War on Maoists by Praful Bidwai (Frontline)
“The much-dramatised public exchange of telephone numbers between Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram and Communist Party of India (Maoist) leader Kishenji and their sparring over a 72-hour or 72-day ceasefire would have been amusing if it did not involve a grim life-and-death issue for millions of wretchedly poor and underprivileged people in India’s heartland. They face the full heat of Operation Green Hunt, the biggest-ever military-style mobilisation launched by the security forces in the central-eastern tribal belt. Until recently, such large-scale deployment was confined to Kashmir and the northeastern region.
“The operation, involving over 40,000 paramilitary troops and policemen armed with weapons ranging from night-vision-capable automatic rifles to helicopter gunships, supposedly aims in its first phase to clear parts of Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra of the Maoists. By all accounts, it will last indefinitely–until the tribal belt is fully ‘sanitised’ and the naxalites are militarily defeated.
“The Centre is coordinating, planning and directing Green Hunt–unlike in the past, when State governments led such operations. In a disturbingly strong signal, a brigade headquarters of the Indian Army is being established in Chhattisgarh, the most turbulent part of the tribal heartland. [...]
“According to numerous credible, well-documented reports, 30 to 40 tribal people are being killed each week in the Adivasi belt. Some 200,000 people have fled their homes. This number does not include the 50,000 who were driven out by Salwa Judum, the militia sponsored, armed and funded by the Chhattisgarh government in 2008-09. The bulk of the 50,000 cannot return home and have taken refuge in Andhra Pradesh and in forests close to the border. In addition to the paramilitary forces, the tribal people are being attacked indiscriminately by private militias or Special Police Officers (SPOs), who enjoy state support, as well as by Maoist guerillas. The testimonies of some of the victims, backed by eyewitness reports, speak of the deliberate targeting of non-combatant civilians by the police and the private thugs they support. Rape and sexual violence are rampant in Bastar and parts of Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. The civilians killed greatly outnumber the Maoists shot dead–perhaps by a factor of 10. [...]
“[T]he state has lost legitimacy in tribal India. It is laughable to claim that its project of militarily overpowering the Maoists has popular support. Its police force is inefficient, corrupt, trigger-happy and anti-poor. The State represents little more than predatory, rape-and-run industrial groups, besides super-corrupt Ministers (like Madhu Koda who allegedly amassed wealth equivalent to a fourth of Jharkhand’s tax revenue in three years). It is no accident that the Centre has intervened to assert its full coercive power in an area that contains much of India’s immense mineral and forest wealth, now under transfer to private capital.”
See anti-caste: OPERATION GREEN HUNT: INDIA’S DIRTY WAR ON TRIBALS AND LEFTISTS
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