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.
Showing posts with label Operation Green Hunt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Operation Green Hunt. Show all posts
13 May, 2010
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
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
12 April, 2010
People's Tribunal report on Operation Green Hunt
The Independent People's Tribunal on Land Acquisition, Resource Grab and Operation Green Hunt concluded its three-day proceedings on Sunday with the jury comprising of Justice (Retd.) P B Sawant, Justice (Retd.) H Suresh, Professor Yash Pal, Dr. P. M. Bhargava, Dr. Mohini Giri and Dr. K S Subramanian presenting an interim report to the public, Government and the media on the issues under consideration.
The interim report was prepared after the jury members heard depositions and testimonies from affected people and activists from the states of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Orissa.
Presenting the recommendations of the jury before the media, public and Government, Justice Sawant said, “There is a perception within the Government and media that by organizing meetings like the IPT, we, everyone present in this room, are supporting the Maoists and the death of the 76 CRPF jawans. Let me clarify this position for once and for all. We are not supporting the Maoists. We do not support violence in any form, State or otherwise. We are discussing here the problems of the tribals and the crisis that is pushing people to the brink of desperation and escalating the cycle of violence.”
It was clear that the state had let the tribals and the poor of this land down. Instead of restoring their faith in the Constitution of India, its judiciary and its spirit, the Government asked for abjuring of violence. “Are these morals only to be remembered in such times, and to be forgotten when atrocities are committed by the state itself?”
Dr. P M Bhargava noted that civil society needs to stand resolute in resisting the current development paradigm and that the case of the BT Brinjal was a case in point for small victories of the people. “ The patience of the masses was running out and there had to be some serious rethinking.”
Dr. Mohini Giri lamented that the Government took no notice of People’s Tribunals like these and their recommendations. She criticized the Government for its lack of understanding of the issues that affected people and implored them to do so immediately.
The interim report of the jury states, “Gross violation of the rights of the poor, particularly tribal rights, have reached unprecedented levels since the new economic policies of the 90’s. The Fifth Schedule rights of the tribals, in particular the Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas (PESA) Act and the Forest Rights Act have been grossly violated. These violations have now gone to the extent where fully tribal villages have been declared to be non-tribal. The entire executive and judicial administration appears to have been totally apathetic to their plight. It could well be the severest indictment of the State in the history of democracy anywhere, on account of the sheer number of people (tribals) affected and the diabolic nature of the atrocities committed on them by the State, especially the police, leave aside the enormous and irreversible damage to the environment.
The first session of the day took stock of the situation in Orissa with regard to industrial and mining projects, land acquisition and people's resistance movements against such displacement and dispossession. Addressed by activists Praveen Patel, Praful Samantra, Abhay Sahu and photographer Sanjit Das, the narratives pointed out how corporate greed colluding with government officials was bleeding out the tribals.
Praveen Patel who presented a paper on the 'Political Economy of Mining' pointed out that under the current policy foreign companies were getting away with virtual robbery, taking huge profits, paying very little in taxes and in fact exacting a huge price from the poor (especially tribals) who are displaced and who suffer severe health and livelihood impacts from the rampant pollution.
The problematic exploitation of iron and bauxite ore was further highlighted in Praful Samantra's talk. For example, the sites containing the most bauxite ore are located atop mountains and correspond to the sources of numerous streams. Mining the ores ruins water supply for the Adivasis living in the area and leaves the company with zero liability. Protests are suppressed in a manner similar to that seen in other states: “...last year 14 people were shot dead. In the last six months, villagers have been banned from leaving their areas, even to go to the hospital. In September 2009, 30 innocent villagers were put in jail and branded as Maoists. We went there and fought for them because they were innocent. The administration assured us that they would be released but they are still in jail. Their families are starving.”
Abhay Sahu, a leader of the Anti-POSCO movement, spoke about the situation on ground. Local people have been protesting the proposed port project, to be built by POSCO which would ruin the lucrative beetle vine cultivation as well as destroy the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of fishermen. He testified on the intimidation tactics used by the State-company nexus to kill the protests: “On 29 November 2007, state and company goons set fire to a village in my area. They occupied all schools and building in the area. When people started fighting back, the police had to abandon their posts.”
