Volume 6, No. 9, September 2005

- Sujata

Since the last week of June 2005 the print and electronic media has been circulating sensational stories of an adivasi uprising against the CPI (Maoist) party in Dandakaranya. Just as the "embedded journalists" did during the US aggression against Iraq, the journalists of Chathisgarh floated whatever their police bosses fed them as news. There was neither any investigation into the incidents fabricated by the police, nor any verification of the police version and not even any attempt at all to find out the people’s version even in a formal manner.

What is even more repulsive, the media barons deliberately cooked up even more than what the police and the government spokespersons concocted. For instance, in the incident of June 18, when the mob that attended the meeting at Mattwada in Dantewara district attacked the Naxal stronghold village of Kotrapal, the people of the village retaliated in which three of the attackers died. It was not a difficult thing for the media persons to find out the facts. However, they chose to publish big lies in banner headlines that Maoists had killed 12 adivasis when the latter rose in uprising. And this so-called news spread from Raipur to all over the country with each newspaper adding its own masala to the story. With news channels dinning into our ears such lies round-the-clock, one can imagine the impact of the lies repeated several times on the psyche of the people in far-off places. This shows how, in the age of information high-tech, lies can be turned into "news" in the eyes of the people by repeating it ad nauseum.

The various parliamentary parties, police, and other government officials have been appealing to the Maoists to give up the path of violence and to join the "mainstream". The so-called Jan Jagaran Abhiyan is described as a first major blow to the Naxalite or Maoist movement in Dandakaranya where the CPI (Maoist) has had undisputed control for over two decades. The reactionary ruling classes have been continuously dreaming of suppressing the Maoist people’s war but, to their dismay, it has been advancing by leaps in Dandakaranya, particularly since the 2001 Congress of the erstwhile CPI (ML) [PW]. This received a further fillip with the merger of the PW and MCCI in September 2004.

Although the present phase of the so-called Jan Jagaran Abhiyan began in June this year, the reactionary ruling classes of Chathisgarh had tried such campaigns much earlier. Before going into the facts regarding the so-called Jan Jagaran Abhiyan and the present developments in Dandakaranya, one must understand the reasons for the ruling classes to take up such a campaign.

In the region of DK, presently comprising Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra, and Kanker, Bastar and Dantewara districts of Chathisgarh, the local adivasis have been organizing themselves under the leadership of the CPI (Maoist) and waging struggle against exploitation and oppression by the landlords, big contractors, forest officials, police, imperialist and comprador bourgeois companies, and others since the past 25 years. In the course of this struggle, they took up arms against the State and inflicted considerable damage to the class enemies. In some pockets of DK, the rule of the class enemies, including the state’s administrative rule, had been smashed and embryonic forms of people’s power was established in its place. The emergence of the revolutionary organs of people’s political power and the breaking away of a significant part of the region from the clutches of the traditional authority of the tribal elders and the feudal and state authority, has unnerved the reactionary ruling classes who have decided to act unitedlyly to suppress the growing people’s war. It is the advances made by the people’s war that had compelled all the Parliamentary parties in Chathisgarh to come together, notwithstanding the deep-rooted conflicts and contradictions among themselves, to unleash massive brutal attacks against the adivasi people who are waging the war under the leadership of Maoists.

Thus, the main party of the Opposition, the Congress, is supporting every repressive measure of the ruling BJP in the state. The Congress has shown special interest in South Bastar (Dantewara), where it won all the MLA seats, in conducting the anti-Maoist campaign. Several companies of central para-military forces were deployed in the past few months. Mass arrests, tortures, destruction of property of the activists, and other forms of harassment have become common. The campaign is led by the Congress leader of the opposition, Mahendra Karma, and is often accompanied by the BJP minister in charge of Dante-wara, Kedari Kashyap, while address-ing meetings against the Maoists.

This is not the first time that the Congress had taken up such a campaign. Earlier, it had taken up two such Jan Jagaran Abhiyans (JJA)—one in 1990-91 and the second in 1997-98. But both the campaigns had utterly failed thereby creating a lull in their activity for some time. The police had taken up a massive suppression campaign in the past six months in the name of "Operation Area Domination". But the suppression campaign had no impact and it failed miserably in curbing the activity of the Maoists. On the contrary, the Maoists achieved some significant tactical victories and in a period of 2 ½ months from April to mid-June, they had either killed or injured over 100 CRPF personnel in a series of ambushes. It is against this backdrop that the Congress led by Mahendra Karma, stepped forward to take up this campaign. And the BJP government extended complete support to the Congress. The ruling classes, particularly in Chathisgarh, pretty well know that they cannot suppress the ever growing revolutionary movement only through police action. Therefore, they often resort to such evil designs as creating a rift among people, instigating and pitching a section of the people against the revolutionary masses in the name of the so called Jan Jagaran Abhiyans. They take up such campaigns as part of the multi-pronged counter-revolutionary attacks and even intend to project it as a model to curb the Naxalite movement at the national level.

