As Pakistan deals with a powerful insurgency and daily carnage, there are calls for backing up the Pakistani army-led counterinsurgency with major social, economic and political reforms to calm the growing social unrest that attracts young men and women to radical causes. These calls are being reinforced by the belief that the Taliban insurgent groups often succeed by exploiting local grievances against powerful landlords, and lack of economic opportunity for the alienated young population growing up under feudal or tribal systems.
Some of these conditions are not unique to Pakistan. Pakistan's neighbor India has bigger issues of landless peasants, the caste-based Apartheid, and the problem of widespread hunger, poverty and desperation, which is worse than most of its neighbors. In addition, there is a known and growing nexus between the radical Hindus and some of the Indian intelligence and military officials, as recently detailed by former police chief of Maharashtra, Mr. S.M. Mushrif in his book titled "Who Killed Karare?".
Here is a report by a Pakistani journalist Rahimullah Yusufzai after his recent visit to India:
"I fear there will be a bloody revolution in India," a retired Indian military officer remarked to this writer and other guests during a recent visit to New Delhi. It was shocking to hear the comment from a soldier, in a country that supposedly had given a voice to its huge population and was believed to be all-inclusive.
It is obvious that India's much-praised democracy hasn't brought any real change in the lives of millions of Indians. That some of the poorest men and women are now up in arms in parts of India is evidence enough that democratically elected governments must do more to provide rights and justice to the rural poor and ensure even-handed development in different parts of the country.
The Naxalite violence in India has caused pain to most thinking Indians. For them it is a matter of anguish that a growing number of Indians are disillusioned with their country's democracy and see no hope of benefiting from India's steady economic progress. They have picked up the gun to fight for their rights.
The Maoist-linked violence is spreading and engulfing new places. The vast region affected by the insurgency include the states of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar and West Bengal and runs south through Orissa, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. It is usually called the "Red Corridor" because the leadership for the rebels is provided by communist cadres labelled as Maoists. The Communist Party of India (Marxists-Leninists), despite suffering splits, is still the standard-bearer of the rebels.
According to reports in the Indian media, more than 220 districts in 20 or so states are now affected by Maoist-linked violence. Indian intelligence agencies believe the movement has at its disposal 20,000 armed cadres and over 50,000 regular members. Apart from the rural poor, indigenous tribes such as the Girijans in Andhra Pradesh and Santhals in West Bengal have been flocking to the Naxalite movement. The movement has appeal for the dispossessed and the under-privileged. In the words of its present leader, Mupalla Laxman Rao, in hiding somewhere in eastern India and better known as Ganapathi, his party's influence has grown stronger and it was now the only genuine alternative before the people of India.
The Naxalite movement began as a peasants' uprising in May 1969 in the village of Naxalbari in West Bengal. It was initially led by 49-year-old Charu Mazumdar and its aim was to seize power through an agrarian revolution by overthrowing the feudal order. Mazumdar died in police custody 12 days after his arrest in Calcutta in 1972 and became a hero to Maoist cadres that have increased in number and strength over the years despite splits in the movement. The Naxalite insurgency has sprouted after every defeat and is now stronger than ever.
India's share of the world's poorest people has increased to 39 percent from 25 percent in 1980. In comparison, the Below Poverty Line population worldwide has decreased from 1,470 million to 970 million. There are reportedly 301 million Indians below the poverty line, just 19 million less than in 1983. The Human Development Report by the UN has been ranking India among the lowest 60 or 65 countries in the list of 193 nations that are part of the annual study. India's poor performance on this score was in spite of the around nine percent growth rate in its GDP. There are reports in the media about farmers committing suicide or selling their wives to pay mounting debts. Though the recorded figures of such cases aren't high in a big country such as India with 1.17 billion people, it still indicates the desperate state of certain communities.
India's poor and marginalised groups have on occasions showed their anger through the power of the ballot. This happened in the 2004 and also in the 2009 national elections. The Hindu nationalist BJP tried to seek votes by coining the slogan, India Shining, in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections as part of its claim that its coalition government had brought prosperity during its five-year rule. But the electorate thought otherwise as the majority, particularly the poor and rural voters, the lower castes and minorities hadn't benefited from the progress that had mostly made the rich richer. Their verdict in the polls was against the BJP-led NDA alliance and in support of the Congress and its allies. The Congress won again in 2009 despite the incumbency factor because it was largely seen as the party that cared more for the rights of the poor and the rural voters and was conscious of the concerns of the minorities, particularly Muslims.
However, it is the ruling Congress now that is confronted with the challenge of responding to the needs of India's restless rural poor and tribal communities. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recently described the Naxalite insurgency as the single greatest threat to India's internal security. Rahul Gandhi, son of Congress head Sonia Gandhi and the rising star of Indian politics, has been focusing on the vast Indian hinterland, visiting the under-developed rural villages and spending nights at the homes of Dalits, often termed the poorest and most oppressed people in the country. This cannot be enough to calm down the Naxalites, who are convinced that only force could win the Indian people their rights.
A showdown between the Indian government and the Naxalites is now imminent. The Congress-led government is mobilising hundreds of thousands of security personnel, mostly police and paramilitary forces, to launch an offensive against the Maoists mostly likely in November. It has ruled out the use of the military, but the operation will be coordinated from New Delhi as part of a central government initiative. Indian analysts and foreigners knowledgeable about India have pointed out that the country lacked a cohesive strategy to deal with the insurgency. The ruling elites have also been criticised for being slow in responding to the needs of the poorest communities, who were then easily recruited by the Maoists.
Such is the hatred of the Naxalites for the ruling elite that their leader Ganapathi, a former schoolteacher, branded Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Home Minister P Chidambaran as "terrorists." In a recent interview at his secret jungle hideout with the weekly magazine Open, he said "the people will rise up like a tornado under our party's leadership to wipe out the reactionary blood-sucking vampires ruling our country." At another point, the 59-year old Ganapathi declared: "Those (government) sharks want to loot the wealth and drive the tribal people of the region to further impoverishment."