Lingaraj Azad, a tribal rights activist, talked about the delicate balance of nature in Niyamgiri, Orissa, where the Dhongria Kondh tribe has dwelled for centuries. The Niyamgiri hill is under threat from Vedanta Resources for its bauxite reserves. “We have abundant herbs and trees. In the hills, there are 8,000 to 9,000 people in 200 villages. These people know nature and nature knows them. Soil, earth, water, trees—these are regarded as God and prayed to. They have no material possessions except Nature and all of it. There is no concept of private property, it is all for common use.” The Niyamgiri mining project has been receiving international media attention after the human rights violations at Vedanta mining sites were made public.
Ajit Bhattacharjea, a journalist, stressed that lands in tribal areas were community property and did not belong to the State. Handing these lands to corporates must stop.
Banwari Lal Sharma appealed to the politicians: “We need to spread a message of peace and make these politicians understand that we are not their enemies but we are all friends. When they sell away the country they are selling away parts of themselves.”
Several eminent personalities, including Arundhati Roy, Shoma Chaudhury, Bianca Jagger, Arun Aggarwal, Kavita Srivastava and Advocate Shanti Bhushan, addressed the second session.
Arun Aggarwal presented a well researched paper on the Economics of Mining. According to him, revenue from mining activities to the state accounted for a measly 1.4% of total profits while the rest was pocketed by the corporation. The politics of mining was so complicated and corrupt that the nexus could be tracked between the corporations, politicians and police. For him, the fact that the ultra left movement was situated in areas of mineral wealth concentration, mining activities and displacement of people was a point of great importance and not to be ignored. He recommended that all mining activity should be conducted by Government owned enterprises so that the profits could be distributed more equitably.
Shanti Bhushan asked civil society not to remain silent but condemn violent acts by Maoists. Accepting the fact that tribals had been exploited for years, civil society’s failure to condemn the recent carnage was being perceived as support of Maoist violence. “How can you accept an armed resistance and overthrow of the State with violence? What is the agenda of the Maoists? If they mean well, then why don’t they give up arms and participate in elections? Let it be all done in the open.”
Shoma Chaudhury, Editor-Features, Tehelka, dwelt on the role of the media and accepted that the debates and discussions on television channels were resolutely and sadly binary. The discussions on these topics needed to be made more complex, because they required a combination of solutions. “Keeping out perspectives – whether the Government’s, Civil Society’s or the general public will only narrow down the discourse on these complex problems that we find ourselves in. This exclusion in itself is a very dangerous trend and needs to be arrested”.
She added, “There is no place for violence in a democracy. Agreed. However, did democracy exist in the states of Chhattisgarh, Orissa? Democracy does not only mean election. The judiciary, police, forest officials and magistrates all represent India’s democratic structure and it is these very institutions that have failed the people.”
Bianca Jagger, who has returned from a visit to Orissa, spoke about her experience with the Dongria Kondh tribe. Despite being a foreigner she related to the problem of India’s tribals. Her experience of having worked as a human rights activist in Latin and Central America shows that indigenous communities everywhere are being pressured by the current development paradigm.
She said there was a lot to be learnt from indigenous communities and their ecologically sustainable lifestyle, and added, “I request the Government of India to introspect on why there is an armed insurrection to begin with?”
Arundhati Roy began by asking a very poignant question: “Does the government want war or peace?”. In the current context of anti-Maoist operations and rampant industrial activity that was displacing people, “it seems to me that war is a synonym for creating an ideal investment climate.” According to her, in the 1970’s and 80’s, democracy was the single largest threat to imperialist, capitalist western nations who overthrew democracies in Latin America. Now however war is being waged in Afghanistan and Iraq to install democracy and all its associated institutions. She questioned the nature of democracy, as it existed today, saying “democracy and democratic institutions have been reduced to being vessels of Free Market Capitalism”.
The Independent People’s Tribunal was organized by a collective of civil society groups, social movements, activists, academics and concerned citizens.
For more information, please contact: Sherry 9953466107 or Purnima 971178868
The interim report was prepared after the jury members heard depositions and testimonies from affected people and activists from the states of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Orissa.
