Maoist given three-year jail term in China

A court in China sentenced Zhao Dongmin, leader of a Maoist group, to three years in jail on October 20 for "gathering a crowd to disrupt social order", according to media reports circulating among Maoists worldwide..

Zhao was arrested on August 19 last year after he formed the Shaanxi Union Rights Defence Representative Congress with more than 380 workers from about 20 state-owned enterprises to oversee and monitor public structure restructuring and report corruption and abuses of power.

The municipal government of Xi'an banned the organization on July 27. Zhao wrote an open letter protesting the action to the State Council, the municipal, provincial and central committees of the Communist Party of China. He was arrested 18 days later.

Zhao was the head of the Shaanxi Mao Zedong Thought Study Group, one of several Maoist groups in China that seek the restoration of a more egalitarian, fair and just society.

More than 50 scholars signed a petition this month stating that Zhao was not only innocent but had performed meritorious service and that his arrest mocked the rule of law and insulted trade union organizers.

The three-year sentence given to Zhao is on the upper-end of the scale for labour activists. The authorities nowadays tend to use threats, harassment and short-term detention rather than criminal trials and prison terms to suppress labour groups and activists. Zhao's Maoist allegiance is believed to have led to the relatively heavy sentence.

Zhao Dongmin, a lawyer and a member of the Communist Party of China, had been providing legal services to workers for many years to resolve issues such as unpaid pensions and loss of other benefits.

While Zhao was undergoing trial, the Concerned Group of 108 Veterans of the original 68th Unit and the 23rd Unit of the People's Liberation Army in Da-an City, Jilin Province said in a statement: “Any Chinese who has a conscience and stands for justice knows that what has happened to Zhao Dongmin has gone beyond a single incident. It has become something of political significance in today's China. It has become a test case for us to tell whether the Chinese Communist Party is a real Marxist-Leninist Party or a fake one, whether the government is a real people's government or a fake one, whether the Communists are real ones or fake ones, and whether or not those in the government are actually serving the people.”

Zhao Dongmin’s picture has been taken from the website of the New York-based China Study Group, which also provides details of his case. According to the website post, updated on October 21, he is due to be sentenced only on October 25.

EKTA demands inquiry into killing of Azad and journalist

The following is a statement issued by Sukla Sen for EKTA (Committee for Communal Amity), Mumbai:

EKTA hereby gravely notes that the killing of Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad, who reportedly stood at no. 3 in the CPI (Maoist) hierarchy, along with a freelance journalist Hemchandra Pandey, at Adilabad district in Andhra Pradesh on July 2 – coming on top of a series of killings involving civilians, security personnel and Maoist insurgents – has further vitiated the ambience. If one goes by the statement issued by the CPI (Maoist) on July 3, the prospects of peace talks, which Swami Agnivesh for a while is making serious bid to make happen, has suffered a serious jolt.

EKTA expresses its serious concern over such development, the government’s utter lack of concern in this regard and the mainstream media presenting the deaths as some sort of trophy won.

Even more disturbing is the fact that serious and credible allegations have been levelled that those two slain had actually been murdered by the AP Police and was subsequently packaged as “encounter death”. It has also been alleged that this has been done deliberately to torpedo the peace efforts.

Under the circumstances, EKTA demands that given the seriousness of the case an open judicial enquiry headed by at least a sitting High Court judge be instituted to unearth the truth without any further delay.

Chhattisgarh: Democratic processes alone will yield positive results

The following is a statement by Ms. Nandini Sundar, Mr. E. A. S. Sarma and Mr. Ramachandra Guha, who have moved the Supreme Court for steps to end civil strife in the tribal areas:

As co-petitioners in a Public Interest Litigation before the Supreme Court (WP 250/2007)
urging the end of civil strife in Chattisgarh, we write to express our shock and horror at the detonation of a bus in Dantewada district by Maoists on 17th May, killing around 50 innocent civilians.

We condemn such senseless and inhuman violence and those responsible for it.

Violence has no place in a democracy and those that adopt violent means to express themselves cannot and should not be condoned in any manner whatsoever. We convey our sympathy to the families of all whose lives have been lost in this ghastly incident.

It is unfortunate that innocent tribals and other civilians are caught in the ongoing violence in Dantewada and other parts of eastern and central India. We reiterate our consistent plea to the government to reach out to the tribals and the other local communities in these areas through tangible confidence building measures, including the announcement and implementation of a policy that recognises the Constitutional rights of the tribals in the notified areas. We feel that any strategy based on violence will prove counterproductive in the long run.

We firmly believe that democratic processes alone will yield a positive outcome in these areas where the extent of violence seems to be on the increase.

Nandini Sundar
E. A. S. Sarma
Ramachandra Guha

EKTA condemns violence, renews call for dialogue

Sukla Sen, EKTA (Committee for Communal Amity), Mumbai, writes:

EKTA (Committee for Communal Amity) hereby strongly condemns the lethal attack by Maoist insurgents yesterday (Monday) afternoon on a private bus at Chingavaram on the Dantewada-Sukhma road in Chhattisgarh in an overly successful bid to kill a group of travelling armed Special Police Officers (SPOs) -- Adivasi youths recruited to battle Maoist insurgency in the state, with the full knowledge that the bus was carrying also a large number of unarmed civilian passengers taking no part in the ongoing armed conflicts between the insurgents and the state. This is morally utterly repulsive.

We also, on this note, strongly disapprove the brutal summary executions of unarmed civilians, including Adivasis and other sections of the poor and marginalized, by the Maoists tagging them as “informer”.

At the same time, we also take note of the fact that a large group of SPOs, maybe around 20, elected to travel by a bus full of civilian passengers, plying through an area known to be prone to mine blasts and other forms of armed assaults by the Maoists, despite the fact they are engaged in an open and no holds barred war with the insurgents, killing each other at the first available opportunity. This amounts to virtually holding the civilian passengers as helpless hostage and trying to use them as human shield for their own safety. It is also just unacceptable.

While on this orgy of gory violence, the reflexive cry of Sri Chidambaram in the wake of these tragic murders for more of the same (failed measures), asking for an “expanded mandate” i.e. permission to use air strikes against the insurgents operating in an area with deep forest covers and sheltering for ages large number of adivasi inhabitants is also unacceptably disturbing. So is his vituperative verbal assault on civil society groups committed to uphold democratic values and norms so as to cover up his own dismal performance as the Union Home Minister.

The fact that the detailed recommendations made by a body of recognized experts appointed by no less than the Planning Commission of India to tackle Maoist insurgency have gone completely unheeded despite persistent failures of the tried and tested repressive measures deserves close attention.
On this note, we also strongly condemn Orissa government’s armed assaults on unarmed civilian resistors protesting against proposed mega projects by the Posco, and also Tata, Vedanta etc., overriding all ecological, social, and also legal, considerations.

It seems that the state is bent upon sending the message, in unison with the insurgents, that in Indian democracy peaceful protests have no reasonable chance of being heard and the only way out is armed banditry.

At the end, we again appeal to the warring parties to immediately come to the negotiating table and eschew blood spilling violence. Obviously the “democratic” state has a greater responsibility and just cannot afford to emulate a band of armed outlaws.

The sate must also immediately have an authentic and thoughtful relook at the “strategy” being pursued hitherto by it and make serious attempts to initiate inclusive and participatory development to better the lot of the marginalised Adivasi populations, in particular - the main constituency of the insurgents, to cut them off from their principal support base.

Mindless armed action will only bring in more and more tragedies it its wake.
An internal disturbance fuelled by an overpowering sense of alienation felt by a significant section of the population born out of desperate poverty and cruel oppressions cannot be and must not be tackled the way a war is waged against a clearly identified uniformed external enemy.

Battle for Dandakaranya

NACHIKETA DESAI
Countercurrents.org

Bastar (Chhattisgarh): A fierce battle is raging along the Indrawati river in Central India. On one side of the river are deployed the para military forces of the Indian state. On the other side, in dense forest, are the Maoist guerrillas.

The Indian militia calls the battle, Operation ‘Green Hunt’, which is aimed at flushing out the Maoists from the mineral rich forest land so that Indian and multinational corporations can fatten their bottom line by exploiting iron ore, coal and bauxite. The Maoists are fighting to protect the 40,000 square kilometers of dense forest land known as Dandakaranya from these marauding companies.

The Indian militia has deployed at the front a private army of teenaged Adivasis raised under the banner of ‘Salwa Judum’ to provide local support to the Central Reserve Police force (CRPF). The police of Chhattisgarh operate from the safety of police stations, far away from the battle field. In the battle for the control of Dandakaranya, mostly the adivasis and the CRPF men drawn largely from the poor and socially backward class families from across the country die. Rarely do the senior officers of the police, the bureaucracy or the top executives of the MNCs get killed.

Maoists have ‘liberated’ the mineral-rich region where governments have existed only in the form of greedy contractors and corrupt policemen and forest officials, leaving the mass of tribals to suffer in poverty, disease and illiteracy while outsiders strip away Bastar's minerals.

“The country is on a boil. In the last 60 years, we have made the rich more rich and the poor more poor. The condition of over 60 crore people of our country is deteriorating day by day. If such a scenario continues, there would be great trouble, what kind of trouble is unpredictable,” says Professor Yash Pal, leading space scientist and former chairman of University Grants commission.

“Today, millions of people, mostly tribals, are migrating from their ancestral land to far off places like Mumbai, Delhi, Punjab and Gujarat to toil as labourers. There must be something terribly wrong with our development policy which is making this happen,” points out Prof. Yash Pal. “In the name of development, we are mining for minerals which we export to China, Japan and other countries. We dig land, we dig forest, we uproot people living in this land for the so-called development and progress,” he adds. “Having uprooted the adivasis, we set up highly polluting industries and destroy the most-beautiful and green forest land of our country. We are destroying the soil of India, we are destroying the people of India.”

