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The saga of Salwa Judum in Chhattisgarh

E.A.S. Sarma

The government's anti-Maoist strategy has pitted brother against brother and village against village. Civil strife is rife in Dantewada.

THE RULERS of Chhattisgarh are euphoric. They have just "celebrated" the anniversary of Salwa Judum that had its beginnings last year near Kutru village in Bijapur tehsil of Dantewada district. According to its protagonists, Salwa Judum is a "spontaneous peoples' movement" against the repressive Maoist diktats such as the ban on collection of tendu leaves and the embargo on participation in State elections. For many innocent tribals who have lost their parents, brothers and sisters, sons, and daughters, this was a year of murders and rape, arson and loot, and a civil war that has torn apart the otherwise tranquil Gond landscape. For the unfortunate and bewildered tribal woman (identity not disclosed) who was gang-raped, who saw her own brother being brutally murdered in broad daylight, and who, instead of the culprits, was forcibly put into a jail in Bastar on false charges, this is an occasion to wonder whether the world around her can ever be called a civilised democracy.

Dantewada district is sparsely populated, has an undulating terrain, and is generously endowed with forest and mineral resources. Adivasis, predominantly Gonds, account for more than 80 per cent of its rural population, distributed along the riverbeds of the Indravati and the Sabari. Agriculture and forest produce are their mainstay. There are 90 inhabited "forest" villages where the Adivasis have no land rights. Even though the Adivasis have been the original residents of this entire region, it is the forest officials who dominate over two-thirds of the district.

Dantewada has remained cut off from any development activity worth its name. Two hundred and fourteen villages in the district have no primary schools. Where there are schools, the teachers are absent. The non-tribal teachers collect their pay cheques regularly and cite the Maoist problem as an excuse for their absence. Since schools have become dysfunctional, the security forces, during their occasional visits, camp at the school buildings wherever they exist. In turn, the Maoists use this as a ploy to blast the school buildings to keep the security men away from the villages. In this vicious cycle of retribution, it is the Adivasi who has suffered. Ninety five per cent of the villages in Dantewada have no basic medical facilities. Only 23 have government-sponsored ration shops. Malnutrition and hunger deaths are commonplace.

The entire district of Dantewada has been notified under Schedule V of the Constitution that enjoins upon the President and the Governor of the State to ensure good governance for the Adivasis. It empowers the Government to enact special laws or amend the existing ones to safeguard the interests of the Adivasis. These extraordinary powers are yet to be fully understood and invoked. For decades, unethical land-grabbers, wily traders, and exploitative contractors, all non-tribals, have dominated the lives of the Adivasis in this area, undeterred. The National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC) has a long presence in Dantewada but it is the non-tribals that have benefited from it.

The evolution of Salwa Judum makes an interesting case study.

During the last two decades, the Maoists gained a mass base among the Adivasis by taking up cudgels on their behalf against corrupt government functionaries, exploitative traders, and moneylenders. The trouble began for the Maoists when they started dismantling the traditional political structures of the Adivasis at the village level and began tinkering with land ownership. Those that did not belong to their "sanghams" in the villages were considered anti-Maoist and dealt with firmly, sometimes brutally. The headmen of the villages and others intimidated by the Maoists, along with the non-tribals, started grouping together and working out ways to sabotage the Maoists' efforts.

Hoping to get a better price for the Adivasis, the Maoists imposed an indefinite ban on tendu leaf collection that temporarily deprived the Adivasis of their meagre incomes. This gave an opportunity to their detractors. The leader of these anti-Maoist forces was Mahendra Karma, an astute Adivasi politician, now with the Congress. He is the Leader of the Opposition in the Chhattisgarh Assembly today. Jan Jagran Abhiyan (JJA), that failed to take off for some reason, was his first attempt to hit out at the Maoists. On their part, the Maoists failed to take note of the impending surge of anger against them.

Mr. Karma was shrewd enough to realise that the State Government could be conveniently persuaded to step in with its full might to break the mass base of the Maoists on the ostensible ground that it would facilitate economic development through the entry of many private investors who were eager to exploit the precious mineral and forest wealth of Dandakaranya. Casting aside party affiliations, Mr. Karma and the ruling party in Chhattisgarh joined hands and launched Salwa Judum in June 2005. It is certainly not a "peoples' movement" as it has been made out to be. It is a State-sponsored campaign in which unsuspecting Adivasis are used as ammunition in a war that will serve the private interests of a few.

Mr. Karma alone has championed Salwa Judum. None of the other elected representatives in Dantewada has lent him support. The second rung leadership of this campaign is largely in the hands of non-tribals. It is possible that some of them were violators of the laws of the land and were perhaps now trying to legitimise their past sins. Many of them function outside the framework of the law and are thus not accountable to any institution. These non-tribals control 3,200 armed Adivasis, many of them minors, appointed as Special Police Officers (SPOs) under the Chhattisgarh Police Regulations (CPRs). These SPOs are not clear about their role. Evidently, there are unwritten instructions that the local police and the paramilitary forces should support the Judum workers in whatever they do.

Salwa Judum's overall aim is to relocate the Adivasis at any cost, from their villages to roadside relief camps. Today, there are 17 such camps, housing an estimated 46,000 Adivasis. The living conditions in these camps are sub-human. The inmates, having left their houses, their livestock, and all their belongings in their villages, lead an uncertain life at the camps. Neither Salwa Judum nor the government machinery is clear about how long the camps will be run and whether the Adivasis will ever be allowed to return to their villages. The Salwa Judum activists treat all Adivasis who do not join the camps as Maoists.

There have been instances of houses being burnt, torture, killing. Unfortunately, the Maoists too consider those not with them as being supporters of the Salwa Judum and deal with them in their own brutal ways. The recently enacted Chhattisgarh Public Security Act is a draconian one that has given scope for large-scale human rights violations by the state.

The Adivasis in the camps are eager to return home and lead an independent, dignified existence in their villages. As of now, the once well-knit Gond society stands vertically split, village by village, family by family. Some Koyas in the Sukma-Konta area have already begun migrating to the neighbouring villages of Andhra Pradesh.

The counter-insurgency strategy of the Chhattisgarh Government, with Salwa Judum at its core, has unleashed civil strife in Dantewada. It has already pitted brother against brother and village against village. Unless the Adivasis are brought to the centre stage of policy and their well being perceived as the primary requirement, any strategy to deal with the Maoist problem is bound to fail. Violence cannot be the answer to violence. Socio-economic and political issues are at the root of the Maoist problem. They need to be addressed first. The Centre can no longer afford to be ostrich-like in dealing with such a perilous problem as this one. These issues cut across the States. Therefore, they call for a collective response from the Centre and the States.

Upfront, both the Centre and the States need to announce confidence building measures that recognise the entitlements of Adivasis to their local resources, namely, land, minerals, forest produce, water etc. The Public Security Act, 2006, needs to be suspended forthwith and Salwa Judum disbanded. Past instances of killings and rapes need to be subject to a judicial enquiry. Preceded by such CBMs, a ceasefire and a national dialogue need to be declared without delay.

Otherwise, Salwa Judum will soon spin out of the hands of the government.

(The author was formerly Secretary to the Government of India.)

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