old Madvi Mooti; and a newly married couple Soyam Subaiya, 20 and Soyam Subhi, 18. Another 2-year-old boy was found with his fingers missing. The Dantewada SP announced that nine Naxalites had been killed in an encounter in Goompad village. This is the tale the outside world would have believed, had Himanshu not met Shambo during a regular public hearing in the forest. She told him about the massacre she had witnessed; he ensured she filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court. The court accepted her petition and directed the state to file a response.
Had Shambo reached Delhi, where she was headed for medical treatment, she could have become a major embarrassment for the Chhattisgarh government. This is why Himanshu and Shambo were suddenly surrounded by police on the highway and detained at Kanker police station. There was an order from the Dantewada SP that Shambo be produced in the police station to record her statement on the Goompad killings. Shambo had been living openly in Himanshu’s ashram in Dantewada for the last two months but the police had not approached her for a statement. “We did not know where she was. We were trying to find her,” says SP Amaresh Mishra ingenuously. “I found out through an Internet forum that Himanshu was taking her to Raipur. I also got a letter from Shambo’s masi two days ago accusing Himanshu of vanishing Shambo all this while.” This was a patently concocted assertion given that Himanshu had presented Shambo to the media at a big press conference in Delhi in October. Clearly, a false case of abduction against Kumar was in the works. According to Colin Gonsalves, a senior advocate who has filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court on the Shambo case, it’s actually the other way around. “This amounts to illegal abduction by the police. Shambo is not an accused. She cannot be forced to go anywhere,” said he.
On January 4, Shambo was sent to Maharani Hospital in Jagdalpur for further treatment under police “security.” Sudhir Thakhur, the doctor responsible, admitted the hospital did not have the required medical facility to perform Shambo’s surgery. TEHELKAwas not allowed to speak to Shambo at the hospital, despite a guarantee from the Dantewada SP that she was not being kept in confinement. Even after the director of the hospital gave permission, police personnel guarding Shambo’s bed refused to let us near her. When we tried to talk to the ward nurse, the police ensured they overheard the conversation.
As Himanshu shaves off his moustache in the darkness, it is almost as if he is at a tipping point. Caught in a pool of quicksand, he must leap out immediately or sink. “My faith is not shaken. I’m just feeling trapped inside a web. To break this perhaps it is necessary for me to go fight from a new place. I am not running away. I just need to change my location.”
THE BATTLE between the State and Maoists is well known. But in Chhattisgarh, another battle has been fast gathering steam — between the State and civil society, between a policed existence and the idea of democracy, between a coerced media and free speech. Himanshu Kumar is now at the centre of that battle. Over the years, he had become one of the few bridges that link the rest of India to the remote jungles of Chhattisgarh. Given the national media’s neglect, and the absence of a robust local press, he was perhaps the only disseminator of an alternate reality. Without him and a few other activists working in the area, there would be only one version — that of the State. This is what the Chhattisgarh government is now trying to create. Every few days there is news of an encounter — six killed in Jagargunda, another six killed in Gumyipal. No one knows if these are Naxals or ordinary tribals. The State doesn’t seem to want anyone to find out.
At a recent press conference in Raipur, Chhattisgarh DGP Vishwa Ranjan told journalists on record that there could be police action against them if they wrote in favour of Naxalites. Two weeks ago in Dantewada, DIG SR Kalluri called journalists into his office for one-on-one sessions. “He told us not to write in favour of the Naxals (euphemism for not writing anything against the State) and said the police have their eyes on us,” says NRK Pillai, vice-president of the Chhattisgarh Working Journalists Union. “The atmosphere isn’t conducive. There’s no one really to back us. Press owners will not stand by us. There’s always the fear of what will happen to our families.”
The State has declared war not just on Maoists but also on civil society
In the last two months, as Operation Green Hunt has got underway, the Chhattisgarh government has upped the ante in its efforts to squash any space for dissent and democratic protest. Stories from the jungles are not being allowed out; neutral outsiders are not being allowed in.
In a free state Shambo and Himanshu Kumar detained at Kanker police station on January 3
On December 29, 2009, Delhi University professor of sociology Nandini Sundar and political science professor Ujjwal Kumar Singh arrived in Bastar to undertake an independent survey of the situation. They found all the hotel rooms in the small towns of Dantewada and Sukma mysteriously full, out of bounds for them. The professors had to spend the night in a jeep, before they got accommodation at a boys’ hostel. There too, seven armed SPOs barged into Sundar’s room, then spent the night patrolling the grounds outside. The next day two jeeps of armed SPOs followed the professors around until they left Chhattisgarh, ensuring they could make no neutral enquiries from villagers about what was happening on the ground.
TEHELKA was meted the same treatment. On January 4, we were denied the right to stay at Madhuban Lodge, the only hotel in Dantewada. The receptionist opened rooms for us at first, but suddenly changed his mind when he got a call from his manager. The manager said the hotel had orders from the police not to give rooms to journalists without a “proper enquiry.” Dantewada ASP Rajendra Jaiswal denied that any such order exists but refused to call the hotel to clarify this. “Why should I help a stranger?” he told TEHELKA. Later, the hotel owner said all the rooms were needed for a family function.
On January 6, a band of activists, including Medha Patkar and Magsaysay award winner Sandeep Pandey, were assaulted with stones and eggs as they marched to the SP’s office in Dantewada for some answers. The police looked on.
Though there is little clarity on whether the offensive against the Naxals – Operation Green Hunt – has officially begun, another kind of assault certainly has. So far, Himanshu Kumar has certainly borne the brunt of it.
On December 14, 2009, a mob several hundred-strong surrounded Himanshu’s ashram, shouting slogans like “Himanshu Bhagao, Bastar Bachao”. They were protesting a padyatrahe was about to undertake to engage with the tribals. Such an expedition would boost the morale of the Maoists and dampen that of the security forces, they alleged. According to Himanshu, the mob consisted of SPOs and tribals lifted from Salwa Judum camps to stage a demonstration. The padyatra was to be followed by a satyagraha to protest police excesses and a jan sunvai(public hearing) to take stock of ground realities post the declaration of Operation Green Hunt. In what was being perceived as a sign of positive intent, Home Minister P Chidam baram had agreed to attend the public hearing. Human rights groups from across the country were scheduled to participate. But that came crashing down when the State decided it would not allow anyone to explore its territory.
Hotels have orders from the police not to give rooms to any journalist
HIMANSHU RECEIVED a notice from Reena Kangale, the Dantewada collector, prohibiting him from initiating any public assembly. “Section 144 was imposed because of municipal elections,” says Kangale. “I denied permission for a padyatra and issued a prohibitory order stating the police can take action if any public meetings happen without my consent.” On December 13, an all-women fact-finding team was stopped at several points enroute to Dantewada and not allowed access inside. The Chhattisgarh Governor advised Chidambaram not to attend the jan sunvayi for safety reasons. The Home Minister stayed put.
The mob attack from “tribals” was also used as a pretext to send a jeep of armed SPOs as security for Himanshu. “There is a threat to his life. The tribals are unhappy with him. We are giving him police protection,” Dantewada SP Amaresh Mishra told TEHELKA. That Himanshu himself has written to the SP stating he does not want this protection is irrelevant.
The police “protection” has successfully hampered Himanshu’s work. He is unable to visit villages on fact-finding missions. Any complaints from tribals against the State bring instant reprisals. There have been other intimidations. Under pressure, Himanshu’s current landlord, an employee of the local district council, asked him to vacate the house in a few weeks.
To disable Himanshu further, his key aide Kopa Kunjam was arrested on December 10 on charges of murdering a former sarpanch, Punem Honga. Honga was abducted by Maoists along with another sarpanch who had been traveling with Kopa on his bike on July 2, 2009. According to VCA, the night before he was arrested, Kopa was offered Rs 25,000 to quit working with Himanshu and warned of dire consequences if he continues. Kopa refused the money. Sukhdev, another backbone of the VCA, was threatened with a similar fate after Kopa’s arrest. He quit. Lingu, another aide who also quit, confirmed to TEHELKA that he was with Kopa at the Dantewada police station the day before Kopa’s arrest, and was present when the police tried to convince Kopa to take up “other more meaningful work”.
The Maoists are not willing to talk, and the State is clearly not allowing any other dialogue. Himanshu’s struggle becomes more poignant in the backdrop of the violence being unleashed all around it. The Maoists continue to fell trees, block trains, abduct and kill. The Salwa Judum continues to rape women, burn houses, loot and kill. Amid all the chaos, as the year ended, one man sat in a white kurta, under a sprawling tree, spooling a loom of thread. He had not been allowed a padyatra or a satyagraha or a jan sunvai, so he was fasting to protest State atrocities. But events over the last two days have forced the man in the white kurta to shave his moustache and turn into a man in red shirt and jeans — a reminder of an original freedom struggle, being scuttled all over again.
WRITER’S EMAIL
tusha@tehelka.com
--
Tusha Mittal
Senior Correspondent, Tehelka
( 011) 40575757: Extn 228
www.tehelka.com
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main43.asp?filename=Ne160110life_behind.asp
Demanding action against greyhound police responsible for raping adivasi women in Vizag district
Press Release 25-01-2010
We, the functionaries of several rights, women and dalit organisations demand immediate filing of a criminal case under relevant sections of the law into the January 22 rape by policemen of four Khond adivasi women of Baaluguda village in Babusala panchayat of Munchingput mandal in Visakhapatnam district. We strongly condemn the attempts of the local police to hush up this heinous crime.
Members of these organisations visited Baaluguda on Sunday (Jan. 24) and spoke with the resident adivasis. The adivasi women confirmed to us what they had told the Paderu ex-MLA Mr Lake Raja Rao the day before, on January 23. According to them, around 50 greyhounds police personnel along with the Munchingput SI of police Keshav Rao descended on the village at about 5 am on Friday (Jan 22). They rounded up all the men and boys they could find near a school located on the edge of the village. Several policemen then entered the houses of the four adivasi women, Vanthala Domini (who is also the community health worker in the village), Vanthala Rami, Vanthala Muktha and Killo Butto and raped them.
The policemen took into their custody nine men of the village and left at about 8 am. The following day, 6 of them were let off after “bind over” cases were booked against them. Criminal cases were booked against three others and they have since been remanded to judicial custody.
Shockingly, even three days after the heinous crime of rape was committed by the policemen, no case has been registered and no investigation taken up. The SP has appointed the Chintapalli ASP Mr Sundar Rao to look into the allegations made by the women but the ASP has not even bothered to visit the village and speak with the Khond women. On the other hand, the local police are threatening Baaluguda residents that they would have to face dire consequences if they persisted with speaking the truth. We found most of the adivasis in the village, including the women who were raped, a frightened lot.
We wish to point out here that it is not necessary that the police receive a written complaint in order to begin investigation. The police are empowered to investigate even in the absence of a written complaint. In this case, the police possess full knowledge of the allegation of rape made by the women. The matter was reported widely in both the print and audio-visual media also. Yet, no FIR has been registered and therefore there has not been any witness examination, collection of circumstantial evidence, medical examination etc. In cases of rape, medical corroboration is extremely important and already precious time has been lost.
We demand that a criminal case must be registered under relevant sections of the law including IPC 376 (2) (g) relating to gang-rape as well as section 3 (2) (v) of the SC, ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. The government must ensure that the local police desist from their attempts to protect perpetrators of this crime and see that investigative procedures are initiated without further delay so that the police personnel responsible for this terrible crime are punished.
Importantly, the investigation into the case must not be handed over to the local police. Since the accused are the police themselves, it would not be proper or prudent to get the criminal investigation done by either their local counterparts or the CID of AP. The case must be handed over to the CBI if justice is to be done.
It may be recalled that in the Vakapally rape case, where 11 Khond women were raped by Greyhounds personnel on August 20, 2007, the then ASP Mr Ananda Rao who was appointed the investigative officer did not even bother to visit the village for nearly two weeks. This fact was also stated in the enquiry proceedings of Mr Nagi Reddy, the then Secretary, Tribal Welfare, Govt of AP. In fact, the National ST Commission had recommended on December 12, 2007 to the AP government that the Vakapally case be handed over to the CBI but the State government sat on this. If police personnel responsible for sexual inhumanity on women are allowed to go scot-free, they will continue to commit crimes with impunity.
VS Krishna
(State general secretary (general secretary (Dist. EC member
Human Rights Forum) Mahila Chetna) APCLC)
K Venkata Ramana
(Gen. Secretary
Jai Bheem Cultural and Welfare Association)
Friday, December 18, 2009
Dantewada Padayatra by Himanshu and others disrupted with violence
Press Release issued at Press Conference held at Press Club, New Delhi
15th December 2009
Chhattisgarh Government thwarts peace building measures
Police and Salwa Judum join hands to disrupt the Padayatra and harass activists
Satayagraha to begin from 25th December:
Struggle for peace to continue
New Delhi: Chattisgarh State Government and the Salwa Judum prevented Himanshu Kumar, Sandeep Pandey and others from taking out padyatra in Dantewada with the objective of restoring peace and normalcy in an area suffering from state repression, militarization and violence. Even though the DGP, Mr. Vishwaranjan has claimed in a newspaper report that the padyatra started under the police protection, it was evident from police and SPOs action that all efforts were made by the state Government to stop the Padyatra from taking place. Earlier yesterday, 39 women activists from all over the country who tried unsuccessfully to reach Dantewada from Raipur, on the way back were mobbed by Salwa Judum in Kanker who forced them to come out of the bus. The women activists were harassed before being allowed to return to Raipur.
All of this has been happening even when Home Minister P Chidambaram, has expressed his intentions of travelling to Dantewada on 7th January, 2010 to attend a public hearing to be organised by Vanvasi Chetna Ashram and other groups where tribal residents of this region will share their experiences of the Salwa Judum, Operation Green Hunt and their struggle for justice. It is obvious that the Government of Chattisgarh is all out to sabotage this democratic process through intimidation as well as direct attack and stop the large number of adivasis from ventilating their grievances.
In the changed circumstances, Himanshu Kumar and others from Dantewada have declared that there would begin a Satyagraha against the unjustifiable State violence, asserting their right to support the adivasis in their struggle for peace and justice. They also have requested the Home Minister to immediately make an official announcement of his visit and not to withdraw in any situation of deliberate sabotage by the state government of Chattisgarh.
Speaking at a press conference Retd. Justice Rajinder Sachar, Peoples Union for Civil Liberties said, “It is shameful that citizens of this country are being prevented from travelling to Dantewada by the Chattisgarh administration and a peaceful padyatra is stopped in close collaboration with Salwa Judum, which has been condemned from various quarters for the atrocities it has committed on the tribals of the regions. The denial of civil liberties to citizens in the Dantewada today is a cause of grave concern to everybody.” Uppermost in our mind today is, however, protecting the rights of the adivasis who are facing all kinds of deprivation because, the State, notwithstanding its public profession, is not fulfilling its duty to ensure that development is planned within the framework of justice and equity.
Medha Patkar, National Alliance of People’s Movements, condemned the attempts of the State government to stifle any resistance and labelling of false charges (including of murder) against Kopa Kunjam, the adivasi activist with Vanvasi Chetna Ashram and Alban Topo, an adivasi and human rights lawyer who were beaten up at the police station ironically on December 10, Human Rights Day. “This cant, however, act as a deterrent to the committed and peaceful movements”, she affirmed. In a letter to Home Minister P Chidambaram she urged to take urgent note of the potential threat from the Salwa Judum and the SPOs who took out a rally on December 10th condemning Himanshu Kumar and openly raising life-threatening slogans such as, “Himanshu Bhagao Bastar Bachao” and “Himanshu ko Maro”. “The Centre can’t deny its responsibility to ensure and guarantee not just legal rights, but human justice,” she reiterated.
Prashant Bhushan, senior lawyer further added, “the happenings in Chattisgarh is a well thought out and planned strategy of the State to enforce a complete blackout of tribal areas when government is planning an unprecedented attack on the tribals in the name of war against Naxals. Not only the legislature and the Executive, but the Judiciary also should have intervened with much more sensitivity and clarity by now, but unfortunately, all action towards establishing justice and democracy is only left to the people’s movements. He appealed to the sensitive intellectuals to support the movements, in every possible way”.
Mamata Kujur, Adivasi Mahila Mahasangh, Chattisgarh narrated the atmosphere of distrust and fear prevailing in the State, since many young tribals are being branded today as naxals by the state. She added, “it is an attempt at finishing off the democratic voices in the region since they are posing the biggest opposition to the state’s and private corporations unlawful attempt at exploiting the mineral resources of the region.
Ashish Gupta, Peoples Union for Democratic Rights, added that, “it’s an irony that the democratic processes in the country are under pressure from the state forces itself who are supposed to protect them. The demolition of the Ashram first and then continued harassment of anybody associated with the Vanvashi Chetna Ashram is shameful and unjustifiable. What we are witnessing today in Chattisgarh or Naraynpatna, Orissa where an all women fact finding team was harassed and threatened by the local goons in collusion with the police is completely savage behaviour of the state and unexpected in a democracy.”
Abhay Sahu, Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti, while condemning the incidents urged the left secular forces and progressive people’s movement to put together a joint platform and resist any onslaught on civil and political liberties of the citizens of this country.
It’s indeed a grave and grievous situation that is faced by the adivasis, especially in Chattisgarh i.e. one of violence and the other of deprivation, both the vices trampling upon their right to life, livelihood and peace. Their existence itself being threatened the State either failing to intervene with a dialogue with the people’s movements, even in an unarmed struggle, or as in Chattisgarh, evicting and killing them in the garb of ‘combating Maoism’. All this is apparently an offshoot of the political-economic agenda of grabbing their rich resource base.
