“Where there’s injustice there cannot be peace” -- Vinoba Bhave

Please read first two parts:

Part 1: http://nishanthdongari.blogspot.com/2010/04/who-is-culprit-maoists-or-indian-state.html

Part 2: http://nishanthdongari.blogspot.com/2010/04/so-now-adivasis-cannot-go-even-to-media.html

The government and the union home minsiter P. Chidambaram keeps on asking democratic and human rights groups – tell the Maoists to stop the violence. But why the government doesn't stop their 'state' violence. Whenever there is state violence, there will be movement violence as a reaction. Why the government can't register the FIRs the human rights groups have filed against the police and the 'brutal atrocities' they have committed on the name of 'Operation Green Hunt' and 'Salwa Judum'. The government doesnt even want to do that bit of their job and keep asking the HR groups to spell out their stand on violence. 

What does the goverment want them to say? They live there; they interact with the adivasis; they know the situation. In the last five years, no leader has come to Dantewada to ask the adivasis what are their problems. Some incidents look terrible when viewed from the outside. It has happened that a group of SPOs have gone around burning village upon village. And the villagers managed to surround this very group and killed them. So shall we attach a Naxalite tag to all these villagers, who killed SPOs to protect their fundamental rights, when the democracy is utterly failed. I guess, that is what we (government, political parties, media) exactly are doing, like British rulers attached terrorist tags to  Bhagath Singh and US did to Che Guevara. In the history, every movement violence, is resutled due to the opression of strong on weak.

Many times, HR groups tried their best to avoid adivasis taking up arms and they brought these wounded, raped and harassed adivasis to the 'Constitution Club'. Nothing happened, none cared, neither the media nor the common public (who are very much interested in peace and justice). Such is the condition of city-dwellers today; they do not care what is happening in these villages, inspite of uttering loud and eloquent speeches on Gandhian principle of 'real India lies in villages'. They are the ones who want peace, they who are living comfortable lives. They want peace so that their comfort can carry on uninterrupted. But those who are bearing the attacks – their priority is justice. Vinoba Bhave had said: “Where there’s injustice there cannot be peace”. But the government will not talk about justice.

Why have lakhs of citizens taken up arms? We middle class people find it inexplicable. We live in cities; the police are for us; the government is for us. We are on one side. On the other side are those for whom there is no police, no government. They have nothing to eat. They are the ones who have picked up arms. These people have been deprived for years. There is a structure. Those who are outside this structure – this is their fight. If you were to ask – whom does all the land on this earth belong to? The answer would be to all of us. Yet, the reality is that some have more land, some less.

Inequality is inbuilt into the system. All these notions about who can command more resources have become part of our value system, and then our political system. Both are supported by our economic system. These constitute the basic structure of the society. It is this structure that keeps the poor poor and the rich rich. We are content with this structure. But what of those who bear its brunt? They want to break it. This fight is against structural violence. This would not end till the structure changes so that all become equal.

The man who is in distress will fight. This is the fight of the poor. The Naxalites have just tagged on (Before Salwa Judum, Maoists numbered only 5,000. After Salwa Judum, the Maoist strength grew to 1,10,000 – a 22-fold increase). If there had been no Marx, no Gandhi, would not the poor have fought? They do not need the Naxalites or the Gandhians. But sometimes a Vinoba, a Che Guevara or a XYZ join them in their fight. If the centre thinks they can crush this fight of the poor with the army, they are mistaken. Sometimes extreme oppression can embolden those who are fighting.

If the centre really wants peace, it can be got in a week. They should go and spread happiness among the adivasis. Aanganwadis, health services, schools – open all these again. Instead, you think you can kill them slowly by inflicting suffering upon suffering on them. If you put a rug on fire, the rug gets brunt. You send your COBRA forces and they stab an old man in his bed. You are doing exactly as the Maoists predicted you would do. They have been telling the adivasis for years that the State is an oppressor and you are proving by yourself that the Maoists are right. So, it is very simple, either you can prevail justice among these adivasis and turn them to your side OR supress them on the name of 'Green Hunt' and force them towards Maoists side, to face a civil war on our own soil.

