Of Patkars and Naxalites

The last few days or so, we saw two different newspieces that I and many others, immediately saw as being very much interconnected…..


The last few months have seen increasing media coverage of Naxalite activities in the country….and the bare facts are these….the rebels are becoming increasingly confident, are becoming better equipped and are able to move at will across large parts of the country….they control close to 30% of the country (and gaining more each passing month), an astonishing gain in the last decade at the starting of which, they had a presence only in Andhra Pradesh…..in these rebel held areas, the union of India is a joke…it simply does not exist….numerous ‘liberated zones’ are springing up in the so-called CRZ (compact revolutionary zone), that runs across the eastern part of India, stretching from the Nepal border right into Tamil Nadu and parts of Karnataka……what to me is more surprising, is not their increased activities in their strongholds (hijacking of trains etc) but their rapid spread (their activities have been reported from Maharashtra and Haryana)and the obvious acceptance they are getting in the far-flung villages…..it just goes to show the disillusionment of the people, who have given up all hopes for any improvements in their conditions from the elected government…..it is this disillusionment that has led them to seemingly accept Naxalite ideology….they just give the people a hope to fight back…..

The other news article is about one of the most dynamic non-violent movement in the world, the NBA (Narmada Bachao Andolan), now seeming to be on its last legs, with Medha Patkar, the soul of the movement for so long, on a hunger strike in the capital to protest against the decision of raising of the dam height, without making adequate compensation to the displaced families (both past and future)…...it is sad to see that the movements goal – that of stopping the dam building that has destroyed communities, has changed to asking for rehabilitation…..it speaks volumes of the disappointments and disillusionments that the movement has gone through in the past decade……even this demand has had the government and others stiffen up and people have spoken about these ‘modern day Luddites’ who try to stop development (a hackneyed and tired yet dangerously simplified argument)….

Hunger strike to me, is the last recourse that the movement would have taken….its a last desperate attempt to make the country aware of their plight….and they chose the method well….the crisis driven media likes nothing more than drama, and drama they have been given…..

At the end however, it seems that even this demand will not be met…..it is easier than never before to stifle dissent, simply stretch the story, confuse the people and let it all quietly die down….the media plays along, of course…..once the media gets tired of the drama and the seeming inactivity (a fact finding commission will be set, I guess – another old horse), it will move on and the NBA will be consigned to the story dustbin that it has been thrown into in the last few years…..

And the obvious connection is what Arundhati Roy pointed out….that stifling non-violent, constructive movements by violence and indifference is going to have a counter-reaction – that violence will be met by violence….she meant the Naxalites of course…..and it is easy to see the relationship as well…..when you put a human to the wall, and then somebody offers him a gun, he WILL fight back…its human nature to fight back when there is nothing to lose…..it is this what makes the Naxals so attractive to people who havnt had their voice heard for as long as they remember……Roy also said that that fight that NBA is fighting for relevance is also the Ahimsa Bachao Andolan (movement to save the non-violent movement)…that if we let NBA lose its voice, the democratic society (however flawed it seems at present) that we cherish, will be sooner than later, be dealt a blow…..that is already in progress, as has been pointed out….

And look at the response of the government to the Naxal insurrection…the talk from the government of it being not a law and order problem but an economic and social one (which it is, obviously) has all but disappeared…instead we have been presented with a response something we are all familiar with….

As the reach of the Naxals grow, the government has begun to rely more and more on brute force, whether by its own paramilitary or by trying to make villagers to take up arms by offering them some incentives (the Salwa Judum movement)…..of course, both sides rely on extensive propaganda (which is pretty natural under insurrectory circumstances), so its difficult to pick out what is happening(though the Salwa Judum don’t have much hope, as things stand now, given the fact that they fight the INSAS and AK-47 carrying Naxals with at best, old rifles or at worst, bow and arrows!!!)….

Of course, as the Naxals increase in strength, their tolerance for dissent etc will go down (one positive thing that has always struck me about the Naxals is that they don’t kill to spread terror…if they blow up a building, they empty it of people first), and civilians taking up arms against them will be targeted, which is already the case….in the end it will be the people who will be crushed in between and forced to choose sides……

When that happens (and it is already happening), the avenues for constructive non-violent dissent, for constructive solutions will vanish and become irrelevant and whatever roots of democracy that we have will start giving way as well…..bleak view…yes….but with what has happened to NBA and countless other constructive dissent across the country, Naxalite totalitarianism (or for that matter any other totalitarianism) is a reality that dosnt seem so far away for many people in this country…..