The False War in Bastar

In his last trip to Bastar, Union home minister Amit Shah adopted a paternal tone when he said that nobody liked when a maoist was killed. He urged, "Naxalite brothers to lay down arms and join the mainstream. You are our own. No one feels happy when any Naxalite is killed. Just surrender your weapons and join the mainstream."

Such a friendly gesture is unexpected from someone who is known as the second iron man of India. The first one was, of course, the first home minister of India who also hailed from Gujarat, from where Shah comes. That aside, it is not insignificant that the media tom-tommed the fact of Shah spending a night in Bastar. It was as if he wanted to demonstrate that Bastar was firmly under his control. A message was being sent to the world outside that the "maoist dominated" Bastar had been cleared of the maoists.

If we accept his words as sincere, we must ask who rewards the killing of one's own. If the killing of maoists is an unpleasant act and regrettable, why is there a reward-regime which encourages more and more killings? We are told that the temptation of reward money has led to a competition among the security forces and has resulted in an extraordinary spike in the number of killings.

One needs to ask what kind of a war is this in which the tribals (all called maoists by the state) are being killed and not caught? The mighty Indian security forces can only kill and not catch unarmed people? Is it a message that even if unarmed, you would be killed if you are suspected to be a maoist?

Why is it accepted as legitimate? Why have the killings in hundreds not stirred the media?

Is the narrative of a war in Bastar between the maoists and the Indian state responsible for this silent approval of the claim of the state that it is at war with one of the most dreadful armed insurrectionists, hence normal rules do not apply?

It is this narrative of war in Bastar which needs to be questioned. Does it help the state to intimidate political leaders who work openly, through parliamentary means, like Manish Kunjam. The recent raid on his house tells all tribals that they cannot act politically, all they have to do is to follow the diktat of the state.

We know the narrative of war is very useful for the state but we also need to ask why the Maoists are reinforcing the claim of the state that they are at war with the Indian state.

We need to keep this context in mind before we talk about the offer of peace talks by the maoists to the state and the response of the state to it.

Those who are aware of the reality would tell you that the maoist peace talk offer should not be an issue to be discussed before the government stops attacking and killing tribals and its violence against them. We know that maoists are no longer a force in Chhattisgarh. They are definitely armed but they are in disarray and greatly diminished. They cannot even defend themselves. They cannot help their unarmed cadre who are being killed mercilessly by the state or made to surrender.

Also read: A Rebel's Journey: Gumudavelli Renuka's Life and Death in the Maoist Movement

If it is a war between them and the maoists (WAR is too heavy a word for what is happening between the two), we know that the state is hugely stronger and more powerful than the maoists in terms of fire power, number of people, accessibility to resources, etc. It wants to justify its disproportionate use of force and violence by citing the maoist assertion that they are waging a war against the state and they need to be crushed.

It does not look ironical to us that the dreaded maoists are being killed without any effective resistance. After spending decades in Bastar, all that they can do is to find new hiding places which cannot escape the eyes of the security forces. How can they then defend the tribals on behalf of whom they are waging this protracted war against the Indian state? But before that, we also need to ask if the interest of the tribals is what drives the Maoists.

Actually, their 'battle' has nothing to do with the rights of the tribals. They are only their cover. Their presence in Bastar has not strengthened the tribals. They have not allowed nonviolent struggles to grow. What they do is nothing but armed thuggery in the name of revolution. They have not yet explained their criminal acts of elimination of the Congress leadership and wanton killing of other tribal leaders.

They can claim that they wanted to punish those who were responsible for salwa judum but we cannot forget that they killed others even after identifying them. We can argue that those responsible for salwa judum paid for it. But it didn’t stop salwa judum. It was again the persistence of the ‘civil society’ people to fight for it.

Maoists claimed that they could deliver summery justice as they were acting on behalf of the people. They can declare people enemy or traitors and kill them.

Why is it that we accept these crimes as legitimate revolutionary violence which cannot be questioned? Who among them has been responsible for the killing of these unarmed civilians? Why should we ignore them as collateral damage? It was chilling to hear Varvara Rao once in an interview to Tehelka trying to explain away the killings of the ordinary tribals and others at the hands of the maoists when he said that these were matters of details. Not the substantive thing. We should not talk about it unnecessarily.

How is it that despite their armed strength and their rhetoric, mining companies and other corporate houses remain unperturbed? If we accept that tribals supported them, then how is it that the BJP is growing stronger there? We need to first honestly assess and describe the situation in Bastar and not get intimidated by the revolutionary posturing of the maoists. 

We need to understand that Bastar for them is only a means to pursue their fantasy of revolution. A blast here, random killings there do not make a revolution. It is only the expression of their ego, their announcement that they exist and should be taken seriously.

We have never asked whether it is only Bastar that needs revolution. Why deprive other states, cities, towns of this blessing? And if Bastar is their base for the last four decades, how is it that they have not managed to expand beyond that and are rather shrinking? We question political parties if they fail to expand their mass base. Why should maoists not be questioned and asked to review their strategy, if they ever had one?

The state knows too well that maoists are not a threat anymore. At best or worst, they are a minor nuisance. But the government is happy to let the illusion of the maoist war perpetuate in the public imagination. It helps the state to justify its continued armed action which is lawless.

The offer of peace talks by the maoists and its acknowledgment by the state is a farce. It helps the state to continue its violence and helps the irrelevant maoists to create a stake in a situation in which they do not and should not matter.

We know that the state would demand an unconditional surrender and the maoists would never agree to that. Thus the 'war' would continue.The state forces would continue their killing of the tribals calling all of them maoists. 

Also read: Maoists Offer Peace Talks As Questions Are Raised on Police Encounters in Chhattisgarh

The killings of tribals are tragic. Are the maoists really perturbed by that? Or are they happy adding names to their list of martyrs? 

It is so amusing to see maoists urging human and civil rights activists and other democrats to put pressure on the state to have a talk with them. The maoists have never accepted the concept of human rights; they reject democracy and have done everything to undermine it. Now they want recognition. They want themselves to be defended by those they have always refused to listen to. 

Without falling into the game which both maoists and the state love, we need to demand the government to stop its armed action as there is no war as such. The maoists should announce that they are ceasing all violent action.

The state needs to remove all security camps and allow local people to move freely. It is their land and the state is displacing them from it in the name of clearing the ground.

For the state, Bastar is only a reservoir of resources which need to be extracted to propel development. For the maoists it is only a base from where they would launch and expand their revolution. But Bastar is the people who live there. It is they who are primary. Neither the state, nor the maoists.

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