Today, the world over, the poor are being looked upon as a burden who are depleting the resource base. They should now be finished once and for all, so that the rest of us can lord it over the earth. The adivasis are the most vulnerable. What our government is planning is genocide of the adivasis. This is the direction in which our modern civilisation is going. Will we support this? Will you be able to kill lakhs of people? You will try. But when they rise up and kill you, you would not be able to save yourselves.

There are three types of poor – (i) those who survive on our riches – the balloon-seller, the domestic servant, construction workers; (ii) those who feel they are unworthy of being rich; they feel they are low caste, uneducated; they can never be rich; and (iii) those like the adivasis who were living happily in the forests till one of us invaded their land to make themselves richer. That is why they have taken up arms. And these rich people are running to Chidambaram. Once the other two categories join the third, everything of ours will be destroyed. What is our stand in this? Vinoba used to say: “To accept injustice is wrong; I will instigate the poor against such acceptance”.

We are unneccessarily sowing the seeds of violence and mayhem, which has culiminated to the killing of many young men, they may either belong to the Indian army or may be one among those adivasis. One was given arms by the state and the other was told to fight by the few bunch of extremists, who lost faith in the state. We as citizens of the biggest democratic unit in the world, must work towards the non-violence of both forms. We must strengthen democratic institutions, by questioning the political system, self  interested industrialists, commercial driven media; create awareness among the villagers about the constitutional rights guaranteed to them; about welfare schemes, how to fight for their rights in a democratic way.

Telangana's one and only goal since centuries...

చల్..స్వయంపాలనకై ఓరుగల్లు కోటల మీద
మా సమ్మక్క సారక్కల మెరుపు తిరుగుబాటు

అహ..కోహినూరు రక్షణ కోసం బ్రిటిషోని
మెడలొంచిన నా 'బోనాల్' లష్కర్ సైన్యం

అరె..అడవి బిడ్డల హక్కుల కోసం రజాకర్లను
కొదమసింహంలా వేటాడిన నా గోండు భీముడు

వాహ..భూమి కొరకు భుక్తి కొరకు నిజాం నాజీలతో
మా తెలంగాణ రైతుల గెరిల్లా సాయుధ పోరాటం

అహ..నాటి దిగ్గజాలైన ఫ్రెంచి పోరగాల్లను మించిన
ధీరులమ్మ నేటి నా ఉస్మానియా కాకతీయ పిల్లలు

చల్..జై తెలంగాణ అంటే జై జై తెలంగాణ అని
ప్రాణమంటే త్రునప్రాయమనే వీర శహీదులు

నాటి మేడారం సమ్మక్క సారక్క గద్దెల సాక్షిగా
నేటి గన్ పార్కు అమర వీరుల స్తూపం గుర్తుగా

శతాబ్దాలకెల్లి తెలంగాణ బిడ్డలది ఒకటే లడాయి
ఆత్మగౌరవమే ధ్యేయం స్వయం పాలనే లక్ష్యం

ఆ లక్ష్యం కోసమే మా తర తరాల ఆరాటం
ఆ తల్లి కొరకే ఈ బిడ్డల రాజీ లేని పోరాటం

ఇదే మా వీర తెలంగాణం పోరు తెలంగాణం
ఆఖరి రక్తపు బొట్టు వరకు జై తెలంగాణ

So now adivasis cannot go even to the media. Who will they go to?

Please read part 1: http://nishanthdongari.blogspot.com/2010/04/who-is-culprit-maoists-or-indian-state.html

In the first phase of Operation Green Hunt held in September, the forces had attacked an entire family. First, they stabbed the father, then the mother, then the young daughter. With rifle butts, they broke the teeth of her two-year-old son and chopped off a part of his tongue. Human Rights Commission and Tribal activists wanted the press to hear their stories, so they decided to take them to Raipur. The Raipur Press Club asked  them for proof that they were not Naxalites. They told them even the government is not calling them Naxalites! They decided not to allow them (HRC) the use of their premises. So now adivasis cannot go even to the media. Who will they go to?