Prof. Yash Pal was addressing a press conference in Raipur, the state capital of Chhattisgarh, on the eve of a peace march to Dantewada calling for talks and national debate to find an end to the civil war in the tribal-dominated mineral-rich forest-covered areas of Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra.

Prof. Yash Pal was among the group of over 50 concerned citizens who participated in the peace march from Raipur to Dantewada from May 6 to 8. Among the other participants were Swami Agnivesh of Bandhua Mazdoor Mukti Sangathan, Prof. Banwarilal Sharma of Azadi Bachao Andolan, veteran Gandhian Narayan Desai, chancellor of Gujarat Vidyapith, Thomas Kochery of World Fisherfolk Forum and Radha Bhatt, chairperson of Gandhi Peace Foundation.

There was a consensus among the participants of the peace march that faulty development model of the country, which marginalized the vast majority of rural poor, the indigenous dwellers of the forest, was responsible for the civil war-like situation in not just the forested areas of central India but also in the North-eastern states and Kashmir.

There was also a consensus among them over the means of restoring peace in the country. “Gun versus gun is not the solution. Violence only would breed more violence. If the government thinks that it would be able to eliminate the Maoists by bullets, it is greatly mistaken. Look, what happened in Vietnam,” points out Prof Yash Pal.

“Are we going to annihilate the entire population of Adivasis, just like the Americans did with the Red Indians, to push forward development and progress?” asked Radha Bhatt of the Gandhi Peace Foundation.

“In the name of dam construction and mining, millions of people are getting displaced,” points out Thomas Kochery. “They are getting displaced from their land, forest and water”, he adds. This is the first kind of violence the poor people are facing, this is the first form of terrorism in the country.

“The second form of violence is by Naxalites who take up arms to retaliate the first form of violence. And the third form of violence is when the army and the para military forces use guns to put down the second form of violence,” he points out. “We are here to say that peace can be achieved by removing all the three kinds of violence from the country.”

“A long-lasting peace can be achieved only by holding talks amongst all concerned to find out a sustainable people-centric development paradigm,” says veteran Gandhian Narayan Desai.

Despite having spelled out the objective of their peace march from Raipur to Dantewada, the marchers faced ugly demonstration from a handful of supporters of both the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and the opposition Congress as well as from some representatives of trade, commerce and industry bodies.

The first to react was Chhattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh who ridiculed the peace initiative by mocking at them and obliquely referring to them as the sympathizers of the Maoists. “Why do these intellectuals wake up only when the government starts operations against the Maoists and keep quiet when the members of our security forces get killed,” he said.

Taking a cue from the chief minister’s statement, a handful of workers of the BJP, the Congress and the local chamber of commerce and industry held demonstrations in Raipur, Jagdalpur and Dantewada, shouting, “Naxal supporters go back, go back.”

None of these demonstrators was local adivasi and only represented the trading community of the district towns of Jagdalpur and Dantewada which has been exploiting the adivasis over the last several centuries and which thrives on the ongoing war against the Maoists. “The traders of Jagdalpur and Dantewada are the main suppliers of foodgrain, grocery and other essential commodities to the security forces. Their total turnover of supplies to the security forces is in the range of Rs2000 crore yearly,” points out a resident of Jagdalpur who was a student union leader of the local college about a decade ago.

The state government and members of both the ruling BJP and the opposition Congress, with active participation of the police and local goons have been preventing independent journalists, lawyers and human rights activists from visiting Dantewada by organizing violent attacks against them.

Anyone trying to find out what is happening in Bastar on both sides of the Indrawati river is promptly branded by the Establishment as ‘Supporter of Maoists’.

A Gandhian worker, Himanshu Kumar, who has been running ‘Vanvasi Chetana Ashram’ for the last 17 years, was dubbed as ‘Maoist sympathiser’ and his Ashram razed to the ground by the authorities after he raised the issue of mindless killing of innocent adivasis by the police-backed Salwa Judum private militia.

A couple of journalists have been detained by the police after they tried to cross the Indrawati river to find out what was happing in the deep forest.

Forest people’s movements call for end of militarization of forests

The following is a joint statement issued by forest people's movements on May 12:

Today, the police have killed one person in Kalinganagar and critically injured at least 30 more; at the proposed POSCO plant site in Jagatsinghpur, Orissa. Twenty-five platoons of police have been deployed to crush the people defending their land. They expect another attack tomorrow or the day after.

As national platforms of democratic forest movements, with more than 200 organizational members spread across the country, we unequivocally condemn this brutality. But such atrocities are not occurring in isolation. Operation Green Hunt and the increasing militarization of the conflict in central India is wreaking devastation in our homelands and closing the space for democratic struggles. We first reiterate the following facts, to expose the myths being promoted by the government:

• In all the areas where Operation Green Hunt is underway, aside from individual atrocities, security forces are now preventing people from entering the forest, cultivating their lands or collecting minor forest produce. The numbers that are threatened with starvation or disease as a result is not even known. These facts have been ignored even as the tragic loss of lives in Maoist attacks has received a lot of attention. How can an offensive with such results be justified?

• An offensive in the name of the “rule of law” has been launched in areas where the government has never shown the slightest respect for the law. Under the law, land acquisition in Scheduled Areas is subject to consultation with the gram sabha (village assembly); diversion of forest land in all forests is subject to the consent of the gram sabha; and people have rights over village common lands, forests, water bodies and grazing areas. Can the government name a single place in the country where the rights of people over forests and lands have been fully recognised and respected? Can it name a single “development” project in the forest areas that has complied with the requirements of law? Rather, in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh alone, after 2006 the government has illegally granted in principle or final clearances for the use of 15,411 hectares of forest land to various “projects”.

• The government's true intentions are revealed by their response to democratic movements in the majority of forest areas, where the CPI(Maoist) does not exist. As an indicator, in just the few weeks between March 20 and April 20, activists in Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Assam and West Bengal were arrested or attacked by police for the crime of standing up for the law and demanding legal rights. The protesters at POSCO and many other places, who have no link whatsoever with the Maoists, are being attacked.
These are examples of a trend that has become far worse with Operation Green Hunt, under which the label “Maoist” is used to justify all kinds of brutality. The Home Minister's latest statement threatening anyone “supporting Maoism” with jail is clearly aimed at justifying yet more such brutality.

• The conflicts in forest areas, whether with the CPI(Maoist) or with other movements, have nothing to do with “security” or “development”. What is at stake is the right of people to control their ecology, their production systems and their lives. Can a community lead a life of dignity when they are harassed, beaten or killed every time they cultivate forest land, collect minor forest produce or protest evictions? People are not demanding welfare; they are struggling for the right to live with freedom and dignity. This is the true meaning of security, development and the rule of justice.

• It is clear that the government's offensive is driven by more obvious interests – resource grabs (in water, minerals and land) have become a key source of profits. As the Maheshwar Dam, Vedanta or POSCO projects were found to break the law, the government has scrambled to bend or break the law itself to favour the corporates. When the Forest Department promotes illegal policies in international negotiations on climate change (i.e. the REDD agreement), these are not just condoned but promoted as a point of pride.

Meanwhile, people's rights over minor forest produce, forest land and common lands are frustrated at every turn by official violations of the Forest Rights Act. Clearly this is why the government now wants to crush all resistance, whether it is organised by the CPI(Maoist) or not.

Beyond Green Hunt: A Call for Democratic Space

We believe in and stand for the mass democratic struggle of the working people for social transformation. From this perspective, the damage is not limited to this offensive and the devastation it is wreaking. More insidious but much longer lasting is the destructive impact this militarization is having on the democratic space for people's struggles. This militarisation is not limited to Operation Green Hunt.

Even outside this offensive, the government has consistently used its force against all democratic formations and those who speak the language of people's rights; it has thrown the Constitution to the winds. The CPI(Maoist) has also engaged in indiscriminate physical attacks against those who are of a different political allegiance, and has often shown little tolerance for those who are engaged in other movements or who are critical of them. The turning of vast areas of the country into war zones, where all else is subordinated to the perceived military needs of the government or the CPI(Maoist), is unacceptable. It constitutes a betrayal of the values that both the CPI(Maoist) and the government claim to believe in. For this reason above all, there is an urgent need at this moment to restore basic democratic norms in the conflict zones.

Our Call:

1. The paramilitary forces must be withdrawn and the Salwa Judum, as well as other similar private militias in other states, must be disbanded. Public facilities – schools, clinics, etc. - must be treated as out of bounds for the conflict.

2. The government must respect the rights of people over their lands, forest produce and community forest resources as provided by the Constitution, the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, the Forest Rights Act and other such laws. It must comply with the requirements under these Acts relating to the consent of the community prior to diversion or acquisition of land.

3. The security forces must stop interfering with the rights of people to cultivate their fields, go to markets and engage in their livelihood activities.

4. Illegal arrests, fake encounters and police murders must be halted immediately.

5. The CPI (Maoist) should make clear its position on the activities of other political forces in the conflict areas. It should respect the right of the people to be members of other parties, including opposing parties, or other movements and to otherwise exercise their democratic rights.

6. The right of refugees and the displaced to return home, especially in Dantewada, must be respected by the security forces and their private militias.

