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

Beckoning of a New Era: Youth will shape the nation

Beckoning of a New Era

On 17^th December 2010, Mohammad Bouazizi, a vegetable vendor, immolated himself in front of a police station in Tunisia (North Africa) to protest against the oppression of the local police officer. The story fumed the youth of the million population nation who took to streets against their repressive government. He passed away on 4^th January, and government fell ten days later.  That was not the end of the revolution – the news of youth power taking battle to people misusing power reached the entire Arab world – soon movements took shape in the streets of Egypt, Libya, Syria, Bahrain and almost the entire middle east. Within the year itself, Heads of States, in many nations fell like house of cards amidst the fury of the largely peaceful protestors.

Around the same, South Asia, especially India was seeing a similar phenomenon – when a village man of more than seven decades – Anna Hazare decided to go on a resilient, unto death fast for strong laws against corruption in the heart of the Indian capital – seeding crowds which began to swell from hundreds to lakhs in a matter of a week. A few months later, a yoga guru, Baba Ramdev repeated the same mass movement in his tailored version against black money. But the best of all happened last week, when an unaligned, leaderless movement grew in size and anger in the streets leading to the symbolic President’s Estate. On the self-created, largely hand drawn, placards we were asking justice for a girl whose name and identity none of us knew, but whose pain we all shared. The message was clear, “People in power, behold, the crowds are at your gate and this time they don’t even need a leader.”

Deep within, there is a general bitterness against the way the governments are being run, how the corrupted who get away all the time, against a judicial system which is failing under the burden of delays, and against the fact the while India remains to be one of the most highly taxed nations in the world – the public services, education and healthcare are a pittance. And yet, while there were only two dollar billionaires in India in mid-1990s, the number grew to 46 in 2012. The inequities arising from the struggles of daily lives of the poor and middle class, who toil day and night to get their children to schools, find healthcare for their parents and safety for their family, and yet keep paying taxes and duties which only keep increasing – have nurtured a sense of resentment against the system, specially the governance system of the nation at large. And same anger against the system, left uncared for, can easily take the monstrous shape of armed rebel, which one-third of India is seeing in the form of Naxalism.

Lessons to Learn

Let us learn from the lessons from past on how we and others have addressed the issue of youth movements.

First, “The power of the people is greater than the people in power”, reads a famous excerpt about the youth movements in Arab world.  One primary reason for such movement getting into streets is explained statistically by the Power Distance Index (PDI) which measures how the rich and powerful are able to control the middle and lower classes. Egypt (80), China (80), Lebanon (80), India (77) are poor performers showing large power gaps, while much of the advanced democracies nations like Norway(31), Germany (35) and New Zealand (22) show very low power gaps. High Power Gaps, are often shown by the politically arrogant attitude of people in power when a famous politician from Bihar publicly stated, “Raj raub se chalta hai”. Instead of using British methods of baton charge, tear gas and water cannons to wage a war against their own people demanding justice, the politicians need to consider shelving their security cover for a while and spend time with the crowds, braving cold winter in their wet clothes. 

Second, it also shows a poorly managed opposition. When people come to street against a government, state or central, it is basically because the opposition has not played a responsible role of raising the issue in the right channels – and making the government accountable for it.

Third, it must be understood why the youth are so concerned about issues. It is solely because the youth have the largest stake in the interest of the nation – after all  we have to live here the longest amongst all age groups.

This energy will expand

Looking at the history of other nations, the movements which began as ideas and spread in youth have only expanded. It was for the People in Power to either acknowledge them at the right time or be swept away completely in them. Communist nations like Russia (1905) and China (1949) came out imperialist regimes largely through the action of youth in early 20^th century, even religion nations like Iran (1979) have seen similar successful movement by the youth. It was the youth of USA, who in fact rose up against their own nation’s military aggressions in Vietnam (1960s) forcing a retreat of US Army and more recently, the same super power saw the Occupy Wall Street Movement  (2011) against corporate-government nexus spreading like wildfire and engaging a large participation. Most youth movements, sooner or later, end on the side of success. 

The reasons are simple. Youth are most creative and energetic segment of people. We have daring undiluted hopes of a better for us. We know well how to connect with each other, social networks, mobile phones, SMSs and emails have gone a long in spreading ideas across like-minded people. We are not easily broken down by the barriers of caste, creed and religion. And we are simply too many in number, India alone accounting for over 60 crore young people.

Road Ahead: Points to consider

While, the power of youth is unquestionable in any sense, I must also point out two issues which Youth movements are inherently more emotional in nature and there is distinct need for rational guidance which has to come from seniors, teachers and parents over complexity of causes which are youth are standing for. Second, in a nation like India, youth should not let their minds be narrowed down to only those issues are happening close-by, in big cities with media glare. Remember, that more than 41,000 farmers were forced to commit suicides in rural India within the last 12 years – we need to space for these issues on our canvas of compassion. 

