Crisis at Crossroads

Reflecting on the recent naxal crisis ...apologies but this a collection of little incidents across my life, and I will try to weave them together later at the end. 

I recall my own work in Naxal affected areas of Rayagada near Koraput in Orrissa while in BCG (2008).

The world is a lot different in the parts, diseases and lack of food is almost a pervasive problem - children feeding on rice husk was a scene which I personally would never forget. But more than the shortage of amenities, I saw the abject depravity of hope and trust. The villagers took everyone which suspicion - a similar featured face might be an undercover naxal hunting for spies, a not so similar featured person might be from police hunting for naxals. 

During that same time, I met a naxal sympathizer, (maybe even a naxal undercover), who said, "Saheb! You dont know you, we are dying to create a better country for deprived (adivasis). How am I different from Bhagat Singh who died fighting for the deprived people."

Back in Rayagada, in the middle of the road, I found young mothers picking mango kernels scattered on the sides from the previous day's haat... her children liked mangoes, but they could not afford mangoes, anything "sold" is a luxury for adivasis, who rely on picking their food from jungles. I observed their action in detail – the women collected the kernel and then soaked them for a few minutes. Then scrapped the surface, scavenging for the last layers of mango pulp which somehow might have remained stuck to the kernel. Children relish the sight, anxiously waiting for their turn, amongst their siblings. The government, the salva judum and the naxalites care little about the hunger of the adivasis – they are a simple burden and sometimes a recreation to all.

There was another day when we witnessed a road patch blown up by naxalites killing a couple of “informers”. Being exposed as an “informer” to either side is akin to a death sentence – either the police will shoot you or the naxal will deal in their own far gruesome manner. The next day, armed CRPF stormed at the place – picking up some adivasis men, the youngest one being 12 years of age.   Everybody expected them to never return – it would be lucky to receive even their bodies.  Fear and panic grips villages whenever attacks happen, they know who is going to be the “collateral” damage. I am sure my little Adivasi friends back in the Bastar land will once again be hiding in fear, hoping the damage is not them. Rape (in front of your father/husband) is frequent tool used by both parties to subvert. 

Last year, in Kalahandi, I was at the inauguration of a soup kitchen for tribals. An private mining company official told me, "we pay special taxes to naxals and book it under equipment and manpower expense. Also, if any individual's account goes above 3 lakhs, the low level bank workers inform the naxals who collected 50% of the amount above 3 lakhs as a Wealth tax".

 Other told me, that the idea was initially to set up a corpus to create village assets with the money - which for a few worked beautifully. In fact in my own experience, assets created under the naxal administration are far better in terms of quality, the contractors never mix sand with cement when it comes to naxal supervised assets - the punishment is death. However, with time, money induced rampant corruption in senior leadership of naxalites, and well, they fell to match the corruption standards matching those of the government. 

In 2012, I was in a conference comprising mostly of children from the elite schools of Delhi, some 400 of them... most of them the typical school bred accented types. I asked them do you know what is tribal or adivasis... 4 hands went up. I thought I didnt put the question properly, so I reframed can anyone tell me what is adivasis, 3 hands remained. I realized the problem was not communication but the urban children who were never exposed to direct sunlight, never knew of their adivasi counterparts. I asked on them to tell some unique things about tribals which they have read. He was uneasy, I gave him clues - "like something you have read about where they live, what they do, what are their music arts food and attire". The last word attire struck a chord with the boy, his eyes sparkled as if he recalled something - "Yes. They are naked" - he replied. The full 400 students along with their teachers laughed hysterically, as I felt like crying. This is what the well educated India thinks of its tribal counterpart. "Naked". These children, with the best of education, with all finest opportunity will rise in life, become the leaders of business, government and media, and all they will think of India in its hinterlands would be "Naked. The naked mad gun wielding naxals. Let us send army against them. So what if some other naked non wielding adivasis die!" The divide is within the heart.

3 days ago, two news flashed together in media. One was IPL, and how this mega "scam" (oh did you mean cricket) is unfolding and even then how the kingpins are still at large, even bluntly showing middle fingers to the authorities. Crores and crores are illegally exchanging hands, in this queer concoction of cricket, women, celebs and money. The IPL final and Naxal attack in Bastar were one day apart. The facebook mourners (and agitators) of 25th attack were yelling whistle podu the subsequent day, reminding me of how roman gladiators fights were the best way to divert public attention from issues of war and bad crop. In fact, whenever romans lost, or the farm suffered, the emperors would schedule longer, bloodier and sexier fights (even pitching women, who would usually tear each other's clothes than flesh).Where is our focus... 1/3rd of the nation suffers under this miserable poverty, young men and women are dying fighting for battles they both justify.

So who is responsible for the Naxals – mad men wielding guns? State which relishes on the corruption it generates in the name of development? Police and security who do not flinch a muscle narrating tales of their collateral damages? Us living in NCRs and Mumbais (or abroad) of the nation, doing little other than picking up the paper and saying, “ch ch … too bad problem. We must finish the naxals” without an iota of understanding of what is the state of life there? I don’t know the answers to these, but all I know is that the Adivasis of my country deserve better life, at least a guarantee to live. And seeing this, I don’t know who is Jonny and Tommy, but a nursery rhyme came to my mind thinking of this,

Ding, dong, bell,

Pussy’s in the well.

Who put her in?

Little Johnny Flynn.

Who pulled her out?

Little Tommy Stout.

What a naughty boy was that,

To try to drown poor pussy cat,

Who ne’er did him any harm,

(Sometime I feel I am the Johnny and I am the Tommy)

Srijan