Causes of left-wing extremism in India
•Inequitable development:
- The failure of land reforms especially land redistribution after independence.
- Socio-economic inequities, unemployment, despair about the future.
- Dishonest and self-serving dominant groups.
- Political deprivation leading to hopelessness or a sense of powerlessness.
- Lack of title to public land cultivated by the landless poor. •Governance deficit in the remote parts of Red Corridor regions.
- Lack of food security – corruption in the Public Distribution System (which are often non-functional).
- Disruption of traditional occupations and lack of alternative work opportunities.
•Displacement of people: Eviction from lands traditionally used by tribals.
- Forced Displacements caused by mining, irrigation and power projects without adequate arrangements for rehabilitation. As a result, livelihoods were lost.
- Large scale land acquisition for ‘public purposes’ without appropriate compensation or rehabilitation
Discrimination against tribals: Poor implementation of laws prohibiting transfer of tribal land to non-tribals in the Fifth Schedule areas.
- Non-regularisation of traditional land rights under FRA, 2006.
- Hasty rejections of land grants to tribals.
Need of the hour
- Central and State governments, the administration and the security establishment need to recognize that the movement cannot be approached from a purely law and order point of view.
- The process of improving the conditions of the poor and the tribals clearly need to be speeded up if the movement is to be effectively checked.
- Winning the hearts and minds of the tribal population and other marginalised groups will lie at the core of the counter-insurgency strategy.
- Development of road and rail infrastructure will not only enhance economic growth and development but will also help in countering Maoist propaganda.
- The improved road connectivity will also have a multiplier effect on the effectiveness of the security forces in carrying out operations. •Providing incentives and alternate life support system to those surrendered.
Case Study Salwa Judum
Salwa Judum, translated variously as peace march, people’s resistance movement or as purification hunt, was a government initiative in Bastar region. It was set up in 2005, to counter the naxalites presence in the area. Its mainstay was the SPOs (Special Police Officers) who were local tribal youth, some as young as 16 years, who were recruited, paid a stipend, armed and handed the task of fighting the naxalites. What resulted was a civil strife which displaced whole villages, rapes, excesses of power, murders and the burning of houses. The SPOs were projected as an essential part of the security apparatus of the state and they would act as guides, spotters and translators, and work as a source of intelligence, and firearms were provided to them, for their self-defense. The civil strife that ensued resulted in the emptying out of villages, forced migration in many cases into neighbouring states, and the abandoning of their agricultural land, their livestock and other means of production and livelihood.
A report of the erstwhile Planning Commission said: “This involuntary displacement and migration has caused further distress among the tribals…..Through this process of forced migration, large mineral areas got vacated, where the mining corporate lessees are starting operation. Often the displaced people/villagers/tribals look on hopelessly and sometimes they seek support of the naxalite groups. Such situations create space for naxalite interventions.” Over the years, SPOs have turned into an institutionalised category, with greater numbers of unemployed tribal youth signing up as SPOs.
In a writ petition challenging the constitutionality of the Salwa Judum and the situation of human rights violations, it was perpetrating in Chhattisgarh in July, 2011, the court condemned the state of Chhattisgarh for allowing such atrocities to continue and raised concerns about the manner of recruitment, the qualifications and training of the SPOs. The judgment unequivocally condemned the use of local untrained youth as SPOs, arming them and giving them the task of becoming part of the security
establishment with no preparedness to perform the task. Two important developments arose subsequent to the Salwa Judum judgment. One, a clarification was issued by the Supreme Court stating that: “Under the July 5 judgment we have asked the Union of India to cease and desist from using any funds directly or indirectly for SPOs. The order as passed was in the context of Chhattisgarh and (the) Solicitor General….has observed that it should be confined to Chhattisgarh, otherwise it will create a great deal of law and order problem in other States.” This order was issued pursuant to concerns expressed by the
Central Government that if the July 5th 2011 order was fully implemented, the government would have severe difficulties in undertaking anti-insurgency operations in the Northeast, Jammu and Kashmir, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Bihar and other parts of the country. This modification is likely to have consequences for other parts of the country which would include the tribal dominated areas in the country that are victims of Maoist and state excesses.