By threatening to unleash a "tornado" of violence if the Indian government went ahead with its planned large-scale offensive against his insurgent forces, Ganapathi has made the intentions of the Maoists obvious. Already, his men, and even some women cadres, have carried out actions that are now normally associated with the Taliban. They have kidnapped and beheaded government officials, blown up electricity and telephone towers, destroyed roads and railway tracks, killed political opponents and attacked police stations and other official installations. The offensive against the Naxalites will certainly weaken and deprive them of some of their bases and hideouts, but the issue cannot be resolved by the use of force alone. Many members of the Indian intelligentsia sympathise with the cause of the Maoists and objective analysts see it as an economic issue and one concerning lack of justice. The Indian ruling elite needs to tackle the root-cause of the insurgency instead of applying force through the state apparatus to crush the rebels.
I think Mr. Yousufzai, an independent journalist and reporter from Pakistan, has done a good job of reporting what he saw and heard in India and he has put it in context.
But predicting revolutions is hazardous business. In spite of studying historic causes of past revolutions, it's not any more accurate than predicting when and where the next big earthquake or hurricane will hit and what will happen in its aftermath.
Talking about Pakistan, the violence has reached new heights in recent days. The conditions have existed for a while and the triggers have been in place, and yet, it's not certain if what we are seeing now is indeed a revolution. There are still many questions as to whether the nation's political and military leadership can forestall a bloody revolution, by a combination of the use of force and appearance of reform to placate those violently protesting the tyranny of the status quo. After all, terrorism is often defined as a form of violent protest.
In India, too, conditions exist for a bloody revolution. But it's not certain what the trigger will be. It could be the growth of the Maoist movement and its spread from rural to urban India where it begin to be seen by Indian urban middle class and gets the attention of the world media. But it's by no means fait accompli. All depends on the ability of India's political leaders and its military's competency in forestalling it. But the jury is still out on these questions.
Rahimullah Yusufzai is resident editor of The News in Peshawar. Email: rahimyusufzai@yahoo.com
Here is British Writer William Dalrymple talking about India and Pakistan:
Here's are two video clips about Maoists in India:
Related Links:
Can Indian Democracy Deliver?
Grinding Poverty in Resurgent India
Pakistan's Choice: Globalization or Talibanization
The Tornado Awaiting India
Countering Militancy in FATA
Political, Economic and Social Reforms in Pakistan
Fixing Sanitation Crisis in India
Western Myths About "Stable, Peaceful, Prosperous" India
Taliban Target Landed Elite
Feudal Punjab Fertile For Terror
Caste: India's Apartheid
Photo Quiz: What is this guy doing?
9 hours ago
34 comments:
Today in the talk radio show I heard the host was talking about Pakistan as being as bad as Iraq and Afghanistan. He was talking about today's blast at Peshawar. He was telling "can you believe for this country we are spending billions as aid. We can't we just leave them alone and let them deal with each other the only way they know - by killing".
I work at a place surrounded by Indians. The glee on their face is palpable. It is as if their long cherished dream of Pak getting wiped out is getting fulfilled, with no effort on their part.
Sad, but true.
Let us focus on that instead of worrying about India.
"Bloody revolution in India"? I thought Peshawar and Waziristhan are in Pakistan. If Indian borders were weaker, then those Taliban terrorists would have created a bloody revolution in India. Until that time, it is wishful thinking..
@Riaz - Any reason for a burst in anti india postings :-)
Anyhow I am not sure how much respect Indian would give to this writer. E.g. what do you think of this article in indian newspaper
Times of India
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/pakistan/Pakistanis-too-scared-to-leave-home-many-want-to-flee-country/articleshow/5166427.cms
And what do you think of this article
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1932723,00.html
I think the author Yousufzai, an independent journalist and reporter, has done a good job of reporting what he saw and heard in India and he has put it in context.
But predicting revolutions is hazardous business. In spite of studying historic causes of past revolutions, it's not any more accurate than predicting when and where the next big earthquake or hurricane will hit and what will happen in its aftermath.
Understandably, some of you have brought up Pakistan's current bloody situation in response to this post.
Clearly, the violence has reached new heights in Pakistan. The conditions have existed for a while and the triggers have been in place, and yet, it's not certain if what we are seeing now is indeed the beginning of a revolution. There are still many questions as to whether the nation's political and military leadership can forestall a bloody revolution, by a combination of the use of force and appearance of reform to placate those violently protesting the status quo. After all, terrorism is often defined as a form of violent protest.
In India, too, conditions exist for a bloody revolution. But it's not certain what the trigger will be. It could be the growth of the mainly rural Maoist movement and its spread from rural to urban India where it begins to hurt the Indian urban middle class, politicians, businessmen and bureaucrats, and gets the attention of the world media. But it's by no means fait accompli. All depends on the ability of India's political leaders and its military's competency in forestalling it. But the jury is still out on these questions.
Here's a New York Times report about recent US assistance to Pakistan prior to the Waziristan operation:
During preparations this spring for the Pakistani campaigns in Swat and South Waziristan, President Obama personally intervened at the request of Pakistan’s top army general to speed the delivery of 10 Mi-17 troop transport helicopters. Senior Pentagon officials have also hurried spare parts for Cobra helicopter gunships, night vision goggles, body armor and eavesdropping equipment to the fight.
American military surveillance drones are feeding video images and target information to Pakistani ground commanders, and the Pentagon has quietly provided the Pakistani Air Force with high-resolution, infrared sensors for F-16 warplanes, which Pakistan is using to guide bomb attacks on militants’ strongholds in South Waziristan.
In addition, the number of American Special Forces soldiers and support personnel who are training and advising Pakistani Army and paramilitary troops has doubled in the past eight months, to as many as 150, an American adviser said. The Americans do not conduct combat operations.
The increasing American role in shoring up the Pakistani military’s counterinsurgency abilities comes as the Obama administration debates how much of a troop commitment to make in neighboring Afghanistan. It also takes place as Taliban attacks are spreading into Pakistani cities. It is unclear whether Pakistani authorities are using any of the sophisticated surveillance equipment to combat the urban terrorism.
Underscoring the complexity of the relationship between the allies, Pakistani officials are loath to publicize the aid because of the deep-seated anti-American sentiment in Pakistan. And they privately express frustration about the pace and types of aid, which totals about $1.5 billion this year.