The reactionary elements, in the name of a team of opposition (Congress) party’s MLAs, toured the CPI (Maoist) stronghold areas since 5th June on the pretext of studying the intensifying activities of the Naxals. The team visited Belchar and Vinjaram, the places where a larger number of police personnel died in ambushes conducted by the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA) during April – May. After visiting these places, they had secret parleys with their local henchmen and instigated them. As a sequel, secret meetings were held at the local level at Rani Bodili, Kutru, Thandimedri, Bandepara, Naimed, Mattwada, Jangla and some other places also. Thus, in fact, they prepared the ground for the so called Jan Jagaran.

As a part of this conspiracy, at first, the tribal and Panchayat elders of Thadimendri deceptively invited the local leaders of revolutionary mass organizations for discussions, severely beat them and handed over five of them to the police. Elders of a few other near-by villages also decided to conduct such events and kill the leaders of the revolutionary mass organizations in their areas. Consequently, they held two larger public meetings simultaneously on 18th June, one at Thadimendri and the other at Mattwada, by mobilizing innocent people from the villages of their influence. In fact, their conspiracy was to misguide and lead all of the people who attended the meetings to attack the villages where the revolutionary mass organizations had been stronger. But, due to the past experience the people and the militia quickly understood such evil designs and consequences, became alert, and under the leadership of the PLGA and party, did not allow the Thadimendri public meeting to take place. Moreover, they even punished the ex-sarpanch of Rani Bodili, the leading person.

However, the reactionaries could succeed in holding a public meeting at Mattwada. As intended, they could even send the mob who attended the meeting to attack Kotrapal village as they felt this village had been the nerve centre of the revolutionary movement in the area. As the mob armed with bows and arrows was approaching to attack the village, children of the village noticed it first and quickly informed the leaders of the revolutionary mass organizations and militia who at the moment had been in a meeting in the near-by woods. The leadership and the militia immediately alerted the entire village of the imminent attack by the reactionary goons. The village youth took proper covers and retaliated the reactionaries’ attack with their bows and arrows, and ‘burmars’ (muzzle loading guns). They fought back the attackers with a do or die spirit, thanks to the military training given by the PLGA and the political consciousness imbibed through the Maoist Party. The reactionary goons ran away. Thirty of them were injured by the arrows of the revolutionary youth of the village, Kotrapal. In the melee two fellows died in the stampede. The militia caught hold of 10 attackers. Among those 10 arrested were two fellows, Shuklu and Pandu, who led the attack on the village. This was the actual incident that took place on 18th June. Here, an amusing trick played by the Kotrapal youth during the fight needs to be mentioned. They, in fact, did not fire a single ‘burmar’ as they did not have the gun powder. But what they fired was ordinary fire crackers only! The sound of the fire crackers was enough to make the reactionary goons panicked!

The incident did not end there. As the evil intension of the feudal gentry was to smash the revolutionary village Kotrapal, they came back next day together with 10 policemen and created havoc. They bashed up two women in the village cruelly and burnt the houses of four peasants and food grains of the village co-operative. Thirty quintals of the grain, 12 thousand rupees cash and the houses were reduced to ashes. This was just a sample of the State’s cruelty. This was nothing but perpetuation of repression of the innocent adivasi toilers by the feudal landlord classes with the tacit support of the police in the name of the mass awakening campaign ("Jan Jagaran Abhiyan"). In fact, this was nothing else than a plain and simple counter-revolutionary suppression campaign.

The news about this incident spread to several near-by villages like wild fire. Revolutionary people from all those villages came in thousands in support of the people of Kotrapal and extended their help and cooperation in any manner what they could. These revolutionary masses prosecuted the 10 culprits arrested by the Kotrapal village militia in a people’s court. The people’s court pronounced in the presence of thousands of people, a judgment that Bhuvaneshwar Thakur, one of the main gang leaders of the anti-people suppression campaign, should be punished whereas the other culprits should be released with a stern warning. In this entire episode, only three persons got killed at the hands of the revolutionary masses and militia, and one person was punished as per the judgment of the people’s court.

