Well... I do not want to condemn the Maoists now... Nor do I celebrate what they did...
The tragedy that met with the personnel of the CRPF engaged in Operation Green Hunt the Dantewada district in Chattisgarh is indeed unfortunate. Those who died, in most cases, hail from the poor families across the country. There is no way that such killings can be justified in the name of revolution. Having said that, it is also necessary to add here that the Indian state and its current strategy to combat the Maoists calls for a serious review.
The point is that the state has waged a war and involved all its might in it. And where the state’s forces have been combing the villages inside the forests, the Maoists in turn have resorted to mining the roads and the paths there. And in that sense, it is a no-holds-barred battle that is now taking place in the Chattisgarh forests as much as in parts of West Bengal, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand and Bihar. It is indeed a sad comment on the state of the Republic.
More than 60 years after the adoption of the Constitution (on November 26, 1949), there are serious doubts as to whether the path that we had chosen as a nation is taking its people to the end that was set. The fact is that even while the condition of life of a section of our people has improved in a substantive sense, it is equally true that income poverty and un-democracy is also pronounced in another section. And it makes sense to stress here that the region where the Indian state is fighting the battle against the Maoists are also those places where such deprivation is most pronounced.
While all these are obvious and have been stated many times in the recent past, there is yet another factor that calls for attention. And that is the fact that the Dantewada district and the whole of the Bastar region, where the Maoists displayed their firepower against the CRPF personnel is also rich with minerals and mines. It is worth pointing out that the Chattisgarh State Government had resorted to a dubious and dangerous measure in this region by which a section of the people were armed and given the license to kill; the salwa judum, as this state-sponsored-private-army is known, has been the subject matter of dispute before the Supreme Court.
The case before the Supreme Court is as to whether the Constitution and the rule of the law it guarantees would allow the Government to provide arms and training to private citizens and engaged them against the people of the region. It is indeed another sad story that the case has not reached the stage of finality even after a couple of years since it was instituted in the apex court. There have been reports from the region, with substantial evidence too, that the Salwa Judum is engaged in attempts to subdue and scare away the adivasis from their hamlets in the forests.
It is also necessary, in this context, to see the context in which the Salwa Judum was brought up. It began after June 2005, the same time as that when there was a substantial increase in the number of MoU’s between the State Government in Chattisgarh and the many corporates, both national and multinational, for exploitation of the mineral wealth in the region. All those MoUs were the fallout of a qualitative shift in the mines and minerals policy of the Government of India; from being a preserve of the National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC), a Central Public Sector Undertaking, mines were thrown open to the private sector sometimes before that. And the State Governments, since then, got busy selling the land and the wealth underneath the land to bidders from anywhere!
The Salwa Judum, thus, was a creature of the state government of Chattisgarh to ensure that those who bought the right to dig and take away the minerals in the forests were able to do that without the adivasis resisting the plunder of mother-nature. And the CRPF and other central forces too were taken there in large numbers to aid such a development. This indeed is the context in which the battle has been raging in the Dantewada region in Chattisgarh.
The point is that all these do not justify the killing of the 75 men from the CRPF on Tuesday morning. It is a sad thing when people are killed. Death is a sad thing. But then, it is time that the state too took a re-look at its strategy. Killings and counter-killings do not aid the making of the Republic. It will have to stop.
The tragedy that met with the personnel of the CRPF engaged in Operation Green Hunt the Dantewada district in Chattisgarh is indeed unfortunate. Those who died, in most cases, hail from the poor families across the country. There is no way that such killings can be justified in the name of revolution. Having said that, it is also necessary to add here that the Indian state and its current strategy to combat the Maoists calls for a serious review.
The point is that the state has waged a war and involved all its might in it. And where the state’s forces have been combing the villages inside the forests, the Maoists in turn have resorted to mining the roads and the paths there. And in that sense, it is a no-holds-barred battle that is now taking place in the Chattisgarh forests as much as in parts of West Bengal, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand and Bihar. It is indeed a sad comment on the state of the Republic.
More than 60 years after the adoption of the Constitution (on November 26, 1949), there are serious doubts as to whether the path that we had chosen as a nation is taking its people to the end that was set. The fact is that even while the condition of life of a section of our people has improved in a substantive sense, it is equally true that income poverty and un-democracy is also pronounced in another section. And it makes sense to stress here that the region where the Indian state is fighting the battle against the Maoists are also those places where such deprivation is most pronounced.
While all these are obvious and have been stated many times in the recent past, there is yet another factor that calls for attention. And that is the fact that the Dantewada district and the whole of the Bastar region, where the Maoists displayed their firepower against the CRPF personnel is also rich with minerals and mines. It is worth pointing out that the Chattisgarh State Government had resorted to a dubious and dangerous measure in this region by which a section of the people were armed and given the license to kill; the salwa judum, as this state-sponsored-private-army is known, has been the subject matter of dispute before the Supreme Court.
The case before the Supreme Court is as to whether the Constitution and the rule of the law it guarantees would allow the Government to provide arms and training to private citizens and engaged them against the people of the region. It is indeed another sad story that the case has not reached the stage of finality even after a couple of years since it was instituted in the apex court. There have been reports from the region, with substantial evidence too, that the Salwa Judum is engaged in attempts to subdue and scare away the adivasis from their hamlets in the forests.
It is also necessary, in this context, to see the context in which the Salwa Judum was brought up. It began after June 2005, the same time as that when there was a substantial increase in the number of MoU’s between the State Government in Chattisgarh and the many corporates, both national and multinational, for exploitation of the mineral wealth in the region. All those MoUs were the fallout of a qualitative shift in the mines and minerals policy of the Government of India; from being a preserve of the National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC), a Central Public Sector Undertaking, mines were thrown open to the private sector sometimes before that. And the State Governments, since then, got busy selling the land and the wealth underneath the land to bidders from anywhere!
The Salwa Judum, thus, was a creature of the state government of Chattisgarh to ensure that those who bought the right to dig and take away the minerals in the forests were able to do that without the adivasis resisting the plunder of mother-nature. And the CRPF and other central forces too were taken there in large numbers to aid such a development. This indeed is the context in which the battle has been raging in the Dantewada region in Chattisgarh.
The point is that all these do not justify the killing of the 75 men from the CRPF on Tuesday morning. It is a sad thing when people are killed. Death is a sad thing. But then, it is time that the state too took a re-look at its strategy. Killings and counter-killings do not aid the making of the Republic. It will have to stop.
posted by Krishna Ananth at
6:44 AM
2 Comments:
What do you think can be a solution to this problem? The increased investments also has a side of inequality. Do you think Adivasis can be resettled with jobs elsewhere and then the mining operations can go on? What should the state do? Given the overall picture of economic production in the country and the world, it is only natural that the private companies were given right to exploit the resources. True, the government must take into consideration the lives of Adivasis in the area. Will you allow the private companies to exploit the resources when the government sanction the security in the lives of Adivasis? Or will you never allow the private companies to exploit the resources? Your documentation of the present problem is journalistic without what should and can be done!
Salwa Judum is a defensive force and they have every right to protect the people they are meant to protect. The State is the only legal and democratic entity representing the majority will of the people and it has every right to decide how it wants to exploit the resources underneath its sovereign territory.
If some maoists (not adivasis) do not want to part with the land (that does not belong them) to reap the socio-econic benefits of economic development, then sod off. The people fighting against the will of the State needs to be annihilated (thanks Stalin, Mao) at any cost. It is high time India learnt the way to deal with these criminals from the history of Mao.
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