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Question : Would you please explain the
main changes in the women’s movement in Dandakaranya?
Answer: The women’s movement of Dandakaranya is
nearly two decades old. Throughout these years thousands of women
have become part of the movement either directly or indirectly.
The backward adivasi areas are revolutionized with various kinds
of struggles and with various forms of organizations. Each and every
aspect of the people’s lives is linked with the struggle for the
seizure of state power. The struggling consciousness and political
understanding of the masses is increasing and this in turn has increased
their active role in revolution. The Bastar women’s movement started
a little later than that of the Gadchiroli (Maharashtra) women’s
movement.
The readers are aware of the forms of struggle we had adopted in
the initial stages of the movement. I shall explain the main changes
in the women’s movement.
Women now hold meetings independently. They not only mobilize in
thousands in rallies but also stand in the forefront. They talk
with non-adivasis fearlessly. They oppose police atrocities. They
question the domination of the tribal heads. If the husbands torture
them or if the parents force them into marriage they complain to
the organization and discuss it in their meetings. None of this
was possible in their old life. These are just a few examples of
change in the past few decades of the women’s movement in Dandakaranya.
Earlier, when the women did not have the knowledge of struggle they
suffered silently. Readers of revolutionary literature are familiar
with the women of Dandakaranya through the novel Rago. Now the Ragos
have revolted and become Goldflowers, Nirmalas, the recent Karunas
and many others. As the revolt started the chains started breaking.
By the mid 1980s, the women’s organizations took good form; and
by the mid 1990s they gained more strength.
With the understanding gained in this process the women now know
that men must become part of housework and child rearing. They know
that woman too go for organizational work like the man. If only
one can leave the house, they know that it is necessary to discuss
democratically and decide who has to go. Earlier the women were
not allowed into the places where the harvest was stored. Now this
tradition is not seen. The fight for wearing blouses was a turning
point in the women’s lives. In the areas where the Revolutionary
People’s Committees were formed, the men have been democratized
and they now understand that they have to discuss with their wives
before doing anything that involve both. Readers are aware that
land pattas are issued by the RPCs in the name of both men and women
in the newly occupied lands.
Now no one can impose the age-old traditions on the women. Perhaps
these changes have not as yet occurred in society outside the struggling
areas. Here the picture has changed. Here women have the right to
assert power. They would demand it. Forcible marriages are almost
non-exixtent. Women are part of all kinds of struggle and have even
become leaders. The Bastar adivasi woman, who earlier never participated
in a rally independently, who never led one such, is now enlightened
with the consciousness of organization. Her revolutionary political
consciousness has developed. They are now gheraoing the police station
for the dead bodies of martyrs. They play an active combat role
in ambushes. Due to this increased consciousness of organization,
women are mobilizing into organizational activities, starting from
the village level up to the state level. They are not only questioning
the civil and the police officials, the Bastar women are blowing
the siren of struggle as an indispensable part of the present revolutionary
history in India.
The police are unleashing all kinds of repressive methods to discourage
women from participating in the movement. They are assaulting them
sexually, they are misbehaving with them and are going to the extent
of killing them in fake encounters. Of late in the so-called Salwa
Judum women activists have been gang raped, tortured and then brutally
killed. To contain their assertion tribal heads are especially making
ill propaganda against the activist women. But none of these could
stop the women from participating in the revolution.
Women have been tempered in the difficulties of guerilla life. In
the initial stage of their recruitment, they felt they would work
only in their native areas. But now they are prepared to go wherever
the party assigns them, with revolutionary responsibility. They
are becoming professional revolutionaries. They are fighting heroically
and are attaining leadership positions.
The women even question the discrimination they face in guerilla
life in order to gain their rights. In the past, though they did
not understand what elections meant, a few people voted. Now, they
are in the forefront in implementing the election boycott as a form
of struggle. This indicates the increased political consciousness
in them. We feel this is an important change. We observe that women
actively respond to each and every call of the Party. Women play
a considerable role in the struggles, starting from protest against
imperialism to that for the construction of martyr memorials.
So we are able to sustain the movement in the struggle areas and
are able to realise the establishment of liberated area as the main
objective. The government bureaucracy and their domination/authority
have been destroyed in the main areas of the movement. We are enriching
the Revolutionary People’s Committees (janathana sarkar) that are
the embryonic form of democratic people’s political power as the
real alternative. Men and women have an equal role in this process.
