[Reader-list] The Naxalites overreached

[Pawan Durani]

Dear Shuddha ,

What is good about your politics which does not come out in straight
condemnation of the massacre by the Maoist without mincing words.

This is a war ...you are either with it or against it.

Pawan

On Wed, Apr 7, 2010 at 4:15 PM, Shuddhabrata Sengupta <shuddha at sarai.net> wrote:
> Dear all,
> Whenever I hear of 'iron fists', I reach for my 'velevet glove'. : ).
> I strongly condemn any move to call for 'iron fist' treatment of anyone who
> is not a combatant.  Let me elaborate.
> I intensely dislike, and am opposed to the politics of Pawan Durani and some
> of his friends on this list. I think their agendas are dangerous and
> divisive. But I do not think that people should be treated with 'iron fists'
> merely for holding and expressing an opinion, no matter how objectionable
> that opinion may be. It is a crime to set off an IED or a mine or kill
> someone, but it is not a crime to call for an understanding of the
> motivations of those that do, or even to say that these acts of violence are
> part of a 'just war'. And the crucial difference between these two lines of
> action is the very basis on which an open society is built and sustained.
> But, just as, if the Maoists were to start targetting pro-establishment
> journalists instead of combatants, they would be violating a fundamental
> code of how armed conflict ought to be conducted, so too, when people call
> for 'targeting' Maoist sympathizers along with combatants, as if the realm
> of discourse and opinions were a battlefield where punitive and military
> measures can and ought to be taken, they are pointing us in the direction of
> a closed, authoritarian society - where all of society is a prison camp.
> Where people are prosecuted not on the grounds of what they do, but on the
> grounds of what they think, or believe, or what other people think they
> think.
> The taking of human life is never something we need to celebrate. The deaths
> of the more than 75 people in an ambush is not something that anyone can
> exult over. But, to be fair, if this party, which was on an 'area domination
> exercise' came across a squad of Maoists who happened to be less prepared
> than them, the killed would have been the killers. These two forces are at
> war, and in a war, combatants are not expected to shoot to kill, not to hold
> their fire.
> As is evident from what I have written, much of which has appeared here
> earlier, I have little sympathy for the politics of the Maoists. But I
> strongly feel that we should also think about the culpability of those who
> are pushing the CRPF jawans into a war to defend the interests of rapacious
> mining companies. They are just as responsible for these deaths as those who
> planted the mines or pulled the triggers, just as the American presidents
> who sent young American men into war in Vietnam were equally responsible for
> their deaths, as were the Vietcong. The soldiers who are pushed into the
> frontline of any war are the victims of the decisions made by the commanders
> of two armies, their own, as well as of their opponents.
> And frankly, if , the story had turned the other way around, if 75 Maoists
> were killed in a CRPF ambush, those who are asking for 'iron fists' to crush
> Maoists and their sympathisers today would be celebrating. Arnab Goswamy
> would be singing an aria.
> I see a large casualty figure as an occasion to mourn, to reflect on what is
> making the violence happen, not as a reason to call for authoritarian
> measures.  If, we feel strongly about the toll that this war is taking, we
> should be feeling just as strongly, regardless of which side the casualties
> are on.
> I watched a hysterical Arnab Goswami go ballistic last night on television,
> asking for measures that will 'wipe out' the menace, that will tackle
> 'sympathizers'. He kept asking two of his panelists whom he had  decided
> were Maoist sympathisers, despite at least one of them disagreeing with that
> appelation, whether they were 'with the Indian people' or 'against' them.
> Now, if you are a Maoist, you will automatically reply that killing the
> armed police and militaries of the Indian state automatically proves that
> you are with the Indian people, since the state is the Indian state, in
> their view, is the monster oppressing the Indian people. In this case, both
> the CRPF officers who send their jawans into be slaughtered, as well as the
> Maoists commanders who order the slaughter, act in the name of the same
> 'Indian people'. Both use the language of 'wiping off' the opposition. Both
> seem to need massacres to justify their very existence. The 'indian people'
