The End of Naxalism: The End of Accountability

https://thewire.in/rights/the-end-of-naxalism-the-end-of-accountability 

Conversation with Anuradha SenGupta in "The Big Picture'

 

Conversation with Anuradha SenGupta in "The Big Picture' on what Amit Shah's 'deadline' to finish Maoism means for villagers. 

There may be relief at an end to the operations, but they are worried about mining, displacement, and also the little things that the Maoists managed which were important in their lives - settling village disputes, helping women escape patriarchy, land levelling and village communal farming..

The Maoists may go, but if the camps remain, thats a new battle to fight

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GVKB05pWzo

Post-mortem of a PIL

I am writing this blog for my own satisfaction, after the Supreme Court disposed of our public interest litigation without proper hearing, on May 15 2025. We had filed the cases in 2007. This post must be read in conjunction with my chapters on litigating against counterinsurgency in my book, The Burning Forest, which deal in more detail with the 2011 judgement. 

Our Written Submissions

 IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA

WRIT PETITION (CIVIL) NO. 250/2007 

IN THE MATTER OF: 

NANDINI SUNDAR 

VERSUS

STATE OF CHHATTISGARH & ANR. 

WRIT PETITION (CRIMINAL) NO. 119/2007 

AND IN THE MATTER OF: 

KARTAM JOGA 

VERSUS

STATE OF CHHATTISGARH 

CONTEMPT PETITION (CIVIL) NO. 140/2012

AND IN THE MATTER OF: 

NANDINI SUNDAR 

VERSUS

SHRI SUNIL KUMAR 

                     

COMPREHENSIVE NOTE ON THE ISSUES INVOLVED AND A RESPONSE WHICH THE STATE’S AFFIDAVIT 30.08.2024  SIMPLY DOES NOT ADDRESS 

The writ petitions were filed against the state policy of arming civilians and militarizing the districts of Bastar, Sukma, Bijapur and Dantewada in the state of Chhattisgarh, which resulted in an exponentially rising spiral of devastation. This case may broadly be divided into five sections: 

I. This Court’s indictment of a counter insurgency policy of using state sponsored vigilantes and SPOs, in its judgment reported as Nandini Sundar v. State of Chhattisgarh (2011) 7 SCC 547, and the brazen violation of the same by the State of Chhattisgarh thereafter.

This is reiterated in the State’s Affidavit dated 30.08.2024 filed following this Hon’ble Court’s directions of 16.7.2024 for a status update, purportedly showing compliance of order dated 05.07.2011 

II. The extent of human rights violations in Chhattisgarh and the State’s failure/inability to redress the same.

III. This Court’s directions to the CBI to investigate the incidents of violence (arson, rape and murder) in three villages of Chhattisgarh, namely Timmapuram, Morpalli and Tadmetla by the SPOs as well as the violent attack on Swami Agnivesh, and subsequent developments. 

IV. Role of the National Human Rights Commission.

V. Proposed Rehabilitative measures - Survey and Independent Monitoring.

Will Modi Sarkar listen to the adivasis of Bastar now that the Maoist insurgency is nearing its end?

 Shalini Gera, advocate, and I had a conversation with Ajoy Ashirwad of The Wire 30 May 2025

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIWfCGXCMpE

Interview by CG Khabar, 20 April 2025

 Raghavendra Singh of CG Khabar interviewed me on the sidelines of a meeting in Dalli Rajhara on the need for peace talks. He asked about how I came to Bastar, the murder charges against me, and about the situation in Bastar. I argued that whatever the outcome of the peace talks between govt and Maoists - and its extremely important that there be peace talks - we need justice. All those killed, raped and displaced during this conflict should get some justice.  There is a third party to the talks - which is the most important - and that is the people of Bastar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvE7IuV-7s0

How Chhattisgarh has stalled a historic judgment

Ten years ago, on July 5, 2011, Justices B. Sudershan Reddy and S.S. Nijjar delivered a historic judgment banning Salwa Judum, a vigilante movement started in in 2005 and sponsored by the Chhattisgarh and Central government, ostensibly to fight against the Maoists. The judges also ruled that the use of surrendered Maoists and untrained villagers in frontline counter-insurgency operations as Special Police Officers (SPOs) was unconstitutional. It directed that the existing SPOs be redeployed in traffic management or other such safe duties. Other matters, especially prosecution of security forces and others involved in human rights violations, and rehabilitation of villagers who had suffered violence, were left pending, since the State had been asked to submit comprehensive plans for this.

