arundhati roy maoist

8/12/2019 Arundhati Roy Maoist

1/31

The terse, typewritten note slipped under my door in a sealed envelope confirmed myappointment with India's Gravest Internal Security Threat. I'd been waiting formonths to hear from them.

I had to be at the Maa Danteshwari mandir in Dantewara, hhattisgarh, at any offour given times on two given days. That was to ta!e care of bad weather,punctures, bloc!ades, transport stri!es and sheer bad luc!. The note said" #$ritershould have camera, ti!a and coconut. Meeter will have cap, %indi &utloo! magaine

and bananas. (assword" )amash!ar Guru*i.#

)amash!ar Guru*i. I wondered whether the Meeter and Greeter would be e+pecting aman. nd whether I should get myself a moustache.

There are many ways to describe Dantewara. It's an o+ymoron. It's a border townsmac! in the heart of India. It's the epicentre of a war. It's an upside down,inside out town.

In Dantewara the police wear plain clothes and the rebels wear uniforms. The *ail-superintendent is in *ail. The prisoners are free /00 of them escaped from the oldtown *ail two years ago1. $omen who have been raped are in police custody. Therapists give speeches in the baaar.

cross the Indravati river, in the area controlled by the Maoists, is the place thepolice call '(a!istan'. There the villages are empty, but the forest is full ofpeople. hildren who ought to be in school run wild. In the lovely forest villages,the concrete school buildings have either been blown up and lie in a heap, orthey're full of policemen. The deadly war that's unfolding in the *ungle is a warthat the government of India is both proud and shy of. &peration Green %unt hasbeen proclaimed as well as denied. (. hidambaram, India's home minister and 2&of the war1 says it does not e+ist, that it's a media creation. nd yet substantialfunds have been allocated to it and tens of thousands of troops are beingmobilised. Though the theatre of war is in the *ungles of entral India, it willhave serious conse3uences for us all.

If ghosts are the lingering spirits of someone, or something that has ceased to

e+ist, then perhaps the )ational Mineral Development orporation's new four-lanehighway crashing through the forest is the opposite of a ghost. (erhaps it is theharbinger of what is still to come.

The antagonists in the forest are disparate and une3ual in almost every way. &n oneside is a massive paramilitary force armed with the money, the firepower, themedia, and the hubris of an emerging superpower. &n the other, ordinary villagersarmed with traditional weapons, bac!ed by a superbly organised, hugely motivatedMaoist guerilla fighting force with an e+traordinary and violent history of armedrebellion. The Maoists and the paramilitary are old adversaries and have foughtolder avatars of each other several times before" Telengana in the 4560s, $est7engal, 7ihar, Sri!a!ulam in ndhra (radesh in the late 80s and 90s, and then againin ndhra (radesh, 7ihar and Maharashtra from the :0s all the way through to the

present. They are familiar with each other's tactics, and have studied each other'scombat manuals closely. 2ach time, it seemed as though the Maoists or theirprevious avatars1 had been not *ust defeated, but literally, physicallye+terminated. 2ach time, they have re-emerged, more organised, more determined andmore influential than ever. Today once again the insurrection has spread throughthe mineral-rich forests of hhattisgarh, ;har!hand, &rissa, and $est 7engal against the 7ritish,against amindars and against moneylenders. The rebellions were cruelly crushed,many thousands !illed, but the people were never con3uered. 2ven afterindependence, tribal people were at the heart of the first uprising that could bedescribed as Maoist, in )a+albari village in $est 7engal where the word )a+alite >

now used interchangeably with #Maoist# > originates1. Since then )a+alite politicshas been ine+tricably entwined with tribal uprisings, which says as much about thetribals as it does about )a+alites.

This legacy of rebellion has left behind a furious people who have beendeliberately isolated and marginalised by the Indian government. The Indianconstitution, the moral underpinning of Indian democracy, was adopted by parliamentin 4560. It was a tragic day for tribal people. The constitution ratified colonialpolicy and made the state custodian of tribal homelands. &vernight, it turned theentire tribal population into s3uatters on their own land. It denied them theirtraditional rights to forest produce. It criminalised a whole way of life. Ine+change for the right to vote, it snatched away their right to livelihood anddignity.

%aving dispossessed them and pushed them into a downward spiral of indigence, in acruel sleight of hand the government began to use their own penury against them.2ach time it needed to displace a large population > for dams, irrigation pro*ects,mines > it tal!ed of #bringing tribals into the mainstream# or of giving them #thefruits of modern development#. &f the tens of millions of internally displacedpeople more than /0 million by big dams alone1 > refugees of India's #progress# >the great ma*ority are tribal people. $hen the government begins to tal! of tribalwelfare, it's time to worry.

The most recent e+pression of concern has come from the home minister, who says hedoes not want tribal people living in #museum cultures#. The well-being of tribalpeople didn't seem to be such a priority during his career as a corporate lawyer,representing the interests of several ma*or mining companies. So it might be an

idea to en3uire into the basis for his new an+iety.

&ver the past five years or so, the governments of hhattisgarh, ;har!hand, &rissaand $est 7engal have signed hundreds of memorandums of understanding > all of themsecret > with corporate houses worth several billion dollars, for steel plants,sponge-iron factories, power plants, aluminum refineries, dams and mines. In orderfor the M&?s to translate into real money, tribal people must be moved.

Therefore, this war.

$hen a country that calls itself a democracy openly declares war within itsborders, what does that war loo! li!e@ Does the resistance stand a chance@ Shouldit@ $ho are the Maoists@ re they *ust violent nihilists foisting an outdated

ideology on tribal people, goading them into a hopeless insurrection@ $hat lessonshave they learned from their past e+perience@ Is armed struggle intrinsicallyundemocratic@ Is the Sandwich Theory > of #ordinary# tribals being caught in thecrossfire between the state and the Maoists > an accurate one@ re #Maoists# and#tribals# two entirely discrete categories, as is being made out@ Do theirinterests converge@ %ave they learned anything from each other@ %ave they changedeach other@

The day before I left, my mother called sounding sleepy. #I've been thin!ing,# shesaid, with a mother's weird instinct. #$hat this country needs is revolution.#


3/31

n article on the internet says that Israel's Mossad is training /0 high-ran!ingIndian police officers in the techni3ues of targeted assassinations, to render theMaoist organisation #headless#. There's tal! in the press about the new hardwarethat has been bought from Israel" laser range finders, thermal imaging e3uipmentand the unmanned drones so popular with the ?S army. (erfect weapons to use againstthe poor.

The drive from Aaipur to Dantewara ta!es about ten hours through areas !nown to be

Maoist-infested. These are not careless words. #InfestBinfestation# impliesdiseaseBpests. Diseases must be cured. (ests must be e+terminated. Maoists must bewiped out. In these creeping, innocuous ways the language of genocide has enteredour vocabulary.

To protect the highway security forces have #secured# a narrow bandwidth of foreston either side. Curther in, it's the ra* of the #Dada log#. The 7rothers. Theomrades.

&n the outs!irts of Aaipur, a massive billboard advertises edanta the company ourhome minister once wor!ed with1 cancer hospital. In &rissa, where it is miningbau+ite, edanta is financing a university. In these creeping ways, miningcorporations enter our imaginations" the gentle giants who really care. It's calledSA" corporate social responsibility. It allows mining companies to be li!e thelegendary actor and former chief minister, )andamuri Tara!a Aama Aao, who li!ed toplay all the parts in Telugu mythologicals > the good guys and the bad guys, all atonce, in the same movie. This SA mas!s the outrageous economics that underpins themining sector in India. Cor e+ample, according to the recent Eo!ayu!ta Aeport for=arnata!a, for every tonne of iron ore mined by a private company the governmentgets a royalty of AsF9 0p1 and the mining company ma!es As6,000. In the bau+iteand aluminum sector the figures are even worse. $e're tal!ing daylight robbery tothe tune of billions of dollars. 2nough to buy elections, governments, *udges,newspapers, T channels, )G&s and aid agencies. $hat's the occasional cancerhospital here or there@

I don't remember seeing edanta's name on the long list of M&?s signed by thehhattisgarh government. 7ut I'm twisted enough to suspect that if there's a cancer

hospital, there must be a flat-topped bau+ite mountain somewhere.

