Jhina Hikaka with his wife and two sons meeting chief minister Naveen Patnaik at Naveen Niwas in Bhubaneswar 4 days after he was released. PHOTO: SWAGATAM MUKHERJEE
DEBABRATA MOHANTY
MAY 4, 2012
When Biju Janata Dal’s young tribal MLA from Laxmipur, Jhina Hikaka was released by Maoists on April 26 after 34 day’s captivity, Orissa chief minister Naveen Patnaik surely heaved a sigh of relief. So after Hikaka walked out of Maoist camp, a relieved Naveen ordered playing Ram Dhoon in State Assembly, Secretariat and several other Maoist-affected districts, it prompted a wag to comment: “I thought they would play Raam Nam satya hai instead of Ram dhoon.”
The wag’s comment may have been a little too cynical, but it was a clear indicator that the government viewed the release of its MLA as a major success even as the ultras had managed to armtwist it for a month and a half. Ironically, as Ram dhoon was being played, a worried Hikaka was telling some of his close friends that he may resign from Orissa Assembly as well as the Biju Janata Dal as promised to the Maoist leadership in a “praja court” for staying alive.
If the MLA indeed resigns from Assembly due to Maoist diktat, then no more proof would be required that Koraput is now more or less a Mao territory than a district where the government’s writ runs. Before the MLA abduction, Koraput had almost slipped out of government control with Maoists wreaking havoc in Narayanpatna block, where they killed 44 civilians and scores of policemen in last 4 years. The block has been cut off from Koraput since last 7 days with the rebels blocking the Laxmipur-Narayanpatna road with huge tree trunks. Koraput has already overtaken Malkangiri as the district worst-affected by Maoist violence. Last year, it was Malkangiri, another Maoist-infested district, where the rebels stamped their authority by abducting the then collector R Vineel Krishna when he was touring the cut-off area of the district. Krishna was released after 9 days of captivity, but not before the Maoists managed to free their ideologue Ganti Prasadam, central committee member Ramakrishna’s wife Padma and some others in lieu of the collector’s freedom. But after Krishna’s freedom, the Malkangiri district administration has not been able to set foot in the cut-off area(150-odd villages separated from Orissa mainland by Balimela reservoir since 60s) making it a so-called liberated zone of Maoists.
Compared to the Malkangiri collector’s abduction, the BJD MLA’s abduction may have far reaching consequences for the Maoist movement in Orissa as it has helped the rebels make some strategic gains in Narayanpatna block of Koraput. In 2009, Maoists were planning to make Narayanpatna as the new Lalgarh by propping up a tribal organisaton Chasi Mulia Adivasi Sangh. Narayanpatna offered a seamless transit point for the rebels as Maoists from Andhra-Orissa border could slip into the lofty mountains there from neighbouring Parvatipuram of Andhra Pradesh and then further sneak into Malkangiri. The offensive against police reached a crescendo as CMAS activists unsuccessfully raided the Narayanpatna police station in November 2009 which led to death of 2 of their activists. The follow-up police action coupled with some important arrests as that of top Maoist leader Chenda Bhushanam alias Ghasi helped curb the growth of CMAS and free movement of Maoist cadres in interior Narayanpatna. But lack of developmental activities there in last 2 years managed to nullify the government presence there which helped the CMAS get their candidates elected unopposed in this year’s panchayat election. The abduction of the BJD MLA has not only helped bolster the morale of the Maoist cadres there, it has also meant making a fresh bid to reclaim Narayanpatna. Winning Narayanpatna would not only mean winning Koraput, it would also mean Maoists getting control of Malkangiri as the only way one could reach the latter is through Koraput.
But before Maoists actually started marking their presence in Koraput and Malkangiri, both the districts had fallen off the development map despite government pumping in huge amount of money. Both the districts are considered as punishment postings for government servants. Between 2007 and 2012, Koraput has seen 6 collectors with some of the officers staying there for just about 3 months. Service delivery has been crippled in Malkangiri where there are over 500 vacancies including that of sub-collectors, DRDA project director, tehsildars and BDOs while Koraput has over 200 such cutting-edge vacancies. In the health sector, there are over 100 doctor vacancies in these two districts. Apart from that the primary and secondary education is a mess in both the district with over 2000 teacher vacancies in both the districts. With the district administration in shambles, last year Koraput was forced to return Rs 500 crore of its allocated funds. But the chief minister hardly loses sleep over the two districts slipping out of government control. After the MLA abduction, the situation is now likely to worsen in these districts as the government officials and public representatives are running scared that they may be the next target of abduction.
The biggest tragedy of course is that Naveen has shown little imagination or initiative faced with one of the biggest challenges of his political career. Instead of directly engaging with the officials at the ground level for a lasting solution to the Maoist problem, Naveen has chosen administrative aloofness over swift action. While the policies are well-meaning, none of those get translated on ground due to lack of follow-up at the top. Even as he pleads for more central paramilitary forces to fight the red challenge, the state police remains utterly demoralized and a divided house. The forces fighting the Maoists on the ground get little or no encouragement from either the chief minister or the DGP over their achievements.
Playing Ram dhoon may be an appealing idea to the aesthetic sensibilities of Naveen, but it would surely be drowned out by the war cries of Maoists in Orissa if the chief minister does not show his resoluteness in fighting the rebels. If the CM fails, an Independent republic of Koraput and Malkangiri administered by Mao’s army may soon be a frightening reality.
DEBABRATA MOHANTY
MALKANGIRI, APRIL 10: As the merciless summer Sun bakes the parched earth of Malkangiri, reportedly the new headquarter of the Maoist rebels, there is an uneasy calm outside the residence-cum-office of Malkangiri district collector R Vineel Krishna. About 2 months ago, people of the hill-ringed town thronged his official residence here, cheering his arrival from some Maoist hideout in craggy mountains to the town after 9 days’ of captivity. When delirious tribals of cut-off area carried him in cot and people of Malkangiri town raised slogans, for a moment Krishna resembled more like a politician who has just won an election rather than a bureaucrat.
- Collector’s residence-cum-office in Malkangiri town. Post-abduction it is now guarded by armed policemen round the clock.
- Malkangiri district collector Vineel Krishna
The initial euphoria over the release of abducted Malkangiri district collector R Vineel Krishna has now given way to a collective weariness in the district’s bureaucracy. A month after his release, Krishna seems to be a much-worried man, concerned as much over the political and security fallout of his abduction as the his subsequent tenure in the district with opposition parties clamouring for his immediate transfer. With his wife and family members understandably nervous about his security, Krishna has been attending work from his residence-cum-office after he rejoined duty on March 21 following a visits to his family and in-laws’ in Hyderabad and Bangalore. Krishna, who once detested any security cover for himself, now has to contend with 8 armed securitymen from the Orissa State Armed Police around his residence.