Finally it is not the blogger and the bloggers opinion sell among people it is the news which sells about the countries.
If riaz feels that the news about pakistan is better than that of india so be it. However if other think the other way and wants to invest in india, it is the risk which they are taking for return
india will eventually break up. just a matter of time. economic disparity will speed up the process.
Anon: "india will eventually break up. just a matter of time. economic disparity will speed up the process."
I don't think India will break up because of the growing rich-poor gap; but there are other factors that will challenge India's unity.
Given the many ethnic, regional, religious and caste fault lines running through the length and breadth of India, there have long been questions raised about India's identity as a nation. Speaking about it last April, the US South Asia expert Stephen Cohen of Brookings Institution said, " But there is no all-Indian Hindu identity—India is riven by caste and linguistic differences, and Aishwarya Rai and Sachin Tendulkar are more relevant rallying points for more Indians than any Hindu caste or sect, let alone the Sanskritized Hindi that is officially promulgated".
According to a recent article published by a Chinese strategist, if India today relies on anything for unity, it is the Hindu religion. The emergence of a republic of India in 1947 was based on religion [the Hindus were a majority so they should rule.] The Chinese strategist wrote that India could only be described today as a 'Hindu religious state'.
Since when did a common netizen become a chinese strategist?
Wow Riaz,
How the hell do you get the time for bashing India at least once in 2-3 days. It seems like you take at least few hours daily for this purpose. I need to learn a lot from your time management :)
Dhananjay: "Since when did a common netizen become a chinese strategist?"
common netizen?
Here is what the BBC said about the "common netizen":
The report was written by the China International Institute of Strategic Studies in July.
It argues that a fragmented India would be in China's interests and would also lead to prosperity in the region.
The article was available online until recently but it has now been removed. Even so, it has received extensive coverage in the Indian press.
I dont see the Naxals as being primarily composed of landless labourers, although certainly in UP and Bihar they might be part of the Naxal cadre. I think they are composed mostly of tribals from India's remote and neglected tribal areas. Also, the trigger for the upsurge in the violence has been the violent land acquisition and exploitation by corporate houses, which has accelerated in the current environment.
The Naxal issue is one primarily of justice and rights. I think the big mistake their leadership is making is that its exploiting the genuine sense of grievance among the tribals into some all-India revolution. Although poverty and deprivation are widespread in India, their incidence and intensity vary enormously from state to state.
Cotton farmers in Maharashtra, factory workers in Tamil Nadu, tea growers in Assam, wheat farmers in Punjab, diamond workers in Gujarat all have difficult lives, and the state can do a lot more from them, but I dont think they want some kind of revolution to overthrow the Indian state.
The job of the civil society in India is to ensure that both the state and the Maoists give up violence as a means to solving conflicts, and the democratic space to solve conflicts be recovered, so solutions are sustainable and empowering rather than reactionary.
I hope that the Indian state realizes the mistakes it made in Kashmir, where the democratic space has (seemingly) only been recovered after military conflict that caused enormous suffering and widespread alienation among the Kashmiris. India is a wonderful idea and all its constituent people want it to succeed, its just that we have to our state accountable to the constitution and give up thoughts of using violence as a solution to our social problems
Riaz you seemed to have made a career out of believing fairytales and misleading articles. That so called 'article' was indeed written by a common netizen and not some Chinese thinktank.
"the director of chinaiiss.org told the Global Times that the article that infuriated Indians is actually an old article written by a Chinese Internet user who is neither affiliated with the think tank nor with the website.
He also explained that the website is not related to the International Institute of Strategic Studies in China. Reporters from the Global Times later searched the article online, and found it had appeared in personal blogs and forums in China for several years. The earliest published date was November 30, 2006, on Tianya, a leading Chinese BBS, by a web user named Queen Park Cruiser, with the title “Defeat India from Bangladesh”."
http://china.globaltimes.cn/diplomacy/2009-08/457503.html
If you still wish to believe it, then go ahead.
One more link:
"The site’s owner-editor Kang Lingyi has said that he ran the internet publication on his own without any backing from the Chinese government.
Kang said it was a mere coincidence that his website had a name similar to the official think-tank, China International Institute for Strategic Studies (CIISS), and that he has since changed it to China Center for International and Strategic Studies “to avoid confusion”."
http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/uncategorized/offensive-article-not-backed-by-beijing-chinese-website-says_100232115.html
Its just pathetic how you quote such 'articles' without even having the decency to verify the truth.
Dhanjay: "That so called 'article' was indeed written by a common netizen and not some Chinese thinktank."
If you believe what you are saying, then you also have to believe that there is freedom of expression in China that allows ordinary netizens to post whatever they feel like on important subjects like China's relations with its neighbors.
Here's a NY Times report today about growing Maoist insurgency in India:
India’s Maoist rebels are now present in 20 states and have evolved into a potent and lethal insurgency. In the last four years, the Maoists have killed more than 900 Indian security officers, a figure almost as high as the more than 1,100 members of the coalition forces killed in Afghanistan during the same period.
If the Maoists were once dismissed as a ragtag band of outdated ideologues, Indian leaders are now preparing to deploy nearly 70,000 paramilitary officers for a prolonged counterinsurgency campaign to hunt down the guerrillas in some of the country’s most rugged, isolated terrain.
For India, the widening Maoist insurgency is a moment of reckoning for the country’s democracy and has ignited a sharp debate about where it has failed. In the past, India has tamed some secessionist movements by coaxing rebel groups into the country’s big-tent political process. The Maoists, however, do not want to secede or be absorbed. Their goal is to topple the system.
Once considered Robin Hood figures, the Maoists claim to represent the dispossessed of Indian society, particularly the indigenous tribal groups, who suffer some of the country’s highest rates of poverty, illiteracy and infant mortality. Many intellectuals and even some politicians once sympathized with their cause, but the growing Maoist violence has forced a wrenching reconsideration of whether they can still be tolerated.
