In Chhattisgarh, Zero Tolerance for Democracy

Ever since he took charge in December 2023, the newly elected Chhattisgarh chief minister Vishnu Deo Sai, with Union home minister Amit Shah’s backing, has made ‘zero tolerance’ of Naxalism – term used interchangeably with Maoism – a key issue for his government.

In the last one year alone, counting the 10 alleged Maoists killed on November 22 in Sukma, the Chhattisgarh police have killed 207 people. In all cases, they have claimed that these were Maoists killed in encounters. In several instances, however, such as the killings of Joga Kunjam (Rekhapalli) and Hidma Podiyam (Marudbaka) on November 7-8 in Rekhapalli, or the 10 villagers in Pidiya in May 2024, locals have attested to the fact that they were ordinary civilians killed in cold blood. Villagers have also reported repeated mortar shelling in their villages – the latest reports coming from the new Kondapalli camp around noon on November 24, just when everybody is out harvesting their crops.

The kind of triumphal blood lust on display in a video of District Reserve Guard or armed auxiliaries dancing with their guns has not been seen since the early days of Salwa Judum. To add to the violence of the year, according to a police estimate, the Maoists have killed 60 suspected ‘informers’.

The government also plans to establish an army manoeuver base in Abujmarh, displacing villagers, and to carry out sustained operations across the region, inhabited by PVTGs (particularly vulnerable tribal groups). This is apart from the security camps housing paramilitaries that it has established every two to five kilometres across Sukma, Bijapur and Narayanpur, with more to come.

Bastar continues to compete with Kashmir as one of the most militarised sites in the country, with one security person for every nine civilians. A network of highways to transport minerals, a proposed new airport at Ulnar in Bastar, a new railway line between Dalli Rajhara and Jagdalpur, and a huge influx of outsiders buying up land through illegal means – clearly, the stage is set for a complete transformation of this predominantly Adivasi area governed under the Fifth Schedule of the constitution in to a mining enclave where Adivasis will become a demographic minority.

Whether the police’s all-out operations will really eliminate Maoism is doubtful, since this is a movement that keeps surfacing in the face of desperation.  The lawless Salwa Judum generated many converts to the Maoist cause after security forces and state sponsored vigilantes burnt hundreds of villages starting in 2005.

The real sea change in Bastar came only recently when youth who were small children when their parents were forced to flee into the forests or to Andhra decided that they would no longer be afraid but use open constitutional means to defend their land. Now, by banning the organisation they formed, the Moolvasi Bachao Manch, the government is pushing them to function underground. In the process of asserting zero tolerance for Maoism, the BJP government and its police are really giving it a fillip by displaying zero tolerance for democracy.

Ban on MBM

On October 30 2024, the Chhattisgarh government banned the Moolvasi Bachao Manch (MBM) under the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act (CSPSA) 2005 Sec 3(1), as an unlawful organisation. This was the same act which was used to arrest Binayak Sen, and is under challenge in the Supreme Court for its vague provisions.

Section 3 (1) reads: “If the Government is of opinion that any organisation is, or has become an unlawful organisation, it may by notification, declare such organisation to be unlawful.” In other words, the government has merely to opine – the organisation does not even need to have committed any unlawful acts.

The ban on the MBA was conveniently made public only on November 18, a full 10 days after the gazette notification came out on November 8. Surely the Chhattisgarh government knows that villagers in far flung areas do not follow the gazette on a regular basis, and the delay in publicity was only in order to deny the MBM their right to challenge the ban within 15 days.

The government’s case against the MBM is not even that it is a front organisation of the Maoists. Instead, the very fact that “in Naxalite affected areas” the organisation has been openly opposing security camps and the highways associated with these camps is enough to declare it unlawful. The MBM is accused of inciting villagers against camps, speaking against the judicial system and institutions established by law, and posing a threat to public security. It is impossible to see how villagers on dharna in their own villages can be a threat to themselves.

Even if the MBM was a Maoist front, nothing in their activities can be termed unlawful, unless the very act of peaceful dissent – which is constitutionally permitted  – is now treated as unlawful.

A brief history of MBM

The MBM came into existence in May 2021 in Silger village after a CRPF camp was established overnight on land that villagers had been cultivating for generations. In these areas, land has not been surveyed for decades which means that actual use is not reflected in the records. This has been exacerbated by the burning of documents such as pattas and caste certificates by the Salwa Judum. This also makes it easier for the government to declare that vast areas of what really is community common land is government land and earmark it for ‘land banks’ that can be given over to industry. Jharkhand proposed that earlier, and now Chhattisgarh is following suit.

