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The single
most important threat
Or a
singular failure of the Indian nation state?
WSN Bureau
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At a time when
the Indian forces are fighting the Maoists/ Naxalites in Lalgarh and
New Delhi is making much out of banning them as “terrorists”, here
is a view on Naxalism as a problem taken by none other than the
Planning Commission of India. The WSN had brought out key parts of
this report earlier and is reproducing them so that our readers
can engage in a more informed debate than is being allowed by
the shrill media playing proxy for official mouthpieces. |
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 There is no end
to the studies of popular discontent in India, and the Indian nation
state is always eager to find ways to control such uprisings of
discontent. That it fails strongly is a moot point, for it the main
point is that it wins. It has the army, the police, the required
ability to brutalise its own people and the complete lack of
scruples. But after all that, New Delhi’s writ still does not run in
nearly one-third of the country.
From time to
time, New Delhi’s rulers keep setting up committees to study the
Naxalite problems. And for India, the Planning Commission is one of
the most reliable repository of comprehensive information. That it
is also a helpless witness to the government’s unpardonable apathy
to its important proposals for remedying the situation all these
years is a separate story.
The government
however requires the Commission for hard statistical facts and
figures, and understanding of what is happening at the ground level.
That after all this, the GoI leaves all planning to the magnates of
the market economy is also a different story.
The story that
we are to tell you is based on a report now in the possession of the
WSN that was commissioned by the government to understand Naxal
problem. That even such a wonderfully produced report may also end
up with the usual obligatory list of remedial measures should not
reduce its importance since these measures have remained
unimplemented for years.
“Development
Challenges in Extremist Affected Areas” is the title of the report
of an expert group set up by the Planning Commission of the
Government of India. Dated March 2008, the report contains
meticulously collected latest facts and figures, rigorously examines
the causes of the continuing economic exploitation and social
discrimination in the adivasi and dalit-inhabited areas even after
60 years of independence. It is significant that this particular
expert group was set up by the government in May 2006, in the
background of increasing Naxalite activities in Andhra Pradesh,
Chhattisgarh,
Bihar,
Jharkhand and Orissa.
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That even such a wonderfully produced report may also end up
with the usual obligatory list of remedial measures should not
reduce its importance since these measures have remained
unimplemented for years. |
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The group
consisted of a variety of people ranging from veteran ex-bureaucrats
(like D Bandyopadhya who chaired it, and is well known for his
implementing the Operation Barga land reform measure in West Bengal,
and S R Sankaran who heads the Hyderabad-based Committee of
Concerned Citizens which had been trying to bring the Andhra Pradesh
government and the Maoist rebels to the negotiating table) to
retired police officers like Prakash Singh, ex-director general of
police, Uttar Pradesh and Ajit Doval, former director of the
Intelligence Bureau. From the other end of the spectrum, we have
well known activists and academics like K Balagopal of the human
rights movement and Sukhadeo Thorat, chairman of the University
Grants Commission and a champion of Dalit emancipation, among
others.
That a mixed bag
of this nature, consisting of experts from different disciplines
with differing opinions, could prepare a consensus report on several
contentious issues and come up with a unanimously agreed set of
recommendations, suggests that all is not lost. But all will be,
given the Government of India’s ability at remaining deaf and dumb.
Dalits, Adivasis
and Naxalites
Although the
terms of reference did not specifically mention Naxalites (or
Maoists), the group’s brief was to identify causes of unrest and
discontent in areas affected by “widespread displacement, forest
issues, insecure tenancies and others forms of exploitation like
usury, land alienation and imperfect market conditions…”. Clearly,
such areas fall in the above-mentioned five states – and
significantly enough, the group organised field visits in these
areas to observe the situation at first hand, on the basis of which
it has come out with stark revelations that expose the culpability
of the state in denying the poor their basic rights, the treachery
of a corrupt bureaucracy to implement the laws, and its complicity
with a trigger-happy police to suppress popular protest.
Maintaining that
“the main support for the Naxalite movement comes from dalits and
adivasis”, the group concentrated on these two sections (termed as
scheduled castes and scheduled tribes respectively in official
parlance) which comprise about one-fourth of India’s population, the
majority living in rural areas.
Apart from the
high levels of poverty, the dalits suffer from various types of
disadvantages like limited employment opportunities, political
marginalisation, low education, social discrimination, and human
rights violation. As for the adivasi population, besides remaining
backward in all aspects of human development including education,
health, nutrition, etc, they have been steadily losing their
traditional tribal rights and command over resources. The report
points out in this connection the administration’s failure to
implement the protective regulations in scheduled areas, which has
resulted in land alienation, forced eviction from land, dependence
of the tribals on moneylenders – made worse often by “violence by
the state functionaries”.
