Mr. Chidambaram the Home Minister has made an offer to the " Maoist Party "
to make an offer in three words " We abjure violence ". We do not claim to
reply on behalf of the Maoist but to articulate one response among many that
will be made on behalf of citizens and affected people.
Dear Home Minister ,
As a concerned citizen of India , not a 'Maoist', I have to request you
to kindly read this reply , even as you dialogue with the citizens of India,in
particular with tribal and affected sections , as this will lend clarity to
your offer, that the Maoists ' abjure violence' to begin a dialogue .
At the very outset, may I emphasize that with your legal background, you will
appreciate more than others , with the necessary rationality and objectivity
which both logic and law require , that while addressing what has caused the
situation, which is being described by the Supreme Court of India orally during
submissions made in court and reported in the media as a "war against your
own people ", a solution may arise. The Supreme Court also observed that
whereas we hear of operations we do not hear of what development activity has
been initiated by the state in the affected regions .
I have to invite your attention to official reports of committees appointed
by the ministries and bodies of the Government of India and of Gandhians
working in the affected mineral and resource rich regions of Eastern and
Western India , as these reports are a mandatory study , to reflect and
resolve the issue directly related to 'Operation Greeen Hunt, that is if we
are committed to democratic decision making and the 'Rule of Law', which
to-day citizens are of the unanimous opinion , is being usurped arbitrarily
from one region to another . The only dispute is by who . The following
reports are referred to below, to effect an economy of your time and effort .
1. The report of the subcommittee constituted by the Planning Commission on the
cause of " Naxalite violence" .
2. The Official report of the 15 member Committee constituted by the Union
of India Rural Development Ministry on " State Agrarian Relations and the
Unfinished Task of Land Reforms ", comprising 4 civil servants , 3 economists,
6 representatives of the NGO sector which among its other recommendations and
observations has held two Companies among others, Essar and Tata responsible
for funding the Salwa Judum, the private militia interalia for land seizures of
the Tribal people and peasantry, holding that the cycle of growing
lawlessness , poverty , violence in Rural India including in Central and
Eastern India is the natural outcome of the State's Neoliberal Economic Agenda
. The report has stated that the government is directly responsible for wrong
land acquisition policies in Rural India and furthering the biggest land grab
ever, including through amendments altering protection laws to allegedly
attract foreign and private investment to further marginalize the poor .
3. The Provisions of the Constitution of India provides protection against the
alienation of tribal land and there are specific statutes preventing the
alienation of tribal land from region to region . It is well known that since
1992 and stepped up in this decade ,there has been a concerted design to
seize the land of tribal and peasant communities , which they have lived in and
cultivated from time immemorial being reported from various parts of India .
An irony of the proposed development agenda proposed is that thousands and
lakhs are being displaced whereas the projects can employ only a few hundreds
or a few thousands as against the large number of families affected throughout
rural India . Where does the balance of equity lie in apportioning or
earmarking land for industrialization ? In any scheme for rational development,
the administration is required to weigh the balance and scale which cannot be
skewed in favour of destruction of livelihood of thousands and lakhs of
families to benefit a few corporates who will provide employment to a few
hundred people or to three -four thousand and the ecological issues involved
with respect to contamination of water resources and poisoning of agricultural
land .
4.The question which GANDHIANS WHO ARE NOT MAOISTS OR COMMUNISTS who have
worked in the affected region for more than 15 years are raising , including
Himanshu Kumar whose Gandhian ashram was raised to the ground by a force of
1000 policemen and anti-landmine vehicles , is :-
" WHO IS THE PROBLEM , THE MAOIST OR THE INDIAN STATE"
This has not been written in any Maoist or Communist paper or journal but in
a journal which believes in NON-VIOLENCE .