The citizens team re-appealed and re-asserted that those who are struggling within the secular democratic and non-violent framework must not be targeted by the State in such trumped up criminal charges or in any other manner as this would only shrink the space for those who are attempting peaceful resolution of conflicts and are for establishment of democracy and justice. It is the duty of the Central and State government to pro-actively protect such individuals and organizations from any physical attack or otherwise and immediately release Kopa Kunjam and punish the guilty police officials involved in harassment of the activists.
Contact: Madhuresh
For NAPM and Delhi Solidarity Group (Mobile 9818905316)
-- Regards,Vijayan MJDelhi Forum
Emails: vijayan@delhiforum.net, delhiforum@delhiforum.netWeb: http://updatecollective.wordpress.com/http://delhisolidaritygroup.wordpress.com/
15th December 2009
Chhattisgarh Government thwarts peace building measures
Police and Salwa Judum join hands to disrupt the Padayatra and harass activists
Satayagraha to begin from 25th December:
Struggle for peace to continue
New Delhi: Chattisgarh State Government and the Salwa Judum prevented Himanshu Kumar, Sandeep Pandey and others from taking out padyatra in Dantewada with the objective of restoring peace and normalcy in an area suffering from state repression, militarization and violence. Even though the DGP, Mr. Vishwaranjan has claimed in a newspaper report that the padyatra started under the police protection, it was evident from police and SPOs action that all efforts were made by the state Government to stop the Padyatra from taking place. Earlier yesterday, 39 women activists from all over the country who tried unsuccessfully to reach Dantewada from Raipur, on the way back were mobbed by Salwa Judum in Kanker who forced them to come out of the bus. The women activists were harassed before being allowed to return to Raipur.
All of this has been happening even when Home Minister P Chidambaram, has expressed his intentions of travelling to Dantewada on 7th January, 2010 to attend a public hearing to be organised by Vanvasi Chetna Ashram and other groups where tribal residents of this region will share their experiences of the Salwa Judum, Operation Green Hunt and their struggle for justice. It is obvious that the Government of Chattisgarh is all out to sabotage this democratic process through intimidation as well as direct attack and stop the large number of adivasis from ventilating their grievances.
In the changed circumstances, Himanshu Kumar and others from Dantewada have declared that there would begin a Satyagraha against the unjustifiable State violence, asserting their right to support the adivasis in their struggle for peace and justice. They also have requested the Home Minister to immediately make an official announcement of his visit and not to withdraw in any situation of deliberate sabotage by the state government of Chattisgarh.
Speaking at a press conference Retd. Justice Rajinder Sachar, Peoples Union for Civil Liberties said, “It is shameful that citizens of this country are being prevented from travelling to Dantewada by the Chattisgarh administration and a peaceful padyatra is stopped in close collaboration with Salwa Judum, which has been condemned from various quarters for the atrocities it has committed on the tribals of the regions. The denial of civil liberties to citizens in the Dantewada today is a cause of grave concern to everybody.” Uppermost in our mind today is, however, protecting the rights of the adivasis who are facing all kinds of deprivation because, the State, notwithstanding its public profession, is not fulfilling its duty to ensure that development is planned within the framework of justice and equity.
Medha Patkar, National Alliance of People’s Movements, condemned the attempts of the State government to stifle any resistance and labelling of false charges (including of murder) against Kopa Kunjam, the adivasi activist with Vanvasi Chetna Ashram and Alban Topo, an adivasi and human rights lawyer who were beaten up at the police station ironically on December 10, Human Rights Day. “This cant, however, act as a deterrent to the committed and peaceful movements”, she affirmed. In a letter to Home Minister P Chidambaram she urged to take urgent note of the potential threat from the Salwa Judum and the SPOs who took out a rally on December 10th condemning Himanshu Kumar and openly raising life-threatening slogans such as, “Himanshu Bhagao Bastar Bachao” and “Himanshu ko Maro”. “The Centre can’t deny its responsibility to ensure and guarantee not just legal rights, but human justice,” she reiterated.
Prashant Bhushan, senior lawyer further added, “the happenings in Chattisgarh is a well thought out and planned strategy of the State to enforce a complete blackout of tribal areas when government is planning an unprecedented attack on the tribals in the name of war against Naxals. Not only the legislature and the Executive, but the Judiciary also should have intervened with much more sensitivity and clarity by now, but unfortunately, all action towards establishing justice and democracy is only left to the people’s movements. He appealed to the sensitive intellectuals to support the movements, in every possible way”.
Mamata Kujur, Adivasi Mahila Mahasangh, Chattisgarh narrated the atmosphere of distrust and fear prevailing in the State, since many young tribals are being branded today as naxals by the state. She added, “it is an attempt at finishing off the democratic voices in the region since they are posing the biggest opposition to the state’s and private corporations unlawful attempt at exploiting the mineral resources of the region.
Ashish Gupta, Peoples Union for Democratic Rights, added that, “it’s an irony that the democratic processes in the country are under pressure from the state forces itself who are supposed to protect them. The demolition of the Ashram first and then continued harassment of anybody associated with the Vanvashi Chetna Ashram is shameful and unjustifiable. What we are witnessing today in Chattisgarh or Naraynpatna, Orissa where an all women fact finding team was harassed and threatened by the local goons in collusion with the police is completely savage behaviour of the state and unexpected in a democracy.”
Abhay Sahu, Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti, while condemning the incidents urged the left secular forces and progressive people’s movement to put together a joint platform and resist any onslaught on civil and political liberties of the citizens of this country.
It’s indeed a grave and grievous situation that is faced by the adivasis, especially in Chattisgarh i.e. one of violence and the other of deprivation, both the vices trampling upon their right to life, livelihood and peace. Their existence itself being threatened the State either failing to intervene with a dialogue with the people’s movements, even in an unarmed struggle, or as in Chattisgarh, evicting and killing them in the garb of ‘combating Maoism’. All this is apparently an offshoot of the political-economic agenda of grabbing their rich resource base.
The citizens team re-appealed and re-asserted that those who are struggling within the secular democratic and non-violent framework must not be targeted by the State in such trumped up criminal charges or in any other manner as this would only shrink the space for those who are attempting peaceful resolution of conflicts and are for establishment of democracy and justice. It is the duty of the Central and State government to pro-actively protect such individuals and organizations from any physical attack or otherwise and immediately release Kopa Kunjam and punish the guilty police officials involved in harassment of the activists.
Contact: Madhuresh
For NAPM and Delhi Solidarity Group (Mobile 9818905316)
-- Regards,Vijayan MJDelhi Forum
Emails: vijayan@delhiforum.net, delhiforum@delhiforum.netWeb: http://updatecollective.wordpress.com/http://delhisolidaritygroup.wordpress.com/
Women's solidarity team stopped from visiting Dantewada!
Press statement of MP Mahila Manch
Chhatisgarh Police stops women from proceeding to Dantewada to show solidarity to women fighting against sexual violence by state actors.
As a part of the Campaign against Sexual Violence and State Repression – independent women, women's organisations and groups from across the country met in Raipur on the 12th and 13th December to discuss the increasing and rampant use of sexual violence against women as a method of state repression, to share and understand the experiences of struggle in different areas and develop deeper solidarity with one another. The vulnerability of women in the adivasi-dominated areas of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Orissa, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra has increased manifold with the state’s armed offensive in these areas in the name of Operation Greenhunt.
Women from different states shared the struggles of their respective areas. Later a group of 25 women of the campaign set out for the Dantewara district of Chhattisgarh on 13th evening in order to show solidarity with the women who have stood up against sexual violence and sought justice through democratic means.
The women enroute to Dantewada were repeatedly stopped and harassed by the police and police supported goons. Their jeeps were stopped on the pretext of licenses at Charama Thana, Kanker at the border of the Bastar division. Here they were detained for over an hour and their identities checked and papers of the vehicles and drivers scrutinized and refused to go further. The women were then forced to return the private vehicles and use public transport buses from Makditola to proceed towards Dantewara. The buses which they boarded were stopped again and they were again questioned and the driver and conductor threatened. After another stretch, the bus was stopped once more and the bus driver was threatened not to carry forward with the women’s team members, and they were forced to get down. They were finally not able to reach Dantewada. Even on their return journey to Raipur, the bus was stopped and the tyres punctured by sponsored protestors shouting slogans against the team. The DGP Chhatisgarh knew of the incidents as and when they were taking place, and no efforts were made to disperse the mob. Later, when the team held a press conference in Raipur, the police continuously interfered the proceedings.
We are very perturbed with the situations in Chhattisgarh. There is a complete break-down of democracy with the state is not allowing representatives of citizen’s and women’s groups to go to the area, gather information, understand the situations and meet the women who are strongly resisting the state’s high-handedness and their sexual exploitation. It is clear that the state is trying to hide facts with the way it has tried to curb people’s efforts to reach there and it is disturbing to imagine what would be the situation inside the zone for women. The recent situation in bordering Orissa has also been similar where a fact-finding team of 10 women from across the country were bullied, their vehicle’s glass was broken and the driver was rounded up by the police at the behest of local liquor mafia, landlords and mining companies.
Experiences across the country show a similar trend that driven by excessive corporatization, there has been an increased onslaught by the state on the lives and livelihoods of large sections of the our population in the name of “development” projects such as mining and special economic zones, It has become apparent that sustained state violence in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, West Bengal and other states is being continuously used to evict people from their land and livelihood. While this is being done in the name of “development” or “maintaining law and order” and “liberate” these areas from the influence of Maoist rebels, the real design is to appropriate resources and dispossess people in the area.. In the state of Chhattisagarh (as in other tribal dominant areas), the ruling government is trying to pass off tribal lands to big corporate houses and foreign companies without proper public hearings and deliberations and forcefully evicting people from their paternal lands.
Patriarchal oppression aligns itself with, intensifies and is in turn intensified by, every other kind of systemic oppression and injustice. And that is what is taking place in Chhattisgarh today where a heavily militarized State has enterered areas as an occupying force.Sexual violence and rape have become the most brutal weapon of repression here. Women are being specifically targeted and their political participation is being repressed by use of rape and other kinds of violence. Historically women have been the worst sufferers of the lack of livelihood, food, shelter and security, of draconian laws and of state-abetted violence, specially the increasing use of sexual violence to intimidate communities, and we see history repeating itself in Chhattisgarh, Orissa, West Bengal and other states today.
Tribal women in Bastar in Chhattisgarh have been subjected to the most extreme forms of violence since 2005, by Salwa Judum, a civil militia created and funded by the state to ‘counter’ the ‘Maoists’. Villagers here have reported incidents of gang rapes, custodial rape, mutilation of private parts, murder and continuous sexual abuse in villages, police stations and the relief camps set up by the state government in the area. The murder in 2006 of a tribal for being a ‘Maoist’ and the subsequent gang-rape of his wife in front of their child for several days inside a police station in Sarguja by police personnel (including the SP) is one such documented case.
The reports of different fact-finding committees (CAVOW, NHRC) have shown that there are numerous incidents of sexual violations taking place within the region. In the case filed by Nandini Sundar and others, there are more than 90 sworn rape affidavits pending before the Supreme Court. Even with six women daring to file private complaints (after the police refused to register the cases of rape) and make their statements before a Magistrate in Konta, there was inexplicable and inordinate delay of months in registering the cases. The arrest warrants have also been shelved for now in the absence of names of the fathers of the accused being included although the persons are clearly identified by their own names and where they are currently posted. In the meanwhile these women and their entire villages are being threatened and intimidated by the accused.
It is in this bleak scenario, that the group of 25 women of the campaign set out for the Dantewara district of Chhattisgarh on 13th evening in solidarity with the women who have stood up against sexual violence and sought justice through democratic means.We are deeply disturbed and anguished by the state’s attempts to use force against these representatives of women’s groups from across the country. It is against democratic principles to suppress dissent and people’s attempts to associate. The campaign is not deterred by the state’s efforts to subsume and threaten democratic rights groups and activists reporting state atrocities against women with the label of “naxalite” and “naxalite-supporters”, and “undertaking anti-government activities”. Unquestioned, the sexual exploitation would continue to grow, remain uncovered and justice denied.
We resolve to respond to such challenges and continue with our efforts to unearth such anti-people and anti-women activities of the state and extend our solidarity to the brave women of conflict areas fighting for justice.
Madhya Pradesh mahila manch on behalf of
Campaign against Sexual Violence and State Repression
Chhatisgarh Police stops women from proceeding to Dantewada to show solidarity to women fighting against sexual violence by state actors.
As a part of the Campaign against Sexual Violence and State Repression – independent women, women's organisations and groups from across the country met in Raipur on the 12th and 13th December to discuss the increasing and rampant use of sexual violence against women as a method of state repression, to share and understand the experiences of struggle in different areas and develop deeper solidarity with one another. The vulnerability of women in the adivasi-dominated areas of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Orissa, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra has increased manifold with the state’s armed offensive in these areas in the name of Operation Greenhunt.
Women from different states shared the struggles of their respective areas. Later a group of 25 women of the campaign set out for the Dantewara district of Chhattisgarh on 13th evening in order to show solidarity with the women who have stood up against sexual violence and sought justice through democratic means.
The women enroute to Dantewada were repeatedly stopped and harassed by the police and police supported goons. Their jeeps were stopped on the pretext of licenses at Charama Thana, Kanker at the border of the Bastar division. Here they were detained for over an hour and their identities checked and papers of the vehicles and drivers scrutinized and refused to go further. The women were then forced to return the private vehicles and use public transport buses from Makditola to proceed towards Dantewara. The buses which they boarded were stopped again and they were again questioned and the driver and conductor threatened. After another stretch, the bus was stopped once more and the bus driver was threatened not to carry forward with the women’s team members, and they were forced to get down. They were finally not able to reach Dantewada. Even on their return journey to Raipur, the bus was stopped and the tyres punctured by sponsored protestors shouting slogans against the team. The DGP Chhatisgarh knew of the incidents as and when they were taking place, and no efforts were made to disperse the mob. Later, when the team held a press conference in Raipur, the police continuously interfered the proceedings.
We are very perturbed with the situations in Chhattisgarh. There is a complete break-down of democracy with the state is not allowing representatives of citizen’s and women’s groups to go to the area, gather information, understand the situations and meet the women who are strongly resisting the state’s high-handedness and their sexual exploitation. It is clear that the state is trying to hide facts with the way it has tried to curb people’s efforts to reach there and it is disturbing to imagine what would be the situation inside the zone for women. The recent situation in bordering Orissa has also been similar where a fact-finding team of 10 women from across the country were bullied, their vehicle’s glass was broken and the driver was rounded up by the police at the behest of local liquor mafia, landlords and mining companies.
Experiences across the country show a similar trend that driven by excessive corporatization, there has been an increased onslaught by the state on the lives and livelihoods of large sections of the our population in the name of “development” projects such as mining and special economic zones, It has become apparent that sustained state violence in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, West Bengal and other states is being continuously used to evict people from their land and livelihood. While this is being done in the name of “development” or “maintaining law and order” and “liberate” these areas from the influence of Maoist rebels, the real design is to appropriate resources and dispossess people in the area.. In the state of Chhattisagarh (as in other tribal dominant areas), the ruling government is trying to pass off tribal lands to big corporate houses and foreign companies without proper public hearings and deliberations and forcefully evicting people from their paternal lands.
Patriarchal oppression aligns itself with, intensifies and is in turn intensified by, every other kind of systemic oppression and injustice. And that is what is taking place in Chhattisgarh today where a heavily militarized State has enterered areas as an occupying force.Sexual violence and rape have become the most brutal weapon of repression here. Women are being specifically targeted and their political participation is being repressed by use of rape and other kinds of violence. Historically women have been the worst sufferers of the lack of livelihood, food, shelter and security, of draconian laws and of state-abetted violence, specially the increasing use of sexual violence to intimidate communities, and we see history repeating itself in Chhattisgarh, Orissa, West Bengal and other states today.
Tribal women in Bastar in Chhattisgarh have been subjected to the most extreme forms of violence since 2005, by Salwa Judum, a civil militia created and funded by the state to ‘counter’ the ‘Maoists’. Villagers here have reported incidents of gang rapes, custodial rape, mutilation of private parts, murder and continuous sexual abuse in villages, police stations and the relief camps set up by the state government in the area. The murder in 2006 of a tribal for being a ‘Maoist’ and the subsequent gang-rape of his wife in front of their child for several days inside a police station in Sarguja by police personnel (including the SP) is one such documented case.
The reports of different fact-finding committees (CAVOW, NHRC) have shown that there are numerous incidents of sexual violations taking place within the region. In the case filed by Nandini Sundar and others, there are more than 90 sworn rape affidavits pending before the Supreme Court. Even with six women daring to file private complaints (after the police refused to register the cases of rape) and make their statements before a Magistrate in Konta, there was inexplicable and inordinate delay of months in registering the cases. The arrest warrants have also been shelved for now in the absence of names of the fathers of the accused being included although the persons are clearly identified by their own names and where they are currently posted. In the meanwhile these women and their entire villages are being threatened and intimidated by the accused.
It is in this bleak scenario, that the group of 25 women of the campaign set out for the Dantewara district of Chhattisgarh on 13th evening in solidarity with the women who have stood up against sexual violence and sought justice through democratic means.We are deeply disturbed and anguished by the state’s attempts to use force against these representatives of women’s groups from across the country. It is against democratic principles to suppress dissent and people’s attempts to associate. The campaign is not deterred by the state’s efforts to subsume and threaten democratic rights groups and activists reporting state atrocities against women with the label of “naxalite” and “naxalite-supporters”, and “undertaking anti-government activities”. Unquestioned, the sexual exploitation would continue to grow, remain uncovered and justice denied.
