Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Operation Green Hunt: Killing the Poor, Not Poverty?



With the arrest of the two senior politburo members of CPI (Maoist) Amitab Bagchi and Kobad Gandhi in August and September this year, Naxal movements in India have once again become the hottest topic in the Indian media. As the Government of India announced its plan to thrash the Naxals using paramilitary forces, the question once again comes to the fore: which type of solution must the State pursue – military or political?

Naxals mainly operate in the tribal areas of the eastern region of the country. Ever since the movement started in 1967 under the leadership of Charu Majumdar and Kanu Sanyal, it has been supposedly working for the progress of the region and welfare of the people. During the 1970s and 80s, it did enjoy wide support among middle class youth and the student community. But after the formation of CPI (Maoist) in 2004, the movement started losing its support even among their own people. The main reason for this loss of support was that the Naxals, in different instances, had targeted and attacked innocent people, a change from its normal strategy of attacking only the State machinery and its agents. The increased media coverage and Naxalism being compared to terrorism also caused a decline in popular support for the movement.

However, nobody denies that the root causes for the emergence and continued existence of Naxalism in India are nothing but conditions of extreme poverty and widespread inequality in the affected areas. In general, people never question the underlying rationale of Naxal movements, but only the ways and means employed by them to achieve their political ends. For the same reason, tackling Naxalism is a very complex issue for the State. Also, Naxalism in different parts of the country is not a homogeneous movement and hence there can be no uniform solution to the problem. Any steps taken by the State against Naxalism should be prudent. Creation of Salwa Judum (literally, peace march) in Chattisgarh was one such imprudent move on the government’s part. It caused deep divisions among the people in those regions, goading them to start attacking each other. (It has been exposed by the mainstream media that the Salwa Judum is a state-sponsored army of vigilantes, though the state constantly denies its role.)

Operation Green Hunt has so far been characterized by many eminent intellectuals and academicians as an extremely myopic and immature decision by the central government. Many experts believe that such a move will considerably worsen the situation since innocent tribal people will be the main sufferers. What happened recently in Sri Lanka is going to be repeated in India. A section of the people of India is going to confront a war waged by their own government. In Sri Lanka, the missiles and rockets couldn’t distinguish an LTTE fighter from a common civilian. No such operation is capable of doing that. It is already feared that Operation Green Hunt would employ an inhumane, “take-nor-prisoners” approach. On the post-war situation in Sri Lanka, everybody including the Indian government and the media seem to be happy because they believe that the rehabilitation centres have all the necessary facilities and the arrangements work very well. Nobody is concerned about the hundreds of innocent people who died during the war, children who have been orphaned and wives who have been widowed; and finally, nobody at all cares about the enormously traumatic period of war which was forced on those people. Post-war rehabilitation is all that matters for the government and the mainstream media. That the Indian government cannot even assure that is truly astounding. We have 50 million people, three times the population of Australia, who have been displaced between 1947 and 2004 and not rehabilitated properly.

In that sense, Operation Green Hunt would further deepen anti-State feelings among the people in the affected regions. Already, there is a widespread belief that the State (read: mainstream politicians) is eyeing the vast natural resources – minerals, forest wealth, biodiversity and water resources – of the region, which have been the target of systematic appropriation by a host of Indian and multinational corporates.

Naxalism is without doubt a great menace to our country. But there are different ways in which it can be tackled and defeated. Welfare and socio-economic equality are the most powerful weapons against this menace. Now is not the time for waging a war on our own people. The State must realise that sharpening the swords of NREGA, ICDS, etc. is the best way to keep Naxals from thriving in our country. There are certain matters that cannot be treated as law and order issues but must be addressed as political issues. On the other hand, the people who are engaged in a political struggle must not forget that it is their responsibility to give up any violent means to achieve their ends. Violence, either from the State or perpetrated by Naxals, would only result in harm and hardship to the general population, especially in the affected areas.

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