All roads are closed for them. The police beat them. The political leaders – be they Congress or Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) – are with the Salwa Judum. The courts do not give them a hearing. The media does not care. Where else will they go except to the Maoists? When the police attack them, it is the Naxalites who save them. If you really want peace, put an end to the root cause of the popularity of the Naxalites.

We have tried to create conditions in which violence comes to an end. But in an atmosphere where the police cut off breasts of old women and stab old men, and rape… You can imagine what would be the fate of any policeman who falls into the villagers’ hands. The State should not create such conditions. The political leaders must ask why the Naxalites are popular. Why are our democratically elected governments not popular? If an adivasi goes to the police and says, the patwari took away my money, will the police go and investigate?

The day your police’s guns are raised to defend the rights of the poor, Naxalism will end. If our child is creating havoc, would not we try to find out why he is acting like that? Cannot the prime minister ask the Maoists: why is there so much violence? The Naxalites have been preparing the adivasis for decades, telling them there will be a big fight.

That is why HRC activists tell political leaders of the mainstream parties, do not enter this area. The adivasis are waiting; you will be trapped, they have been telling them. These adivasis are not like people in Uttar Pradesh. They can jump on you and snatch your bodyguard’s AK 47. In Operation Green Hunt the forces will be killed in greater numbers than they have in Jammu & Kashmir. In September, they began Operation Green Hunt. They could not kill a single Maoist. But six COBRA jawans got killed. All they could kill were old adivasis and children. A six-year-old was stabbed; an 85-year-old was bayoneted and killed in his bed… The police are committing cold-blooded murder. Then the government asks – are you with us or with the Naxalites? HRC and Tribal activists can openly say – we are not with your police. We are with those adivasis who are being killed.

Digvijay Singh wrote an article on how development is the counter to the Naxalites’ influence. Himanshu Kumar, the tribal activist wrote to him, putting forward four demands. The first is – withdraw your forces. Seven hundred villages have been cordoned off. The villagers cannot go out; no outsider can enter. If the adivasi goes to the weekly bazaar five km away, she knows the SPOs will catch her. So she goes to a bazaar that is 85 km away. It takes two days to go and two days to come back. So four days of every week was spent walking. One may ask, why do not she buy enough rice for a month? She can buy rice worth only as much as they get for their mahua. If their mahua sells for Rs 20, they can bring rice worth Rs 20.

This situation is because of the State, not because of the Naxalites. Characterising those areas as liberated zones is part of the State’s strategy. They can then complain that the State is not allowed to function there. It is actually the Salwa Judum that has stopped the functioning of the State. No institution of the State functions there, nor does any law. Even Article 21 – the right to life – does not exist there. The adivasis are being hunted. Sometimes violence grows of fear and helplessness.

In these villages that are cordoned off, everything has been closed down by the government. There is nothing there – no schools, no doctors. The government told the high court these are all Naxalites. The police kept saying there is no point distributing rice through ration shops because the Naxalites will loot them. So for the last five years, there is been no distribution of rice. Has any Naxalite died of starvation? The medical officers tell HRC, if their doctors go to treat patients in the jungle, the CRPF beats them up. If teachers go, they beat them up. They are furious – they tell the teachers, you do not get blown up when you are going, why do CRPF? You must be in league with the Naxalites. Teachers and doctors do not go in with weapons like CRPF does!

Vinoba Bhave used to say about the Naxalites: “these youth are motivated by compassion for the poor. I salute them.” When he began his Bhoodan movement, he set back the Naxalites by 30 years. For carrying one bundle of firewood, the forest guards would punish an adivasi woman by raping her. If they did not pay a three-rupee fine, the guards would extort Rs 300. Then in the 1980s, the Naxalites came there. They would capture a forest guard and tie him up and ask the adivasis to beat him. That was the first time the adivasi realised they too had some power. The State should have empowered them by punishing the guards! The State never fixed a minimum price for mahua; the Naxalites did. The adivasis had never been violent. But whenever they tried to raise their voice, the State would send the police.