We resolve to respond to such challenges and continue with our efforts to unearth such anti-people and anti-women activities of the state and extend our solidarity to the brave women of conflict areas fighting for justice.
Madhya Pradesh mahila manch on behalf of
Campaign against Sexual Violence and State Repression
Alban Toppo's open letter
Alban Toppo is a lawyer in Chattisgarh. He is an adivasi and was working for HRLN. He helped to fight cases of the displaced tribals in the Bilaspur High Court, cases where the truth about the beatings, intimidation, abduction, killings, rape and sexual violence on tribal women by the Salwa Judum and its new incarnation "Danteshwari Adivasi Swabhiman Manch" which has full sponsorship of the State, would come out. Alban Toppo was picked up from Vanvasi Chetna Ashram office, badly beaten and threatened on 10th December 2009. This open letter shows the ordeal faced by him and by anyone else who is on the side of the tribals.
AN OPEN LETTER & APPEAL
I am a fresh lawyer coming from a tribal family of Jashpur, Chhattishgarh. I finished my law graduation in year 2008, got enrolled with Chhattisgarh Bar Council and started working for poor and underprivileged. For which I had a commitment since my college days. I started learning basics of human rights litigation at Delhi office of Human Rights Law Network and very recently had come to Chhattisgarh to do research for right to food case which is going on in Hon’ble Supreme Court of India and for this. I went to Dantewada, and met Mr. Himanshu Kumar, Director of Vanvasi Chetna Ashram, who has done some study on this issue and taking information, his advice and guidance. I was also providing some legal assistance to him during my stay in Dantewada.
On 10 December, 2009 at about 2:30 P.M. the Thana Incharge (TI) of Bhairamgarh Police Station Mr. K.S. Nand in civil uniform came to the Vanvasi Chetna Ashram (VCA) situated at Katiyarraas accompanied by approximately more than 25 SPO’s in 5 cars. Director of VCA, Shri Himanshu Kumar and few other volunteers of VCA were present. I was also present there. TI spoke to Himanshu Kumar about taking Kopa Kunjam, s/o Lacchu Kunjam, resident of village Alnaar, Block – Geedam, P.S. Dantewada, who is a volunteer of VCA stating that they need him for some interrogation by the Superintendent of Police. He said, “SP Sahab ne bulaya hai, kuch puch tach karni hai”. No notice was served for this. However on being asked by Himanshu Kumar to give some written notice about it, the TI Bhairamgarh immediately wrote on a piece of paper that, “Prati, Kopa Kunjam ! Apse thana Dantewada me kuch poonch thanch karna chahta hoon. Kripya ap mere sath sadar P.S. kotwali chalein.” (I want to do some investigation with you at Dantewada Police Station. Please come with me to P.S. Kotwali). Being an Advocate present at the spot, I thought it to be my duty to accompany VCA Volunteer Kopa Kunjam to Dantewada police station. With the consent of Himanshu Kumar, Director-VCA I went alongwith Kopa Kunjam. At Dantewada police station we were asked to sit down. After making both of us wait for about half an hour, we were asked to come and sit in a vehicle . Thinking that we were being taken to the S.P. Office, we sat in the vehicle. As vehicle proceeded, I introduced myself to the IT Bhairamgadh saying that I am an advocate, having done my law course from Hidayatullah National Law University, Raipur and am associated with Human Rights Law Network. When the vehicle crossed Dantewada, we became suspicious and asked as to where we were being taken now, to which TI, Bhairamgarh, replied, “Kopa Kunjam is now being taken to Beejapur District”. Kopa Kunjam refused to go further as he was not informed about being taken to Beejapur earlier. I also objected to it, stating that the police should follow necessary procedures under the law and should act as per guidelines of the Supreme Court and that they cannot take Mr.Kopa to Beejapur without giving any notice in this regard. By this time Kopa Kunjam came out from the Bolero vehicle and I also got out of the vehicle. The TI along with 2 others got hold of Mr.Kopa and with the help of around 15 S.P.O’s bundled Mr. Kopa into another vehicle which was also coming along with them. When I again resisted to such behavior saying that it was illegal to behave in this manner, two S.P.O.’s started abusing and slapping me and bundled me also inside the car. Before being bundled into car, I somehow managed inform my senior Lawyer, colleagues and friends in Delhi about this incident. Noticing this two SPOs, started slapping and beating me and tried to snatch my mobile and, but I didn’t give my mobile, but after this they force me inside the car and did not allow me use the mobile phone.
At about 5 P.M., we reached Bhairamgarh police station. The IT, Bhairamgadh asked me to give my mobile phone and also asked to switch it off and we were asked to sit there inside the police station. We were kept at a place inside police station with two S.P.O. keeping an eye on us. At about 8 p.m. we were taken for dinner in a nearby Hotel, from where we came in 15-20 minutes. At about 8:45 P.M. the officials of Bhairamgarh police station called me inside a room and tried to ask about the reason of me deciding to accompany Mr.Kopa. About three minutes later TI of Bhairamgarh started addressing me in an extremely rude and disrespectful manner and soon became violent and abusive. He started abusing me with slur and offensive language, which was followed by beatings with a thick bamboo stick and with a hard rubber cane, continuously slapping me while pulling my hair and kicking severely. After sometime he went out and started beating Kopa Kunjam. Kopa Kunjum was brought into the same room and both of us were beaten severely for 30 minutes by the TI Mr. Nand and an assistant constable Banjara, while some 15 other police staff & S.P.Os surrounded both of us. TI Mr. Nand also said that “ No Advocate in Bastar dares to speak in my presence and you talk a lot. Now show me how much you can talk! Show me how much law you know?” Later I was taken to a separate room and was questioned about the purpose of my stay in Dantewada and association with VCA. At around 10 PM, I listened someone saying that , “Sala Bada Admi hai , Delhi se Sahab ka phone aya hai.” Soon after this I was asked to write in a paper that I was brought to Bhairamgadh and as it has become late evening and there is no mode of transport and since the area is a very sensitive and unsafe, I decided to spend the night at Bhairamgarh station, where I am safe. In Bhairamgadh Police Station, they said that that Himanshu is a Naxalite and whoever is working with Himanshu is a naxalite and who stays with Himanshu it a Naxal supporter.
Mr. Kopa was very badly beaten and had received serious injuries on his chest, back and leg, due to which he was even unable to walk and sleep properly. I have got injuries on front portion of elbow of right hand, biceps and back causing severe pain and swelling. I was even not able to move my hands and back due to severe pain. I spend whole of night shivering and in pain, speculating what next is to happen.
On 11 December, 2009 at 9:30 a.m. I was send to Dantewada police station accompanied by 4 S.P.O.’s in a vehicle and one head constable of Bhairamgarh police station, while Mr. Kopa was kept detained. When they reached Dantewada Police Station, two volunteers of VCA were called and I was handed over to them.
After being released, next date day, I went to Ambedkar Hospital, Raipur to get a medical examination done, however I was asked make a compliant before the police and I was informed that the police will come after I make the complaint and then MLC will be conducted in the presence of police. I thought of going back to Dantewada to lodge the F.I.R. but because I was scared of being implicated in any false case this time, I did not go there.
However, being very much concerned about the trend of even lawyers not being allowed to function freely and being beaten up like this, I have no other option except to write this open letter-cum-appeal addressed to every body so that the issue could be taken up by the society itself. I have been subjected this kind of brutality for working for poor and powerless. It is against law, against democracy and even against morality to do this to an advocate. If such kind of treatment is given to young lawyers who want to work towards a better society, young generation will loose hope.
Kindly take appropriate step against those who have abused power vested in them to beat and insult me in this gruesome manner and help restoring the faith of young people in the democracy and rule of law.
Yours Sincerely
Alban Toppo
Advocate
AN OPEN LETTER & APPEAL
I am a fresh lawyer coming from a tribal family of Jashpur, Chhattishgarh. I finished my law graduation in year 2008, got enrolled with Chhattisgarh Bar Council and started working for poor and underprivileged. For which I had a commitment since my college days. I started learning basics of human rights litigation at Delhi office of Human Rights Law Network and very recently had come to Chhattisgarh to do research for right to food case which is going on in Hon’ble Supreme Court of India and for this. I went to Dantewada, and met Mr. Himanshu Kumar, Director of Vanvasi Chetna Ashram, who has done some study on this issue and taking information, his advice and guidance. I was also providing some legal assistance to him during my stay in Dantewada.
On 10 December, 2009 at about 2:30 P.M. the Thana Incharge (TI) of Bhairamgarh Police Station Mr. K.S. Nand in civil uniform came to the Vanvasi Chetna Ashram (VCA) situated at Katiyarraas accompanied by approximately more than 25 SPO’s in 5 cars. Director of VCA, Shri Himanshu Kumar and few other volunteers of VCA were present. I was also present there. TI spoke to Himanshu Kumar about taking Kopa Kunjam, s/o Lacchu Kunjam, resident of village Alnaar, Block – Geedam, P.S. Dantewada, who is a volunteer of VCA stating that they need him for some interrogation by the Superintendent of Police. He said, “SP Sahab ne bulaya hai, kuch puch tach karni hai”. No notice was served for this. However on being asked by Himanshu Kumar to give some written notice about it, the TI Bhairamgarh immediately wrote on a piece of paper that, “Prati, Kopa Kunjam ! Apse thana Dantewada me kuch poonch thanch karna chahta hoon. Kripya ap mere sath sadar P.S. kotwali chalein.” (I want to do some investigation with you at Dantewada Police Station. Please come with me to P.S. Kotwali). Being an Advocate present at the spot, I thought it to be my duty to accompany VCA Volunteer Kopa Kunjam to Dantewada police station. With the consent of Himanshu Kumar, Director-VCA I went alongwith Kopa Kunjam. At Dantewada police station we were asked to sit down. After making both of us wait for about half an hour, we were asked to come and sit in a vehicle . Thinking that we were being taken to the S.P. Office, we sat in the vehicle. As vehicle proceeded, I introduced myself to the IT Bhairamgadh saying that I am an advocate, having done my law course from Hidayatullah National Law University, Raipur and am associated with Human Rights Law Network. When the vehicle crossed Dantewada, we became suspicious and asked as to where we were being taken now, to which TI, Bhairamgarh, replied, “Kopa Kunjam is now being taken to Beejapur District”. Kopa Kunjam refused to go further as he was not informed about being taken to Beejapur earlier. I also objected to it, stating that the police should follow necessary procedures under the law and should act as per guidelines of the Supreme Court and that they cannot take Mr.Kopa to Beejapur without giving any notice in this regard. By this time Kopa Kunjam came out from the Bolero vehicle and I also got out of the vehicle. The TI along with 2 others got hold of Mr.Kopa and with the help of around 15 S.P.O’s bundled Mr. Kopa into another vehicle which was also coming along with them. When I again resisted to such behavior saying that it was illegal to behave in this manner, two S.P.O.’s started abusing and slapping me and bundled me also inside the car. Before being bundled into car, I somehow managed inform my senior Lawyer, colleagues and friends in Delhi about this incident. Noticing this two SPOs, started slapping and beating me and tried to snatch my mobile and, but I didn’t give my mobile, but after this they force me inside the car and did not allow me use the mobile phone.
At about 5 P.M., we reached Bhairamgarh police station. The IT, Bhairamgadh asked me to give my mobile phone and also asked to switch it off and we were asked to sit there inside the police station. We were kept at a place inside police station with two S.P.O. keeping an eye on us. At about 8 p.m. we were taken for dinner in a nearby Hotel, from where we came in 15-20 minutes. At about 8:45 P.M. the officials of Bhairamgarh police station called me inside a room and tried to ask about the reason of me deciding to accompany Mr.Kopa. About three minutes later TI of Bhairamgarh started addressing me in an extremely rude and disrespectful manner and soon became violent and abusive. He started abusing me with slur and offensive language, which was followed by beatings with a thick bamboo stick and with a hard rubber cane, continuously slapping me while pulling my hair and kicking severely. After sometime he went out and started beating Kopa Kunjam. Kopa Kunjum was brought into the same room and both of us were beaten severely for 30 minutes by the TI Mr. Nand and an assistant constable Banjara, while some 15 other police staff & S.P.Os surrounded both of us. TI Mr. Nand also said that “ No Advocate in Bastar dares to speak in my presence and you talk a lot. Now show me how much you can talk! Show me how much law you know?” Later I was taken to a separate room and was questioned about the purpose of my stay in Dantewada and association with VCA. At around 10 PM, I listened someone saying that , “Sala Bada Admi hai , Delhi se Sahab ka phone aya hai.” Soon after this I was asked to write in a paper that I was brought to Bhairamgadh and as it has become late evening and there is no mode of transport and since the area is a very sensitive and unsafe, I decided to spend the night at Bhairamgarh station, where I am safe. In Bhairamgadh Police Station, they said that that Himanshu is a Naxalite and whoever is working with Himanshu is a naxalite and who stays with Himanshu it a Naxal supporter.
Mr. Kopa was very badly beaten and had received serious injuries on his chest, back and leg, due to which he was even unable to walk and sleep properly. I have got injuries on front portion of elbow of right hand, biceps and back causing severe pain and swelling. I was even not able to move my hands and back due to severe pain. I spend whole of night shivering and in pain, speculating what next is to happen.
On 11 December, 2009 at 9:30 a.m. I was send to Dantewada police station accompanied by 4 S.P.O.’s in a vehicle and one head constable of Bhairamgarh police station, while Mr. Kopa was kept detained. When they reached Dantewada Police Station, two volunteers of VCA were called and I was handed over to them.
After being released, next date day, I went to Ambedkar Hospital, Raipur to get a medical examination done, however I was asked make a compliant before the police and I was informed that the police will come after I make the complaint and then MLC will be conducted in the presence of police. I thought of going back to Dantewada to lodge the F.I.R. but because I was scared of being implicated in any false case this time, I did not go there.
However, being very much concerned about the trend of even lawyers not being allowed to function freely and being beaten up like this, I have no other option except to write this open letter-cum-appeal addressed to every body so that the issue could be taken up by the society itself. I have been subjected this kind of brutality for working for poor and powerless. It is against law, against democracy and even against morality to do this to an advocate. If such kind of treatment is given to young lawyers who want to work towards a better society, young generation will loose hope.
Kindly take appropriate step against those who have abused power vested in them to beat and insult me in this gruesome manner and help restoring the faith of young people in the democracy and rule of law.
Yours Sincerely
Alban Toppo
Advocate
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Statement of women's organisations against state repression in Chattisgarh
Women Against Sexual Violence and State Repression
Statement of women’s organizations on increasing state violence on people's movements and sexual violence on women by police, paramilitary and army.
