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Journalism of Courage
IT had rained all night and there was slush where the road should have been. There was no way the Ambassador, already groaning and screeching, could have entered Bhopet. The driver wanted to turn back but we told him we would foot it to the village. We had to meet Rajanna8217;s widow. She had to be our first stop, the one person who could explain why a farmer in a Red citadel had to take his own life.
Bhopet is in Andhra8217;s Adilabad district, for long a stronghold of the People8217;s War. To drive on without checking on Rajavva would have been the wrong start to a journey through India8217;s Naxal belt, also its heart of darkness.
The fact that Bhopet was near Indravelli, immortalised by the Marxist-Leninist movement after the police fired on a 8216;8216;people8217;s meeting8217;8217; in April 1981, made Rajanna8217;s suicide all the more intriguing. This was, after all, one of the cradles of the People8217;s War, whose leaders quoted Marx as they aimed at first winning the masses: 8216;8216;Ideas become a material force when they grip the minds of the masses.8217;8217;
Rajavva came running when we started asking for directions to her house. She and three of her four children had been working in the fields. Not on their three acres but in a bigger field, working for someone who would pay. Money on her mind, she looked disappointed when she realised we were not from the Mandal Revenue Office.
8216;8216;Can you help? They gave me just Rs 1500 for Rajanna8217;s last rites. I8217;m told there8217;s a compensation of Rs 1 lakh as fixed deposit in a bank. But each time I ask them for a passbook or receipt, there8217;s no reply. Of what use is that money if I don8217;t get it now? I need to feed my children, get my daughter married. Look where he Rajanna has landed us. He drank the pesticide and took the easy way out.8217;8217;
It began drizzling and she stuck out a hand to let the water slip through her fingers. 8216;8216;The rains killed my husband. We had excess of it last year and the crop failed. I knew he had taken a loan but he never told me the kind of debts he had run up. That8217;s why he was in such a hurry to sell the cattle. After he died, so many money-lenders showed up. What could I do?
8216;8216;No one helped my husband. The money-lenders hounded him. Maybe it would have been different had others been around.8217;8217; She didn8217;t explain the 8216;8216;others8217;8217; but it was clear she meant the Red squads. They were no longer around. Chandrababu Naidu8217;s government, before it was swept out, had ensured their retreat across North Telangana. Had the crackdown not taken place, their kangaroo courts would have settled Rajanna8217;s case within minutes. The money-lenders would have never showed up at their door.
The talking head
IN Hyderabad, over 300 km away, Vara Vara Rao welcomes us into his modest apartment in Malakpet. He is the face of the People8217;s War in their talks with the new Andhra government. 8216;8216;Don8217;t call me the PWG ideologue. The Party will never allow it, I8217;m just a revolutionary poet inspired by Naxalbari and Srikakulam risings.8217;8217;
His eyes light up at the mention of Indravelli. 8216;8216;Did you see the memorial there? You should have seen the original. The then president of the Rythu Coolie Sangham a PWG front organisation had visited Tiananmen Square for inspiration. The government tore it down. What you see now was built during NTR8217;s rule. He was unlike Chandrababu. He called the People8217;s War a party of patriots.8217;8217;
So how pleased is the People8217;s War with the exit of Chandrababu? Will it use the talks to buy time and re-equip itself? 8216;8216;Chandrababu made it clear that the Andhra elections would be a referendum on three issues: his World Bank-inspired development programme, his drive against Naxalites and a vote against Telangana. See what happened to him.
8216;8216;It8217;s true that the Congress, TRS Telangana Rashtra Samiti gained because the People8217;s War wanted to smash the TDP-BJP alliance. Now they have to fulfill their promise. The Congress said Naxalism is a socio-economic problem which needs to be addressed. Talks with the People8217;s War was a poll promise and they8217;re trying to keep their word.
