Evaporation of Hope
How the tribals of India have not only been dispossessed of their lands but also their hope
Generally, the rights to a property are not contested unless someone else has evidence of ownership. You would not go into a hotel, pull out a chair and ask the hotel to prove ownership.
Let us consider for a moment what that will involve. The only evidence of ownership that the hotel would have is an invoice for the purchase of the chair. That purchase, unless the hotel is new or recently refurbished, could have been made years, perhaps even decades ago.
So, are you free to carry away the chair if the invoice is not presented?
Not all properties are equal, and land, if it was bought even centuries ago, would have some paper trail.
In India, some forests have been tended to by tribes for centuries. It is such a vast country that parts of it have been left untouched. I was recently talking to a colleague, and she mentioned that there are places where you do not feel the presence of the government. How do you feel the presence of the government?
We do not think about it?
Every piece of public infrastructure, including roads and bus stops are a result of work done by the government. Our cities look a certain way, and our buildings are built in a certain way because there are rules laid down by the government. If you are robbed, there is an authority that you can report it to; the police are put there by the government.
If something is broken, there is someone to blame - the government.
But in the tribal recesses, none of these exists. There are no roads, no building rules, no authority, and you are the custodian of everything around you. You take care of what you consider valuable, and you ignore the rest.
So when the relentless march of capitalism suddenly requires land to build a factory, and the government realises that there is some land lying untouched in some corner, they show up to take charge of it.
When the tribal claims ownership, they are asked to present evidence. Some of them have been living in those forests since even before this country existed. Who was supposed to issue this evidence?
Going back to the hotelier, you would not assume that the chair did not belong to him because he did not have a paper to prove it, but the same standards do not apply to the tribals. They need either to present evidence or vacate! That pretty much explains all tribal militancy in India.
On May 21, 1967, as was his custom, Bigul Kisan went to harvest the crop on the fields of a landlord in the Naxalbari district in northeastern West Bengal. This particular day was different, however. He was to take over the land as his own, per the instructions of the Krishak Sabha (Farmer’s Union), a peasant organisation of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), commonly known as the CPM. As Bigul Kisan would describe the incident twenty years later, “The goons of the landlord attacked me. They nearly crushed my head. They took away my plough and oxen.” That spark set off a wave of peasant attacks on landlords.
On May 24, when the police tried to defend the landlords, two arrows from peasant bows killed Constable Sonam Wangdi. All the village men then went into hiding, leaving the women to form a barricade against further police force. The police stepped up its offensive, shooting and killing nine women and two children. Armed rebels continued to attack landlords. The CPM, which had unexpectedly vaulted into power as part of a United Front coalition government in the state assembly election that February, was initially sympathetic to the rebels. But by mid-June the CPM assumed its governmental role of maintaining law and order. The Chinese jumped in to counter the CPM’s anti-rebel position.
On June 28, Radio Peking lauded the rebels as the “front paw of a revolutionary armed struggle,” adding that the peasant movement was inspired by Mao Zedong, chairman of the Chinese Communist Party.
Indian authorities began repressive measures against peasant rebels on July 12. Backed by colonial-era laws, which permitted arrests without charges and trial, Indian police launched a major operation to round up the rebels and their leaders. By the end of July, about 1,500 armed policemen had established themselves in Naxalbari. Under the overwhelming force of the police, Bengal’s armed peasant movement folded.
Since the armed rebellion started in Naxalbari, the people engaged in the rebellion were referred to in Hindi as Naxalwadi. In the English media came to be referred to as Naxalites or Maoists.
About a dozen states in India have been known for Maoist activities. Characterised as terrorists, these were tribals who were forced to turn political because they wanted ownership over lands that they lived in. It is difficult for tribals to fight a government that derives revenues from crores of Individuals and has the freedom to employ it how it deems right.
In a defining moment in India’s battle against its decades-long Maoist insurgency, CPI (Maoist) top commander Tippiri Tirupati alias Devji also known as Devu Ji has laid down arms and surrendered to Telangana police.
Sources in the state’s Special Intelligence Wing confirmed to DH that Devji surrendered alongside senior Naxal leader Malla Raji Reddy alias Sangram, Narasimha Reddy alias Ganganna, and 16 other cadres.
Source: Deccan Herald
This surrender is a victory of the state machinery over the tribals. It is the loss of hope of a people who preserved their lands. They have given up on the possibility of preserving their lands and given in to the state machinery that will use it for more manufacturing plants, presumably. This is not a story of glorious victory; it is the story of attrition and the victory of capital.