Bhopal, 24th and 25th October 2009
We, the undersigned representatives of women’s organizations and individuals, are deeply shocked and disturbed by the Indian government's plans to launch an armed offensive by paramilitary and armyforces in the adivasi-dominant forest areas of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. This attack is ostensibly to “liberate” these areas from the influence of Maoist rebels, and to undertake “development” activities there. There are reports of massive deployment of troops in these parts in preparation for this exercise. For the past half century, the Indian government has used various pretexts of insurgency to stifle the democratic aspirations of the people by giving a free hand to military, para and other security forces and the police. As a consequence, life and liberty has become a distant dream for people in large areas of the country,particularly in the areas of North East and Kashmir. In the recent times, in land acquisition, in privatization of natural resources and water, in clearing the country to suit national and multinational capital, new laws have been introduced to suppress anyresistance, peaceful or otherwise. While this wreaks havoc and misery on the lives of lakhs of the most marginalized and destitute population of the country, as women’s organizations we are enormously concerned about the implications of the presence of large number of paramilitary and military forcesfor the women of these regions. In all this, women are the worst sufferers. In the past 25 years, in all incidences of mass rape by Assam Rifles in Manipur in the early 80s to Kupwara in Jammu and Kashmir, no justice has been accorded to the women and no punishment to the perpetrators. The brutal torture, gang-rape and killing of Manorama in July 2004, by Assam Rifles personnel in Manipur, which has been under the armed forces for several decades now, and the courageous protest of the Manipuri women against their continuous sexual abuse by the armed forces, speaks volumes of the inhuman violence inflicted by the military and the police on women in the name of counter-insurgency operations. While the Manorama case got highlighted, incidents of sexual violence in the daily life ofthe women in states under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act largely go unreported. Recently in the case of gang rape and murder of two women in Shopian in Kashmir, ignoring the strong protests by the local community, the state agencies have blatantly tried to protect the accused. In a case where the atrocity is committed by a state agency, the accountability of the crime has to be broadened to encompass not just the rapist but all the other authorities as well as the state administration and thejudiciary which is duty bound to protect the rights of women as citizens. This makes the functionariesof the administration and the whole state an accused and co-perpetrators in the crimes. And insituations where the state through assuming unlimited powers and limits people's democratic rights, the accountability and its burden of guilt become even stronger. Presently, driven by aggressive corporatisation, sustained state violence in Chhattigarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, and West Bengal and other states has become the single mantra to evict people from their land
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Page 2
2 and livelihood. While this is also being done in the name of “development” or “maintaining law and order”, the real design is to appropriate resources and dispossess people of the area. Tribal women in Bastar in Chhattisgarh have been subjected to the most extreme forms of violence since 2005, by Salwa Judum, a civil militia created and funded by the state, to counter the Maoists.Villagers here have reported to local activists and NGOs, of incidents of gang rapes, custodial rape, mutilation of private parts, murder and continuous sexual abuse in villages, police stations and therelief camps set up by the state government in the area. The extra-judicial murder in 2006 of a tribalfor being a Maoist, and the subsequent gang-rape of his wife in front of her child for several days inside a police station in Sarguja by police personnel including the SP is one such documented case. We are shocked that there are not even official records and FIRs of the cases of sexual violence in Dantewada district. Despite more than 90 sworn affidavits filed in cases pending before the SupremeCourt, statements made before the National Human Rights Commission, and letters to the Superintendent of Police, the police in Bastar refuse to register cases of rape by Salwa Judum goons. Finally when six women dared to file private complaints and make their statements before a Magistrate in Konta, there is inexplicable and inordinate delay of months together in registering the cases. In the meanwhile these women and their entire villages are being threatened and intimidated by the accused and other Salwa Judum leaders and SPOs that the entire village would be burnt down and the villagers implicated in Naxalite cases – a threat which they know is not an exaggeration. Sexual violence comes handy to those in power to quell women's increasing participation in resistance movements and struggles. Rape and sexual violence are being systematically used as a repressive measure by the police in all forms of opposition and resistance to state policies. The security forces, a law unto themselves in many remote areas, operate with impunity, as if they have a “license” to rapewomen, especially those belonging to the tribal and dalit communities. It is also seen that if the policeare not themselves inflicting violence, they are abetting in it, either by being mute spectators, or ignoring these incidents, or simply refusing to register the FIRs. While this is the situation in areas where there are so-called “insurgency” movements, there is violence against women even in cases of non-violent mass movements. Since the neo-liberal turn of the1990s there has been an increased onslaught by the state on the lives and livelihoods of large sections of theour population in the name of “development” projects such as mining and special economic zones, and large communities are being deprived of their lands, rivers, forests, and other common property resources. Pushed to desperation people are organizing in several ways to resist this large-scale displacement and dispossession. In several cases women have been at the forefront of these struggles. It has been seen that women are specifically targeted in such cases, and such political participation isbeing repressed by use of rape and other kinds of violence on women in mass movements. We have no trust in police personnel and find police stations most unsafe for women. Growing incidences of custodial rape is evidence of the police attitude to women, especially when it pertains todalit, adivasi and working class women, not even sparing the mentally challenged women. In June2009, a tribal woman from Betul, MP was arrested along with her husband and son in a dowry case. Later she was gang-raped in police custody. This incident followed an earlier one, where a dalit woman along with several others had protested against continuous sexual harassment (“eve-teasing”) by private security guards of the MP Electricity Board, who resorted to firing in which one youth was killed.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Page 3
3 It is a matter of great concern to see the state's attempts to label all forms of opposition and resistance to its policies as 'Maoist' and “Naxalite’, and suppress any form of dissent. People’s movements, protests by democratic rights and other activists, reporting by journalists, are all being labeled as Maoist and Maoist sympathizers, and being subjected to repression. In the current context, we demand the Indian government to immediately take action against all actorsincluding governance and judiciary, besides the actual perpetrators of sexual assaults, already registered in these Special Act zones. We demand an immediate repeal of AFSPA . We further demand an immediate withdrawal of its armed offensive against a largely tribal population. Instead, as expected of a democratic government, the government should move towards addressing politically the long-standing grievances of the tribal population, which have been explicitly pointed out by the government’s own report. We strongly urge all other democratic minded women’s groups and organizations to join us in this urgent appeal to the Indian government. AIPWA, AISA (Delhi), Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Udyog Sangathan, Chhatisgarh Mukti Morcha(Chhatisgarh), Dalit Stree Shakti (Hyderabad), HRLN (MP), Human Rights Alert (Manipur), IRMA (Manipur), IWID, Jagrit Adivasi Dalit Sangathan (Badwani, M.P.), Kashipur Solidarity (Delhi), M.P. Mahila Manch (M.P.), Nari Mukti Sanstha (Delhi), Navsarjan (Ahemdabad Gujarat), NBA (MP),Pratidhwani (Delhi), PUCL (karnataka), Saheli (Delhi), Sahmet (Kesla, M.P.), Samajwadi Jan Parishad(M.P.), Sangini (Bhopal), Stree Adhikar Sanghatan (UP), Vanangana (Chitrakut, U.P.), Vidyarthi Yuvjan Sabha, Women’s Right Resource Center (MP), Yuva Samvaad (Bhopal). Contact : Madhya Pradesh Mahila Manch 9425377349
Statement of women’s organizations on increasing state violence on people's movements and sexual violence on women by police, paramilitary and army.
Bhopal, 24th and 25th October 2009
We, the undersigned representatives of women’s organizations and individuals, are deeply shocked and disturbed by the Indian government's plans to launch an armed offensive by paramilitary and armyforces in the adivasi-dominant forest areas of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. This attack is ostensibly to “liberate” these areas from the influence of Maoist rebels, and to undertake “development” activities there. There are reports of massive deployment of troops in these parts in preparation for this exercise. For the past half century, the Indian government has used various pretexts of insurgency to stifle the democratic aspirations of the people by giving a free hand to military, para and other security forces and the police. As a consequence, life and liberty has become a distant dream for people in large areas of the country,particularly in the areas of North East and Kashmir. In the recent times, in land acquisition, in privatization of natural resources and water, in clearing the country to suit national and multinational capital, new laws have been introduced to suppress anyresistance, peaceful or otherwise. While this wreaks havoc and misery on the lives of lakhs of the most marginalized and destitute population of the country, as women’s organizations we are enormously concerned about the implications of the presence of large number of paramilitary and military forcesfor the women of these regions. In all this, women are the worst sufferers. In the past 25 years, in all incidences of mass rape by Assam Rifles in Manipur in the early 80s to Kupwara in Jammu and Kashmir, no justice has been accorded to the women and no punishment to the perpetrators. The brutal torture, gang-rape and killing of Manorama in July 2004, by Assam Rifles personnel in Manipur, which has been under the armed forces for several decades now, and the courageous protest of the Manipuri women against their continuous sexual abuse by the armed forces, speaks volumes of the inhuman violence inflicted by the military and the police on women in the name of counter-insurgency operations. While the Manorama case got highlighted, incidents of sexual violence in the daily life ofthe women in states under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act largely go unreported. Recently in the case of gang rape and murder of two women in Shopian in Kashmir, ignoring the strong protests by the local community, the state agencies have blatantly tried to protect the accused. In a case where the atrocity is committed by a state agency, the accountability of the crime has to be broadened to encompass not just the rapist but all the other authorities as well as the state administration and thejudiciary which is duty bound to protect the rights of women as citizens. This makes the functionariesof the administration and the whole state an accused and co-perpetrators in the crimes. And insituations where the state through assuming unlimited powers and limits people's democratic rights, the accountability and its burden of guilt become even stronger. Presently, driven by aggressive corporatisation, sustained state violence in Chhattigarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, and West Bengal and other states has become the single mantra to evict people from their land
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Page 2
2 and livelihood. While this is also being done in the name of “development” or “maintaining law and order”, the real design is to appropriate resources and dispossess people of the area. Tribal women in Bastar in Chhattisgarh have been subjected to the most extreme forms of violence since 2005, by Salwa Judum, a civil militia created and funded by the state, to counter the Maoists.Villagers here have reported to local activists and NGOs, of incidents of gang rapes, custodial rape, mutilation of private parts, murder and continuous sexual abuse in villages, police stations and therelief camps set up by the state government in the area. The extra-judicial murder in 2006 of a tribalfor being a Maoist, and the subsequent gang-rape of his wife in front of her child for several days inside a police station in Sarguja by police personnel including the SP is one such documented case. We are shocked that there are not even official records and FIRs of the cases of sexual violence in Dantewada district. Despite more than 90 sworn affidavits filed in cases pending before the SupremeCourt, statements made before the National Human Rights Commission, and letters to the Superintendent of Police, the police in Bastar refuse to register cases of rape by Salwa Judum goons. Finally when six women dared to file private complaints and make their statements before a Magistrate in Konta, there is inexplicable and inordinate delay of months together in registering the cases. In the meanwhile these women and their entire villages are being threatened and intimidated by the accused and other Salwa Judum leaders and SPOs that the entire village would be burnt down and the villagers implicated in Naxalite cases – a threat which they know is not an exaggeration. Sexual violence comes handy to those in power to quell women's increasing participation in resistance movements and struggles. Rape and sexual violence are being systematically used as a repressive measure by the police in all forms of opposition and resistance to state policies. The security forces, a law unto themselves in many remote areas, operate with impunity, as if they have a “license” to rapewomen, especially those belonging to the tribal and dalit communities. It is also seen that if the policeare not themselves inflicting violence, they are abetting in it, either by being mute spectators, or ignoring these incidents, or simply refusing to register the FIRs. While this is the situation in areas where there are so-called “insurgency” movements, there is violence against women even in cases of non-violent mass movements. Since the neo-liberal turn of the1990s there has been an increased onslaught by the state on the lives and livelihoods of large sections of theour population in the name of “development” projects such as mining and special economic zones, and large communities are being deprived of their lands, rivers, forests, and other common property resources. Pushed to desperation people are organizing in several ways to resist this large-scale displacement and dispossession. In several cases women have been at the forefront of these struggles. It has been seen that women are specifically targeted in such cases, and such political participation isbeing repressed by use of rape and other kinds of violence on women in mass movements. We have no trust in police personnel and find police stations most unsafe for women. Growing incidences of custodial rape is evidence of the police attitude to women, especially when it pertains todalit, adivasi and working class women, not even sparing the mentally challenged women. In June2009, a tribal woman from Betul, MP was arrested along with her husband and son in a dowry case. Later she was gang-raped in police custody. This incident followed an earlier one, where a dalit woman along with several others had protested against continuous sexual harassment (“eve-teasing”) by private security guards of the MP Electricity Board, who resorted to firing in which one youth was killed.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Page 3
3 It is a matter of great concern to see the state's attempts to label all forms of opposition and resistance to its policies as 'Maoist' and “Naxalite’, and suppress any form of dissent. People’s movements, protests by democratic rights and other activists, reporting by journalists, are all being labeled as Maoist and Maoist sympathizers, and being subjected to repression. In the current context, we demand the Indian government to immediately take action against all actorsincluding governance and judiciary, besides the actual perpetrators of sexual assaults, already registered in these Special Act zones. We demand an immediate repeal of AFSPA . We further demand an immediate withdrawal of its armed offensive against a largely tribal population. Instead, as expected of a democratic government, the government should move towards addressing politically the long-standing grievances of the tribal population, which have been explicitly pointed out by the government’s own report. We strongly urge all other democratic minded women’s groups and organizations to join us in this urgent appeal to the Indian government. AIPWA, AISA (Delhi), Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Udyog Sangathan, Chhatisgarh Mukti Morcha(Chhatisgarh), Dalit Stree Shakti (Hyderabad), HRLN (MP), Human Rights Alert (Manipur), IRMA (Manipur), IWID, Jagrit Adivasi Dalit Sangathan (Badwani, M.P.), Kashipur Solidarity (Delhi), M.P. Mahila Manch (M.P.), Nari Mukti Sanstha (Delhi), Navsarjan (Ahemdabad Gujarat), NBA (MP),Pratidhwani (Delhi), PUCL (karnataka), Saheli (Delhi), Sahmet (Kesla, M.P.), Samajwadi Jan Parishad(M.P.), Sangini (Bhopal), Stree Adhikar Sanghatan (UP), Vanangana (Chitrakut, U.P.), Vidyarthi Yuvjan Sabha, Women’s Right Resource Center (MP), Yuva Samvaad (Bhopal). Contact : Madhya Pradesh Mahila Manch 9425377349
A brilliant article on our English News channels
Your Mama! Or The Blitzerization Of Indian TV
By Trevor Selvam
29 October, 2009 - > Countercurrents.org
In the past two weeks, I have viewed three shows on NDTV 24/7 and one
on CNN-IBN live. On one NDTV show, the moderator was Mr. Vikram
Chandra and the other one had the ubiquitous Ms. Barkha Dutt. The CNN-
IBN show was moderated by Ms Sagarika Ghose. All three of the shows
had to do with Naxalites or Maoists. The NDTV shows had the
emblematic war-drum like sound effects and graphic interplay that
aped the “War on Terror” style of the Fox/CNN networks. The lead
caption of the “Maoist Muddle”, the talk show hosted by Ms. Dutt, had
an old Western badlands style letter font in use, which would swish
back and forth, when Ms. Dutt took a break. (No! they did not play
the theme tune from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly or Appaloosa).
Ms. Ghosh’s moderation was subdued in comparison and I would say,
more interested in extracting a minimum possible new thought process
in this discussion. However, the two guests on this show, Mr. Gautam
Navlakha of the EPW and Mr. Swapan Dasgupta of trash-the-left-any-
which-way-you-can fame, took off their gloves in no time and while
Mr. Navlakha could have restrained himself a wee bit, I could
understand the anger he felt with the asinine, Rush Limbaugh-esque
harangue of Mr. Dasgupta. A third guest, Mr. Sudipta Chackravarti,
writer of the book Red Sun, attempted to steer a safer line between
the absurdly nonsensical right wing cant of Dasgupta and the enraged
decency of Navlakha and got nowhere in terms of contributing to the
discussion. While this particular show did make an attempt at clean
lines and decency in terms of format, the NDTV show, as usual, was
like a Vegas-style slot machine/ video game box circus with Ms. Dutt
rushing around town-hall style, impatient as hell, and making shallow
summaries from time to time. Mr Vikram Chandra used his stationary
command centre approach to parse everyone’s unfinished thoughts,
by interrupting them and making sweeping summaries and essentially
telling off those who wanted to raise larger issues. Barkha Dutt’s
pancake makeup and potty-designer clothes added further vacuous glitter
and frenzy to the otherwise polyvinyl theatre that she now stages frequently.
I think Ms. Dutt has run out of the chutzpah that characterized her initial
foray into cable news and live reporting. She has bought into the
ethos that employs her i.e be true to the status quo definition of
the nation, no matter what, uphold some sanctimonious interpretations
of “terror, violence and democracy” and mendaciously ignore the
institutionalized violence that characterizes the Indian state and
all its institutions, especially the police. I am sure the fact that
there are at least one hundred criminals sitting in the Indian Parliament,
does not seem to have any impact whatsoever on all these apologists in her show,regarding the greatness of “the world’s largest democracy.” One of
the goofy guests in the show, named Tavleen Singh, gave an “Arey
Baba!” style shpeel on how great it is to be part of Indian democracy
and not be part of Pakistan or China. No jingoism there! And these
are experts on “the greatest threat to Indian democracy”?
What is wrong with these shows?
They all pander to a sensationalist, alarmist and finally a
fabricated version of the facts on the ground to start with. In their
rush to compete with each other they also use melodramatic
terminology to describe events. During a Chukka Bundh or a Rail Roko
(stopping trains during a general strike in an area, for example West
Mednipur) , some channels in no time started referring to it as a
“Train Hijack”. Chukka Bandh has been going on for ages. In fact in
India it happens almost every day. People vent their anger by
stopping trains. A hijack is something else and as a result in no
time people are talking about the Taleban and prisoner swaps etc.
Arnab Goswami’s Foxy network (Times Now) goes over the deep edge with
Goswami almost leaking sputum from the sides of his mouth, calling
the Lalgarh PCPA, a “ terrorist” outfit repeatedly during his so-
called moderation of events. He invites people to speak and then
trashes them continuously, hogging the limelight himself and repeatedly
changing his “one basic question” several times. Santhals and tribals with traditional weaponry are called “armed Maoists and terrorists.” Even the CNN
and BBC prefer to use words like militants, referring to these same
incidents. Goswami, of course, is universally recognized in India as
the yellowest of all TV moderators.
The primary problem, as I had stated elsewhere in a previous essay,
is that these Indian TV channels have not gone through the stage of
development that American radio and TV shows had gone through—of
nuanced, thoughtful interdictions---that preceded the Wolf-
Blitzerization of Cable news. The Bill Moyers and the Amy Goodmans of
PBS, NPR and Democracy Now! have for a long period of time upheld
decent, selfless, incisive, conclusive interviews and glamour, glitz
and circus acts have not been their bag. A tradition exists in
American radio and to a certain extent in Public TV that preceded
Time-Warner’s onslaught on the mind waves.
India’s Doordarshan, staid and unexciting as it often may seem, does
not follow this bombastic TV style that Barkha Dutt and Vikram
Chandra espouse. But, Indian TV has missed out on the tradition of
the thoughtful radio show. It has taken a leap into the nightmare
Vegas style, as far as intellectual cadence goes. Pretty much like
the fact that India also skipped over (for the most part) the laying
down of optical fibre-glass high speed lines and jumped into the wi-
fi data card and satellite disc technology, at least in some regions.
Convenient, but unnatural, in some respects. There is thus a missing
link in India’s media development. It is not a matter of quickly leap-
frogging into the newest technology; it is very simply a question of
missing out on a stage of incipient intellectual development. And
that stage requires some genuflection on what it is to be a real
democracy. Having elections every five years or having law courts and
elected officials (even without criminal records) amounts to drawing
lane markers on Indian city roads. Nobody takes it seriously or
avails of it with pride. It is like an attempt at showcasing the
trappings of democracy. As simple as that. When Mr. Chidambaran
cajoles the country’s intellectuals and so does the West Bengal
government officials, suggesting that any sympathy for the Naxalites
amounts to seditious behaviour, it is the beginning of a McCarthyite
era of “Un-Indian” activities. In that sense the Americanization of
the Indian polity has been seamless since the fall of the Berlin wall
and the collapse of the Soviet Union. It is no wonder that the Indian
state, once a champion of non-alignment and independent post-colonial
political direction, has done a fantastic somersault into the lap of
the United States. It is unthinkable that the same forces that have
just decided to “phase out ”of Iraq, have now arrived in India and
are engaging in what a US commander described, only a few hours ago
on NDTV, “the most advanced counter-insurgency operations” with
Stryker tanks and various elements of the US Army, Airborne and
Cavalry divisions and paratrooper wings, right next to New Delhi!