During his pre-abduction days, the pro-tribal Krishna gained the confidence of the tribals of Malkangiri’s cut-off area as he rode pillions of motorcycles in the dusty roads to bring fruits of developments to the hapless tribals often without any concern for his personal safety. “The collector used to tell us that we are not fighting the Maoists but underdevelopment. His implicit belief was that the Maoists too wanted development and would not harm him,” said a BDO. It was during one such foray into the cut-off area across Balimela reservoir in February which led to his abduction. Having spent 9 harrowing days, Krishna is now a cautious person as much as any official in Malkangiri district, who are now scared of visiting the cut-off areas Maoist zone. The cut-off areas, essentially 224 villages in 8 grampanchayats of Kudumulgumma block separated by Baimela reservoir since Seventies, are the worst-affected by Maoist activities as its deciduous vegetations and hills have become hideouts of the fierce rebels from neighbouring Andhra Pradesh. With tall concrete Maoist memorials, painted in brick red colour and dedicated to one or the other slain rebels, lining both sides of the road Chitrakonda to the interiors of cut-off area, there is little doubt who call sthe shots here.
- At Jantapai village inside cut-off area the crumbling Mahatma Gandhi bust is overshadowed by the massive brick red Maoist memorial built in the memory of Chemkuri Rajkumar and other slain Maoist rebels. Krishna and junior engineer Pabitra Majhi were abducted from this village on Feb 17.
The almost-deserted Papermetla police station at Badapada panchayat in the cut-off area speaks volumes about the Maoist fear in the minds of police. The Orissa State Armed Police jawans who are now camping in a part of the police station have an unwritten truce with the Maoists.
The people of cut-off area, who in February rallied behind him for his release and even raided the Maoist dens are fearing the wrath of the rebels. At Jantapai village under Kudumulgumma block, where he was abducted, very few dare to talk about developmental works coming to a halt. All that one sees are sea of blank and terrified faces. A villager confided how Kudumulgumma block chairman Purna Kirsani was thrashed by Maoists.
“After collector was released, the Maoists sent word to the district administration to stop developmental work like road building. Now no one is visiting the areas except routine things like immunization and revenue collection. No junior engineers and Village Level Workers are visiting. NREGS works have come to grinding halt,” confessed D Gopalakrishnan, tehsildar of Chitrakonda, which is the gateway to the cut-off areas. The Maoist fear factor is underscored by additional district magistrate Sundarlal Seal: “What to talk of lower officials, I myself have not gone to the area.”
After the abduction, all NREGS works in the cut-off area villages have stopped leaving the roads like this.
- The Badapada Gram Panchayat office in cut-off area locked after the abduction. On the day of abduction, the collector distributed old age pensions worth Rs 25 lakh at a camp organised not far off from this place.
After his release, Krishna seems to have gone into a shell and would rather not talk to prying journalists about the days spent in Maoist captivity. However, officials say the abduction has convinced Krishna that the Maoist ideology of siding with the poor tribals is all bunkum. “It’s pure terror. Tribals don’t understand ideology and all that the Maoists do is make them aggrieved about how Balimela reservoir led to their deprivation and isolation from the mainland. They would rather be happy with the tribals living in poverty forever than government improving their lives,” said an official.
Krishna is understandably disappointed over the adverse media reports of how he was sent cashew nuts and mineral water during his captivity. But more than that he is realizing how it may not be possible for him and other officials to talk of development in the face of bullets,” said a district official wishing to remain anonymous. “In the last few months we were motivating unwilling JEs, BDOs to assistant engineers to go deep into the cut-off areas and deliver services. But after the abduction, now it has become easy for the same officials to cite excuses for not to visit the area. Earlier I was hardly bothered about the Maoist memorials. But now when I think of those structures, I get jitters,” the official added.
The abduction could not have come at a worst time as Malkangiri for the first time did well in NREGS spending about Rs 50 crore compared in 2010-11 as against Rs 20-odd crore in 2009-10. After Siligumma, the first among the cut-off village to be electrified last month, concrete electric poles were brought to Jantapai and Badapada for electrification. “But now who will come? We are now doomed to darkness,” said Parsuram Kinchayi of Jantapai, underlining the dark future for people in cut-off area.
THE UNMAKING OF MALKANGIRI
On February 16 this year, when Malkangiri district collector Vineel Krishna switched on the transformer of Siligumma village, just 6 km uphill, people of Badapada were excited about electricity coursing through their overhead wires under Rajiv Gandhi Gramya Vidyutikaran Yojana. Though Badapada was separated like all cut-off area villages due to the Balimela hydroelectric project, excitement peaked as tribals were all agog how their village would be the next one to come out of darkness.
The bridge at Arnabhatta village in cut-off area would have been complete had the Maoists not threatened the contractor last year.
The roads in some parts of the cut-off area are so bad that people have to use donkeys to transport things.
But in the post-abduction phase, that now looks a distant dream as officials fearing wrath of Maoists have almost deserted the cut-off area barring some health workers on vaccination programmes. With reports that an emergency meeting of the all-powerful central committee of CPI(Maoist) had taken place somewhere in the forests of the cut-off area between March 8 and 10, Malkangiri now seems more like the theatre of a long guerilla battle than the scene of development that the young Krishna was trying to make it since early 2010. The Maoist fear is evident on the face of a company of Orissa State Armed Police jawans, who have made the almost defunct Papermetla police station as their camp.
“We are actually at the mercy of the Maoists. If they block the only road connecting the camp to Janbai ghat, we would starve to death,” said a OSAP jawan.
“The Maoists always convinced people that the Balimela hydel project led to their isolation and underdevelopment and would stop any development projects. But people wanted development and that gave us hope,” said a district official. Apart from being hotbed of Maoist activity due to its common border with Andhra Pradesh and Chhatisgarh, Malkangiri is among India’s poorest district with 82% of people living below the poverty line. Though money was never a problem – last year the district was allocated Rs 300 crore while this year alone Rs 500 crore was allocated – since last 4 years no contractor has applied for any roadwork tender above Rs 50 lakh fearing Maoist reprisals. In Arnabichata village of cut-off area, the only bridge was about to be completed in December last year when Maoists threatened the contractor, he fled. The Badapada grampanchayat office is now shut after the abduction.
- A villager walks past the Maoist memorial at Jantapai village built in memory of slain Maoist leader Azad. The collector was abducted from this village in February.
But spurred by Krishna and his team of officials including project director of DRDA, Balwant Singh, last year people defied Maoist fiats of no developmental work, pushing Malkangiri ahead in NREGS. In 2010-11, the district generated 25 persondays generated against each jobcard, almost the same as Rajasthan considered the best performing state on NREGS. Only Kandhamal performed better compared to Malkangiri generating 26 persondays. In Malkangiri, 1.2 lakh job cards were given in 2010-11 generating NREGS work of Rs almost Rs 40 crore compared to Rs 20.5 crore done in 2009-10.
More than 6000 people got work for at least 100 days this year compared to 1000 last year. Work participation ratio in NREGS was 40 per cent, with more than 50000 people participating among the 1.2 lakh jobcards given. In Panasput grampanchayat of cut-off area, over 3000 people worked under NREGS for 3 days to lay a 7 km mud track. The road enabled transportation of a drilling rig to the panchayat for digging tubewell. In Kalimela block, Lugel GP alone spent Rs 1 crore in 2010-11 in NREGS. “The tribals wanted development and we responded. They have seen other developed areas and want development badly,” said an officer.