As far as state power is concerned women have an indispensable role
in all the organs of the people’s power, the village level party
and the militia units. There is a major change in lives with the
seizure of state power. Q: What is the role of women in
the RPCs? What kind of responsibilities are they taking up?
A: In traditional Adivasi areas women do not have
any authority and say in public matters. A Woman is a victim of
the chains of tribal customs. She does work in the fields, cuts
wood in the forest, and works day and night. But she does not have
any power. As the Kranthikari Adivasi Mahila Sangam strengthened
and women started leading their struggles, the eyes of the women
in the forests opened. They became part of the people’s war. The
results of this war are seen in the janathana sarkar (Revolutionary
People’s Committee), that are the embryonic form of the New Power.
Women take up various responsibilities in each and every RPC unit.
Some women are even holding the post of president in the janathana
sarkar. In some places they are holding the post of vice-president.
In addition to this the women are working in the various departmental
committees of the RPC. Whatever responsibility they take up they
are making distinct efforts to fulfill their responsibilities. Let
us take the example of the Jungle Bachao Committee. The members
of this committee take care of the forest. They check regularly
to make sure that no one has cut the forests without the permission
of the committee. They also check whether anyone is taking away
timber and other such forest produce. The checking done by the forest
department in other areas and that by the RPC is fundamentally different.
It has a different class perspective. The forest department harasses
and loots the poor while they join with the tribal elites to illegally
cut wood and make fortunes. The RPCs impose restrictions on cutting
considering the environmental damage. It is nothing but an example
of people’s power being asserted in the interests of the people.
Today, we have definitely laid the seeds for a new democratic power.
The red guerilla base areas (in embryonic form) in the country are
the first of its kind. We introduced the form of the present janathana
sarkars taking into account the positive aspects of traditional
Adivasi society (negating the negative) and destroying the ruling
class mechanism and the state structure. Women are in the forefront
of this struggle. Democratic consciousness rises through this struggle.
Look at the situation in the other areas. Here feudalism and imperialism
have crushed democracy under its iron heel. We have to destroy these
two mountains all over the country. We have made the men and women
stand firm in this struggle. They own and assert the new state power
to an extent. In this process we have revolutionized the family.
Husband, wife and children, all are an indispensable part of revolution.
Women are part of the judicial department too. It is unimaginable
in the traditional Adivasi and feudal societies for women to give
judgments. Participation of women in health, education, medicine,
protection and other such departments have helped develop their
organized strength. It helped them overcome an inferiority complex.
We see this assertion in many spheres, due to the assertion of the
New Power. Q: What are the changes in the village culture?
How far were they accepted among the masses? A:
As a part of building the movement, we have revolutionized
people’s thoughts and are making efforts to enhance New Democratic
values. Scientific knowledge is necessary in order to achieve this.
We are working in an extremely backward area. Market, transport
and other modern facilities are comparatively poor. In the last
two decades market relations and transport facilities have increased
in a big way. The influence of feudal and imperialist culture is
increasing in the areas near the roads and the markets. Chathisgarhi,
Bengali, Telugu and Oriya cultures are now influencing Bastar from
four sides. This apart bourgeois culture is also infiltrating. Sangh
parivar and its frontal organizations entered the forest areas in
many forms in the past decade. Missionaries and mandirs started
making their presence felt in all these areas. Rama, Sankara and
Christ are seen. Some have changed their surnames with this propaganda.
In the past few years, the situation revolutionized people’s thoughts
in order to control the culture of the dominant tribes and decide
what is necessary and what is not. The organizations conducted struggles
against expenditures for the village priests and the quacks preaching
blind superstitions. They closed the doors to reason in the name
of domination and traditions. Q. How could you make the
adivasi people celebrate International Women’s Day? A:
As the revolutionary movement strengthened and the people participated
in the movement more and more under the leadership of the Party
the women’s organization and the movement strengthened. In the decade
of the 1990s, the party guided the women so that their role increased
in the movement. As a result people developed the understanding
that if there are no women there would be no revolution. We could
make the people understand that women are half of the revolution.
And we did not achieve this only through propaganda. We turned this
issue of propaganda into struggles in practice. This struggle now
enlightened the women. When non-adivasis came to Bailadilla and
abused the adivasi women, the government took up tear shedding reforms.
It opened centers for them. But the decaying culture only increased.
It did not help the women stand up on their own legs. It did not
give them the necessary scientific knowledge. Now, the path we chose
gave confidence to the women that we can eliminate oppression on
women through struggle. International Women’s Day penetrated in
the hearts of the masses as the day of women in struggle, as a part
of this enlightenment. Repression was unleashed in various forms.
