http://timesofindia
Naxalites: It's us versus them again
Chitralekha Dhamija 12 December 2009, 12:48pm IST
So we've decided to smoke them out. Satellite imagery, global
positioning systems, armed choppers are in place. By all indications
our forces seem Chitralekha Dhamija poised to lead the ultimate
offensive to rid us of Naxalites. No one's complaining, less so after
the grim television coverage of the late Francis Induwar and his
grieving family suddenly brought the distant Maoists closer home.
Induwar, a special branch inspector, was decapitated in October this
year upon the government's refusal to release arrested Maoist leaders
such as Kobad Ghandy, Chhatradhar Mahato, Chandrabhushan Yadav etc.
The military is good as gold for messy tasks like this. It was exactly
this kind of intervention that doused the Left in Peru, forced the
Zapatistas to seek out internet forums. Closer home we only have to
look at what happened to the LTTE. So really it should work.
But let's be clear about whom exactly we expect to be eliminated. In a
context somewhat changed from the socioeconomic setting that drove the
agrarian unrest and peasant consciousness of yesteryears, who really
are 'Naxalites' today? Are they mostly poor people fighting for a
larger cause? Modern day mercenaries employed by an international
nexus? Neither? Just who is the state going after?
I have not met Kobad Ghandy or Chatradhar Mahato but as part of my
doctoral research I met with dozens of armed cadre of the MCCI and
People's War, then in process of merger into CPI (Maoist), over months
in 2003. Across districts in Jharkhand and parts of Bihar I located,
lived and travelled with these men and women - zonal commanders,
sub-zonals , area commanders, deputies, fresh recruits. They are not
members of central committees but the kind of Naxalites who, if things
go as planned by the government, will be directly in the line of fire.
A thin slice of the guerillas I met were deeply committed, men who had
sacrificed ordinary life for a cause they believed in. A few more were
opportunists who joined the movement with calculated personal agendas,
and are unlikely to die on the job. The numbers however - and that is
what matters - were made up of those I call Drifters. Not hard-nosed
ideologues, not cold-blooded mercenaries, just ordinary young people
making the best of 'occupational choices' available.
Perhaps it's also time to ask why so many children from erstwhile
'enemy' families are joining the Naxals. As opposed to the dominant
conception of Naxalites as marginal peasants, most armed cadres in
dastas I met had land enough for subsistence, often much more than
that. Their stories warn against easy essentialisation of Naxalites
and pitching them into carry-over categories from past discourses:
richpoor , landed-landless , Dalit-upper castes and so on. Take for
instance a sixteen-year-
25 acres of land in Latehar but couldn't make ends meet. Or Oraon, a
sub-zonal commander, who worked in Delhi's Wazirpur industrial area
before he joined the Naxals. Agriculture was never on his wish list. A
Dalit area commander, who had "enough to eat" but walked six
kilometers to school each way in pursuit of "other dreams" joined Nari
Mukti Sangh at the age of fourteen. A captured MCCI 'hardcore' from an
impoverished Santhali family in Giridih had thought she would be a
"leader" .
Land or no land, rich or poor, it was finally aspirations as ordinary
and universal as recognition, achievement, status, clout and izzat
(from peers and community, not class enemies) that shaped choices in
locations that haven't provided ambitious young people with too many
avenues of self-fulfillment and peer approval. It doesn't help that
these political choices are being made at an average age of 12 to16,
when young people find guns and power that issue from holding them
uncomplicatedly attractive.
So let's go ahead with a military plan if we must but let's at least
be honest about who it is that we are going after. As we gun them
down, let's be completely conscious of the real identities of
Naxalites today - they are not quite heroes dying for a larger cause
or merely hard-boiled opportunists. Most of them are just young people
whose aspirations were never on our radar, and who the state may now
have no choice but to murder.
The writer is a Mumbai-based journalist and academic
INFORMATION OVERLOAD?
Get all ZESTCaste mails sent out in a span of 24 hours in a single mail. Subscribe to the daily digest version by sending a blank mail to ZESTMedia-digest@yahoogroups.com, OR, if you have a Yahoo! Id, change your settings at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTMedia/join/
PARTICIPATE:-
On this list you can share caste news, discuss caste issues and network with like-minded anti-caste people from across India and the world. Just write to zestcaste@yahoogroups.com
TELL FRIENDS TO SIGN UP:-
If you got this mail as a forward, subscribe to ZESTCaste by sending a blank mail to ZESTCaste-subscribe@yahoogroups.com OR, if you have a Yahoo! ID, by visiting http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTCaste/join/
Also have a look at our sister list, ZESTMedia: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTMedia/
No comments:
Post a Comment