Lessons From the Peace March

[Mahatma Gandhi's 150th birth anniversary started on 2nd October 2018. On that day, a historic peace march started from the old Gandhi Ashram in Chatti, a little village located in the remote forested area at the border of three states Chattisgarh, Telengana and Andhra. 

This is also the principal habitat of the indigenous Gond and Muria people. The region has been the site of a prolonged conflict between the Indian state and armed Maoists for nearly four decades. The conflict resulted in nearly 20,000 killings, tens of thousands of innocent civilians in prison, almost perennial famine, forests laced with explosive devices, hundreds of thousands homeless. Needless to say, most of the victims are tribals. For the history and review of the conflict, see my book Maiosts in India: Tribals under Siege. 

After much consultation and preparations, some courageous tribal leaders from different regions have organised a peace march from Chatti to Jagdalpur through the heart of maoist territory, covering nearly 200 kilometers through dense forests filled with thousands of maoist and state militias armed with sophisticated weapons. 

The march started on 2nd October and is scheduled to reach its destination on 12th October. For a day by day account of the march, accompanied by pictures and videos, see my Facebook page. Now that the march has crossed the halfway mark after a week, I will write short reviews of the march everyday to lend a fuller perspective to this historic event. Please support the march and donate here.] 

The Background

As the daring, innovative Shanti Padayatra completes a week of gruelling march through a dangerously beautiful territory, it is time to assess its historical significance. I will keep doing this in short spells until the march reaches its destination, and the so-called Bastar dialogue takes place in Jagdalpur on 13 October.

This has been a march by adivasis themselves, accompanied by a few, very few, well-meaning non-adivasi activists. And the Maoists have condemned the effort. Even before the march started, they ordered the local adivasis to boycott the yatra; they also targeted the principal organiser Shubhranshu Choudhary as a corporate agent etc. No doubt, the Maoist diktat has reduced interaction between the local population and the yatris, but the yatra continued effectively in defiance of the diktat. Recall that the Maoists have always ordered boycott of the electoral process, threatening people with physical harm if they disobeyed. These orders prove conclusively that Maoists are threatened by any democratic action by the adivasis.

After some initial support 30 years ago, Maoists have controlled the habitat and the economic life of the adivasis directly with guns so that only their fatwahs are the rule. If the Maoists enjoyed popular, voluntary support, there would have been no need to do so. Contrary to armchair, elite maoist propagandists such as Gautam Navlakha, Arundhati Roy, Varavar Rao, Sumanta Bannerji, Nandini Sundar etc.—who view the Maoist movement as a genuine uprising of people—Maoists have degenerated into an anti-democratic mafia, as fully documented in my book.

For the first time in recent history, the march of the adivasis has directly challenged the hegemony of the Maoists. The fact that adivasis of different regions can unite and organise a bold peace march on the highway basically means that the adivasis have regained part of their habitat simply by demanding peace. That is the power of non-violence. No wonder neither the Maoists nor their ‘revolutionary’ elite sympathisers are pleased with it. 

Lessons

As the wonderful Shanti Padayatra reaches its destination today (12 October 2018), it is time to draw lessons from this unique event. I wanted to give a day by day analysis of the political aspects of the yatra for coming to terms with maoist insurgency in east-central India. Since I could not find the time in the last few days, I have just jotted down some of what I think to be the real lessons of the yatra. I hope the organisers will find some way of discussing them to plan for the future.

1. The ground situation has changed drastically from 2004 and 2010. Maoists are now significantly less in number, cornered in progressively smaller areas, recruitment and securing of arms rapidly falling. They are beginning to lose the conflict and will be mostly eliminated in 5 years. In these circumstances, the proportion of rebel killings always increases vis-a-vis killing of govt. forces. Militias and guerrillas killed are and will be mostly adivasis.

2. The state clearly knows the situation. Hence, (a) they will not sit down for any talks unless Maoists put down arms and surrender, (b) they will not discuss any post-conflict policies unless Maoists surrender, (c) the state will want the armed conflict to continue at progressively lower levels because not only is the conflict big business, they want to totally close any further possibility of mobilisation, (d) the state also wants to continue because it gives them propaganda advantage in terms of 'urban naxals' etc. (e) There is also the issue of revenge by CRPF and police commanders.