Presenting the recommendations of the jury before the media, public and Government, Justice Sawant said, “There is a perception within the Government and media that by organizing meetings like the IPT, we, everyone present in this room, are supporting the Maoists and the death of the 76 CRPF jawans. Let me clarify this position for once and for all. We are not supporting the Maoists. We do not support violence in any form, State or otherwise. We are discussing here the problems of the tribals and the crisis that is pushing people to the brink of desperation and escalating the cycle of violence.”
It was clear that the state had let the tribals and the poor of this land down. Instead of restoring their faith in the Constitution of India, its judiciary and its spirit, the Government asked for abjuring of violence. “Are these morals only to be remembered in such times, and to be forgotten when atrocities are committed by the state itself?”
Dr. P M Bhargava noted that civil society needs to stand resolute in resisting the current development paradigm and that the case of the BT Brinjal was a case in point for small victories of the people. “ The patience of the masses was running out and there had to be some serious rethinking.”
Dr. Mohini Giri lamented that the Government took no notice of People’s Tribunals like these and their recommendations. She criticized the Government for its lack of understanding of the issues that affected people and implored them to do so immediately.
The interim report of the jury states, “Gross violation of the rights of the poor, particularly tribal rights, have reached unprecedented levels since the new economic policies of the 90’s. The Fifth Schedule rights of the tribals, in particular the Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas (PESA) Act and the Forest Rights Act have been grossly violated. These violations have now gone to the extent where fully tribal villages have been declared to be non-tribal. The entire executive and judicial administration appears to have been totally apathetic to their plight. It could well be the severest indictment of the State in the history of democracy anywhere, on account of the sheer number of people (tribals) affected and the diabolic nature of the atrocities committed on them by the State, especially the police, leave aside the enormous and irreversible damage to the environment.
The first session of the day took stock of the situation in Orissa with regard to industrial and mining projects, land acquisition and people's resistance movements against such displacement and dispossession. Addressed by activists Praveen Patel, Praful Samantra, Abhay Sahu and photographer Sanjit Das, the narratives pointed out how corporate greed colluding with government officials was bleeding out the tribals.
Praveen Patel who presented a paper on the 'Political Economy of Mining' pointed out that under the current policy foreign companies were getting away with virtual robbery, taking huge profits, paying very little in taxes and in fact exacting a huge price from the poor (especially tribals) who are displaced and who suffer severe health and livelihood impacts from the rampant pollution.
The problematic exploitation of iron and bauxite ore was further highlighted in Praful Samantra's talk. For example, the sites containing the most bauxite ore are located atop mountains and correspond to the sources of numerous streams. Mining the ores ruins water supply for the Adivasis living in the area and leaves the company with zero liability. Protests are suppressed in a manner similar to that seen in other states: “...last year 14 people were shot dead. In the last six months, villagers have been banned from leaving their areas, even to go to the hospital. In September 2009, 30 innocent villagers were put in jail and branded as Maoists. We went there and fought for them because they were innocent. The administration assured us that they would be released but they are still in jail. Their families are starving.”
Abhay Sahu, a leader of the Anti-POSCO movement, spoke about the situation on ground. Local people have been protesting the proposed port project, to be built by POSCO which would ruin the lucrative beetle vine cultivation as well as destroy the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of fishermen. He testified on the intimidation tactics used by the State-company nexus to kill the protests: “On 29 November 2007, state and company goons set fire to a village in my area. They occupied all schools and building in the area. When people started fighting back, the police had to abandon their posts.”
Lingaraj Azad, a tribal rights activist, talked about the delicate balance of nature in Niyamgiri, Orissa, where the Dhongria Kondh tribe has dwelled for centuries. The Niyamgiri hill is under threat from Vedanta Resources for its bauxite reserves. “We have abundant herbs and trees. In the hills, there are 8,000 to 9,000 people in 200 villages. These people know nature and nature knows them. Soil, earth, water, trees—these are regarded as God and prayed to. They have no material possessions except Nature and all of it. There is no concept of private property, it is all for common use.” The Niyamgiri mining project has been receiving international media attention after the human rights violations at Vedanta mining sites were made public.
Ajit Bhattacharjea, a journalist, stressed that lands in tribal areas were community property and did not belong to the State. Handing these lands to corporates must stop.
Banwari Lal Sharma appealed to the politicians: “We need to spread a message of peace and make these politicians understand that we are not their enemies but we are all friends. When they sell away the country they are selling away parts of themselves.”