The following are signatories to the joint statement:

Campaign for Survival and Dignity:
Madhya Pradesh Jangal Adhikar Bachao Andolan
Jangal Adhikar Sangharsh Samiti (Maharashtra)
Bharat Jan Andolan (Jharkhand)
Campaign for Survival and Dignity - Orissa
Jan Shakti Sanghatan (Chhattisgarh)
Adivasi Mahasabha (Gujarat)
Jangal Jameen Jan Andolan (Rajasthan)
Orissa Jan Adhikar Morcha
Campaign for Survival and Dignity - Tamil Nadu
Adivasi Jangal Janjeevan Andolan (Dadra and Nagar Haveli)
National Forum of Forest Peoples and Forest Workers:
Adivasi Banihar Shakti Sangathana (Chhattisgarh)
Nadi Ghati Morcha (Chattisgarh)
Jharkhand Jangal Bachao Andolan (Jharkhand)
Chattisgarh Jan-ban Adhikar Manch
Birsa Munda Vu-adhikar Manch (Madhya Pradesh)
Patta Dalit Adhikar Manch (Uttar Pradesh)
Kaimnoor KShettra Majdoor Sangharsh Samittee,Sonebhadra,UP
Ghad Kshettra Majdoor Sangharsh Samittee,Uttarakhand
National Forum of Forest People and Forest Workers (North Bengal Regional
Committee)

Courtesy: Countercurrents

Chhattisgarh Peace Marchers' encounter with hooligans

Picture: Countercurrents

NACHIKETA DESAI
Countercurrents.org

Jagdalpur: The Peace March by eminent citizens demanding abjuring of violence by both Maoists and state forces and advocating a just and long lasting solution to the problems of the Adivasis of Bastar met with ugly protest demonstration by lumpen elements representing upper caste traders of the district town of Bastar.

The demonstrators shouted filthy abuses at the country's top space scientist Prof Yashpal describing him as a sympathizer of the Naxalites.

The hooliganism lasted for more than three hours, during which the peace marchers remained locked inside the conference hall of the Jagdalpur Press Club. Police identified the hooligans as local traders.

The demonstrators, numbering over 200, arrived on motorcycles outside the Press Club carrying sugarcane sticks, soon after the participants of the peace march began addressing a press conference. "We will beat these so-called intellectuals with these sticks. They have come to stop the 'Green Hunt' and in support of the Naxalites," their leaders shouted.

When this correspondent started taking pictures, four or five hooligans menacingly advanced towards him and pushed him away saying,"You cannot take our photographs."

Apprehending violence, the correspondent sent an SMS to Chhattisgarh director general of police Vishwa Ranjan apprising of the situation. Within five minutes a posse of policemen led by the superintendent of police arrived and controlled the mob. In the meantime, the hooligans deflated the tyres of the vehicles by which the peace marchers had come to Jagdalpur from Raipur and forced the driver of their bus to take it away.

When the peace marchers emerged from the press conference hall, the hooligans started raising slogans like "Naxalvadi vaapas jao, vaapas jao," "Green Hunt Ho kar rahega". Some of the hooligans were also shouting unprintable epithets interspersed with the slogan of "Bharat Mata Ki Jai".

"You intellectuals wake up and come here advocating peace only at a time when the government is launching its 'Green Hunt' to eliminate the Naxalites," their leaders were heard shouting amid the bedlam.

This was exactly what Chhattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh had said yesterday at Raipur.

Peace marchers were compelled to return to the conference hall of the Press Club. They then invited representatives of the demonstrators to come inside the conference hall for a discussion. About two dozen demonstrators were allowed by the police to the discussion table. After an hour-long discussion, the demonstrators allowed the peace marchers to leave. However, as soon as the peace marchers emerged from the hall, the crowd outside again started shouting, "Naxalite sympathizers, go back."

Nachiketa Desai is a journalist who is travelling with the peace march

Centre’s warning: Supporting Maoists will invite 10 year jail

New Delhi, May 6 (IANS) Those who speak in favour of Maoist guerrillas will face legal action and 10 years imprisonment, the government announced Thursday in a warning to civil society groups who raise voices in favour of Leftwing extremism.

"Any person who commits the offence of supporting such a terrorist organisation (like Communist Party of India (CPI)-Maoist) with inter alia intention to further the activities of such terrorist organisations would be liable to be punished with imprisonment for a term not exceeding 10 years or with fine or with both," a home ministry statement said.

It said such action would be taken under Section 39 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967.

The home ministry said the government has noticed that some Maoist leaders were directly contacting certain NGOs and intellectuals to propagate their ideology and "persuade them to take steps (and) support the CPI-Maoist ideology".

"General public are informed to be extremely vigilant of the propaganda of CPI-Maoist and not unwittingly become a victim of such propaganda," the statement warned.

The Leftwing extremist group and all its front organizations have been designated as terrorist organizations by the government.

According to the ministry, the "sole aim" of the CPI-Maoist is to overthrow the Indian state.

It "continues to kill innocent civilians including tribals in cold blood and destroy crucial infrastructure like roads, culverts, school buildings, gram panchayat buildings so as to prevent development from reaching these under-developed areas", the statement added.

Demonstrators disturb Peace March meeting

Prof Yash Pal and Swami Agnivesh

NACHIKETA DESAI
Countercurrents

A mob of about 100 slogan-shouting supporters of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party barged into the public meeting of eminent citizens, including space scientist Yash Pal, veteran Gandhian Narayan Desai and former University Grants Commission chairman Ramji Singh, a day before they embarked upon a peace march from Raipur to Dantewada in Chhattisgarh.

A group of over 50 leading citizens had converged in Raipur on Wednesday (May 5) to take out what they call 'March for dialogue on peace and justice', calling for end to a civil-war-like situation in the predominantly tribal state of Chhattisgarh. These citizens comprising academics, scientists, social activists and Gandhian workers, want a 'ceasefire' between the state forces and Maoists to begin a nation-wide discussion on the model of development that the country should follow to ensure a sustainable, just and people-oriented economy and polity.

At a press conference, held before the public meeting, Prof Yash Pal said he was greatly pained at the plight of the tribals, farmers and the indigenous people in the last 60 years of Independence for which the powers that be and the middle-class in general were responsible. "Do we want to annihilate the entire race of aboriginal people, like America had done in the name of development?" he asked.

Interestingly, the Press Club of Raipur allowed the press conference of the leading citizens as an exception to its earlier resolution not to allow any press conference of human rights activists. The press conference lasted for more than an hour during which journalists asked leading questions like 'How can you advocate ceasefire when Naxalites are out to wage a war against the constitutionally-formed government?"

Swami Agnivesh, Prof Yash Pal and Narayan Desai explained the limited scope of the peace march saying the foremost thing was to stop violence from both the sides -- from the state and the Left extremists -- to facilitate a nation-wide dialogue on ways and means to have a sustainable and just development of the country in which people were at the centre.

Later, while the marchers held a public meeting at the town hall, near the district collector's office, a mob of over 100 people, stormed into the hall shouting slogans, "Naxal sympathizers go back", "Naxal sympathizers, shame, shame." The trouble-makers disrupted the meeting several times during which the speakers stopped addressing the gathering.

State director general of police Vishwa Ranjan said the trouble-makers belonged to the BJP and the Congress party. "Tempers are running high in Chhattisgarh over the wanton killings of tribals by the Maoists. Anyone advocating dialogue with them is perceived as the sympathizer of the Maoists," he added.

The top cop directed police offers of Jagdalpur and Dantewada to provide adequate security to the peace marchers.

Rs. 1500 Crore “Maoist Empire” or How the Police plants stories in the Press

PARTHO SARATHI RAY
Sanhati.com

“Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play.” - Joseph Goebbels

Propaganda is one of the main weapons of the government of India’s Operation Green Hunt. The propaganda war is being waged in order to mould public opinion and turn liberal voices against the enemy, the Maoists. As part of this propaganda campaign, the government has brought out large, full colour advertisements (paid for by taxpayers’ money) in major newspapers which have portrayed the Maoists as “ruthless killers” and as destroyers of public property.

However a more insidious, and clandestine, part of the propaganda war, is to plant stories in the mainstream media in the form of “news”, which the average reader, having faith in the objectivity of the media as the main source of information, will take at face value as the truth. It is quite difficult to identify a news item as a police plant (we might just be able to guess), but a news story which appeared recently in the press, and was widely circulated, is a good illustration of what might be a story planted by intelligence agencies, with the connivance of the press.

It is a news story about the “Maoist empire”, the ways and means by which the Maoists apparently function like a corporation to raise a huge amount of money by “extortion, drugs, looting, ransom and robbery” to the tune of Rs 1500 crore. The main, and most widely circulated story appeared in the Sunday Times of India of 11th April, 2010, as a Special Report titled “The Maoist empire Rs 1500 crore and counting” datelined Bhubaneshwar/Ranchi/Kolkata and written by three named staff reporters of Times of India.

It describes in considerable detail the financial operations of the Maoists, analyses state-wise earnings from extortion, levies on businesses, poppy cultivation etc. and also delves into how this money is channeled into various states to run Maoist operations therein. Overall, it appears to provide convincing evidence that the Maoists are running a mafia under an ideological disguise. On reading, it seems to be a well researched piece of investigative journalism exclusively done for ToI by staff reporters. However everything did not seem to be so straightforward when nearly the same news story (in many places a word to word translation) was found to have been published in Bangla in the newspaper Icore Ekdin on 11th April. In Ekdin, the news was datelined New Delhi and described as “nijaswa pratibedan”, which means it was done by staff correspondents of Ekdin. On looking up on the internet, the thing became clearer.

The same report had appeared on 11th April

(1) in Central Chronicle (a Madhya Pradesh-based news portal) under the category News Flash, datelined Bhubaneswar and attributed to agencies;

(2) in Asian Age as a news story by a named correspondent;

(3) and in the Mumbai Mirror as a news story datelined Kolkata and again by a named correspondent.