But not too long ago Malkangiri was a stepchild, both geographically and mentally far away from the rulers sitting in Orissa capital of Bhubaneswar. Since last 2 years, there are no BDOs in Malkangiri and Kudumulgumma block – the cut-off areas come under Kudumulgumma block. There are at least 14 vacancies in JE cadre while out of sanctioned posts of 7 assistant engineers, 5 are vacant. There is no sub-collector for Malkangiri with Tehsildar of Malkangiri, a junior OAS officer now doubling up as sub-collector. He is also the District Planning Officer. The Excise officer acts up as District Project Coordinator for Sarva Siksha Abhiyan and also has to look after the rural electrification work under Rajiv Gandhi Gramya Vidyutikaran Yojana. Of the 100-odd posts of doctors sanctioned for the district, there are just about 25 now serving. Teacher absenteeism is rampant. While the district as such is poorly irrigated, the cut-off area despite a reservoir nearby has zero irrigation facilities.
- The tall Maoist memorial at Janbai ghat, the gateway to the cut-off area shows who call the shots in the region.
Said an officer: “Our main duties used to be motivate people to work in these areas despite the threat of extremism. As contractors fled following Maoist threats, our JEs used to do the work in their absence.” Despite the growing tentacles and extortion drive by the Maoists, a senior official estimates that work worth Rs 100 crore was done by Malkangiri District Rural Development Agency this year. In Badapada grampanchayat, plans were afoot to convert the 250-seater tribal residential school for girls to a 1000-seated tribal educational complex.
It was in Badapada last month where officials distributed old age and widow pension worth Rs 25 lakh on the day of abduction. To make the tribal youths employable, the district administration sent about 400 of them to a masonry and carpentry skill development centre run by L&T as well the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation’s regional centre in nearby Jeypore. Last month, more than 2200 youths from Malkangiri including 23 landed jobs fin several companies like L&T during a job-fair organised by the Orissa government. One youth from cut-off area even bagged a job in BPO major Genpact.
But Malkangiri may soon fall back on its bad ways. Despite 3 battalions of Border Security Force stationed in the district, it is unlikely that Malkangiri can feel secure from the growing menace of Maoist threats. At Jantapai village, where Krishna and the junior engineer were abducted, blank faces stare at visitors as a crumbling bust of Mahatma Gandhi pales in comparision to the taller brick-red Maoist memorial commemorating the death of CPI(Maoist)central committee spokesperson Chemkuri Rajkumar alias Azad.
Kudumulgumma block chairman Purna Kirsani falls silent when asked when they would start NREGS work. A few concrete poles brought for electrification stick out like sore thumbs. Not far from Jantapai, at Doliamba village under Papermetla block, Gobardhan Hental summed up the bleak mood: “Is it wise to quarrel with crocodiles when you have to live in the river?”
Chief minister Naveen Patnaik may be feeling a little down due to the recent spate of High Court rulings and Centre’s orders pouring cold water on his grandiose plans of industrialisation, but the opposition may not make much of the opportunity during the winter session of Orissa Assembly starting today.
This is for the first time last 10 years of his rule that Naveen has been bogged down by a series of setbacks starting with the Ministry of Environment and Forests blow to Vedanta’s bauxite mining project and Posco’s proposed 12 million tonne integrated Greenfield steel project at Kalahandi and Jagatsinghpur districts respectively. The setbacks were followed by HC order quashing the State’s recommendation of Prospective Licence for iron ore mining by Posco and then ordering that the land acquisition for the proposed Vedanta University is illegal. BJD leaders in private admit that the HC order on Vedanta University may have dented his pro-poor and pro-farmer image quite a bit.
But if anyone is expecting the recent developments to influence the winter session, it may not happen. A senior Congress leader said that his party was confused on how to corner the government. “We never had such an opportunity to corner Naveen as we have now. But it seems we would fritter away thanks to the infighting in the party that is reigning supreme. The party is confused as hell,” the senior leader said.
The BJP on the other hand with just about 6 MLAs in the 147-member Orissa Assembly is an equally-divided house. “Though our leaders have been showing unity at press conferences, in reality it is nothing. The party is hopelessly divided,” said a BJP leader, not wanting to be named. “In the last session our MLAs boycotted most days of the session. What did we achieve out of that,” he asked.
The Congress which held its legislature party this evening decided it would corner the CM on Vedanta University land deal as well as the rising Maoist menace. The 20-odd party legislators now plan to rush to the Well of the House at frequent interval forcing adjournments.
Though not much panicky about the opposition unity, BJD now plans to counterattack opposition with issues like the 2G scam and Yeddyyurappa land scam. “We are not at all worried. We would raise the 2G scam and Bangalore land scam if the opposition Congress and BJP demand CM’s resignation,” said Rout.
For her cancer was just a word, not a sentence
Walk into the oncology ward of a hospital in India and you’ll find it hard not to notice the crowd – the balding heads, the yellow faces, that pencil thin look of those who are well into their chemotherapy. You stare blankly across the room at the others staring blankly back, everyone silently asking the question: Am I going to make it? It’s an uphill battle for those who live to fight it. And what a battle it is! From Chennai, journalist Pushpa Narayan writes about how her aunt fought one of the feared disease that mankind has known ever.
PUSHPA NARAYAN
It was around the same time last year I had walked into the hospital with my dearest aunt. The doctor was going to tell her that she has been diagnosed with colon cancer and that too, not in the very early stages.
There were six of us in the room. I knew everyone very well. The surgical gastroenterologist and his assistant are my professional friends. My cousin is almost like my twin. There were uncle and aunt. Yet I was feeling strange. It was only the second time the doctor was meeting my aunt. Two days ago, he had confirmed my fears – the uncontrollable diarrhea, severe weight loss and chronic fatigue she had complained for weeks was not just bacterial or viral infection. It was a malignant tumour – the damaged cells had silently divided uncontrollably into a mass blocking her colon.
“I felt it. It’s possibly the size of a cricket ball…. she was in too much pain…we will have to do a biopsy to confirm this… yes, she might require chemotherapy as well…. but you do not worry … don’t tell them anything now … I will take care,” he told me over phone after he had met her for the first time. Colonoscopy and biopsy confirmed it. The hospital’s medical oncologist had indicated malignancy to my cousin. We both decided to wait for the surgeon to make the formal announcement.
When my aunt settled down at the consultation room, she was calm. I still wonder if she had already guessed it. “You will have to undergo a surgery and it may be followed by chemotherapy,” he told her. “So, do I have cancer?” she asked and the expression on her face had not changed. “Yes, stage 3 colon cancer,” he told her. Just as she nodded, he added, “You don’t have to worry because this kind of cancer has a very high survival rate.”
“I won’t be worried. I know I can trust you,” she said. She stood by her word. The doctors loved that. They used their best skills and advances in medicine to remove the huge tumour. I still cannot believe that we all stood outside to watch the junior surgeon exhibit the tumour and explain to us in detail how it was scrapped, cut and removed during the 4.5-hour procedure. Post-surgery days were uneventful and the doctors thought she was just “lucky”.
A week later, my aunt was discharged. After 15 days, we met another doctor. This time a medical oncologist who told us she would have undergo chemotherapy – a drip would be given for a day every alternate week for six times. For the first two times, the medicines that flowed though the veins seemed to push my aunt into an abyss. She had developed ulcers in her mouth and could not eat, her hair fall was rapid and she looked even more weak. Doctors pumped her with injections to increase immunity.
My aunt to me has been just like my mother. As a child, I spent most of days in her house, eating, sleeping and playing. It hurt to see her like that. I prayed I would do anything if she wins over the disease.