Rao is clear that the class struggle or the farmers8217; struggle will not be on the agenda. 8216;8216;We simply want the government to recognise what we are doing, especially in terms of land reforms. The government8217;s land reforms have ended up in violations. We want to impress upon the people the direction of the struggle. So don8217;t dismiss these talks. Because the outcome here will have a bearing on other Naxal-affected states, especially Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Bihar.8217;8217;
What does he make of the Left, given that it8217;s the first time they have such high stakes at the Centre? 8216;8216;When it comes to class struggle, the People8217;s War places the CPI-M, CPI in the same bracket as the other parties. They are no different. In Andhra, they supported Chandrababu and his policies till he tied up with the BJP. Even today they are asking for a human face to World Bank policies. That8217;s why the Left of Left is Left.8217;8217;
But does winning the masses mean gunning down policemen and some of the poorest of poor? 8216;8216;The cases of civilian deaths you are referring to are those of covert agents, people being used by the government to break the movement. And don8217;t dismiss a class struggle as a conflict between the police and People8217;s War. The police have deliberately been put in front by vested interests.8217;8217;
The soldier of the state
ACROSS the Andhra border in Maharashtra, Gadchiroli SP Shirish Jain smells trouble. The Andhra government8217;s decision to lift the ban on the People8217;s War means more work for him. 8216;8216;We have Assembly elections coming up in Maharashtra and their cadres will try their best to disrupt the process. I have to move my men quickly before things get nasty.8217;8217;
Jain took charge as SP around the time the ban was lifted in his neighbourhood. But he8217;s in no mood to let the People8217;s War have their way. 8216;8216;They use Gadchiroli as a passage from Andhra to Chhattisgarh. They have been making money from traders of tendu leaves and bamboo. It keeps them going and it8217;s my job to stop them.8217;8217;
He hardly looks the policeman he is. Clad in combat fatigues and cradling an Ak-M, he looks more a soldier. He knows he has a tough job but he doesn8217;t think Gadchiroli is a punishment posting. In Maharashtra, officers have been known to pull strings and get transfers to this district cancelled.
It8217;s Jain8217;s job to make the most of what he has. Given the string of landmine blasts they8217;ve had in the past, his men have been asking him for armoured vehicles, strong enough to lessen the impact of an explosion. In the thick teak and bamboo forests, it8217;s also not easy tracking down Naxals without night-vision goggles. More recently, arms looted from an armoury in Koraput, Orissa, have found their way to Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh.
Jain tells his men to rely on their skills, aware material sanction costs money and takes time. The People8217;s War and two other Left wing extremist organisations Janshakti and Pratighatna together account for 14 dalams in the area. So the Gadchiroli police have formed 14 counter-units under a force called the C-60.
Jain admits local intelligence is difficult to gather. 8216;8216;We need more local recruits, boys familiar with the language and terrain. They will help us get to the hideouts. We need to be more visible in the rural interiors. There are many areas here where people actually believe that the government and the police are the one and same thing. We have to create conditions for the return of civil governance in such areas.8217;8217;
Even hospitals are not manned or adequately equipped. Jain lost one of his men, injured in a Naxal attack, simply because the man bled to death while being taken to Nagpur some 300 km away. 8216;8216;I have started recording the blood groups of my men. We can8217;t take chances. We have lost 55 men already in operations against the Naxals.8217;8217;
| The first hard step for the Centre: governance
CONSIDER these facts: The area affected by Naxalite violence in India is twice the geographical region of Jammu and Kashmir and the North-Eastern states. And the affected population is five times as much. Little wonder then, that the growing Naxalite violence is of deep concern to the Centre. |
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The teen with a gun
NO ideology in this case. At a police camp south of Gadchiroli, a boy who doesn8217;t even look the 15 years he claims to be, runs up to an officer and offers to carry his bag. He8217;s from one of the dalams the police have been hunting. After more than a year in the jungles, he has surrendered and now lives with the very policemen he used to target.
8216;8216;It wasn8217;t easy in the jungle. We had no food. If we had to eat, we had to first find a village. You had to keep walking. I went hungry many nights.8217;8217; So what made him join a dalam? 8216;8216;The first time they came home, they gave me a knife and told me to follow them. I had no choice. They were carrying guns. The dalam boss had one like the policemen. Later, they told me the police were looking for me because I had joined the dalam. I couldn8217;t go back home.
8216;8216;For months, I only carried a knife. They later taught me how to press a button to trigger a blast. I was fascinated. They took me to a road one day and said a police vehicle was going to come this way. They laid the mine and told me to press the button when they would give the signal.
8216;8216;We saw a police Jeep approaching. A little stone had been placed at the spot where the mine was laid. I had to press the button the moment the Jeep passed over the stone. But I panicked. What if the Jeep fell on me? I tried to set off the mine before the Jeep reached the spot. One of them grabbed my hand and tried to stop me but I used my other other and pressed the button. Everyone fled.
8216;8216;I ran as well. I couldn8217;t take it anymore. I didn8217;t want to go home because the dalam would come looking for me. So I came to the police. I told them everything. At first they were very angry and I was scared. But one of them told me not to worry. He said nothing would happen to me. I have been here ever since. You see this shirt that I am wearing? A policeman gave it to me.8217;8217;
He doesn8217;t know it yet but they plan to use him as a 8216;8216;spotter8217;8217; in the hunt for the Naxals.
The end of the road
ENTER Balaghat in Madhya Pradesh and you know why the Naxals have made it to one of India8217;s richest districts in terms of mineral and forest wealth. Roads simply don8217;t exist here. For that matter, they don8217;t exist in most areas home to Naxalites. And this is true of not just Madhya Pradesh but also Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar. All the way up to the border with Nepal.
