{"id":51053,"date":"2009-10-24T19:39:46","date_gmt":"2009-10-24T19:39:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/test.tehelka.com\/?p=51053"},"modified":"2009-10-24T19:39:46","modified_gmt":"2009-10-24T19:39:46","slug":"from-the-eyes-of-dantewada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/from-the-eyes-of-dantewada\/","title":{"rendered":"From the eyes of Dantewada"},"content":{"rendered":"

The struggle in the sprawling forests of Chhattisgarh tells the bloody story of the state, the naxals and the people caught in the crossfire<\/em>
\nAjit Sahi,\u00a0<\/strong>Editor-at-Large
\n

\"\"<\/a>
Cockfight<\/strong> Op Green Hunt is bound to create uncertainty for tribals
Photo: Vijay Pandey<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nFIRST, A DISCLAIMER<\/strong>: I do not support, justify or approve of the Naxals\u2019 creed of violence. I don\u2019t even believe that they can secure for their peoples the lofty goals of liberty, justice and equity by the means of violence. As Mahatma Gandhi powerfully argued through his public actions and in his copious writings on human history, no one \u2014 not even a State \u2014 can sustain a moral order using the immoral means of violence. Indeed, Gandhi\u2019s refusal to seek from the British a pardon for Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdeo brought him ridicule at the time, and is still unforgiven by millions of followers of the Shaheed-e-Azam. But Gandhi \u2014 pardon the expression \u2014 stuck to his guns in opposing the creed of violence, irrespective of the practitioner.<\/span>
\nOn March 23, 1931, after the British hanged the trio, Gandhi wrote: \u201cThese heroes had conquered the fear of death. Let us bow to them a thousand times for their heroism. But we should not imitate their act. In our land of millions of destitute and crippled people, if we take to the practice of seeking justice through murder, there will be a terrifying situation. Our poor people will become victims of our atrocities. By making a dharma of violence, we shall be reaping the fruit of our own actions.\u201d Gandhi could well be speaking for the millions of Chhattisgarh\u2019s tribals, who today face a terrible fate as both the Naxals and the State have adopted the dharma of violence and arguably stare at the worst face-off in the Naxals\u2019 40-year insurgency. It would be futile to indulge in crystal ball gazing on the likely outcome of Operation Green Hunt, the all-out paramilitary offensive against the Naxals that\u2019s already dug in heels in south Chhattisgarh and is expected to turn full-blown in November. Watchers fear that the State will end up killing far more non-Naxal innocent tribal people than the Naxals, who have been entrenched in the deep forests for over four decades.<\/span>
\nBut this is not about condemning the Naxals\u2019 or the State\u2019s violence. This is about asking hard questions about why the Naxal violence exists. Again, Gandhi\u2019s writing on the day of Bhagat Singh\u2019s martyrdom could well describe both the Naxal and her supporters among the tribal populations. Wrote Gandhi: \u201cBhagat Singh was not a devotee of non-violence, but he did not subscribe to the religion of violence. He took to violence due to\u00a0helplessness and to defend his homeland\u201d<\/em>(italics mine).<\/span>
\nGandhi could be speaking of the \u201chelplessness\u201d of thousands of Chhattisgarh tribals who\u2019ve been driven into the arms of the Naxals due to the terrorist violence let loose since 2005 by the controversial police-backed tribal militia Salwa Judum (literally: Peace March), who have killed, maimed, burnt, hacked, raped the tribals and continue to do so.<\/span>
\nThis is news that you are never likely to hear from PM Manmohan Singh or Home Minister P Chidambaram, who only tell you that the Naxals are the biggest terrorist threat to India. They and their echo chambers in the media resonate with a singular narrative, crassly distilled by our learned home minister as \u201cyou-are-either-with-\u2018us\u2019-orwith- the-Naxals\u201d. Anyone who so much as questions the justness or even the efficacy of Operation Green Hunt is decried as a double-faced \u2018Leftist intellectual\u2019 who must be condemned for supporting the insane violence of \u201cIndia\u2019s worst enemies\u201d. This narrative goes like this: the Naxals are gun-toting, crazed ideologues who reject the State and have vowed to replace it with a non-democratic Maoist-Communist State. (\u201cI would not like to live in a Naxal State,\u201d said filmmaker Sudhir Mishra \u2014 who\u2019s made a movie on the Naxal quagmire \u2014 on a CNN-IBN show last week. Ergo, he seemed to suggest, the take-no-prisoners Operation Green Hunt is justified.)<\/span><\/p>\n