With un-shattered will and ingredients such as tender, love and care from the close family, she fought a fearless battle. “I will be better… I am fine now…” is all that everyone heard from her. Calls from all parts of the world poured in. Almost everyone who called was concerned. With each of them, she shared an amazing rapport.
The next four sessions seemed a little calm. Even before the therapy was completed, she organised the engagement of her only son. He was married in January. In a typical folktale style, I could say, they lived happily ever after.
For her, life now goes on as usual. Cancer was just a word, not a sentence.
However, many things changed for many of us around her. I now know life is not one big thing. It is little things put together.
I LOVE YOU ATHAI.
Has the hypocrisy of BJP been exposed in Orissa?
Has the forthcoming election to Rajya Sabha exposed the hypocrisy of BJP? By supporting the candidature of businessman Tara Patnaik, the ‘party with difference’ which till the other day was spouting the line that it would only back an independent now has shown that it is just another party. A party devoid of convictions and ideologies.
Not that BJP was the epitome of virtues in politics. At least its Orissa unit was never an advertisement for honesty and integrity with most of its ministers known to be politicians with their hands on the till. But by supporting a businessman, who is a dyed-in-the-wool Congressman, BJP has shown that it can somersault as and when needed. No intelligent person in Orissa would ever believe that Tara Patnaik is an independent candidate. If your cousin brothers are senior Congressmen like Niranjan Patnaik and Soumyaranjan Patnaik and you made most of your fortune during the Congress regime of 80s, then it can be safely said he has soft corners for the Grand Old Party of the country.
There is also another disturbing part. It was KV Singh Deo, the leader of BJP Legislature Party in Orissa Assembly, who was all fire brimstones over bringing the accused in multi-crore mining scam to book till the other day. It is the same Singh Deo, who is now head over heels in love with Tara Patnaik, knowing fully well that the sister-in-law of the businessman, Indrani Patnaik is an accused in the mining scam case. Can Singh Deo now be expected to be sincere in his fight in the mining scam?
The BJP has been demanding from every pulpit and podium to get CBI probe the mining scam. Yet it supports a man who comes from a family, one of whose members is now an accused in the mining scam. It’s is all the more ironic as the name is being supported by the man who “exposed” the mining scam. No prizes for guessing that some BJP leaders would be richer by a few lakhs of Rupees as a trade-off for their support to the Congress-backed candidate.
There are reports that BJP is doing this just to ensure the defeat of BJD, which betrayed it before the 2009 assembly and Lok Sabha polls. But if it votes for the Congress-backed candidate, then it would give support to the credence that BJP is ready to be the B-team of Congress, a term it had reserved for Congress. Had the party abstained on the grounds that it would rather vote for a man with better reputation(perhaps someone like singer Prafulla Kar or veteran journalist Rabi Das), then it would have managed to keep its honour intact. Even if it meant victory of the BJD candidate.
But now the party seems to have auctioned off its remaining pride and dignity for a few lakhs of Rupees. There is also no guarantee that some of its its 7 MLAs would not be vulnerable to poaching by the election managers of ruling BJD, who would be too ready to break up the party. So it is entirely possible that the party might split on the day of the Rajya Sabha polls. So the Rajya Sabha polls may just poop the party forever.
Questions: Has the BJP’s doublespeak on mining scam been exposed? Is the “party with a difference” which often talks of value-based politics been caught with its pants down? Or has the demands of political expediency caught up with the BJP?
PHOTO COURTESY: SANJIB MUKHERJEE.
Are the Maoists, terrorists as bandied by UPA, opposition BJP and countless newspapers and TV channels in the aftermath of the Jnaneswari Express tragedy, that led to the death of 150 innocent civilians? Is the Operation Greenmhunt started by union home minister P Chidambaram is to be blamed for the current crisis? Are the police too ready to mistake all tribals as Maoists and thereby stoke a bigger trouble. In his well-articulated essay, NIRMALANGSHU MUKHERJEE explains how the government may end up committing a fatal mistake by making Operation Green Hunt as Operation Tribal Hunt.
NIRMALANGSHU MUKHERJEE
The Indian state has amassed nearly one hundred thousand paramilitary forces code-named Operation Green Hunt ostensibly to confront an armed rebellion organized by the Communist Party of India (Maoist) in the Dandakaranya forests in the Bastar region of Chhattisgarh. As the forces raise their guns at each other, massive and protracted violence is breaking out in these hills and jungles affecting the lives of several million tribals inhabiting the area.
The latest of these is the killing of nearly 40 civilians and trainee special police officers by the Maoist forces in Dantewada. After exploding a civilian bus carrying 50-60 persons, they opened fire on those who survived the blast. This atrocity is preceded by a series of other atrocities in recent weeks, the most notable being the killing of 76 CRPF personnel on April 6 while they were walking back to their camp. The attack on the civilian bus shows that the Maoists have escalated the scale of revolutionary violence in response to the Operation Green Hunt to the point that they are prepared to inflict massive collateral damage to innocent civilians. This is clearly a warning to the government of the shape of things to come if the Operation Green Hunt continues. While the cabinet committee on security, the army chiefs, the home ministry, and counter-insurgency experts prepare for even more aggression with an expanded mandate for the home minister, a crucial factor is systematically missed in the raging debates on this issue in the mainstream media (there is some discussion in the alternative media, especially the internet).
There is overwhelming evidence that the Maoist forces at the frontline the militias and the guerrilla army consist entirely of tribal youth. While the orders for a specific action could be emanating from the essentially non-tribal leadership hiding safely in their secured bases, it is the tribals on the ground that carry out the explosions and the killings.
According to reports discussed below, there are about 50,000 armed militias and 10,000 guerrillas operating basically in the Bastar area; all these people are young tribals. The Maoists have been able to raise this huge force because a vast majority of tribals in Bastar have sided with the Maoists for reasons discussed below. The massive presence of tribals in the Maoist scheme of things has led commentators such as Roy (2009) to conclude that there is no difference between the tribals and the Maoists.
I will evaluate the factuality of this conclusion below.
For now, it is evident yet systematically overlooked that any armed operation to flush out the Maoist leadership will have tribals, armed or unarmed, as the direct target. There are layers and layers of tribal human shields between the government forces and the Maoist leadership. Further, as the ill-fated and murderous Salwa Judum campaign showed, any attack on tribals not only results in immense calamity for the tribals, it in fact helps increase Maoist base of support including expansion of guerrilla forces. The essentially non-tribal veteran leadership from Andhra and Bihar have carefully planned all this for decades after poring over maps and demographic profiles.
To understand why even the militias and the guerrillas not to mention the millions of unarmed tribals who support them ought to be viewed as victims requiring protection, we need to understand the real character of how the (upper class) Maoists, driven out from Andhra and Bihar, went about constructing their base of support in Bastar.
THE DOCUMENTS
We now have four important documents in the public domain to study this issue. Two of these are based on recent travels inside the Maoist territory by two public intellectuals from Delhi (Roy 2010, Navlakha 2010); the others are detailed interviews of the general secretary of the Maoist party (Ganapathi 2010) and the Maoist spokesperson (Azad 2010).