$e pass =an!er, famous for its counter-terrorism and *ungle warfare training schoolrun by 7rigadier 7 = (onwar, Aumpelstilts!in of this war. %e is charged with thetas! of turning corrupt, sloppy policemen straw1 into *ungle commandos gold1.#Cight a guerilla li!e a guerilla#, the motto of the warfare training school, ispainted on the roc!s. The men are taught to run, slither, *ump on and off airbornehelicopters, ride horses for some reason1, eat sna!es and live off the *ungle. Thebrigadier ta!es great pride in training street dogs to fight #terrorists#. 2ighthundred policemen graduate from the school every si+ wee!s. Twenty similar schoolsare being planned all over India. The police force is gradually being turned intoan army. In =ashmir it's the other way around. The army is being turned into abloated, administrative, police force.1 ?pside down. Inside out. 2ither way, the

2nemy is the (eople.

It's late. ;agdalpur is asleep, e+cept for the many hoardings of Aahul Gandhias!ing people to *oin the youth congress. %e's been to 7astar twice in recentmonths but hasn't said anything much about the war. It's probably too messy for the(eoples' (rince to meddle in at this point. %is media managers must have put theirfoot down. The fact that the Salwa ;udum (urification %unt1 > the dreaded,government-sponsored vigilante group responsible for rapes, !illings, burning downvillages and driving hundreds of thousands of people from their homes > is led byMahendra =arma, a congress ME, doesn't get much play in the carefully orchestratedpublicity around Aahul Gandhi.


4/31

I arrived at the Maa Danteshwari mandir well in time for my appointment first day,first show1. I had my camera, my small coconut and a powdery red ti!a on myforehead. I wondered if someone was watching me and having a laugh. $ithin minutesa young boy approached me. %e had a cap and a bac!pac! schoolbag. hipped red nail-polish on his fingernails. )o %indi &utloo!, no bananas. #re you the one who'sgoing in@# he as!ed me. )o )amash!ar Guru*i. I didn't !now what to say. %e too! outa soggy note from his poc!et and handed it to me. It said #&utloo! nahi mila.#

ouldn't find &utloo!1

#nd the bananas@#

#I ate them,# he said. #I got hungry.#

%e really was a security threat.

%is bac!pac! said harlie 7rown > )ot your ordinary bloc!head. %e said his name wasMangtu. I soon learned that Danda!aranya the forest I was about to enter was fullof people who had many names and fluid identities. It was li!e balm to me, thatidea. %ow lovely not to be stuc! with yourself, to become someone else for a while.

$e wal!ed to the bus stand, only a few minutes away from the temple. It was alreadycrowded. Things happened 3uic!ly. There were two men on motorbi!es. There was noconversation > *ust a glance of ac!nowledgment, a shifting of body weight, therevving of engines. I had no idea where we were going. $e passed the house of thesuperintendent of police S(1, which I recognised from my last visit. %e was acandid man, the S(" #See Ma'am, fran!ly spea!ing this problem can't be solved by uspolice or military. The problem with these tribals is they don't understand greed.?nless they become greedy there's no hope for us. I have told my boss" remove theforce and instead put a T in every home. 2verything will be automatically sortedout.#

In no time at all we were riding out of town. )o tail. It was a long ride, threehours by my watch. It ended abruptly in the middle of nowhere, on an empty roadwith forest on either side. Mangtu got off. I did too. The bi!es left, and I pic!ed

up my bac!pac! and followed the small internal security threat into the forest. Itwas a beautiful day. The forest floor was a carpet of gold.

In a while we emerged on the white, sandy ban!s of a broad flat river. It wasobviously monsoon fed, so now it was more or less a sand flat, at the centre astream, an!le deep, easy to wade across. cross was '(a!istan'. #&ut there, ma'am#the candid S( had said to me, #my boys shoot to !ill.# I remembered that as webegan to cross. I saw us in a policeman's rifle-sights > tiny figures in alandscape, easy to pic! off. 7ut Mangtu seemed 3uite unconcerned, and I too! my cuefrom him.

$aiting for us on the other ban!, in a lime green shirt that said %orlic!sH, washandu. slightly older security threat. Maybe F0. %e had a lovely smile, a cycle,

a *erry can with boiled water and many pac!ets of glucose biscuits for me, from the(arty. $e caught our breath and began to wal! again. The cycle, it turned out, wasa red herring. The route was almost entirely un-cycleable. $e climbed steep hillsand clambered down roc!y paths along some pretty precarious ledges. $hen hecouldn't wheel it, handu lifted the cycle and carried it over his head as thoughit weighed nothing. I began to wonder about his bemused village-boy air. Idiscovered much later1 that he could handle every !ind of weapon, #e+cept for anEMG#, he informed me cheerfully.

Three beautiful, soled men with flowers in their turbans wal!ed with us for abouthalf an hour, before our paths diverged. t sunset, their shoulder bags began to


5/31

crow. They had roosters in them, which they had ta!en to mar!et but hadn't managedto sell.

handu seems to be able to see in the dar!. I have to use my torch. The cric!etsstart up and soon there's an orchestra, a dome of sound over us. I long to loo! upat the night s!y, but I dare not. I have to !eep my eyes on the ground. &ne step ata time. oncentrate.

I hear dogs. 7ut I can't tell how far away they are. The terrain flattens out. Isteal a loo! at the s!y. It ma!es me ecstatic. I hope we're going to stop soon.#Soon.# handu says. It turns out to be more than an hour. I see silhouettes ofenormous trees. $e arrive.

The village seems spacious, the houses far away from each other. The house we enteris beautiful. There's a fire, some people sitting around. More people outside, inthe dar!. I can't tell how many. I can *ust about ma!e them out. murmur goesaround" #Eal salaam, !aamraid.# Aed Salute, omrade1 #Eal salaam,# I say. I'mbeyond tired. The lady of the house calls me inside and gives me chic!en currycoo!ed in green beans and some red rice. Cabulous. %er baby is asleep ne+t to me.%er silver an!lets gleam in the firelight.

fter dinner I unip my sleeping bag. It's a strange intrusive sound, the big ip.Someone puts on the radio. 77 %indi service. The hurch of 2ngland has withdrawnits funds from edanta's )iyamgiri pro*ect, citing environmental degradation andrights' violations of the Dongria =ondh tribe. I can hear cowbells, snuffling,shuffling, cattle-farting. ll's well with the world. My eyes close.

$e're up at five. &n the move by si+. In another couple of hours, we cross anotherriver. 2very village we wal! through has a family of tamarind trees watching overit, li!e a clutch of huge, benevolent gods. Sweet, 7astar tamarind. 7y 44am the sunis high, and wal!ing is less fun. $e stop at a village for lunch. handu seems to!now the people in the house. lovely young girl flirts with him. %e loo!s alittle shy, maybe because I'm around. Eunch is raw papaya with masoor dal, and redrice. nd red chilli powder. $e're going to wait for the sun to lose some of itsvehemence before we start wal!ing again. $e ta!e a nap in the gaebo. There is a

spare beauty about the place. 2verything is clean and necessary. )o clutter. blac! hen parades up and down the low mud wall. bamboo grid stabilises therafters of the thatched roof and doubles as a storage rac!. There's a grass broom,two drums, a woven reed bas!et, a bro!en umbrella and a whole stac! of flattened,empty, corrugated cardboard bo+es. Something catches my eye. I need my spectacles.%ere's what's printed on the cardboard" Ideal (ower 50 %igh 2nergy 2mulsion2+plosive lass-F1 SD T .