Secondly, two months after the July 5th 2011 judgment, the Chhattisgarh Assembly passed the Chhattisgarh Auxiliary Armed Police Force Act, 2011 (the Act) authorising an “auxiliary armed force to assist security forces in prevention and control and combating maoist/naxal violence.” The object of the Act is to “establish a trained armed force of persons having knowledge of local area and topography and local language/dialect” since inaccessible tribal areas in Chhattisgarh are affected by Naxal violence. S. 11 of the Act regularises existing SPOs and inducts them into the auxiliary armed force. S.14 grants them impunity in respect of any act committed by them under the Act. This is despite the Supreme Court
ordering that, “The State of Chhattisgarh immediately cease and desist from using SPOs in any manner or form in any activities, directly or indirectly, aimed at controlling, countering, mitigating or otherwise
eliminating Maoist/Naxalite activities in the State of Chhattisgarh”. Though the court has expressed shock, dismay and anger over the Chhattisgarh Government’s abuse of power, the Act explicitly defies the court order, continuing its earlier violent policies to combat extremism, the very same that the court declared constitutionally impermissible and abhorrent. Unless there is a conscious commitment by the state to move away from this skewed notion of protecting its citizenry, the vicious circle of violence and counter violence will continue.
Criminal Law
An extremely disturbing feature that we witnessed in Scheduled Areas, where projects are being located, is the filing of cases against local people and their supporters. Land acquisition, displacement and the commencement of project work without settling issues that arise in the context of the project have given rise to various forms of protest and resistance. Local people complained that when they raised their voices against a project proposal that was brought to them, they invariably found themselves charged with criminal cases. Many of them spoke of attending Court in relation to cases filed against them. They were not always aware of what they were charged with, but they appeared to have an understanding of what they had done which had provoked the administration to bring the law down on them. For instance, in a village in Orissa, a woman and her husband were having to attend Court because they had led a resistance against the diversion of land for building a jail and a courthouse in their village. In project areas, persons opposing land acquisition or the location of projects in that area find themselves charged
with multiple offences. It appears to have become commonplace to file cases against those participating in these protests. The large numbers of FIRs include charges under Section 147, 148, 149, 120B, 307, 506 of the Indian Penal Code and Sections 25 and 26 of the Arms Act and under Goonda Act in states, as
well as the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act. Often, arrests occur and, it is not unusual to see further charges being added on in relation to persons already charged. Persons charged with these offences are brought within the entrails of the criminal justice system.
In Chhattisgarh, for instance, it was found that a large number of tribals have been languishing in jails for long years without their trial concluding. When the under-trial women in Jagdalpur jail were asked to explain with hat offences they had been charged, the answer almost invariably was ‘naxal offence’. There is of course, no such offence defined in law. Here too, after the first FIR lodged against them, there would be further FIRs filed over a period of time implicating them in various episodes of violence. Persons charged with naxal offences find it extremely difficult to get bail, and so end up spending long years in jail. Trials do not conclude in many cases because official witnesses were absent. This may happen because a member of paramilitary force cited as a prosecution witness had been repatriated with his unit and was no longer in the state. The committee also met with criminal lawyers in Dantewada courts. They assessed that over 95 percent of the cases were baseless and it was no surprise that the acquittal rate in cases where trials ended, resulted in acquittal. In reply to an RTI application, the court registers for all cases disposed of between 2005 and 2012 revealed that average rate of acquittal over these years was 95.7 percent.
The problem posed by this application of criminal law has, in fact, been recognized by the State Government which, in May 2012 set up a committee chaired by Ms. Nirmala Buch to review the delay in prosecution of under trials in Chhattisgarh jails. It has applied itself to the question of expediting bail applications. The committee has recommended grant of bail, in most cases on the ground of poverty of the person and in some others on the ground of ill-health. The situation in various places of conflict between local communities and the state and project authorities is grim. It is important to urgently establish a judicial commission that will go into the cases pending against tribals and their supporters where either they are charged with the expression of their concerns about projects and project implementation, or where the tag of naxal offences is sending people into prisons and courts. It is a significant fact that tribals are getting caught in the conflict between the state and the naxals. While the state may consider deploying various devices to deal with the issue of naxalism, it should not lead to a situation of oppression of the tribals.
