[Reader-list] FACT Exhibition at IHC

[V Ramaswamy]

In the context of the discussion on Naxalism etc, here is a article by
Sumanta Banerjee that appeared recently in the EPW.

V Ramaswamy
Calcutta
cuckooscall.blogspot.com

.................

 On the Naxalite Movement: A Report with a
Difference<http://sanhati.com/articles/802/>

By Sumanta Banerjee. *An EPW article*

The official bibliography on causes of popular discontent in India and ways
to tackle it has been expanding at as impressive a rate as discontent
itself. Our government can boast of a staggering collection of statistical
data, reports of investigations, research papers, recommendations, among
other things, that by its sheer size can absolutely bowl over any archivist.


Amongst the major institutions, the Planning Commission can claim to be the
most reliable repository of comprehensive information of such a nature – and
also a helpless witness to the government's unpardonable apathy to its
important proposals for remedying the situation all these years. Further,
the commission's role has been reduced from the position of a steering to
that of a merely indicative nature by the present generation of
policymakers, who prefer to leave planning to the magnates of the market
economy, instead of the state. Yet, the government's need for hard
statistical facts and figures, and understanding of what is happening at the
ground level (apart from the feedback provided by its intelligence
agencies), makes it dependent on the intellectual resources of the still
extant Planning Commission.

It thus periodically sets up expert groups which review the state of
poverty, collect, verify, and collate facts, arrange and then make
deductions from them to prepare reports. As a result, we are lucky enough to
get, at regular intervals, immense information that lay bare the grassroots
reality – some confirming what we had always known, some revealing hitherto
unknown, even worse, cases of atrocities on the poor. Along with such
information, these reports also end up with the usual obligatory list of
remedial measures – which may sound repetitive, but cannot be wished away
since they had remained unimplemented all these years.

The latest exercise in this direction is the report of an expert group set
up by the Planning Commission entitled Development Challenges in Extremist
Affected Areas, dated March 2008.

It is an important document, which while meticulously arranging the latest
facts and figures, rigorously examines the causes of the continuing economic
exploitation and social discrimination in the adivasi and dalit-inhabited
areas even after 60 years of independence. It is significant that this
particular expert group was set up by the government in May 2006, in the
background of increasing Naxalite activities in Andhra Pradesh,
Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand and Orissa.

The group consisted of a variety of people ranging from veteran
ex-bureaucrats (like D Bandyopadhya who chaired it, and is well known for
his implementing the Operation Barga land reform measure in West Bengal, and
S R Sankaran who heads the Hyderabad-based Committee of Concerned Citizens
which had been trying to bring the Andhra Pradesh government and the Maoist
rebels to the negotiating table) to retired police officers like Prakash
Singh, ex-director general of police, Uttar Pradesh and Ajit Doval, former
director of the Intelligence Bureau. From the other end of the spectrum, we
have well known activists and academics like K Balagopal of the human rights
movement and Sukhadeo Thorat, chairman of the University Grants Commission
among others.

That a mixed bag of this nature, consisting of experts from different
disciplines with differing opinions, could prepare a consensus report on
several contentious issues and come up with a unanimously agreed set of
recommendations, suggests that all is not lost.

Activists struggling for a change in the prevailing bleak socio-political
situation, can make use of the report to educate the otherwise indifferent
and passive middle classes about the basic issues of economic equity and
social justice, which are fast disappearing in the urban public mind.

*Dalits, Adivasis and Naxalites*

Although the terms of reference did not specifically mention Naxalites (or
Maoists), the group's brief was to identify causes of unrest and discontent
in areas affected by "widespread displacement, forest issues, insecure
tenancies and others forms of exploitation like usury, land alienation and
imperfect market conditions…". Clearly, such areas fall in the
above-mentioned five states – and significantly enough, the group organised
field visits in these areas to observe the situation at first hand, on the
basis of which it has come out with stark revelations that expose the
culpability of the state in denying the poor their basic rights, the
treachery of a corrupt bureaucracy to implement the laws, and its complicity
with a trigger-happy police to suppress popular protest.

All these explain, as the report states in unambiguous terms, why the
victims of such official crimes support the "extremists" – the term used for
Maoists. Maintaining that "the main support for the Naxalite movement comes
from dalits and adivasis", the group concentrated on these two sections
(termed as scheduled castes and scheduled tribes respectively in official
parlance) which comprise about one-fourth of India's population, the
majority living in rural areas.

