A search on Dantewada throws up only the headlines "Maoist attack so and so...". But there were a lot of unknown webpages devoted to this hitherto unknown district before the infamous attack on CRPF by Maoist which killed 72 of them. It was related to the same problems mentioned in previous post. It was just a matter of time that it was to explode. And it did. See this desperate plea to the world about the dangerous situation it was turning into. Being poor creates a kind of helplessness in this country which only those who stand in those shoes can understand. But this was much more. It was not just an incident of Police atrocity. It was the whole of state machinery engaged in uprooting the residents of an area which they occupied for thousands of years. See how the SP of the area is evading responsibility. Most important thing to notice here is the date. All these are pre-May 10 dates, when the gory killings of CRPF by Maoists had not taken place. If we just go through these and various other links, the massacre is not an incident, but natural chain in a serious events denoting breakdown the of the constitutional machinery. The proponents of development consider the action against tribals necessary but forget that it is our constitution ensures protection for tribal lands by the government. Our founding fathers probably saw the probability of injustice against tribals 60 years ago and decided to keep such a thing in the constitution.
So how exactly it happened? What led the state to commit the atrocity it did and how did it end up being a loser. While the current situation is complicated, it was not so when the MOUs were signed. To understand it also requires a little understanding of law. Not the basic ones like the police should be just and protect the citizens.... those ones we forgot since time immemorial. But the ones which shape the policy of the governments and are designed intrinsically to ensure the over fabric of the nation is sustained and lack of which may result in situations like the one we are witnessing now.
First the the acquiring of land. The law states that the government can acquire any land for "public use". This is often used in places where the government wants to construct railways, roads, etc. MOU is a memorandum of understanding between the government and a private party that underlines an overview of any sort of activity of considerably large scale going to take place in a state. Fifth schedule of the constitution deals with SCs and STs and recognizes the tribals as the owners of the forests which they are inhabiting and calls upon the government to be extra cautious while dealing with them.
P Chidambaram is an economist who is well suited for the role of Finance Ministry.. How come he is the Home Minister?
Now here is a bit of truth. Almost all the MOUs between the government and the private companies are secrets. Public is not allowed to view them. These are basically just a new technique invented by the big private companies to acquire land. No matter how rich they may be, it is tough to convince people to give up their land. So they get an MOU with the government and, inter alia, invariable most of them try to ensure that the government will acquire land for them. One it ensure 'legal sanctity' to the whole atrocious process and next, it is easier for the state with the security system at its disposal to acquire the land. What happens to the 'public good' part of the law is anybody's guess. And the commitment of the government for the development of the people and their claim that there is no money taken by them from these companies, well the less said about it the better. The amount of money involved can be guess by the limit to which the atrocities have been allowed to grow. Almost 600-900 villages have been completely razed in Chhattisgarh alone. A huge army of policemen has been created out of another set of tribals who are paid and given arms to remove village after village, so that the minerals can be taken away. Remember the Reddy brothers? It is claimed that 1 lacs truckload of minerals from Bellary was shipped out of country within 3-4 years and the administration didn't know of it. When it came to know and the Lokayukt started investigation, he was so frustrated that he resigned as he was simply helpless. The whole state apparatus was against him. Roughly 2 lac crore is estimated worth of the Reddy brothers and people on the ground claim that in 1998-99 elections, they used to campaign for Sushma Swaraj on bikes!!
The forest lands are extremely rich in minerals. If you take a map of India with dots on it denoting the mineral rich regions and transpose it over the map of India having dots representing Moist infestation, you will be able to match dot to dot. So what does this mean? As simple as that.
There are no Maoist. At least they are not the 'biggest internal security threat'. The who strife is about the minerals. And yeah, the tribals consider forests their home and the mountains their Gods. Reminds me of Gandhiji's words "Nature has enough for everyone's need, but not for everyone's greed". But he suits more in unveiling statues of and garlanding on some days. Need of the hour is "country is anyway going down the drain, loot as much as possible and make sure to grab enough of your share".
There is one thing which was not taken into account. That the tribals are very adamant about their homeland. More than one can imagine. They put up a very strong but hopeless fight against the state for this injustice. The result is the implosion of the situation, resulting in human right violation at unimaginable level, the Supreme Court ordering disbanding of Salwa Judum (armed militia enjoying state patronage which calls them mass uprising against Maoist) and NHRC severely indicting the state government. That this is one issue in which the Cong and BJP were united is another indicator of what level of collective conscience can stoop and also of how much money is available for distribution. The largest number of instances of use of the draconian POTA was in Chhattisgarh and the world came to know of Binayak Sen, the social worker, who was in illegal custody of CG police for two years while international organizations around the world including amnesty internation, American society of doctors , UN requested for his release.
So why does P Chidambaram call it "Biggest Internal threat" facing the country? When Kashmir is burning, Bhopal gas victims got to see 12 months of sentence for people who killed 3000 on a single night and then got bail immediately, when billions have been wasted on CWG, when price rise, aha his area of expertise, is burning hole in the pockets of common man?
Not to difficult to understand when you know that he was in the board of directors of Vedanta, one of the groups involved in Mining operations in India, before he joined the cabinet. Not to difficult to understand that Anil Aggrawall, the majority share holder, was recently the second richest Indian in the world from being an "Anil who??" a few years back. Not too difficult to understand that when he gave this statement, the share price of companies like Vedanta rose the most. It is same Vedanta which was severely indicted by the Environment ministry of India for severe environment law violation in Niyamagiri hills in Orissa, which too witnessed similar situation to acquire the land by the government and hand it over to Vedanta for 'public use'.
It was only natural for the Maoist to use this situation as an advantage. And they are now demi-gods for the tribals who were not only systematically wronged and denied their human rights, but for a long time their wails and pleas ran on deaf years. The media was too busy covering the marriage of Sania Mirza and the growing of the Prince. The situation right now is no less volatile, with CRPF engaged in flushing out Maoists (read tribals). It is going to turn into the typical degradation of situation, army , AFSPA, bombings, custody deaths, rapes, terror from both sides. It is sad to see our own people being treated like enemy by the government. And the almost dead Maoist movement has got the support and self justification it had lost a quarter century back. I shudder to think what the greed of man can get him to do to his fellow human beings. The greed!!
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