[Reader-list] The Naxalites overreached

[Pawan Durani]

Dear Anupam Ji ,

Why are you in anger all the time ? The blogger GreatBong is a famous
blogger who has won many awards. His name is Arnab and is an author of
just released book "May I Hebb Your Attention Please".He is from
Kolkota .

Have you traveled to Dantewada ?

Pawan



He is from Kolkota .

On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 12:46 PM, anupam chakravartty <c.anupam at gmail.com> wrote:
> Pawan
>
> you favorite blogger doesnt even have the guts to put his name on the
> record for writing such things. he is like Kishenji, who turns his
> back to the camera before speaking addressing the media. my only
> advice to this "great bong" is that he should step out his cubicle
> before he plays around with his words. i bet he hasnt been either to
> gujarat or dantewada to have suggested that indigenous communities
> should start dairies in these areas.
>
> anupam
>
> On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 12:20 PM, Pawan Durani <pawan.durani at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Dear Asit ,
>>
>> While as the nation has condemned whatever you have written , it still
>> does not justify the Naxalites and their barbaric acts.
>>
>> I understand your support to them as your E-Mail ID is quite obvious -
>> Asit red salute ....lal salaam.
>>
>> I am sharing you a piece on this 'civil war' by my favorite blogger :- GreatBong
>>
>> http://greatbong.net/2010/04/08/the-invisible-civil-war/
>>
>> We have been in the middle of an invisible civil war for many years
>> now. Civil war because it is an armed struggle by a section of the
>> people against the democratic administration of the country, a war
>> that has spiraled so out of control that representatives of law
>> enforcement accept that there are large swathes of country where they
>> cannot enter. Invisible because it rarely captures national attention,
>> confined as it is to largely rural backward areas for which it is
>> pushed to the rear of the news by other things more important to our
>> national life—like IPL, Shoaib-Sania and Kites.
>>
>> That is unless more than seventy-six CRPF personnel are brutally
>> massacred at which point of time we are forced to deal with the issue.
>> At least for a few news cycles.
>>
>> For those of us who do care, at least perfunctorily, and who havent
>> drunk the “It’s all India’s fault” cool-aid it is tempting to angrily
>> shout out “Ms Roy, happy now?” , in the context of her frothing
>> diatribe against the Indian government, Hindutva, corporations
>> (basically all of her enemies) and her rapturous glorification of the
>> violence of Maoists in the execrable piece of garbage recently
>> published in Outlook.  But analyzing or rebutting a fanatic
>> fundamentalist like Ms. Roy is as futile as deconstructing a Payal
>> Rohatgi movie and once you realize that she is essentially a Rakhi
>> Sawant with a laptop and a Booker, with the only difference that she
>> uses Maoists instead of Mika to get attention, the uselessness of the
>> exercise is even more evident.
>>
>> What however is worth looking at are her rhetorical tools, principally
>> because they are re-used by many people who share Ms. Roy’s agenda,
>> from your unshaven friend at JNU to the slacker cousin of yours who
>> leaves cigarette ash on your carpet. One of it is in presenting random
>> pictures of Maoist rebels, women or young men, and saying “India’s
>> Biggest Threats” as if the incongruity between their innocent visages
>> and the phrase “India’s Biggest Threat” should show how ridiculous a
>> liar the Indian government is. Of course, Ms. Roy the point is not the
>> bholi soorat that you so lovingly present but that AK47 slung on her
>> shoulder. That is the problem. Villains rarely look like Dr. Dong and
>> do a Shaam-O-Sasha dance and even Osama would look like a poet had not
>> we known his other activities.
>>
>> The second is in humanizing terrorist organizations by saying “Look at
>> the kind of development work they have done.”  Well even the
>> Mujahideen in Kashmir did earthquake relief and it is well known that
>> terrorists do public outreach programs to win hearts and minds. Just
>> like big industrial houses. However people like Ms. Roy will sneer at
>> the altruism of big business and glorify that of terrorists. Not
>> surprising.
>>
>> The third is of course making wild accusations of government excesses
>> and then obviating the necessity of providing supporting evidence by
>> saying “The corporate press suppressed the news.” This is an old game,
