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Journalism of Courage
Farsegarh thana is the last police post towards one of Chhattisgarhs Maoist zones. Beyond it,in southwest Bastars Bijapur district,lies over 2,000 sq km of Red territory that goes on to merge with Abujhmaad and Gadchiroli in Maharashtra. The thana comprises a series of huts. Beneath thatched roofs,women clean utensils and cook on choolah (wooden stoves). Men look out from huts,behind sandbags. From above those bags peep a few gunsthe only sign that as it battles Indias biggest internal security threat,this is one of Chhattisgarhs most crucial police posts.
The vulnerable personnel live without phone signals,and largely without electricity. Please see if you can do anything, says ASI Phooldev Minj. Thana policemen are usually afraid of being quoted. Minj insists on being photographedso that his bosses in Raipur know the ground reality.
In another such Maoist zone,225 km away,25 persons were killed on May 25,including Congress leaders Mahendra Karma and Nand Kumar Patel. The spot of the attack was a 10-minute drive away from two thanas,in Darbha and Tongpal. The Congress convoy was under attack for over 90 minutes,but neither the police nor the CRPF company stationed at each of the thanas could help.
These police outposts in Chhattisgarhs hottest Naxal zones epitomise the administrative response towards tribal Bastar. There are funds,there are forces and there are promises (Farsegarh also houses a camp of the CRPFs 85 Battalion). However,in recent years,the states so-called might has never dared venture into the liberated zone. Bastar remains the undisputed capital of Maoists.
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Even the state highway abruptly ends at Farsegarh. Beyond it begins the impossible forest,whose Chhattisgarh border ends at Sandra. The forest has lanes and roads,even landmarks,but these have not been repaired in the past decade as the bushes alongside are said to be strewn with landmines. Sandra? Dont go there, policemen at Kutru police station in Bijapur district told this reporter the day he visited. We heard about a major movement there yesterday. Around 1,000 Naxals.
That was before the killing of Karma,the Salwa Judum founder. A memorial built by Karma to commemorate his extra-constitutional vigilante force stands right opposite the police station. It was built on June 4,2005,the month Judum was born. Another prominent Judum leader,Gota Chinna,with whom Karma got the Kutru memorial built,was killed in December 2012. Gotas brother Bansi was killed on May 12.
Between Kutru and Farsegarh lies the Rani Bodli police post,where Maoists killed 55 police personnel in 2007.
Politicians,police officers,commentators and security analysts have expressed shock at the Darbha killing as the first instance of a senior political leader being assassinated in the area. Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh compared the brutality to the Holocaust,Congress president Sonia Gandhi stressed the party tradition of sacrifice,while senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh saw a conspiracy in the attack on party leaders.
But there is a gruesome precedent. On a December night in 1999,Likhiram Kawre,the then transport minister of undivided Madhya Pradesh,was hacked to pieces near his village home in Balaghat district,now bordering Chhattisgarhs Rajnandgaon. Digvijaya Singh was the chief minister then.
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What makes the Maoists appear invincible in Bastar? In Chhattisgarh,they dont number more than 10,000,most of them poorly armed. The security forces number nearly 1 lakh,are better equipped and are helped by UAVs and the Indian Air Force.
If the Maoists have been able to retain Bastar,a major factor is the atrocities on tribals by the Judum. Before that,forest officials and local policemen would exploit the tribals,while Maoists would try to extort money,but the violence was not alarming. Officials moved relatively freely. We would visit waterfalls. In this remote land,the forests offered great solace, said a superintendent of police who served in one of the Bastar districts.
Beyond Farsegarh,Maoist monuments dot the landscape. Most recent are two big memorials,dedicated to Mallejulla Koteshwara Rao alias Kishanji and Kowasi Govind,in a clearing near Pulgundam. They celebrated the killing of Judum leader Gota Chinnaram here. He lived opposite Farsegarh thana and had nine securitymen. Last year,Maoists killed other senior Judum leaders.
While the residents are neither Maoists nor their sympathisers,they support the killings. Gota forced us to flee our villages under the Judum. It destroyed our lives, says a youth. Several Judum-supported SPOs were accused of rape,but no action was ever taken against them.
N Baijendra Kumar,principal secretary to Chief Minister Raman Singh,says the violence was not by Judum forces but Maoists. The Judum was a spontaneous moment of tribals. Maoists promised a dream land,but gave only fear and insecurity. They are no longer the force they were earlier, says Kumar.
Examples of state highhandedness continue. If at least eight villagers,including three minors,were killed in Ehadsameta village of Bijapur district last month in an alleged encounter with Maoists,in January 2012,Pudiyami Mada was picked up by the CRPF and died a few days later after severe beating and burns to his private parts.