In this report , Himanshu Kumar details how the Chhatisgarh government from
1995 systematically and forcibly emptied the tribal villages to shift the
tribal to camps with the help of Salwa Judum. The Chief Minister ,according to
Himanshu Kumar, stated that those tribal who did not leave their villages for
camps were 'Naxalites' . Violence was perpetrated on the tribal people with
the help of the Salwa Judum with a view to clear the villages , the Salwa
Judum were supplied liquor, mutton , chicken , women every day . Himanshu
Kumar writes that the tribal villagers started guarding their villages from the
Salwa Judum when they did so they were called " Naxalites". The Salwa Judum set
fire to homes , killed and raped with impunity . The Gandhian further writes
that Operation Green Hunt which started in September 2009 resulted in the
killings of an entire family and include crimes such as cutting off breasts
of elderly women,stabbing of old men , abduction and rape . Himanshu Kumar's
ashram was burnt down .
5. In the context of your offer to 'abjure violence' , we the citizens of
India , concerned about the genocide of the tribal people and peasantry
aggravated in the period of globalization and privatization , make the
following queries and stipulate some of the preconditions along with people
like Himanshu Kumar who know of conditions in the region .Can State Forces and
violence be used constitutionally, which has the mala fide objective of
seizure of tribal and peasant land and resources of the people in the
interest of Multinational and Indian Companies seeking to seize hundreds of
villages and thousands of acres of land in Central and Eastern India ?Will the
Home Minister give a guarantee to the affected people, that State Forces "
will abjure violence " and will not be used to further corporate and financial
interests as in the past against citizens including the tribal people
protecting their land and livelihood ???
The guarantee which is sought by the tribal people , peasantry and citizens
of India who are consumers of agricultural produce is the following :
" The State will hereinafter itself abjure and prohibit violence
,hitherto perpetrated on behalf of Multinational and Indian Companies for the
seizure of tribal and peasant land and resources ,misusing the police , Para
military , military and other forces even using foreign advisers and private
mercenaries such as Salwa Judum . All villagers turned out from their
villages, will be escorted back and rehabilitated at the expense of the
companies and the state under the overall supervision of the Committee
which was constituted by the Ministry of Rural Development on " State
Agrarian Relations and the Unfinished Task of Land Reforms " , in keeping with
the terms of its report on improvement of agrarian conditions and land reforms
in rural India . All land and water resources illegally seized will be
restored , the houses destroyed reconstructed in the affected villages with
education and health facilities including technical training for Adivasi youth
to equip them to use technology . Future land acquisitions for companies and
industrialization will be limited to the minimum required and negotiated
directly with all affected interests at market rates on payment of all
statutory dues including under the Stamp Act and with the necessary
pre-conditions and protection of livelihood . Criminal cases and prosecution
for offences be initiated against those who attacked villages , killed ,
burnt and raped .Simultaneously with the fulfillment of the aforesaid
conditions the affected people and their representatives agree to abjure
violence . However the tribal people and peasantry shall not be held
responsible for the acts of agent provocateurs set up by any entity or
individual and will be associated with any inquiry into violence of any group
or body . "
I am constrained to voice the views of citizens observing with anguish the
pain of the Indigenous people and peasantry of India , the first people of our
Subcontinent ,who are some of the finest human beings in our country . I am
constrained to do so, as I have observed their life and conditions in the
tribal regions of Maharashtra where my father a civil servant served,
establishing a Multipurpose project for their overall development , neglected
by the administration , after he moved on . To-day even near Mumbai hundreds of
tribal children die every year from malnutrition . This is what we give to them
after seizing their land and resources .
The raison d'etre of democracy is representation of the entire people and their
interests in policy. It is tragic that most mainstream political parties have
ceased to represent the unorganized sections which constitute more than
two-thirds of the population of the country and include the tribal . the
peasantry , the agricultural and unorganized workers and their families . As
you are aware what are being termed as " Naxalites" and " Maoists",
originally a breakaway group of the CPM ,have stepped into this vacuum , as
these unorganized sections have been abandoned by most mainstream parties .