Does Barkha Dutt care? Does Vikram Chandra give two hoots that
American boots that were kicked out of Vietnam and are being kicked
out elsewhere and especially out of Latin America, are now stomping
around in this country? When Barkha Dutt and Vikram Chandra and
others invite Indian intellectuals, historians, economists and
political scientists who wish to raise some fundamental issues about
Indian democracy, they are swept away by the undignified hollerings
of the loafers they also invite. So first rule: Do not invite more
than three people, at a time. Let them speak to a very specific and
elevated concept about the actual workings of Indian democracy. Let
them conclude and do not bust them up, half way, with your own
impatient and argumentative vox populi style journalism. If you need
to invite other people, arrange for a Part 2 of the same debate, with
others.
What are some other reasons?
Aside from the two or three people at a time that PBS and National
Public Radio invite, the calibre of the people invited also happen to
be those with extraordinary historical acumen and analytical skills.
Mr. Chandra, amongst the hordes he invites, brings in loafer-type MPs
from the BJP and CPM to trot out their standard rhetoric on behalf of
“Indian parliamentary democracy, law and order, national security and
non-violence”. The BJP fellow keeps ranting hysterically about how
“criminal” the Maoists are with their barrel of the gun power
politics and the wily CPI(M) fellow (typical of the Bengal CPIM)
snidely jibes away, with a crooked smile on his lips, at the Maoists
for not “following the example of the Nepali Maoists.” Also invited
are a Maoist sympathizing poet, a Gandhian activist, another EPW
editor, a retired police officer (who turns out to be quite sane,
decent and at least logical, despite his law and order leanings).
Surprisingly, there is also a young Congress MP from Andhra, who is
quite lucid that the Naxalite problem cannot be a resolved by guns
and choppers, when for sixty two years the State has been absent in
the lives of the Adivasis. Anyone who is decent (and the Congress MP
who seems very much like one) and waits his turn, does not get the chance
to lay down the facts. He or she is either shouted down or stopped short
by Chandra or Dutt. Such a procession of flag bearers and party hacks
and straight laced law and order folks can never provide education to
the masses, who expect to imbibe something from these shows. It ends
up being a five-a-side indoor football mêlée and opinions, ideas are
never developed. People go home, convinced that India is a
flourishing but troubled democracy, Naxalites are violent idealists
backed by foreigners and terrorists, that wealth will trickle down
someday to the poor if law and order is maintained and the ultimate
profanity ---that if Maoists participated in the democratic process
(as some other Naxalites seem to be) then they could also have their
day under the sun! All these sacred Indian cows are then chewed
vociferously and thenspat out like pan-masala on the walls of Indian
media, for the next half hour in rapid-fire mode. By the time we are
two minutes into these so-called forums, not a single assertion is
made about the actual facts. There is no discussion on what
constitutes “development”, no discussion on institutionalized
violence, no discussion the existing statutes of the Indian
constitution and how they remain unfulfilled after 60 years, no
discussion on the role of the Indian Police force, dubbed as the
world’s worst law-breaking and human rights violating outfit, no
discussion on the charter rights of the aboriginal people of India,
no discussion on the megalomaniac plans of P. Chidambaran to relocate
85% of India’s population into urban centres, no discussion on the
devastating and stultifying environmental impact of damming India’s
rivers and attempting to join them up (another Chidambaran hair-
brained plan) and no discussion on the twenty five years of
systematic development work in the Dandakaranya, which the Naxalites
have engaged in from using shifting crop agriculture, innovative
irrigation, land distribution, mobile educational projects, health
clinics, where for 62 years the GOI has done zip. Mr. Chandra
demonstrates clearly that he is not a moderator, not a listener, that
he has come made up his mind and injects silly conclusions each time
the bell rings for an ad and Barkha Dutt does the same with a proto
yank mannerism-- “Don’t go away.” In reality, it is time to switch
off. But I keep my patience till the end and until the swishing
militarist/western sound effects that keep happening every few
seconds, come to a final end.
When I sat down to write this essay, I was reminded of a time, in the
early seventies when I was in the US and the Watergate scandal had
broken out and Nixon was about to be indicted. I was sitting in a
room with African American friends, when one of the TV commentators,
mostly white at that time, declared that American Democracy would
weather this storm and the rebels in US campuses were nothing but
agents of foreign left-wing governments. My buddy, who sat next to
me, spat out two words-- “Your mama”!
Trevor Selvam is a free lance journalist
By Trevor Selvam
29 October, 2009 - > Countercurrents.org
In the past two weeks, I have viewed three shows on NDTV 24/7 and one
on CNN-IBN live. On one NDTV show, the moderator was Mr. Vikram
Chandra and the other one had the ubiquitous Ms. Barkha Dutt. The CNN-
IBN show was moderated by Ms Sagarika Ghose. All three of the shows
had to do with Naxalites or Maoists. The NDTV shows had the
emblematic war-drum like sound effects and graphic interplay that
aped the “War on Terror” style of the Fox/CNN networks. The lead
caption of the “Maoist Muddle”, the talk show hosted by Ms. Dutt, had
an old Western badlands style letter font in use, which would swish
back and forth, when Ms. Dutt took a break. (No! they did not play
the theme tune from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly or Appaloosa).
Ms. Ghosh’s moderation was subdued in comparison and I would say,
more interested in extracting a minimum possible new thought process
in this discussion. However, the two guests on this show, Mr. Gautam
Navlakha of the EPW and Mr. Swapan Dasgupta of trash-the-left-any-
which-way-you-can fame, took off their gloves in no time and while
Mr. Navlakha could have restrained himself a wee bit, I could
understand the anger he felt with the asinine, Rush Limbaugh-esque
harangue of Mr. Dasgupta. A third guest, Mr. Sudipta Chackravarti,
writer of the book Red Sun, attempted to steer a safer line between
the absurdly nonsensical right wing cant of Dasgupta and the enraged
decency of Navlakha and got nowhere in terms of contributing to the
discussion. While this particular show did make an attempt at clean
lines and decency in terms of format, the NDTV show, as usual, was
like a Vegas-style slot machine/ video game box circus with Ms. Dutt
rushing around town-hall style, impatient as hell, and making shallow
summaries from time to time. Mr Vikram Chandra used his stationary
command centre approach to parse everyone’s unfinished thoughts,
by interrupting them and making sweeping summaries and essentially
telling off those who wanted to raise larger issues. Barkha Dutt’s
pancake makeup and potty-designer clothes added further vacuous glitter
and frenzy to the otherwise polyvinyl theatre that she now stages frequently.
I think Ms. Dutt has run out of the chutzpah that characterized her initial
foray into cable news and live reporting. She has bought into the
ethos that employs her i.e be true to the status quo definition of
the nation, no matter what, uphold some sanctimonious interpretations
of “terror, violence and democracy” and mendaciously ignore the
institutionalized violence that characterizes the Indian state and
all its institutions, especially the police. I am sure the fact that
there are at least one hundred criminals sitting in the Indian Parliament,
does not seem to have any impact whatsoever on all these apologists in her show,regarding the greatness of “the world’s largest democracy.” One of
the goofy guests in the show, named Tavleen Singh, gave an “Arey
Baba!” style shpeel on how great it is to be part of Indian democracy
and not be part of Pakistan or China. No jingoism there! And these
are experts on “the greatest threat to Indian democracy”?
What is wrong with these shows?
They all pander to a sensationalist, alarmist and finally a
fabricated version of the facts on the ground to start with. In their
rush to compete with each other they also use melodramatic
terminology to describe events. During a Chukka Bundh or a Rail Roko
(stopping trains during a general strike in an area, for example West
Mednipur) , some channels in no time started referring to it as a
“Train Hijack”. Chukka Bandh has been going on for ages. In fact in
India it happens almost every day. People vent their anger by
stopping trains. A hijack is something else and as a result in no
time people are talking about the Taleban and prisoner swaps etc.
Arnab Goswami’s Foxy network (Times Now) goes over the deep edge with
Goswami almost leaking sputum from the sides of his mouth, calling
the Lalgarh PCPA, a “ terrorist” outfit repeatedly during his so-
called moderation of events. He invites people to speak and then
trashes them continuously, hogging the limelight himself and repeatedly
changing his “one basic question” several times. Santhals and tribals with traditional weaponry are called “armed Maoists and terrorists.” Even the CNN
and BBC prefer to use words like militants, referring to these same
incidents. Goswami, of course, is universally recognized in India as
the yellowest of all TV moderators.
The primary problem, as I had stated elsewhere in a previous essay,
is that these Indian TV channels have not gone through the stage of
development that American radio and TV shows had gone through—of
nuanced, thoughtful interdictions---that preceded the Wolf-
Blitzerization of Cable news. The Bill Moyers and the Amy Goodmans of
PBS, NPR and Democracy Now! have for a long period of time upheld
decent, selfless, incisive, conclusive interviews and glamour, glitz
and circus acts have not been their bag. A tradition exists in
American radio and to a certain extent in Public TV that preceded
Time-Warner’s onslaught on the mind waves.
India’s Doordarshan, staid and unexciting as it often may seem, does
not follow this bombastic TV style that Barkha Dutt and Vikram
Chandra espouse. But, Indian TV has missed out on the tradition of
the thoughtful radio show. It has taken a leap into the nightmare
Vegas style, as far as intellectual cadence goes. Pretty much like
the fact that India also skipped over (for the most part) the laying
down of optical fibre-glass high speed lines and jumped into the wi-
fi data card and satellite disc technology, at least in some regions.
Convenient, but unnatural, in some respects. There is thus a missing
link in India’s media development. It is not a matter of quickly leap-
frogging into the newest technology; it is very simply a question of
missing out on a stage of incipient intellectual development. And
that stage requires some genuflection on what it is to be a real
democracy. Having elections every five years or having law courts and
elected officials (even without criminal records) amounts to drawing
lane markers on Indian city roads. Nobody takes it seriously or
avails of it with pride. It is like an attempt at showcasing the
trappings of democracy. As simple as that. When Mr. Chidambaran
cajoles the country’s intellectuals and so does the West Bengal
government officials, suggesting that any sympathy for the Naxalites
amounts to seditious behaviour, it is the beginning of a McCarthyite
era of “Un-Indian” activities. In that sense the Americanization of
the Indian polity has been seamless since the fall of the Berlin wall
and the collapse of the Soviet Union. It is no wonder that the Indian
state, once a champion of non-alignment and independent post-colonial
political direction, has done a fantastic somersault into the lap of
the United States. It is unthinkable that the same forces that have
just decided to “phase out ”of Iraq, have now arrived in India and
are engaging in what a US commander described, only a few hours ago
on NDTV, “the most advanced counter-insurgency operations” with
Stryker tanks and various elements of the US Army, Airborne and
Cavalry divisions and paratrooper wings, right next to New Delhi!
Does Barkha Dutt care? Does Vikram Chandra give two hoots that
American boots that were kicked out of Vietnam and are being kicked
out elsewhere and especially out of Latin America, are now stomping
around in this country? When Barkha Dutt and Vikram Chandra and
others invite Indian intellectuals, historians, economists and
political scientists who wish to raise some fundamental issues about
Indian democracy, they are swept away by the undignified hollerings
of the loafers they also invite. So first rule: Do not invite more
than three people, at a time. Let them speak to a very specific and
elevated concept about the actual workings of Indian democracy. Let
them conclude and do not bust them up, half way, with your own
impatient and argumentative vox populi style journalism. If you need
to invite other people, arrange for a Part 2 of the same debate, with
others.
What are some other reasons?
Aside from the two or three people at a time that PBS and National
Public Radio invite, the calibre of the people invited also happen to
be those with extraordinary historical acumen and analytical skills.
Mr. Chandra, amongst the hordes he invites, brings in loafer-type MPs
from the BJP and CPM to trot out their standard rhetoric on behalf of
“Indian parliamentary democracy, law and order, national security and
non-violence”. The BJP fellow keeps ranting hysterically about how
“criminal” the Maoists are with their barrel of the gun power
politics and the wily CPI(M) fellow (typical of the Bengal CPIM)
snidely jibes away, with a crooked smile on his lips, at the Maoists
for not “following the example of the Nepali Maoists.” Also invited
are a Maoist sympathizing poet, a Gandhian activist, another EPW
editor, a retired police officer (who turns out to be quite sane,
decent and at least logical, despite his law and order leanings).
Surprisingly, there is also a young Congress MP from Andhra, who is
quite lucid that the Naxalite problem cannot be a resolved by guns
and choppers, when for sixty two years the State has been absent in
the lives of the Adivasis. Anyone who is decent (and the Congress MP
who seems very much like one) and waits his turn, does not get the chance
to lay down the facts. He or she is either shouted down or stopped short
by Chandra or Dutt. Such a procession of flag bearers and party hacks
and straight laced law and order folks can never provide education to
the masses, who expect to imbibe something from these shows. It ends
up being a five-a-side indoor football mêlée and opinions, ideas are
never developed. People go home, convinced that India is a
flourishing but troubled democracy, Naxalites are violent idealists
backed by foreigners and terrorists, that wealth will trickle down
someday to the poor if law and order is maintained and the ultimate
profanity ---that if Maoists participated in the democratic process
(as some other Naxalites seem to be) then they could also have their
day under the sun! All these sacred Indian cows are then chewed
vociferously and thenspat out like pan-masala on the walls of Indian
media, for the next half hour in rapid-fire mode. By the time we are
two minutes into these so-called forums, not a single assertion is
made about the actual facts. There is no discussion on what
constitutes “development”, no discussion on institutionalized
violence, no discussion the existing statutes of the Indian
constitution and how they remain unfulfilled after 60 years, no
discussion on the role of the Indian Police force, dubbed as the
world’s worst law-breaking and human rights violating outfit, no
discussion on the charter rights of the aboriginal people of India,
no discussion on the megalomaniac plans of P. Chidambaran to relocate
85% of India’s population into urban centres, no discussion on the
devastating and stultifying environmental impact of damming India’s
rivers and attempting to join them up (another Chidambaran hair-
brained plan) and no discussion on the twenty five years of
systematic development work in the Dandakaranya, which the Naxalites
have engaged in from using shifting crop agriculture, innovative
irrigation, land distribution, mobile educational projects, health
clinics, where for 62 years the GOI has done zip. Mr. Chandra
demonstrates clearly that he is not a moderator, not a listener, that
he has come made up his mind and injects silly conclusions each time
the bell rings for an ad and Barkha Dutt does the same with a proto
yank mannerism-- “Don’t go away.” In reality, it is time to switch
off. But I keep my patience till the end and until the swishing
militarist/western sound effects that keep happening every few
seconds, come to a final end.
When I sat down to write this essay, I was reminded of a time, in the
early seventies when I was in the US and the Watergate scandal had
broken out and Nixon was about to be indicted. I was sitting in a
room with African American friends, when one of the TV commentators,
mostly white at that time, declared that American Democracy would
weather this storm and the rebels in US campuses were nothing but
agents of foreign left-wing governments. My buddy, who sat next to
me, spat out two words-- “Your mama”!
Trevor Selvam is a free lance journalist
Arundhati Roy's article in The Guardian
The heart of India is under attack
To justify enforcing a corporate land grab, the state needs an enemy – and it has chosen the Maoists
Arundhati Roy
guardian.co.uk, Friday 30 October 2009 22.00 GMT
The low, flat-topped hills of south Orissa have been home to the Dongria Kondh long before there was a country called India or a state called Orissa. The hills watched over the Kondh. The Kondh watched over the hills and worshipped them as living deities. Now these hills have been sold for the bauxite they contain. For the Kondh it's as though god had been sold. They ask how much god would go for if the god were Ram or Allah or Jesus Christ.
Perhaps the Kondh are supposed to be grateful that their Niyamgiri hill, home to their Niyam Raja, God of Universal Law, has been sold to a company with a name like Vedanta (the branch of Hindu philosophy that teaches the Ultimate Nature of Knowledge). It's one of the biggest mining corporations in the world and is owned by Anil Agarwal, the Indian billionaire who lives in London in a mansion that once belonged to the Shah of Iran. Vedanta is only one of the many multinational corporations closing in on Orissa.
If the flat-topped hills are destroyed, the forests that clothe them will be destroyed, too. So will the rivers and streams that flow out of them and irrigate the plains below. So will the Dongria Kondh. So will the hundreds of thousands of tribal people who live in the forested heart of India, and whose homeland is similarly under attack.
In our smoky, crowded cities, some people say, "So what? Someone has to pay the price of progress." Some even say, "Let's face it, these are people whose time has come. Look at any developed country – Europe, the US, Australia – they all have a 'past'." Indeed they do. So why shouldn't "we"?
In keeping with this line of thought, the government has announced Operation Green Hunt, a war purportedly against the "Maoist" rebels headquartered in the jungles of central India. Of course, the Maoists are by no means the only ones rebelling. There is a whole spectrum of struggles all over the country that people are engaged in–the landless, the Dalits, the homeless, workers, peasants, weavers. They're pitted against a juggernaut of injustices, including policies that allow a wholesale corporate takeover of people's land and resources. However, it is the Maoists that the government has singled out as being the biggest threat.
