{"id":73246,"date":"2009-04-04T20:26:17","date_gmt":"2009-04-04T14:56:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/?p=73246"},"modified":"2009-04-04T20:26:17","modified_gmt":"2009-04-04T14:56:17","slug":"we-will-overthrow-the-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/we-will-overthrow-the-government\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018We will overthrow the government\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Naxal
Up in smoke<\/strong> Tribal women Sanni salvages a fraction of her harvest after the Judum set it on fire Photo:<\/strong> Shailendra Pandey<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nWho do you hold responsible for the Salwa Judum?<\/strong>
\nThe people find the government fully responsible for it. This is class war. There are the rich, and there are the poor. With the rich robbing the poor, the poor had begun to organise against their exploitation. This scared the government and it launched this brutal movement so it could continue to loot.<\/span>
\nContinue to loot?<\/strong>
\nThis is the government of the capitalists and middlemen. They are looting national resources and have raised Salwa Judum for that purpose.<\/span>
\nA few Salwa Judum men, who were earlier Naxals, told me that they were sick of your violence because you forced them to kill others.<\/strong>
\nThat\u2019s not true. They have crossed over because the police took to killing Naxals or Naxal supporters, and that scared them.<\/span>
\nAre you in touch with your former comrades who are now with Salwa Judum?<\/strong>
\nWe are in contact with those ex-Naxals who have quit the Salwa Judum camps and gone back to their villages.<\/span>
\nThe government says the villagers have sought police protection because you kill innocent villagers.<\/strong>
\nWe have been here 35 years. The villagers always lived in their homes, celebrating festivals, praying to their gods. They had no fear of us. They moved to the Salwa Judum camps only after the government began burning their villages and brutalising them.<\/span>
\nThe government says it wants to bring education, healthcare, roads and electricity to Bastar but the Naxals don\u2019t want development.<\/strong>
\nThe people want hospitals and schools but not roads, which don\u2019t bring development. The roads are built for the police to access our villages and tyrannise us.<\/span>
\nThe government, too, wants to bring schools and healthcare. Where is the conflict?<\/strong>
\nWe don\u2019t trust this government. Our goal is to establish the rule of our party on the basis of the Maoist-Marxist-Leninist ideology. We are fighting for that.<\/span>
\nDo you have any demands from the government?<\/strong>
\nNo. The people want their own governments to take power: in the villages, districts and the state. The schools will be ours, as will be the hospitals.<\/span>
\nWhat will be the key features of a Maoist-Marxist-Leninist nation, should you achieve one?
\n<\/strong>Apart from the hospitals and schools, we will create a panchayati raj-based judicial system.<\/span>
\nPeople took to the guns in Kashmir and Punjab but were brutally put down. What makes you think you can defeat the state?
\n<\/strong>We will properly organise the poor among India\u2019s 1.1 billion people, build good politics among them, and be successful one day.<\/span>
\nMahatma Gandhi showed the way of nonviolence. Mao showed the way of the gun. Do you think Gandhi\u2019s way has failed India?<\/strong>
\nWe only believe in the Maoist-Marxist- Leninist way of life.<\/span>
\nHow will the cities be under your party\u2019s rule?<\/strong>
\nFactories will be there. People will get their full wages.<\/span>
\nPrime Minister Manmohan Singh has said India faces its gravest danger from Naxalism.<\/strong>
\nManmohan Singh rules India. [Chief Minister] Raman Singh rules Chhattisgarh. We challenge their authority and are on course to overthrow them and establish our rule. That\u2019s why they think we are their biggest threat.<\/span>
\nDo you see industry, too, as your enemy?
\n<\/strong>This government has contracted with foreign countries such as the US, Russia and Japan to sell off India\u2019s national resources. It is a puppet in their hands.<\/span>
\nWhat do you think of the US?
\n<\/strong>It is in great financial danger now, as is India.<\/span>
\nWere the Chhattisgarh Government to agree to wind up Salwa Judum and invite you for talks, how would you respond?<\/strong>
\nWe have shed blood in this fight. We won\u2019t betray our slain comrades by talking to this or any other government.<\/span>
\nWRITER\u2019S EMAIL
\n<\/strong>ajit@tehelka.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Naxal \u2018commander\u2019 Kunjam, somewhere in the forests of Dantewada, outlines his worldview<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":73248,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[56],"tags":[8626,1706,1708,8840,8845,8843,1181,8750,8842],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73246"}],"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=73246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73246\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}