3. Maoists are also aware both about their falling resources and options before the state. They know very well that once they give up arms, they will be left with no option at all. Hence they declare they will fight to the last adivasi.

4. In this context, any policy discussion, demands for new statutes, laws, demarcations etc. are totally meaningless. These can only be empty intellectual exercises suited to the elite intelligentsia, but have no value for the adivasis. Similarly, all models from Rajiv-Longowal, Colombia (FARC), Nepal, IRA etc. are equally meaningless. None of these models apply because Maoists cover very little ground after 40 years of armed struggle. The state is not going to listen because Maoists are encircled.

5. Since the state and the Maoists are not open to peace, the only victims are the adivasis, both inside and outside Maoist forces. In that sense, the adivasis and really grounded civil society activists like Manish Kunjam and the Gandhians at the Chatti Ashram are the only forces capable of enforcing peace. To repeat, issues of policy, justice, etc. can be deferred until killing of adivasis stops. Saving adivasis lives IS the absolute priority.

6. Amidst all this negativity, the only positive aspect is that since maoists consist of adivasis operating in adivasi habitat, adivasis have demographic superiority. The task is to turn this advantage to real active expression independently of Maoist leadership and the state.

7. This is what the padayatra has achieved in impressive scale and duration. In a very strong sense, adivasis have reclaimed their voice and their habitat.

8. It is imperative therefore that instead of engaging in intellectual bickering about 'models' etc., the peace process already accomplished should be expanded. There ought to be many more marches in the coming dry season across Dandakaranya from every nook and corner. These could be shorter marches of 20-50 kilometers, on foot, on cycle, covering every village. There should be attempts to form village level peace committees that will co-ordinate with nearby villages to construct a variety of peace programs. Once adivasis get the courage and the organisational energy to fill their land with the mantra of peace, it will (i) certainly discourage young people from joining maoists, and (b)  encourage people inside to come out and join the mainstream. From Shanti Padayatra to Shanti Andolan.

9. Throughout, with whatever civil society support is available, there ought to be pressure on security forces to protect adivasi peace-moves, and keep track of every returning male and female for proper rehabilitation. Needless to say, ONLY adivasi leaders and non-adivasi activists in the ground, as mentioned, can play this role effectively. We from the outside can keep the process alive by spreading the news, raising money, etc. BUT THE BASIC PROCESS MUST BE DESIGNED, LED AND IMPLEMENTED BY ADIVASIS THEMSELVES. Both the Maoists and state forces will be compelled to listen to them, as borne out already with just one peace march.

10. I am sure once the process grows significantly, Maoists, who must already be watching with concern, will begin to see both the danger and the promise: the danger of losing the war and the promise of continuing the resistance peacefully overground. Once the rug of adivasis is pulled from below their armed feet, they will be compelled to find new ground without arms.

We can then take care of the rogue state together.

A Letter to a friend

Dear xxx,

Cannot agree with you more on your observation that ‘this sort of thing happens to the poor every day (muslims, dalits, foresters, slumdwellers), but as soon as the middle class gets oppressed and gets into the resistance it is all over the newspapers, so one can’t miss it.’ You didn’t explicitly mention it, but I know you are talking about the five people arrested two days ago on the charge of ‘maoist affiliations’: Sudha Bharadwaj, Gautam Navlakha, Vernon Gonsalves, Varavar Rao, Arun Ferreira.

However, let me qualify your statement by saying that it’s not just any ‘middle class’ that generates such outrage in the left-liberal circles; it needs to be a certain pretty well-defined section of elite intellectuals with a radical history of sorts. Let me explain with some case studies.

Please note that among these 5, Varavara Rao, Vernon Gonsalves, and Arun Ferreira are old activists who have been to prison several times on similar charges in every regime. The activist circle knows about this history; the rest of the left, not to mention high profile liberals, never cared. Now they are very prominent in the media because they are in the company of Sudha and Gautam. I guess you have at least heard of all of them.