Terrorism and attacks on Police Stations if it is being used as political
strategy by any group , are not political answers, as is clear from the
theories of the outstanding revolutionaries of the 20th Century who supported
efforts at political education for this purpose . The reality is that large
sections of people in Eastern and Central India , in regions where extreme
feudal conditions prevail including in the approach of the administration ,
are themselves living terrorized by private financial interests and officials
. The rule of law is absent from these regions , even as even cities like
Mumbai are now being controlled by mafia, where citizens including young
women can be murdered and bomb blasts planted to divide citizens ,even as
people from other parts of the same Indian Union , the daily wage earners can
be attacked with impunity . This is evidence of a steady erosion of the Indian
State where foreign agencies are summoned to investigate crimes committed on
Indian soil . Never before has this happened since the Republic was established
where the sovereighnty of olice , Investigative and Intelligence agencies are
being steadily destroyed .
In view of the aforesaid , the distress of millions , the disappearance of
the Rule of Law from so many regions , the assassination of those who stand up
for fairplay and justice ,how does India seek to become an emerging power; on
the dead bodies of those for whom their land and forests are the dearest
possessions , for whom ecology and worship of the environment is a religion
??????? Yes a balance can be struck , but not in the face of grave injustice ,
not in the face of civilization being replaced with barbarism and absolute
destruction of human environment which includes vital forests and water
resources the life line of habitat . Three centuries of the Industrial
revolution should have taught us some lessons even as Banks , Financial
Institutions and well known Corporations collapse all over the world and
balance sheets have to be manipulated. Enron destroyed the finances of one
whole province of the Indian Union , namely of Maharashtra, even though Rebecca
Mark did not speak Marathi, nor did the late Chairman of Enron who committed
suicide in the United States ,when it came to be known that Enron was a bubble
company whose accounts had been manipulated by Arthur Anderson, to enable this
Company to raise financial resources and contribute to political funds even as
the elderly in the US saw their electrical bills inflated to the delight of the
Executives of Enron . This is now documented and not fiction .
The world as a whole is at the cross roads , what we destroy cannot be
rebuilt , in particular areas of forests , water and agriculturally prosperous
regions . A balance has to be struck , but what we see is predatory activity
of the powerful international alliance ,not balance . The Indian police ,
Para military or Military can never be at war with their own people as observed
by the Supreme Court ,that would be disaster for the country as a whole and
at some stage they would realize and be filled with remorse . What would
Mahatma Gandhi have done in these circumstances, is what we must ask
ourselves???????
I await your public response to this reply, not to me personally but
to the people of India ,on this dialogue which you have initiated ,even as
tribal and other innocent people on the one hand and our security personnel
on the other are innocent victims of covert policy . There are Judgments of
the Supreme Court of the United States at the turn of the 20th Century ,
including by the famous Judge Brandeis on the danger of Private Corporations
assuming State power ,which they have compared to slavery.A society needs
nurturing, whereas a Corporation is satisfied with profits, it is irrelevant
whether those profits are made even from war or any other way . The Auschwitz
death camp where slave labour was used and then gassed into cinders , was
established by the Chemcial giant Company I.G.Farben as per the report of
an investigator at the Nuremberg Trials, a lawyer , who wrote thereafter a
famous book on these fascist Companies , titled the " Devil's Chemists ".
That is why, we the people of India in the aftermath of the rise of fascism
which was " Corporate Rule ", with our leaders exposed to developments all over
the world including in Europe ( Jawaharlal Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi among
others) the Great Depression( Dr. B.R.Ambedkar was at Colombia University in
the USA during a critical period for the US economy ) , enacted a
Constitution to regulate all entities, to secure that no citizen , no
corporation is above the law.
What we are seeing in the world as of now, with many economies stricken
terminally , is to the contrary .It is time to act, to prevent the present
devastation from spreading to even more people who are being marginalized,
while extending the benefits of science , technology and industrialization,
with a mix and balance of policies safeguarding the interest of working
people from one sector of the economy to the other ,in our country , while
refraining from confiscating the land , resources, deposits of tribal , the
peasantry , workers , employees and middle income groups .
