“The right to fire a bullet
for that land —
Is it mine, or those
two-faced landlords’
Who want to turn the
whole country
Into a usurer’s lapdog?
This is not a poem —
This is the understanding of when to pull the trigger,
An understanding that all
who wield pens
Are receiving from all who
wield ploughs”
— Alok Dhanva (from the poem Goli Daago Poster)
| I |
In yet another deadly blow to the Maoist movement in India, 27 rebels, including their top leader Nambala Keshav Rao (alias Basavaraju), were killed last week. Besides being the general secretary of theCommunist Party of India (Maoist), Rao had a combined bounty of Rs 35 million on his head. The killing that happened in the hitherto ‘impregnable’ Abujhmarh forest zone of Chhattisgarh, signifies the breaking in of the last citadels of Naxalite fortress. Rao was among the most elusive and senior most of the Maoists to have been killed in recent years. Abujhmarh itself was seen as that last ‘safe haven’ of the Maoists where state couldn’t enter. However, this was just another major milestone for a state that has gone on a lethal assault against the Maoists over the recent years. Just last year, over 200 rebels have been killed in major incidents across Chhattisgarh, Telangana, Jharkhand and Maharashtra.
This is in sharp contrast to the situation in 2013 when almost entire state leadership of the Congress party was killed in an ambush by the Maoists in Chhattisgarh. In another - perhaps the deadliest - Maoist attack on Indian security forces in 2010 in Dantewada district, Chhattisgarh, personnel were killed in an ambush. The war has claimed thousands of lives over the past few decades. Even as the end seems near, one cannot be entirely sure of this conclusion.
The Maoist movement was organised in the wake of the crushing of Naxalite movement across several parts of India including West Bengal, Andhra, Telangana, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Maharashtra. While hundreds of people in the Naxalite movement were killed in 1960s and ’70s, it inspired the current wave wherein its adherents refused to recognise India’s democratic system and to be a part of its democratic process. Instead, they sought to create ‘liberated zones’ amidst vast swathes of forested, mostly tribal areas across the east-west corridor in central India. Its political philosophy, inspired apparently by Marxist-Leninist-Maoist ideology, has been to overthrow the Indian Republic by waging a people’s war through constant armed struggle. It asserted that the Indian state acted on behalf of the capitalists and feudal lords in cahoots with ‘a comprador bourgeoisie.’ Recognising its inherent limitations that made it impossible to take over the entire country, its avowed strategy was to develop self-ruled enclaves in the rural areas and surround the urban spaces under the more visible control of the state.
Just last one year, over 200 rebels have been killed in incidents across Chhattisgarh, Telangana, Jharkhand and Maharashtra.
Its cause was helped over the decades by the fact that it made its base among the heavily exploited tribal communities of central India who had been facing the double onslaught of state officials, local landlords and the mining companies working on behalf of large corporations. The spate of torture and violence unleashed by the security forces, too, helped this cause. By some estimates, more than 12,000 people have been killed over the last two decades alone. The state’s overtures, offering greater autonomy to the regions and assuring rights over land and forests through PESA Act and Land Rights and Forest Rights Acts, were dismissed as lacking credibility. The post-colonial state officials on the ground were always reluctant to let go of their power over the resources, a legacy of the colonial times.
With the coming of the current regime at the Centre—openly committed to eradicating the Maoists (among others)—and propelled by its drive to open up the resource-rich hinterlands to new ventures, the dynamics began to shift markedly. The new surveillance and communication technologies enabled large-scale displacement of adivasis (forced or otherwise). The security forces were given a free hand to deal with the rebels. Backed by big capital, which had hitherto faced strong people’s movements in many of these areas, the government went on a spree to give environmental clearances to development ventures, new and old, sometime in violation of statutory safeguards. The civil rights groups and individuals who organised people for peaceful resistance were also targeted by the state. Many of them were charged and arrested under draconian anti-terror laws.
The Maoists, for their part, were deeply mistaken in believing that their violent doctrine alone could stop the momentum of a state as vast and powerful as India. Besides losing their cadres, they lost a lot of community support. They now seem to be at the brink of annihilation. One can’t say that the just and equal world they promised was ever possible or their methods ethical. In the modern political context, the state always has the biggest fire power backed by the largest sanction to violence. It also has that hegemonic power to convince people that the predatory intrusion at the expense of the most marginalised is for the greater good.
However, that never settles the question for good. As new forms of exploitation evolve, as is happening right now, new forms of resistance emerge as well. The current Maoist movement came from the ashes of the older Naxalite movement. And as they seem to be on the verge of the final defeat, a new kind of resistance is likely to take their place. One hopes that it will be a self-avowedly non-violent one.
The author has been in the development sector for more than a decade. He currently works with an international non-governmental organisation based in Delhi. He may be reached at:avinashcoldgmail.com