Among these two, Gautam is a very well-known wealthy writer deeply associated with the elite Delhi community of advocates like Shanti Bhusan and his team, and top writers and publishers, Arundhati Roy, Penguin, etc. He has a long editorial association with EPW, and is active with PUDR writing excellent reports on state oppression. As far as I know, otherwise, notions of ‘people’s representative’, ‘working for the poor and the marginalised’—freely used for him currently—do not apply. He is just a very well connected, elite, journalist based in Delhi who writes radical stuff. There are dozens of such non-elite journalists across the country covering the miseries of the poor on a daily basis, no one cares about them. I know quite a few personally, have mentioned them in my book on Maoists.

Sudha Bharadwaj is an exception in this lot and needs a separate para. As you know, she is the daughter of Krishna Bharadwaj who was a star student of Sraffa, top economist, JNU professor, EPW editor etc. Sudha gave up her US citizenship and returned to India, got mathematics degree from IIT Kanpur, got involved with labour movement, shifted to Chattisgarh to work for Chattisgarh Mukti Morcha founded by the legendary Shankar Guha Neogi, and the rest is history. Her life, along with a very few others like Binayak Sen, Medha Patkar and Bela Bhatia, are contemporary legends in the annals of resistance. She is the one who has truly worked with and for the real poor and marginalised, and is internationally known for it. My point is there are hundreds of dedicated middle-class activists working for the poor in remote, forgotten corners of this wretched country. But they don’t have the pedigree that Sudha has. Those hapless activists, I have known dozens of them in my life (even in Delhi) just work in miserable conditions, hopping from one tiny forum to another, and disappear without noise. It’s this pedigree and elite connection of Gautam and Sudha that generated the outrage this time.

Just to give you a brief idea of the ‘privileged justice’, if you allow, note that within a few hours of police conducting search operations for Gautam and Sudha, big time advocates intervened throughout the night to stall their remand and transfer to Pune. Within a few hours, the Supreme Court was alerted by the following battery of advocates, the who’s who:

Dr. Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Sr. Adv.
Ms. Indira Jaising, Sr. Adv.
Mr. Dushyant Dave, Sr. Adv.
Mr. Huzefa Ahmadi, Sr. Adv.
Dr. Rajeev Dhavan, Sr. Adv.
Mr. Chander Uday Singh, Sr. Adv.
Mr. Raju Ramachandran, Sr. Adv.
Mr. Sanjay R. Hegde, Sr. Adv.
Mr. Amit Bhandari, Adv.
Mr. Prashant Bhushan, Adv.
Ms. Vrinda Grover, Adv.
Ms. Ratna Appnender, Adv.
Mr. Prasanna S., Adv.
Mr. Soutik Banerjee, Adv.
Ms. Cheryl D’Souza, Adv.
Mr. Tushar Mehta, ASG
Mr. Maninder Singh, ASG
Mr. R. Balasubrmanian, Adv.
Mr. Rajat Nair, Adv.
Ms. Swati Ghildiyal, Adv.
Mr. Sachin Sharma, Adv.
Mr. A.K. Sharma, Adv.
Mr. B.V. Balram Das, Adv.
Mr. Anil Grover, AAG
Mr. Satish Kumar, Adv.
Mr. Sanjay Kr. Visen, Adv.

In less than 24 hours, Supreme Court took up the petition from Romila Thapar, Prabhat Patnaik, Devaki Jain, Satish Deshpande etc. with a 3-judge bench chaired by the CJI. Very swiftly the police action was stayed and the activists were placed under home arrest till September 5. The nice bonus is that Arun, Vernon, and Varavara too returned home, this time.

As you saw, the TV and mainstream media is full of prominent stories on this with Hindu devoting headlines and nearly full pages. The situation is so heightened that even characters like Ramchandra Guha and Pratap Bhanu Mehta, who were praising Modi as the greatest leader since Nehru and predicting BJP rule for 25-30 years, have started giving fiery interviews and published blistering attacks on the mockery of the constitution, democratic norms, and dissent, to pave the way for corporate loot, etc.

In contrast, nobody raised a finger when 7 other activists including Rona Wilson, Dr. Shoma Sen, and others—each of whom have a long history of silent but wonderful work on human and democratic rights, especially the rights of political prisoners—were arrested, swiftly charged and imprisoned in June this year. They are still there, although as a trickle-down effect, people have now appealed for their bail in the Supreme Court.