>> a game played by radicals across the political spectrum. Get some wild
>> bit of news, either from “alternative media” or from unimpeachable
>> sources like Maoists with a gun and say “There is no proof for this
>> assertion of mine because there can never be.” This is not to say that
>> government excesses do not take place (italicized for the benefit of
>> those rushing to comment with a “On so-and-so day the government did
>> this and this was reported in Newspaper so-and-so) but much of the
>> accusations are just that. Accusations with nothing to back them up.
>> Accusations so often repeated that they become fact.
>>
>> And what is worth touching upon is the Big Lie that people like Ms.
>> Roy perpetuate. That somehow we are seeing another Santhal Rebellion
>> with the oppressive British being replaced by the oppressive Indian
>> (Hindu) state. During the British era, Santhals using bows and arrows
>> went up against British guns and cannons. Today’s Maoist “tribals”
>> have AK47s and ultra-modern weaponry and commando-like training, which
>> obviously some agency has supplied to them. In that respect this is
>> not a “spontaneous” rising of the dispossessed but a carefully
>> engineered insurrection with the fighting fuel being supplied by our
>> “good neighbors”  and the propaganda lungs (since propaganda is a
>> vital part of Communist struggle) being supplied by “We know who”.
>>
>> However what is true is that fighting footsoldiers of the Maoist
>> movement are coming from the ranks of tribals and it is important we
>> try to understand, even imperfectly since a full understanding of such
>> a difficult problem requires much study which we are unable to do
>> between two KKR matches, what is going on. What our Maoists in the
>> press would tell us is a very simple story. One one side are the good
>> people—the tribals, monstrously poor, sitting on minerals, being
>> exploited and taken advantage of. On on the other side are the bad
>> people—-big industrial houses, the Indian government, police, army and
>> Hindutva (Yes the last word people like Ms. Roy put in every piece
>> almost as if padding a piece for Google Adwords purpose). And that the
>> tribals, the good guys, are launching a justified armed struggle
>> against the bad guys.
>>
>> The truth is slightly different. The tribals are not a monlithic
>> entity. A few of them have, over the generations, taken advantage of
>> quotas and the other special privileges provided to them by the
>> Constitution as well as economic liberalization to improve their lot.
>> Some of them have become middlemen, some of them small businessmen
>> like brick kiln owners. A few of them, over generations, have risen in
>> ranks even further becoming powerhouses like a Madhu Koda or Shibu
>> Soren. But there are others who have stayed behind rolling kendu
>> leaves and essentially doing the same things that their ancestors did.
>> Now when big mining companies moved in, it was those “advanced”
>> tribals who saw an opportunity to make more money by becoming
>> land-brokers. Needless to say, they were coming up against their
>> socially immobile brethren who naturally resented the comparative
>> wealth and influence of their fellow-tribals. And then “people”
>> started putting AK47s in the hands of those pissed off telling them
>> “Grab what you dont have. We can make our own laws.”
>>
>> Soon government-supported, pro-development “tribals” (Salwa
>> Judum—–Mahendra Karma the founder of Salwa Judum is an ethnic Adivasi
>> himself who had made it “big”) and the dispossessed but armed tribals
>> were fighting each other,  in an increasing spiral of violence. And
>> despite what the “liberals” would have you believe,  these
>> “dispossessed” tribals forming the Maoists are not Robin Hoods. They
>> go about terrorizing villages, collecting extortion and protection
>> money and organizing people’s courts for punishing “informers” i.e.
>> those who were trying to get into the gang of the “advanced” tribals.
>> So yes this isnt a battle between good and evil but a massive gang war
>> being played out in the backwoods with no heroes and no villains. Only
>> victims.
>>
>> A solution is difficult to find here. And I wont be presumptuous to
>> say I have any idea what should be done. However I feel that part of
>> the solution would be to have tribals brought into the mainstream. For
>> too long I have seen people, usually city folks and academics,
>> glorifying tribal life as the last surviving vestige of a simple,
>> ancient way of living. But a tribal life, of subsisting on hunting and