Yet another incident must be mentioned here. Mahendra Karma and his gang tried to conduct a big public meeting in another hamlet of Kotrapal, of course with huge police bandobust, again on 1st of July. The militia and the PLGA fighters came to know about it promptly from the vigilant people of the area, and could smash the evil designs of the reactionaries. Mahendra Karma quickly fled off the stage of the meeting. Police let loose their vengeance upon the villagers, burnt down seven huts of the poor, fired at an old woman causing a severe bullet injury, and even shot to death point blank two old poor peasants, Vanjam Mangu (58) and Uyike Sannu (52). In spite of such a heinous incident that took place, the media did not write or utter a single word about it! On the contrary, the media, as already mentioned earlier, publicized that Naxalites not only killed 12 adivasis but burnt their houses also! Of course, it is quite understandable. How can anybody expect the media would trumpet critical tunes when both the ruling and opposition parties collude and collaborate?

The Jan Jagaran Abhiyan failed in Dantewara yet again, but for the Gobelian propaganda and the murderous attacks on people by the police–goon combine. The Abhiyan was confined to road-side villages only for the fear of strong resistance in the interior areas. The people herded by the police into the so called relief camps at Kutru, Naimed, Maatwada and Bhairangarh slipped out of the camps at the onset of the rains. They returned to stay in their villages and confessed about their mistakes in front of the revolutionary masses. Thus, the present Abhiyan miserably failed due to the mass resistance in a relatively shorter period than the past two Abhiyans. The people’s enemies once again got thoroughly exposed and defeated. Once again the slogan – "Toilers, unite to defeat all feudal lords and reactionaries, and annihilate their State! Build New People’s Power!!" – is echoing in Dandakaranya.

Now let us look into the allegations leveled against the CPI (Maoist) and distortion of facts by the leaders of the Jan Jagaran. They accuse that the Naxalites obstruct the beedi leaf plucking works thereby making the adivasis forego the source of their livelihood, prohibit the weekly markets – the only source of essential commodities the adivasis depend upon, destroy the adivasi culture by banning the gotuls, and make the people lose their employment opportunities by obstructing the road-laying works. They further accuse that the Naxalites kill innocent people indiscriminately by branding them as police informers. Therefore the Naxalites, they say, are becoming the target of the adivasis’ anger. Let us take up these accusations and distortions one by one briefly to know the reality.

There is no truth at all in the wicked propaganda that the Naxalites banned the beedi leaf plucking works. In this matter, the government never sticks to any policy regarding the rates of wages, awarding the contracts, etc. It implemented a cooperative policy during the decade of the 90s. Later on the works were awarded to private contractors for three years. Now, again the cooperative policy is brought into effect, but only in South Bastar. The sole reason to shift the policy, the government offers, is to cut-off the funds flow from contractors to the Naxalites! What the people have been demanding from either the government or contractors is their justified rate of wages to pluck and collect the beedi leaves. They have been demanding 90 paise per bundle of 100 leaves. Contractors agree to the demand and get the work going. But the government is adamant not to pay a wage rate of more than 45 paise; that too it will not pay the wages on a daily basis; and further makes a false promise that it will pay bonus to the labourers after the leaf is sold out completely at the stock yards. People are ready to work even at such a low wage rate, but only demand justly that the wages be paid daily. Naxalites have been supporting these just demands. But the government doesn’t heed to any of the demands, and moreover blames that the Naxalites are responsible for stopping the work. The Naxalites have stood firmly on the side of the people of DK for the last 25 years, and how could they ban the work that was a bread-earning source for the poor adivasis? It is the government that stopped the beedi leaf plucking and collection works.

Likewise, Naxalites banning the weekly markets is also a blatant lie. In fact, police and CRPF forces, wherever they are camped and operate, forced both the sellers and buyers, on several occasions even harassed and bashed them, to close down the markets. Police banned adivasis carrying bows, arrows and axes that are very essential to the adivasis for their self-protection while trekking through the jungle to come to the weekly markets. In the vast interior villages where the Naxalites’ hold is stronger, weekly markets are held regularly and not even a single market is banned by the Naxalites.

And as for destroying Adivasi culture, it is the Naxalites that are enriching it with a democratic and socialist content, while countering all archaic feudal traditions — like superstitions, human and animal sacrifices, etc. It is, in fact, the Maoists that have sought to develop the gondi language, the mother-tongue of the Adivasis, while the ruling establishment has tried to crush it through imposition of the languages of the respective states.

And as for governmental development projects the Maoists have always demanded hospitals, schools, irrigation, etc for tribal welfare — not roads for police’s quick movements to harass and kill Adivasis.

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