$e start wal!ing again at about two. In the village we are going to we will meet aDidi Sister, omrade1 who !nows what the ne+t step of the *ourney will be. handudoesn't. There is an economy of information too. )obody is supposed to !noweverything. 7ut when we reach the village, Didi isn't there. There's no news ofher. Cor the first time I see a little cloud of worry settling over handu. big

one settles over me. I don't !now what the systems of communication are, but whatif they've gone wrong@

$e're par!ed outside a deserted school building, a little way out of the village.$hy are all the government village schools built li!e concrete bastions, with steelshutters for windows and sliding folding steel doors@ $hy not li!e the villagehouses, with mud and thatch@ 7ecause they double up as barrac!s and bun!ers. #Inthe villages in bhu*mad,# handu says, #schools are li!e thisJ# %e scratches abuilding plan with a twig in the earth. Three octagons attached to each other li!ea honeycomb. #So they can fire in all directions.# %e draws arrows to illustratehis point, li!e a cric!et graphic > a batsman's wagon wheel. There are no teachers


6/31

in any of the schools, handu says. They've all run away. &r have you chased themaway@ )o, we only chase police. 7ut why should teachers come here, to the *ungle,when they get their salaries sitting at home@ Good point.

%e informs me that this is a #new area#. The (arty has entered only recently.

bout F0 young people arrive, girls and boys. In their teens and early twenties.handu e+plains that this is the village-level militia, the lowest rung of the

Maoists' military hierarchy. I have never seen anyone li!e them before. They aredressed in saris and lungis, some in frayed olive green fatigues. The boys wear*ewelry, headgear. 2very one of them has a mule-loading rifle, what's called abharmaar. Some also have !nives, a+es, a bow and arrow. &ne boy carries a crudemortar fashioned out of a heavy three-foot GI pipe. It's filled with gunpowder andshrapnel and ready to be fired. It ma!es a big noise, but can only be used once.Still, it scares the police, they say, and giggle. $ar doesn't seem to be uppermoston their minds. (erhaps because their area is outside the home range of the Salwa;udum. They have *ust finished a days' wor!, helping to build fencing around somevillage houses to !eep the goats out of the fields. They're full of fun andcuriosity. The girls are confident and easy with the boys. I have a sensor for thissort of thing, and I am impressed. Their *ob, handu says, is to patrol and protecta group of four or five villages and to help in the fields, clean wells or repairhouses > doing whatever's needed.

Still no Didi. $hat to do@ )othing. $ait. %elp out with some chopping and peeling.

fter dinner, without much tal!, everybody falls in line. learly we're moving.2verything moves with usK the rice, vegetables, pots and pans. $e leave the schoolcompound and wal! single file into the forest. In less than half an hour we arrivein a glade where we are going to sleep. There's absolutely no noise. $ithin minuteseveryone has spread their blue plastic sheets, the ubi3uitous #*hilli#, withoutwhich there will be no Aevolution1. handu and Mangtu share one and spread one outfor me. They find me the best place, by the best grey roc!. handu says he has senta message to Didi. If she gets it she will be here first thing in the morning. Ifshe gets it.

It's the most beautiful room I have slept in in a long time. My private suite in athousand-star hotel. I'm surrounded by these strange, beautiful children with theircurious arsenal. They're all Maoists for sure. re they all going to die@ Is the*ungle warfare training school for them@ nd the helicopter gunships, the thermalimaging and the laser range finders@

$hy must they die@ $hat for@ To turn all of this into a mine@ I remember my visitto the opencast iron-ore mines in =eon*har, &rissa. There was forest there once.nd children li!e these. )ow the land is li!e a raw, red wound. Aed dust fills yournostrils and lungs. The water is red, the air is red, the people are red, theirlungs and hair are red. ll day and all night truc!s rumble through their villages,bumper to bumper, thousands and thousands of truc!s, ta!ing ore to (aradip portfrom where it will go to hina. There it will turn into cars and smo!e and sudden

cities that spring up overnight. Into a #growth rate# that leaves economistsbreathless. Into weapons to ma!e war.

2veryone's asleep e+cept for the sentries who ta!e one-and-a-half hour shifts.Cinally I can loo! at the stars. $hen I was a child growing up on the ban!s of theMeenachal river, I used to thin! the sound of cric!ets > which always started up attwilight > was the sound of stars revving up, getting ready to shine. I'm surprisedat how much I love being here. There is nowhere else in the world that I wouldrather be. $ho should I be tonight@ =amraid Aahel, under the stars@ Maybe Didi willcome tomorrow.


7/31

They arrive in the early afternoon. I can see them from a distance. bout 46 ofthem, all in olive green uniforms, running towards us. 2ven from a distance, fromthe way they run, I can tell they are the heavy hitters. The (eople's EiberationGuerilla rmy (EG1. Cor whom the thermal imaging and laser guided rifles. Corwhom the *ungle warfare training school.

They carry serious rifles, I)SS, SEA, two have =9s. The leader of the s3uad isomrade Madhav, who has been with the (arty since he was nine. %e's from $arangal,

ndhra (radesh. %e's upset and e+tremely apologetic. There was a ma*ormiscommunication, he says again and again, which usually never happens. I wassupposed to have arrived at the main camp on the very first night. Someone droppedthe baton in the *ungle-relay. The motorcycle drop was to have been at an entirelydifferent place. #$e made you wait, we made you wal! so much. $e ran all the waywhen the message came that you were here.# I said it was o!ay, that I had comeprepared, to wait and wal! and listen. %e wants to leave immediately, becausepeople in the camp were waiting, and worried.

It's a few hours' wal! to the camp. It's getting dar! when we arrive. There areseveral layers of sentries and concentric circles of patrolling. There must be ahundred comrades lined up in two rows. 2veryone has a weapon. nd a smile. Theybegin to sing" Eal lal salaam, lal lal salaam, aane vaaley saathiyon !o lal lalsalaam. Aed salute to the comrades who have arrived.1 It was sung sweetly, asthough it was a fol! song about a river, or a forest blossom. $ith the song, thegreeting, the handsha!e and the clenched fist. 2veryone greets everyone, murmuringEalslaam, mlalslaa mlalslaamJ

&ther than a large blue *hilli spread out on the floor, about fifteen feet s3uare,there are no signs of a #camp#. This one has a *hilli roof as well. It's my roomfor the night. I was either being rewarded for my days of wal!ing, or beingpampered in advance for what lay ahead. &r both. 2ither way it was the last time inthe entire trip that I was going to have a roof over my head. &ver dinner I meetomrade )armada, in charge of the =ranti!ari divasi Mahila Sangathan =ams1, whohas a price on her headK omrade Saro*a of the (EG who is only as tall as her SEAKomrade Maase which means 7lac! Girl in Gondi1 who has a price on her head tooKomrade Aoopi, the tech wiardK omrade Aa*u, who's in charge of the division I'd

been wal!ing through, and omrade enu or Murali or Sonu or Sushil, whatever youwould li!e to call him1, clearly the senior most of them all. Maybe centralcommittee, maybe even politbureau. I'm not told, I don't as!. 7etween us we spea!Gondi, %albi, Telugu, (un*abi and Malayalam. &nly Maase spea!s 2nglish. So we allcommunicate in %indiH1 omrade Maase is tall and 3uiet and seems to have to swimthrough a layer of pain to enter the conversation. 7ut from the way she hugs me Ican tell she's a reader. nd that she misses having boo!s in the *ungle. She willtell me her story only later. $hen she trusts me with her grief.

