[Reader-list] The Naxalites overreached

[anupam chakravartty]

Pawan,

your attempts to invigorate the readers by saying "either you are with
it or against it', you have with a possibility of a another vietnam to
be waged in india on its very own people by the government. it is very
comfortable for you to choose this stand because you with your pithy
sayings know it very well that if anyone from this list comments on
your post, it means people are reading about your ideas and you have
successfully peddled them to a platform.

let us see who you have excluded from this debate. you exclude the
families by readily declaring them as "martyrs" (isnt it shameful that
these men who could have worked to built these areas in the heart of
india are brutally killed because another set of people do not want to
come with guns? i know i shouldn't be asking these questions to you as
it was an administrative decision to send such a large number of
personnel into area which is already a stronghold) because they fought
' for/on your side'. it also excludes the staff of the hospital which
worked for 48 hours on each and every corpse to send it to their
homes, hoping that they never have to see a day like this again. you
are excluding the independent opinion by always labelling it as maoist
sympathisers, which could form as a bridge for negotiations at a later
stage. for your information, it was stated by the senior police
official working in that area, that the so-called liberated zone is
largely uninhabited zone, so does it mean that security forces were
planning to 'invade' the zone? at the cost of all these lives which
have been lost despite the home minister making tall claims Dantewada
and Gadhchiroli will be naxal free. so is this the approach? i think
operation green hunt is a failure. the home ministry should admit that
green hunt is a failure and use other approaches to negotiate peace.

guess who you are including in this argument ...a band of young men
and women who have probably exhausted all means of negotiating with
all forms of governance and are now nothing but waiting to kill anyone
that comes their way because it has been stated that Indian governance
massively failed in its interventions. you are also including those
mining companies who want to become mai-baap of indigenous
communities. a few stakeholders who do not know whose line to toe, is
it mao or marx or birsa munda or some politically correct arm chair
intellectual...

i am afraid but if this is how you perceive governance than a lot of
people who are opposed to violence are in grave danger from people
like you who just want to perpetuate conflicts.

kindly think before you launch such statements sir. these so called
maoists are people from own country who have lost faith. your faith in
the system has absolutely no correlation with someone's else belief in
the same system. so you cannot call for a iron hand treatment on
anyone you feel like because the tv and the newspapers screamed
headlines, rather give an alternative. the same mistakes that american
government cannot be committed by india.

-anupam





On Wed, Apr 7, 2010 at 4:45 PM, Pawan Durani <pawan.durani at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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
>> www.sarai.net
>> www.raqsmediacollective.net
>>
>>
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