By going to town as the Chhattisgarh police and media have
recently done on my alleged Maoist links, the real questions have been
sidelined. As citizens of this country do we have the right to protest
democratically and constitutionally, and as journalists, researchers or human
rights activists, are we free to pursue our vocation?
The police arrested one Badri Gawde on the 23rd,
and paraded him before the media four days later, after his family had filed a
missing report. Puffy faced, and barely able to keep his eyes open, Gawde
‘revealed’ to the media that I was working on behalf of the Maoists to oppose
the mines and rail line that are to come up in this area. The activities that
my doppelganger is up to such as leading the Raoghat Rail Sangharsh Samiti in
far away Chhattisgarh, even as my mundane self takes classes in Delhi, amazes
me. If only I had that much energy and
time.
Like many young men in conflict areas, Gawde is a man of
many parts. Stylishly dressed, and with political ambition, Gawde is active
both with the Congress and in local Gond community politics, which involved
supporting Vikram Usendi, the Gond BJP candidate in the assembly elections
against the Halba Congress candidate. But being political in these parts also
means, perforce, keeping up with the Maoists. In November 2013, soon after the
assembly elections, I visited Bastar, as part of my research on counterinsurgency
and democracy. With me was a friend with ancestral roots in
Narayanpur-Antagarh. Badri mentioned that he was going to meet a Maoist leader
the next day, and asked if we would like to come. Since this was a rare
opportunity for us, we went along. Unlike the embedded journalists and others that
the Maoists have given access to, they have been deeply resentful of my
criticism of them. If meeting a Maoist is a crime, then dozens of journalists
should be instantly arrested. Can it be anyone’s case that there is a different
law for journalists and a different one for researchers and human rights
activists, each of whom contributes to information and knowledge dissemination,
but in different ways? On that same visit incidentally, I also met a senior
police officer.
Our meeting with the young Maoist, who had a childlike face
and giggled frequently, lasted an hour or so. We discussed the implications of
the Raoghat mines of course, because it would be impossible not to, but also
Godse versus Gandhi, local Gods and customs, and his own life history. I came
away from that meeting with a sense of great sadness, after having travelled
through some of the most spectacular scenery I have ever seen - mist covered
mountains blue-green with trees, and clear pebbled streams. Badri pointed out a
special tree from which alone the Anga Deo, or log God can be fashioned.
This area deserves to be treated as a national biodiversity
paradise rather than mined into a wasteland. It has a unique expression of
Indic religion unavailable anywhere else in the world, described by Verrier
Elwin as “a special and characteristic faith.” Each hilltop houses a clan God,
and people come from far away places in Maharashtra and Andhra to their clan
festivals, every few years. People are immensely proud of their culture. And
yet the fake gram sabha certificates which the government has produced as
evidence of popular consent, all state in identical language that there is
nothing of cultural or religious value in the area. This is a 5th
schedule area, yet none of the safeguards that the Constitution affords in the
form of PESA or the Forest Rights Act, have been followed.
Part of my sadness is that people think that Maoists are
saving the land, but they are hardly the answer. The government, however,
appears insistent on stopping all peaceful protest, and violating every law to
ensure the mines come up. Ten years ago, when the mines were still incipient,
the police made people deposit their bows and arrows in the thana, and entire
villages now have no means to defend themselves against wild animals. There are
ghost villages of women and children, because all the men have been arrested. 22
CRPF camps have come up in the area financed by the Bhilai Steel Plant.
Ostensibly the mines will be used by the public sector but large private
players are waiting in the wings. Those who have not been arrested are being
silenced through civic action programs.
Sadly for democratic politics, the post 1947 government has
inherited, among other things, a colonial theory of incitement. Unable to accept that people have a legitimate
right to safeguard their lives, they are always looking for conspirators to
explain resistance. In this case, the aim is not simply to target me, but to
preemptively act against all democratic, peaceful and lawful opposition to the
Raoghat mines, by raising the Maoist bogey. It also helps the Chhattisgarh
government to deflect attention from their deliberate refusal to act on the
Supreme Court’s orders. Schools are still occupied by security forces putting
girl students at risk, no-one has been compensated for their houses being burnt
and of course no-one has been prosecuted for the killings and rapes the
security forces and salwa judum carried out.
The Chhattisgarh government has long tried to claim that our
petition against Salwa Judum in the Supreme Court has been filed at the behest
of the Maoists. They cannot accept that ordinary democratic minded citizens who
have witnessed or experienced at first hand the devastation brought about by
Salwa Judum might independently want justice.
My co-petitioners, Ramachandra Guha and EAS Sarma, can hardly be accused
of being Maoist dupes. The incitement and urban network theory can only go so
far. Till the day that our Constitution says that the profits of mining
companies outweigh the right to life, affected villagers will continue to fight,
and democratic people will continue to support them.