“The root of this is dispossession and deprivation,” said Ramachandra Guha, a prominent historian based in Bangalore. “The Maoists are an ugly manifestation of this. This is a serious problem that is not going to disappear.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/world/asia/01maoist.html?_r=1
Here is a BBC report today about India's "two faces":
In India, certainly in urban India, it just feels like the mercury is rising. Compare that to parts of Europe, my previous posting, where many people have plenty of everything. They are not pre-occupied with the hope of moving up, but with the fear of losing what they already have.
India, of course, could get it all wrong. The have-nots could remain stuck in their rut, increasingly angry and marginalised.
Hundreds of millions of people still survive on very little in this country and as they watch the new buoyant India flourish around them, there is bound to be a reaction.
A peasant-based rebellion, taking inspiration from the revolutionary teachings of Chairman Mao, is fermenting dangerously across a vast swathe of Indian territory. Unchecked, it could well spread fast. "That," a senior security official once told me, "is what really keeps me awake at night."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/8342664.stm
Nepalese Maoists admit support for Indian Maoists:
Just a day after the Nepalese media revealed about the close nexus and recent secret meetings between the two Red brothers (Maoists) from Nepal and India in an undisclosed location in India, a senior leader of Unified Communist Party of Nepal-Maoists (UCPN-M) has openly admitted that his party has extended full cooperation and support with Indian Maoists.
Speaking at press meeting, a Maoists-affiliated journalists association in Bara district of central Terai, on Sunday, party secretary CP Gajurel said, “We have extended our total support to the Indian Maoists Party, which has been enlisted as terrorist outfit by the Indian government, for their ongoing armed movement.”
According to a report carried out by the Rajdhani Daily, a Nepali national daily in Nepal, Gajurel, however, did not elaborate on whether their support was just a moral one or with arms as speculated by the Indian Home Minister P Chidambaram, recently.
The former chief of former rebels’ foreign relation bureau Gajurel who had spent three years jail term in Chenai a few years ago, is the first Maoists leader who applauded the Indian Maoists’ armed insurgency publicly.
Two days ago, the Rajdhani Daily had revealed about the secrete meeting held between the UCPN-M team led by central committee member Indra Mohal Sigdel alias Basanta and Indian Maoists leader Kishanji in an undisclosed place in India while Sigdel was in four-day India tour from October 8 to 11.
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2009/20091103/main5.htm
Here's a report in India Today about India's business community recommending inflicting pain on Pakistan:
The FICCI Task Force Report on National Security and Terrorism has underlined the need for a 'national counter-terrorism architecture' which establishes a national counter-terrorism agency, a national intelligence grid, a ministry of internal security with a cabinet minister and a new intelligence agency dedicated to non-state actors.
The report of the FICCI Task Force that was presented to Home Minister P. Chidambaram on Monday has made wide-ranging recommendations to counter the threat to India's security from cross-border jihadi terrorism and Naxalite insurgency.
Addressing media persons, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, MP and Immediate Past President, FICCI, and Chairman of the FICCI Task Force Report on National Security and Terrorism, expressed deep concern over the extent to which a pattern of contemporary jihad and home-grown terrorism has manifested itself in India.
The report documents how Pakistan's dubious policies on terrorism and its military establishment infused with jihadist mindset will continue to threaten India's security in the coming years.
The co-chairman of the FICCI Task Force Report on National Security and Terrorism is Harsh Pati Singhania, President, FICCI. The members of the Task Force are Yogendra K. Modi, Past President, FICCI; Ajit Kumar Doval, Former Director, Intelligence Bureau; Lt. Gen. (Retd.) Satish Nambiar; Air Chief Marshal (Retd.) S. Krishnaswamy; B. Raman, former additional secretary in the cabinet secretariat; Ved Prakash Marwah, former police commissioner, Delhi; and Dr Amit Mitra, Secretary-General, FICCI.
The report points out that that Pakistan will maintain its infrastructure of terrorism - the networks that recruit, train, equip and finance jihadis - inside Pakistani territory. In this context, the task force recommended leveraging international cooperation by co-opting foreign expertise for developing capacity, monitoring movements of terrorist leaders, and sharing information and knowledge with them; developing capabilities for covert and overt operations on terrorist locations, a common investigation cell for whole of India, a calibrated and well defined decision-making process and accountability at various levels, place strong 'immediate response' mechanism and tailor-made terrorism prevention and incident management drills for each metro city, vulnerability assessment to identify areas and establishments requiring necessary security measures and incorporating the private sector and civil society into India's war on terror.
The report reflects on what has emerged as India's biggest internal security threat - Maoist insurgency and the lack of a robust institutional mechanism to deal with them. The government's approach toward Naxalite insurgency has so far recorded limited success, with each affected state developing its own security response.
The task force's assessment is that the lack of coordination between national, state and local security services and lack of developmental initiatives leading to increased urban-rural divide have prevented a containment of the Naxalite threat.
The task force is convinced that Pakistan has to make a clean break from its existing state policy of supporting terrorism. Meanwhile, India needs to build up its capabilities to counter Pakistani state designs, if it doesn't disown terrorism and come clean, the task force recommends.
Kashmiri traders have condemned a report published by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) that proposed that India should inflict “economic pain” on Pakistan. The 118-page (FICCI) report also called for choking water resources, covert retaliation and surgical strikes against Islamabad in order to address terrorism in India. The Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) and other trade bodies in Srinagar met in an emergency meeting on Thursday and called the report “irresponsible and immature”. The KCCI said the development was “serious”. “The apex business chamber should have devoted time to formulating policies for the economic prosperity of the country. It has unfortunately indulged in political gimmicks, and that too with gruesome mindset against a neighbouring country,” the KCCI members said in a statement. Federation of Chambers of Industry in Kashmir (FCIK) President Shakil Qalander said at a time when the world needed peace, the FICCI was advocating strategies that could clearly lead to war. The KCCI asked world economic bodies to take note of the FICCI’s “war rhetoric” and support the quest for peace and stability in the region by helping settle the Kashmir dispute. “The suggestion of launching a military offensive is not new and has been tried on four occasions previously. It has only ended in a typical cycle of war breeding war,” the statement added. iftikhar gilani
Biggest Land Grab After Columbus
By Devinder Sharma
Countercurrents.org
14 November, 2009
Devinder Sharma Blog
I think the eulogisation of Tata's has gone too far. Behind all the glamour, sobriety and humanitariasm that we read and hear about Tata's, there is a dark hidden side which is kept under wraps. It is time we look at the destructive role Tata's have played over the years in uprooting thousands of poor families, and the resulting destruction of livelihoods and the environment.