>> rolling kendu leaves, is a life that is medieval and there is a reason
>> why people in most parts of the country abandoned this lifestyle many
>> centuries ago (After all we all were tribals once). As mentioned
>> before, the tension underlying the Maoist struggle is between those
>> who have forsaken their old life for “capitalist pleasures” which in
>> turn has led to an understanding of how they can leverage their
>> possession of natural reserves for their own benefit,  and those who
>> have not.
>>
>> While glorying Maoists, Ms. Roy says that they have gotten tribals
>> organized and have won victories like getting a better price for kendu
>> leaves. However it should be noted that poor and exploited people in
>> other parts of the country did not need guns and terrorists to get
>> organized. They formed cooperatives like Gujarat Co-operative Milk
>> Marketing Federation Ltd (Amul) and changed their futures peacefully.
>> So community organization, as Ms. Roy hints, does not need Maoists. As
>> a matter of fact, Maoists prevent aid and assistance from reaching
>> those that need it (being a kind of mafia themselves) and the
>> perpetuation of the Maoist movement, as strategized by its handlers
>> who are anything but tribals, depends critically on people being angry
>> at the government. Hence lack of real development, as done by the
>> government, serves them well because then they can show themselves to
>> be an alternative.
>>
>> In conclusion, I sometimes wonder what would happen to people like Ms.
>> Roy should the Maoists actually succeed in overthrowing the Indian
>> state in a few decades, a publicly stated aim. Well based on the
>> glorious example of Chairman Mao and his attitude towards
>> “intellectuals” during the Cultural Revolution and of his disciple Pol
>> Pot, who made them work in the fields till they died, the fate of
>> champagne liberals like Ms. Roy would not be all that great. But
>> somehow I think she wouldnt stay around in the country to find out.
>>
>>
>>
>> Pawan
>>
>> On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 11:53 AM, Asit asitreds <asitredsalute at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>  i was not talking about maoists i was just saying why you people were not
>>> outraged when thousands were killed and raped in gujrat riots when babri
>>> masjid was  was raged, when hundreds of honour killings takes place in and
>>> around delhi, when dalit women are paraded naked in the country, when
>>> peaceful democratic mass movements are ruthless supressed for the super
>>> profits of a few corporations, when thousands of farmers are forced out of
>>> their land for sezs, mines and factories for the profits of national and
>>> international big business, when rural poor in kalahandi sell their
>>> daughters in dire poverty the list is endless, im surprised you people are
>>> not at all bothered about the starvation deaths and the acute agrian crisis
>>> where more than two lakh farmers have commited suicide dont you think their
>>> lives are also imortant
>>> asit
>>>
>>> On Wed, Apr 7, 2010 at 11:11 PM, A.K. Malik <akmalik45 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Dear Durani Sahib,
>>>>                  I fully agree with you. However, the record of the
>>>> current governance in the country is dismal.They may say they will deal with
>>>> it firmly but ultimately the Govt buckles under pressure from various
>>>> quarters including the supporters. No one can justify what is being done by
>>>> the Maoists. I don't know in what way Asit is trying to justify the same.
>>>> Regards,
>>>>
>>>> (A.K.MALIK)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --- On Wed, 4/7/10, Pawan Durani <pawan.durani at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> > From: Pawan Durani <pawan.durani at gmail.com>
>>>> > Subject: Re: [Reader-list] The Naxalites overreached
>>>> > To: "Asit asitreds" <asitredsalute at gmail.com>
>>>> > Cc: "reader-list" <reader-list at sarai.net>
>>>> > Date: Wednesday, April 7, 2010, 2:22 PM
>>>> > 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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>>>> > _________________________________________
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>>>> > city.
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>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _________________________________________
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>>>
>> _________________________________________
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