The last two are Maoist documents by definition. As for the other two, it stands to reason that the Maoists wouldnt have allowed the intellectuals, accompanied by guerrilla forces, to travel extensively in their territory in times of war unless the intellectuals showed prior sympathy to the Maoist movement. It is beyond belief that the Maoists would invite people, including other naxalites, who are opposed to them to travel with the guerrillas, take photographs, make audio recordings, visit the headquarters at Abujmaad to interview the general secretary, and inspect documents of Maoist administration (Navlakha 2010).
As it turns out, there is not a single remark in the two (very) long pieces written by the intellectuals that questions the basic objectives of Maoist strategy. (For records, Roy 2009 did contain some well-tempered critical remarks; they are now totally absent from Roy 2010). Furthermore, each article is strewn with political remarks of the authors themselves, some of which directly support the basic Maoist goals and practices. Take just one of those remarks: Charu Mazumdar was a visionary in much of what he wrote and said.
The party he founded (and its many splinter groups) has kept the dream of revolution real and present in India. Imagine a society without that dream (Roy 2010). As a matter of fact, lip-service notwithstanding, most splinter groups of the erstwhile naxalite movement no longer share Charu Majumdar’s vision; for example, that vision strictly forbade participation in electoral politics, as the Maoists rightly emphasize. Charu Majumdars and Kanhai Chatterjis vision, in its original form, is currently upheld essentially by the Maoists. Away from the propaganda of the Indian state, then, this study is based on pro-Maoist documents.
Maoist spokesperson Azad (2010) asserts that the welfare of the masses is the first priority for the Maoist revolutionaries. The media-savvy Kishenji (Koteshwar Rao) offers to talk to any party that worked for the common good of people (Times of India, 18 March) suggesting that the maoists had devoted themselves to the common good of tribals in Bastar forests. The Maoists had already entrenched themselves in these forests for about twenty five years before the first of the major attacks by the state began in 2005, in the form of the Salwa Judum campaign. So, what did the Maoists accomplish for the tribals in that quarter of a century?
MAOIST CONTROL
The ability of an organization to engage in the welfare of a given population is obviously a function of the influence of that organization in the concerned area. As the writers report, the Maoists entered the Dandakaranya forests in small groups two squads (Navlakha 2010), 7 squads (Roy 2010) back in 1980. (The puzzling issue of why they chose Dandakaranya of all places in this vast country will be taken up later).
Having secured the confidence of the local, predominantly tribal population, they set about organizing them so that they can realise their rights for example, rights of land, forest produce, and the like. Needless to say, vested interests, such as tribal chiefs in cohort with the local police and forest officials, attempted feeble interventions initially. There were more determined attempts in 1991 and 1997 that were easily dispelled because a large number of tribals had benefitted from the movement by then: killing a few of the most notorious landlords (Roy 2010) did the job.
As the remnants of state representatives were driven out of the area, things seem to have proceeded smoothly till about 2005.
During this period, the Maoists were able to build up a substantial organizational base both in terms of participation of people and coverage of area. The peasant-worker front, Dandakaranya Adivasi Kisan Majdoor Sangh (DAKMS), currently has nearly 1,00,000 members. The women front, Krantikari Adivasi Mahila Samity (KAMS), has nearly 90,000 members.
Even the cultural front, Chetna Natya Manch, has over 10,000 members. From 2001 onwards, Dandakaranya is directly administered by Revolutionary Peoples Committees (Janatanam Sarkars, JS). Each JS is elected by a cluster of 3-5 villages whose combined population can range from 500 to 5,000. 14-15 such JSs make up an area JS, and 3-5 area JSs go on to constitute a division. There are 10 divisions in Dandakaranya. So, the general picture is that the partys authority now ranged across 60,000 square kilometers of forest, thousands of villages, and millions of people (Roy 2010).
I must emphasize that these are Maoist numbers as told to the visiting intellectuals. Assuming, in the absence of contrary evidence, that these numbers are not inflated to impress the outsiders, we can now ask what the Maoists have achieved for these millions of people.
The travelogues attempt to paint an impressive general picture of Dandakaranya. Away from the ugly inequalities of the rest of India, with its filthy towns and failed countryside, we get a picture of a land of pristine rivers and lush green forests. There live a population of beautiful people in colourful attires going about happily with their daily lives, armed with their newly-found dignity and self-reliance in a largely egalitarian society.
According to Vandana Shiva (speaking to NDTV, 13 April, 2009), peace and tranquility prevailed in Bastar before the Indian state attacked the people. Despite grinding poverty and historical neglect by the state, tribal areas usually present a sense of serenity on the surface. A very different and disturbing picture emerges when we scratch the surface.
MAOIST WELFARE: WAGES & AGRICULTURE
Consider the issue of wages. On a seasonal basis, much of tribal livelihood in the concerned area depends on collection of forest produce such as tendu leaves and bamboo culms, among other items. A bundle of 50 tendu leaves 70, according to Navlakha (2010) currently fetches one rupee. To earn about 30 Rupees, then, a tribal has to collect and bundle nearly 2000 tendu leaves per day! No doubt this is a substantial increase from a meagre 3 paise per bundle in 1981 (Roy 2010). Similarly, the wage for a bundle of 20 bamboo culms has been raised from 10 paise in 1981 to 7 rupees now. So, a tribal has to cut, collect and bundle 100 bamboo culms to earn 35 rupees a day. These figures are roughly corroborated by Kobad Ghandy (2008) who reported that daily wages have been raised 3-4 times from 10 rupees some years ago.
It is difficult to compare wages on an absolute scale since they vary widely with respect to nature of work, location, caste, gender, etc. It is well-known that tribals occupy the bottom of economic ladder. Given their atrocious exploitation in the past by the state and private operators, the wages sketched above signal huge achievements for tribal people (Roy 2010); the impoverished tribals never knew anything better.
The documents report, without furnishing data, that these wages negotiated by the Maoists with private contractors are higher than those announced by the Chhattisgarh government. The Maoists were also able to eliminate traditional social evils such as free first day labour for tilling the land of the village chief. These measures explain why tribals feel indebted to the Maoists.
But the mere surpassing of highly exploitative wages announced by a particular state government to satisfy the greed of private contractors does not by itself qualify as an alternative development model that others allegedly preach but the Maoists have been practicing for last thirty years among millions of Indians (Navlakha 2010).
Even if absolute comparisons are difficult, it is evident that these wages are much, much lower than the minimum wages enforced across the nation; the tribals in Bastar make just enough to stay alive until the next season (Roy 2010). For agricultural labour, minimum wages typically vary between 60 to 80 rupees a day in the rest of the country. In a high-wage state like Kerala perhaps one model the Maoists would wish to compete with wages under the rural employment guarantee scheme range up to 150 rupees a day (Utsa Patnaik, personal communication).
The other side of this problematic picture is that, having negotiated what I consider to be merely subsistence wages for the tribals, the Maoists themselves collect 120 rupees per bag of tendu leaves from the contractors (each bag contains 1000 bundles). The contractors are allowed to collect upto 5000 bags per season per contractor. This means that for a big contractor with 5000 bags, the party makes about 6,00,000 Rupees.
Roy (2010) reports that, at a conservative estimate, such a contractor makes about Rupees 55,00,000 per season. The documents do not state how many contractors operate in the Dandakaranya area; in general, it is said that the tendu leaf business itself runs into hundreds of crores of rupees. A similar story obtains for bamboo culms, tamarind, and other forest produce that generate royalties for the party, and huge profits for contractors.