People talk about Maoist violence against the police, against innocent citizens. You must go to the depth of the violence to understand it. If an SPO is killed, the government declares that an innocent was killed and the media goes to town. If an old adivasi is killed, the police say a Maoist area commander was killed. The adivasis live in perpetual fear. If they feel, this man will inform the police where naxals are hiding… If you are continuously hunted, made to flee your home, and you find a place to live away from the police, then someone comes who you suspect might inform the police about your whereabouts…

We are sowing the seeds of violence and mayhem. Before Salwa Judum, Maoists numbered only 5,000. After Salwa Judum, the Maoist strength grew to 1,10,000 – a 22-fold increase and now may be close to 5 lakhs??. After Operation Green Hunt, every surviving adivasi will become a Maoist full-timer. And when the Maoists increase in number, they expand their base. They will reach Mumbai, Delhi. We feel sorry for the young men in the forces too. They lose either way. If they do not join the paramilitary and police, they will die of hunger. And once they join, they will die too, for sure. Why the goverment is sending these young men to their death so that the wealthy corporations will benefit? You are making young people fight other young people so that those corporations may accumulate more wealth.

Third part will be followed soon......

Random Thoughts From Red Man.....

ఓ పోరి ఓ మారు పో పో పోరా అంటావ్..
మరు క్షణమే రా రా అని మేఘసందేశమిస్తవ్
 

దూరం పోతే ఉపిరాడట్లేదంటావ్...
మరి చెంతకొస్తే సుడి గాలినంటావ్..

ఏడడుగులు నీతో వెయ్యమంటావ్ కానీ
నన్నేమో ఏడు సముద్రాల అవతల వదిలేస్నవ్

నా మనసులోని రాజ్యానికి యువ రాణినని..
నీ గుండెలో నన్ను యుద్ధ ఖైదీని చేస్నవ్

కృష్ణుడి పై సత్యభామలా ఈ పంతం దేనికే
నీ మనసుతో నీకే ఈ అంతర్యుద్ధం ఎందుకే

ఈ నిశా రాత్రిలో ఒంటరి పయనం ఎక్కడికే..
ఆ నిశా అంతం చేసే చంద్రునిగా నే ఉండగా

చందమామ మబ్బుల్లో కొద్దిసేపు దాక్కుందని
వెన్నెలను జీవితాంతం వెలి వేస్తామా

నీ ఆత్మ నీకు ఎప్పటికి కనపడట్లేదని 
నీ ఉనికి మీదనే అనుమానపడ్తావా

పీడ కలలాంటి గతంలోంచి మేలుకో చెలియా
రేపటి ప్రతి క్షణం పరవశమే ప్రియతమా

Random thoughts from the Red Man.....

కొమ్మ చాటు కోయిలలా నల్లని కురుల చాటు నీ ముఖం ||
మబ్బు చాటు వెన్నెలలా నీ రెప్ప చాటు కంటి పాపలు ||
ఇన్ని దినాలు ఉన్న విషయాన్ని నాకు చేరనివ్వట్లేదనుకున్న ||
సిగ్గుతో తల దించి నడుస్తూ నీ ముసి ముసి నవ్వుల, 
బాణాలతో నాకు సైగలు పంపటమే నేర్చుకుంటివా ||  
నమ్మలేని ఈ నిజం కోసం కాల చక్రాన్ని ఆపనా ||
నమ్మదగిన ఈ కల కంటూనే నీ ధ్యాసలో లినమైపోనా ||
అస్సలు గుప్పెడంత ఈ గుండెకి కొండంత ఆశలెందుకో ?

