When a shadowy (leading) figure of an underground organisation engaged in a war against the state with the intention to overrun it offers an olive branch, whatever may be the considerations or compulsions, it is not easy to assess the authenticity or credibility of the offer. This is regardless of the rightwing hawks' customary shrill cry in favour of perpetual war and constant goading that the state must not “yield”. The commencement of any serious negotiation, highly welcome in itself if not for anything else at least to minimise utterly undesirable spilling of blood, under such circumstances would understandably call for mediation by a team of credible mediators.
Just the other day, a group of human rights activists have appealed to the Government of India to constructively respond to the presumed peace offer by "Kishenji". Quite a few of them, not all, are perceived to have strong positive vibes with the CPI(Maoist). The author of this article is one of them. It is both surprising and disappointing that they have shied away from publicly offering to mediate. In case they are serious they must come forward. This would put the government under considerable pressure and help to corner the hawks on the government side. Sukla I/IV. http://www.tehelka.com/story_main44.asp?filename=Op060310opinion.asp <http://www.tehelka.com/story_main44.asp?filename=Op060310opinion.asp>*From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 7, Issue 09, Dated March 06, 2010* * * * Dial M For Maoists IF THE GOVERNMENT IS HONEST, IT MUST ENGAGE THE MAOISTS IN TALKS AND NOT SPURN KISHENJI’S UNCONDITIONAL OFFER SAROJ GIRI Academic WITH MAOIST leader Kishenji’s rather bold offer for ceasefire to the Union government, a new situation seems to be unfolding in the red corridor of heartland India. Seeking to place the ball in the Centre’s court, the 72-day offer clearly seems to trump Union Home Minister P Chidambaram’s 72-hour offer. Moreover, it’s the nature of the offer — unconditional, as opposed to earlier Maoist proposals stipulating the release of their key leaders, restoration of land and forests to the tribals, scrapping of Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) with big investors etc, all major irritants for the government — which begs a serious consideration. Practically the only condition set by the Maoists this time is that the State should reciprocate. This is at a time when reports of the CRPF in Lalgarh killing Lalmohan Tudu of the People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCAPA) in front of his family members on February 22 are filtering in, over and above the initial propaganda about him being killed during an attack on a CRPF camp. Chidambaram, instead of welcoming the offer to start a process of negotiation and addressing the substantive issues at hand, responded with a presumptuous and hypocritical statement calling upon the Maoists to abjure violence first. The Planning Commission’s Expert Group on Development Challenges in Extremist Affected Areas has argued that the government is engaging in peace talks with other rebel groups like the Nagas even though they have not abjured violence and in fact ‘taken advantage of the peaceful conditions to consolidate their parallel government’. So, they ask, ‘why a different approach for the Maoists?’ Chidambaram is clearly trying to make violence the key issue — that the real problem facing the country is violence by illegitimate actors like the Maoists and not the inequalities and injustices that are spiralling in the country. On the other hand, basking in the cover of being constitutional and democratically elected, even as it spearheads a system of a million injustices and the repressive Operation Green Hunt, the charge of being ‘violent’ somehow does not stick against the government. Instead, with terror attacks in Mumbai and Pune, the non-State violence as the main problem gets reinforced by the discourse of the ‘war on terror’ — that our country is under attack and hence no dissensions. NATO troops at Marjah, Afghanistan, are currently supposed to be flushing out the Taliban and then installing a civilian government — not too different from Ch idambaram’s policy of flushing out Maoists to make way for a civilian administration. THE GOVERNMENT IS MORE COMFORTABLE ENGAGING WITH THE NAGA OR KASHMIRI MILITANTS IN TALKS, THAN WITH MAOISTS This approach frames the Maoists in terms of a conflict model — that this is primarily a problem of violence, of illegitimate actors challenging the State and rule of law, and indeed the understanding that the Maoists are ‘the biggest internal security threat’. There is an underside to this seemingly straightforward picture. By simply raking up the violent nature of the Maoists again and again, the substantive issues at hand — corporate plunder, land grab, vigilante groups like Salwa Judum — are easily set aside or regarded as secondary. Hence Kishenji’s dropping of the other conditions for ceasefire might add to this perception that violence is the real issue. In fact, several civil society groups and independent intellectuals who have always insisted on addressing the core problems facing tribals might even feel that this is a new situation where only violence and hostilities become the real problem. However, through this offer, the Maoists may actually be trying to reach out to civil society. They are probably appealing to the wider civil society — maybe to gain some credibility as a political force; or be recognised as not only interested in violence and a military solution. This must be seen as a positive development. The ‘abjure violence first’ line, however, is bent upon undoing this. So what about the ‘skeptics’ who argue that the Maoists have come with this offer only because they are feeling the heat of Operation Green Hunt, or they are being strategic and trying to regroup — biding time, trying to trap the