To overcome their guilt, and that too aimed at pacifying the liberal voices in the urban centres, I am sure Ratan Tata would be thinking of setting up schools and funding some NGO activities in the tribal lands as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).
What a sophisticated way to cover your dark underbelly !
I was quite taken aback today to see a frontpage headline in The Hindustan Times: The biggest land grab after Columbus. As the blurb says: Government report criticises corporate exploitation of tribal lands; tribals turn to new friends: Maoist. And if you remember only a few days back, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had publicly accepted, and made a promise: "The systemic exploitation of our tribal communities can no longer be tolerated."
Do you think Manmohan Singh will do anything to stop this? You bet, he will simply push for more such projects that will eventually destroy the social fabric of these tribal lands. If you think I am wrong, let us take the land-grab in Bedanji, a remote rural expanse in Bastar in Chhatisgarh, as a test case. The Tata's plan to set up a Rs 19,500 crore steel plant for which ten villages have to be emtied.
Interestingly, a report of the PM-appointed Ministry of Rural Development committee on Land Reforms has succinctly said: "This open declared war will go down as the biggest land grab ever, if it plays out as per the script." The Hindustan Times report quotes the just-released government report warning against the corporate takeover in the Bastar hinterland: "The biggest grab of tribal lands after Columbus."
Here are excerpts from a BBC report by veteran correspondent Mark Tully:
Being central government forces and recruited from all over India they will be strangers, not speaking the tribal languages or understanding their ways.
The central forces are not exactly known for their softly, softly approach.
When they were very active in Kashmir, I remember having several conversations with the governor about the failure to punish police responsible for human rights abuses.
The governor was a humane man himself, and he had the honesty to admit the government feared the forces would be demoralized if action was taken against them every time they went too far.
The tribal people, who both sides claim to be representing, will be crushed between security forces demanding they provide information about Maoist movements, and the Maoists themselves who have already shown how brutally they treat anyone they believe has betrayed them.
Once again, the root of the problem is the Indian government's inability to provide what those they govern rightly feel is their entitlement.
Nowhere is this more manifest than in the callous handling of tribals who have been dispossessed of their land.
Reading Arundhati Roy, I was reminded of a visit I made to a resettlement villages for tribals, who had twice been evicted in order to make way for power stations.
When they complained to the official accompanying me that they were not being provided with electricity, he shot back: "Well you cannot afford it, can you?"
With that sort of callousness all too common amongst officials, is it any wonder that tribals support Maoists who promise to protect their lands?
Here's an LA Times report on the vicious cycle of poverty in rural India:
India has long been plagued by unscrupulous moneylenders who exploit impoverished farmers. But with crops failing more frequently, farmers are left even more desperate and vulnerable.
Reporting from Jhansi, India - She stops for long stretches, lost in thought, trying to make sense of how she's been left half a person.
Sunita, 18, who requested that her family name not be used to preserve her chance of getting married, said her nightmare started in early 2007 after her father took a loan for her sister's wedding. The local moneylender charged 60% annual interest.
When the family was unable to make the exorbitant interest payments, she said, the moneylender forced himself on her, not once or twice but repeatedly over many months.
"I used to cry a lot and became a living corpse," she said.
Sunita's allegations, which the moneylender denies, cast a harsh light on widespread abuses in rural India, where a highly bureaucratic banking system, corruption and widespread illiteracy allow unethical people with extra income to exploit poor villagers, activists say.
But here in the Bundelkhand region in central India that is among the nation's more impoverished areas, the problem is exacerbated by climate change and environmental mismanagement, they say, suggesting that ecological degradation and global warming are changing human life in more ways than just elevated sea levels and melting glaciers.
"Before, a bad year would lead to a good year," said Bharat Dogra, a fellow at New Delhi's Institute of Social Sciences specializing in the Bundelkhand region. "Now climate change is giving us seven or eight bad years in a row, putting local people deeper and deeper in debt. I expect the situation will only get worse."
An estimated 200,000 Indian farmers have ended their lives since 1997, including many in this area, largely because of debt.
A 2007 study of 13 Bundelkhand villages found that up to 45% of farming families had forfeited their land, and in extreme cases some were forced into indentured servitude. Tractor companies, land mafia and bankers routinely collude, encouraging farmers to take loans they can't afford, a 2008 report by India's Supreme Court found, knowing they'll default and be forced to sell their land.
"While a few people borrow for social status or a desire to buy a new motorcycle, in most cases it's for sheer survival," Dogra said. "When they see their children starving after several years of crop failures, many feel they have no choice."
Recent amendments to a 1976 law in Uttar Pradesh state have increased the maximum punishment for unauthorized money-lending to three years in jail, up from six months, but many loan sharks are well-connected and elude prosecution. The law specifies that lenders must obtain a state license, but the requirements for obtaining it can be vague, a situation that critics say gives bureaucrats significant leeway to enact arbitrary rules and exact questionable fees.
"I take occasional loans when we're desperate," says Jhagdu, 50, a farmer in Barora, 60 miles south of Jhansi, sitting on his haunches with teeth stained red from chewing betel nut. "When there's no rain, like now, you can't repay for a year, so the amounts can double."
Here's a Reuters report on feudal excesses and case for land reform in Pakistan:
Dotted around Pakistan are vast estates run by feudal landlords who command enormous economic and political power, condemning their tenants to poverty, reform activists charge.
On some of these estates, debt bondage has forced 1.8 million people to work the land for no pay, generation after generation, according to the campaigning group Anti-Slavery International. On others, sharecropping systems are practised, under which landless tenants hand over between two-thirds and half of the crops they produce to the landowner.
Unlike other countries in the region, including India, Pakistan did not carry out land reforms after 1947, and attempts in the 1950s and 1970s to reduce the size of land holdings had limited impact.
"Land reform has not taken place because the lawmakers in many cases themselves have large land holdings and will never want to transfer ownership to tenants. There will be no land reform until [the] people are in control of governance," Mubashir Hasan, a former finance minister and social activist, told IRIN.