Incidentally,
every dalit and adivasi poor in
India
has not joined the Naxalite movement. There are many states with
pockets of high proportion of adivasis and dalits but little
Naxalite influence, as in Punjab, Haryana, Gujarat and Rajasthan.
The report quite rightly points out that “poverty does create
deprivation but other factors like denial of justice, human dignity,
cause alienation resulting in the conviction that relief can be had
outside the system by breaking the current order asunder”. It adds
that for such a violent upheaval to happen, there is the likelihood
of the “spread of awareness and consciousness”. And this is where,
as the report suggests, the Maoists have played a significant role
by stepping into the craters of dalit and adivasi deprivation in the
five states, and organising the deprived for their rights.
Its authors
situate the Naxalite movement in the historical context of the
“development paradigm pursued since independence”, which they
assert, has “aggravated the prevailing discontent among marginalised
sections of society”. While explaining the current surge in Naxalite
activities, they slam the neoliberal “directional shift in
government policies towards modernisation and mechanisation, export
orientation, diversification to produce for the market, withdrawal
of various subsidy regimes and exposure to global trade” as “an
important factor in hurting the poor in several ways”.
Following this
conceptual approach, they look at the Maoist movement in a way that
is different from the prevalent official attitude which primarily
blames the Naxalites for the violence. Instead, the present report
lays stress on the “structural violence which is implicit in the
social and economic system” and which in the opinion of its authors
prompts the radical groups to justify their own violent acts. The
authors of the report admit that the Naxalites have indeed carried
out certain socio-economic reforms in their areas of control.
Naxalites as
a Surrogate State
The report
brings out that the Maoists are actually carrying out the reforms
that the executive ought to have implemented, and are replacing the
judiciary and the police in ensuring law and order for the poor and
the oppressed.
In the forest
areas of Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, the Vidarbha region of
Maharashtra, Orissa and Jharkhand, the Naxalites have led the
adivasis to occupy forest lands that they should have enjoyed in the
normal course of things under their traditionally recognised rights,
but which were denied by government officials through forest
settlement proceedings that have “taken place behind the back and
over the head of the adivasi forest dwellers”. While the government
remained indifferent to the need for paying minimum wages to the
adivasi tendu leaf gatherers in Andhra Pradesh, the Naxalites by
launching a movement have secured increases in the rate of payment
for the picking. The practice of forced labour in the same state,
under which the toiling castes had to provide free labour to the
upper castes, was done away with due to a “major upsurge led by the
Naxalites in the late 1970s and early 1980s of the last century…”.
Commenting on the “peoples courts” set up by the Naxalites in their
areas of control, the report observes that “disputes are resolved in
a rough and ready manner, and generally in the interest of the
weaker party”.
The report also
reveals how despite change of government, successive rulers suppress
the poor and the disadvantaged. There is a design behind this
continuity. The rulers, irrespective of party affiliations, are
lackadaisical and sloppy in implementing pro-poor legal measures.
But the moment the Maoists try to enforce those measures they are
quick to use against them with extreme efficiency another set of
laws – the draconian laws that have been enacted over the years (e
g, Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act; Chhattisgarh Public
Security Act; Andhra Pradesh (Suppression of Disturbances) Act,
etc).
Asserting that
the Naxalite movement has to be “recognised as a political movement
with a strong base among the landless and poor peasantry and
adivasis”, the experts warn the government against resorting to
“security-centric” measures like setting up vigilante groups such as
Salwa Judum in Chhattisgarh. Instead, they have called for “an
ameliorative approach with emphasis on a negotiated solution”, and
urged the government for a resumption of the peace talks with the
Naxalites which was initiated in October 2004, but broke down in
January 2005.
As for the
Indian state, the experts have been rather frank.
 They have shown
how, in quite a large swathe of inaccessible territory, the state’s
writ does not run, and the Naxalites have been able to establish a
parallel and alternative order that has largely benefited the poor –
especially the dalits and adivasis. It is better that
India
recognises this reality and legitimises the positive Naxalite
contribution to the implementation of the pro-poor laws – which the
state had failed to carry out. In other words, the government should
negotiate a settlement that allows the Naxalites to run their
administration in their pockets of control – on the lines of the
settlement arrived at with the Naga rebels of the National Socialist
Council of Nagaland (Isak Muivah) who have not given up their arms
and run a parallel government in parts of Nagaland.
Referring to the
Indian government’s conciliatory approach to such insurrectionary
groups, the authors of the report raise the legitimate question:
“Why a different approach to the Naxals?” It is for the Prime
Minister to answer this, since he is the one who calls Naxalite
violence the most serious internal security challenge faced by
India.
24
June 2009
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