As for agriculture, the Maoists did encourage the tribals to grab about 3,00,000 acres of forest land which they had been cultivating illegally in any case for generations. The task was relatively easy since there were no landlords from the outside and tribal societies have insignificant class structure. As the Maoists realized, the issue was basically to grab forest land of the state at will since there was no real intervention of vested
interests.
In fact, something like a class-structure developed as tribal chiefs and other elements with muscle-power grabbed disproportionate portions of land. The problem was subsequently solved by killing a few of the more notorious landlords, as noted. The net picture, it is claimed, is that there are no landless peasants in Dandakaranya. The Maoists also organized the tribals to construct some harvesting structures such as ponds and wells, and encouraged the nomadic tribals to learn proper cultivation techniques. There is an attempt to introduce multicrop and shifting cultivation. Navlakha (2010) presents some details about the grain and vegetable items cultivated, and their yields, as recorded in a given JS.
There is some mention of using tractors and buffaloes for ploughing in some areas in recent times. None of this sounds anything more than routine and compared to other regions of the country primitive agricultural practices.
It is difficult to form a picture of the extent of these efforts and their role in improving the quality of life of the tribals. Recall that we are talking about an area of 60,000 square kilometers and a time-span of a quarter of a century. In general terms, Roy (2010) writes: Only 2 per cent of the land is irrigated. In Abujhmad, ploughing was unheard of until 10 years ago. In Gadchiroli on the other hand, hybrid seeds and chemical pesticides are edging their way in (Gadchiroli is in adjacent Maharashtra).
We need urgent help in the agriculture department, Comrade Vinod says. We need people who know about seeds, organic pesticides, permaculture. Why is Comrade Vinod asking for these absolutely basic things now? What have the Maoists been doing for close to three decades?
MAOIST WELFARE: HEALTH & EDUCATION
A more concrete picture of the food-situation emerges when we look at the health sector. There is no mention of even a single health centre initiated by the Maoists in that vast area. All we are told repeatedly is that people have been advised to drink boiled water; apparently, this method reduced infant mortality by 50% (Ghandy 2008). Navlakha (2010) reports that lately the JSs have initiated a scheme of barefoot doctors in which some tribals are trained to apply some medicines (distinguished by their colour) for afflictions such as malaria, cholera and elephantiasis, the three most dreaded illnesses. Again, we do not know the extent of these efforts.
However, Roy (2010) reports a doctor she met a doctor was visiting that area after many years. The doctor said that most of the people he has seen including those in the guerrilla army, have a haemoglobin count between five and six (when the standard for Indian women is 11). There is extensive tuberculosis caused by more than two years of chronic anaemia.
Young children are suffering from Protein Energy Malnutrition Grade II. Apart from this, there is malaria, osteoporosis, tapeworm, severe ear and tooth infections and primary amenorrhea malnutrition during puberty causing a womans menstrual cycle to disappear, or never appear in the first place. Its an epidemic here, like in Biafra, the doctor said. There are no clinics in this forest apart from one or two in Gadchiroli. No doctors. No medicines.
Notice that most of the severe conditions are caused by acute malnutrition especially in women and children suggesting what the alternative model of agriculture and other efforts at maoist development has done to the people of Dandakaranya. Words like famine and sub-Saharan condition are frequently used in the documents under study (Navlakha 2010, Azad 2010).
The words are of course polemically directed at the state: Look, what the Indian state has done to the tribals. Any index on quality of life certainly brings out what the Indian state has done to its people, not just the tribals. But the area at issue concerns essentially the Maoists with a history of more than two decades where the party has been able to create an alternative structure, virtually uncontested (Navlakha 2010).
As with the almost complete absence of health centers, the documents do not provide any evidence for any new and regular school for the tribal children in the vast area. The rare schools that exist are all provided for by the state. By now, a large number of these impoverished schools have either been occupied by the security forces or blown up by the Maoists to prevent the security forces from doing so. Lately, the JSs under the Maoists have initiated a mobile school programme; there is also a mention of some evening schools operating in some areas.
The mobile schools are in nature of camps where children attend schools for anywhere between 15 to 30 days, depending upon how tense the situation is in a particular area. Classes last for 90 minutes for each subject with four subjects taught in a day. There are between 25-30 students and three teachers. They have begun to employ certain teaching aids from globe, torchlights to CDs to teach history and science.
Again we do not know the extent of these efforts. In any case, beyond these rather primitive and grossly inadequate efforts, the documents do not explain why the maoists failed to introduce thousands of regular schools in the 10 divisions under their control during at least two decades of non-tense situation.
ALTERNATIVE MODEL
In so far as tribal-welfare is concerned, could the Maoists have done better on wages, agriculture, health, and education? Given their vast command area with visible support from millions of tribals, it is not difficult to conceive of real alternatives to the measly development programmes they initiated. With thousands of villages under their control, they could have dominated thousands of gram sabhas and hundreds of panchayats in the Bastar area.
Under the auspices of these tribal-controlled panchayats, they could have formed hundreds of democratically-constituted cooperatives to administer the livelihood of tribals. For example, cooperatives devoted to forest produce such as tendu leaf could have competed with massive popular support for the tenders floated by the state each year.
This way the system of greedy contractors would have been eliminated from the scene and the entire profits after paying Kerala-type wages would have remained with the tribals. Similar efforts could have been directed at other forest produce and agricultural land.
Add to this the state funding that would have been allocated to these panchayats, and the ability to draw rural credit from local banks. One can only imagine what good could have been done for the tribals with the funds so available: schools, colleges, technical institutes, health centers, tractors, buffaloes, tubewells, irrigation canals from rivers, safe source of drinking water. In time, these peoples organisations could have made full use of national rural employment guarantee scheme, the forest rights act, the right to information, the education act, and other schemes of the state.
There are other advantages with strong and legal peoples bodies. For example, it is mandatory for corporations to secure consent of the local people before they can start operations. To that end, Tata Steel authorities organized a public hearing for their planned steel plant on October 12, 2007. The corporation secured the required consent by hiring an audience of about 50 people in a meeting far away from the concerned area.
It is doubtful if they would have dared to do so if vigilant peoples committees, under the auspices of panchayats, were in place. In fact, Roy (2010) reports on a wonderful initiative by the women’s mass organisation, KAMS, in which members of KAMS immediately surround a police station after someone is falsely arrested, and get the person released before the police is able to file charges. One wonders if such initiatives can be expanded with legal peoples institutions in place.
None of this of course was going to be easy. The alternative just sketched would have required creative economic initiatives backed by democratic movements; it would have also involved legal battles with the state and the contractors, as every peoples movement in the rest of the country know.
Nonetheless, in Dandakaranya, the maoists enjoyed unprecedented advantages, as noted, to pursue these democratic goals. There is no evidence that the maoists even contemplated these obvious steps. Why not?
PRIMACY OF WELFARE
A disturbing answer begins to emerge when we look at what else the Maoists have done in the area during the same period. The basic idea, as the General Secretary Ganpathi told his visitors (Ganapathi 2010), is that it is important to guard against getting bogged down in legalism and economism and forget that masses have to be prepared for seizure of power. So, seizure of power, and not the welfare of the tribals, was the central goal. In this light, it is seriously questionable if the maoists entered the forests of Dandakaranya three decades ago with tribal welfare in mind at all. The documents suggest the following story.
