On Tue, May 28, 2013 at 1:27 PM, Max Sawicky <[email protected]> wrote:
> No redeeming virtues of the Maoists in this situation?
>
> Looks like a replay of how the US Gov dealt with Native Americans, and how
> settler states and imperial powers deal with indigenous peoples.
> Expropriate their land and resources, lie to them continuously and
> shamelessly, relocate them, exterminate them in the end. Accurate in the
> Indian context?
>
Several thoughts on the Indian Maoists ("Naxalites").
- The "mainstream media" discourse in India is dominated by the educated
urban middle class. This is basically the top 30% or so of the Indian
poopulation which has done really well from neoliberalism (which is a huge
number of people), but does not include the ultra-rich 1%.
- The rebels operate over a vast area, but are nevertheless very much a
regional movement in India. The only contact most middle-class Indians have
with this insurgency is what they read in the papers. It is quite abstract
like the long-running insurgencies in Kashmir and in the North-east. Not
all that different from what Iraq is to ordinary US citizens.
- Among this politically powerful middle class in India, the Naxals are
mostly regarded with fear and loathing. The more progressive elements of
this class may admit some sympathy with the plight of the tribal
population, but doesn't go much farther than that.
- Arundhati Roy herself is far to the left of this dominant mainstream
discourse. As such she is too easily dismissed as an extremist, not that
different from what Noam Chomsky represents in mainstream US discourse.
- Here's the take of one of the leading bourgeoisie intellectual and
historian Ramachandra Guha on the Naxal rebellion. Guha is always worth
reading because his views are much more representative of the middle-class
opinion in India than Roy's.
http://ramachandraguha.in/archives/tag/naxalites
- Apart from the Naxals, there have been many other smaller-scale
insurgencies often associated with charismatic personalities all of whom
are lumped as "bandits" by the Indian state. The most famous of these are
Phoolan Devi and Veerappan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoolan_Devi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veerappan
- The tribals and settled populations of India have co-existed in a tense
relationship for centuries. So this is not really like the US expension
into native American territory. However, the exploitation of the tribal
regions and resources seems to have been very substantially intensified in
recent years, so quite possibly this is a whole new phase in this history.
-raghu.
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