[Reader-list] Fwd: FACT Exhibition at IHC‏

[pankhuree dube]

Dear Mr. Sengupta,Thank you for your incisive critique of the IHC exhibit. I look forward to reading your contributions to this listserv and I am not disappointed by your comments on this discussion.    I am curious to know why you think the Naxalite insurgency intensified in tribal areas after adivasis achieved their demands for statehood in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh. I wonder if the Naxalite movement is tapping into a larger vein of discontent in rural India. Although the economic success of urban centers receives a lot of coverage in the Indian mainstream media, the continuing oppression of tribals, landless laborers and peasants tends to be ignored, or covered only intermittently. I see the Naxalite movement as merely one expression of the intensification of the rural-urban divide wherein urban centers continue to extract resources from the countryside, ignore rural development needs, and de-humanize those who face crushing poverty in these areas. Scholars like historian Ramachandra Guha and observers from the Asian Centre for Human Rights maintain that the adivasis are merely the foot-soldiers of the Naxalite movement which is led by a Commander Kosa based in Andhra Pradesh. I agree with your lack of sympathy for the violence employed by the Naxals. My interest is in the political solutions innovated by the adivasis themselves. I think the communitarian politics and political philosophy of the adivasis gets ignored by journalists who merely talk of the tribals as guerrillas or victims. 
   In this regard, Mr. Kaul made an intriguing comment about the Dalits engaging in peaceful 'remedial measures' from within the political system, i.e through the Bahujan Samaj Party. But one criticism directed at the BSP is that they have begun to ignore the demands of the majority of Dalits, the rural poor. Since the adivasis in central India are generally forest-dependent and non-urban people, a BSP-type political solution may not be as attainable or even suitable for them. Organizing a political party may be easier for urban groups and also, less appropriate for a group (such as the tribals) that perceives the nation-state as an illegitimate, occupying force which sanctions oppression.
    So, my question for you and others is: What are the political solutions--which you may know of--being employed by adivasis, for adivasis? Such solutions get lost in all the talk of Naxalism and the distinction between adivasi activists and Maoists gets blurred by the mainstream media.  
   I hope you can make sense of my jumble of thoughts! Pankhuree               
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