After considerable setbacks to their armed struggle in Andhra, the Maoists decided to enter these forests way back in 1980, as noted. The basic goal was to build a standing army, for which it would need a base. Dandakaranya was to be that base, and those first squads were sent in to reconnoitre the area and begin the process of building guerrilla zones (Roy 2010).
Dandakaranya offered a variety of advantages.
It was a vast densely forested area spanning across several provinces such that people can cross state boundaries through the forest itself. After the refugees from the erstwhile East Bengal left the area, it was inhabited almost entirely by the tribal population who have been there for ages.
The state had only a rudimentary presence in some areas, while it was almost totally absent in others.
Also, as noted, there was a class society here, but due to the tribal traditions, unlike plains the Mukhia/Manjis exploitation did not appear sharp (Navlakha 2010).
Finally, due to their historical isolation and exploitation from the outsiders, tribal traditions have been compelled to acquire some degree of
militancy to defend themselves. Much before the Maoists entered the scene, tribals in Bastar had a history of resistance against the British, landlords and moneylenders. Dandakaranya was virtually a blank slate on which the maoists decided to inscribe Charu Majumdars and, later, Kanhai Chatterjis vision.
The first task was to create enough guerrilla zones, and the second was to secure guerrilla bases in the guerrilla zones so created. Navlakha (2010) explains the distinction: Guerilla zone is a fluid area in the sense that there is contention for control and the State is not entirely absent, even if it be in shape of its police or armed force. However, there are spots in these guerilla zones which are demarcated to ensure that some work can carry on relatively uninterrupted.
These are bases which are not easily penetrable or accessible. The current plan is to intensify and expand guerilla war … we have to utilize cleverly the tactics of hit and run basically (Ganapathi 2010). Ultimately, however, we have to develop guerilla war into mobile war and guerilla army into a regular army (Ibid.). That’s the goal. The tribals are essentially cannon-fodder in this elaborate military strategy.
To pursue it, one-third of the guerrilla forces of the erstwhile Peoples’ War Group were transferred to Dandakaranya from Telengana in Andhra back in 1988 after some support from the tribal population had been secured. The squads from Andhra started organising village militias from the very beginning. Militias consist of 20 to 30 young people armed with anything from bows and arrows, muzzle loaders, home-made pistols to genuine rifles and rocket launchers (10% of the used stock is distributed from the central army headquaters to the militias each year).
Their basic task is to guard a group of villages. Apparently, the best of the fighters from the militias are incorporated into more professional guerrilla squads whose members sport combat uniform and carry serious weapons such as INSAS rifles, AK-series rifles, self-loading rifles, pistols, revolvers, hand grenades and other forms of explosives; some carry light machine guns, mortars and rocket launchers. In December 2001, the Peoples Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA) was formally constituted. By now, the PLGA has moved from platoons to companies, and are now moving towards battalion formation (Navlakha 2010).
The writers report that there are about 50,000 members of militias and 10,000 in PLGA.
Once guerrilla zones expanded and covered much of the area, the task of constructing guerrilla bases started in earnest in 2001. Two or three spots were selected for guerilla bases in each division, and in this shape 10-12 spots were concentrated upon to form the guerrilla bases. Abujmaad forms the Central Guerrilla Base. To ensure that these bases are not easily penetrable or accessible, a complex system of landmines and IEDs punctuate every road, approach, landmark tree or rock formation throughout the forest areas. Needless to say, all of this requires an elaborate structure of informers, lookouts, technical experts, technical equipment for secure wireless communication, laptop computers, solar-charged batteries, electronic and other devices for triggering IEDS, vehicles such as hundreds of motorcycles, well-concealed factories and workshops for manufacture, repair and refitting of weapons, and so on.
Except for the supply of human power young men and women to the militias and PLGA (we return), the tribals are nowhere in the picture.
ALLOCATION OF FUNDS
The documents do not explain sufficiently where the money for this elaborate military structure comes from. Some weapons and related ammunition have been seized/stolen from police stations and armouries, some have been removed from the corpses of security personnel after ambushes. It is unclear if the total amount of these seizures explain almost battalion level weaponry. Navlakha (2010) does report, in general terms, the source of money: party membership fee, levy and the contributions of the people, confiscation of the wealth and the income sources of the enemy, and taxes collected in the guerilla zones and base areas.
Presuming that most members are famine-stricken tribals themselves, party membership fees are not likely to amount to much. Later in the essay, Navlakha (2010) informs that revenue accruing from looting of bank or confiscation of wealth are far less than the money collected from royalties on forest produce such as tendu leaf. So, it is really the royalties/levies from forest produce and taxes on contractors and companies that constitute the bulk of the funds. (What is contributions of the people? Are there remittances from abroad from wealthy sympathisers as with LTTE and similar organisations?) It is anybodys guess how much money is so collected and how it is divided between military work and mass work.
An apparently disjointed bit of information throws some light on the issue. Navlakha (2010) reports on the budget for 2009 of one area RPC (recall that there are about 50 area RPCs in Dandakaranya). The income side showed about rupees 11 lakhs. It is interesting that, although the income includes about 3,60,000 Rupees from taxes on contractors, it does not directly mention the royalties the real money. About half of the income comes from allocation by the JS; it is unclear what it means. Does it mean that some of the other income, including royalties, is partly distributed by the divisional RPCs to area RPCs? Or, does it mean that most of the real money remains with the party itself for military work?
An indirect evidence for the latter conclusion emerges when we look at the expenditure side of the budget. It is reasonable to expect that the income of a given RPC is primarily meant for development work in the concerned area.
It turns out though that over 50% of the (meagre) income is allocated to defense, about 12% for agriculture, 9% for health, and 0.9% for education. It is important to note that defense means providing just the kits for the militias and PLGA (three pair of uniform, oil, soap, toothpaste, washing soap, comb, gunpowder, bows and arrows, and food).
RPC budget does not pay for the weapons and related military needs; so, the astronomical money needed for that purpose must be controlled directly by the party itself. Is that where rest of the money including the royalties go? The answer is likely to be in the positive since even most of the development money is diverted to military preparations.
Now that we have some idea of where the money from the taxes, royalties, and contributions from people basically go, it is clear why the system of greedy and rich contractors and similar characters must continue to operate freely even in the liberated zones, while the tribals continue to toil at subsistence wages to survive until the next season.
In other words, these contractors and other concealed characters are allowed to cheat the tribals all the way the slippery arithmetic and the sly system of measurement that converts bundles into manak boras into kilos is controlled by the contractors, and leaves plenty of room for manipulation of the worst kind in a business running into several hundred crores (Roy 2010)because they basically fund the war against the state for seizure of power. One wonders if the rapacious plunder by the tiny parasitic class of blood-sucking leaches (Azad 2010) includes these contractors who fund the war of liberation.
The preceding perspective also explains why the Maoists never even contemplated alternative and genuine development plans based on panchayats, cooperatives, etc. For one, as noted, those plans would have driven the system of private contractors out of Dandakaranya resulting into a massive loss of revenue for the party.