Apart from the high levels of poverty, the dalits suffer from various types
of disadvantages like limited employment opportunities, political
marginalisation, low education, social discrimination, and human rights
violation. As for the adivasi population, besides remaining backward in all
aspects of human development including education, health, nutrition, etc,
they have been steadily losing their traditional tribal rights and command
over resources. The report points out in this connection the
administration's failure to implement the protective regulations in
scheduled areas, which has resulted in land alienation, forced eviction from
land, dependence of the tribals on moneylenders – made worse often by
"violence by the state functionaries".

All these facts as described in the report may not come as a surprise to
those who have followed the findings of earlier publications like the
National Commission on scheduled castes and scheduled tribes; the government
of India Report of the Expert Group on Prevention of Alienation of Tribal
Land and Its Restoration (2004), as well as the various reports by civil
rights groups. But the present report stands out from them in several
respects. It explains the causes and success of the Naxalite movement in a
particular territorial stretch by locating it in the macroeconomic scene
today.

Incidentally, every dalit and adivasi poor in India have not joined the
Naxalite movement. There are many states with pockets of high proportion of
adivasis and dalits but little Naxalite influence, as in Punjab, Haryana,
Gujarat and Rajasthan. The report quite rightly points out that "poverty
does create deprivation but other factors like denial of justice, human
dignity, cause alienation resulting in the conviction that relief can be had
outside the system by breaking the current order asunder". It adds that for
such a violent upheaval to happen, there is the likelihood of the "spread of
awareness and consciousness". And this is where, as the report suggests, the
Maoists have played a significant role by stepping into the craters of dalit
and adivasi deprivation in the five states, and organising the deprived for
their rights.

Its authors situate the Naxalite movement in the historical context of the
"development paradigm pursued since independence", which they assert, has
"aggravated the prevailing discontent among marginalised sections of
society". While explaining the current surge in Naxalite activities, they
slam the neoliberal "directional shift in government policies towards
modernisation and mechanisation, export orientation, diversification to
produce for the market, withdrawal of various subsidy regimes and exposure
to global trade" as "an important factor in hurting the poor in several
ways".

Following this conceptual approach, they look at the Maoist movement in a
way that is different from the prevalent official attitude which primarily
blames the Naxalites for the violence. Instead, the present report lays
stress on the "structural violence which is implicit in the social and
economic system" and which in the opinion of its authors prompts the radical
groups to justify their own violent acts. At the same time, the authors
distance themselves from the Naxalites, who "are engaged in a violent fight
against the state for overpowering and overthrowing it", and who, they feel
"exploit the situation for their own political gain by giving the affected
persons some semblance of relief or response. Thereby they tend to
legitimise in the eyes of the masses their own legal or even illegal
activities." Yet, the authors of the report have to admit that the Naxalites
have indeed carried out certain socio-economic reforms in their areas of
control.

*Naxalites as a Surrogate State*

>From the investigation carried out by the Planning Commission group of
experts in the Naxalite areas, it appears that the Maoists are actually
carrying out the reforms that the executive ought to have implemented, and
are replacing the judiciary and the police in ensuring law and order for the
poor and the oppressed. Take for instance their findings relating to land
redistribution. In Bihar, the government had taken under its possession land
which had been declared as beyond the ceiling that a landlord can own. The
government, the report states, "has the power to distribute such land to the
poor, but has failed to do so". On the other hand, "the Naxalite movement
has succeeded in helping the landless to occupy a substantial extent of
government land whether for homesteads or for cultivation".

Similarly, in the forest areas of Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, the Vidarbha
region of Maharashtra, Orissa and Jharkhand, the Naxalites have led the
adivasis to occupy forest lands that they should have enjoyed in the normal
course of things under their traditionally recognised rights, but which were
denied by government officials through forest settlement proceedings that
have "taken place behind the back and over the head of the adivasi forest
dwellers". While the government remained indifferent to the need for paying
minimum wages to the adivasi tendu leaf gatherers in Andhra Pradesh, the
Naxalites by launching a movement have secured increases in the rate of
payment for the picking. The practice of forced labour ('begari') in the
same state, under which the toiling castes had to provide free labour to the
upper castes – and which should have been abolished by the government under
Articles 14 to 17 of the Constitution – was done away with due to a "major
upsurge led by the Naxalites in the late 1970s and early 1980s of the last
century…". Commenting on the "peoples courts" set up by the Naxalites in
their areas of control, the report observes that "disputes are resolved in a
rough and ready manner, and generally in the interest of the weaker party".