In June 2012,the state saw what was called its biggest Maoist encounter in Sarkeguda,Bijapur. Seventeen persons were killed and immediately dubbed hardcore Maoists. Later,the state police found criminal records for only two.
In 13 years of Chhattisgarhs history,thousands have been arrested on the charge of being Maoists or for alleged involvement in attacks but there has not been a single conviction. A few like Binayak Sen have been convicted,but for charges like keeping banned literature or providing support to Naxals.
Another factor that coincided with the Judum to make the last 10 years the most bloody in Indias Red insurgency was the formation of the PLGA (Peoples Liberation Guerrilla Army) in 2000,and the subsequent merger of the PWG and MCC in 2004. Without the merger,the Maoists would be a much lesser force,and in the absence of the Judum,violence would not have reached this intensity.
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Bastar doesnt suffer for lack of money,or men though. Among the Central funds coming its way are the Integrated Action Plan for LWE districts,Backward Region Grant Fund,MNREGA,and many more schemes worth crores (see box). The Centre also allocated Rs 150 crore to Chhattisgarh to construct 75 new police stations in Maoist areas. Not one of those has come up.
We are aware of the situation. We are working very hard,we will construct all police stations this year, says DGP Ramniwas.
PWD Minister Brijmohan Agarwal says: Its difficult to construct roads in Naxal areas,we are trying.
There has been no dearth of forces either. The first CRPF battalion in Chhattisgarh landed in 2003,now it has 22 of those,besides five battalions of the ITBP and three of the BSF. The presence of state forces has increased from around 22,000 personnel to over 60,000. But the Maoists remain intact.
Manoj Mandavi is a peon at a primary residential school in Farsegarh. The last time BJP MLA Mahesh Gagda visited us was during a 2011 Lok Sabha by-poll,and before that in the 2008 Assembly polls, Mandavi says. The school has 150 students,no roof,and no toilet. A solitary handpump provides water for bathing.
Mandavis request didnt differ from Minjs at the Farsegarh thana. Can you please publish these photographs? Can we have at least one toilet? he said.
Days later,Tribal Welfare Minister Kedar Kashyap told the Assembly that 1,200 residential schools run by his ministry were without toilets and 459 did not have a building. We cannot commit any date (to build them), he said.
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The story of this Raman Singh governmentwhich won nine of 12 Assembly seats here in 2003,and 11 of them in 2008is strewn with similar disappointments. Though Naxals first arrived in Bastar in the 1980s,they acquired crucial momentum only around 2000,the year the state was carved out of Madhya Pradesh and the year they formed the PLGA. In October 2004,10 months after Raman Singh assumed power,the PWG and MCC also merged to form the CPI (Maoist).
Having already made Dandakaranya their base by the mid-1990s,the guerrillas were now prepared for a massive assault. So was the BJP government,a regime supposedly tough towards Maoists. Raman Singh got full support,forces and funds from the Centre in this fight.
What did the CM do with the funds,Centres support and peoples votes? He helped Congressman Karma launch the Salwa Juduma move finally declared illegal by the Supreme Court in July 2011.
The UPA government,however,continued to bank on Raman Singh,even at the cost of ignoring its own local leaders. The equation has dramatically changed after the May 25 attack,with the Centre charging that the security lapse was actually the result of indifference of the BJP government towards Congress leaders.
During the Judum,Singh was confident of eliminating the Maoists soon. The force petered out in two years,the Maoists have only gained. They have formed new committees in border areas,which are believed to have been behind the attack on the Congress convoy.
Tribals are also worse off than they were a decade earlier. Maoists routinely kill them on suspicion of being police informers,while administration continues to be centred around district or block headquarters.
When armed forces cannot move freely,its not easy for doctors or teachers to go inside, admits ADG (Intelligence) Mukesh Gupta,adding,We have extended operations in inside areas.
Some of the figures for Maoist violence,however,are extrapolated,part of a self-perpetuating myth that helps Maoists retain their support and provides the government a fig leaf for its inaction apart from ensuring funds from the Centre. From 2000-July 2012,as per police records,Maoists damaged only three health centres across the state. They damaged 114 schools,of them 92 during 2006-2008,as a fallout of the Judum. In the five years preceding it,only three schools had been destroyed. In 2011,only one school was damaged and in 2012 up to July,only one was damaged.
However,the standard response of the Chhattisgarh government is that since Maoists destroy schools and health centres,it cannot open new ones.
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While the Darbha attack has shattered veterans who had been claiming that the Maoists were on the decline,there is no denying that they are facing a general attrition and that except Bastar,their base is getting eroded. However,its foolhardy to assume they are disappearing. For a guerrilla,the period of lull is when he devises strategies and expands mass base. After waging a violent battle for 10 years,this is what the Maoists are now doing.