Anyone who so much as questions the justness or even the efficacy of Operation Green Hunt is decried as a double-faced\u2018Leftist intellectual\u2019<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The narrative further says that these terrorist Naxals are hardened beasts that kill our policemen with utter brutality, ambushing them, beheading them. Who in their right minds could ever even appear soft on such hateful beings?<\/span>
\nAfter 9\/11, when US President George Bush facetiously argued that the terrorists attacked his country because \u201cthey hate our freedoms\u201d, veteran British reporter of the Middle East war theatre, Robert Fisk \u2014 the world\u2019s only journalist to have interviewed Osama bin Laden thrice \u2014 said that if the inquiry into a robbery must begin with the motive, the question to ask is: why did the 9\/11 perpetrators carry out these heinous acts? Similarly, India deserves to know: what is the Naxals\u2019 motive in relentlessly killing the police and security agencies like beasts? Here\u2019s why.<\/span><\/p>\n

The villagers who had found an answer in Gandhian methods of resistance are now being pushed towards the Naxals due to State oppression<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

On October 12, 2009, police swarmed the district collector\u2019s office in Jagdalpur, a small town in south Chhattisgarh. They were there to prevent thousands of villagers from storming a\u00a0jan sunwai<\/em>\u00a0(public hearing) called to debate the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report for a proposed Tata steel plant in the district. Legally, this meeting should have been open to all, especially to the 6,000-odd people of the 10 villages near Jagdalpur that the steel plant will gobble up.<\/span>
\nTHERE IS<\/strong> strong resistance in at least six of these 10 villages to be displaced from their lands for the project. Most people have refused to accept compensation for land. Four of these six villages (Kumbli, Dhuragaon, Takaraguda and Sirisguda) passed resolutions in\u00a0gram sabhas<\/em>\u00a0during October 2-6 asking the district administration to postpone the public hearing due to the climate of uncertainty created by Operation Green Hunt. About 1,000 letters on these resolutions were sent to the district collector.<\/span>
\n