Several eminent personalities, including Arundhati Roy, Shoma Chaudhury, Bianca Jagger, Arun Aggarwal, Kavita Srivastava and Advocate Shanti Bhushan, addressed the second session.
Arun Aggarwal presented a well researched paper on the Economics of Mining. According to him, revenue from mining activities to the state accounted for a measly 1.4% of total profits while the rest was pocketed by the corporation. The politics of mining was so complicated and corrupt that the nexus could be tracked between the corporations, politicians and police. For him, the fact that the ultra left movement was situated in areas of mineral wealth concentration, mining activities and displacement of people was a point of great importance and not to be ignored. He recommended that all mining activity should be conducted by Government owned enterprises so that the profits could be distributed more equitably.
Shanti Bhushan asked civil society not to remain silent but condemn violent acts by Maoists. Accepting the fact that tribals had been exploited for years, civil society’s failure to condemn the recent carnage was being perceived as support of Maoist violence. “How can you accept an armed resistance and overthrow of the State with violence? What is the agenda of the Maoists? If they mean well, then why don’t they give up arms and participate in elections? Let it be all done in the open.”
Shoma Chaudhury, Editor-Features, Tehelka, dwelt on the role of the media and accepted that the debates and discussions on television channels were resolutely and sadly binary. The discussions on these topics needed to be made more complex, because they required a combination of solutions. “Keeping out perspectives – whether the Government’s, Civil Society’s or the general public will only narrow down the discourse on these complex problems that we find ourselves in. This exclusion in itself is a very dangerous trend and needs to be arrested”.
She added, “There is no place for violence in a democracy. Agreed. However, did democracy exist in the states of Chhattisgarh, Orissa? Democracy does not only mean election. The judiciary, police, forest officials and magistrates all represent India’s democratic structure and it is these very institutions that have failed the people.”
Bianca Jagger, who has returned from a visit to Orissa, spoke about her experience with the Dongria Kondh tribe. Despite being a foreigner she related to the problem of India’s tribals. Her experience of having worked as a human rights activist in Latin and Central America shows that indigenous communities everywhere are being pressured by the current development paradigm.
She said there was a lot to be learnt from indigenous communities and their ecologically sustainable lifestyle, and added, “I request the Government of India to introspect on why there is an armed insurrection to begin with?”
Arundhati Roy began by asking a very poignant question: “Does the government want war or peace?”. In the current context of anti-Maoist operations and rampant industrial activity that was displacing people, “it seems to me that war is a synonym for creating an ideal investment climate.” According to her, in the 1970’s and 80’s, democracy was the single largest threat to imperialist, capitalist western nations who overthrew democracies in Latin America. Now however war is being waged in Afghanistan and Iraq to install democracy and all its associated institutions. She questioned the nature of democracy, as it existed today, saying “democracy and democratic institutions have been reduced to being vessels of Free Market Capitalism”.
The Independent People’s Tribunal was organized by a collective of civil society groups, social movements, activists, academics and concerned citizens.
For more information, please contact: Sherry 9953466107 or Purnima 971178868
08 April, 2010
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.
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.
22 March, 2010
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
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
06 March, 2010
Naxalism: Spectre of people’s movements
PRABHAT SHARAN
MEDIA PRAXIS / The Verdict
A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Pope and Tsar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies. (Manifesto of the Communist Party: 1848)
Now, again a spectre is haunting. The region is Indian sub-continent and the spectre is of people’s movements. All the exploitative powers in the Indian sub-continent have come together to pulverize the resistance movements.
movements soaked in anger against the usurious usurpation of forests, hills, rivers and ocean waters, movements voicing protest against the destruction of the livelihood and autocratic attempts to transmogrify lives into that of zombies trapped in internal diasporia in alienation saturated heterotopias-- are simmering and glimmering and igniting fire in the minds of the oppressed people across the country.
Roiling with contained anger at the revisiting of colonial history with a new face, the deep hinterlands of the Indian sub-continent is once again witnessing the explosion and implosion not seen since late Sixties when the peasants and tribal uprising shook the entire Indian peninsula.
Spontaneous and peaceful in nature with stray incidents of a cornered-retaliatory violence- the movements like in the Sixties when the sub-human conditions of tribal folks and landless labourers came to fore following the revolt, at the dawn of the new millennium the protests are revealing the rapacious Medusa locks of corporate greed.