government? What is significant is that even though they may be feeling the heat, given the repression unleashed by the State, the Maoists are seeking a political process, involving sections of civil society, unlike the belligerent attitude of the State. Indeed the government has made it impossible for anyone from outside to visit these ‘affected areas’ — human rights activists and independent observers have been harassed and chased away repeatedly. A cessation of hostilities is therefore what the State fears the most — for that will mean the possibility of a free exchange between the Maoists in the hinterland and urban civil society. The State clearly does not want that to happen — for that will turn the heat on it. This is the real trap it fears — getting politically cornered for its misdeeds. Hence, the need for this hysteria surrounding Maoist violence and human rights activists of supporting it. There is nothing retrograde for the Maoists in seeking a political way out when cornered militarily — if this is what the ceasefire means. But the ‘abjure violence’ approach of the government seems to be aimed at precluding precisely such a possibility. Even the language used in the media — regroup, bidding for time, walking into a trap — all assume a situation of continuing war. In a way, the demand to ‘abjure violence’ is nothing less than the guilt of the State slipping out. Foregrounding violence in the context of a ceasefire allows the State to skirt the key issues and keep portraying the Maoists as liable to be physically eliminated, catching them off-guard. This is the experience of the talks between the State and the Peoples War Group in Andhra Pradesh, where the ceasefire was used by the State to finish off the Maoists. Making the ‘violent’ tag stick on the Maoists meant that they could be delegitimised and made easy targets even after formal talks had started in October 2004 between the Maoists and the government, while the undercover attacks and elimination of Maoist leaders and sympathisers continued unabated. Leading civil liberties activist KG Kannabiran, who was one of the eight mediators then, told BBC that, “It was agreed that the police would not undertake combing operations against the Maoists. Why was there a need for the police to become so active, launching combing operations and killing the extremists in encounters?” PERHAPS THIS is where return to a focus on the core issue of tribal displacement and habitat, cannot in the circumstances, be delinked from the fate of the Maoist movement. After all the Maoist movement is not only a current problem or a temporary happenstance specific to the present conjuncture. Since 1967, the Naxal movement and its present avatar, the Maoists, have stared in the face of the ruling order of the country. Indeed the Naxal slogan — Yeh azaadi jhooti hai (this independence is false) is a comment on the state of our nation. To relegate the Maoist issue to only one of violence, or for that matter that of Adivasis or land reforms or livelihood — is to deny and suppress its wider political provenance — something which might have implications on the very ‘idea of India’. This is perhaps why the government is more comfortable engaging with the Naga or Kashmiri militants in talks, than with the Maoists. Those on the left and progressive liberals, ruing the erosion of ‘the idea of India’ and the decline of our political ideals, are so status-quoist in their upholding of the constitutional values of democracy, that they have conceded any possibility of rewriting history, or revising the basic structure of the Constitution, to the Hindu right. This seems true of the post-ideological, neoliberal age where the right-wing free marketeers are the radicals, calling for change, whereas the left are the conservatives, holding on to the myth of the founding moment and a dream of the long-dead founding fathers of the republic. The Naxal who refuses to ‘abjure violence’, in precisely being unconstitutional and undemocratic, in moving out of the shadow of our founding fathers, has come to stand for a left-wing agenda of change, taking the wind out of the Hindu right’s sails and realigning the terrain of thinking for the left as a whole. Whether the Maoists are adequate to this fertile moment is however not a settled question yet. (Saroj Giri is Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Delhi University) WRITER’S EMAIL: [email protected] * II. *Press Statement by Concerned Citizens* * * *GOVERNMENT SHOULD RESPOND TO MAOIST OFFER* We welcome the announcement by the CPI (Maoist) to observe a ceasefire and enter into talks with the Government of India. Given the government’s expressed willingness to engage in talks, we hope that this offer will be reciprocated. This necessarily requires a halt to all paramilitary armed offensive operations (commonly known as Operation Green Hunt) immediately. It is also imperative that there should be complete cessation of all hostilities by both sides during the currency of the talks. We are of the view that the Central Government, and not the State Governments, should be the authority to conduct talks as the problem covers various states. Additionally, the Central Government should ensure that, while the talks are being held, all MOUs, if entered into, should be frozen and not implemented; no compulsory acquisition of tribal lands and habitats be undertaken; and tribals should not be displaced. This is because the Central Government is bound under law to strictly comply with the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution that, among others, safeguards manifold rights of the tribals including their ownership over land and resources. We further urge that during the period of the ceasefire and the course of talks, independent teams of observers and human rights groups should not be prevented, by either side, from going to the affected areas. Justice