The game was given away by the Mumbai Mirror story which attributes the news, even in the title of the news item, to intelligence agencies.

Therefore, what we see is that the same news story, including many common phrases and sentences, appearing in at least four different newspapers on the same day, three in English and one in Bangla (and also possibly in the Hindi press), and all claiming (except the Central Chronicle which attributes it to Agencies) that it is a piece of investigative journalism written by their staff reporters.

It is not even the case that the news first appeared in the Times of India (in the most detailed form) and was later copied by other newspapers, because the news appeared in all the papers (including in print) on the same day.

A quick Internet search traces the story about the Rs 1500 crore “empire” of the Maoists to an article that appeared in the intelligence agency-run blog Naxal Terror Watch on 6th June, 2009. It is clearly a news story that was planted by the intelligence agencies (which the Mumbai Mirror divulged) with the connivance of reputed national newspapers, as a piece of propaganda to malign their adversaries, the Maoists. Such plants, appearing innocuously as news stories, and then getting widely distributed, soon become “public wisdom” and provide fodder to talk show hosts and news channel anchors and to the Internet-savvy chatterati to push their own viewpoints in different fora and mould public opinion.

Courtesy: Countercurrents

Confrontation between state and poor acquiring dimension of civil war

SUMANTA BANERJEE
Sanhati.com

It is understandable that human rights/civil liberties organizations should come out with statements deploring the killing of security forces (e.g. PUDR press statement on the wiping out of 75-odd CRPF personnel in Chhattisgarh on April 6) on the purely humanitarian ground that any loss of life is deplorable. But civil society groups or individuals who view the issue from a larger perspective need to take a more rigorous and clear-cut stand. If they agree that the fundamental issues raised by the Maoists are right, even if they do not accept their tactics (in other words, if they are well-disposed towards the basic Maoist critique of the present exploitative system and sympathize with their efforts to build up alternative structures of egalitarian governance in their areas of control, without supporting their tactics of indiscriminate killings of innocent civilians), they have to recognize the stark reality.

The stark reality is that the confrontation between the recalcitrant Indian state (which is adopting an oppressive neo-liberal model of development) and its opponents (the rural poor and tribal villagers who are facing displacement by that model) is fast acquiring the dimensions of a civil war. In such a war situation, the liberal-bourgeois pacifists can condemn both the disputing parties, and wash their hands off, shouting: “plague on both houses.” But can we afford to withdraw and refuse to take sides in this war?

If we are opposing the Indian state’s neo-liberal model of development and its oppressive policies to impose it on our people by displacing them from their homes, we should define our position with regard to the various popular protest movements that are breaking out in different forms – ranging from Gandhian non-violent types like the Narmada Banchao Movement or the anti-steel plant agitation in Kalinganagar on the one hand, to armed resistance by forest-dwellers and tribal people organized under Maoist leadership on the other. The mainstream media propaganda builds up a peculiar dichotomy between these two types of movements – describing the former as part of `democratic’ protest, and denouncing the latter as `terrorism’ – as if the Maoist movement is not democratic. It is as if protests and agitations can be termed democratic only if they are non-violent. But what if thousands of people in a particular area, comprising the majority of the population, decide to opt for armed resistance, after their non-violent forms of protest are violently suppressed by the state ? This is what is happening in Chhattisgarh. The reasons why the tribal people in Dandakaranya have taken up arms have been well-documented – not only by human rights activists, but also by no less an important body than the Planning Commission Experts Group in its report on extremist-affected areas a few years ago. For years together, their basic needs had not only been ignored by the state, but whenever they tried to assert their economic demands through peaceful democratic avenues – like demonstrations asking for higher prices for tendu leave collection, or access to forest produce – they were ruthlessly suppressed by the police.

What needs to be asserted – and which is deliberately suppressed by the mainstream media – is that even the non-violent protest movements (accepted as `democratic’ by the bourgeois-liberals) are violently opposed by the state through the use of military force (witness the experience of the Narmada Banchao movement, or of the Gandhian Himangshu whose ashram in Chhattisgarh was destroyed by the police). If the followers of these non-violent movements, after their disillusionment with the `peaceful’ means of constitutional protest, take up arms tomorrow to protect their homes and occupations, should we denounce them as `terrorists’?

The Home Minister, P. Chidambaram, says that the Naxalites have forced a war on the Indian state and its people. It’s the other way round. The Indian state has forced a war on the Indian poor by imposing on them a corporate sector-induced model of development – threatening wide sections of rural people ranging from the villages of Orissa, Jharkhand in the east to Rajasthan and Haryana in the north, who are being ousted from their lands. They are breaking out in protest demonstrations. The state responds by resorting to violence to suppress them. It has built up a well-structured a military network consisting of a variety of forces going under the names of CRPF, CISF, Special Operation Group, Eastern Frontier Rifles, etc. in various states. Exposures by independent reporters (in magazines like TEHELKA) have revealed how the senior officials and their juniors in these para-military forces have been consistently killing innocent people in false encounters, raping women, burning villages, not only in Maoist-dominated villages of Chhattisgarh, but also in Manipur and other parts of the north-east. The CRPF in particular has earned a notoriety for atrocities in areas wherever they had been deployed. The national media may shed tears for the death of the 75-odd CRPF soldiers in Chhattisgarh. But then, these soldiers, by being cannon-fodders of the Indian state, however tragic it might be, suffered the fate that – I’m sorry to say – they deserved. Should the bourgeois-liberals and human rights activists shed tears for the young dedicated Nazi soldiers (who massacred the Jews), and were killed in reprisal by the Soviet Red Army ? Surely, there should be a limit to the tolerance that bourgeois-liberalism allows!

To come back to the latest incident of the Maoist attack on the CRPF camp in Chhattisgarh…. if we accept it as a part of a civil war, such killings are inevitable (just as the CRPF killings of Maoists) in a violent system that has been institutionalized by the Indian state. The difference between the CRPF violence (involving `false encounters’, raping of tribal women, burning their homes, etc.) on the one hand, and the Maoist violence on the other (which means attacks on oppressive landlords and the police and para-military forces like the CRPF which come to the aid of the landlords) - has to be distinguished by civil society groups.

Courtesy: Countercurrents

Why Dalits don’t trust Maoists

THOMAS C. MOUNTAIN
Countercurrents.org

Dalits really, really distrust the Maoist movement of India and Nepal. As the Maoist movement begins to challenge for state power in Nepal and has struck a serious level of alarm in the ruling elite in India, this question has important ramifications for the future of south Asia.

The Dalit movement in India is the largest and fastest growing threat to the status quo, followed at some distance by the Maoists. Interestingly, almost all the Dalit leadership I know, mostly mid-level cadre in the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), India's third largest national party and main force in the Dalit liberation movement, are ex-Maoists.

When asked why they distrust the "Naxalites", the common term for the Maoist movement, they point out, to start with, that almost all the rank and file fighters in the Maoist movement are Dalits or tribals and almost all the leaders are "high caste". The Dalits I know have had firsthand experience with just how casteist the Naxalite/Maoist leadership is.

When delving into the "political line" put forth by the Maoist movement in India and Nepal, it is rare to find mention of caste/varna, let alone any attempt to address caste/varna (colour) in any sort of historical perspective. It would seem that the Maoist leaders would prefer to blend class with caste and avoid any dealing with such a potentially divisive question.

The Dalit movement exemplified by the BSP cadre I know is firmly rooted in organizing Dalits into community collectives and focused on mobilizing Dalits in exercising their voting rights. When it is pointed out that no ruling class has ever peacefully relinquished its privileges, i.e. through elections, my Dalit comrades point out that 85% of Indian Dalits still believe in the one, unifying tenet of Hinduism, varna/caste/colour. Simply put, most Dalits believe they are being punished by God for sins in a previous life and their lot as "untouchables", Dalits, is God’s will. If God willed your punishment today with the promise of a better rebirth in the next life , then trying to lift your and your children’s lot above that of cleaning communal toilets is going against Gods will. Sounds like a brilliant scheme for social control using a religion, in the opinion of all the Dalits I know.

Taking into consideration just how mentally enslaved most Dalits remain, moving the masses of Dalits from being so crushed and broken to real liberation might take a series of steps instead of one giant leap, or so my Dalit comrades seem to feel. Dalits may have to see for themselves that casting a vote is not going to midwife any real liberation for the rank and file. While acknowledging that a series of trials and errors may mark their struggle and that the Maoists scorn such an approach, Dalits feel that if the Maoist movement continues to ignore varna/caste while depending on Dalits to win power, Dalits are doomed to see their struggle for equal rights and justice betrayed by the new Brahmins, the leaders of today’s Maoist movement.
One fact remains utterly non-debatable and that is that India and Nepal remain overwhelmingly a society of villages. Equally non-debatable is that in Indian and Nepalese villages, caste rules. How the Maoist movement can hope to succeed without even addressing this issue in any real way bodes ill for any hopes that the Maoist movement offers solutions to the most barbaric, inhumane system of human oppression in the world, the Apartheid in India and Nepal.

In a previous incarnation, Thomas C. Mountain was the publisher of the Ambedkar Journal and a founding member of the Phoolan Devi International Defence Committee. He can be contacted at thomascmountain@yahoo.com

Ekta's call for end to violence

The following is a statement issued by EKTA (Committee for Communal Amity), Mumbai:

It is to express and put on record our deep pain and anguish at the massacre of 76 members of the central and state security forces in the early hours of April 6 in the thick jungles of mountainous Mukrana in the Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh while carrying out the Operation Green Hunt to counter and crush the raging Maoist insurgency in that area as a part of their duty.

