[Reader-list] Fwd: EKTA on Massacre of Civilians by Maoist Insurgents in Chhattisgarh and State Response

[Shuddhabrata Sengupta]

Dear Nagraj,

Thanks for posting this.

best,

Shuddha

On 18-May-10, at 4:49 PM, Nagraj Adve wrote:

> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Sukla Sen <sukla.sen at gmail.com>
> Date: 18 May 2010 16:41
> Subject: EKTA on Massacre of Civilians by Maoist Insurgents in
> Chhattisgarh and State Response
>
> EKTA (Committee for Communal Amity), Mumbai hereby strongly condemns
> the lethal attack by the Maoist insurgents yesterday afternoon on a
> private bus at Chingavaram on the Dantewada-Sukhma road in
> Chhattisgarh in an overly successful bid to kill a group of traveling
> armed Special Police Officers (SPOSs) - adivasi youths recruited to
> battle Maoist insurgency in the state, with the full knowledge that
> the bus was carrying also a large number of unarmed civilian
> passengers taking no part in the ongoing armed conflicts between the
> insurgents and the state. This is morally utterly repulsive.
> We also, on this note, strongly disapprove the brutal summary
> executions of unarmed civilians, including adivasis and other sections
> of the poor and marginalized, by the Maoists tagging them as
> “informer”.
> At the same time, we also take note of the fact that a large group of
> SPOs, maybe around 20, elected to travel by a bus full of civilian
> passengers, plying through an area known to be prone to mine blasts
> and other forms of armed assaults by the Maoists, despite the fact
> they are engaged in an open and no holds barred war with the
> insurgents, killing each other at the first available opportunity.
> This amounts to virtually holding the civilian passengers as helpless
> hostage and trying to use them as human shield for their own safety.
> It is also just unacceptable.
> While on this orgy of gory violence, the reflexive cry of Sri
> Chidambaram in the wake of these tragic murders for more of the same
> (failed measures), asking for an “expanded mandate” i.e. permission to
> use air strikes against the insurgents operating in an area with deep
> forest covers and sheltering for ages large number of adivasi
> inhabitants is also unacceptably disturbing. So is his vituperative
> verbal assault on civil society groups committed to uphold democratic
> values and norms so as to cover up his own dismal performance as the
> Union Home Minister.
> The fact that the detailed recommendations made by a body of
> recognised experts appointed by no less than the Planning Commission
> of India to tackle Maoist insurgency have gone completely unheeded
> despite persistent failures of the tried and tested repressive
> measures deserves close attention.
> On this note, we also strongly condemn Odisha government’s armed
> assaults on unarmed civilian resistors protesting against proposed
> mega projects by the Posco, and also Tata, Vedanta etc., overriding
> all ecological, social, and also legal, considerations.
> It seems that the state is bent upon sending the message, in unison
> with the insurgents, that in Indian democracy peaceful protests have
> no reasonable chance of being heard and the only way out is armed
> banditry.
> At the end, we again appeal to the warring parties to immediately come
> to the negotiating table and eschew blood spilling violence. Obviously
> the “democratic” state has a greater responsibility and just cannot
> afford to emulate a band of armed outlaws.
> The sate must also immediately have an authentic and thoughtful relook
> at the “strategy” being pursued hitherto by it and make serious
> attempts to initiate inclusive and participatory development to better
> the lot of the marginalised adivasi populations, in particular - the
> main constituency of the insurgents, to cut them off from their
> principal support base.
> Mindless armed action will only bring in more and more tragedies it  
> its wake.
> An internal disturbance fuelled by an overpowering sense of alienation
> felt by a significant section of the population born out of desperate
> poverty and cruel oppressions cannot be and must not be tackled the
> way a war is waged against a clearly identified uniformed external
> enemy.
> Sukla Sen
> for EKTA (Committee for Communal Amity), Mumbai
> 18 05 2010
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Shuddhabrata Sengupta
The Sarai Programme at CSDS
Raqs Media Collective
shuddha at sarai.net
www.sarai.net
www.raqsmediacollective.net