Time to call off the Salwa Judum

Hardly a day goes by when the media do not report brutal killings of innocent and unarmed tribals deep in Bastar by this “peaceful” movement.

Popular movements, as a rule, are anti-establishment, which Salwa Judum is not. With the exception of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, one cannot think of any other mass struggle in contemporary history in which the state has played such a pivotal role.

Now, in a first, over 60,000 tribals have been uprooted from their ancestral villages and sent to live in makeshift camps.

The state government views this an “unfortunate” but necessary phase in the fight against Naxals. To me, it smacks of Hitler’s “Lebensraum”—his effort to repopulate an area with pure-bred Aryans.

There can be no justification for displacing thousands of tribals from over 700 villages they have inhabited for thousands of years. No pragmatism can defy the fundamental and inviolate principle that it is the state’s first duty to protect the lives and property of its citizens. The failure to do so cannot justify the uprooting of an entire people.

I feel aggrieved, deceived and cheated when the present collector of Dantewada, a tribal himself, tells a magazine, “either they are Salwa Judum or they are Naxalites”. The third option of just going about the business of living no longer exists for the tribes of Bastar. They must fight or die.

When a correspondent asked the then Prime Minister Narasimha Rao how could he justify deployment of 3,00,000 troops to Kashmir, he curtly replied that it is for the state to decide what it takes to protect its citizens. He did not say that he expected untrained and unarmed Kashmiri civilians to do battle with the militants.

Here, instead of tribals taking the law in their hands, the state has virtually handed it over to them. Instead of the state protecting its people, it has pitted untrained, unarmed tribals against a remarkably sophisticated militant organization, in effect, condemning them (206 according to official estimate but thousands if first hand reports are to be believed) to their deaths.

A large number of tribals kept in the Salwa Judum camps now wish to go back to their villages. They are told that they would be shot if they did. By whom—Naxalites or SPOs of Salwa Judum? That is not made very clear.

It is ironic that Medha Patkar should be fighting the displacement of tribals in the name of development and Salwa Judum justifies it in the name of death.

Why is this government so keen on keeping them in camps?

More than security concern, this has to do with the politics—and economics—of displacement. Camps no doubt, are remarkably convenient incubators for the Sangh Parivar to indoctrinate thousands of unsuspecting tribals. RSS-run Shakhas, I’m told by a correspondent of a leading national daily, have already become a common camp feature as have Saraswati Shishu Mandirs, Ekal-vidyalayas and Vanwasi Kalayan Ashrams.

Furthermore, camps have given birth to their own peculiar industry: to sustain 60,000 tribals, the state has budgeted a daily expenditure of crores of rupees in the form of food, healthcare and education. As with every other government welfare scheme for tribals, its real beneficiaries are the middlemen. To maximize their profits, they are only too happy to inflate the number of “refugees”—this is precisely what the hon’ble home minister of Chhattisgarh called them. Naturally, the living conditions in these camps is atrocious, and in direct proportion to the “refugees” desire to risk return.

Thus, hitherto united tribals stand vertically divided—in every habitat, every village and every family.

The dense rain forests of Bastar, small, inaccessible villages inhabited by tribals (scared of or sympathetic to Naxalites) make intelligence gathering well nigh impossible. Hence the oft-repeated abductions and killings of tribals from the “well guarded and safe” Salwa Judum camps.

The strategy should be to reclaim territory from the Naxalites and not to hand it over to them. This cannot be achieved if the state thrusts the innocent tribals into the illusory safety and comfort of these camps.

To make matters worse, the state is recruiting Special Police Officers (SPOs) mostly from surrendering Naxalites and unemployed tribal youths of the camps. They are paid a monthly salary of Rs 1,500 and the state hopes against hope that one day these SPOs will move into their abandoned territory for an eyeball to eyeball combat with Naxalites.

The state erroneously presumes that the SPOs are better than the armed forces, because the later can differentiate between Naxalites and innocent tribals. But the fact is that these relatively untrained, armed men with an almost blanket license to kill, are busy settling personal scores, extortion and harassment.

Reminds me of Hiteshwar Saikia’s SULFA (Surrendered United Liberation Front of Assam) which, in the not so long run, came to be more dreaded than ULFA.

This has turned Salwa Judum into a campaign wherein innocent adivasis are being used as ammunition in a State-sponsored civil war. One of the most popular folk songs of bison horn Maria tribes says is all:

“Heaven is miles and miles of forest of Mahua trees and hell is miles and miles of forest of mahua trees with one forest guard in it”..

The most famous and successful peaceful mass movement was our struggle for freedom led by the Mahatma. National historian Bipin Chandra postulates the concept of STS (Struggle Time Struggle), describing the Gandhian strategy of freedom struggle. The protagonists and supporters of Salwa Judum, as a mark of respect to the master and pioneer of the most successful mass movement ever, should realize that after the killing of thousands of tribals, it is now time to call off the Salwa Judum.

It is unfortunate that our governance of tribal areas is mostly based on the presumption of dichotomy between tribals and their habitats. It reduces tribals to exiles in their own homes. It has also given rise to a new genre of environmentalism, that has become the greatest hurdle to the welfare and development of tribals.

This, more than anything else, explains the profligacy of Naxalism in recent times—from less than 100 districts in 1995 to over 170 districts in 15 states by April, 2004.

Which is why, I have strongly supported setting up of a new steel plant in Bastar, resumption of Bodhghat hydel power project, construction of Dondi Lohara—Jagdalpur railway line and most significantly, the enactment of new tribal bill already introduced in the parliament.

The bottom line is—restore tribals of Bastar as masters of their own destinies.

The writer is former chief minister of Chhattisgarh and currently a Member of Parliament