Two years ago, when things were nowhere near as bad as they are now, the prime minister described the Maoists as the "single largest internal security threat" to the country. This will probably go down as the most popular and often repeated thing he ever said. For some reason, the comment he made on 6 January, 2009, at a meeting of state chief ministers, when he described the Maoists as having only "modest capabilities", doesn't seem to have had the same raw appeal. He revealed his government's real concern on 18 June, 2009, when he told parliament: "If left-wing extremism continues to flourish in parts which have natural resources of minerals, the climate for investment would certainly be affected."
Who are the Maoists? They are members of the banned Communist party of India (Maoist) – CPI (Maoist) – one of the several descendants of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), which led the 1969 Naxalite uprising and was subsequently liquidated by the Indian government. The Maoists believe that the innate, structural inequality of Indian society can only be redressed by the violent overthrow of the Indian state. In its earlier avatars as the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) in Jharkhand and Bihar, and the People's War Group (PWG) in Andhra Pradesh, the Maoists had tremendous popular support. (When the ban on them was briefly lifted in 2004, 1.5 million people attended their rally in Warangal.)
But eventually their intercession in Andhra Pradesh ended badly. They left a violent legacy that turned some of their staunchest supporters into harsh critics. After a paroxysm of killing and counter-killing by the Andhra police as well as the Maoists, the PWG was decimated. Those who managed to survive fled Andhra Pradesh into neighbouring Chhattisgarh. There, deep in the heart of the forest, they joined colleagues who had already been working there for decades.
Not many "outsiders" have any first-hand experience of the real nature of the Maoist movement in the forest. A recent interview with one of its top leaders, Comrade Ganapathy, in Open magazine, didn't do much to change the minds of those who view the Maoists as a party with an unforgiving, totalitarian vision, which countenances no dissent whatsoever. Comrade Ganapathy said nothing that would persuade people that, were the Maoists ever to come to power, they would be equipped to properly address the almost insane diversity of India's caste-ridden society. His casual approval of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) of Sri Lanka was enough to send a shiver down even the most sympathetic of spines, not just because of the brutal ways in which the LTTE chose to wage its war, but also because of the cataclysmic tragedy that has befallen the Tamil people of Sri Lanka, who it claimed to represent, and for whom it surely must take some responsibility.
Right now in central India, the Maoists' guerrilla army is made up almost entirely of desperately poor tribal people living in conditions of such chronic hunger that it verges on famine of the kind we only associate with sub-Saharan Africa. They are people who, even after 60 years of India's so-called independence, have not had access to education, healthcare or legal redress. They are people who have been mercilessly exploited for decades, consistently cheated by small businessmen and moneylenders, the women raped as a matter of right by police and forest department personnel. Their journey back to a semblance of dignity is due in large part to the Maoist cadre who have lived and worked and fought by their side for decades.
If the tribals have taken up arms, they have done so because a government which has given them nothing but violence and neglect now wants to snatch away the last thing they have – their land. Clearly, they do not believe the government when it says it only wants to "develop" their region. Clearly, they do not believe that the roads as wide and flat as aircraft runways that are being built through their forests in Dantewada by the National Mineral Development Corporation are being built for them to walk their children to school on. They believe that if they do not fight for their land, they will be annihilated. That is why they have taken up arms.
Even if the ideologues of the Maoist movement are fighting to eventually overthrow the Indian state, right now even they know that their ragged, malnutritioned army, the bulk of whose soldiers have never seen a train or a bus or even a small town, are fighting only for survival.
In 2008, an expert group appointed by the Planning Commission submitted a report called "Development Challenges in Extremist-Affected Areas". It said, "the Naxalite (Maoist) movement has to be recognised as a political movement with a strong base among the landless and poor peasantry and adivasis. Its emergence and growth need to be contextualised in the social conditions and experience of people who form a part of it. The huge gap between state policy and performance is a feature of these conditions. Though its professed long-term ideology is capturing state power by force, in its day-to-day manifestation, it is to be looked upon as basically a fight for social justice, equality, protection, security and local development." A very far cry from the "single-largest internal security threat".
Since the Maoist rebellion is the flavour of the week, everybody, from the sleekest fat cat to the most cynical editor of the most sold-out newspaper in this country, seems to be suddenly ready to concede that it is decades of accumulated injustice that lies at the root of the problem. But instead of addressing that problem, which would mean putting the brakes on this 21st-century gold rush, they are trying to head the debate off in a completely different direction, with a noisy outburst of pious outrage about Maoist "terrorism". But they're only speaking to themselves.
The people who have taken to arms are not spending all their time watching (or performing for) TV, or reading the papers, or conducting SMS polls for the Moral Science question of the day: Is Violence Good or Bad? SMS your reply to ... They're out there. They're fighting. They believe they have the right to defend their homes and their land. They believe that they deserve justice.
In order to keep its better-off citizens absolutely safe from these dangerous people, the government has declared war on them. A war, which it tells us, may take between three and five years to win. Odd, isn't it, that even after the Mumbai attacks of 26/11, the government was prepared to talk with Pakistan? It's prepared to talk to China. But when it comes to waging war against the poor, it's playing hard.
It's not enough that special police with totemic names like Greyhounds, Cobras and Scorpions are scouring the forests with a licence to kill. It's not enough that the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), the Border Security Force (BSF) and the notorious Naga Battalion have already wreaked havoc and committed unconscionable atrocities in remote forest villages. It's not enough that the government supports and arms the Salwa Judum, the "people's militia" that has killed and raped and burned its way through the forests of Dantewada leaving 300,000 people homeless or on the run. Now the government is going to deploy the Indo-Tibetan border police and tens of thousands of paramilitary troops. It plans to set up a brigade headquarters in Bilaspur (which will displace nine villages) and an air base in Rajnandgaon (which will displace seven). Obviously, these decisions were taken a while ago. Surveys have been done, sites chosen. Interesting. War has been in the offing for a while. And now the helicopters of the Indian air force have been given the right to fire in "self-defence", the very right that the government denies its poorest citizens.
Fire at whom? How will the security forces be able to distinguish a Maoist from an ordinary person who is running terrified through the jungle? Will adivasis carrying the bows and arrows they have carried for centuries now count as Maoists too? Are non-combatant Maoist sympathisers valid targets? When I was in Dantewada, the superintendent of police showed me pictures of 19 "Maoists" that "his boys" had killed. I asked him how I was supposed to tell they were Maoists. He said, "See Ma'am, they have malaria medicines, Dettol bottles, all these things from outside."
What kind of war is Operation Green Hunt going to be? Will we ever know? Not much news comes out of the forests. Lalgarh in West Bengal has been cordoned off. Those who try to go in are being beaten and arrested. And called Maoists, of course. In Dantewada, the Vanvasi Chetana Ashram, a Gandhian ashram run by Himanshu Kumar, was bulldozed in a few hours. It was the last neutral outpost before the war zone begins, a place where journalists, activists, researchers and fact-finding teams could stay while they worked in the area.
Meanwhile, the Indian establishment has unleashed its most potent weapon. Almost overnight, our embedded media has substituted its steady supply of planted, unsubstantiated, hysterical stories about "Islamist terrorism" with planted, unsubstantiated, hysterical stories about "Red terrorism". In the midst of this racket, at ground zero, the cordon of silence is being inexorably tightened. The "Sri Lanka solution" could very well be on the cards. It's not for nothing that the Indian government blocked a European move in the UN asking for an international probe into war crimes committed by the government of Sri Lanka in its recent offensive against the Tamil Tigers.
The first move in that direction is the concerted campaign that has been orchestrated to shoehorn the myriad forms of resistance taking place in this country into a simple George Bush binary: If you are not with us, you are with the Maoists. The deliberate exaggeration of the Maoist "threat" helps the state justify militarisation. (And surely does no harm to the Maoists. Which political party would be unhappy to be singled out for such attention?) While all the oxygen is being used up by this new doppelganger of the "war on terror", the state will use the opportunity to mop up the hundreds of other resistance movements in the sweep of its military operation, calling them all Maoist sympathisers.
I use the future tense, but this process is well under way. The West Bengal government tried to do this in Nandigram and Singur but failed. Right now in Lalgarh, the Pulishi Santrash Birodhi Janasadharaner Committee or the People's Committee Against Police Atrocities – which is a people's movement that is separate from, though sympathetic to, the Maoists – is routinely referred to as an overground wing of the CPI (Maoist). Its leader, Chhatradhar Mahato, now arrested and being held without bail, is always called a "Maoist leader". We all know the story of Dr Binayak Sen, a medical doctor and a civil liberties activist, who spent two years in jail on the absolutely facile charge of being a courier for the Maoists. While the light shines brightly on Operation Green Hunt, in other parts of India, away from the theatre of war, the assault on the rights of the poor, of workers, of the landless, of those whose lands the government wishes to acquire for "public purpose", will pick up pace. Their suffering will deepen and it will be that much harder for them to get a hearing.
Once the war begins, like all wars, it will develop a momentum, a logic and an economics of its own. It will become a way of life, almost impossible to reverse. The police will be expected to behave like an army, a ruthless killing machine. The paramilitary will be expected to become like the police, a corrupt, bloated administrative force. We've seen it happen in Nagaland, Manipur and Kashmir. The only difference in the "heartland" will be that it'll become obvious very quickly to the security forces that they're only a little less wretched than the people they're fighting. In time, the divide between the people and the law enforcers will become porous. Guns and ammunition will be bought and sold. In fact, it's already happening. Whether it's the security forces or the Maoists or noncombatant civilians, the poorest people will die in this rich people's war. However, if anybody believes that this war will leave them unaffected, they should think again. The resources it'll consume will cripple the economy of this country.
Last week, civil liberties groups from all over the country organised a series of meetings in Delhi to discuss what could be done to turn the tide and stop the war. The absence of Dr Balagopal, one of the best-known civil rights activists of Andhra Pradesh, who died two weeks ago, closed around us like a physical pain. He was one of the bravest, wisest political thinkers of our time and left us just when we needed him most. Still, I'm sure he would have been reassured to hear speaker after speaker displaying the vision, the depth, the experience, the wisdom, the political acuity and, above all, the real humanity of the community of activists, academics, lawyers, judges and a range of other people who make up the civil liberties community in India. Their presence in the capital signalled that outside the arclights of our TV studios and beyond the drumbeat of media hysteria, even among India's middle classes, a humane heart still beats. Small wonder then that these are the people who the Union home minister recently accused of creating an "intellectual climate" that was conducive to "terrorism". If that charge was meant to frighten people, it had the opposite effect.
The speakers represented a range of opinion from the liberal to the radical left. Though none of those who spoke would describe themselves as Maoist, few were opposed in principle to the idea that people have a right to defend themselves against state violence. Many were uncomfortable about Maoist violence, about the "people's courts" that delivered summary justice, about the authoritarianism that was bound to permeate an armed struggle and marginalise those who did not have arms. But even as they expressed their discomfort, they knew that people's courts only existed because India's courts are out of the reach of ordinary people and that the armed struggle that has broken out in the heartland is not the first, but the very last option of a desperate people pushed to the very brink of existence. The speakers were aware of the dangers of trying to extract a simple morality out of individual incidents of heinous violence, in a situation that had already begun to look very much like war. Everybody had graduated long ago from equating the structural violence of the state with the violence of the armed resistance. In fact, retired Justice PB Sawant went so far as to thank the Maoists for forcing the establishment of this country to pay attention to the egregious injustice of the system. Hargopal from Andhra Pradesh spoke of his experience as a civil rights activist through the years of the Maoist interlude in his state. He mentioned in passing the fact that in a few days in Gujarat in 2002, Hindu mobs led by the Bajrang Dal and the VHP had killed more people than the Maoists ever had even in their bloodiest days in Andhra Pradesh.
People who had come from the war zones, from Lalgarh, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Orissa, described the police repression, the arrests, the torture, the killing, the corruption, and the fact that they sometimes seemed to take orders directly from the officials who worked for the mining companies. People described the often dubious, malign role being played by certain NGOs funded by aid agencies wholly devoted to furthering corporate prospects. Again and again they spoke of how in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh activists as well as ordinary people – anyone who was seen to be a dissenter – were being branded Maoists and imprisoned. They said that this, more than anything else, was pushing people to take up arms and join the Maoists. They asked how a government that professed its inability to resettle even a fraction of the 50 million people who had been displaced by "development" projects was suddenly able to identify 1,40,000 hectares of prime land to give to industrialists for more than 300 Special Economic Zones, India's onshore tax havens for the rich. They asked what brand of justice the supreme court was practising when it refused to review the meaning of "public purpose" in the land acquisition act even when it knew that the government was forcibly acquiring land in the name of "public purpose" to give to private corporations. They asked why when the government says that "the writ of the state must run", it seems to only mean that police stations must be put in place. Not schools or clinics or housing, or clean water, or a fair price for forest produce, or even being left alone and free from the fear of the police – anything that would make people's lives a little easier. They asked why the "writ of the state" could never be taken to mean justice.
There was a time, perhaps 10 years ago, when in meetings like these, people were still debating the model of "development" that was being thrust on them by the New Economic Policy. Now the rejection of that model is complete. It is absolute. Everyone from the Gandhians to the Maoists agree on that. The only question now is, what is the most effective way to dismantle it?
An old college friend of a friend, a big noise in the corporate world, had come along for one of the meetings out of morbid curiosity about a world he knew very little about. Even though he had disguised himself in a Fabindia kurta, he couldn't help looking (and smelling) expensive. At one point, he leaned across to me and said, "Someone should tell them not to bother. They won't win this one. They have no idea what they're up against. With the kind of money that's involved here, these companies can buy ministers and media barons and policy wonks, they can run their own NGOs, their own militias, they can buy whole governments. They'll even buy the Maoists. These good people here should save their breath and find something better to do."
When people are being brutalised, what "better" thing is there for them to do than to fight back? It's not as though anyone's offering them a choice, unless it's to commit suicide, like some of the farmers caught in a spiral of debt have done. (Am I the only one who gets the feeling that the Indian establishment and its representatives in the media are far more comfortable with the idea of poor people killing themselves in despair than with the idea of them fighting back?)
For several years, people in Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Jharkhand and West Bengal – some of them Maoists, many not – have managed to hold off the big corporations. The question now is, how will Operation Green Hunt change the nature of their struggle? What exactly are the fighting people up against?
It's true that, historically, mining companies have often won their battles against local people. Of all corporations, leaving aside the ones that make weapons, they probably have the most merciless past. They are cynical, battle-hardened campaigners and when people say, "Jaan denge par jameen nahin denge" (We'll give away our lives, but never our land), it probably bounces off them like a light drizzle on a bomb shelter. They've heard it before, in a thousand different languages, in a hundred different countries.
Right now in India, many of them are still in the first class arrivals lounge, ordering cocktails, blinking slowly like lazy predators, waiting for the Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) they have signed – some as far back as 2005 – to materialise into real money. But four years in a first class lounge is enough to test the patience of even the truly tolerant: the elaborate, if increasingly empty, rituals of democratic practice: the (sometimes rigged) public hearings, the (sometimes fake) environmental impact assessments, the (often purchased) clearances from various ministries, the long drawn-out court cases. Even phony democracy is time-consuming. And time is money.
So what kind of money are we talking about? In their seminal, soon-to-be-published work, Out of This Earth: East India Adivasis and the Aluminum Cartel, Samarendra Das and Felix Padel say that the financial value of the bauxite deposits of Orissa alone is $2.27 trillion (more than twice India's GDP). That was at 2004 prices. At today's prices it would be about $4 trillion.
Of this, officially the government gets a royalty of less than 7%. Quite often, if the mining company is a known and recognised one, the chances are that, even though the ore is still in the mountain, it will have already been traded on the futures market. So, while for the adivasis the mountain is still a living deity, the fountainhead of life and faith, the keystone of the ecological health of the region, for the corporation, it's just a cheap storage facility. Goods in storage have to be accessible. From the corporation's point of view, the bauxite will have to come out of the mountain. Such are the pressures and the exigencies of the free market.
That's just the story of the bauxite in Orissa. Expand the $4 trillion to include the value of the millions of tonnes of high-quality iron ore in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand and the 28 other precious mineral resources, including uranium, limestone, dolomite, coal, tin, granite, marble, copper, diamond, gold, quartzite, corundum, beryl, alexandrite, silica, fluorite and garnet. Add to that the power plants, the dams, the highways, the steel and cement factories, the aluminium smelters, and all the other infrastructure projects that are part of the hundreds of MoUs (more than 90 in Jharkhand alone) that have been signed. That gives us a rough outline of the scale of the operation and the desperation of the stakeholders.
The forest once known as the Dandakaranya, which stretches from West Bengal through Jharkhand, Orissa, Chhattisgarh, parts of Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra, is home to millions of India's tribal people. The media has taken to calling it the Red corridor or the Maoist corridor. It could just as accurately be called the MoUist corridor. It doesn't seem to matter at all that the fifth schedule of the constitution provides protection to adivasi people and disallows the alienation of their land. It looks as though the clause is there only to make the constitution look good – a bit of window-dressing, a slash of make-up. Scores of corporations, from relatively unknown ones to the biggest mining companies and steel manufacturers in the world, are in the fray to appropriate adivasi homelands – the Mittals, Jindals, Tata, Essar, Posco, Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton and, of course, Vedanta.
There's an MoU on every mountain, river and forest glade. We're talking about social and environmental engineering on an unimaginable scale. And most of this is secret. It's not in the public domain. Somehow I don't think that the plans afoot that would destroy one of the world's most pristine forests and ecosystems, as well as the people who live in it, will be discussed at the climate change conference in Copenhagen. Our 24-hour news channels that are so busy hunting for macabre stories of Maoist violence – and making them up when they run out of the real thing – seem to have no interest at all in this side of the story. I wonder why?