Besides,going by their words,they are actually a political party with a socio-economic-political agenda. Gopal,a CPI (Maoist) spokesperson,emphasises this. People are indulging in propaganda against us. Do not defame us by terming us extremists or terrorists, he says. It would not have been possible to continue this struggle (without ideology) against such a powerful system.
This is the ideology that made Akash alias Madkam Bheema,the man who led the team that abducted then Sukma collector Alex Paul Menon in April 2012,believe they would conquer the system. Police,CRPF ki sena vetan ki sena hai. Vetan ki sena dridh sankalp aur siddhant ki sena ka kabhi mukabla nahi kar sakti (Police,CRPF are a salaried army. It can never fight the army that derives strength from ideology and conviction). The army of ideology can move even Himalayas, he had said.
The irony of this internecine war is that the road to this resolve is paved with smaller hurdles,ones that in the face of an indifferent administration remain impossible to surmount. When Menon was their hostage,a Maoist is said to have approached him with a humble request: Sahab,handpump mechanic ka aavedan kiya hai. Bahar jakar jara dekh lijiyega (Sir,have applied for a handpump mechanics job. Please look into it after you are released).
Major incidents of Naxal violence in Bastar
Sept 2005: PLGA attacks a CRPF vehicle. The attack in Padeda,Bijapur,is led by a woman commander. 24 CRPF men are killed.
Feb 2006: Raid on an explosive godown of NMDC in Dantewada,8 CISF men are killed. Maoists loot 19 tonnes of explosives,14 SLRs,one 9 mm pistol and 2,430 rounds of ammunition. Maoists begin laying underground mines on a large scale.
Feb 2006: Between Errabore and Darbhagudem villages in Sukma,28 eight SPOs and Salwa Judum men are killed.
Feb 2006: Naga battalion attacked in Konta,Sukma; 12 killed.
April 2006: Murkinar police post in Bijapur is attacked,11 cops are killed. The rebels stop a passenger bus,force passengers out and drive towards the post.
July 2006: Attack on Errabore Salwa Judum camp,Sukma. 31 SPOs/Judum cadres are killed.
March 2007: 16 cops,39 SPOs are killed in Rani Bodli,Bijapur.
July 2007: 24 policemen are killed in Konta,Sukma.
Dec 2007: 299 prisoners escape,a majority of them Maoists,from Dantewada jail
April 2010: 75 CRPF men,one state police personnel are killed in Taadmetla,Sukma
August 2011: 11 cops are killed in Bijapur.
April 2012: Sukma Collector is abducted.
May 2013: Attack on a Congress convoy,25 are killed.
Where does this money go?
Integrated Action Plan for LWE districts: Rs 30 crore
Backward Region Grant Fund:
Rs 25 crore
MNREGA: around Rs 100 crore
Tribal Development Project: Rs 3 cr
National Rural Livelihood Mission,Indira Awaas Yojana,pensions like for old age,widows,Jal Grahan Mission,grant from the Eleventh Finance Commission,minor minerals royalty,miscellaneous programmes in zila panchayat: Rs 200 crore
NRHM: Rs 15 crore
Tribal welfare funds: Rs 50 crore
Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan:
Rs 100 crore
Total Sanitation Campaign and other PHE programmes: Rs 10 crore
Ayurveda: Rs 10 crore
ICDS,women and child development programmes (Rs 10 crore); Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana and other agriculture programmes: Rs 20 crore
Roads in LWE areas: Rs 100 crore
PMGSY: Rs 10 crore
Rajiv Gandhi Vidyutikaran Yojana: Rs 5 crore
Labour Department: Rs 5 crore
Money for 75 new police stations in Maoist areas: Rs 150 crore
Plus,other funds,including state PWD money,and funds for special schemes like national parks or sanctuariesat least Rs 735 crore per year for each district
Worst human development indices
* As part of MP,Bastar was among the countrys biggest districts,bigger than Kerala. The regions seven districts nowBastar,Dantewada,Kanker,Narayanpur,Bijapur,Sukma and Kondagaonall figure in the Centres list of 26 severely-Maoist-hit districts.
* A major portion of Narayanpur and some parts of Bijapur constitute Abujhmaad,from where some of the topmost Maoists operate.
* The Bastar region has the worst human development indices in the country. In Bijapur,a district over double the size of Goa,there are only 16 higher secondary schools and just one college. Its literacy rate is 41.58 per cent,the second lowest in the country.
* Across Bastar,there is no administrative,police presence over several thousands of square kilometres.