The result-even as the wild life on land, air and sea are fast disappearing from the country - the Indian State in a bid to keep the memories of the creatures of the wild alive and as an apology to Nature, are churning out forces like-Octopus, Cobras, Scorpions, Tigers (with green stripes) Cats of all hues and shades, Grey Hounds, Mastiffs, Wolves, Vipers, Black Mamba etc.
If by any chance the Indian Home Ministry exhausts the zoological who’s who in their war against the people’s resistance, then the readers and viewers of the corporate establishment media may soon read and hear eulogised announcements of forces with names like Vampires, Draculas, Aadamkhors-all with a sole purpose- to crush people’s movements and usurp the land, rivers and oceans, for corporate houses.
After all there is gold in the hills and pearls of profits in water. Indian sub-continent is witnessing what the American sub-continent witnessed in 19th century-the Gold Rush. The country is the 21st century El Dorado for the western world and their Indian lackeys. And like in the past when the imperialist forces decimated the American natives, the history is being re-enacted in India.
Describing the devastation during the Gold Rush, Rawls, James J. and Orsi, Richard J. in their book “A golden state: mining and economic development in Gold Rush California,” write, “The human and environmental costs of the Gold Rush were substantial. Native Americans dependent on the health and bounty of the natural environment, became the victims of starvation and disease when it suffered from the effects of placer mining (or the later, even more damaging, hydraulic mining), as gravel, silt and toxic chemicals from prospecting operations killed fish and destroyed habitats. The surge of mining population also resulted in the disappearance of game and food gathering locales as gold camps and other settlements were built amidst them, causing the forests to be cut down and domestic animals put to graze on the land. Later farming spread to supply the camps, taking more land from the use of Native Americans. Starvation often provoked the Native tribes to steal or take by force food and livestock from the whites, increasing white hostility and provoking retaliation against them.
“The Act for the Government and Protection of Indians passed on April 22, 1850 by the California Legislature, allowed settlers to continue the Californio practice of capturing and using Native people as bonded workers. It also provided the basis for the enslavement and trafficking in Native American labor, particularly that of young women and children, which was carried on as a legal business enterprise. Native American villages were regularly raided to supply the demand, and young women and children were carried off to be sold, the men and remaining people often being killed in genocidal attacks.” The same dance of death reduced the African continent from lush green land of plentiful to a bleached, gnarled bones, with its people now dying in hunger and women opening their legs for a loaf of bread to feed their children and themselves.
The countries in this continent, reduced to the darkest darkness of a black hole, emerge at the dawn only to disappear in the twilight of gun fires; and this blood-soaked melee of power, hunger and survival rake in profits for the corporate dictators strutting around as peddlers of “democracy and development.”
The same screenplay is being played out in Indian sub-continent. Not that Indian sub-continent had not seen the imperialist invasion and greed earlier, but then the battle-lines were not so obfuscated, as it is now. The script that is being played out in the forests is more insidious.
The forested regions are home to some of the oldest communities of India, described variously as adivasi (aboriginal), vanvasi (forest dwellers), girijan (people of the hills) and after the transfer of power in 1947, the Indian constitution under a façade of benevolence brought them under a collective name of “Scheduled Tribes.”
What the powers of the State had forgotten is the history of struggle and resistance by tribes who are no strangers to displacement. The Godavari hills still reverberate with the sound of the drums when tribes of Koya and Reddy opposed the British colonial oppression.
Similarly, for the Santhal resistance, a British officer remarked in his journal: “The one piece of equipment they did not have among their meagre possessions was a white flag.”
The scene today is also the same. Raising the white flag is not an option for the Chenchu of the southern Tiger Hills, the Gond of the central Adilabad, the Gadrchiroli, the Moraya and Dorla Koya of Chhattisgarh, or the Dongri Khond of Orissa who lead a simple life not very different from their stone-age ancestors.
Though overtly there seems to be nothing that would attract the predators from the corporate houses, but then like in the 19th century American continent, or in Africa, the adivasis are sitting on a cornucopia which they can jingle their insatiable money vaults.