That these 76 young lives from ordinary families from different corners of India were tragically lost while engaged in waging war against the “enemy” in the call of duty is hardly a factor mitigating the present tragedy. Loss of so many young human lives, otherwise completely avoidable, cannot be considered as anything but utterly unfortunate. They fell to the bullets of those whom they had been sent to “hunt”.

As the human toll is tragically rising – in terms of death, destruction and displacement – in the ongoing armed conflict, we fervently appeal to the warring parties to immediately cry a halt to this intensifying orgy of blood spill and engage in a purposeful dialogue, also involving concerned representatives of the civil society

While we have hardly any claim over the armed Maoist insurgents, except as co-citizens; the democratic government led by our elected representatives is duty bound to show due sensitiveness to this call for peace.

And, the state stands to lose its moral legitimacy if it continues to show callous disregard for human lives – lives of its own citizens. It just cannot afford to emulate the armed insurgents out to capture state power through the use of blazing guns.

And it must also address the issue of its persistent failure, and worse, to uplift the conditions of vast sections of India’s adivasi populations in the war zones and also elsewhere. That’s the way to eliminate the support base for insurgency.

The mindless recourse to bullets is just not too cruel, it is also counterproductive.

We also urge all right thinking citizens to mount moral pressure on the side of peace – just and fair peace at that.

Sukla Sen
for EKTA (Committee for Communal Amity)

The hidden story behind Operation Green Hunt

The following is a joint statement issued by a number of organizations opposed to Operation Green Hunt:

Operation Green Hunt was launched in the latter half of 2009 and a large contingent of paramilitary and military forces aided and abetted by mercenaries were deployed in large parts of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and West Bengal.

It is a war supposedly to free the people of these areas from Maoist influence. By repeated declarations and one-sided media statements the Government has made Maoists “the single largest internal security threat to the country”.

Advertisements are regularly appearing in all major newspapers which call Maoists nothing but cold-blooded murderers. They are being accused of terrorizing the poor, killing men and rendering women widows, destroying school buildings, as criminals who indulge in extortion. The Home Ministry then exhorts the common people to stop violence and become prosperous.

According to government sources, 203 districts are affected by Maoists. What we should ask is: are people prospering in the remaining 400 districts? Do people have enough employment there? Do children go to schools? Do innocent people not die untimely deaths there?

Let’s take the case of Delhi which is not affected by Maoists. Prices of basic food items have skyrocketed. One day it is sugar, another day milk, on the third the price of cooking gas or public transport – the government keeps increasing prices under one pretext or the other, or many a time without giving any reasons. While the common citizens pay ever-rising prices the benefits go increasingly to big companies. Sugar mills and traders make windfall profits by importing sugar and selling it at uncontrolled prices; Petrol fills the coffers of the likes of Ambanis.

We have witnessed many innocent people being killed in the last thirty years. Gas leak in Bhopal killed thousands but no punitive action has yet been taken against the management. In the case of the proposed Nuclear Civil Liability Bill, instead of protecting its citizens, the government has been trying to cap the damages to be paid by nuclear companies of US regardless of the destruction they cause. The killing of innocents is not acceptable to anyone, but why have the guilty of the 1984 riots belonging to Congress not been punished as yet? By inciting people to break down the Babri Masjid, BJP caused riots all over the country; why use the army against one set of supposed killers (Maoists and other “insurgents”) but set up tedious commissions for communal riots against another?

The other charge against the Maoists is that they are luring people by making false promises of prosperity. But one must not forget that the Maoist party and their predecessors came into existence long after ruling parties had made these promises to people for decades to garner their votes. It is the false promises of development which lacked any real will that gave opportunity to new forces and parties. At any rate the real reason to send the army to these states is not to flush out Maoists.

The reality is that our government is subservient to domestic and foreign capital. Today, these masters are not satisfied with control over the market—whether it is retail, whole sale, rural, urban, high end or of those that cater to basic necessities. They are desperate for the real estate, water, and minerals and other natural resources. The regions and states where the Operation Green Hunt is being carried out have a large proportion of tribal population who have been living under dismal conditions for decades. The only outreach of the government to them has comprised of the Forest Department and the police and neither has lost any opportunity to intimidate them. Unfortunately for the tribals, their land has vast mineral treasures hidden under their feet. To mine these and to process them, the concerned governments have signed unprecedented numbers of MoUs with Indian as well as foreign companies during the last five years. In this period another opportunity has also been created for real estate speculation and take-over with the SEZs Act.

If the MoUs have to be honoured then the government is under compulsion to remove the present inhabitants. Crores of people will be affected in this exercise. While the government is eager to implement the MoUs it has thrown to winds all the constitutional guarantees under the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution which acknowledge the traditional rights of the tribals to the forest land. Notwithstanding the tall claims of Rehabilitation and Resettlement there has not been a single case so far of proper rehabilitation of the people who have been affected. All the ‘Modern Temples’—as Nehru used to call it—of ‘Development’ like Mega dams, Steel factories, mining establishments till date have been built on the graveyards of people who were never part of that much abused word, ‘development’. The poorest of the poor people of these regions are facing perhaps the worst ever murderous campaign, called “the biggest land grab since Colombus” by none other than the Ministry of Rural Development report of the Government of India! In the state of Chhattisgarh 644 villages have been vacated in the district of Dantewada alone by burning and looting. The residents are forced to live in inhuman conditions in refugee camps which lack basic facilities and are no more than night shelters. Lakhs are hiding in the jungles without any support system and lakhs have migrated to districts like Khammam in the neighbouring states. This eviction was carried out using a private army called Salwa Judum. But when this operation was not adequate as it met with stiff resistance from the local people as well as the civil society and a sizeable section of the media provoking worldwide indignation then further operations were planned using the pretext of Maoist threat. The people of India is time and again being informed and reassured by a suave, erudite, Mining Company Director-turned Lawyer- turned Finance Minister-turned Home Minister that the army will move in, clear the area of the Maoist ‘menace’, and development will follow closely on its heels.

Today it has become a crime to take the side of the tribals. Whether it is the Gandhians who provide them with rations, or the doctors who reach out for treating the tribals where the government has abandoned them, or the democratic rights organizations who expose the violence committed by the state or Salwa Judum. Such supporters have their Ashrams demolished, doctors and civil rights activists are thrown in jail, even fact finding teams are not allowed in the area. The tribals themselves are in a much worse shape. Complaints of rape are not filed, witnesses of police firing and atrocities are made to disappear and the Salwa Judum crosses over to Andhra Pradesh to intimidate the internally displaced tribals. Opposing the government and its excesses has been made the synonym of support to Maoists. Now, well known civil rights groups and leaders have been named explicitly in Kobad Ghandy’s charge sheet. They are being called the fronts of Maoists. This act of association has been carried to such extremes that even the Supreme Court has warned the Chhattisgarh police to refrain from using “Maoist supporter” as an “innuendo”. Not just in Chhattisgarh but in other states as well people are struggling against oppression and exploitation. To term all protest as Maoist has become the standard response of the government.

Does it mean that sooner than later the army will be called to deal with all resistance? Will prisons be filled up with the voices of dissent? The government’s own reports acknowledge that Naxalism has grown on account of neglect and miseries of the people. The response then calls for social and economic justice and not of military attacks under the guidance of American and Israeli specialists. Violence will evoke counter-violence because peaceful protests are facing firing everywhere leaving them little option. Whether we look at Tamil Nadu or UP or Karnataka or Maharashtra we find that freedom of expression is largely abridged and leafleting is also termed as sedition. Draconian laws follow each other with urgency to crush dissent, terming everything into a crime at the whim of those in power and bringing incarceration without trials in their wake. Media is run as a profit making venture by large corporations and it gives weightage and coverage to those in power.

No amount of force or use of army is likely to bring lasting peace. We should not forget that army has been used extensively in Kashmir and the Northeast. For sixty years these areas are under siege. In Manipur, for every citizen there are forty men in uniform – the result is false encounters, rapes and disappearances. The Home ministry states that at the height of insurgency there were 3000 extremists in Kashmir. The violence unleashed to contain them led to human right violations, rapes and disappearances – all leaving deep scars in the psyche of Kashmiris which still breed hatred and mistrust. UN figures suggest that the victims of army atrocities far outnumber those of the militants. But this has not taught any lesson to the government and it persists in repeating military offensive in large parts of the country. The problem cannot be solved by combat and will lend itself only to a political and economic solution.

In the light of this, we call upon all concerned citizens to come together and join the struggle for people’s rights to life, livelihood and resources.

We demand:
• Immediate and complete withdrawal of military and paramilitary forces.
• Allow independent observers to visit the affected areas.
• Make public all MOUs concerned with natural resource extraction and industrial production, 2005-09.

The following are among the organizations which have subscribed to the statement:
Delhi University Campaign against War on People;
Jawaharlal Nehru University Forum against War on People;
Forum against War on People;
Campaign against Genocide of Adivasis;
Citizens Initiative for Peace;
Manipur Students’ Association, Delhi;
Janmadhyam;
Saheli;
PUDR;
PCC, CPI (M-L);
Delhi Solidarity Group;
Campaign for Peace and Justice in Chhattisgarh;
Campaign for Peace and Democracy, Manipur;
Pratidhwani;
Kashipur Solidarity Group.

Maoists will not save India’s poor, says AHRC

The following is a statement issued by the Asian Human Rights Commission, Hong Kong on Wednesday:

The Maoists operating in India ambushed and killed 74 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) officers in Mukhrana of Dandewada district in Chhattisgarh state early yesterday morning. The success of the Maoist operation is proof to the lack of preparedness and training of the CRPF. The unfortunate incident showcases the absence of professionalism in gathering credible intelligence, coordination, planning and execution of operations by the state agencies like the Chhattisgarh state police, its intelligence unit and the CRPF.