About 2 percent of households control more than 45 percent of the land area. Powerful farmers have also taken advantage of government subsidies in water and agriculture, and benefited from technological improvements which have boosted yields, according to the World Bank.
By 1977 the biggest estates had only surrendered about 520,000 hectares, and nearly 285,000 hectares had been redistributed among some 71,000 farmers. Around 3,529 landowners have 513,114 holdings of more than 40.5 hectares in irrigated areas, and 332,273 holdings of more than 40.5 hectares in non-irrigated areas, according to the government's annual Economic Survey.
"We manage to earn a little for ourselves by selling the surplus corn and wheat that we take from the land. It is hard work, but despite this we have not been able to escape poverty. None of my four sons is educated beyond the eighth grade. We needed their labour on the land," said Kareem Muhammad, a landless tenant on a farm near the town of Okara, about 110km south of Lahore.
In Punjab, both sharecropping and fixed-rent contracts - where a rent per acre farmed is paid to the landowner by tenants - are practised. In Sindh, about one third of the land falls under fixed-rent contracts and about two thirds of the land is sharecropped, government surveys show.
The sense of injustice created by the continued hold of feudal landlords and the poverty this gives rise to has been a key factor in rising social discontent - aided and abetted by militant groups.
"I am a landless farmer. Last year my teenage son was persuaded by members of an organization engaged in jihad [holy war] to come away with them. They told him it is better to wield a gun and learn to use it than eke out a miserable existence tilling land," Riazuddin Ahmed, from Vehari in southern Punjab, told IRIN.
"My son is only 17. He saw no hope ahead of him, and therefore went away with these people. His mother and I are distraught. But we believe he has gone to the northern areas and we have no means of finding him," he said.
Former finance minister Hassan blamed this on oppression and misery. "Today, governance has collapsed. Extremism has grown and weapons have proliferated," he said.
Farming contributes 21 percent to gross domestic product (GDP) and employs 44 percent of the workforce, according to the government's annual Economic Survey. Of the total land area of 80.4 million hectares, about 22 million are cultivated, according to official data. Nearly 65 percent of this cultivated area is in Punjab, about 25 percent in Sindh and 10 percent in the North West Frontier Province and Balochistan.
Here's a British report of India complaining about "poverty porn":
Diplomatic officials are preparing to lodge a complaint with Ofcom, the media watchdog, about the content of McCloud's Channel 4 series, Slumming It.
In the two-part documentary, the Grand Designs host visited Mumbai's squalid Dharavi slum. It showed children living amongst open sewers, dead rats and toxic waste, and residents scavenging on the city's rubbish dump.
Sources say the Indian High Commission in London granted a filming permit in the belief that McCloud was making a programme highlighting Mumbai's architectural history, and officials were horrified to see the end result.
"We thought it would be about the architecture of Mumbai but it was only about slums, nothing else. He was showing dirty sewage and dead rats, children playing amongst rubbish and people living in these small rooms. He never talked about architecture at all.
"This was poverty porn made to get ratings, and we are upset," the source said.
"Many people know India but for people who don't travel, they will think all of India is like this. Of course it will affect our tourism. It is not representative at all.
"We are not saying, 'Don't show Dharavi', but the show was not balanced. There is so much more to Mumbai and so much more to India."
The original synopsis submitted by the programme-makers said: "Kevin McCloud's passions are buildings and people and he will explore the architecture of Mumbai... Maharashtrian, British, Gothic and post-modern."
The source said: "When the production company applied, they said the name of the documentary was going to be Grand Designs. They said it was part of a 'celebration of all things India' and that he would look at different kinds of architecture. He didn't do any of this.
"Only occasionally did he mention the community spirit and the low crime rate and the fact that rubbish is recycled there.
"People forget that this nation is 60 years old. We are a young nation and it's not easy to bring 300 million people out of poverty just like that."
Slumming It was part of Channel 4's ongoing Indian Winter season. Of the five programmes shown so far, four have been set in the Mumbai slums, including a 'Slumdog' version of The Secret Millionaire.
The source accused Channel 4 of "cashing in on the success of Slumdog Millionaire", the Oscar-winning film which kicked off the season.
McCloud has praised the community spirit in Dharavi, claiming that the British government could use it as a model for "social sustainability". The Prince of Wales has hailed Dharavi as a model for urban planning.
In a joint statement, Channel 4 and the production company, talkbackThames, said: "We have not received a complaint from the India High Commission. The programme explores if city planners and architects can learn from the way Asia’s biggest slum has evolved and developed high levels of sustainability. Kevin McCloud follows everyday life in Dharavi and the film is a balanced and insightful account of his experience there.
"While it raises issues such as acute levels of poverty and the lack of sanitation, the programme also highlights many positive aspects of life in Dharavi such as the real sense of community as well as low levels of crime and unemployment. We believe that the film raises some important points around the issues of poverty, sustainability and city planning and is clearly in the public interest.”
Here's a recent piece by Arundhati Roy about India's war against Maoists:
"The government has announced Operation Green Hunt, a war purportedly against the "Maoist" rebels headquartered in the jungles of central India. Of course, the Maoists are by no means the only ones rebelling. There is a whole spectrum of struggles all over the country that people are engaged in–the landless, the Dalits, the homeless, workers, peasants, weavers. They're pitted against a juggernaut of injustices, including policies that allow a wholesale corporate takeover of people's land and resources. However, it is the Maoists that the government has singled out as being the biggest threat.
Two years ago, when things were nowhere near as bad as they are now, the prime minister described the Maoists as the "single largest internal security threat" to the country. This will probably go down as the most popular and often repeated thing he ever said. For some reason, the comment he made on 6 January, 2009, at a meeting of state chief ministers, when he described the Maoists as having only "modest capabilities", doesn't seem to have had the same raw appeal. He revealed his government's real concern on 18 June, 2009, when he told parliament: "If left-wing extremism continues to flourish in parts which have natural resources of minerals, the climate for investment would certainly be affected."