But the people always stood against it. The KAMS alone did not achieve
this success. The PLGA and all the revolutionary mass organizations
jointly opposed them under the leadership of the Party. In this
process the KAMS strengthened. They were participating in the class
struggle and as a part of it we organized and enlightened the women
to oppose the oppression on them. We thus brought forward 8th March
as an important day of the KAMS programme. For the past 15 years
we have been deciding the theme of the 8th March program each year
and conduct seminars, meetings and rallies on that day. Once it
started we saw that it continued unhindered. So, though the repression
increased, the party and the masses had the initiative and upper
hand. We understood the situation and adopted the mass line with
flexibility. As a result of this, 8th March symbolised the form
of women’s struggle. We are aware that revisionists and bourgeois
parties conduct 8th March in the cities and the plain areas. But
we cannot expect these celebrations to mould the women as fighters.
Even in the parliamentary form they do not give them the necessary
consciousness to take up programmes. Moreover these forms do not
break with the domination of patriarchy and do not allow women to
stand on their own legs. We see this in each and every place. Feminists
and the NGOs are bringing forward anarchism, liquidating their mental
preparedness and developing opposition towards males, etc. We have
to mainly develop a political struggle on all these issues. We must
fight against the bad tendencies. We have to fight for the solution
of the problems. Throughout the past decade women in Bastar have
been increasingly participating in struggles. The period between
2003 and 2005 indicates the period of a rising revolutionary movement.
People’s armed resistance increased unprecedentedly and progressed
forward. The wide mass base improved through the active role of
the masses in the struggle. The movement did not gain the upper
hand through sympathy. This applies to the women’s movement too.
A few days before 8th March, scores of batches take up political
propaganda campaigns. Last year (2005) propaganda was conducted
in more than one thousand villages. In South Bastar alone we could
mobilize around 20,000 women. The number of women mobilized in North
Bastar, Maad and West Bastar is no less. On the whole nearly 60
– 70 thousand women came for the meetings. However much the attendance,
the meetings take place secretly. There are police camps and one
or two police stations in a radius of 4 to 10 kilometers. Right
from the beginning meetings would be conducted without any information
going to the police. All the KAMS meetings, initial meetings of
the organizations and conferences are being conducted secretly without
the knowledge of the enemy. The executive committees formed from
the village level to the division level work secretly. Conferences
are conducted at three levels in an assigned form and the executive
committees are functioning. Women’s rights and their participation
in the revolution would be the agenda in all these activities. The
KAMS propagates the slogans to be taken among the masses on the
occasion of 8th March. For example this time it took up the two
issues of government reforms and the revolutionary alternative,
and for developing the role of men and women in the cooperative
teams formed for the development of agriculture. The slogans are
formulated according to the necessities of the war and the main
resolutions of the day. The implementation of these all depends
on the strength of the movement, organizational capacity and the
initiative of the KAMS. Q: What are the problems you are
facing in taking up the war with the enemy forces in the guerilla
war and on the other hand taking up the struggle on patriarchy.
A: In the past it was said muthina maata mulaku (meaning
keep aside the wife’s opinions). Man was dominant in all family
relations. Now wife-beating, beating children, etc. are relatively
less than in other areas. In society a woman is looked down upon
as a part of social oppression. This is the main aspect in the contradiction
between men and women. Initially, that is in the first half of the
1980s, KAMS was not formed. Masses (men and women) participated
in the class struggle together. They started joining the people’s
army and the Party. It is not easy to start a women’s organization
without forming any organization or struggle. Women are part of
the wage struggle for tendu leaves, road labor, harvest, transplantation,
wages in the bamboo fields, etc. But the men opposed forming women’s
organizations. Women too were reluctant or would say the men would
not agree and such other things. The members of the organization
too opposed encouraging the women members of their families to join
the organization. It took two to four years to change these opinions.
This is of course a part of the contradiction between man and the
woman. Earlier men never received the opinions, suggestions and
the activities of women in the leadership in the Party, squad and
mass organizations. Most men would not accept them. There was a
lot of discussion on these issues. There was education. There was
constant struggle and criticism and self-criticism. To an extent
this helped to solve the contradiction. Now women are respected
for whatever responsibility she holds. Her opinions are received
in a serious manner. Coming to power the contradiction between man
and the woman is the main one as earlier on ly male authority existed.