There are, indeed, occasions when villagers are called upon by the naxalites to attend meetings, and that they are often not in a position to exercise a choice on whether or not to go. Merely attending these meetings, they said, is being treated as support for naxalism. Where is the state to protect us if we were in fact to refuse, they asked. The notion that tribals are either with the state or with the naxalites has to be abandoned for a wider and more real assessment of the situation.
Naxal attacks that have left large numbers dead has placed an enormous burden on the state to address both the causes of the violence and the violence itself, without adversely impacting local communities. The attacks which took place on 25th May, 2013 in which 18 Congress leaders and workers died in Bastar when they were returning from Sukma after an election rally, and on 6th April, 2010, killing seventy four members of the CRPF and two policemen from Chhattisgarh, has understandably shaken the establishment.
The occurrence of encounter killings where state forces have shot and killed villagers has also raised the pitch of the conflict and left a gulf between the state and local communities. The Edasmeta killings in Bijapur district where eight villagers including three children were shot dead on 17th May, 2013 was explained by the CRPF as having being caused by the return of fire in an encounter with naxals. The villagers, however, have been vehemently denying that such an encounter took place. In Sarkeguda,
seventeen people were shot dead by the CRPF on the night of 29th June, 2012. This was, again, attempted to be explained as based on intelligence received on the presence of naxal leaders and a major naxal movement in the area. Seventeen villagers, including seven minors, were declared dead. A judicial commission is looking into this encounter. In Orissa there are cases questioning the killing of persons in what were termed encounters. Encounter killings do not have the sanction of the law beyond the exercise of the right of self-defense. `Encounters’ as a way of dealing with the naxal issue needs to be done away with, and lawful ways found to deal with it. Where encounters do occur, an FIR must be registered and the incident investigated to make sure that it was a legitimate use of force. This is the minimum that needs to be done in these circumstances.
Leadership emerging from tribal communities and public defenders working for the tribal interest also have cases registered against them: illustratively, Dayamani Barla, Lado Sikakaand, Ramesh Aggarwal. Dayamani Barla has been at the forefront of land struggle in Jharkhand. Since 2006, when she spearheaded a protest against Arcelor Mittal’s proposed steel plant on 11,000 acres of land in Gumla and Khunti where the Chotanagpur Tenancy Act prohibits the sale of tribal land to non-tribals, she has been charged in connection with other protests in the region: for having led a march demanding that villagers be given MGNREGS job cards or given unemployment allowance in villages in Angada block in Ranchi district, for “leading a group of over 100-150 farmers, who entered the plot where NUSRL and IIM had already constructed boundary walls and cultivated the land” in a place 25 kms from Ranchi where land had been taken over for a Law University and an Indian Institute of Management. Lado Sikakawas picked up by the police on 9thAugust, 2010 and released three days later following an outcry. The police said they had picked him up because they thought he may be a Maoist and let him off when they found he was not. Lado Sikaka is a Dongria Khond tribal who has been leading the resistance against Vedanta’s plans to mine in Niyamgiri.
Dayamani Barla has been awarded Cultural Survival’s Ellen L. Lutz Indigenous Rights Award. Ramesh Aggarwal, who was shot at by gunmen, disabling him, soon after he had led from the front in the closing down of a coal mine in Raigarh was recently awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize (commonly known as the ‘Green Nobel’). This seems to indicate the existence of two divergent world views in the understanding of offence and protection.
In another case, Prof. Nandini Sundar was accused of links with the Maoists. Prof Nandini Sundar was a lead petitioner in the case in the Supreme Court that challenged the Salwa Judum policy, and is held in high esteem in the region for having brought Salwa Judum to a close. Social activists like Himanshu Kumar (who used to run the Vanvasi Chetna Ashram NGO in Dantewada, before it was demolished by police), Swami Agnivesh and writer Arundhati Roy have also been “branded” as having links with Maoists. The Supreme Court has, in Nandini Sundar v. State of Chhattisgarh, commented on this practice of the State: “We must state that we were aghast at the blindness to constitutional limitations of the State of Chhattisgarh, and some of its advocates, in claiming that anyone who questions the conditions of inhumanity that are rampant in many parts of that state ought to necessarily be treated as Maoists, or their sympathizers, and yet in the same breath also claim that it needs the constitutional sanction under our Constitution, to perpetrate its policies of ruthless violence against the people of Chhattisgarh to
establish a Constitutional order.”
