In heart of Bastar, a PWG govt awaits Chattisgarh

“The armed struggle will continue,” warns a functionary of the PWG in the state. “Mere statehood to Chattisgarh will not solve the problems of its people,” he said.

In the first official reaction of the formidable Naxal outfit to the passage of the States Reorganisation Bill in Parliament, Gudasa Usendi, spokesman of the Dandakaranya Zonal Committee of PWG, said in a statement to The Indian Express: “The PWG favours creation of smaller states since it is in tune with the belief in the liberation of nationalities,” Usendi said. “But we are against Bastar’s inclusion in it. We want Bastar to be made given autonomous self-governing entity.”

Branding present leaders of Chattisgarh agitation as “anti-people,” the PWG spokesman noted that they had at no stage opposed unabashed plundering of Chattsgarh’s forests and other natural wealth. “The people’s war against state repression will continue till we are in a position to establish gram rajya committees through a people’s democratic revolution,” he warned.

State officials concede that the PWG’s threat cannot be dismissed lightly. The extremist outfit had intensified its military operations in Bastar and other parts of its newly created Dandakaranya Guerrilla Zone, they point out.

“Killing of Andhra minister A. Madhav Reddy, Madhya Praadesh’s minister Likhi Ram Kanwre and blowing up of a police vehicle carrying Bastar’s Additional S.P. Bhaskar Diwan and 21 other cops are recent examples of their daredevilry,” says a senior police officer.

PWG sources confirm that tendu leave traders of Raipur pay 10 per cent of their turnover to the outfit as “taxes.” “Our centres are working among industrial workers in Bhilai and Durg and among the students of Pt Ravi Shankar Shukia University of Raipur also,” they claim.

After establishing a firm foothold in the tribal belt of southern Madhya Pradesh, the PWG has now started exploratory operations in the states’ eastern districts of Sarguja and Ambikapur, adjoining the MCC-controlled areas of Bihar. It now plans to link these areas to Balaghat and Mandia which form part of its Dandakaranya Gurrilia Zone encompassing the tribal belt in southern Madhya Pradesh and adjoining areas of Maharashtra and Orissa.

The grimness of the situation was revealed by a recent report — by Madhya Pradesh’s Commissioner (Land Records) and Chief Conservator of Forests (Land Management) — that admitted that the Naxalites had forcibly occupied 20,000 hectares of forest area in Bastar division and were running a parallel government there by appointing their own rangers and deputy rangers.

Chief Minister Digvijay Singh’s belated attempts to rubbish the report as a “figment of officials’ imagination” notwithstanding, state officials in the field admit that the Naxalite influence pervades 2,634 of the 3,880 villages in Bastar Division.

According to sources, the PWG military command decided to upgrade its military formations in the Dandakaranya and North Telangana Guerrilla Zones last year. Two platoons equipped with latest weapons and communication equipment have been formed in each of these Zones.

The two platoons in Dandakaranya Zone active in Madhya Pradesh will aid and assist 18 Central Guerrilla Squads (dalams) already operating under four divisional committees — South Bastar (5), North Bastar (4), Bhandara- Balaghat (4) and Garhchiroli (5).

A PWG document titled Strategy and Tactics defines guerilla zones as areas in which neither the state forces nor the revolutionary forces can hold ground permanently despite throwing in all their might. It then goes on to delineate three stages of a guerrilla zone as preparatory, primary and higher stages.

Two years ago, Dandakaranya and North Telagana zones were declared to be in stage II. “Now we are moving towards stage IlI which will be reached the moment we have gram rajya committees in one-fourth of the zone area,” says a source close to PWG.

These committees are supposed to collect taxes, constructs roads, schools andprimary health centers and undertake other development activities in the villages. According to this source, the PWG has already established 80 gram rajya committees in North Telangana and 60-70 committees in the Dandakaranya Zone. It hopes to achieve thrice these numbers within the next one year — that is the first year of Chattisgarh.