In my interaction with all kinds of politicians, I often hear them dismiss the authority of such mass movements. One famous leader from UP told me, “Look these are Sunday crowds. People come to the protest because the offices are closed”. I had only one thing to reply, “Remember, the election day is also a holiday”.

By

Srijan Pal Singh
Columnist, Consultant and Co-author, Target 3 Billion (with Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam)

srijanpalsingh@gmail.com

This article was published in a leading daily. 

Building Better Society and not Harsh Punishments is the way ahead

Building Better Society and not Harsh Punishments is the way ahead

By : Srijan Pal Singh

In the past one and a half year, I have seen two massive protests for national issues in Delhi – one organized under Anna Hazare and against corruption. Second, this weekend, organized by a group of Facebook and college activists, to protest crimes against women. Two trends are clear, the Indian urban middle class youth, is out there, sensitive to issues where they feel connected. Also, oddly, there is a lack of political respect which such protests command – and they are often brushed aside as holiday protests which are bound to die down with time.

Seeing the charged youth braving against water cannons in the cold month of Delhi December, fighting for an unknown stranger’s need for justice is heart touching and reinstates the hope for brighter India. Take this particular crime or many others this year, like on camera shooting of a toll bridge operator in Gurgaon, mowing down an IPS officer in Madhya Pradesh or two celebrity brothers shooting each other right in the heart of Delhi. The question remains, what is the source of such free-will to commit crime?

 Two things stop crime from happening – strong value system and effective legal remedy. We now need to work on both these aspects.

 Look at the ages of the accused in this recent rape case. Most of them are in early twenties and one is claiming to be a minor – a time when values and culture is shaped in the youth. We need to reform the learning environment which the younger generation is exposed to. I am yet to come across a school or college, even in the top notch, which seriously teaches and grades moral science as a subject.

And it not just the books the youth learns from. Neuro science states that in humans, upto 20% of the neurons in the brains are imitation neurons, which means a young mind learns and imitates the culture around him. That is where the fixing of culture is more important. In the last five years, I have seen the quality of many newspapers; magazines and even news site degrade into what can be called as “soft porn”. Movies would openly crimes and moral compromises as grey shades of heroism – where a woman is shown successfully seducing men to propel her career and a mother is shown as a custodian of her policeman son’s black money. This is what the youth imitates. Culture has to be reshaped, education rewritten to induce better citizens, who have the judgment and self control to stay away from all forms of crimes, and who respect a woman’s or anyone else’s position in the society and are self-governed by law.

Country	Rape Incidence Rate (rapes reported per 100,000 population) *there is expected under reportage of all figures as most rapes are never reported	Capital Punishment Status
India	1.8	Exists but rare. Not for rape.
South Africa	120	Abolished.
United Kingdom	28.8	Abolished.
USA	27.3	Exists for some crimes.
Norway	19.2	Abolished.
Oman	6.9	Exists for some crimes.
Thailand	6.7	Exists for some crimes.
Singapore	2.7	Exists for some crimes.
Canada	1.7	Abolished.
Japan	1.0	Exists for some crimes.
Serbia	0.7	Abolished.

Then we come to the legal remedy side. Personally, I do not agree with the multitude of demands for capital punishment being invoked for rape charges. It would be short sighted and emotional rather than rational. My worst fear is that capital punishment for rape would encourage the rapist to follow their hot blooded crime with a cold blooded murder of the victims to hide the evidence of their first crime. Moreover, statistically, capital punishment has shown little correlation with the incidence of crime as shown in table. While there are nations like USA and Oman which have relatively high rape rate, while having capital punishments, there are also nations like Serbia and Canada, which have no capital punishment but much lower rape rates.

 In fact, it is the surety and not the severity of punishment which will acts as a deterrent. Indian courts have more cases pending in them, than any other nation, which makes us the slowest justice delivery system in the world. Often cases taking more than a decade to culminate into punishment – which erodes all faith in the judicial system. Then, there is the talk of fast tracking rape cases. One year earlier there was talk of fast tracking corruption cases, and two years ago we talked of fast tracking cases of terrorism. This solution is a temporary quick fix only to satisfy the mobs, but if long term solution is desired we need to think on how to speed up the entire judiciary itself – all forms of cases – rather than recommending fast track on whatever crimes catches the news of the day. This would need massive investments, new courts need to be established, new judges need to be employed and in fact the Article 32 needs to be redefined than mere “right to judicial remedy” to “right to time bound judicial remedy”.

Now is the time to revisit our societal order – recheck our legal procedures and reinstate our value system and work to create a society where none feels alienated or unsafe, and where the citizens are self-controlled against committing any form legal or moral wrong.