More disturbingly, Dr. Sai Baba, a very well known ‘maoist’ activist was totally illegally arrested three years ago, swiftly convicted under UAPA, and awarded life. Sai Baba is 90% disabled and crawls on his hands and knees. Despite shrill campaign from some of us, the left-liberal, JNU-type fraternity never cared. Public meetings, street demos never saw more than a dozen hapless activists. I wrote on his condition at length at the time of his arrest, and repeated many times since. You can check on this site.

His devastated family and some committed activists have regularly circulated updates on his medical condition. Many attempts have been made to garner elite attention. To no avail so far. Sai Baba is rapidly sinking to death.

Isn’t there a topic called ‘moral luck’?

Case of Bidyut Chakravarty

Over two years ago, I posted a fairly long piece in Facebook to protest the vicious character assassination of Prof. Bidyut Chakravarty, the eminent professor of political science in Delhi University. I had to engage in considerable research including perusal of legal documents to prepare the piece. In response, some of the Delhi left-liberal academic mafia, whose deeds were thoroughly exposed in the piece, abused me in the filthiest language, accusing me of defending a sexual harasser to remain close to power. Needless to say, a range of these people blocked/unfriended me in Facebook.

It was a pleasant surprise to see that the piece I had forgotten about was in fact fully cited in a blog at that time. I am reproducing the piece below for posterity.

Left mafia at work Again

Nirmalangshu Mukherji

about 2 years ago

A familiar array of left-liberal intellectuals of Delhi has ganged-up against Professor Bidyut Chakravarty of Delhi University. Professor Chakravarty is a very senior political scientist with an outstanding academic record. Very very few academicians in the country, especially in the discipline of political science, can match his amazing publication record and vast international recognition. To date he has over two dozen books to his credit, all published by very prestigious publications (OUP, Routledge, Sage, etc.) mostly from abroad. I leave it to the reader to judge how his colleagues might have reacted to his eminence in the narrow-minded academia of Delhi.

To cut a long story short, a case of sexual harassment was initiated against Prof. Chakravarty and the matter was placed before the Apex Committee formed under Visakha guidelines vide Act XV-D of Delhi University. I will not comment on the constitution and the proceedings of the said committee on this case except to note that it is quite possible that the members of the committee—mostly fellow women academicians themselves—might have been politically connected to the opponents of Prof. Chakravarty in his faculty.

The said committee placed its findings before Delhi University and the report was deliberated in the Executive Council on 8.10.2007. The Apex committee itself recommended fairly mild strictures against Prof. Chakravarty: 1. A letter of warning should be issued to him. 2. He should be asked to step down from the Directorship of Gandhi Bhawan. 3. He should be debarred from all administrative posts and supervisory duties in the University for a period of three years. EC accepted these recommendations and acted accordingly. There was no recommendation for suspension, removal, demotion, and the like. Note that the operative period of these strictures ended on 7.10.2010.

Despite the mild nature of the strictures, Prof. Chakravarty challenged every aspect of the EC order. In the High Court, he (a) questioned ACT XV-D suggesting it violates various articles of constitution, (b) sought quashing of the strictures, (c) challenged the procedure of the Apex committee in not allowing him to cross-question the accuser, (d) sought quashing of appointment of another HOD in his place.

The accuser had also filed an FIR charging Prof. Chakravarty with abusive verbal behaviour and molestation, same as the charges before the Apex Committee. Prof. Chakravarty also appealed to High Court for quashing the FIR. [This aspect of the case is consistently suppressed by the mafia]

Apparently, FOUR things happened.

(1) In its judgment of 29 May 2009, the division bench of Sikri and Jain ordered as follows: (i) They upheld the validity of XV-D (naturally); (ii) Refused to interfere with the appointment of new HOD; (iii) They found very serious infirmities in the procedure of the Apex Committee in denying justice and fair trial to Prof. Chakravarty including item (c) above. AS SUCH THE HIGH COURT SET ASIDE THE EC RESOLUTION OF 2007 AND ABSOLVED PROF. CHAKRAVARTY OF ALL CHARGES.