\"\"
The helpless<\/strong> A tribal woman whose husband was killed by the SPOs
Photo: Himanshu Kumar<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nOf course, the district collector didn\u2019t postpone the hearing. Instead, the police set up barricades along the 30-km stretch from the villages to Jagdalpur, and stopped all buses so that villagers who might protest the Tatas\u2019 project don\u2019t reach the public hearing. About 25 villagers, led by former CPI MLA Manish Kunjam, did reach the public hearing. \u201cWe asked them, where would the effluence from the steel plant be dumped?\u201d Kunjam told me over the phone. \u201cThey had no answer.\u201d Kunjam says the Tatas\u2019 EIA report (prepared by Dastur & Co) has failed to meet the standards set by two crucial policies that govern the displacement of tribals for industrial projects: the National Rehabilitation Policy and the Panchayat Extension to the Scheduled Areas Act.<\/span>
\nAccording to both, the EIA report for an industrial project that would displace tribal people must also look into the \u201csocial impact\u201d besides the environmental impact. \u201cThere is no mention of the \u2018social impact\u2019 in the report,\u201d says Kunjam. The Indian Constitution, through Schedules 5 and 6, gives special status to the tribal people. Further, by signing a UN treaty in 1957, India had promised that displaced tribals would be given good land in lieu of that acquired.<\/span>
\nOf course, this guarantee didn\u2019t work for the poor tribals of the Narmada Valley earlier this decade, as the Supreme Court allowed dams on the river which displaced millions of villagers, on the grounds that such action met \u201coverriding national interest\u201d. But such an argument could hardly be pressed in the courts in favour of a steel plant. No wonder then that the Centre and the Chhattisgarh government are restive as the Tatas\u2019 project is delayed because of the villagers\u2019 refusal to part with land.<\/span>
\nTechnically, the Tatas have completed the \u2018land acquisition process\u2019. Some villagers have initiated a Chhattisgarh High Court lawsuit arguing against the Tata project, but few have faith in the outcome of the judicial process, knowing how slowly that wheel always turns. It must be said that the steel plant has support in and around Jagdalpur town, perhaps due to the belief that it will bring jobs. Two months ago, the Naxals killed a local politician, Vimal Meshram, who had vociferously supported the steel project. Activists working in Bastar for long say the Naxals had little presence in Lohandiguda, where the 10 villages are located, until the Tatas\u2019 project controversy warmed up. Today, unsurprisingly, the Naxals are said to have struck roots in the region.<\/span>
\nON THE<\/strong> day \u2014 October 12 \u2014 the government turned the public hearing on the Tata EIA into a farce, long-time Bastar resident and Gandhian activist Himanshu Kumar had visitors late at night at his makeshift ashram in the smaller town of Dantewada, west of Jagdalpur. These were survivors of attacks by the police and Special Police Officers (SPOs) drawn from the Salwa Judum.<\/span>
\nWhile the media highlighted the Naxals\u2019 beheading of policemen, allegations that the police and Salwa Judum-SPOS have been killing tribals and creating terror in Bastar forests have been consigned to the media\u2019s black hole. Sitting through the night to take their testimonies, Kumar prepared a list of people who have been killed in two attacks in the last three weeks, on September 17-18 and then on October 1. Here are just some of them:<\/span>
\n\u2022<\/strong>\u00a0SPOs killed Madvi Deva of village Gachhanpalli at a rivulet on September 17. Another village\u2019s Patel claimed seeing Deva being buried in the Chintagupha police station compound.<\/span>
\n\u2022<\/strong>\u00a0CRPF men and SPOs cut off the breasts of 70-year-old Dudhi Muye, an invalid who could not walk, and stabbed her to death on September 17.<\/span>
\n\u2022<\/strong>\u00a0CRPF and SPOs caught Madkami Muke of village Gachhanpalli and tied her up with her own sari. They beat, stabbed and shot her husband in front of her. Muke saw the attackers stab and shoot Madvi Joga, 60, in his field. She saw them strip 35-year-old Madvi Hidma, stab and shoot her.<\/span>
\n\u2022<\/strong>\u00a0Also in Gompad village, four of a family \u2014 Madvi Bajar, 45, his wife Madvi Subbi, his married daughter, Kartam Kanni, 20, and younger daughter Madvi Mutti, 15 \u2014 were killed by SPOs. The attackers cut off the tongue and fingers of Kartam Kanni\u2019s two-year-old son.<\/span>
\n\u2022<\/strong>\u00a0Muchaki Aanda of Bhandarpadar village and his nephew, Madvi Deva, were returning from Andhra Pradesh when the police caught them. They were hacked to death with axes and knives, their bodies dumped near corn fields. Two villagers informed Deva\u2019s mother, Madvi Joge, of their killing.<\/span>
\nOn October 11, Kumar and several other activists and lawyers travelled south of Dantewada to visit Nendra village. Until last year, Nendra had been a ghost town, after the Salwa Judum burnt it down two years ago, forcing residents to flee. Kumar\u2019s NGO, Vanvasi Chetna Ashram (VCA), had had it rebuilt and persuaded the villagers to return. Within hours of the activists\u2019 visit to the village, news of their presence spread quickly. More than 200 people from villages nearby assembled there, converting the meeting into a people\u2019s tribunal. Since September the SPOs have killed wantonly in Nendra. Six people have gone missing.<\/span>
\nIn the last two months, as a precursor to Operation Green Hunt, police have harassed VCA activists. One volunteer has been jailed and tortured on false charges. Ironically, the Naxals, too, distrust Kumar, especially because of his efforts to repopulate the villages burnt down by Salwa Judum. You see, the people of those villages have found an answer away from both the Naxals and the Indian State, in Kumar\u2019s Gandhian methods of resistance. Many of those who have gone back to their villages had been eager to turn the Naxals away.<\/span>
\nBut now, of course, the renewed Salwa Judum violence and Operation Green Hunt could once again quickly fatten the Naxals\u2019 enrollment registers. Such is the scale of the Indian State\u2019s violence that it is turning even Kumar increasingly despondent. \u201cI stare dumbly at all these people who come to me, the old man who saw his daughter raped and son shot dead, the young wife who was raped repeatedly, the family whose house was burnt down,\u201d Kumar said to me one night on the phone from Dantewada, unable to sleep. \u201cThey keep saying to me: help us. I keep quiet. Because how do I help them?\u201d<\/span>
\nAnd then, he added: \u201cI am too much a son of Mahatma Gandhi and Vinoba Bhave to ever leave the path of nonviolence. But I look at these people and wonder, if I were a tribal person, raped, shot, abused, humiliated, wouldn\u2019t I, too, pick up the gun to defend my family, my home, my lands, my forests?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The struggle in the sprawling forests of Chhattisgarh tells the bloody story of the state, the naxals and the people caught in the crossfire<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":51074,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[56],"tags":[8626,1706,8743,1708,8744,8745,8746,8747,1181,8748,8749,8750,8751,8752,8753,8754,519,8755,8756,6775,8757,389,5966],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51053"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51053\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}

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