Perhaps it's because the development lobby to which they are so much in thrall says the mining industry will ratchet up the rate of GDP growth dramatically and provide employment to the people it displaces. This does not take into account the catastrophic costs of environmental damage. But even on its own narrow terms, it is simply untrue. Most of the money goes into the bank accounts of the mining corporations. Less than 10% comes to the public exchequer. A very tiny percentage of the displaced people get jobs, and those who do, earn slave-wages to do humiliating, backbreaking work. By caving in to this paroxysm of greed, we are bolstering other countries' economies with our ecology.
When the scale of money involved is what it is, the stakeholders are not always easy to identify. Between the CEOs in their private jets and the wretched tribal special police officers in the "people's" militias – who for a couple of thousand rupees a month fight their own people, rape, kill and burn down whole villages in an effort to clear the ground for mining to begin – there is an entire universe of primary, secondary and tertiary stakeholders.
These people don't have to declare their interests, but they're allowed to use their positions and good offices to further them. How will we ever know which political party, which ministers, which MPs, which politicians, which judges, which NGOs, which expert consultants, which police officers, have a direct or indirect stake in the booty? How will we know which newspapers reporting the latest Maoist "atrocity", which TV channels "reporting directly from ground zero" – or, more accurately, making it a point not to report from ground zero, or even more accurately, lying blatantly from ground zero – are stakeholders?
What is the provenance of the billions of dollars (several times more than India's GDP) secretly stashed away by Indian citizens in Swiss bank accounts? Where did the $2bn spent on the last general elections come from? Where do the hundreds of millions of rupees that politicians and parties pay the media for the "high-end", "low-end" and "live" pre-election "coverage packages" that P Sainath recently wrote about come from? (The next time you see a TV anchor haranguing a numb studio guest, shouting, "Why don't the Maoists stand for elections? Why don't they come in to the mainstream?", do SMS the channel saying, "Because they can't afford your rates.")
Too many questions about conflicts of interest and cronyism remain unanswered. What are we to make of the fact that the Union home minister, P Chidambaram, the chief of Operation Green Hunt, has, in his career as a corporate lawyer, represented several mining corporations? What are we to make of the fact that he was a non-executive director of Vedanta – a position from which he resigned the day he became finance minister in 2004? What are we to make of the fact that, when he became finance minister, one of the first clearances he gave for FDI was to Twinstar Holdings, a Mauritius-based company, to buy shares in Sterlite, a part of the Vedanta group?
What are we to make of the fact that, when activists from Orissa filed a case against Vedanta in the supreme court, citing its violations of government guidelines and pointing out that the Norwegian Pension Fund had withdrawn its investment from the company alleging gross environmental damage and human rights violations committed by the company, Justice Kapadia suggested that Vedanta be substituted with Sterlite, a sister company of the same group? He then blithely announced in an open court that he, too, had shares in Sterlite. He gave forest clearance to Sterlite to go ahead with the mining, despite the fact that the supreme court's own expert committee had explicitly said that permission should be denied and that mining would ruin the forests, water sources, environment and the lives and livelihoods of the thousands of tribals living there. Justice Kapadia gave this clearance without rebutting the report of the supreme court's own committee.
What are we to make of the fact that the Salwa Judum, the brutal ground-clearing operation disguised as a "spontaneous" people's militia in Dantewada, was formally inaugurated in 2005, just days after the MoU with the Tatas was signed? And that the Jungle Warfare Training School in Bastar was set up just around then?
What are we to make of the fact that two weeks ago, on 12 October, the mandatory public hearing for Tata Steel's steel project in Lohandiguda, Dantewada, was held in a small hall inside the collectorate, cordoned off with massive security, with an audience of 50 tribal people brought in from two Bastar villages in a convoy of government jeeps? (The public hearing was declared a success and the district collector congratulated the people of Bastar for their co-operation.)
What are we to make of the fact that just around the time the prime minister began to call the Maoists the "single largest internal security threat" (which was a signal that the government was getting ready to go after them), the share prices of many of the mining companies in the region skyrocketed?
The mining companies desperately need this "war". They will be the beneficiaries if the impact of the violence drives out the people who have so far managed to resist the attempts that have been made to evict them. Whether this will indeed be the outcome, or whether it'll simply swell the ranks of the Maoists remains to be seen.
Reversing this argument, Dr Ashok Mitra, former finance minister of West Bengal, in an article called "The Phantom Enemy", argues that the "grisly serial murders" that the Maoists are committing are a classic tactic, learned from guerrilla warfare textbooks. He suggests that they have built and trained a guerrilla army that is now ready to take on the Indian state, and that the Maoist "rampage" is a deliberate attempt on their part to invite the wrath of a blundering, angry Indian state which the Maoists hope will commit acts of cruelty that will enrage the adivasis. That rage, Dr Mitra says, is what the Maoists hope can be harvested and transformed into an insurrection.
This, of course, is the charge of "adventurism" that several currents of the left have always levelled at the Maoists. It suggests that Maoist ideologues are not above inviting destruction on the very people they claim to represent in order to bring about a revolution that will bring them to power. Ashok Mitra is an old Communist who had a ringside seat during the Naxalite uprising of the 60s and 70s in West Bengal. His views cannot be summarily dismissed. But it's worth keeping in mind that the adivasi people have a long and courageous history of resistance that predates the birth of Maoism. To look upon them as brainless puppets being manipulated by a few middle-class Maoist ideologues is to do them a disservice.
Presumably Dr Mitra is talking about the situation in Lalgarh where, up to now, there has been no talk of mineral wealth. (Lest we forget – the current uprising in Lalgarh was sparked off over the chief minister's visit to inaugurate a Jindal Steel factory. And where there's a steel factory, can the iron ore be very far away?) The people's anger has to do with their desperate poverty, and the decades of suffering at the hands of the police and the Harmads, the armed militia of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) that has ruled West Bengal for more than 30 years.
Even if, for argument's sake, we don't ask what tens of thousands of police and paramilitary troops are doing in Lalgarh, and we accept the theory of Maoist "adventurism", it would still be only a very small part of the picture.
The real problem is that the flagship of India's miraculous "growth" story has run aground. It came at a huge social and environmental cost. And now, as the rivers dry up and forests disappear, as the water table recedes and as people realise what is being done to them, the chickens are coming home to roost. All over the country, there's unrest, there are protests by people refusing to give up their land and their access to resources, refusing to believe false promises any more. Suddenly, it's beginning to look as though the 10% growth rate and democracy are mutually incompatible.
To get the bauxite out of the flat-topped hills, to get iron ore out from under the forest floor, to get 85% of India's people off their land and into the cities (which is what Chidambaram says he'd like to see), India has to become a police state. The government has to militarise. To justify that militarisation, it needs an enemy. The Maoists are that enemy. They are to corporate fundamentalists what the Muslims are to Hindu fundamentalists. (Is there a fraternity of fundamentalists? Is that why the RSS has expressed open admiration for Chidambaram?)
It would be a grave mistake to imagine that the paramilitary troops, the Rajnandgaon air base, the Bilaspur brigade headquarters, the unlawful activities act, the Chhattisgarh special public security act and Operation Green Hunt are all being put in place just to flush out a few thousand Maoists from the forests. In all the talk of Operation Green Hunt, whether or not Chidambaram goes ahead and "presses the button", I detect the kernel of a coming state of emergency. (Here's a maths question: If it takes 600,000 soldiers to hold down the tiny valley of Kashmir, how many will it take to contain the mounting rage of hundreds of millions of people?)
Instead of narco-analysing Kobad Ghandy, the recently arrested Maoist leader, it might be a better idea to talk to him.
In the meanwhile, will someone who's going to the climate change conference in Copenhagen later this year please ask the only question worth asking: Can we leave the bauxite in the mountain?
To justify enforcing a corporate land grab, the state needs an enemy – and it has chosen the Maoists
Arundhati Roy
guardian.co.uk, Friday 30 October 2009 22.00 GMT
The low, flat-topped hills of south Orissa have been home to the Dongria Kondh long before there was a country called India or a state called Orissa. The hills watched over the Kondh. The Kondh watched over the hills and worshipped them as living deities. Now these hills have been sold for the bauxite they contain. For the Kondh it's as though god had been sold. They ask how much god would go for if the god were Ram or Allah or Jesus Christ.
Perhaps the Kondh are supposed to be grateful that their Niyamgiri hill, home to their Niyam Raja, God of Universal Law, has been sold to a company with a name like Vedanta (the branch of Hindu philosophy that teaches the Ultimate Nature of Knowledge). It's one of the biggest mining corporations in the world and is owned by Anil Agarwal, the Indian billionaire who lives in London in a mansion that once belonged to the Shah of Iran. Vedanta is only one of the many multinational corporations closing in on Orissa.
If the flat-topped hills are destroyed, the forests that clothe them will be destroyed, too. So will the rivers and streams that flow out of them and irrigate the plains below. So will the Dongria Kondh. So will the hundreds of thousands of tribal people who live in the forested heart of India, and whose homeland is similarly under attack.
In our smoky, crowded cities, some people say, "So what? Someone has to pay the price of progress." Some even say, "Let's face it, these are people whose time has come. Look at any developed country – Europe, the US, Australia – they all have a 'past'." Indeed they do. So why shouldn't "we"?
In keeping with this line of thought, the government has announced Operation Green Hunt, a war purportedly against the "Maoist" rebels headquartered in the jungles of central India. Of course, the Maoists are by no means the only ones rebelling. There is a whole spectrum of struggles all over the country that people are engaged in–the landless, the Dalits, the homeless, workers, peasants, weavers. They're pitted against a juggernaut of injustices, including policies that allow a wholesale corporate takeover of people's land and resources. However, it is the Maoists that the government has singled out as being the biggest threat.
Two years ago, when things were nowhere near as bad as they are now, the prime minister described the Maoists as the "single largest internal security threat" to the country. This will probably go down as the most popular and often repeated thing he ever said. For some reason, the comment he made on 6 January, 2009, at a meeting of state chief ministers, when he described the Maoists as having only "modest capabilities", doesn't seem to have had the same raw appeal. He revealed his government's real concern on 18 June, 2009, when he told parliament: "If left-wing extremism continues to flourish in parts which have natural resources of minerals, the climate for investment would certainly be affected."
Who are the Maoists? They are members of the banned Communist party of India (Maoist) – CPI (Maoist) – one of the several descendants of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), which led the 1969 Naxalite uprising and was subsequently liquidated by the Indian government. The Maoists believe that the innate, structural inequality of Indian society can only be redressed by the violent overthrow of the Indian state. In its earlier avatars as the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) in Jharkhand and Bihar, and the People's War Group (PWG) in Andhra Pradesh, the Maoists had tremendous popular support. (When the ban on them was briefly lifted in 2004, 1.5 million people attended their rally in Warangal.)
But eventually their intercession in Andhra Pradesh ended badly. They left a violent legacy that turned some of their staunchest supporters into harsh critics. After a paroxysm of killing and counter-killing by the Andhra police as well as the Maoists, the PWG was decimated. Those who managed to survive fled Andhra Pradesh into neighbouring Chhattisgarh. There, deep in the heart of the forest, they joined colleagues who had already been working there for decades.
Not many "outsiders" have any first-hand experience of the real nature of the Maoist movement in the forest. A recent interview with one of its top leaders, Comrade Ganapathy, in Open magazine, didn't do much to change the minds of those who view the Maoists as a party with an unforgiving, totalitarian vision, which countenances no dissent whatsoever. Comrade Ganapathy said nothing that would persuade people that, were the Maoists ever to come to power, they would be equipped to properly address the almost insane diversity of India's caste-ridden society. His casual approval of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) of Sri Lanka was enough to send a shiver down even the most sympathetic of spines, not just because of the brutal ways in which the LTTE chose to wage its war, but also because of the cataclysmic tragedy that has befallen the Tamil people of Sri Lanka, who it claimed to represent, and for whom it surely must take some responsibility.
Right now in central India, the Maoists' guerrilla army is made up almost entirely of desperately poor tribal people living in conditions of such chronic hunger that it verges on famine of the kind we only associate with sub-Saharan Africa. They are people who, even after 60 years of India's so-called independence, have not had access to education, healthcare or legal redress. They are people who have been mercilessly exploited for decades, consistently cheated by small businessmen and moneylenders, the women raped as a matter of right by police and forest department personnel. Their journey back to a semblance of dignity is due in large part to the Maoist cadre who have lived and worked and fought by their side for decades.
If the tribals have taken up arms, they have done so because a government which has given them nothing but violence and neglect now wants to snatch away the last thing they have – their land. Clearly, they do not believe the government when it says it only wants to "develop" their region. Clearly, they do not believe that the roads as wide and flat as aircraft runways that are being built through their forests in Dantewada by the National Mineral Development Corporation are being built for them to walk their children to school on. They believe that if they do not fight for their land, they will be annihilated. That is why they have taken up arms.
Even if the ideologues of the Maoist movement are fighting to eventually overthrow the Indian state, right now even they know that their ragged, malnutritioned army, the bulk of whose soldiers have never seen a train or a bus or even a small town, are fighting only for survival.
In 2008, an expert group appointed by the Planning Commission submitted a report called "Development Challenges in Extremist-Affected Areas". It said, "the Naxalite (Maoist) movement has to be recognised as a political movement with a strong base among the landless and poor peasantry and adivasis. Its emergence and growth need to be contextualised in the social conditions and experience of people who form a part of it. The huge gap between state policy and performance is a feature of these conditions. Though its professed long-term ideology is capturing state power by force, in its day-to-day manifestation, it is to be looked upon as basically a fight for social justice, equality, protection, security and local development." A very far cry from the "single-largest internal security threat".
Since the Maoist rebellion is the flavour of the week, everybody, from the sleekest fat cat to the most cynical editor of the most sold-out newspaper in this country, seems to be suddenly ready to concede that it is decades of accumulated injustice that lies at the root of the problem. But instead of addressing that problem, which would mean putting the brakes on this 21st-century gold rush, they are trying to head the debate off in a completely different direction, with a noisy outburst of pious outrage about Maoist "terrorism". But they're only speaking to themselves.
The people who have taken to arms are not spending all their time watching (or performing for) TV, or reading the papers, or conducting SMS polls for the Moral Science question of the day: Is Violence Good or Bad? SMS your reply to ... They're out there. They're fighting. They believe they have the right to defend their homes and their land. They believe that they deserve justice.
In order to keep its better-off citizens absolutely safe from these dangerous people, the government has declared war on them. A war, which it tells us, may take between three and five years to win. Odd, isn't it, that even after the Mumbai attacks of 26/11, the government was prepared to talk with Pakistan? It's prepared to talk to China. But when it comes to waging war against the poor, it's playing hard.
It's not enough that special police with totemic names like Greyhounds, Cobras and Scorpions are scouring the forests with a licence to kill. It's not enough that the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), the Border Security Force (BSF) and the notorious Naga Battalion have already wreaked havoc and committed unconscionable atrocities in remote forest villages. It's not enough that the government supports and arms the Salwa Judum, the "people's militia" that has killed and raped and burned its way through the forests of Dantewada leaving 300,000 people homeless or on the run. Now the government is going to deploy the Indo-Tibetan border police and tens of thousands of paramilitary troops. It plans to set up a brigade headquarters in Bilaspur (which will displace nine villages) and an air base in Rajnandgaon (which will displace seven). Obviously, these decisions were taken a while ago. Surveys have been done, sites chosen. Interesting. War has been in the offing for a while. And now the helicopters of the Indian air force have been given the right to fire in "self-defence", the very right that the government denies its poorest citizens.
Fire at whom? How will the security forces be able to distinguish a Maoist from an ordinary person who is running terrified through the jungle? Will adivasis carrying the bows and arrows they have carried for centuries now count as Maoists too? Are non-combatant Maoist sympathisers valid targets? When I was in Dantewada, the superintendent of police showed me pictures of 19 "Maoists" that "his boys" had killed. I asked him how I was supposed to tell they were Maoists. He said, "See Ma'am, they have malaria medicines, Dettol bottles, all these things from outside."
What kind of war is Operation Green Hunt going to be? Will we ever know? Not much news comes out of the forests. Lalgarh in West Bengal has been cordoned off. Those who try to go in are being beaten and arrested. And called Maoists, of course. In Dantewada, the Vanvasi Chetana Ashram, a Gandhian ashram run by Himanshu Kumar, was bulldozed in a few hours. It was the last neutral outpost before the war zone begins, a place where journalists, activists, researchers and fact-finding teams could stay while they worked in the area.
Meanwhile, the Indian establishment has unleashed its most potent weapon. Almost overnight, our embedded media has substituted its steady supply of planted, unsubstantiated, hysterical stories about "Islamist terrorism" with planted, unsubstantiated, hysterical stories about "Red terrorism". In the midst of this racket, at ground zero, the cordon of silence is being inexorably tightened. The "Sri Lanka solution" could very well be on the cards. It's not for nothing that the Indian government blocked a European move in the UN asking for an international probe into war crimes committed by the government of Sri Lanka in its recent offensive against the Tamil Tigers.
The first move in that direction is the concerted campaign that has been orchestrated to shoehorn the myriad forms of resistance taking place in this country into a simple George Bush binary: If you are not with us, you are with the Maoists. The deliberate exaggeration of the Maoist "threat" helps the state justify militarisation. (And surely does no harm to the Maoists. Which political party would be unhappy to be singled out for such attention?) While all the oxygen is being used up by this new doppelganger of the "war on terror", the state will use the opportunity to mop up the hundreds of other resistance movements in the sweep of its military operation, calling them all Maoist sympathisers.