For another, those plans would have raised the condition of the tribals from mere subsistence to the threshold of decent living. Having tasted decent living by their own cooperative enterprise, would the tribals continue to clutch on to the Maoists; most importantly, would they allow their young people anymore to join the militias and PLGA to die violent deaths at a young age?
Finally, once real economic development with the associated democratic process unfolded, Dandakaranya would have teemed with state officials, other political parties, functioneries of banks and other funding agencies, agents of companies supplying a variety of goods, expansion of communication within the area, etc.: Dandakaranya would have opened up to the outside world.
This would have seriously compromised the secrecy, security and inaccessibility of the network of guerrilla bases. It is no wonder that the Maoists do not allow development activities of the state in the areas they control (Navlakha 2010).
The ostensive reason given is that, in those areas, they themselves undertake reforms that benefit people; by now we have a fair idea of the character of those reforms. In sum, then, the tribals cannot be allowed to prosper beyond subsistence because it will interfere with the plans for seizure of power.
CHILDREN OF WAR
The Maoists complain that the state uses school children as SPOs (special police officers) and as police Informers (Azad 2010). Given the character of the state, as noted, this as with other horrors might well be true. What is the Maoists own record with respect to children?
Even if we set aside earlier, unconfirmed reports of children being snatched away from tribal families at gunpoint, the documents provide a range of evidence about extensive involvement of children in the war. Roy (2010) describes a young boy, Mangtu, who appears to be one of the conduits between nearby towns and the guerrilla army. Next, she describes another slightly older person, Chandu, with a village boy air, who actually belongs to a militia and can handle every kind of weapon except an LMG.
Then, of course, there is this much talked about (and photographed) young girl, Kamla. At the time of reporting, she is 17, and is already a hardcore member of the PLGA with a revolver on her hips and a rifle slung on her shoulder. We can only guess about her age when she joined the armed forces. She had taken part in a number of ambushes; in fact, watching ambush videos is her favourite form of entertainment. Yet she has a captivating smile; that is the human design of a 17-year old which even the addiction to ambush videos cannot disfigure.
These are not isolated examples. Roys narrative and the accompanying photographs furnish the distinct impression that most, if not all, of the people in the militias and PLGA are aged between mid-teens to early twenties, and most of these have been part of the armed forces for several years. Roys motherly instinct wells up as she prepares to sleep in the forest amidst hundreds of armed guerrillas: Im surrounded by these strange, beautiful children with their curious arsenal.
Recruiting children for warfare seems to be an established practice in the maoist scheme of things. Comrade Madhav, who has now risen to be a commander of a PLGA platoon, joined the maoists at the age of 9 in Warangal in Andhra Pradesh (Roy 2010). The entire thing is carefully organized. The mobile schools mentioned earlier (perhaps the only maoist effort at education of tribal children), are not meant to provide education to tribal children in general.
While the general tribal child has no school to go to, these specialised schools, called Young Communist Mobile School (or, Basic Communist Training School), host select groups of 25-30 children in the age group 12-15.
These children receive intensive training for six months in a curriculum consisting of basic concepts of Marxism Leninism and Maoism, Hindi and English, maths, social science, different types of weapons, computers, etc. (Navlakha 2010). Once they pass out, they trail the PLGA squads, with stars in their eyes, like groupies of a rock band (Roy 2010).
Navlakha (2010) also reports that, as with any regular army, recruitment drives are conducted with meetings and leaflets. One of the leaflets, directed at unemployed boys and girls of Bastar, says you will not get any salary but food, clothes, personal needs will be fulfilled and your families would be helped by the Janatam Sarkar. Elsewhere in the essay, Navlakha (2010) reports on the food supplied to the guerrillas:
Breakfast can vary between poha, khichri, etc., mixed with peanuts and followed by tea. Lunch and dinner consists of rice with dal and subzi. Food is simple but nutritious. Once a week they get meat. Sometimes more than once if fish is available or there is pork, which is provided by the Revolutionary Peoples Committee. Even with this impressive food intake, most of the guerrillas have less than half of the normal count of haemoglobin, as noted.
One can only imagine with horror the condition of these children when they joined the forces.
With no schools to go to, no opportunities in hand, and with sub-Saharan conditions prevailing in their families, which able-bodied tribal child can resist the temptation of assured food, clothes, peer company, and the ability to roam the forests with a rifle slung on shoulders? Naturally, when the state attacks and the economic lives of tribals are further disrupted, enrolment for militia and PLGA increases sharply. The more the repression by the state, the bigger the peoples army of starving children.
As mentioned, the total strength of the militias and PLGA currently adds up to about 60,000, with many more in the waiting. Assuming as above that most of them joined the forces when they were children, it follows that the Indian state and the maoist leadership consisting of Ganapathi, Koteshwar Rao, Kobad Ghandy, Azad, and others in their politbureau and central committee conspired to deny normal chilhood to a vast number of tribal children.
They never went to school, never learned about life outside the forests, never glimpsed the pluralistic complex of Indian society, never acquired the skills to become a participating citizen, never allowed to make up their mind. All they know is how to fashion an IED, how to clean and fire a rifle, how to ambush, how to kill. They form the frontline and get maimed and killed when the police, the greyhounds, the CRPF and special operations forces encircle them. As for Kamla, if the police come across her, they will kill her. They might rape her first. No questions will be asked (Roy 2010). Kamla won’t be the only one.
The basic picture is abundantly clear from maoist documents themselves. In an act of palpable cowardice, the defeated maoist leadership from Andhra and Bihar abandoned the struggling people there, and entered the safe havens of Dandakaranya forests. Taking advantage of the historical neglect and exploitation of the tribals by the state the root cause the maoist leadership ensured the support of hapless tribals with token welfare measures while directing most of the attention secretly to construct guerrilla bases.
In the process, they lured a large number of tribal children with assurances of food and clothing. These children have now grown into formidable militia and guerrilla forces. After committing atrocious crimes in the name of revolutionary violence, these youth brigades are now facing the wrath of the mighty Indian state. It is reasonable to infer that millions of tribals continue to side with the maoists largely because their children are with them.
Should the tribals now pay the price with their lives and livelihood because of the evil designs of a handful of men such as Ganapathi, Koteshwar Rao, Kobad Ghandy, Azad, and others in their politbureau and central committee? Whose vision is the Indian state supposed to satisfy, Charu Majumdars or Gandhis? How does Mrs. Sonia Gandhi address the root cause by attacking the tribals?
The tribals can be saved only if -
- The state dismantles operation green hunt since its immediate victims are unarmed tribals under mental and physical seize.
- The state announces total and universal amnesty to the young tribal people in the militias and the PLGA and a safe and concrete programme for their rehabilitation once they surrender (only) to a citizens body comprising of individuals such as Yash Pal, Swami Agnivesh, Kuldip Nayyar, Mohini Giri, Medha Patkar, Rajender Sacchar, Himanshu Kumar, Binayak Sen, Jean Dreze, Aruna Roy, Vandana Shiva, and others.
- The essentially non-tribal leadership of CPI (Maoist) is brought to justice for their crimes against humanity.
- In the face of immense calamity unfolding on millions of tribals in Bastar, historical and humanistic decisions are urgently needed beyond routine and failed “counter-insurgency” operations.
PHOTO COURTESY – AKHILESH KUMAR, THE HINDU.