Now we are solving this too. Strengthening the women’s movement,
equality, equal status to women, authority and any such thing cannot
be achieved without struggle. We are gaining these rights only through
struggle. But our first and immediate aim is to intensify war against
the enemy, strengthen the PLGA, build liberated areas and build
the state. The struggles and forms of struggles of the women’s movement
are formulated according to this. The contradiction between man
and woman is a friendly one. We adopt the attitude to solve it in
time and in a proper manner. We brought women to participate in
the revolutionary people’s committees in the village, area, district
or any other level. Women are participating in all these. If they
were not made part of these they would fight. They make the concerned
person realize and give them responsibility. They criticize. We
have to understand one more issue in this. There is an inferiority
complex among women. Though there are changes in struggle, study
and consciousness, there is a lot of patriarchal ideology among
the women. So many of them hesitate to take up responsibilities.
They have to struggle against these thinking so that they could
take up the responsibility. Constant efforts are necessary to overcome
this. The Party is taking up education campaigns to rectify this.
This has to continue and improve. Women’s organization and training
should be made a part of the women’s movement in all the areas across
the country. Let us see how we are linking the war against patriarchy
with the people’s war. The erstwhile People’s War took up a rectification
and education campaign against the evils in the party. Patriarchy
was one of the evils. In view of the importance to this issue we
took up a special campaign. Later the members of the DAKMS and KAMS,
i.e., both the men and women participated in the political propaganda
and education programme. They explained the specific form of patriarchy
in this society. Two thirds of the participants of these meetings
were women and one third were men. We took up the campaign in nearly
400 villages. No women, no revolution. We must eradicate patriarchy,
demand equal rights to men and women, making women part of each
and every work. These were the main slogans of our campaign. Women
are part of all the military formations formed for the protection
of the village from the enemy offensive. Now there is no satirical
comments on women that they are weak or that they cannot work for
revolution. They are part of all kinds of actions starting from
bandhs to ambushes. When the women are not made part of the struggle
in a democratic manner we take up struggle and rectification to
achieve a higher level of unity. In facing the enemy all stand united..
It is said that we cannot gain victory on patriarchy without the
victory of revolution and that we cannot concentrate on this issue
right now. This is not correct. The struggle against patriarchy
increases to the extent to which the class struggle and war rise.
We cannot separate it mechanically. Q : What are the problems
and progress in training women politically and militarily?
A: We have considerable experience in mobilizing
women in large numbers so that they become half of the movement.
Basing on this we took up many programs. Right from the beginning
the Party has the understanding that we have to specially concentrate
to improve the role of women. So we made such efforts in DK too
with specific plans. We now see the results. As a part of organizing
women we formed organizations where they were not in existence.
We reconstructed wherever they were weak. We strengthened the weak
ones. We developed the village, area (range), division and state
units. The organizations are carrying out their activities amidst
enemy repression and are being tempered. Now there are more part-timer
comrades working like professional revolutionaries who are able
to work regularly and guide the respective units. Professional revolutionaries
are taking the responsibility of the mass organizations, PLGA and
other such responsibilities in the Party. In the past decade there
have been a lot of changes. These changes now took a leap and speeded
up the development process. Thus the participation of women too
increased. We conducted special women’s meetings, special military
camps for women, political classes, women’s magazines were brought
out and knowledge was imparted through education schools, MAS and
MOPOS. All this developed the consciousness of women. Women are
increasingly coming into the leadership of the party, military and
mass organizations. Women who were ordinary members have been made
members of Area Committees. A few are on the Special Zonal Committee
too. They are working as section deputies, platoon commanders. They
are holding responsibilities at the village leadership to the state
leadership and in various departments. They are working in the RPCs
as presidents, as staff members in the technical field and such
other work. On the whole, these results were possible due to the
efforts in the past twenty years. The Party made relentless efforts
to develop the consciousness of men and women and planted the seeds
for this leap. The seeds have now flowered. There are yet certain
problems to solve. Mainly women do not have a considerable role
in the theoretical and political fields. They have a positive role
in implementing the policy of the Party and the decisions taken
in the committee meetings. However, we have to develop more role
of women to play in decision making. Women are half of the combat
forces but their fighting capacity and war skills have still to
increase. To become more and more a part in the people’s war and
to understand the problems in building base areas are the problems
faced in the women’s movement. We must allot more time for those
who can read. The leadership committees must plan to send women
to MAS (Mobile Academic School)
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