[Reader-list] Nandini Bedi's response to Arundhati Roy's 'Walking with the Comrades.'

[S. Jabbar]

I don¹t see this essay as a fantastic piece of journalism. I see it as the
work of a writer/activist who has already made her position very clear
through her earlier writings and actions. She stands for the poor, the
dispossessed, and the ones whose voices are not heard no matter how hard
they shout. I do however, for the first time, have some serious difficulties
accepting what Arundhati Roy tells us here and how she does it.

The romantic picture of comrades in the jungles does not speak for all of
what is going on in and around Dandakaranya forest. At the end of 2008, I
was in Gadchiroli to do some research. For two weeks, I traveled and stayed
in different villages Throughout my stay, the term Naxalite or Œmama¹
(maternal uncle) was used broadly to define the gun toting men and women of
the Dandakaranya and they had cadres in every village. The stories I heard
were quite different from those in this essay.

I heard about the murder of a local leader trying to organize his community.
More than one person told me that a politician, afraid of the man¹s rising
popularity paid the Naxalites to kill him. A man, who was in the jeep the
leader had been hauled out of when it stopped because a felled tree blocked
the forest road, pointed out the spot to me where he had been told to return
the same evening. The body of his boss was hung on a tree once they had shot
him. I heard that Ballarpur Paper Mills pays the Naxlas to cut the bamboo
from the forest and that the Naxals in exchange allow the mill owner to
develop the road leading to those forests just enough to let him carry the
bamboo out. Once that is over, the rains wash away the badly constructed
road. The village residential schools at the top of the bamboo rich hills
that receive government subsidy to feed tribal children, have to tank up on
food supplies before the road disappears for the whole of the monsoon
season. I heard that there are two job opportunities for people in these
villages ­ the state or the Naxalites. That people from the same families
are either in the police force or Naxal force ­ killing each other with
guns. All poor. All desperate. All with little other choice. Unless of
course they can manage to feed their families with one rice crop a year.
That is, if it rains. I heard the Naxalites will not allow Œdevelopment¹,
yet traders from Bengal have been allowed to set up businesses ­ for a
price. I heard that nurses and doctors sent to posts in these areas don¹t
just see is as Œa¹ punishment posting but a punishment posting to the power
of a hundred. They vent their hatred on the tribals they are supposed to
treat. Same goes for the teachers. I heard that a non-violent Gandhian
doctor providing desperately needed medical help was threatened so badly by
the Naxalites that he had to escape at night from the area never to return.
I heard that gun toting Naxals had walked into the compound of the devoted
doctors Prakash and Mandakini Amte, who have been the only hope to injured
and diseased people, including the Naxals themselves, for 40 years. They had
shot somebody who was recuperating on the premises of the hospital. These
premises are also where I stayed for a few days with my husband and two
seven year old boys. Very close to the gate with the unarmed chowkidaar.

Unlike Arundhati Roy, I didn¹t fall into deep sleep at night in the
Dandakaranya forest. There was little chance to enjoy the forest, stars and
the beauty of the villages with their Œsimplicity¹ for me. Because one
Œnecessity¹ was missing. I didn¹t have a friend or a comrade with a gun. I
lived in terror and I didn¹t sleep much. Could this be true of others like
me, without guns and/or comrades with AK 47s to protect or surround
themselves with? 

Unlike Arundhati Roy, I wouldn¹t dare to post the images of the people I
made photos of with quotes of what they told me. They don¹t have guns
slinging from their shoulders so I can¹t possibly give them a Œname¹ and a
Œface¹ on my blog or any other magazine that would want to hear their story.

But I do remember the face of one such man very clearly. He told me he was
caught between the guns of the state machinery and the guns of the
Naxalites. Then he went on to work on the renovation of his hut. The tools
he was using could have belonged to the Stone Age.

I am no fan of the machinery deployed by various official, corporate and
media forces that work overtime to push the poor and dispossessed who are
increasingly Œfalling into the hole¹ as Arundhati so eloquently puts it.
However, I have heard with my own ears in Gadchiroli the voices of ordinary
villagers ­the poor, dispossessed and unarmed say in no uncertain terms,
that the Naxalites are the one stop shop for the violent settling of scores.
Any scores. 

Unfortunately no one told me of water harvesting schemes and the like that
Roy got to witness in the part of Dandakaranya that she was in. And
unfortunately after the first few days of hearing the stories I heard, I
didn¹t ask because I never made the connection between murders and water
harvesting. My fault.

In the TV interview in the program ŒThe devil¹s advocate¹, Karan Thapar asks
Arundhati Roy if she would be willing to talk to the Maoists if the state
would stop Operation Greenhunt. She smiles and replies that she is Œjust an
individual¹ who can do little to influence them. I think Roy doesn¹t project
herself as Œjust an individual¹. She writes and expresses herself in any
forum she is in like she knows she has clout and she can and will use it.
And in ŒWalking with the Comrades¹, she claims she bonds in friendship with
the highest in the Maoist echelons.

So I feel I also have to ask her if she would be willing, for the sake of
the dispossessed for whom she stands, to walk and talk with the comrades, if
Operation Greenhunt is indeed lifted.
NANDINI BEDI
AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS