[Reader-list] Fwd: The Government's Planned "Offensive" in Adivasi and Forest Areas

[Nagraj Adve]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Campaign for Survival and Dignity <forestcampaignnews at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 8:24 PM
Subject: [forestrights] The Government's Planned "Offensive" in Adivasi and
Forest Areas
To: forestcampaign at gmail.com




*A Pretext to Impose Brutal Repression: the Government's "Offensive" Is a
Formula for Bloodshed and Injustice *

The Campaign for Survival and Dignity, a national platform of adivasi and
forest dwellers' mass organisations from ten States, unequivocally condemns
the reported plans for a military “offensive” by the government in the
country's major forest and tribal areas. This offensive, ostensibly targeted
against the CPI (Maoist), is a smoke screen for an assault against the
people, especially adivasis, aimed at suppressing all dissent, all
resistance and engineering the takeover of their resources. Certain facts
make this clear:


   -

   *The government tells us that this offensive will make it possible for
   the “state to function” in these areas and fill the “vacuum of governance.”
   This is grossly misleading.* The Indian state is very, very active in
   these areas, often in its most brutal and violent form. A vivid example is
   the illegal eviction of more than 3,00,000 families by the Forest
   Departments a few years ago. Laws have been totally disregarded;
   Constitutional protections for adivasi rights blatantly ignored and their
   rights over water, forest and land (jal, jangal, jamin) glaringly violated.
   Every month an increasing number of people are jailed, beaten and killed by
   the police. If this is the picture of what “absence” of the state means,
   people are terrified of what the “presence” of the state will mean. It can
   only mean converting brutalized governance into militarized rule, a total
   negation of democracy.
   -

   *This is not a war over “development.” People's struggles in India today
   are over democracy and dignity - *Meaningful development must contribute
   to strengthening the right of all people to* *their resources and their
   production, and thereby to control over their own destiny. For generations,
   adivasis have fought for their Constitutional rights and entitlements. More
   recently, mass democratic movements have fought for new laws and policies,
   such as the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act (PESA), the Forest
   Rights Act, the right to work and the right to food, in addition to earlier
   laws like the Minimum Wages Act, the Restoration of Alienated Lands Acts,
   and land reform and moneylending laws. These laws make it possible for
   people to fight for greater control over their lives, their livelihoods,
   their lands and their forests. However these laws are respected more in the
   breach; if the government wants “development”, let it first stop the blatant
   disregard of its own laws. Let people determine the path of their own
   development, in accordance with their rights over their resources and the
   type of infrastructure they desire. The Constitution itself requires this
   kind of planning. The claim that “development” can be provided through
   military force is both absurd and ridiculous.
   -

   *This war is not about “national security”; it is about ‘securing’ the
   interests of global and Indian capital and big business. *Any government
   worried about security would send its troops against mining mafias, the
   forest mafias, violent vigilante groups like the salwa judum and others.
   Rather than being curbed, these killers are in fact supported by the police.
   Have the security forces ever been deployed to defend the people struggling
   to protect themselves, their forests, their livelihoods and their futures?
   The answer is no. The notion of “security” being advanced by the government
   clearly has nothing to do with the people. Rather, it is to enable big
   business to engage in robbery and expropriation of resources, which they
   have decided will be one of their main sources of accumulation. Hence,
   mining, “infrastructure”, real estate, land grabbing, all aimed at
   super-profits, are being projected as “development” needed by the people.
   Huge amounts of international and government money are being pumped into
   so-called “forestry projects” which displace people from their lands and
   destroy biodiversity (even while they are trumpeted as a strategy for
   climate change). The UPA is rushing into agreements with the US and other
   imperial countries to throw open mining and land to international
   exploitation. But where do the forests, land, water and minerals lie? They
   are found in the forest and tribal areas, where people - some organised
   under the CPI (Maoist), some organized under democratic movements, some in
   spontaneous local struggles, some simply fighting in whatever manner they
   can – are resisting the destruction of their homes, resources and their
   lives. The “offensive against the Maoists” is only a subterfuge to crush
   this citizens’ resistance and to provide an excuse for more abuse of power,
   more brutality and more injustice.
   -

   *The government knows perfectly well that it cannot destroy the CPI
   (Maoist), or any people's struggle, through military action.* How can the
   armed forces identify who is a “Maoist” and who is not? The use of brute
   military force will result in the slaughter of thousands of people in
   prolonged, bloody and brutal guerrilla warfare. This has been the result of
   every “security offensive” in India's history from Kashmir to Nagaland. So
   why do this? And why now? Unless the goal has nothing to do with “wiping out
   the Maoists” and everything to do with having an excuse for the permanent
   presence of lakhs of troops, arms and equipment in these areas. To protect
   and serve whom?
   -

   *Hence the need for fear mongering and hysteria about Maoist
   “sympathisers” and their “infiltration” into “civil society.” *The
   government has a very long history of labeling any form of dissent as
   “Naxalite” or “Maoist.”* *The Maoists' politics are known; their
   positions are public; the only secret aspect of their work is their personal
   identities and military tactics. We who work in these areas do not fear this
   bogey of “infiltration” in our groups by Maoists, for the different stands
   taken by our organizations and theirs are clear, and in some areas there are
   open disputes. This scaremongering is just an excuse to justify a crackdown
   on all forms of dissent and democratic protest in these areas, a crushing of
   all people's resistance, and the branding of any questioning, any demand for
   justice, as “Maoist.”


In the final analysis, *peace and justice will only come to India's workers,
peasants, adivasis, dalits and other oppressed sections through the mass
democratic struggle of the people.* A democratic struggle requires
democratic space. The conversion of a region into a war zone, by anyone, is
unacceptable. In the forest areas in particular, there is now a need for a
new peace, one that can only be achieved through a genuine democratic
dialogue between the political forces involved. For this to happen, this
horrific “offensive” must first be called off. If the government really
wishes to claim that it is committed to protecting people and their rights,
let its actions comply with the requirements of law, justice and democracy.


 *Bharat Jan Andolan, National Front for Tribal Self Rule, Jangal Adhikar
Sangharsh Samiti (Mah), Adivasi Mahasabha (Guj), Adivasi Jangal Janjeevan
Andolan (D&NH), Jangal Jameen Jan Andolan (Raj), Madhya Pradesh Jangal
Jeevan Adhikar Bachao Andolan, Jan Shakti Sanghatan (Chat), Peoples Alliance
for Livelihood Rights, Chattisgarh Mukti Morcha, Orissa Jan Sangharsh
Morcha, Campaign for Survival & Dignity (Ori), Orissa Jan Adhikar Morcha,
Adivasi Aikya Vedike (AP), Campaign for Survival and Dignity – TN, Bharat
Jan Andolan (Jhar).*

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