-------------------------------------------------

రాబోయే రోజుల ఊహల కదన రాగమువా

సరిగమలు తెల్వని నా యదలోని సప్తస్వరానివా..
మూగబోయిన నా మనసులో కవనం రాసే మౌనానివా..
తూరుపు పడమరలను కలిపే ఇంద్రధనస్సువా..
ప్రతిఘటించలేని ఘాటైన ప్రేమఘటనవా

కాటుక చీకటి రేయిలో తోవను చూపే వెలుగువా

Who is the culprit? the Maoists or the Indian Govt.? -- Part 1

This is a culmination of talks and articles written by Gandhian activist Himanshu Kumar on the situation in Dantewada, Chhattisgarh.

The adivasis regard the Maoists as their friends for it is these rebels who have stood by them. All the normal channels of redress are closed for them. The police beat them. The political parties – be they the Congress or the Bharatiya Janata Party – are with the Salwa Judum. The courts do not give them a hearing. The media does not care. Where else will they go except to the Maoists? When the police attack them, it is the Maoists who save them. In the past 30-40 years (Naxalbari movement started in 1969) many intellectuals, professors, human right activits and peace activists have been in Dantewada and they have seen how the Naxalites have worked among the adivasis. This is the violence resulting from the fight of the poor. If the centre thinks it can crush these people, it is mistaken. Sometimes extreme oppression can embolden those who are fighting.

Seventeen years ago Himanshu went to Dantewada following Gandhiji’s belief that the real India lies in the villages, and young people must go there to rejuvenate them. The villagers gave him land to build his ashram. Under the Fifth Schedule, the gram sabha was empowered to do so. But the government demolished the ashram this year, sending a force of 1,000 policemen, anti-landmine vehicles…That is when the adivasis finally acknowledged that Himanshu was like them! His home could also be demolished. It is not just a single experience of Himanshu, it all most the same experience with majority of human right activists, who have been to Dantewada. In the forests of Dantewada, people live like aboriginals used to, in tune with nature. Natural justice prevails there. In the jungles, there is no police, no crime.

In 2005, the Chhattisgarh government started feeling the Maoists in Dantewada were a danger. It started the Salwa Judum, which means Collective Peace Campaign. They knew the Maoists had support among the adivasis, so they decided to empty the villages. They forced the villagers out of their villages and tried to shift them into camps near police stations, at the edge of the village road. They got together a force of goondas who along with the police, would pounce on the villagers and force them into camps.

But adivasis are used to living in the midst of nature, near a stream, on top of a mountain. Each adivasi house is far away from the other. Here, the government had built sheds; you step out of one and face the next; behind yours is another one. When the adivasis tried to run away from these sheds, this “patriotic” force would shoot on them, catch them and put them in jail, rape them.

At one point, there were 54,000 people in the camps, from 1,000 villages. The government claimed it had “sanitised’’ 644 villages. Fifty thousand adivasis had run away to the jungle. That is when the Chief Minister (CM) Raman Singh declared that those who have come to the camps are with us, and those who have run away are with the Naxalites.

Human right champions like Late Shri K. Balagopal wrote an Open Letter to the CM – as the chief of the state, you are saying that those citizens who choose to stay in their own homes are Naxalites! And will you give orders to shoot them? That is exactly what he did. There would be attacks on the same village again and again. The adivasis would try to come back and cultivate their land; every time they would be caught and terrible atrocities inflicted on them. Their harvests would be burnt. In such a situation, it was the Naxalites who supported the adivasis. That is why they regard the Naxalites as their friends.

The Salwa Judum forces want liquor, chicken, mutton, women; and they want these every day. They take these from the adivasis. We are blind to that. But when the adivasi picks up a lathi to oppose the police, we cry foul.

The State talks of the violence of the Maoists, but it is the State which is violent. The home minister keeps on talking about peace. But how can peace come when you are all the time attacking the adivasis? Then you expect the Maoists to stop violence. The situation has now reached a point where every outsider is looked upon by the adivasis as an enemy. The State has created a situation in which the adivasi looks upon his own fellow countryman as an enemy.