The failure of the state agencies, however, does not justify mass murder. Yesterday's incident is once again a proof to the fact that the Maoists have nothing in common with the need of the landless peasants and the rural poor in the country. A direct and anticipated result of yesterday's mass murder is intensified combing operations by the state and state-sponsored private agencies.

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) expects that the government of India will not change its decision not to engage in a Vietnam-era style operation of air assaults and frequent aerial attacks. An aerial attack of rural villages is the trap into which the Maoists want to lure the government. The AHRC hopes that the sensibility and maturity shown by the government in the past, offering solutions through discussions and affirmative actions within the constitutional framework, will continue to prevail in New Delhi.

It has to be presumed that yesterday's massacre is a calculated move by the Maoists to attract blind offensives by the state, so that they could use this as an excuse to recruit more cadres from the villagers to intensify the armed offensive upon the state machineries against which they have declared an incessant war. Bringing the state's firepower, which is often unable to identify between the terrorist and the layperson, will not in any way help to end feudalism and caste based discrimination in rural India.

Over the past decade the Maoists have swelled their cadre by recruiting from the poorest of the poor in rural India. Landless peasants, Dalits and members of the tribal communities makeup the majority of the Maoist cadre. Caste-based discrimination and landlordism prevalent in rural India are the catalysts that help Maoist recruiters to convince the poor to take up arms.

It is no surprise that those cornered to the brink of extinction is easily lured into waging war against the state. This is a scenario that neither the government of India, nor its 'Maoist affected' state governments have tried to address so far.

The expanding network of Maoist activities in the country and their improving sophistication in attacks must be an eye-opener to the government. The Prime Minister and the Home Minister have been lamenting against the Maoists, describing them as "the single largest threat to India's internal security" since 2006. Except for the failed attempts to engage in a peaceful dialogue with the Maoists, the government's response to the Maoist threat has been largely offensive in nature, with repeatedly demonstrated lack of coordination, resulting in loss of life among the security forces, Maoists and that of innocent villagers.

Probably a way of dealing with the Maoists is for the government to take immediate measures to address Maoist recruitment in rural India. Sheer use of force and other ill-conceived tactics adopted by the government so far, like the formation of village defence forces and forced migration of villagers into guarded camps with limited freedom have not only divided the rural population, but has also resulted in generating grievances against the state. Such steps have only benefited the local landlords and those politicians with tainted credentials like some in the Chhattisgarh State Assembly.

Violence is promoted not only by the Maoists. The statement issued late yesterday evening by Mr. Rajeev Prathap Rudy, the national spokesperson of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), demanding an immediate end to the offer of dialogues by the government, and an all-out offensive against the Maoists is an example. Rudy cannot however wash his hands by placing an irresponsible demand on behalf of his party demanding the government to engage the Maoists in an offensive war.

The Maoist movement gained momentum when Rudy was the Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industry in 1999. Some of the industrial policies Rudy emulated from the Singapore model and conceived and executed in the country have sumptuously helped the Maoists to spread out in the country, expanding the length and breadth of the Maoist red-corridor.

Indeed, an offensive as called by the BJP against the Maoists will get complete cooperation from the Chhattisgarh state administration. This is not only because the state is ruled by a BJP-led government that has shamelessly lobbied for Maoist support during the election, but also since some of the state's corrupt politicians can use the fight against Maoists as an excuse to wipe off the remaining tribal population from their dwellings. The Chhattisgarh state government has been doing this in the past few years and has a record of having sold many of the state's natural resources, including rivers and forests, to private corporations.

Among the manifold causes for Maoist insurgency in India are extreme poverty; loss of livelihood options; feudalism and caste-based discrimination. Unfortunately, some of the state governments, like the one in Chhattisgarh, have a large number of corrupt politicians who have not spared an opportunity to steal whatever little the poor landless peasants have.

While emphasizing the need of the country to develop, and unfortunately at a breakneck speed causing sometimes permanent and fatal loss to the rural population, the government must also take measures to provide reasonable and just options for those who do not want to support at all costs the development paradigm. For instance, industrial and infrastructure development must not be an excuse to force distress migration of the rural population and end in loss of livelihood options as it is the case in Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal.

Development that lacks the emotional ownership of the ordinary people cannot sustain. Such forced developments alienate the people from the state. Secessionist forces reap the benefit of this intellectual animosity between the state and the citizens and the Maoists are no exception.

The government of India has a constitutional mandate to guarantee the security and prosperity of its citizens. The constitution that empowers the state to use force to contain internal threats also requires the state to address the threat within the framework of the constitution. Ending feudalism, extreme poverty and landlessness are thus equally important responsibilities of the government like containing internal insecurity. These responsibilities are not options for the government to be prioritized at will, but are necessitates that require immediate attention.

Probably, a solution to the Maoist insurgency in India also lies in this. But that require the government to have the resolve to address these real problems that affect ordinary Indians. The Maoists know that many of India's mainstream politicians will find it difficult to give away their rural power banks that rest in feudal and corrupt frameworks. It will not be surprising if it is exposed later that the Maoists are in fact supported by some of these corrupt politicians who pretend that they are fighting internal insecurity. It is certain that without their help, the Maoists cannot acquire modern weapons, which they have reportedly used for yesterday's offensive.

It is the strength that the Maoists gain by conniving with corrupt politicians and from the knowledge about the inability of a large number of Indian politicians to effectively address the needs of India's rural poor that helps them to drag the government and innocent people into the Maoist path of destruction, presented as a guerrilla war against the state. It is only when New Delhi realizes this fact and acts against it that internal insecurity in India can be permanently addressed.

The Asian Human Rights Commission is a regional non-governmental organisation monitoring and lobbying human rights issues in Asia. The Hong Kong-based group was founded in 1984.

Call to stop killings in the name of countering Maoism

The following is a statement issued by eight activists on alleged encounter killings of some Maoist leaders:

We, the undersigned, strongly condemn the recent killings of senior CPI (Maoist) leaders Sakhamuri Appa Rao and S. Kondal Reddy in ‘encounters’ by the Andhra Pradesh police.

While the AP police has claimed that they were killed in gun battles in two different incidents in Prakasam and Warangal districts, there are strong grounds to believe that the two Maoist leaders were arrested in Maharashtra, taken to AP and shot in cold blood.

The use of assassination, kidnapping and torture by the forces of the Indian state to contain the Maoist insurgency is not new or surprising but remains even now, as before, an illegal, immoral and reprehensible strategy.

Firstly, the use of such methods by the Indian police, paramilitary forces or army -- under whatever pretext -- go against basic provisions of the Indian Constitution and puts them on par with ordinary criminals or even terrorists. The fact that the Maoists do not believe in the Indian Constitution does not mean the Indian government should also abandon its commitment to the only consensus document that gives it its legitimacy. The Indian state has a duty to uphold the Constitution, irrespective of the opponents it faces, and failure to do so robs it of its entire claim to represent ‘Indian law’.

Secondly, there is enough evidence to show that the use of such dirty methods, once justified by the political masters, unfortunately becomes a bad habit, making the Indian security forces a threat to the lives of millions of ordinary Indian citizens. The fact that India has one of the world’s highest numbers of custodial deaths and ranks extremely high in the list of countries using torture is testimony to this dubious phenomenon. The people at the receiving end of such violations of law by the Indian state on a day-to-day basis are the Dalit, Adivasi, Muslim, poor communities as also the people of Kashmir and the North-East, and this is completely unacceptable.

We demand that the Home Minister of India and the Indian government put an immediate end to the use of abduction, torture and fake encounter killings to tackle the Maoist and other armed insurgencies. Lawless governance and impunity for wrongdoers in uniform leads to loss of faith in democracy. The institutional failures that give rise to insurgencies also need to be understood and tackled in a political manner for any lasting solutions.

A.Marx, Academic/Activist, Chennai
Bhaskar Vishwanathan, Activist, Chennai
Amit Bhaduri, Economist, New Delhi
Dilip Simeon, Academic/Activist, New Delhi
Satya Sivaraman, Journalist, New Delhi
Aseem Srivastava, Economist, New Delhi
Amit Sengupta, Journalist, New Delhi
Rabin Chakrabarty, Academic/Activist, Kolkata

Distributed by Countercurrents.org

Operation Mineral Hunt, not Operation Green Hunt

GLADSON DUNGDUNG
Countercurrents.org

After long preparation, debate and politics, finally the Indian government launched ‘Operation Green Hunt’ (OGH) in Jharkhand on March 10 with the objective of cleansing the state of Maoists. Though P. Chidambaram, the CEO of OGH does not use the term his officers di it shamelessly. Nearly 10,000 security forces consisting of CRPF, Cobra, Jaguar, STP and other groups have been deployed in the forests, choppers are roaming over the forests, schools are converted into military camps, forests are sealed and the combing operations are being carried out in the forests with the support of local Adivasi youth who are named as Special Police Officers (SPO), duplicated from the Salwa Judum theory of Chhattisgarh.

Since, there was huge media hype on Operation Green Hunt the Maoists fled the area much before the arrival of the security forces in the region. As a result, the security forces are targeting the innocent villagers. The operation has created uncertainty, brought threat to life and seized the freedom of the villagers, mostly Adivasis, in different parts of the state. The Adivasis who live in or around the forests and depend on it for their survival, are not allowed to enter or roam in the forests, the water sources are captured, the villagers are unnecessarily harassed, children are denied their right to education and the security forces misbehave woth the women. However, the billion dollar question is, is it really an operation to hunt for the Maoists?