Ten years on, nothing has been done to implement the judgment. Instead, the State government has merely renamed the SPOs. They are now known as the District Reserve Guard (DRG). Conversations with DRG members have revealed that most of them are captured or surrendered Maoists and are given automatic weaponry as soon as they join the police force. Some of them get one-three months of training, and some not even that. They commit the most excesses against their former fellow villagers, suffer the most casualties in any operation, and are paid much less than the regular constabulary, all the reasons the judges had outlawed their use. A contempt petition filed in 2012 is still awaiting hearing. Although ‘final hearings’ commenced in December 2018 before another bench of Justice Madan Lokur and Justice Deepak Gupta, the judges retired soon thereafter and there has been no hearing since.

Press Release, 6th August 2020: NHRC Orders Chhattisgarh Government to Compensate Human Rights Defenders Rs 1 lakh each “for Mental Agony and Violation of Human Rights” caused by false charges and arrests

The National Human Rights Commission has directed the Chhattisgarh State Government to compensate human rights defenders Rs 1 lakh each for false cases filed against them, with compliance within six weeks.

 

On 5^th November 2016, the Chhattisgarh police lodged an FIR against us under various sections of the IPC, Arms Act, and UAPA for the alleged murder of one Shamnath Baghel of Nama village, Sukma District. The case was supposedly filed on the written complaint of Shyamnath Baghel’s widow, Vimla Baghel. However, she is on record saying she did not name anyone. On 15th November 2016, the Supreme Court gave us protection from arrest. In 2018, since the Chhattisgarh police had not taken any steps to investigate or close the matter, we filed a petition in the Supreme Court. Following Court directions, the Chhattisgarh government investigated, and finding there was no case against us, dropped the charges in February 2019. The NHRC had also taken up this matter in 2016, along with the police burning our effigies and IG Kalluri threatening to stone us if we entered Bastar.

 

In February 2020, taking note of the Chhattisgarh Police admission that there was no case against us, the NHRC noted:

 

 “In our considered opinion, these persons would have certainly suffered a great mental pain and agony as a result of registration of false FIRs against them by the police, which is a violation of their human rights and for this the State Government should compensate them. Therefore we recommend and direct the Government of Chhattisgarh through its Chief Secretary to pay a sum of Rs One Lakh each as monetary compensations to the six persons namely Prof Nandini Sundar, Ms. Archana Prasad, Shri Vineet Tiwari, Shri Sanjay Parate, Ms. Manju and Shri Mangla Ram Karma, whose human rights were gravely violated by the Chhattisgarh police.”

 

Seeking Truth and Reconciliation in Chhattisgarh

The Indian government claims it is slowly but surely winning the war against Maoist guerillas in India’s resource rich forested regions, and has consistently dismissed widespread accusations of human rights violations as propaganda by Maoists or their urban supporters. It has also acted to preempt future accusations by jailing human rights activists and lawyers working in these areas. But as a recent report by a government appointed enquiry commission shows, these accusations are credible and need to be addressed.

Statement in connection with our names being dropped from chargesheet

We are happy that the Chhattisgarh police have dropped our names from the chargesheet in the murder of Shyamnath Baghel. We hope that the many hundreds of innocent adivasis and all others who have been falsely implicated and are languishing in jail will also soon get justice. We are grateful to our lawyers, friends and all those who helped us in clearing our name.

No end in sight for India's bloody Maoist conflict

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2017/05/sight-india-bloody-maoist-conflict-170508120738882.html

On 24 April, 2017, 25 men from the paramilitary central reserve police force, India’s main counterinsurgency force in the central Indian war theatre, were killed in a Maoist ambush.  Predictably, the media outrage, the solutions offered by security pundits and the statement issued by the Maoists had a strong sense of déjà vu. 76 men from another battalion of the CRPF had been ambushed and killed in this very stretch of Sukma district near Tadmetla in Chhattisgarh on April 6, 2010.

In the seven years between then and now, there have been other CRPF deaths – for instance, 12 CRPF men were killed barely a month previously on 11 March 2017; there have been unmarked deaths of Maoist cadres, and above all, there has been a relentless assault on the human rights of adivasi or indigenous villagers across the region.