7ad news arrives, as it does in this *ungle. runner, with #biscuits#. %andwrittennotes on sheets of paper, folded and stapled into little s3uares. There's a bagfull of them. Ei!e chips. )ews from everywhere. The police have !illed five peoplein &ngnaar village, four from the militia and one ordinary villager" Santhu (ottai

F61, (hoolo adde FF1, =ande (otai FF1, Aamoli adde F01, Dalsai =oram FF1.They could have been the children in my star-spangled dormitory of last night.

Then good news arrives. small contingent of people with a plump young man. %e'sin fatigues too, but they loo! brand new. 2verybody admires them and comments onthe fit. %e loo!s shy and pleased. %e's a doctor who has come to live and wor! withthe comrades in the forest. The last time a doctor visited Danda!aranya was manyyears ago.

&n the radio there's news about the home minister's meeting with chief ministers ofstates affected by #leftwing e+tremism# to discuss the war. The chief ministers of


8/31

;har!hand and 7ihar are being demure and have not attended. 2verybody sittingaround the radio laughs. round the time of elections, they say, right through thecampaign, and then maybe a month or two after the government is formed, mainstreampoliticians all say things li!e #)a+als are our children#. Lou can set your watchto the schedule of when they will change their minds, and grow fangs.

I am introduced to omrade =amla. I am told that I must on no account go even fivefeet away from my *hilli without wa!ing her. 7ecause everybody gets disoriented in

the dar! and could get seriously lost. I don't wa!e her. I sleep li!e a log.1 Inthe morning =amla presents me with a yellow polythene pac!et with one cornersnipped off. &nce it used to contain bis Gold Aefined Soya &il. )ow it was my EooMug. )othing's wasted on the Aoad to the Aevolution.

2ven now I thin! of omrade =amla all the time, every day. She's 49. She wears ahomemade pistol on her hip. nd boy, what a smile. 7ut if the police come acrossher, they will !ill her. They might rape her first. )o 3uestions will be as!ed.7ecause she's an Internal Security Threat.1

fter brea!fast omrade enu Sushil, Sonu, Murali1 is waiting for me, sittingcross-legged on the *hilli, loo!ing for all the world li!e a frail, villageschoolteacher. I'm going to get a history lesson. &r, more accurately a lecture onthe history of the last /0 years in the Danda!aranya forest, which has culminatedin the war that's swirling through it today. Cor sure, it's a partisan's version.7ut then, what history isn't@ In any case, the secret history must be made publicif it is to be contested, argued with, instead of merely being lied about, which iswhat is happening now.

omrade enu has a calm reassuring, manner and a gentle voice that will, in thedays to come, surface in a conte+t that will completely unnerve me. This morning hetal!s for several hours, almost continuously. %e's li!e a little store manager whohas a giant bunch of !eys with which to open up a mae of loc!ers full of stories,songs and insights.

omrade enu was in one of the seven armed s3uads who crossed the Godavari fromndhra (radesh and entered the Danda!aranya Corest D=, in (artyspea!1 in ;une

45:0, /0 years ago. %e's is one of the original forty-niners. They belonged to(eoples $ar Group ($G1, a faction of the ommunist party of India Mar+ist-Eeninist1 (I ME1, the original )a+alites. ($G was formally announced as separate,independent party in pril that year, under =ondapalli Seetharamiah. ($G haddecided to build a standing army, for which it would need a base. D= was to be thatbase, and those first s3uads were sent in to reconnoiter the area and begin theprocess of building guerilla ones. The debate about whether communist partiesought to have a standing army, and whether or not a #people's army# is acontradiction in terms, is an old one. ($Gs decision to build an army came from itse+perience in ndhra (radesh, where its #Eand to the Tiller# campaign led to adirect clash with the landlords, and resulted in the !ind of police repression thatthe (arty found impossible to withstand without a trained fighting force of itsown.

7y F00 ($G had merged with the other (I ME1 factions, (arty ?nity (?1 and theMaoist ommunist entre M1 > which functions for the most part out of 7ihar and;har!hand. To become what it is now, the ommunist (arty of India Maoist11.

Danda!aranya is part of what the 7ritish, in their $hite Man's way, calledGondwana, land of the Gonds. Today the state boundaries of Madhya (radesh,hhattisgarh, &rissa, ndhra (radesh and Maharashtra slice through the forest.7rea!ing up a troublesome people into separate administrative units is an oldtric!. 7ut these Maoists and Maoist Gonds don't pay much attention to things li!estate boundaries. They have different maps in their heads, and li!e other creatures


9/31

of the forest they have their own paths. Cor them, roads are not meant for wal!ingon. They're meant only to be crossed, or as is increasingly becoming the case,ambushed. Though the Gonds divided between the =oya and Dorla tribes1 are by farthe biggest ma*ority, there are small settlements of other tribal communities too.The non-adivasi communities, traders and settlers, live on the edges of the forest,near the roads and mar!ets.

The ($G were not the first evangelicals to arrive in Danda!aranya. 7aba mte, the

well-!nown Gandhian had opened his ashram and leprosy hospital in $arora in 4596.The Aama!rishna mission had begun opening village schools in the remote forests ofbhu*mad. In )orth 7astar, 7aba 7ihari Das had started an aggressive drive to#bring tribals bac! into the %indu fold#, which involved a campaign to denigratetribal culture, induce self-hatred, and introduce %induism's great gift > caste.The first converts, the village chiefs and big landlords > people li!e Mahendra=arma, founder of the Salwa ;udum > were conferred the status of Dwi*, twice born,7rahmins. &f course this was a bit of a scam, because nobody can become a 7rahmin.If they could, we'd be a nation of 7rahmins by now.1 7ut this counterfeit %induismis considered good enough for tribal people, *ust li!e the counterfeit brands ofeverything else > biscuits, soap, matches, oil > that are sold in village mar!ets.s part of the %indutva drive the names of villages were changed in land records,as a result of which most have two names now, peoples' names and government names.Innar village for e+ample, became hinnari. &n voters' lists, tribal names werechanged to %indu names. Massa =arma became Mahendra =arma.1 Those who did not comeforward to *oin the %indu fold were declared =atwas by which they meant?ntouchables1 who later became the natural constituency for the Maoists.

The ($G first began wor! in South 7astar and Gadchiroli. omrade enu describesthose first months in some detail" how the villagers were suspicious of them, andwouldn't let them into their homes. )o one would offer them food or water. Thepolice spread rumours that they were thieves. The women hid their *ewellery in theashes of their wood stoves. There was an enormous amount of repression. In )ovember45:0, in Gadchiroli the police opened fire at a village meeting and !illed anentire s3uad. That was D=s first #encounter# !illing. It was a traumatic setbac!,and the comrades retreated across the Godavari and returned to dilabad.