> must be truly bloodthirsty if so much blood is being shed in its name by
> opposite forces in an escalating war
>  I do not recall this intensity of condemnation during instances where
> massacres in 'Naxal' affected regions have happened earlier (with a
> difference in the protagonists of the massacres) say in Bihar, at Laxmanpur
> Bathe, or at Arwal, or Mianpur, where upper caste / landlord militias with
> the tacit backing of the police slaughtered peasant activists (Arwal, 24
> people died in 1986, Laxmanpur Bathe, 58 people died in 1997, Mianpur, 35
> people died in 2001). Do the hackles of our 'patriots' rise more when
> Maoists or Naxals are doing the killing than when peasants or tribals are
> killed by upper caste militias, outfits like the Salwa Judum or the state's
> police and paramilitary forces.
> If you look at the table of casualties in the South Asian Terrorism Portal
> for casualties in Naxal affected regions in Bihar for the period between
> 1976 and 2001, for instance, you can see clearly that 86 or so massacres and
> incidents of violence were cased by a combination of upper caste militias
> and the state police.
>
> This is the overwhelming majority of incidents. But I do not recall anyone
> having the gall to say on prime time television that the upper/landed caste
> militias or the Bihar State police and their sympathizers should be 'wiped
> out' or that their 'sympathizers' (who include activists of every single
> mainstream political party in India) should be treated with an 'iron fist'.
> http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/india/terroristoutfits/massacres.htm
> Is this not a case of one standard for 'Maoists' and their actual and/or
> supposed sympathizers, and quite another for everyone else ?
> best
> Shuddha
>
> On 07-Apr-10, at 2:22 PM, Pawan Durani wrote:
>
> It's high time that not only Maosists , but their supporters are
> handled with iron fist.
> Regards
> Pawan
>
> On Wed, Apr 7, 2010 at 1:55 PM, Asit asitreds <asitredsalute at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> what about the voilence in gujrat bhagalpur etc which have killed hundred
> times more people than in dantewada
>  what about tens of thousands of noncobatant civilan population killed by
> security forces in northeast kashmir and punjab
> asit
>
> On 4/6/10, Pawan Durani <pawan.durani at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> …and committed a strategic mistake at Dantewada
>
> The reason why Naxalites have been able to sustain their insurgency
> for so long is due to three main reasons: the absence or failure of
> governance; the romanticism and propaganda of their overground
> sympathisers; and, finally, due to the relatively subliminal nature of
> their violence.
> To the extent that their violence was distributed in space and time
> they could slip in and out of the public mind, pursue on-and-off talks
> with state governments and generally avoid provoking the government
> into hitting back hard. Over the last five years Naxalites have
> violently expanded the geographical spread of their extortion and
> protection rackets—yet, the violence in any given place and time has
> been below a certain threshold. That threshold itself is high for a
> number of reasons, including efforts by their sympathisers to
> romanticise their violence, spectacular terrorist attacks by jihadi
> groups and due to the remoteness of the areas of their operations.
> This allowed Naxalites to get away with murder. A lot of times. In a
> lot of places. Literally.
> But killing 73 out of 80 (or 120) CRPF and police personnel in a short
> span of time in a single battle is no longer subliminal violence. In
> all likelihood the Naxalites have crossed a threshold—this incident is
> likely to stay much longer in the public mind and increase the
> pressure on politicians to tackle the Naxalite threat with greater
> resolve. Also, given that it has also become an issue of P
> Chidambaram’s—and hence the UPA government’s—reputation, the gloves
> are likely to come off in the coming weeks.
> There’s a chance that India’s psychological threshold is even higher.
> But it is more likely that the Naxalites have overreached. Perhaps
> their leadership has calculated that they are in the next stage of
> their revolutionary war. If so, that would neither the first nor the
> only delusion in their minds.
> http://acorn.nationalinterest.in/2010/04/06/the-naxalites-overreached/
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> Shuddhabrata Sengupta
> The Sarai Programme at CSDS
> Raqs Media Collective
> shuddha at sarai.net
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