The Burning Forest: India's War in Bastar

--> The Indian Government has repeatedly described Maoist guerrillas as 'the biggest security threat to the country’ and Bastar in central India as their headquarters. This book chronicles how the armed conflict between the government and the Maoists has devastated the lives of some of India's poorest, most vulnerable citizens, starting from 2005 when a government- sponsored vigilante movement killed hundreds and drove thousands of villagers into camps, to the present day when it is the most militarized region in the country. It is not a coincidence that Bastar has some of India’s biggest mineral reserves. 
Based on extensive field visits, court testimonies, government documents and an active participant role in the events she writes about,  Sundar also tracks the responses of political parties, the media, human rights activists and the judiciary to the ongoing crisis.

A continuous history of harassment by the Chhattisgarh police

List of incidents when Chhattisgarh police has tried to harass me, because of my human rights work and litigation in the Supreme Court.

1.     2005: During Salwa Judum, a human rights team of which I was a member was aggressively surrounded in the camps, not allowed to visit villages freely, stopped at checkpoints.

2.     2006: Independent Citizen Initiative members were detained in Bhairamgarh police station, mob nearly lynched RG, rumours spread that we had offered 1 lakh to the villagers to help us cross the river to join the Maoists; we escaped only because a local NGO director spoke to the SJ leaders. The Judum took away my camera – it was returned several months later by the Collector, with no apology.

3.     2007: After we filed a case in the Supreme Court, police photo-shopped an image of me with my arms around Maoist women cadres and showed it to visiting journalists and others to show how I was partisan and representing the Maoists. When I protested in writing, the SP Rahul Sharma replied saying it was one “Ms Jeet.” Nothing has ever been heard of this Ms. Jeet before or after and when I asked to see the photo, it “could not be found”.

4.     July 2009: Four of us, including two other profs, were detained in Mirtur CRPF camp and police station till 1 am on the SP’s orders despite giving prior information to the Collector that we were visiting the area. The Judum and SPOs took away JP’s mobile phone and charger. It has never been returned.

5.     December 2009: A DU colleague and I were asked to leave a Dantewada hotel late at night on the police’s instructions; denied any lodging in Dantewada and Sukma, surrounded by SPOs at night, and followed by SPOs in un-numbered vehicles till we left the district. We had to advance our ticket.

6.     July 2010: SRP Kalluri put out a statement, reported widely in the media saying that Arundhati Roy, Medha Patkar and I, among others, were linked to the attack on Congressman Avdhesh Gautam’s house, masterminded by Lingaram Kodopi.

7.     October 2010: We were asked by the ASG and Chhattisgarh’s lawyers in the Supreme Court to visit Bastar. Taking their assurance at face value, a journalist friend and I visited. We were picked up from a village which I have been visiting for decades (on the basis of tapped phone conversations) by an SDOP accompanied by 50 armed SPOs. They refused to let us out of their sight for a week, even following us to the airport to make sure we left. (We used the opportunity to visit Salwa Judum camps).

8.     2011-15: I have been stopped at every CRPF camp, checked, sometimes made to wait for hours, even while on my way to attend a wedding. The only reason I was not harassed even more during this period was because I usually went on visits to do with the CBI enquiry ordered by the SC on attacks on village Tadmetla and others.  However, during this period the CBI team itself was physically attacked by SPOs, and police personnel in February 2012, and threatened in November 2015.

9.     2013: Media stories were circulated that I was in regular touch with Maoists in Raoghat and was leading demonstrations of the Raoghat Rail Sangharsh Samiti at their behest (even as I was teaching classes in Delhi).

10. 2014: Media stories put about that I had coached villagers what to say before the TP Sharma Commission (investigating the attacks on Tadmetla and Swami Agnivesh), and that I was in direct touch with the Naxalites. Lawyer’s notice for defamation sent to the newspapers.

11. April 2016: My effigy was burnt by the Mahila Ekta Manch, after we filed a fresh application in the SC.

May 2016: Completely false charges made up that ‘JNU profs’ had instigated villagers to join Maoists, threatening to burn their homes if they did not support Maoists. Police staged demonstration of alleged villagers in front of thana demanding that an FIR be registered against us. Media vilification campaign carried through Zee news, Chhattisgarh whatsapp groups, media, and Collector Amit Kataria’s facebook page. All the persons who accompanied us and whom we met have been cross-questioned and intimidated, including the driver of the hired car.