This overnight establishment of camps means that large swathes of forest are cut without prior marking and permission from the forest department and without settling people’s forest rights under the FRA of 2006. The Supreme Court had mandated that any loss due to tree cutting should be compensated in a CAMPA fund. Violation of this is a huge environmental scam in itself, yet the administration is unable to give a straight answer on this.

The bottom line, however, is that Bastar division is a Fifth Schedule area, and anything that comes up – whether a camp or an industry – must get the consent of the villagers.

As the MBM has repeatedly pointed out, their opposition is not to camps and roads. What they are protesting against is a model of development that does not fulfil this basic constitutional requirement of asking them for their permission and what they want in terms of development. The villagers have repeatedly said that they want schools, health services, employment, NTFP value addition and other forms of welfare. The Constitution (Objectives and Rules) document of the MBM commits it to fighting for these welfare rights, as well as protecting the forests and local culture. Unlike the government which singularly equates ‘development’ with camps, highways and mining, villagers have a richer, people-centred and sustainable idea of development.

In May 2021, when Silger residents found out about the camp, something snapped. They started protesting in front of the camp and were joined by others from nearby villagers. The demonstrations were unarmed, but the CRPF panicked and began firing. Three men died of police bullets and a pregnant woman who was caught in the ensuing stampede later died at home.

The Silger Andolan was born, with the primary demand being justice for the four killed and the uprooting of the camp. Since then, the Silger Andolan has continued with varying strength in the area, making it one of the longest standing farmers’ protests, even longer than that of the Punjab farmers. The Silger movement also included a demand for justice for the 17 villagers, many of them minors, killed in Sarkegdua in 2012, and the eight killed in Edesmetta in 2013. All these deaths  – claimed by the police as Naxalites – have been found to be of civilians by a government appointed judicial commission of enquiry. How is demanding accountability from a tottering judicial system which does not prosecute extra-judicial killings or compensate victims, and keeps innocent people in jail for years on end without trial amount to unlawful activity?

Villagers across the region took hope and inspiration from Silger and began to stage their own protests against camps which they had not authorised. The demands in different areas are different, and so are the banners. For instance, one group wanted to start their own ecotourism project around a sacred waterfall in their region, another was protesting against the police using drones to spy on women bathing, a third wanted to protect a sacred site. In all these cases, it is educated youth – educated up to Class 10 or 12 – and more rarely, with college degrees – who have taken the lead.

These youth have had incredibly hard lives – almost everyone has had some kind of death in the family, or arrests, since these are so common in the area. A 19-year-old girl whom I met at one of the protest sites had spent time in a government orphanage; her father had been killed by Naxalites. Another woman MBM leader, who is now in jail, recounted how when her village was burnt, she ran into the forest alone, and her mother was terrified that she would be lost. But she was somehow reunited with the rest of the family. Her elder brother died of illness and an elder sister was arrested. The capacity of these youth for organisation and leadership is something the government should encourage rather than seek to repress as they have been doing. Many of the young MBM members have been arrested – 28 at last count – and the dharna sites attacked, causing them to lose all their belongings. MBM leaders have been beaten up. This was much before the MBM was declared unlawful.

The MBM has office bearers and a constitution, but the bulk of the protest comes from villagers who take it in turns to be present at the dharna sites and bring their own food with them, in much the same way that they organise for all collective village activities. By banning the MBM, the government is really banning the collective right to protest of villagers themselves. Indeed, the CSPSA definition of ‘organisation’ is so vague that it can be used to outlaw even traditional gram sabhas or the traditional supra-village pargana assemblies: ‘organisation’ means any combination, body or group of persons whether known by any distinctive name or not and whether registered under any· relevant law or not and whether governed by any. written constitution or not.”

Every single Resident Welfare Association in the posh urban areas of this country has guards and entry logs to regulate entry. Is it so wrong for villagers to want to be consulted if something as major as a paramilitary camp surrounded by barbed wire comes up on their land? Especially if this means the presence of paramilitary forces coming into the forests and villages, making it difficult for villagers, especially women, to go about their daily lives.

But when it comes to Adivasis, the government is adamant that they have no constitutional rights to free speech, assembly or movement. One wonders who is being unlawful – the people or the government.

Nandini Sundar is a Delhi-based sociologist.

This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire & Galileo Ideas – and has been updated and republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.