Soni Sori Case
Soni Sori was picked up from a marketplace in Dantewada district, Chhattisgarh on 4thOctober, 2011. She, along with Lingaram Kodopi, was accused of acting as a conduit between the naxalites and Essar for payment of money from Essar. D.V.C.S Verma, the Essar general manager and B.K. Lala, the company’s chief contractor, were also arrested in connection with this charge in September, 2011. Two others, accused of being naxal commanders, have been absconding. The Dantewada district court granted bail to D.V.C.S. Verma in January, 2012, and to B.K. Lala in February, 2012. More than two years later, in an appeal against an order of the Chhattisgarh High Court, on 7th February, 2014, the Supreme Court directed that Soni Sori and Lingaram Kodopi be released on bail.
Soni Sori complained of severe torture and of being sexually assaulted when she was held in police custody. On 19th October, 2011, the Supreme Court directed that Soni Sori be examined by doctors in a Kolkata hospital in connection with the injuries she sustained in police custody. The medical report from the hospital found two stones in her private parts and rectum, confirming her complaint of rape. In a series of letters addressed to the Supreme Court, Soni Sori had charged Ankit Garg, Superintendent of Police of Dantewada police station, of verbally abusing her and directing police personnel to strip her naked and administer electric shocks. Ankit Garg was given the Presidents Gallantry Award soon after.
There are serious questions about each of these issues: Soni Sori’s father was shot in his leg by the naxalites: why would anyone say that Soni would support the naxalites, he asked, when the committee met him. Why was no FIR filed and investigation done either, when Soni Sori complained of torture, or when the Kolkata hospital found evidence of the torture, including sexual torture? Why was Ankit Garg given the Gallantry Award, when there were serious charges that had been made against him which had not yet been investigated. The DGP (Home Guards) reportedly said, in explanation: “The Police Medal for Gallantry is for a specific instance… it is not like the award for Meritorious Service … Ankit Garg led one of the teams in the Mahasamund [encounter].”
Narayanpatna
Narayanpatna block, Koraput district in Odisha has been the site of a powerful movement on issues of bonded labour, a dominant liquor mafia and land grabbing by non-tribals. Nachika Linga, the leader of the tribal collective Chausi Mulia Adivasi Sangh (CMAS) was liberated from bonded labour after five generations of his family had suffered under its yoke. The CMAS was also at the forefront of resistance to mining operations for bauxite in the Mali Parbat and Deomali areas. Despite the non-violent nature of their activities, government and police forces have branded them as Maoists and launched brutal operations against them with this justification.
In the last few years, Narayanpatna has become a heavily militarized zone, with three BSF camps in the block and several allegations against central security forces for brutal attacks and repression of dissent. On 20thNovember, 2009, when hundreds of CMAS activists protested the acts of the security forces outside the Narayanpatna police station, police opened fire killed two leading figures of the movement, and arrested and jailed several others. We were told that many had died in prison due to lack of proper medical facilities. Widows of this incident had approached the Odisha High Court for justice where the court directed payment of compensation.
According to a press statement in 2010, the number of persons taken into judicial custody from Narayanapatna block in Koraput district touched 104, including tribal children. There are around 15 children below the age of 14 confined in Koraput District Jail. The children do not know the language (Odia) which the jail authorities speak and are unaware about why they are in jail.
In a press statement, several Panchayat functionaries of the block alleged that the State government was not allowing them to function and was unleashing a “reign of terror” in the area. Narayanpatna seems caught in the crossfire between state agencies and Maoist groups. On the one hand, many in the CMAS movements have been labeled as Maoists and persecuted on that basis. Simultaneously, there have been several attacks by Maoists on leaders of movements in the area as well as those accused of being “informants” to the State. In 2010, there was an IED blast that killed four civilian lives and another on 11th January 2011 that injured three government officials. Militarization has also made it difficult for outsiders, including journalists and others, to go to the area. This has led to the isolation of Narayanpatna and left its residents neglected and beleaguered after years of conflict.