12.  For the last ten years, my phones have been tapped, my emails read and so on. Vilification in the court is a constant feature – that we are fronts for the Maoists etc.

2016 is the first time that I have used a pseudonym (Richa Keshav) – and that too, only verbally to one policeman who claimed to be making a friendly enquiry in order to avoid being stopped. I have always told the villagers who I am and why I am there, including in this instance. And yet, this name change is the story that the media choses to highlight, not the years of persecution. Apart from a few brave Chhattisgarh reporters, the national media has also not chosen to report it as part of a recent pattern in which journalists, lawyers, and activists have been arrested, landlords intimidated into denying housing, and a variety of other vigilante attacks have taken place at the behest of the police, especially IG SRP Kalluri.  

My public stand on the state-Maoist conflict is also well known, where I have consistently criticized Maoist violence. This is what makes this current charge even more ridiculous – that we would threaten villagers that their houses would be burnt if they did not support the Maoists.

I am deeply grateful to all the friends and colleagues who have accompanied me on these trips, and suffered police intimidation. I have not named them here for obvious reasons. 

This photo is of October 2010 - I had gone to the market to buy toffees, and was followed by two SPOs 

Theatre of the absurd Chhattisgarh style

The horrific sexual violence in Bijapur in October 2015 shows what a culture of impunity has developed in Chhattisgarh. Despite the Supreme Court’s directions in 2011 that the state must register FIRs on complaints against security forces, this is perhaps the first time in a decade that the police have registered an FIR on a complaint by a women’s fact-finding group. But this is only the beginning of a long and hopeless battle in which trying to get justice becomes a means to torture the victims.

Old Old War

http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/old-old-war/2/

It is easy to understand RK Vij’s article  (December 6) as a defensive attempt to keep high the morale of the CRPF. After all, while Maoist cadre are surrendering in larger numbers, there are also high attrition rates among the CRPF. In 2013 India Today reported that 13,658 CRPF personnel left their jobs between 2009 and 2012 tired of their jungle postings, the malaria and the working conditions among other things. While this may not be a large percentage of the force as a whole, and there are plenty more waiting to be recruited in these jobless times, it does indicate a weariness with this endless pointless war. Spectacles of the corpses of jawans being loaded onto garbage trucks or blood spattered boots and uniforms lying in rubbish dumps can hardly induce much enthusiasm. If anyone is violating the ‘human rights’ of the jawans, it is the government.

Everywhere a Maoist Plot

Everywhere a Maoist plot

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?

Landmark Supreme Court order on Salwa Judum

On 5th July Justice Sudershan Reddy and Justice SS Nijjar delivered a landmark order on the unconstitutionality of the Special Police Officers used in anti-Maoist counterinsurgency operations and also directed the state to stop supporting movements like Salwa Judum in any form whatsoever....

http://www.scribd.com/doc/59445570/Salwa-Judum-Order-July-2011

http://www.scribd.com/doc/59445795/Hindi-Orders-Salwa-Judum

Salwa Judum Judgement in Hindi

March 2011 affidavit Nandini Sundar and ors vs. State of Chhattisgarh

On 18.1.2011, the Court had given three specific directions:

a.    In the circumstances, we direct the State Government to file a comprehensive   affidavit duly stating the details of the action plan for disbanding/winding of these relief camps so that the Tribals living in these camps go back to their respective villages.

b.    In the affidavit filed by the State, it is stated that the State Government has been reviewing and monitoring the relief, rehabilitation and compensation given to the `'victims of violence''. We presume that the victims of violence means as the victims of conflict. In the circumstances, it will be proper to direct    the    State Government      and   the   Rehabilitation Committee to file a comprehensive affidavit providing the details of the relief and rehabilitation provided to the victims of conflict.

c.    There shall be a direction to the Union of India and the State of Chhattisgarh to ensure that the security forces vacate all the educational institutions, school buildings and hostels within a period of four months from today.

For a critique of the state's response to these directions and a summary analysis of their responses since 2008 read our March 2011 affidavit at: 

http://www.scribd.com/doc/59851802/Nandini-Sundar-vs-State-of-Chhattisgarh-March-2011-Affidavit

Pleading for Justice

This is a summary of the PIL against Salwa Judum published in Seminar, 2010. Full text available at: 

http://www.scribd.com/doc/46103008/Pleading-for-Justice