According to a research report, “a conservative list includes bauxite in Orissa, Iron ore in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand states, and deposits of uranium, limestone, marble, dolomite, tin, graphite, copper, gold, diamonds, corundum, beryl, alexandrite and fluorite, and possibly coal in addition to teak, hardwood, bamboo, waters of several rivers, wildlife and fish. The bauxite deposits alone have been estimated to be worth between US$2-4 trillion. “
This El Dorado which the pirates from the multinationals are eyeing, stretches approximately 10,000 kilometres encompassing uncharted dense forests known locally as Abhujmad (unknown forests) cutting across states like Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh.
And in the language of the government, the corporate establishment media and self-proclaimed “security” experts, the stretch is the “red corridor”, “red zone” or “Maoist stronghold”.
Of course, the tribes are not the only one who inhabit this stretch, along with them living on the fringes are petty traders, police and forest departments and guerrillas termed as “Naxalites”, “extremists”, “Maoists” or the self-described armed squads of the Communist party of India-Maoist.
The Maoist party, which is one of the biggest factions of the so-called Naxalite parties, is reportedly known for sabotage activities, arbitrary violence, sometimes amounting to barbaric brutality.
But for the State this brand of Naxalism has come as a boon and a bogey to launch a war against the tribes, ironically under the name Operation Green Hunt. A hunt to throw out the natives from the forests and hand it over to the corporate for ravaging and pillaging.
The scale of pillaging operations can be seen from the fact that a small state like Jharkhand has signed 90 memorandum of understanding (MoU) with various big plundering houses. The now tainted chief minister of the state once lauded by the corporate media, was found in possession of 1 billion $. Till date no enquires have been made as to who were the beneficiaries who paid these monies.
With Operation Green Hunt being planned as long drawn protracted armed campaign, every vested interest in the region wants to perpetuate the violence and since such armed conflict grants enormous powers to extract bribes shady activities like poaching and logging has abounded.
The State in its indifference to environment or the natives want to install power plants, open cast mines, highways, airstrips and of course generate employment for the tribal folk as measly-paid security guards or sweat shop workers and prop up some of the folk as quisling collaborators.
But not everybody wants to be a quisling collaborator. Struggles in Nandigram, Singur, Plachimada and other places have shown that people’s resistance call them Naxalism or by any other name, cannot be suppressed and it is this spectre which is haunting the State and Corporate predators alike in the post-recession period since even the uneasy squeamish urban populace is fast losing faith in the Friedman economics.
Prabhat Sharan is a Senior Journalist and Editor of MEDIA PRAXIS a monthly magazine published from Mumbai. He can be contacted at verdictweekly@gmail.com
Courtesy: Countercurrents
MEDIA PRAXIS / The Verdict
A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Pope and Tsar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies. (Manifesto of the Communist Party: 1848)
Now, again a spectre is haunting. The region is Indian sub-continent and the spectre is of people’s movements. All the exploitative powers in the Indian sub-continent have come together to pulverize the resistance movements.
movements soaked in anger against the usurious usurpation of forests, hills, rivers and ocean waters, movements voicing protest against the destruction of the livelihood and autocratic attempts to transmogrify lives into that of zombies trapped in internal diasporia in alienation saturated heterotopias-- are simmering and glimmering and igniting fire in the minds of the oppressed people across the country.
Roiling with contained anger at the revisiting of colonial history with a new face, the deep hinterlands of the Indian sub-continent is once again witnessing the explosion and implosion not seen since late Sixties when the peasants and tribal uprising shook the entire Indian peninsula.
Spontaneous and peaceful in nature with stray incidents of a cornered-retaliatory violence- the movements like in the Sixties when the sub-human conditions of tribal folks and landless labourers came to fore following the revolt, at the dawn of the new millennium the protests are revealing the rapacious Medusa locks of corporate greed.
The result-even as the wild life on land, air and sea are fast disappearing from the country - the Indian State in a bid to keep the memories of the creatures of the wild alive and as an apology to Nature, are churning out forces like-Octopus, Cobras, Scorpions, Tigers (with green stripes) Cats of all hues and shades, Grey Hounds, Mastiffs, Wolves, Vipers, Black Mamba etc.
If by any chance the Indian Home Ministry exhausts the zoological who’s who in their war against the people’s resistance, then the readers and viewers of the corporate establishment media may soon read and hear eulogised announcements of forces with names like Vampires, Draculas, Aadamkhors-all with a sole purpose- to crush people’s movements and usurp the land, rivers and oceans, for corporate houses.