Rajindar Sachar, Randhir Singh, B.D. Sharma, Arundhati Roy, Amit Bhaduri, Manoranjan Mohanty, Prashant Bhushan, Sumit Chakravartty, G.N. Saibaba, S.A.R. Geelani, Madhu Bhaduri, Karen Gabriel, P.K. Vijayan, Saroj Giri, Rona Wilson, Anirban Kar New Delhi 23 February 2010 Concerned Citizens c/o Sumit Chakravartty B 57 Gulmohar Park (1st Floor) New Delhi - 110049 [image: Signature_Sheet_Feb_2010] III. http://74.125.153.132/search?q=cache:C7c5Fadnr3sJ:www.breakingnewsonline.net/miscellaneous/921-maoist-leader-kishenji-announces-72-day-ceasefire.html Maoist Leader Kishenji announces a 72-day Ceasefire [image: Print]<http://74.125.153.132/miscellaneous/921-maoist-leader-kishenji-announces-72-day-ceasefire.html?tmpl=component&print=1&layout=default&page=>[image: E-mail]<http://74.125.153.132/component/mailto/?tmpl=component&link=aHR0cDovL3d3dy5icmVha2luZ25ld3NvbmxpbmUubmV0L21pc2NlbGxhbmVvdXMvOTIxLW1hb2lzdC1sZWFkZXIta2lzaGVuamktYW5ub3VuY2VzLTcyLWRheS1jZWFzZWZpcmUuaHRtbA%3D%3D>Written by Admin Monday, 22 February 2010 20:50 *New Delhi:* Breaking News! In a big development, which is a major breakthrough to bring peace and relief in several parts of the country, Maoist leader Kishenji has declared a 72-day conditional ceasefire and asked the government to halt operations against them. Union Home Minister GK Pillai has reacted to the report, saying the government would definitely welcome the ceasefire, if it is unconditional. According to Kishenji, the Maoists would observe a ceasefire from February 25 till May 7 and wanted the intellectuals of the country to mediate in talks between them and the government. The Centre had planned a grand 'Operation Green Hunt' against the Maoists, which put further pressure on the red rebels to come to the negotiating table or face elimination. The Centre has been pressing the governments in West Bengal, Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Bihar to take strong action against the Maoists. Only the Bihar and Jharkhand government showed some reluctance to go all out against the Maoists, fearing backlash from the common people. IV. http://www.deccanchronicle.com/360-degree/kishenji-calling-wrong-number-906 Kishenji calling: Wrong number By By Sanjay Basak Feb 28 2010 Until two weeks ago, few people had heard of Kishenji. But in the last week, the CPI (Maoist) politburo member, Kishenji alias Mallojula Koteswara Rao, has emerged as one of the key players in the Maoist set-up and a major cause of concern for security forces and administration in the Naxal-infested eastern Indian states. Fifty-six-year-old Kishenji, who shot into the limelight with the Maoist operations in West Bengal’s Lalgarh area, is in charge of all the Maoist activites in the eastern region. Kishenji, who hails from Andhra Pradesh, had earlier been active in the Chattisgarh region. “It’s been some years since I shifted base to the eastern region,” Kishenji told this correspondent in a telephonic conversation. Taking advantage of the Nandigram agitation led by Trinamul Congress leader Mamata Banerjee in 2006, Kishenji began building up the Maoist base in Bengal. While he remained in the background, the movement was led by the Maoist’s women’s wing, Matangini Mahila Samity. He then used the arrested Maoist sympathiser Chhatradhar Mahato to set up base in the Lalgarh region in the state. Soft-spoken and “shy” Kishenji is fiercely committed to the Maoist cause and is believed to have a “violent streak”. Most of the major offensives against the security forces in Orissa and Jharkhand were reportedly planned by this elusive insurgent. Though he “regretted” the beheading of a police officer at Jharkhand by the Maoists, some feel that “no action” could have been taken without his green signal. Despite the manhunt launched to track him down, Kishenji remains out of the reach of security forces even as he continues to speak to the media with impunity. Senior RSP leader Manoj Bhattacharya told this correspondent: “I don’t know how he got my mobile number. He suddenly called and identified himself as Kishenji and started talking about their demands.” That the Maoist leader believes in “annihilation of class enemies” became clear during an interview with this correspondent. When asked why they were killing policemen, the clinical answer was: "If we let them go, these policemen will return with a bigger force. Moreover, they had identified us and our areas." Worse, the conditional ceasefire offered by him may not be the official line of the outfit. Kishenji, sources said, was asked to offer a truce through the media merely to confuse the administration. Any offer of a ceasefire or any policy decision has to come from either the CPI(Maoist) secretary Ganapathy or the official spokesman Azad, sources claimed. “Since there has been no communique from the top two or from the party's central committee, this cannot be regarded as an official line,” sources close to the Maoists claimed. Incidentally, within a few hours of Kishenji's olive branch, a group of around 100 armed Left ultras attacked a security force camp at Kantapahari in West Midnapore late on Monday night. Kishenji is in charge of the eastern region and “can call for bandhs in this region, execute encounters, raids but cannot chalk out the policy line of the party”, sources said. Kishenji’s offer to hold talks, if the government halted operations against the ultras for 72 days, starting from February 25, has “no clarity”. There has also been some confusion on statements being issued by Kishenji and Ganapathy. Nowhere has Ganapathy come on record talking about a truce. In fact, a statement he issued last month said: “We are appealing to all revolutionary and democratic forces to unite and fight back the fascist offensive by the Buddhadeb government in West Bengal and the UPA government at the Centre...” -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth?hl=en-GB.