While drawing our attention to these positive effects of the Naxalite
movement, the authors of the report also come out against the high level of
violence that its cadres indulge in, and from a bourgeois democratic liberal
viewpoint assert: "…no state could agree to a situation of seizure of power
through violence when the Constitution provides for change of government
through electoral process."

But their findings also reveal how despite change of government, successive
rulers who get elected use and misuse laws to suppress the poor and the
disadvantaged. There is a design behind this continuity. The rulers,
irrespective of party affiliations, are lackadaisical and sloppy in
implementing pro-poor legal measures. But the moment the Maoists try to
enforce those measures they are quick to use against them with extreme
efficiency another set of laws – the draconian laws that have been enacted
over the years (e g, Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act; Chhattisgarh
Public Security Act; Andhra Pradesh (Suppression of Disturbances) Act, etc).
As the authors of the report rightly observe, Naxalite attempts to
redistribute land have been "defeated by the state's determined opposition
to letting lawless means succeed, even for the beneficial purpose of giving
land to the landless".

In order to put an end to this anomalous state of affairs where the law
enforcement agencies breach the laws while the lawless "extremists" enforce
them, the authors of the report have recommended among other things
modifications to some laws (e g, the Land Acquisition Act), effective
implementation of protective laws in favour of the dalits and adivasis,
better coordination between different programmes (e g, Backward Region Grant
Fund and National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme), and extension of
panchayati raj to the scheduled areas.

Asserting that the Naxalite movement has to be "recognised as a political
movement with a strong base among the landless and poor peasantry and
adivasis", they warn the government against resorting to "security-centric"
measures like setting up vigilante groups such as Salwa Judum in
Chhattisgarh. Instead, they have called for "an ameliorative approach with
emphasis on a negotiated solution", and urged the government for a
resumption of the peace talks with the Naxalites which was initiated in
October 2004, but broke down in January 2005.

Their proposal should be welcomed by all. But the authors should have gone
into the causes of the failure of the past talks. To recapitulate, the
government of Andhra Pradesh sat with the then People's War Group (now
merged into Communist Party of India-Maoist) in October 2004, and agreed to
a ceasefire till December 16 that year, and promised to consider in the
meantime the Naxalites' main demand for distribution of land among the
landless. But when the then Congress government failed to keep that promise,
the Naxalites stepped in to forcibly distribute the land. The government
retaliated immediately by sending its police which gunned down Naxalite
cadres in the forests of Warangal, West Godavari and other districts in
January 2005. (Yet another example of the state's abdication of
responsibility for helping the landless, followed by its active intervention
to oppose whenever the Naxalite try to carry out that responsibility.) At
that time, the Naxalites came out with a public statement blaming the state
police for violating the norms of the October truce, and withdrew from the
talks.

*Future of a Negotiated Settlement*

Given this background, if there is to be another round of talks, both the
Maoists and the Indian state have to be circumspect, balancing their
respective long-term objectives with their immediate goals. The Maoists may
have to shelve their maximalist aim of seizure of power for the time being,
and negotiate with the state in the humanitarian interest of the thousands
of poor and innocent families who have been caught in the crossfire between
the police and the Naxalites.

As for the Indian state, let us be frank.

In quite a large swathe of inaccessible territory, the state's writ does not
run, and the Naxalites have been able to establish a parallel and
alternative order that has largely benefited the poor – especially the
dalits and adivasis (as acknowledged by the present report, despite
reservations about their violent methods). In any future talks therefore,
the state should recognise this reality and legitimise the positive Naxalite
contribution to the implementation of the pro-poor laws – which the state
had failed to carry out. In other words, the government should negotiate a
settlement that allows the Naxalites to run their administration in their
pockets of control – on the lines of the settlement arrived at with the Naga
rebels of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Isak Muivah) who have
not given up their arms and run a parallel government in parts of Nagaland.

Referring to the Indian government's conciliatory approach to such
insurrectionary groups, the authors of the report raise the legitimate
question: "Why a different approach to the Naxals?" "The answer", as Bob
Dylan sang, " 'is blowin' in the wind".