After all there is gold in the hills and pearls of profits in water. Indian sub-continent is witnessing what the American sub-continent witnessed in 19th century-the Gold Rush. The country is the 21st century El Dorado for the western world and their Indian lackeys. And like in the past when the imperialist forces decimated the American natives, the history is being re-enacted in India.
Describing the devastation during the Gold Rush, Rawls, James J. and Orsi, Richard J. in their book “A golden state: mining and economic development in Gold Rush California,” write, “The human and environmental costs of the Gold Rush were substantial. Native Americans dependent on the health and bounty of the natural environment, became the victims of starvation and disease when it suffered from the effects of placer mining (or the later, even more damaging, hydraulic mining), as gravel, silt and toxic chemicals from prospecting operations killed fish and destroyed habitats. The surge of mining population also resulted in the disappearance of game and food gathering locales as gold camps and other settlements were built amidst them, causing the forests to be cut down and domestic animals put to graze on the land. Later farming spread to supply the camps, taking more land from the use of Native Americans. Starvation often provoked the Native tribes to steal or take by force food and livestock from the whites, increasing white hostility and provoking retaliation against them.
“The Act for the Government and Protection of Indians passed on April 22, 1850 by the California Legislature, allowed settlers to continue the Californio practice of capturing and using Native people as bonded workers. It also provided the basis for the enslavement and trafficking in Native American labor, particularly that of young women and children, which was carried on as a legal business enterprise. Native American villages were regularly raided to supply the demand, and young women and children were carried off to be sold, the men and remaining people often being killed in genocidal attacks.” The same dance of death reduced the African continent from lush green land of plentiful to a bleached, gnarled bones, with its people now dying in hunger and women opening their legs for a loaf of bread to feed their children and themselves.
The countries in this continent, reduced to the darkest darkness of a black hole, emerge at the dawn only to disappear in the twilight of gun fires; and this blood-soaked melee of power, hunger and survival rake in profits for the corporate dictators strutting around as peddlers of “democracy and development.”
The same screenplay is being played out in Indian sub-continent. Not that Indian sub-continent had not seen the imperialist invasion and greed earlier, but then the battle-lines were not so obfuscated, as it is now. The script that is being played out in the forests is more insidious.
The forested regions are home to some of the oldest communities of India, described variously as adivasi (aboriginal), vanvasi (forest dwellers), girijan (people of the hills) and after the transfer of power in 1947, the Indian constitution under a façade of benevolence brought them under a collective name of “Scheduled Tribes.”
What the powers of the State had forgotten is the history of struggle and resistance by tribes who are no strangers to displacement. The Godavari hills still reverberate with the sound of the drums when tribes of Koya and Reddy opposed the British colonial oppression.
Similarly, for the Santhal resistance, a British officer remarked in his journal: “The one piece of equipment they did not have among their meagre possessions was a white flag.”
The scene today is also the same. Raising the white flag is not an option for the Chenchu of the southern Tiger Hills, the Gond of the central Adilabad, the Gadrchiroli, the Moraya and Dorla Koya of Chhattisgarh, or the Dongri Khond of Orissa who lead a simple life not very different from their stone-age ancestors.
Though overtly there seems to be nothing that would attract the predators from the corporate houses, but then like in the 19th century American continent, or in Africa, the adivasis are sitting on a cornucopia which they can jingle their insatiable money vaults.
According to a research report, “a conservative list includes bauxite in Orissa, Iron ore in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand states, and deposits of uranium, limestone, marble, dolomite, tin, graphite, copper, gold, diamonds, corundum, beryl, alexandrite and fluorite, and possibly coal in addition to teak, hardwood, bamboo, waters of several rivers, wildlife and fish. The bauxite deposits alone have been estimated to be worth between US$2-4 trillion. “
This El Dorado which the pirates from the multinationals are eyeing, stretches approximately 10,000 kilometres encompassing uncharted dense forests known locally as Abhujmad (unknown forests) cutting across states like Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh.
And in the language of the government, the corporate establishment media and self-proclaimed “security” experts, the stretch is the “red corridor”, “red zone” or “Maoist stronghold”.