7ut in 45:4 they returned. They began to organise tribal people to demand a rise inthe price they were being paid for Tendu leaves which are used to ma!e beedis1. tthe time, traders paid / paisa for a bundle of about 60 leaves. It was a formidable*ob to organise people entirely unfamiliar with this !ind of politics, to lead themon stri!e. 2ventually the stri!e was successful and the price was doubled, to 8paisa a bundle. 7ut the real success for the (arty was to have been able todemonstrate the value of unity and a new way of conducting a political negotiation.Today, after several stri!es and agitations, the price of a bundle of Tendu leavesis As4. It seems a little improbable at these rates, but the turnover of the Tendubusiness runs into hundreds of crores of rupees.1 2very season the governmentfloats tenders and gives contractors permission to e+tract a fi+ed volume of Tenduleaves > usually between 4,600 and 6,000 standard bags !nown as mana! boras. 2achmana! bora contains about 4,000 bundles. &f course there's no way of ensuring that

the contractors don't e+tract more than they're meant to.1 7y the time the Tenduenters the mar!et it is sold in !ilos. The slippery arithmetic and the sly systemof measurement that converts bundles into mana! boras into !ilos is controlled bythe contractors, and leaves plenty of room for manipulation of the worst !ind. Themost conservative estimate puts their profit per standard bag at about As4,400.That's after paying the (arty a commission of As4F0 per bag.1 2ven by that gauge,a small contractor 4,600 bags1 ma!es about As48 la!h a la!h is 400,000 units1 aseason and a big one 6,000 bags1 up to As66 la!h. more realistic estimate wouldbe several times this amount. Meanwhile the Gravest Internal Security Threat ma!es*ust enough to stay alive until the ne+t season.


10/31

$e're interrupted by some laughter and the sight of )ilesh, one of the young (EGcomrades, wal!ing rapidly towards the coo!ing area, slapping himself. $hen he comescloser I see that he's carrying a leafy nest of angry red ants that have crawledall over him and are biting him on his arms and nec!. )ilesh is laughing too. #%aveyou ever eaten ant chutney@# omrade enu as!s me. I !now red ants well, from mychildhood in =erala. I've been bitten by them, but I've never eaten them. Thechutney turns out to be nice. Sour. Eots of formic acid.1

)ilesh is from 7i*apur, which is at the heart of Salwa ;udum operations. )ilesh'syounger brother *oined the ;udum on one of its looting and burning sprees and wasmade a Special (olice &fficer S(&1. %e lives in the 7asaguda camp with his mother.%is father refused to go and stayed behind in the village. In effect, it's a familyblood feud. Eater on when I had an opportunity to tal! to him I as!ed )ilesh whyhis brother had done that. #%e was very young,# )ilesh said, #%e got an opportunityto run wild and hurt people and burn houses. %e went cray, did terrible things.)ow he is stuc!. %e can never come bac! to the village. %e will not be forgiven. %e!nows that.#

$e return to the history lesson. The (arty's ne+t big struggle, omrade enu says,was against the 7allarpur paper mills. The government had given the Thapars a 6-year contract to e+tract 4.6 la!h tonnes of bamboo at a hugely subsidised rate.Small beer compared to bau+ite, but still1. The tribals were paid 40 paisa for abundle which contained F0 culms of bamboo. I won't yield to the vulgar temptationof comparing that with the profits the Thapars were ma!ing.1 long agitation, astri!e, followed by negotiations with officials of the paper mill in the presenceof the people, tripled the price to /0 paisa per bundle. Cor the tribal peoplethese were huge achievements. &ther political parties had made promises, but showedno signs of !eeping them. (eople began to approach the ($G as!ing whether theycould *oin up.

7ut the politics of Tendu, bamboo and other forest produce was seasonal. Theperennial problem, the real bane of peoples' lives, was the biggest landlord ofall, the Corest Department. 2very morning forest officials, even the most *unior ofthem, would appear in villages li!e a bad dream, preventing people from ploughingtheir fields, collecting firewood, pluc!ing leaves, pic!ing fruit, graing their

cattle, from living. They brought elephants to overrun fields and scattered baboolseeds to destroy the soil as they passed by. (eople would be beaten, arrested,humiliated, their crops destroyed. &f course, from the Corest Department's point ofview, these were illegal people engaged in unconstitutional activity, and thedepartment was only implementing the rule of law. Their se+ual e+ploitation ofwomen was *ust an added per! in a hardship posting1

2mboldened by the peoples' participation in these struggles, the (arty decided toconfront the Corest Department. It encouraged people to ta!e over forest land andcultivate it. The department retaliated by burning new villages that came up inforest areas. In 45:8 it announced a national par! in 7i*apur, which meant theeviction of 80 villages. More than half of them had already been moved out andconstruction of national par! infrastructure had begun when the (arty moved in. It

demolished the construction and stopped the eviction of the remaining villages. Itprevented the Corest Department from entering the area. &n a few occasions,officials were captured, tied to trees and beaten by villagers. It was catharticrevenge for generations of e+ploitation. 2ventually the Corest Department fled.7etween 45:8 and F000, the (arty redistributed /00,000 acres of forestland. Today,omrade enu says, there are no landless peasants in Danda!aranya.

Cor today's generation of young people, the Corest Department is a distant memory,the stuff of stories mothers tell their children, about a mythological past ofbondage and humiliation. Cor the older generation, freedom from the departmentmeant genuine freedom. They could touch it, taste it. It meant far more than


11/31

India's independence ever did. They began to rally to the (arty that had struggledwith them.

The seven-s3uad team had come a long way. It's influence now ranged across a 80,000s3 !m stretch of forest, thousands of villages and millions of people.

7ut the departure of the Corest Department heralded the arrival of the police. Thatset off a cycle of bloodshed. Ca!e #encounters# by the police, ambushes by the ($G.

$ith the redistribution of land came other responsibilities" irrigation,agricultural productivity, and the problem of an e+panding population arbitrarilyclearing forestland. decision was ta!en to separate #mass wor!# and #militarywor!#.

Today, Danda!aranya is administered by an elaborate structure of ;antana Sar!arspeople's governments1. The organising principles came from the hinese revolutionand the ietnam war. 2ach ;antana Sar!ar is elected by a cluster of villages whosecombined population can range from 600 to 6,000. It has nine departments" =rishiagriculture1, yapar-?dyog trade and industry1 rthi! economic1, )yay *ustice1,Aa!sha defense1, %ospital health1, ;an Sampar! public relations1, School-AitiAiva* education and culture1, and ;ungle. group of ;anatana Sar!ars, come underan rea ommittee. Three area committees ma!e up a division. There are tendivisions in Danda!aranya.

#$e have a Save the ;ungle department now.# omrade enu says, #you must have readthe government report that says forest has increased in )a+al areas@#

Ironically, omrade enu says, the first people to benefit from the (arty'scampaign against the Corest Department were the Mu!hiyas village chiefs1 > theDwi* brigade. They used their manpower and their resources to grab as much land asthey could, while the going was good. 7ut then people began to approach the (artywith their #internal contradictions,# as omrade enu puts it 3uaintly. The (artybegan to turn its attention to issues of e3uity, class and in*ustice within tribalsociety. The big landlords sensed trouble on the horion. s the (arty's influencee+panded, their's had begun to wane. Increasingly people were ta!ing their problemsto the (arty instead of to the Mu!hiyas. &ld forms of e+ploitation began to be

challenged. &n the day of the first rain, people were traditionally supposed totill the Mu!hiyas land instead of their own. That stopped. They no longer offeredthem the first days pic!ing of mahua or other forest produce. &bviously, somethingneeded to be done.

2nter Mahendra =arma, one of the biggest landlords in the region and at the time amember of the ommunist (arty of India (I1. In 4550 he rallied a group ofMu!hiyas and landlords and started a campaign called the ;an ;agran bhiyan (ublicwa!ening ampaign1. Their way of #awa!ening# the #public# was to form a huntingparty of about /00 men to comb the forest, !illing people, burning houses andmolesting women. The then Madhya (radesh government provided police bac! up. In Maharashtra, something similar, calledDemocratic Cront began its assault. (eoples' $ar responded to all of this in true

(eoples' $ar style, by !illing a few of the most notorious landlords. In a fewmonths the ;an ;agran bhiyan, the 'white terror'


12/31

because actually the opposite was true. The ongress Government in ndhra (radeshhad *ust out-maneuvered the Maoists, decimated them. They had lost about 4800 oftheir cadre and were in complete disarray.1 The (Ms statement sent the share-valueof mining companies soaring. It also sent a signal to the media that the Maoistswere fair game for anyone who chose to go after them. In ;une F006, Mahendra =armacalled a secret meeting of Mu!hiyas in =utroo village and announced the Salwa ;udumthe (urification %unt1. lovely mlange of tribal earthiness and Dwi*B)aisentiment.