The OGH concept itself is questionable. Theoretically, it is ‘Operation Red Hunt’ rather than ‘Operation Green Hunt’ as the Maoists neither look green nor depend on forests for their survival. It is the Adivasis who completely depend on agro-forests (greeneries). The government has been telling us for several years that the Palamu region of Jharkhand is the most Maoist- infested area. Presently, Simdega district comes under the same category but strangely the anti-Naxal operation was first launched in the Kolhan region. Needless to say the Jharkhand government has signed the most MoUs with corporate houses for establishing mining industries, power projects and steel plants. Obviously the anti-Naxal operations are being carried out in those districts (East Singhbhum, West Singbhum, Khunti, Gumla, Bokaro, Giridih, Chatra, Latehar, Ramgarh and Hazaribagh) where either the villagers are opposing the proposed projects or the government sees as an investment corridor.

Ironically, the government of India launched another operation on March 17 in the Chotanagpur region of Jharkhand, which can be called “Operation Mineral Hunt”. According to the latest report, choppers are being engaged for conducting an aerial survey to find out the existence of minerals in the region. Both the operations are being carried out simultaneously in the region by the government of India. Secondly, just a week after OGH was flagged off, the world’s second largest steel company POSCO announced shifting of its proposed 12 MT steel project from Orissa to Jharkhand, where it will invest Rs. 54,000 crore in a joint venture with SAIL in Bokaro. POSCO will have 60 per cent share and would get the Chiria Mines (2,000 MT reserve) easily for which the Arcellor Mittal Company was also bargaining hard.

The Chief Ministers of the so-called Red Corridor states are attending a series of meetings with P. Chidambarm on OGH on one hand and with the corporate houses for investment on the other. Of course, there is an investment competition going on among several states as the present era of development is measured on the basis of investment. Now the decline of hunger, illiteracy and malnutrition does not matter for the state. Therefore, one has every reason to believe that the so-called OGH is to clear the Adivasis' and other local settlers' lands for the corporate houses rather than to cleanse the region of Maoists.

Of course, the state is essentially batting for the corporate houses in the name of the Maoists and instead of creating peace the government is creating insecurity in the region. The Adivasis are in a state of uncertainty because of the way they have been treated in the country despite being the indigenous people. They always live peacefully and pay the heavy price for the development of the nation. The Adivasis are not against development but they don't want the foundation of development to be laid over their graves. In the present circumstances, the Adivasis are being targeted in each and every corner. They are the victims of both Maoist and state violence.

After kidnapping of Dhalmugarh BDO Prasant Kumar Layak, the Maoists had demanded release of innocent villagers from the jail. In response to their demand, Zonal Inspector General of Police Regi Dungdung publicly announced that the police have inflicted false cases against innocent villagers. Jasmi Mardi and Bahadur Mardi of Gurabandh village of Ghatshila were found innocent after reviewing their cases and released. Ironically, earlier, the police had portrayed them as Maoists, thrown them behind the bars and charged them under the sections 302, 120b, 349 of IPC, 27 of Arms Act and 17 CLA Act. The question is how can an innocent person be charged with such serious criminal acts? The Chief Minister also acknowledged that many innocent people were put in jail after branding them as Maoists.

The country faced a series of terrorist attacks, including the attacks on Parliament, Akshardham, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and 26/11. Our corporate Home Minister has now a different view of Jehadi terrorists. His latest discovery is that ‘Maoists are more dangerous than the Jehadi terrorists for the country’. The UPA government, therefore, wants to eliminate the Maoists before the completion of its present term. Of course, one can understand his position. The Jehadi terrorists have nothing to do with the minerals but the Maoists are very much associated with it. National and multinational companies are eying them but they are not able to establish their projects in the Red Corridor due to the people’s protests. The Maoists never hesitate to take credit for this. That is the main reason why the India government is ready to go in for unconditional talk with Pakistan but wants to eliminate the Maoists rather than go in for peace talks with them. It proposes a pre-condition peace talks with the Maoists to mislead the people.

Perhaps, history suggests that the Adivasi-dominated areas were never a matter of concern for the Indian state. fter liberalization these areas were identified as the haven for investment and projected as the mineral corridor. Meanwhile, the Indian state attempted to convert these areas into a corporate corridor by allowing the corporate sharks to enter. In 2005, the Indian government brought a legislation for establishment of the corporate corridor, which is called the ‘Special Economic Zone’ (SEZ) but it could not implementat the Act fully due to the mass protests. Finally, these areas were named Red Corridor so that the state can use the power of gun to convert it into Corporate Corridor. Licensed killings are very much welcomed, appreciated and even rewarded in our democratic setup.

The issue of Naxalism is four decades old. It emerged in the 1970s but the Indian state was not much concerned about it. When villagers stoned former Union Fertilizer Minister Ram Vilas Paswan and West Bengal Chief Minister Budhdev Bhattacharjee while they were returning from Bhumi Pujan (inauguration) of Jindal’s project in Midnapore district of West Bengal in 2008, the issue of Naxalism was brought to the centrestage. Finally, joint operations were called to cleanse the country of Maoists projecting them as the biggest security threat to the nation.

Operation Green Hunt is a license to kill the Adivasis who oppose the unjust development process, protest against state suppression and are determined to protect their heritage. It wants to transform the Adivasi lands into the corporate corridor, where corporate sharks will swallow the minerals and produce money for the country, making India a superpower with the blood of the Adivasis and other local settlers. All three economists, Montek Sigh Ahluwalia, Manmohan Singh and P. Chidambaram, are working towards Vision 2020 and they would do anything for it.

The India state sees the Maoists as a severe threat to the investment climate rather than a security threat to the nation. Our ruling elites want to suppress, shoot and bury the dissenting voice. They are more worried about the corporate houses than the communities, they are more concerned about GDP growth than feeding the country’s hungry people and they are more worried about the investment climate than the impact of the climate change. Those who are confused about Operation Green Hunt must realize at least now that it is not an operation to cleanse the country of Maoists but a hunt for minerals for the corporate sharks. It is Operation Mineral Hunt, my friends.

Gladson Dungdung is a human rights activist and writer from Jharkhand. He can be reached at gladsonhractivist@gmail.com
Website: www.jharkhandmirror.org

Citizens Initiative for Peace and the Maoist challenge

NANDITA HAKSAR
Mainstream

I have read the Resolution (entitled “Stop offensive Hold Unconditional Dialogue” in Mainstream) made by the Citizens Initiative for Peace very carefully and I would like to raise some questions about the list of six demands that have been formulated in the light of the discussion and debates around the question of the Indian State’s decision to deal with the “Naxalite problem” with brute military force.

The Resolution has put forward six “simple yet urgent demands”. The demands are addressed to both the Central Government and the Maoists because it calls upon both parties to stop the “offensive” and the “hostilities”, and start a dialogue. However, the Resolution states that the Government should take the initiative.

If we closely examine the six demands we will see that the Resolution has fallen into the trap of the Indian State which wants the focus to be on the question of violence and not on the very real problems that the Maoists have focused on. It is interesting that many of those people who have very deep ideological differences with the Maoists, including Gandhians committed to non-violence, have also taken the position that the basic political issues must be addressed before there is any discussion on the use of violence by the Maoists.

There is a very real danger that the State will not only try and crush the Maoists but will put down all resistance to the very unjust and unconstitutional economic policies being pursued which have deprived hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens of their rightful share in development.
The whole debate (and this includes other initiatives such as the one under discussion) around the issue of the Indian State’s response to the Maoist challenge reflects a certain political bankruptcy and poverty of philosophy.
It lacks political imagination.

Let us examine each of the six demands and see if the demands formulated by the Citizens Initiative for Peace will help create democratic space for discussions on the real political issues or will in effect close the space and unwittingly justify the State action against the Maoists and so allow the repression of all protest, dissent and criticism of the State’s economic policies which are clearly in violation of the Directive Principles of State Policy (Part IV of the Indian Constitution).

The first demand states: “The Government should stop the offensive in the areas where the CPI (Maoist) and other Naxalite parties are active, in order to facilitate a ceasefire.”

The second demand states: “The CPI (Maoist) and other Naxalite parties should cease all hostilities against the state forces to facilitate a ceasefire.”
The third demand is: “There should be no attacks on civilians and their lives must be secure.”

Does the Citizens Initiative for Peace make a distinction between civilians and combatants in this “war”? Are those adivasis who have some arms to protect themselves from Salwa Judum or the COBRA to be counted and equated with State forces and denied the protection to be given to civilians?
My first question is: who is to cease their offensive first and why? Even those people who have fundamental political differences with the Maoists have warned that if the Maoists lay down arms it will only allow the State not only to crush the Maoist organisation but also the tens of thousands of adivasis—the poorest citizens of our country. Many adivasis have armed themselves to protect themselves from the brutal repression let loose by the security forces which include cutting off breasts, shooting women in the legs and torture.

It is true that the brutal tactics used by the Maoists have repulsed many people. The beheading of an intelligence officer and the threat to carry out the same is reminiscent of the Taliban type justice. But violence or brutal tactics has to be distinguished from disciplined armed resistance.

My second question is: with whom are we having a debate on violence?
The Home Minister states that the Government would be willing to have talks if the Maoists abjure violence. He obviously does not acknowledge the institutionalised violence against the adivasis which has resulted in their starvation deaths, their deaths from curable diseases and the alienation of their land and means of livelihood.

And what does the Resolution of the Citizens Initiative for Peace mean that the Naxalites “should cease hostilities”? Does the Citizens Initiative for Peace want the Maoists to lay down arms and disown armed resistance or do they want them not to use violence on individual State officials?

