Adivasis Against Maoism: From Resistance to Negotiation

The killing of Communist Party of India (CPI) (Maoist) general secretary Nambala Keshava Rao carries immense military and political significance, which in case of guerrilla movements are constitutively intertwined. Therefore, while the successful raid deep in the forests of Bastar is a major military milestone; the far more important factor which needs to be understood is the erosion of the political legitimacy of the Maoists in the region which must be located in the seismic shift in the Adivasi political landscape – from resistance to negotiation.

A political coalition with the local Adivasis

Despite its broad revolutionary ideals, the contemporary Maoist movement in Bastar is merely a vehicle for the Adivasis to make a sovereign claim over the forests of the region. In this sense, it is unremarkable because Adivasi history is replete with examples of armed rebellions waged against the state to assert sovereign rights.

After the Maoists were forced to flee from Andhra Pradesh to Bastar in search of a safe base, they formed a new political coalition with the local Adivasis. This coalition served the interests of both the entities – the Maoists got a safe haven to wage their guerrilla war and the Adivasis got the political resources to make sovereign claims over the forests.

However, the ideological fanaticism of the Maoists and their refusal to evolve in the face of far-reaching political, economic and technological changes decisively unraveled this coalition.

Disdain for democracy

The fundamental reason for the current state of the Maoist movement is its ideological fanaticism. The stubborn refusal to give up on the ideological fantasy of overthrowing the state through organised violence and replacing it with a totalitarian communist dictatorship made them oblivious to the process of gradual entrenchment of democracy within society which provided resources to the oppressed communities to creatively organise and bargain with the state for cultural, political and economic resources.

Moreover, the primacy accorded to the violent overthrow of the state, made them ally with other regressive and sectarian forces arrayed against the Indian state. This meant espousing irreconcilable ideological positions – for instance, while the Maoists decried Indian nationalism as reactionary; they lent solidarity to the exclusivist nationalisms of Kashmiri and Khalistani separatists on the pretext of the right to self-determination. Such contrived ideological positions further increased their political isolation.

The contrasting trajectory of the Nepali Maoists needs to be retraced here. They began their armed struggle in 1996, in a predominantly rural country with a clearly defined goal of abolishing the monarchy and establishing a republican form of government. Despite enjoying far more popular support than their Indian counterparts; the Nepali Maoists never hesitated to get into a dialogue with other political forces and eventually built a united front to overthrow the monarchy.

More importantly, once the monarchy was abolished, they gave up their totalitarian ambitions and decided to participate in a representative parliamentary democracy. The people’s war was over within a decade. At the time, the Nepali Maoists publicly called upon their Indian counterparts to join the democratic process. Therefore, even within the guerrilla tradition, the Indian Maoists stand isolated; waging an endless war.

Emergence of competing utopias

Despite these limitations, owing to the near absence of the state and the remoteness of Bastar’s forest; the Maoists could still act as a parallel state in the so-called ‘liberated zones’. However, unlike China a century ago, they were not confronted by a feudal, authoritarian order but by an expanding market democracy. The democratic pulls and pushes forced the state to respond to the demands of the Adivasis albeit in a limited manner.

Even so, the remoteness of Bastar enabled the Maoists to establish a ‘monopoly over utopias’. In the absence of alternative developmental visions along with the adverse experience of the Adivasis during the Salwa Judum campaign, the ranks of the movement continued to swell.

However, penetration of the internet ended the Maoist monopoly over utopias. The Adivasi youth were now exposed to the possibilities of the competing developmental visions on their mobile screens.

They began experimenting with this new political idiom by using the limited space provided by the democratic structure to mobilise their community around new demands in an evolving economic scenario. Such experiments are the norm rather the exception across the Adivasi hinterlands –formations like Jai Adivasi Yuva Shakti (JAYS) and Bharat Adivasi Party (BAP) in western India are prime examples of this new politics. This politics of privileges, rights, representation and self respect over resistance and revolution.

The Maoists do not have a robust economic alternative outside the fast shrinking forest economy. Their framework cannot address the here and now. This is not unique to Maoism; it is an inherent limitation of all Marxist movements in the market economy where all aspirations are to be postponed until after revolution, much like the promise of heaven in the afterlife.

Test for democracy

These structural changes have led to a decoupling of Maoist ideological ambitions with the Adivasi aspirations. However, now that the Adivasis are putting their faith in democratic negotiation over armed resistance, it is of utmost importance to devise institutional mechanisms to safeguard their sovereign claims over the forests and its resources.

They must be considered the primary stakeholders in any future economic arrangements; which must be designed to ensure shared prosperity, not modern-day serfdom.

Will the nation reward the Adivasis?

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