I use the future tense, but this process is well under way. The West Bengal government tried to do this in Nandigram and Singur but failed. Right now in Lalgarh, the Pulishi Santrash Birodhi Janasadharaner Committee or the People's Committee Against Police Atrocities – which is a people's movement that is separate from, though sympathetic to, the Maoists – is routinely referred to as an overground wing of the CPI (Maoist). Its leader, Chhatradhar Mahato, now arrested and being held without bail, is always called a "Maoist leader". We all know the story of Dr Binayak Sen, a medical doctor and a civil liberties activist, who spent two years in jail on the absolutely facile charge of being a courier for the Maoists. While the light shines brightly on Operation Green Hunt, in other parts of India, away from the theatre of war, the assault on the rights of the poor, of workers, of the landless, of those whose lands the government wishes to acquire for "public purpose", will pick up pace. Their suffering will deepen and it will be that much harder for them to get a hearing.
Once the war begins, like all wars, it will develop a momentum, a logic and an economics of its own. It will become a way of life, almost impossible to reverse. The police will be expected to behave like an army, a ruthless killing machine. The paramilitary will be expected to become like the police, a corrupt, bloated administrative force. We've seen it happen in Nagaland, Manipur and Kashmir. The only difference in the "heartland" will be that it'll become obvious very quickly to the security forces that they're only a little less wretched than the people they're fighting. In time, the divide between the people and the law enforcers will become porous. Guns and ammunition will be bought and sold. In fact, it's already happening. Whether it's the security forces or the Maoists or noncombatant civilians, the poorest people will die in this rich people's war. However, if anybody believes that this war will leave them unaffected, they should think again. The resources it'll consume will cripple the economy of this country.
Last week, civil liberties groups from all over the country organised a series of meetings in Delhi to discuss what could be done to turn the tide and stop the war. The absence of Dr Balagopal, one of the best-known civil rights activists of Andhra Pradesh, who died two weeks ago, closed around us like a physical pain. He was one of the bravest, wisest political thinkers of our time and left us just when we needed him most. Still, I'm sure he would have been reassured to hear speaker after speaker displaying the vision, the depth, the experience, the wisdom, the political acuity and, above all, the real humanity of the community of activists, academics, lawyers, judges and a range of other people who make up the civil liberties community in India. Their presence in the capital signalled that outside the arclights of our TV studios and beyond the drumbeat of media hysteria, even among India's middle classes, a humane heart still beats. Small wonder then that these are the people who the Union home minister recently accused of creating an "intellectual climate" that was conducive to "terrorism". If that charge was meant to frighten people, it had the opposite effect.
The speakers represented a range of opinion from the liberal to the radical left. Though none of those who spoke would describe themselves as Maoist, few were opposed in principle to the idea that people have a right to defend themselves against state violence. Many were uncomfortable about Maoist violence, about the "people's courts" that delivered summary justice, about the authoritarianism that was bound to permeate an armed struggle and marginalise those who did not have arms. But even as they expressed their discomfort, they knew that people's courts only existed because India's courts are out of the reach of ordinary people and that the armed struggle that has broken out in the heartland is not the first, but the very last option of a desperate people pushed to the very brink of existence. The speakers were aware of the dangers of trying to extract a simple morality out of individual incidents of heinous violence, in a situation that had already begun to look very much like war. Everybody had graduated long ago from equating the structural violence of the state with the violence of the armed resistance. In fact, retired Justice PB Sawant went so far as to thank the Maoists for forcing the establishment of this country to pay attention to the egregious injustice of the system. Hargopal from Andhra Pradesh spoke of his experience as a civil rights activist through the years of the Maoist interlude in his state. He mentioned in passing the fact that in a few days in Gujarat in 2002, Hindu mobs led by the Bajrang Dal and the VHP had killed more people than the Maoists ever had even in their bloodiest days in Andhra Pradesh.
People who had come from the war zones, from Lalgarh, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Orissa, described the police repression, the arrests, the torture, the killing, the corruption, and the fact that they sometimes seemed to take orders directly from the officials who worked for the mining companies. People described the often dubious, malign role being played by certain NGOs funded by aid agencies wholly devoted to furthering corporate prospects. Again and again they spoke of how in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh activists as well as ordinary people – anyone who was seen to be a dissenter – were being branded Maoists and imprisoned. They said that this, more than anything else, was pushing people to take up arms and join the Maoists. They asked how a government that professed its inability to resettle even a fraction of the 50 million people who had been displaced by "development" projects was suddenly able to identify 1,40,000 hectares of prime land to give to industrialists for more than 300 Special Economic Zones, India's onshore tax havens for the rich. They asked what brand of justice the supreme court was practising when it refused to review the meaning of "public purpose" in the land acquisition act even when it knew that the government was forcibly acquiring land in the name of "public purpose" to give to private corporations. They asked why when the government says that "the writ of the state must run", it seems to only mean that police stations must be put in place. Not schools or clinics or housing, or clean water, or a fair price for forest produce, or even being left alone and free from the fear of the police – anything that would make people's lives a little easier. They asked why the "writ of the state" could never be taken to mean justice.
There was a time, perhaps 10 years ago, when in meetings like these, people were still debating the model of "development" that was being thrust on them by the New Economic Policy. Now the rejection of that model is complete. It is absolute. Everyone from the Gandhians to the Maoists agree on that. The only question now is, what is the most effective way to dismantle it?
An old college friend of a friend, a big noise in the corporate world, had come along for one of the meetings out of morbid curiosity about a world he knew very little about. Even though he had disguised himself in a Fabindia kurta, he couldn't help looking (and smelling) expensive. At one point, he leaned across to me and said, "Someone should tell them not to bother. They won't win this one. They have no idea what they're up against. With the kind of money that's involved here, these companies can buy ministers and media barons and policy wonks, they can run their own NGOs, their own militias, they can buy whole governments. They'll even buy the Maoists. These good people here should save their breath and find something better to do."
When people are being brutalised, what "better" thing is there for them to do than to fight back? It's not as though anyone's offering them a choice, unless it's to commit suicide, like some of the farmers caught in a spiral of debt have done. (Am I the only one who gets the feeling that the Indian establishment and its representatives in the media are far more comfortable with the idea of poor people killing themselves in despair than with the idea of them fighting back?)
For several years, people in Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Jharkhand and West Bengal – some of them Maoists, many not – have managed to hold off the big corporations. The question now is, how will Operation Green Hunt change the nature of their struggle? What exactly are the fighting people up against?
It's true that, historically, mining companies have often won their battles against local people. Of all corporations, leaving aside the ones that make weapons, they probably have the most merciless past. They are cynical, battle-hardened campaigners and when people say, "Jaan denge par jameen nahin denge" (We'll give away our lives, but never our land), it probably bounces off them like a light drizzle on a bomb shelter. They've heard it before, in a thousand different languages, in a hundred different countries.
Right now in India, many of them are still in the first class arrivals lounge, ordering cocktails, blinking slowly like lazy predators, waiting for the Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) they have signed – some as far back as 2005 – to materialise into real money. But four years in a first class lounge is enough to test the patience of even the truly tolerant: the elaborate, if increasingly empty, rituals of democratic practice: the (sometimes rigged) public hearings, the (sometimes fake) environmental impact assessments, the (often purchased) clearances from various ministries, the long drawn-out court cases. Even phony democracy is time-consuming. And time is money.
So what kind of money are we talking about? In their seminal, soon-to-be-published work, Out of This Earth: East India Adivasis and the Aluminum Cartel, Samarendra Das and Felix Padel say that the financial value of the bauxite deposits of Orissa alone is $2.27 trillion (more than twice India's GDP). That was at 2004 prices. At today's prices it would be about $4 trillion.
Of this, officially the government gets a royalty of less than 7%. Quite often, if the mining company is a known and recognised one, the chances are that, even though the ore is still in the mountain, it will have already been traded on the futures market. So, while for the adivasis the mountain is still a living deity, the fountainhead of life and faith, the keystone of the ecological health of the region, for the corporation, it's just a cheap storage facility. Goods in storage have to be accessible. From the corporation's point of view, the bauxite will have to come out of the mountain. Such are the pressures and the exigencies of the free market.
That's just the story of the bauxite in Orissa. Expand the $4 trillion to include the value of the millions of tonnes of high-quality iron ore in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand and the 28 other precious mineral resources, including uranium, limestone, dolomite, coal, tin, granite, marble, copper, diamond, gold, quartzite, corundum, beryl, alexandrite, silica, fluorite and garnet. Add to that the power plants, the dams, the highways, the steel and cement factories, the aluminium smelters, and all the other infrastructure projects that are part of the hundreds of MoUs (more than 90 in Jharkhand alone) that have been signed. That gives us a rough outline of the scale of the operation and the desperation of the stakeholders.
The forest once known as the Dandakaranya, which stretches from West Bengal through Jharkhand, Orissa, Chhattisgarh, parts of Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra, is home to millions of India's tribal people. The media has taken to calling it the Red corridor or the Maoist corridor. It could just as accurately be called the MoUist corridor. It doesn't seem to matter at all that the fifth schedule of the constitution provides protection to adivasi people and disallows the alienation of their land. It looks as though the clause is there only to make the constitution look good – a bit of window-dressing, a slash of make-up. Scores of corporations, from relatively unknown ones to the biggest mining companies and steel manufacturers in the world, are in the fray to appropriate adivasi homelands – the Mittals, Jindals, Tata, Essar, Posco, Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton and, of course, Vedanta.
There's an MoU on every mountain, river and forest glade. We're talking about social and environmental engineering on an unimaginable scale. And most of this is secret. It's not in the public domain. Somehow I don't think that the plans afoot that would destroy one of the world's most pristine forests and ecosystems, as well as the people who live in it, will be discussed at the climate change conference in Copenhagen. Our 24-hour news channels that are so busy hunting for macabre stories of Maoist violence – and making them up when they run out of the real thing – seem to have no interest at all in this side of the story. I wonder why?
Perhaps it's because the development lobby to which they are so much in thrall says the mining industry will ratchet up the rate of GDP growth dramatically and provide employment to the people it displaces. This does not take into account the catastrophic costs of environmental damage. But even on its own narrow terms, it is simply untrue. Most of the money goes into the bank accounts of the mining corporations. Less than 10% comes to the public exchequer. A very tiny percentage of the displaced people get jobs, and those who do, earn slave-wages to do humiliating, backbreaking work. By caving in to this paroxysm of greed, we are bolstering other countries' economies with our ecology.
When the scale of money involved is what it is, the stakeholders are not always easy to identify. Between the CEOs in their private jets and the wretched tribal special police officers in the "people's" militias – who for a couple of thousand rupees a month fight their own people, rape, kill and burn down whole villages in an effort to clear the ground for mining to begin – there is an entire universe of primary, secondary and tertiary stakeholders.
These people don't have to declare their interests, but they're allowed to use their positions and good offices to further them. How will we ever know which political party, which ministers, which MPs, which politicians, which judges, which NGOs, which expert consultants, which police officers, have a direct or indirect stake in the booty? How will we know which newspapers reporting the latest Maoist "atrocity", which TV channels "reporting directly from ground zero" – or, more accurately, making it a point not to report from ground zero, or even more accurately, lying blatantly from ground zero – are stakeholders?
What is the provenance of the billions of dollars (several times more than India's GDP) secretly stashed away by Indian citizens in Swiss bank accounts? Where did the $2bn spent on the last general elections come from? Where do the hundreds of millions of rupees that politicians and parties pay the media for the "high-end", "low-end" and "live" pre-election "coverage packages" that P Sainath recently wrote about come from? (The next time you see a TV anchor haranguing a numb studio guest, shouting, "Why don't the Maoists stand for elections? Why don't they come in to the mainstream?", do SMS the channel saying, "Because they can't afford your rates.")
Too many questions about conflicts of interest and cronyism remain unanswered. What are we to make of the fact that the Union home minister, P Chidambaram, the chief of Operation Green Hunt, has, in his career as a corporate lawyer, represented several mining corporations? What are we to make of the fact that he was a non-executive director of Vedanta – a position from which he resigned the day he became finance minister in 2004? What are we to make of the fact that, when he became finance minister, one of the first clearances he gave for FDI was to Twinstar Holdings, a Mauritius-based company, to buy shares in Sterlite, a part of the Vedanta group?
What are we to make of the fact that, when activists from Orissa filed a case against Vedanta in the supreme court, citing its violations of government guidelines and pointing out that the Norwegian Pension Fund had withdrawn its investment from the company alleging gross environmental damage and human rights violations committed by the company, Justice Kapadia suggested that Vedanta be substituted with Sterlite, a sister company of the same group? He then blithely announced in an open court that he, too, had shares in Sterlite. He gave forest clearance to Sterlite to go ahead with the mining, despite the fact that the supreme court's own expert committee had explicitly said that permission should be denied and that mining would ruin the forests, water sources, environment and the lives and livelihoods of the thousands of tribals living there. Justice Kapadia gave this clearance without rebutting the report of the supreme court's own committee.
What are we to make of the fact that the Salwa Judum, the brutal ground-clearing operation disguised as a "spontaneous" people's militia in Dantewada, was formally inaugurated in 2005, just days after the MoU with the Tatas was signed? And that the Jungle Warfare Training School in Bastar was set up just around then?
What are we to make of the fact that two weeks ago, on 12 October, the mandatory public hearing for Tata Steel's steel project in Lohandiguda, Dantewada, was held in a small hall inside the collectorate, cordoned off with massive security, with an audience of 50 tribal people brought in from two Bastar villages in a convoy of government jeeps? (The public hearing was declared a success and the district collector congratulated the people of Bastar for their co-operation.)
What are we to make of the fact that just around the time the prime minister began to call the Maoists the "single largest internal security threat" (which was a signal that the government was getting ready to go after them), the share prices of many of the mining companies in the region skyrocketed?
The mining companies desperately need this "war". They will be the beneficiaries if the impact of the violence drives out the people who have so far managed to resist the attempts that have been made to evict them. Whether this will indeed be the outcome, or whether it'll simply swell the ranks of the Maoists remains to be seen.
Reversing this argument, Dr Ashok Mitra, former finance minister of West Bengal, in an article called "The Phantom Enemy", argues that the "grisly serial murders" that the Maoists are committing are a classic tactic, learned from guerrilla warfare textbooks. He suggests that they have built and trained a guerrilla army that is now ready to take on the Indian state, and that the Maoist "rampage" is a deliberate attempt on their part to invite the wrath of a blundering, angry Indian state which the Maoists hope will commit acts of cruelty that will enrage the adivasis. That rage, Dr Mitra says, is what the Maoists hope can be harvested and transformed into an insurrection.
This, of course, is the charge of "adventurism" that several currents of the left have always levelled at the Maoists. It suggests that Maoist ideologues are not above inviting destruction on the very people they claim to represent in order to bring about a revolution that will bring them to power. Ashok Mitra is an old Communist who had a ringside seat during the Naxalite uprising of the 60s and 70s in West Bengal. His views cannot be summarily dismissed. But it's worth keeping in mind that the adivasi people have a long and courageous history of resistance that predates the birth of Maoism. To look upon them as brainless puppets being manipulated by a few middle-class Maoist ideologues is to do them a disservice.
Presumably Dr Mitra is talking about the situation in Lalgarh where, up to now, there has been no talk of mineral wealth. (Lest we forget – the current uprising in Lalgarh was sparked off over the chief minister's visit to inaugurate a Jindal Steel factory. And where there's a steel factory, can the iron ore be very far away?) The people's anger has to do with their desperate poverty, and the decades of suffering at the hands of the police and the Harmads, the armed militia of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) that has ruled West Bengal for more than 30 years.
Even if, for argument's sake, we don't ask what tens of thousands of police and paramilitary troops are doing in Lalgarh, and we accept the theory of Maoist "adventurism", it would still be only a very small part of the picture.
The real problem is that the flagship of India's miraculous "growth" story has run aground. It came at a huge social and environmental cost. And now, as the rivers dry up and forests disappear, as the water table recedes and as people realise what is being done to them, the chickens are coming home to roost. All over the country, there's unrest, there are protests by people refusing to give up their land and their access to resources, refusing to believe false promises any more. Suddenly, it's beginning to look as though the 10% growth rate and democracy are mutually incompatible.
To get the bauxite out of the flat-topped hills, to get iron ore out from under the forest floor, to get 85% of India's people off their land and into the cities (which is what Chidambaram says he'd like to see), India has to become a police state. The government has to militarise. To justify that militarisation, it needs an enemy. The Maoists are that enemy. They are to corporate fundamentalists what the Muslims are to Hindu fundamentalists. (Is there a fraternity of fundamentalists? Is that why the RSS has expressed open admiration for Chidambaram?)
It would be a grave mistake to imagine that the paramilitary troops, the Rajnandgaon air base, the Bilaspur brigade headquarters, the unlawful activities act, the Chhattisgarh special public security act and Operation Green Hunt are all being put in place just to flush out a few thousand Maoists from the forests. In all the talk of Operation Green Hunt, whether or not Chidambaram goes ahead and "presses the button", I detect the kernel of a coming state of emergency. (Here's a maths question: If it takes 600,000 soldiers to hold down the tiny valley of Kashmir, how many will it take to contain the mounting rage of hundreds of millions of people?)
Instead of narco-analysing Kobad Ghandy, the recently arrested Maoist leader, it might be a better idea to talk to him.
In the meanwhile, will someone who's going to the climate change conference in Copenhagen later this year please ask the only question worth asking: Can we leave the bauxite in the mountain?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