?nli!e the ;an ;agran bhiyan, the Salwa ;udum was a ground-clearing operation,meant to move people out of their villages into roadside camps, where they could bepoliced and controlled. In military terms, it's called Strategic %amleting. It wasdevised by General Sir %arold 7riggs in 4560 when the 7ritish were at war againstthe communists in Malaya. The 7riggs (lan became very popular with the Indian rmy,which has used it in )agaland, Mioram and in Telengana. The 7;( hief Minister ofhhattisgarh, Aaman Singh announced that as far as his government was concerned,villagers who did not move into camps, would be considered Maoists. So in 7astar,for an ordinary villager, *ust staying at home, living an ordinary life, became thee3uivalent of indulging in dangerous terrorist activity.

long with a steel mug of blac! tea, as a special treat, someone hands me a pair ofearphones and switches on a little M(/ player. It's a scratchy recording of Mr D SManhar, the then S( 7i*apur, briefing a *unior officer over the wireless about therewards and incentives the State and entral Governments are offering to '*agrit'awa!ened1 villages, and to people who agree to move into camps. %e then givesclear instructions that villages that refuse to 'surrender' should be burnt and*ournalists who want to cover )a+alites should be shot on sight. I'd read aboutthis in the papers long ago. $hen the story bro!e, as punishment


13/31

abandoning people whose trust they had earned, and with whom they had lived andwor!ed for twenty-five years. They struc! bac! in a series of attac!s on the heartof the security grid.

&n F8th ;anuary F008 the (EG attac!ed the Gangalaur police camp and !illed sevenpeople . &n 49 ;uly F008 the Salwa ;udum camp at 2rabor was attac!ed, F0 peoplewere !illed and 460 in*ured. Lou might have read about it" #Maoists attac!ed therelief camp set up by the state government to provide shelter to the villagers who

had fled from their villages because of terror unleashed by the )a+alites.#1 &n 4/Dec F008 they attac!ed the 7asaguda 'relief' camp and !illed / S(&s and aconstable. &n 46 March F009 came the most audacious of them all. &ne hundred andtwenty (EG guerillas, attac!ed the Aani 7odili =anya shram, a girls hostel thathad been converted into a barrac! for :0 hhattisgarh (olice and S(&s1 while thegirls still lived in it as human shields. The (EG entered the compound, cordonedoff the anne+e in which the girls lived, and attac!ed the barrac!s. 66 policemenand S(&s were !illed. )one of the girls was hurt. The candid S( of Dantewara hadshown me his (ower (oint presentation with horrifying photographs of the burned,disemboweled bodies of the policemen amidst the ruins of the blown up schoolbuilding. They were so macabre, it was impossible not to loo! away. %e loo!edpleased at my reaction.1

The attac! on Aani 7odili caused an uproar in the country. %uman Aightsorganiations condemned the Maoists not *ust for their violence, but also for beinganti-education and attac!ing schools. 7ut in Danda!aranya the Aani 7odili attac!became a legend" songs and poems and plays were written about it.

The Maoist counter-offensive did brea! the carpet security and gave peoplebreathing space. The police and the Salwa ;udum retreated into their camps, fromwhich they now emerge


14/31

draft report on State grarian Aelations and the ?nfinished Tas! of Eand Aeformolume 41 said that Tata Steel and 2ssar Steel were the first financiers of theSalwa ;udum. 7ecause it was a Government Aeport, it created a flurry when it wasreported in the press. That fact has subse3uently been dropped from the finalreport. $as it a genuine error, or did someone receive a gentle, integrated steeltap on the shoulder@1

&n 4F &ctober F005 the mandatory public hearing for Tata's steel plant, meant to beheld in Eohandiguda where local people could come, actually too! place in a smallhall inside the ollectorate in ;agdalpur, many miles away, cordoned off withmassive security. hired audience of 60 tribals was brought in a guarded convoy ofgovernment *eeps. fter the meeting the District ollector congratulated 'thepeople of Eohandiguda' for their co-operation. The local newspapers reported thelie, even though they !new better. The advertisements rolled in.1 Despitevillagers' ob*ections, land ac3uisition for the pro*ect has begun.

The Maoists are not the only ones who see! to depose the Indian State. It's alreadybeen deposed several times, by %indu fundamentalism and economic totalitarianism.

Eohandiguda, a five-hour drive from Dantewara, never used to be a )a+alite area.7ut it is now. omrade ;oori who sat ne+t to me while I ate the ant chutney wor!sin the area. She said they decided to move in after graffiti had begun to appear onthe walls of village houses, saying )a+ali o, %amein 7achao )a+als come and saveusH1 few months ago imal Meshram, (resident of the village panchayat was shotdead in the mar!et. #%e was Tata's Man,# ;oori says, #%e was forcing people to giveup their land and accept compensation. It's good that he's been finished. $e lost acomrade too. They shot him. D'you want more chapoli@# She's only twenty. #$e won'tlet the Tata come there. (eople don't want them.# ;oori is not (EG. She's in thehetna )atya Manch )M1, the cultural wing of the (arty. She sings. She writessongs. She's from bhu*mad. She's married to omrade Madhav. She fell in love withhis singing when he visited her village with a )M troupe.1

I feel I ought to say something at this point. bout the futility of violence,about the unacceptability of summary e+ecutions. 7ut what should I suggest they do@

Go to court@ Do a dharna in ;antar Mantar, )ew Delhi@ rally@ relay hungerstri!e@ It sounds ridiculous. The promoters of the )ew 2conomic (olicy


15/31

comrades fall in line. Cive rows. omrade Aa*u is the Director of &ps. There's aroll call. I'm in the line too, shouting out my number when omrade =amla who is infront of me, prompts me. $e count to twenty and then start from one, becausethat's as far as most Gonds count. Twenty is enough for them. Maybe it should beenough for us too.1 handu is in fatigues now, and carries a sten gun. In a lowvoice omrade Aa*u is briefing the group. It's all in Gondi, I don't understand athing, but I !eep hearing the word A. Eater Aa*u tells me it stands forAendevousH It's a Gondi word now. #$e ma!e A points so that in case we come under

fire and people have to scatter, they !now where to regroup.# %e cannot possibly!now the !ind of panic this induces in me. )ot because I'm scared of being firedon, but because I'm scared of being lost. I'm a directional dysle+ic, capable ofgetting lost between my bedroom and my bathroom. $hat will I do in 80,000 s3uare!ilometers of forest@ ome hell or high water, I'm going to be holding on toomrade Aa*u's pallu.