Right now in central India, the Maoists' guerrilla army is made up almost entirely of desperately poor tribal people living in conditions of such chronic hunger that it verges on famine of the kind we only associate with sub-Saharan Africa. They are people who, even after 60 years of India's so-called independence, have not had access to education, healthcare or legal redress. They are people who have been mercilessly exploited for decades, consistently cheated by small businessmen and moneylenders, the women raped as a matter of right by police and forest department personnel. Their journey back to a semblance of dignity is due in large part to the Maoist cadre who have lived and worked and fought by their side for decades.
If the tribals have taken up arms, they have done so because a government which has given them nothing but violence and neglect now wants to snatch away the last thing they have – their land. Clearly, they do not believe the government when it says it only wants to "develop" their region. Clearly, they do not believe that the roads as wide and flat as aircraft runways that are being built through their forests in Dantewada by the National Mineral Development Corporation are being built for them to walk their children to school on. They believe that if they do not fight for their land, they will be annihilated. That is why they have taken up arms."
The BBC is reporting that the Church of England has pulled its investments from India mining company Vedanta after criticism of its Orissa bauxite project:
The decision has been welcomed by campaigning groups including Survival International (SI) which has been lobbying the church to disinvest from Vedanta for more than a year.
SI says that the bauxite mine will destroy a large part of the Niyamgiri Mountain in Orissa, damaging the lives of Kondh tribes people who live in the area.
Needs 'ignored'
Vedanta has been accused of forcing tribal people off the land, damaging the environment and destroying wildlife.
No-one from the company was available to comment on the decision of the church.
But last year Vedanta argued that it had the support of the Orissa state government and the Indian judiciary - and that before it went ahead with the project it consulted exhaustively to assess its environmental and social impact.
The company accused campaigning groups of focusing their objections solely on the concerns of the tribal community and ignoring the needs of other people in the area for jobs and improvements in education and healthcare.
Here's a recent BBC report on increasing Maoists violence:
At least 21 troops were killed when armed Maoists attacked a camp of the paramilitary forces in India's West Bengal state, officials said.
Nearly 50 rebels on motorcycles encircled the camp of the Eastern Frontier Rifles (ERF) at Silda village on Monday and started firing on it.
More fighters joined the assault on foot, firing from automatic weapons.
More than 6,000 people have died during the rebels' 20-year fight for communist rule in many Indian states.
The Indian government recently began a major offensive against the rebels in several states.
Indian Prime minister Manmohan Singh has described the Maoist insurgency as India's "greatest internal security challenge".
The rebels now have a presence in 223 of India's 600-odd districts.
Landmines
The camp was overrun by the Maoists after the troops put up brief initial resistance, district magistrate of West Midnapore district NS Nigam told the BBC.
"The Maoists then burnt down the camp and planted landmines on the entire length of the road leading to the camp. Reinforcements with night vision and anti-landmine vehicles reached the camp late at night," Mr Nigam said.
At least 21 bodies have been recovered from in and around the camp and some of them are badly charred, he said.
Here's part of a personal story about Maoists in Jharkhand by a Newsweek reporter Sudip Mazumdar:
The Maoists finally got word that I wanted to talk. It was well past midnight when my mobile phone rang. The caller gave no name and spoke in a local Hindi dialect that I understand and speak well. He gave a little speech about "establishing a classless society." Before he could hang up, I asked him why the Maoists terrorize ordinary people. He denied harassing "the poor and the powerless." End of phone call.
It would have been nice if he had conveyed that message to the gang of Maoists who raided the house of a former village headman a few days earlier near Gaya, in the neighboring state of Bihar. The man and his son happened to be away from home when it happened, visiting a nearby village. Someone rushed to warn them that a company of Maoists had been spotted heading for their home village, and the son called the police immediately. The Maoists rolled into the village unchallenged and looted the house. Then they ordered the women out, dynamited the place to rubble and melted back into the countryside. The district police chief later claimed that a team of police was sent to the scene. Villagers said the cops showed up nearly 15 hours after the raiders left.
A few days later, nearly 100 Maoists swarmed into a village near the Jharkhand town of Hazaribagh in the dead of night. They seized a schoolteacher and dragged him away despite his wife's entreaties, accusing him of being a police informer. They tied him to a tree and tortured him to death.
The more horror stories I heard, the harder it was to understand how any government could tolerate such atrocities against its people. I decided to call on the deputy commissioner of Dhanbad district. A computer-science graduate from the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology, Ajay Kumar Singh is the man in charge of both district development and law and order in Dhanbad. He's an earnest young man who lives in a well-guarded bungalow with a manicured lawn in the heart of the city. Singh blames the state's crushing poverty for the Maoists' influence. "It is a Catch-22 situation," he says. "There are no roads, so there is hardly any development. And when we go to build roads, the Maoists attack and destroy all efforts, because roads will expose their hideouts." Besides, he says, the state's officials don't live in the impoverished villages and therefore they have no stake in developing the backcountry areas.
For a senior government functionary, Singh is unusually candid. He's convinced that the Maoists couldn't prevent development if the politicians considered it important. "Human beings have built tunnels under the sea," he says. "Obviously we can build roads into remote villages." It's not as if the Maoist leaders were committed revolutionaries, he says; many of them are only hoodlums who use villagers as hostages and human shields. They keep the ill-paid local cops terrorized by attacking them with overwhelming force and no warning.
I asked Singh what happens when people get extortion threats. Most pay up, he said. The state can't provide armed guards for everyone who needs one. I didn't have the stomach to ask about people who don't pay. It was getting dark outside the bungalow. I asked Singh if I'd be OK driving to Giridih, about 40 miles away through some desolate stretches of forest. Wait until morning, he said. I walked out of Singh's bungalow into the dark streets. Until India's government gets serious about stopping the Maoists, I have no answer for my sister and her husband.
Find this article at http://www.newsweek.com/id/195669
Indian home secretary Gopal Pillai says Maoists want to overthrow Indian by 2050, according to Times of India:
NEW DELHI
: Maoists have plans to overthrow the Indian democracy through their armed struggle and want to control the government by 2050, home secretary Gopal K Pillai on Friday said.
Addressing a seminar on "Left Wing Extremism Situation in India", Pillai said the Maoists might be getting the help of some former soldiers in carrying out subversive activities.