Of course, the tribes are not the only one who inhabit this stretch, along with them living on the fringes are petty traders, police and forest departments and guerrillas termed as “Naxalites”, “extremists”, “Maoists” or the self-described armed squads of the Communist party of India-Maoist.
The Maoist party, which is one of the biggest factions of the so-called Naxalite parties, is reportedly known for sabotage activities, arbitrary violence, sometimes amounting to barbaric brutality.
But for the State this brand of Naxalism has come as a boon and a bogey to launch a war against the tribes, ironically under the name Operation Green Hunt. A hunt to throw out the natives from the forests and hand it over to the corporate for ravaging and pillaging.
The scale of pillaging operations can be seen from the fact that a small state like Jharkhand has signed 90 memorandum of understanding (MoU) with various big plundering houses. The now tainted chief minister of the state once lauded by the corporate media, was found in possession of 1 billion $. Till date no enquires have been made as to who were the beneficiaries who paid these monies.
With Operation Green Hunt being planned as long drawn protracted armed campaign, every vested interest in the region wants to perpetuate the violence and since such armed conflict grants enormous powers to extract bribes shady activities like poaching and logging has abounded.
The State in its indifference to environment or the natives want to install power plants, open cast mines, highways, airstrips and of course generate employment for the tribal folk as measly-paid security guards or sweat shop workers and prop up some of the folk as quisling collaborators.
But not everybody wants to be a quisling collaborator. Struggles in Nandigram, Singur, Plachimada and other places have shown that people’s resistance call them Naxalism or by any other name, cannot be suppressed and it is this spectre which is haunting the State and Corporate predators alike in the post-recession period since even the uneasy squeamish urban populace is fast losing faith in the Friedman economics.
Prabhat Sharan is a Senior Journalist and Editor of MEDIA PRAXIS a monthly magazine published from Mumbai. He can be contacted at verdictweekly@gmail.com
Courtesy: Countercurrents
24 February, 2010
What's going on in the Naxal belt?
Here are links to three articles which throw some light on events in the
Naxal-affected areas, circulated by Countercurrents:
Lalgarh - Lalmohan Tudu And Two Others
Murdered By CRPF
by Partho Sarathi Ray
http://www.countercurrents.org/ray230210.htm
The joint forces entered the house of Lalmohan Tudu, senior leader of the People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCAPA), at around 11 pm, while he was preparing to go to bed. He was killed along with two of his relatives, Yubaraj Murmu and Suchitra Murmu, husband and wife. They were murdered in front of his mother, wife and only daughter
The Silda Attack: Understanding The Role Of
The EFR Camp In Reoccupation Strategies
by Sanhati
http://www.countercurrents.org/sanhati230210.htm
There has been a recent attack on a Eastern Frontier Rifles (EFR) camp in Silda in West Midnapur district, West Bengal, in which 24 EFR jawans have lost their lives. It is necessary to examine the function of this particular camp and its relation with local politics, to understand the tactical reasons behind the attack conducted by the Maoists
To Get Away With Murder, Chhattisgarh Style
by Javed Iqbal
http://www.countercurrents.org/iqbal230210.htm
A blow by blow account of the Gompad massacre and its aftermath
Naxal-affected areas, circulated by Countercurrents:
Lalgarh - Lalmohan Tudu And Two Others
Murdered By CRPF
by Partho Sarathi Ray
http://www.countercurrents.org/ray230210.htm
The joint forces entered the house of Lalmohan Tudu, senior leader of the People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCAPA), at around 11 pm, while he was preparing to go to bed. He was killed along with two of his relatives, Yubaraj Murmu and Suchitra Murmu, husband and wife. They were murdered in front of his mother, wife and only daughter
The Silda Attack: Understanding The Role Of
The EFR Camp In Reoccupation Strategies
by Sanhati
http://www.countercurrents.org/sanhati230210.htm
There has been a recent attack on a Eastern Frontier Rifles (EFR) camp in Silda in West Midnapur district, West Bengal, in which 24 EFR jawans have lost their lives. It is necessary to examine the function of this particular camp and its relation with local politics, to understand the tactical reasons behind the attack conducted by the Maoists
To Get Away With Murder, Chhattisgarh Style
by Javed Iqbal
http://www.countercurrents.org/iqbal230210.htm
A blow by blow account of the Gompad massacre and its aftermath
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