Balaghat Collector Sachin Sinha sums it up: 8216;8216;The less accessible a place, the better it is for Naxalism.8217;8217; Sinha is not wrong.
When they formed an umbrella organisation called the CCOMPOSA or Coordination Committee of Maoist Parties of South Asia, Left-wing extremist outfits from India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka met in the jungles they call Dandakaranya. Officials suspect that Abujmarh in Bastar, home of the Maria tribesmen, was where these outfits gathered.
8216;8216;It was chosen because it8217;s practically inaccessible. You have to trek quite some distance to get to the area where we believe they have shelters,8217;8217; says an official.
Across states, officials tell you they are banking on clearances for roads under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana. 8216;8216;It will help us establish regular contact in areas where we believe self-help groups can play a major role in countering Naxal activities.8217;8217;
Precisely why Left-wing extremists have been targeting road works. In February last year, cadres of the Maoist Communist Centre attacked the crusher unit of the Golden Quadrilateral highway project in Aurangabad in Bihar. In Khammam in Andhra Pradesh, Naxals struck a deal with contractors who got away by laying poor quality roads. No one had the courage to question these contractors.
That states like Bihar have abandoned the roads to their fate helps. It8217;s only 50 km from Motihari to Raxaul on the Nepal border but it takes you over two hours to cover that distance. Surely Left-wing extremists factored this in when they drew the design for a revolutionary corridor from Andhra to Nepal.
War of the other Valley
KATHMANDU: IT was just short of midnight. The Valley8217;s Page Three people were jiving to blaring music at the just-inaugurated J-Bar in downtown Kathmandu. The conversation accompanying the shots of Absolut vodka and pegs of Teacher8217;s, however, was not your usual P3P chatter. It centred around the rising clout of the followers of Mao Zedong, who want to establish a 8216;8216;Democratic Republic State8217;8217; in Nepal using violent means.
The visiting Indians and the local Ranas, of course, had a special interest in the Maoists: Apart from the shared civilisational linkages, the Left wing insurgency is common to the two countries. And the prime cause of concern for both is the common aim of the Communist Party of Nepal Maoists and ideological brothers People8217;s War Group PWG and Maoists Communist Centre MCC to carve out a 8216;Compact Revolutionary Zone8217;. Extending from Nepal through Bihar and the Dandakaranya region to Tamil Nadu, it is a dagger that goes through the heart of Nepal and India.
A strategy paper prepared by the Indian Home Ministry on the PWG clearly spells out the symbiotic relationship between the Indian left wing insurgents and the Nepal Maoists; cadres even cross over to deepen the interaction. Fourteen Naxalite groups 8212; including the Maoists and the PWG 8212; have come together as the Revolutionary International Movement. And bonds between the Maoists-PWG and the United Liberation Front of Assam ULFA have been growing, an ominous development since the ULFA reportedly provides arms to both the Left wing groups.
An internal security assessment report says that it is the PWG that trained Maoists in fabricating improvised explosive devices and mines. It says that the Maoists have links with National Democratic Front of Bodoland NDFB and Kamtapur Liberation Organisation KLO, apart from ULFA. In fact, the KLO, NDFB and ULFA cadres are known to train in the Maoist-dominated Terai region of Nepal.
In short, the Maoist-PWG-ULFA nexus has serious internal security ramifications for New Delhi: It could well unravel the Centre8217;s plans of bringing the North-East insurgents to the table for peace talks.
According to Nepal-watcher Harish Sharma, the connections between the Maoists and the PWG shows that India cannot remain a mute spectator to the Left wing insurgency in Nepal. 8216;8216;Earlier, the fire was in another country 8230; now it is at India8217;s doorstep,8217;8217; he says.
Political analyst C K Lal warns that with Maoists can create problems within India and in its bilateral interests in Bhutan. 8216;8216;The Maoists8217; incitement of Bhutanese refugees in the Jhapa district of eastern Nepal can seriously worry Thimpu8230; It is a potent mixture, considering that ULFA, NDFB and KLO cadres are peeved with Thimpu for anti-insurgency operations last year,8217;8217; he adds.
These issues have been discussed threadbare at the level of National Security Advisor J N Dixit. The Indian Army and paramilitary forces have been asked to steel the 1,751-km long Indo-Nepal border to prevent Maoist-PWG interaction. Dhaka, too, has acted against the Bangladesh-based ULFA leadership, which arms both the PWG and the Maoists.
The week-long siege of the Kathmandu Valley clearly showed the clout of Maoists in Nepal as hardly any supplies entered the capital. This must have been a morale-booster for the Indian PWG and their ideological brethren. Only development and an iron hand look likely to break this nexus.