(2) The bench of Justice Dhingra at High Court on 5 October 2010 considered the police report following the FIR and observed: “In view of the fact that there was no evidence that the alleged incident had taken place or the petitioner had threatened the complainant or molested her as alleged, rather the sequence of events shows that the scolding had taken place on the employees on their no being present during working hours, I consider that no proceedings could be initiated against the petitioner keeping in view the charge-sheet filed by the police which was more in the nature of a closure report. I, therefore, allow this petition.’’ THUS, TWO JUDGMENTS OF THE HIGH COURT SEPARATELY ABSOLBED PROF. CHAKRAVARTY OF ALL CHARGES, BOTH ON GROUNDS OF PROCEDURE AND EVIDENCE.

(3) However, since Delhi University failed to take remedial measure following court judgments, Prof. Chakravarty appealed to High Court seeking contempt of Court. On May 7, 2010, The Hindu, reported on the court order as follows: 

“The Delhi High Court has let off Delhi University Vice-Chancellor Deepak Pental lightly in a contempt of court case after the University informed the Court that it had inadvertently informed Professor Bidyut Chakrabarty of the Political Department that it was still keeping alive two memorandums whereby he was held guilty of sexual harassment and barred from holding any administrative post for three years on that basis. A Division Bench of the High Court had in May last year quashed the two memorandums on a petition filed by Prof. Chakrabarty challenging them. Prof. Chakrabarty had received information about the University still putting reliance on the two memorandums despite their being quashed by the Court in reply to an application filed by him under the Right to Information Act. Following the receipt of the information, Prof. Chakrabarty filed a contempt petition against Prof. Pental. The University had earlier informed the petitioner in reply to the contempt petition that once the two memorandums had been quashed no further action against him would be taken. Counsel for the University further informed the Court that the person who replied to the RTI query had not seen the judgment. Following the admission of the faux pas by the University, the Court disposed of the petition saying no further order was required to be passed. While disposing of the petition, Justice G. S. Sistani said the University, as promised to the Court, shall within a week take steps to inform the Department concerned about the two memorandums being set aside.

(4) Since the issue of cross-examination of accuser in sexual harrassment cases under Visakha was a knotty issue, it reached the Supreme Court following direction sought by Prof. Chakravarty. The Supreme Court deliberated ONLY on the matter, in complete ignorance of the judgments of the High Court. In its order of 7 May, 2010, SC gave relief to Prof. Chakravarty by appointing a court commissioner to cross-examine the accuser on behalf of Prof. Chakravarty. Having passed merely the procedural order, the Supreme Court closed the matter at its end.

To emphasize, SC was not seized with HC judgments and had not set the HC judgments aside. Nor had the HC re-initiated the procedure to start a fresh inquiry on the case. As noted, the HC had in fact closed the case after obtaining assurance from Delhi University that no further action will be taken against Prof. Chakravarty.

Nonetheless, on receiving procedural clarification from SC, the University proceeded with the inquiry once again in clear violation of THREE HC orders since it never sought directions from the Supreme Court in view of the orders of the High Court. As it so happened (probably due to internal pressure from influential opponents of Prof. Chakravarty in the university), the Apex Committee went through the process again without any sanction from High Court and once again placed its findings before EC in 2012. Notice that the operative period of the EC resolution 114 of 2007 had already expired way back in 2010. Even then the EC proceeded to adopt resolution 235 of 21.3.2012 reaffirming resolution 114 in complete violation of High Court orders and without any fresh sanction from Supreme Court.

Prof. Chakravarty reportedly was outside the country during the period 2010-12 on a prestigious academic appointment. His response to the new inquiry was never sought, nor was he given a copy of the resolution to proceed against it if he so desired. Also, except for adopting a vitiated, mala fide resolution after the fact, the university did nothing since the operative period had long lapsed. Obviously, unless otherwise explained, the entire operation was conducted viciously in the absence Prof. Chakravarty to create a piece of paper against him despite assurances before the court not to take any action against him.

Now, an influential group of left-liberal academicians, who masquerade as defenders of tolerance and plural voices, are flaunting this filthy piece of paper to defame Prof. Chakravarty in the name of citizens of India just because Prof. Chakravarty’s name has appeared as one of the possible candidates for Vice-Chancellorship of Delhi University.

Nirmalangshu Mukherji Kavita Krishnan, Naveen Gaur, Ayesha Kidwai, Abha Dev Habib, Vijay Singh, Ali Javed, Mohan Rao, Poonam Kaushik, Sundeep Dougal, Shuddhabrata Sengupta, Kamal Chenoy, Purushottam Agrawal