The Supreme Court has ordered the government to rehabilitate the villagers, compensate them. Not one village was rehabilitated, nor one adivasi compensated. On 10 June 2008, the Supreme Court gave instructions that the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) investigate the conditions in Dantewada in the wake of Salwa Judum. NHRC activists took tribals from Dantewada and some of those who had fled to Telangana, region of Andhra Pradesh (AP) to meet the NHRC team. On 11 June, when the villagers of Nendra were returning, some Salwa Judum people stopped the jeep and beat up the tribals. NHRC phoned the director general of police, asking, is it a crime to talk to the NHRC? Nothing happened. Those adivasis were made to sign a paper saying that they were forced to give statements to the NHRC.

(Part 2 will soon be followed)

Glorious Legacy of Women

International Women's Day (IWD), originally called International Working Women’s Day, is marked on March 8th every year. 8 March 2010 marked the centenary of International Women’s Day – a hundred years from the time when the working class women’s movement first thought to observe ‘Women’s Day’ to celebrate their day-to-day struggles and assert the goal of women’s liberation. In different regions the focus of the celebrations ranges from general celebration of respect, appreciation and love towards women to a celebration for women's economic, political and social achievements. Started as a Socialist political event, the holiday blended in the culture of many countries       

IWD inherits and represents the legacy of a glorious struggle for equality, dignity and emancipation that started long before the formal adoption of this day by  many women’s wings — in fact well before the first socialist/communist parties were born. Even if we leave apart the previous periods of history, we cannot forget that the French Revolution of 1789, that great harbinger of modernity, was started by plebeian and semi-proletarian women of Paris. It was the same contingent that literally woke up and mobilised their men folk in the wee hours of 18 March 1871 against conspiratorial activities of the Versailles government, thereby launching the struggle for Paris Commune.

The democratic revolution in Russia that overthrew the Tsarist monarchy in 1917 was actually started on IWD, with women workers in Petrograd spontaneously going on strike and demonstration. Guided by their proletarian class instinct, they ignored local Bolsheviks who advised restraint, and started the offensive. In India we observe Naxalbari Day on 25 May to pay tribute to the eight women comrades who along with two babies they carried became the first martyrs of Naxalbari in 1967.

These are but a few of numerous historic instances of working women playing vanguard roles in epoch-making emancipatory struggles involving both sexes. Today, simultaneously with their growing involvement in productive activities, women are brilliantly carrying forward this legacy -- not just in the arena of various mass movements, but in all walks of life from politics to sports, in academic, artistic, scientific and literary pursuits, and so on. Like in the past – and here lies the great merit, the special significance, of women’s struggles and achievements – they are doing this in the face of tremendous negative discrimination and all sorts of resistance offered by semi-feudal and capitalist patriarchy.

In the centenary year of IWD, the issues and slogans raised by the revolutionary women’s movement a hundred years ago continue to resonate with renewed relevance in the women’s movement of today. The first Women’s Day was marked by militant women workers raising demands for women’s rights at the workplace as well as the right to vote. Today, in the wake of the global economic crisis and policies of liberalisation, women are bearing the brunt of retrenchment and also being disproportionately represented in the most exploitative sectors of the system.

‘Bread, Land, Peace’ – the rallying cry for Russian women on March 8 1917 – assumes great significance today: not only in the context of women’s resistance against imperialist wars and occupation in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, but also for women in India resisting price rise and hunger, repression in the course of struggles against land grab, and state repression.

In keeping with the growing assertion of women, especially toiling women, their active participation in the mass movements has increased manifold.

But has there been a corresponding increase in the role of women in the political and legislative organisation?

Do we see larger numbers and enhanced activism of women members, organisers and leaders?

In spite of years of efforts and some partial success, we cannot really claim that. The IWD Centenary is an occasion for renewed and energetic efforts in this direction.