7efore we start wal!ing, omrade enu comes up to me #&!aythen omrade. I'll ta!eyour leave.# I'm ta!en abac!. %e loo!s li!e a little mos3uito in a woolen cap andchappals, surrounded by his guards, three women, three men. %eavily armed. #$e arevery grateful to you comrade, for coming all the way here.# he says. &nce again thehandsha!e, the clenched fist. #Eal Salaam omrade.# %e disappears into the forest,the =eeper of the =eys. nd in a moment, it's as though he was never here. I'm alittle bereft. 7ut I have hours of recordings to listen to. nd as the days turninto wee!s, I will meet many people who paint color and detail into the grid hedrew for me. $e begin to wal! in the opposite direction. omrade Aa*u, smelling ofiode+ from a mile off, says with a happy smile, #My !nees are gone. I can only wal!if I have had a fistful of pain-!illers.#

omrade Aa*u spea!s perfect %indi and has a deadpan way of telling the funnieststories. %e wor!ed as an advocate in Aaipur for eighteen years. 7oth he and hiswife, Malti, were (arty members and part of its city networ!. t the end of F009,one of the !ey people in the Aaipur networ! was arrested, tortured and eventuallyturned informer. %e was driven around Aaipur in a closed police vehicle and made topoint out his former colleagues. omrade Malti was one of them. &n FF ;anuary F00:she was arrested along with several others. The main charge against her is that shemailed Ds containing video evidence of Salwa ;udum atrocities to several Members

of (arliament. %er case rarely comes up for hearing because the police !now theircase is flimsy. 7ut the new hhattisgarh Special (ublic Security ct S(S1 allowsthe police to hold her without bail for several years. #)ow the Government hasdeployed several battalions of hhattisgarh police to protect the poor Members of(arliament from their own mail.# omrade Aa*u says. %e didn't get caught because hewas in Danda!aranya at the time, attending a meeting. %e's been here ever since.%is two school-going children who were left alone at home, were interrogatede+tensively by the police. Cinally their home was pac!ed up and they went to livewith an uncle. omrade Aa*u received news of them for the first time only a fewwee!s ago. $hat gives him this strength, this ability to hold on to his acidhumour@ $hat !eeps them all going, despite all they have endured@ Their faith andhope


16/31

vehicles should be buried and not cremated. So they can be resurrected whenneeded.1 Should I write a play I wonder


17/31

t our new campsite we have to fall-in again. nother roll call. nd theninstructions about sentry positions and 'firing arcs'


18/31

breasted after they were married.

;umper polo intor Dada, Da!oniley Taane tasom intor Dada, Da!oniley 7ata papam !ittom Dada, Da!oniley Duniya !adile maata Dada, Da!oniley They say we cannot !eep our blouses, dada, Da!oniley They ma!e us ta!e them off, Dada,

In what way have we sinned, Dada, The world has changed has it not Dada, atum hatte!e Dada, Da!oniley ada nanga dantom Dada, Da!oniley Id pisval manni Dada, Da!oniley Mava !oyatur!u vehat Dada, Da!oniley 7ut when we go to mar!et Dada, $e have to go half-na!ed Dada, $e don't want this life Dada, Tell our ancestors this Dada,

This was the first women's issue the (arty decided to campaign against. It had tobe handled delicately, with surgical tools. In 45:8 it set up the divasi MahilaSanghathana MS1 which evolved into the =ranti!ari divasi Mahila Sangathan =MS1and now has 50,000 enrolled members. It could well be the largest women'sorganiation in the country. They're all Maoists by the way, all 50,000 of them.re they going to be 'wiped out'@ nd what about the 40,000 members of )M@ Themtoo@1 The =MS campaigns against the adivasi traditions of forced marriage andabduction. gainst the custom of ma!ing menstruating women live outside the villagein a hut in the forest. gainst bigamy and domestic violence. It hasn't won all itsbattles, but then which feminists have@ Cor instance, in Danda!aranya even today,women are not allowed to sow seeds. In (arty meetings men agree that this is unfairand ought to be done away with. 7ut in practice, they simply don't allow it. So the(arty decided that women would sow seeds on common lands, which belongs to the;antana Sar!ar. &n that land they sow seed, grow vegetables, and build chec! dams. half-victory, not a whole one.

s police repression has grown in 7astar, the women of =MS have become aformidable force and rally in their hundreds, sometimes thousands to physicallyconfront the police. The very fact that the =MS e+ists has radically changedtraditional attitudes and eased many of the traditional forms of discriminationagainst women. Cor many young women, *oining the (arty, in particular the (EG,became a way of escaping the suffocation of their own society. omrade Sushila, asenior office bearer of =MS tal!s about the Salwa ;udum's rage against =MS women.She says one of their slogans was %um Do 7ibi layengeH EayengeH $e will have twowivesH $e willH1 lot of the rape and bestial se+ual mutilation was directed atmembers of the =MS. Many young women who witnessed the savagery then *oined the(EG and now women ma!e up 6O of its cadre. omrade )armada sends for some of themand they *oin us in a while.

omrade Ain!i has very short hair. 7ob-cut as they say in Gondi. It's brave ofher, because here, 'bob-cut' means 'Maoist.' Cor the police that's more than enoughevidence to warrant summary e+ecution. omrade Ain!i's village, =orma was attac!edby the )aga 7attalion and the Salwa ;udum in F006. t that time Ain!i was part ofthe village militia. So were her friends Eu!!i and Su!!i, who were also members ofthe =MS. fter burning the village, the )aga battalion caught Eu!!i and Su!!i andone other girl, gang raped and !illed them. #They raped them on the grass#, Ain!isays, # but after it was over there was no grass left.# It's been years now, the)aga 7attalion has gone, but the police still come. #They come whenever they needwomen, or chic!ens.#


19/31

*itha has a bob-cut too. The ;udum came to =orseel, her village and !illed threepeople by drowning them in a nallah. *itha was with the Militia, and followed the;udum at a distance to a place close to the village called (aral )ar Toda!. Shewatched them rape si+ women and shoot a man in his throat.

omrade Ea+mi who is a gorgeous girl with a long plait, tells me she watched the;udum burn thirty houses in her village ;o*or. #$e had no weapons then,# she says,#we could do nothing, but watch.# She *oined the (EG soon after. Ea+mi was one of

the 460 guerillas who wal!ed through the *ungle for three and a half months inF00:, to )ayagarh in &rissa, to raid a police armoury from where they captured4,F00 rifles and F00,000 rounds of ammunition.

omrade Sumitra *oined the (EG in F00, before the Salwa ;udum began its rampage.She *oined she says, because she wanted to escape from home. #$omen are controlledin every way,# she told me. #In our village girls were not allowed to climb trees,if they did, they would have to pay a fine of As 600 or a hen. If a man hits awoman and she hits him bac! she has to give the village a goat. Men go off to thehills for months together to hunt. $omen are not allowed to go near the !ill, thebest part of the meat goes to men. $omen are not allowed to eat eggs.# Good reasonto *oin a guerilla army@

Sumitra tells the story of two of her friends, Telam (arvati and =amla who wor!edwith =MS. Telam (arvati was from (ole!aya village in South 7astar. Ei!e everyoneelse from there, she too watched the Salwa ;udum burn her village. She then *oinedthe (EG and went to wor! in the =esh!al ghats. In F005 she and =amla had *ustfinished organiing the March :th $omen's day celebrations in the area. They weretogether in a little hut *ust outside a village called adgo. The police surroundedthe hut at night and began to fire. =amla fired bac!, but she was !illed. (arvatiescaped, but was found and !illed the ne+t day.

That's what happened last year on $omen's Day. nd here's a press report from anational newspaper about $omen's Day this year.

7astar rebels bat for women's rights

Sahar =han, Mail Today, Aaipur, March 9, F040

The government may have pulled out all stops to combat the Maoist menace in thecountry. 7ut a section of rebels in hhattisgarh has more pressing matters in handthan survival. $ith International $omen's Day around the corner, Maoists in the7astar region of the state have called for wee!- long #celebrations# to advocatewomen's rights. (osters were also put up in 7i*apur, a part of 7astar district. Thecall by the self- styled champions of women's rights has left the state policeastonished. Inspector- general IG1 of 7astar T. ;. Eong!umer said, # I have neverseen such an appeal from the )a+alites, who believe only in violence andbloodshed.#

nd then the report goes on to say"

#I thin! the Maoists are trying to counter our highly successful ;an ;agranbhiyaan mass awareness campaign1. $e started the ongoing campaign with an aim towin popular support for &peration Green %unt, which was launched by the police toroot out Eeft- wing e+tremists,# the IG said.