To reiterate it was always propagated and all over the world, that Communists
, Maoists , Socialists confiscate property , but what we are seeing from the
bail out of US banks with public money , the intervention by public companies
on the share markets , the land seizures in India adversely commented on by
official government reports , where no Maoists or Communists were represented
, that trillions all over the workd have been seized from working and middle
income sections and tribal , the peasantry among others , including water
resources which at one time were free, before it was made into a commodity .It
is the largest seizure of financial , land and public resources of people ,
amounting to trillions by Banks and Corporations in world history, extending
from one country to another .
To conclude, I am aware that you alone do not make policy , it is your
government . Your government has in the cabinet, sons of farmers, who even
devastate farmers in collusion with agribusiness and other companies, which has
unleashed one of the most representative movements of protest by civil society
against the introduction of genetically modified crops and terminator seeds,
to devastate our country which has rich and diversified cropping patterns,
where agriculturists preserve and use their own seed . However since you have
initiated a dialogue on violence in Eastern and Central India , though it is
my view that more people have been killed , injured and maimed in the Western
States by fascist forces ,than in the regions your government claims are the
worst affected , I am constrained to address you on the concerns of many .
With greetings ,
Niloufer Bhagwat
----- Original Message -----
----- Original Message -----
From: SUNDARA BABU
To: activism-news-network
Sent: Wednesday, March 03, 2010 7:35 PM
Subject: [ANN:2757] Arundhati Roy, Kabir Suman among others to address a
PressConference against Operation Green Hunt
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Priyanka Borpujari [email protected]
*PRESS INVITATION*
Today the Central and Eastern regions of India are witnessing the largest
police/paramilitary deployment unprecedented in the history of independent
India or even in the days preceding it. All independent sources acknowledge
the deployment of around 250,000 paramilitary/police armed to the teeth in
these regions while the government comes out with a conservative estimate of
around 150,000. This military build up is a calculated assault on the
poorest of the poor of the peoples in these regions—the tribals. The
ostensible intent behind this heavy paramilitary build up—with Indian
military experts providing the technical expertise under the watchful eye of
‘experts’ from US and Israel—is to ‘secure’ the area from the hold of CPI
(Maoist) and then usher in development and civil administration, as time and
again claimed by the Home Minister, P Chidambaram in the media. The real
intent of this war is to facilitate the unbridled loot and plunder of the
rich resources—forest wealth, minerals, water etc—through the MoUs signed
with the domestic corporates and multinationals.
Starting from the month of September till date the mounting information of
growing instances of killings, disappearances and atrocities on the tribals
are slowly trickling out in a situation where none are allowed access to
these areas enforced by the lawless paramilitary and other vigilante gangs
let loose by the government. In the meantime while building up the
concentration of the paramilitary in these areas the home minister suddenly
denied the occurrence of any such thing as ‘Operation Green Hunt’—as it is
commonly called—and simultaneously asserted his government’s readiness for
talks if the Maoists “abjure violence”. The recent offer of the CPI (Maoist)
for a 72-day ceasefire provided the government do observe the same and also
its call for talks has opened up a new dimension.
In this context when the large sections of the media is oblivious or is
prevailed upon by the official propaganda of a war which it is fighting for
development, prosperity and peace it is important to bring the perspective
from the margins of a continuing sordid tale of destruction, destitution,
displacement and death. *Please join the PRESS CONFERENCE to be addressed by
Ms. Arundhati Roy, writer, Kabir Suman, well-known Singer and other civil
rights and people’s movement activists at the FCC on 5 March 2010, Friday,
at 3 pm dot. Kindly send your reporter and camera person.*
*Address of the Venue:*
*The Foreign Correspondents' Club of South Asia*
*AB-19, Mathura Road,*
*New Delhi: 110001*
*Tele: 91-11-23388535, 91-11-23385518*
*Fax: 91-11-23385517*
*Email: [email protected]*
*Website: www.fccsouthasia.net*
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