"The overthrow of the Indian state is not something they are willing to do tomorrow or the day after. Their strategy, according to a booklet they circulated, is that they are looking for at 2050, some documents say in 2060," he said.
According to Pillai, Naxals were not looking at to overthrow the Indian state in 2012 or 2013, it was a long steady plan and in the past 10 years they slowly build up the movement.
"Now they can bring many sectors of Indian economy into their knees. But they don't want to do it today. They know that if they do that now, the state will come very hard. They are not fully prepared to face the onslaught of the state machinery. So, they would rather go very slowly," he said.
The home secretary said the Maoists were a very highly motivated and well trained force like any armed force of any country and they could be help by some ex-army personnel.
"They are very highly motivated, highly trained. I am quite certain that there are some, may be some ex-army or some people who have been with them," he said.
Giving reason for this conclusion, Pillai said after launching any attack, the Naxals conduct a post-mortem and analyse the whole operation.
"After every attack, they do a post-mortem and analysis. The analysis is as good as armed forces of any country does," he said.
The home secretary said 908 people have lost their lives last year, the highest since 1971, in Naxal violence and it may go up in this year and next year become coming down.
"It is quite like that the violence will go up in 2010 or 2011 before the tide is begin to turn," he said.
According to Pillai, even though the joint anti-Naxal operations were going on, the Naxals have not suffered any significant reverses so far and the government would need seven to eight years to have full control over the areas which were lost to the Maoists.
"The operations have not hit even five per cent of hardcore militants. The real armed cadres are yet to come out," he said, adding unless they feel the heat they will not come for talks and whatever statement they were making about peace were not serious.
Here's Maoist leader Kishenji threatening to overthrow Indian government "much before 2050", according to Times of India:
Tags:G K Pillai|Koteswar Rao|Kishenji
KOLKATA
: A day after Union Home Secretary G K Pillai said Maoists had plans to overthrow the Indian state by 2050, top Naxal leader Koteswar Rao alias Kishenji tonight claimed it would be achieved much before that date.
"We will overthrow the Indian government much before 2050," Kishenji said from an undisclosed location.
He claimed the Maoists had their own army with the help of which it would overthrow the Indian state much before 2050.
He said the Maoists had offered a 72-day peace offer and "the question of regrouping does not arise. (Union Home minister P) Chidambaram is trying to divert the attention of the people from the real problem."
He said it was for the Centre to act on the peace offer. "We are fully prepared for a long-term revolution against the government and so we don't need any specific time to restructure ourselves."
On Pillai's contention yesterday that some ex-army personnel were helping Maoists, he said "we don't need the support of any army man. For the last 30 years, we know the type of war we do better than any military officer."
Reiterating that the repeated offer of talks by the Maoists had been turned down, Kishenji said "we have repeatedly offered talks to the government but it has been turned down."
Claiming that innocent people were being killed in the name of tackling Maoists, he said "we are trying to save them from state-sponsored terrorism."
He also denied West Bengal Director General of Police Bhupinder Singh's claim that arrested Maoist leader Telegu Dipak had links with ULFA and Kashmir militants.
"A lot of rumours are being spread deliberately about the arrest of Telugu Deepak. He does not have any connection with any terrorist organisation."
He said Deepak was not a member of the Maoist military commission as the ultras did not have any such organisation. "We have only a state committee, central committee and politburo."
Dipak, he said, was only a state committee member who was in charge of Nandigram.
The article “The biggest land grab after Columbus” by Neelesh Mishra published in ‘Hindustan Times’ about the land accusation by Tata Steel is based on draft report of ‘Committee on Agrarian Relations and Unfinished Task of Land Reform’ which by itself is not providing the complete information about the MOU signed between Tata Steel and Chhattisgarh government.
According to me Tata Steel is a company which is fully committed to the well being of the communities it operates in, especially the tribal people with whom they are working with. They have a hundred year old history of engagement and sharing of the wealth generated by the enterprise in Jamshedpur.
Being a frequent visitor of Jamshedpur I have experienced how their community development initiatives have ensured a qualitative improvement in the standard of living of the people of the operational & project areas be it in education, health services, development of sports activities, increase in income, Entrepreneurship development, Women empowerment, Preservation of tribal culture and much more. This is a well known fact and there is evidence of this in over 800 villages they are working in, which the members of the committee have ignored during the survey.
It is ridiculous to believe the report which accuses Tata Steel as the supporter and the first financier of Salwa Judum, the so called anti-Naxalite movement of the people of the area. It is a well known fact that the first movement against the Naxalites was the 'Jan Jagran Abhiyan', started in 1991 by Mahendra Karma. That was mostly led by local traders and businessmen. It later collapsed, and the leaders had to seek police protection to survive. In 2005 it was renamed Salwa Judum (meaning "Purification Hunt" in Gondi language) and it is reported that civilians were armed to supposedly fight the Naxalites in the region. And In mid-2008, the movement's front liner, Mahender Karma announced that Salwa Judum will soon cease to exist.
Tata Steel is a company whose community development initiatives are well known. Its initiatives for qualitative improvement in the standard of living of the people of the operational & project areas be it in education, health services, development of sports activities, increase in income, Entrepreneurship development, Women empowerment, Preservation of tribal culture etc. are highly appreciable.
Tata Steel’s project at Chattishgarh is going to act like a miracle tool for the development of the tribal people of the region. For the detail and support Tata Steel view
http://thebiggestlandgrabaftercolumbus.blogspot.com/2010/03/biggest-land-grab-after-columbus.html#comment-form
Here's Ravi Rikhye, editor of Orbat, criticizing Indian home minister's boast about defeating Maoists in three years:
We told you speaking first thinking later is not just a Pakistani trait but is a subcontinental trait. Now the Indian Home Minister has announced that the Maoists, who are active in one-third of India's districts (counties) will be defeated in three years. What's so sad about this amazingly stupid statement is that the Minister is actually quite a brainy fellow and an effective administrator. The Maoist problem has plagued India for 40 years, and a lot of it tied up with social injustice. Its absurd to think its going to solved in three years when India has not been able to defeat straightforward secessionist insurgencies in its northeast for 40 years.
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