This coc!tail of malice and ignorance is not unusual. Gudsa ?sendi, chronicler ofthe (arty's present !nows more about this than most people. %is little computer andM(/ recorder are full of press statements, denials, corrections, (arty literature,lists of the dead, T clips and audio and video material. #The worst thing aboutbeing Gudsa ?sendi# he says, #is issuing clarifications which are never published.


20/31

$e could bring out a thic! boo! of our unpublished clarifications, about the liesthey tell about us.# %e spea!s without a trace of indignation, in fact with someamusement.

#$hat's the most ridiculous charge you've had to deny@#

%e thin!s bac!. #In F009, we had to issue a statement saying ')ahi bhai, humney gai!o hathode say nahin mara.' )o brother, we did not !ill cows with hammers.1. In

F009 the Aaman Singh Government announced a Gai Lo*ana cow scheme1, an electionpromise, a cow for every divasi. &ne day the T channels and newspapers reportedthat )a+alites had attac!ed a herd of cows and bludgeoned them to death< withhammers< because they were anti-%indu, anti-7;(. Lou can imagine what happened. $eissued a denial. %ardly anybody carried it. Eater it turned out that the man whohad been given the cows to distribute was a rogue. %e sold them and said we hadambushed him and !illed the cows.#

nd the most serious@

#&h there are doens, they're running a campaign after all. $hen the Salwa ;udumstarted, the first day they attac!ed a village called mbeli, burned it down andthen all of them, S(&s, the )aga 7attalion, police, moved towards =otrapalJyou musthave heard about =otrapal@ It's a famous village, it has been burnt FF times forrefusing to surrender. $hen the ;udum reached =otrapal, our militia was waiting forit. They had prepared an ambush. Two S(&s died. The militia captured seven, therest ran away. The ne+t day the newspapers reported that the )a+alites hadmassacred poor adivasis. Some said we had !illed hundreds. 2ven a respectablemagaine li!e Crontline said we had !illed 4: innocent adivasis. 2ven =.7alagopal,the human rights activist, who is usually meticulous about facts, even he saidthis. $e sent a clarification. )obody published it. Eater, in his boo!, 7alagopalac!nowledged his mista!eJ. 7ut who noticed@#

I as!ed what happened to the seven people that were captured.

#The rea ommittee called a ;an dalat (eoples ourt1. Cour thousand peopleattended it. They listened to the whole story. Two of the S(&s were sentenced to

death. Cive were warned and let off. The people decided. 2ven with informers


21/31

t least in the case of the =otrapal ;an dalat, the ollective was physicallypresent to ma!e its own decision. It wasn't made by *udges who had lost touch withordinary life a long time ago, presuming to spea! on behalf of an absentollective.

$hat should the people of =otrapal have done I wonder@ Sent for the police@

N

The sound of drums has become really loud. It's 7hum!al time. $e wal! to thegrounds. I can hardly believe my eyes. There is a sea of people, the most wild,beautiful people, dressed in the most wild, beautiful ways. The men seem to havepaid much more attention to themselves than the women. They have feathered headgearand painted tattoos on their faces. Many have eye ma!e-up and white, powderedfaces. There's lots of militia, girls in saris of breathta!ing colors with riflesslung carelessly over their shoulders. There are old people, children, and redbuntings arc across the s!y. The sun is sharp and high. omrade Eeng spea!s. ndseveral office-holders of the various ;antana Sar!ars. omrade )iti, ane+traordinary woman who has been with the (arty since 4559, is such a threat to thenation, that in ;anuary F009 more than 900 policemen surrounded Innar villagebecause they heard she was there. omrade )iti is considered to be so dangerous,and is being hunted with such desperation, not because she has led many ambusheswhich she has1, but because she is an adivasi woman who is loved by people in thevillage and is a real inspiration to young people. She spea!s with her = on hershoulder. It's a gun with a story. lmost everyone's gun has a story" $ho it wassnatched from, how, and by whom.1

)M troupe performs a play about the 7hum!al uprising. The evil white colonierswear hats and golden straw for hair, and bully and beat divasis to pulp


22/31

their hair, to put their arms around each other and drin! mahua and dance throughthe night. )o one sings or dances alone. This, more than anything else, signalstheir defiance towards a civiliation that see!s to annihilate them.

I can't believe all this is happening right under the noses of the police. Aight inthe midst of &peration Green %unt.

t first the (EG comrades watch the dancers, standing aside with their guns. 7ut

then, one by one, li!e duc!s who cannot bear to stand on the shore and watch otherduc!s swim, they move in and begin to dance too. Soon there are lines of olivegreen dancers, swirling with all the other colours. nd then, as sisters andbrothers and parents and children and friends who haven't met for months, yearssometimes, encounter each other, the lines brea! up and re-form and the olive greenis distributed among the swirling saris and flowers and drums and turbans. Itsurely is a (eoples' rmy. Cor now, at least. nd what hairman Mao said about theguerillas being the fish, and people being the water they swim in, is, at thismoment, literally true.

hairman Mao. %e's here too. little lonely, perhaps, but present. There's aphotograph of him, up on a red cloth screen. Mar+ too. nd haru Ma*umdar, thefounder and chief theoretician of the )a+alite Movement. %is abrasive rhetoricfetishies violence, blood and martyrdom, and often employs a language so coarse asto be almost genocidal. Standing here, on 7hum!al day, I can't help thin!ing thathis analysis, so vital to the structure of this revolution, is so removed from itsemotion and te+ture. $hen he said that only 'an annihilation campaign' couldproduce #the new man who will defy death and be free from all thought of self-interest#< could he have imagined that this ancient people, dancing into the night,would be the ones on whose shoulders his dreams would come to rest@

It's a great disservice to everything that is happening here that the only thingthat seems to ma!e it to the outside world is the stiff, unbending rhetoric of theideologues of a party that has evolved from a problematic past. $hen haru Maumdarfamously said, #hina's hairman is our hairman and hina's (ath is &ur (ath# hewas prepared to e+tend it to the point where the )a+alites remained silent whileGeneral Lahya =han committed genocide in 2ast (a!istan 7angladesh1, because at the

time, hina was an ally of (a!istan. There was silence too, over the =hmer Aougeand its !illing fields in ambodia. There was silence over the egregious e+cessesof the hinese and Aussian Aevolutions. Silence over Tibet. $ithin the )a+alitemovement too, there have been violent e+cesses and it's impossible to defend muchof what they've done. 7ut can anything they have done compare with the sordidachievements of the ongress and the 7;( in (un*ab, =ashmir, Delhi, Mumbai,Gu*aratJ nd yet, despite these terrifying contradictions, haru Maumdar was avisionary in much of what he wrote and said. The party he founded and its manysplinter groups1 has !ept the dream of revolution real and present in India.Imagine a society without that dream. Cor that alone we cannot *udge him tooharshly. 2specially not while we swaddle ourselves with Gandhi's pious humbug aboutthe superiority of #the non-violent way# and his notion of Trusteeship" #The richman will be left in possession of his wealth, of which he will use what he

reasonably re3uires for his personal needs and will act as a trustee for theremainder to be used for the good of society.#

%ow strange it is though, that the contemporary tsars of the Indian 2stablishment

arundhati roy maoist

Documents