If the Citizens Initiative for Peace really wants “peace” they must demand that the Government of India must first address the very real grievances of the adivasis in the region when the Maoists and Government enter into a dialogue. Those issues which have been raised by the Maoists have also been raised by other organisations and parties working in the region (the so-called Red corridor). Above all, those are the issues around which there has been a sustained adivasi movement since Indian independence.

The political and economic issues in question are broadly related to:

1. hunger, malnutrition and starvation deaths of adivasis largely due to massive land alienation and the dispossession of adivasis due to development projects;

2. the secret dealing with the Transnational Corporations by which hundreds of MoUs have been signed which will allow the TNCs to exploit the rich mineral resources of the region without benefit to either the local people or the nation as a whole;this is an issue related to corporate governance;

3. denial of basic rights to health, water, housing, education and above all food.

The Citizens Initiative for Peace must make a list of specific demands for each of the affected States: Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar and West Bengal. And then demand that the State governments and Government of India announce the measures they will take in a time-bound fashion on each of these issues. This will bring back focus on the real urgent issues.

The Resolution of the Citizens Initiative for Peace includes the demand: “People’s basic livelihood rights and democratic control over their natural resources must be urgently ensured. We resolve to work for this.” But it does not state what those demands are and how the people have systematically been deprived of their means of livelihood. More importantly, how the Citizens Initiative for Peace intends to work on these issues—something which would be of great interest to those who read their Resolution.

After all, the systematic denial of citizens of food, medicines and homes is institutionalised violence which cannot be equated with the beheading of a state official. Apart from the violence on the entire adivasi population of this region (not to speak of other parts of the country) the security forces have been committing human rights violations of individual adivasi activists, and anyone else they decide to dub as Maoist. The law does not allow the torture of even the members of a banned organisation.

If the Resolution is genuinely meant for the people at large then it must spell out the political issues; otherwise the language of the Citizens Initiative is indistinguishable from that of the language of the State.

Does that mean I am condoning the violence (as opposed to armed resistance) used by the Maoists? Not at all. It is not a question whether one condones or supports a particular act. The basic political question is related to the efficacy of armed resistance and the relationship between armed resistance and democratic means of struggle. Lenin in Left Wing Communism, an Infantile Disorder had warned that the communist resistance should not result in increasing the resistance of the opposition.

From the time I began working in the human rights movement I have seen how the Maoists always increase the resistance of the class enemy by their tactics and then claim there is no democratic space in the system. The human rights groups have exposed the State’s role in repression and how it always intervenes in favour of the rich but they have no understanding of how democratic space within this system works and how it can be enlarged.
By way of example, a certain revolutionary group in Central America had abducted a government official and in exchange for the person they demanded masses of food for the entire slum population. Instead, the whole drama of exchange of prisoners took away the focus on the real issues and wasted the valuable time they had on national television to mobilise public opinion.
There is a need to evolve tactics to effectively intervene within the system and radically engage with the democratic institutions such as the courts, media, legislative assemblies and Parliament etc. This entire area of work has been appropriated by the NGOs who have depoliticised the democratic space.
Thus there is an urgent need to have a dialogue, debate and discussion among Marxists, Communists and others who support the Maoists. But that debate is not a debate that can be mixed with the debate between citizens and the State.

The fourth demand of the Citizens Initiative for Peace is: “Unconditional dialogue must begin between Government and CPI (Maoist).”

I am not at all sure what the word “uncon-ditional” means. It could refer to the Home Minister’s pre-condition for talks must be cessation of violence by Maoists. So, the Citizens Initiative’s call for unconditional talks would mean that they think the Government should not put this pre-condition. Perhaps it needs to be spelt out.

Here I have several questions. The premise of this demand seems to be that the Citizens Initiative for Peace has implicit faith in the honesty of the Government of India or the Indian State to have a genuine dialogue. The history of independent India clearly shows that the Indian State does not represent the interests of the poor. My experience in the North-East shows that the State uses the peace initiatives as part of its counter-insurgency strategies to weaken and penetrate the organisation. Peace processes are never used to raise awareness of the basic political issues such as the nature of Indian federalism and the inability of the Indian State to respond to the democratic aspirations of the peoples of the North-East.

Does that mean dialogue or peace processes should be shunned? No. However, the militant or revolutionary organisation involved in political negotiations has to have a clear idea of strategies and tactics and use them to reach out to the people and explain the political issues and mobilise them around those. However, neither the militants nor the civil society have shown any ability of effective lobbying, advocacy or other democratic means to pressurise the State. The Indian State will not change its basic policies, but we must know what can change if we are able to have a sustained campaign.
Sustained campaign of course means the need for time and funds. The professionalised activist has little time, quite a lot of money and very little political understanding. Campaigns degenerate into shoddily written resolutions, glossy posters and occasionally in-house meetings with songs and candles.

There is no systematic documentation exposing the State with facts and statistics, effort to reach out to the general public and raise political awareness of the political issues and follow up on each issue.

There is one other matter. Does the Citizens Initiative for Peace recognise the Maoist party as the only representative of the people? The dialogue between the Maoists and the Government would include specific demands of the Maoist organisation such as lifting of the ban on the party, release of political prisoners etc. But there is a need to have a time-bound process by which the Government is made to take specific steps to alleviate the suffering of the adivasi people living in the region.

The fifth demand of the Citizens Initiative for Peace is: “Free Access to the affected areas should be provided to the independent civil organisations and media.” There is nothing wrong with the demand but why is the Committee fighting on behalf of the media which is in any case reducing the whole issue to violence versus non-violence. They have done nothing to focus on the basic issues of the Indian citizens who have been victims of institutionalised violence, bad governance, and now brute repression.

The Citizens Initiative for Peace needs to engage with the media on a sustained basis. Take the example of Vir Sanghvi’s editorial entitled “Let’s Listen to Common sense” where he attacks the activists and intellectuals who are arguing that ”we care about the poor” only if we “support murderers who behead policemen”. He argues that “peace first and everything else second”. The resolution of the Citizens Initiative for Peace sounds almost like Vir Sanghvi’s editorial because it has not once talked about the institutionalised violence of the state and society.

In fact one of the demands should be addressed to the media to report on the basic issues and not make it a debate on violence versus non-violence. There is a need to have a media watchdog which continuously exposes the lies and distortions of the media. There was a magazine in the USA called Lies of our Time dedicated to exposing the lies in the New York Times. We need something like that to expose the electronic channels.

The greatest danger of the Resolution of the Citizens Initiative for Peace is that the focus on peace, ceasefire and dialogue will take away public focus from the real, urgent political, economic and cultural problems faced by lakhs of people living in abject poverty while surrounded by natural resources which are going to make the transnational corporations richer.

This is a historic opportunity for Indian citizens to intervene and stop natural resources from being handed over to the transnational corporations. It is an opportunity to demand that the Indian State make public the MoUs signed with these transnational companies. This is the time that we should demand a moratorium on all land transfers and mining leases or licenses till there is an informed public debate on the economic policy for this region.
It is the duty of every citizen to stop the State from destroying the means of livelihood of Indian citizens, from wiping out their culture and crushing their resistance—all in the name of national security and dealing with Maoists.

In the light of the above discussion the Citizens Initiative for Peace, if it wants to make a meaningful intervention, must set itself the following tasks:

1. Make a list of concrete demands of the adivasis in each State and make concrete suggestions how the Government can ameliorate the situation. An example is of how Shankar Guha Neogi challenged the Government policy of mechanisation of iron ore mines by providing a detailed study to show that semi-mechanised mines would be economically be more viable.

The making of this list involves talking across to many more people including those who have expertise and those who have experience.

2. Widely publicise these demands through whatever ways that can be found. This is essential in order to keep the focus on the real political issues and not allow the State to hijack the whole momentum and reduce it to an issue between violence and non-violence. People need to be constantly reminded that what is being described as a war against the Maoists is in fact a war against the citizens of India who are economically the poorest and politically the most disempowered.

3. If there is to be a real dialogue then there must be a transparent framework for the dialogue process that needs to be put in place. This means it must be a dialogue between responsible members of the Maoists and political representatives of the State. So far all the talks between the Indian State and militant groups have been handled primarily by the intelligence agencies. The role of intelligence agencies has not even begun to be questioned by the human rights groups.

In fact the whole process of dialogue between militant groups and the State has raised the question of the role of intelligence agencies and democratic polity.

Of course the Maoists too have little under-standing how to effectively use the dialogue to increase the democratic space. And it is also not clear whether they have worked out concrete proposals for a talk and whether they have any strategies or tactics other than using the process to gain time.

4. A careful monitoring of the media and exposing how it is manufacturing consent for the ultimate State repression on the adivasis and the victims of development who are the main targets of this offensive and not the Maoists.
Ever since the public attention has been focused on the Maoists the intelligence agencies have been working overtime, creating a lot of confusion in the minds of the civil society, trying to create divisions and take away the focus on the critical issues and concrete situation in the region.
There is an attempt to undermine their credibility in the eyes of the public and create an atmosphere where the violence of the State against its own citizens would be justified. The Maoists and their sympathisers have done little to counter this trend by their narrow sectarian approach and lack of commitment to norms of political democracy. There is an urgent need for a debate with the Maoists on democratic norms and democratic politics. Their recent announcement that henceforth they would treat their prisoners as Prisoners of War and their decision to release the policeman is an indication that the Maoists may have learnt something from the public reaction to their brutal tactics designed to shock rather than educate.

Lastly, the name of the Initiative is rather unfortunate. It seems to suggest that if the Maoists and Government of India start negotiations we would have peace. It smacks of the non-violent conflict resolution promoted by foreign funded NGOs who are responsible for the depoliticisation of all issues. Should it not have been Citizens Initiative for Justice?

Nandita Haksar is a human rights lawyer and writer.
Courtesy: Countercurrents