04/01/2005 Rebels, not criminals
Approach this disaffected community in a spirit of conciliation I have gone through the gist of talks between the government of Andhra Pradesh and the Naxalite groups in the state. The two sides were proceeding well and the ceasefire was holding firm. There was no police encounter, nor any action by the naxalites. The Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), which had merged with the People’s War Group (PWG) to form CPI (Maoist), had made a unilateral offer for a ceasefire to create “conducive atmosphere” for talks. The government had agreed to the ceasefire for six months. Why it chose not to extend the period despite the request by the CPI (Maoist) is something beyond me. It is probably the suspicion that radical groups use the truce to consolidate themselves. Even if they do, how far can they go? The state is so powerful that it can always catch up with their puny efforts. The important thing is to end hostilities. The ceasefire should have been extended because the talks provided an opportunity to make the Naxalite groups join the mainstream politics. The Committee of Concerned Citizens, which had arranged the talks, has blamed the state for the breakdown. The Committee believe that the government did not restraint itself from continuing with the policy of encounter killings. The Andhra Pradesh parleys have thrown up many questions. The important one is how far is the government willing to go to retrieve those who have picked up the gun for having found the system callous and inadequate. The state has not addressed this problem. Its response has been repression and even physical liquidation of the Naxalite cadre. True, the Naxalites are equally brutal, indulging in indiscriminate killings and extermination of individuals. On the one hand, the state shows little respect for law and life. On the other, the Naxalites practise ruthless violence regardless of the exasperation and suffering of ordinary people. How do the two sides square up to their objective? I was still a member of the home ministry’s parliamentary committee when the question of Naxalites came before it. There was great denunciation of their violence. Yet, when it came to recommendations, the committee wanted the government to have “a serious dialogue” with the Naxalites. That was four years ago. I have seen pious statements on the issue once in a while but nothing beyond that. Even when there are talks — as those that took place in Andhra a month ago — the police dictates the rules. There is no generosity, not even an attitude of give-and-take. The Naxalites are treated as criminals, not rebels. The government tends to end peace talks abruptly because it believes that it can suppress such movements by force. This has not happened because the Naxalites have been able to muster wide popular support. They have come to symbolise hope, however fleeting and however distant. Seldom has the government gone into the real cause of social unrest or uprisings. If it were to do so, it would find their roots in social and economic conditions. Undoubtedly, radical movements are political in nature because they are motivated by an ideology. What gives them the following is the discontent which has been mounting for years. The remedy is not additional security forces or more repressive laws but the realisation that conciliation can replace confrontation. Whether it is Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Manipur, Orissa or Assam, the story is the same: force and repression. Dissent, difference or even defiance is not a law-and-order problem. It may be an assertion of right to livelihood and to have democratic space. People have been living on the periphery for too long. They still have not abandoned the hope that democracy can take them towards social and economic change based on constitutional government. And this hope has encouraged the Naxalites to talk to the rulers. This has been a futile exercise so far. I recall that once I, along with a small group from Patna, undertook a padyatra through nearby Jehanabad to find out what drove the youth to Naxalism. On the third night, I was woken up by four armed young men who were Naxalites. They told me how the system had driven them to take up the gun because it did not give them any openings even when they had been toppers in their subjects. One of them cynically remarked that Part IV of the Constitution enjoined on the state the obligation to bring about social transformation. How long will it take to translate that promise? I had no answer. Even today I have none. All that I can say is that the crisis of Indian politics today is a crisis of the system. It reflects a widening gap between the base of the polity and its structure. Yet, the leaders continue to indulge in the old game of gaining ascendancy through the politics of manipulation and power. Bihar is probably one of the states where power politics is at its worst. Politicians have lined their pockets with public funds. The government has no compunction in violating human rights in the name of quelling the Naxalite movements. Orissa is another state where corruption may be less in comparison but where the government is using force to dispossess the Adivasis of their land in order to hand it over to multinationals. Kashipur, in Orissa, is currently experiencing the onslaught because the tribals who live around the mines are sought to be moved out. If the oustees were to join the Naxalites, it would only strengthen the argument that the system did not give them any real option. I am against violence per se. The Naxalites and such other groups, including militants in Kashmir, would have fared far better if their battle had been non-violent. Imagine the impact on civil society if thousands of them, who had indulged in violence, had fought their battle nonviolently. Our tragedy is that those who wage a struggle to seek justice are themselves to blame for the senseless violence they perpetrate. On the other hand, the government connives with the police in staging fake encounters to deal with the Naxalites. In this matrix of violence, society is getting increasingly brutalised and people are becoming increasingly insensitive to the bloodletting that marks their lives. http://iecolumnists.expressindia.com/full_column.php?content_id=62016 __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? 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