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PEOPLE’S MARCH Contents Vol : 7, No. 1, January 2006, Rs. 12 Voice of the Indian Revolution Hoax of Rural Em- 15 ployment Gaurantee Act. Scandalous 3 & 8 18 sale of Dandakarnya - A saga of 25 yrs Mumbai Mill of glorious Lands struggle Back Cover GreatSell Out Press Release Indian traitors sell our water to Inter- 25 Horrors of Salwa Judum 28 Vigillant gangs of AP 13 national water mafia Salwa Judum Fact-finding Report 27 Cover Page : Martyrs Column under construction in Dandakaranya People’s March Articles may be reprinted and translated in various Indian & Foreign Languages without permission, provided the source (www.peoplesmarch.com) is credited EDITOR: P. Govindan Kutty E-mail: [email protected] [email protected] Mobile No. : 93886 22939 [email protected] ................................................................................................................................. Owned Printed & Published by P. Govindan Kutty, Peroor house, Thripunithura, N.F. Ernakulam, Kerala — 682 301, Printed at Chithira Printers, 63/321, Poruvelil, Kannachanthodu Road, Kochi — 18 2 PEOPLE'S MARCH, January 2006 A Saga of Twenty-Five Years of Glorious Struggle An Epic of People’s Radical Transformation Sudhakar It was November 2. The year was 1980. sarpanches and priests. In addition to this and “democracy and development for all A full 25 years back. The young 18-year there was extreme sexual exploitation of Oppressed”. They began by taking up the old Peddi Shankar was shot dead by the the women and girls whose innocence was Tendu leaf picking rate and bamboo Maharashtra police. He was the first martyr brutally violated. For the tendu patta cutting rate and won big victories. They of the revolutionary movement in leaves they gathered they were hardly paid soon gained the confidence of the tribals Dandakaranya. The son of a coal mine a pittance, for the bamboo they cut for the which got further cemented when they worker from just across the border, he had paper company it was the same story. For began beating back the terror of the forest come barely a few months back to this forest produce sold in the village market and police officials. They began building southern tip of Maharashtra, along with a they were systametically cheated. Over the mass organisations in the villages — team of four others, to spread the and above all this the forest officials would first the peasant organisation, then the Karimnagar/Adilabad Revolutionary not allow agriculture in forest land and women’s organisation and even the movement to one of the most backward prevent them for even cutting fire-wood. children’s organisation. Revolutionary regions of the world — the Gadchirolli part They would be robbed of their chicken, songs were written in the Gondi language of what is now called Dandakarnya (DK). goats and other produce by all and sundry and literary classes were set up amongst So, also another team crossed over from for supposed favours. They were all those entering the squads. The squads Warangal into the other part of DK in humiliated and harassed at every turn and administered simple medical treatment Bastar — then part of the state of Madhya lived a life of semi-starvation with no and even trained local youth in basic Pradesh (now Chhathisgarh). In this way development whatsoever — whether medicine. The women’s organisation seven small guerrilla squads entered DK. fought horrifying patriarchal practices and In these 25 years from a handful of educated women against superstitious dedicated comrades, mostly from rural practices. And all this developed amidst student background, the movement has systematic increase in police terror. grown to encompassing lakhs of people. It First it was the local police forces. Then is an epic saga of heroic courage, selfless to them were added the state special police. sacrifice, unflinching commitment to the Then came the para military forces. In cause of the people, and a will-power to Gadchirolli even the military’s Border sustain in the face of the worst odds. In Road Organisation was brought in so that these 25 years over 300 comrades have been roads could be built to the interior villages. martyred from top leaders, to women Mass arrests and foisting hosts of false activists, to simple cadres, to mass cases, torture, incarceration in jails for organisation leaders and even ordinary long periods, killing in fake encounters, village folk. destruction of houses of activists, The Bastar part was even more disappearances, gang rapes of women backward with no education, no modern Com. Peddi Shankar activists, and mass destruction and loot of medicine, no proper knowledge of properties — all this became common to agriculture…. It was as if still in the middle stem the tide of the rising assertion of the ages where witchcraft, superstition and economic, political, educational, cultural, tribals of the region. even human sacrifice were the norm. social, etc. Yet the Maoist influence spread as the Primitive agriculture gave little and their And it is into this world that the people saw that it was they alone who stood lives could only be sustained by selling Naxalites descended. Before they could by them and even gave their lives for them. forest produce, hunting, and wage labour. even take a step forward the officials and By 1995 the mass organisations in the DK The poverty then was such that they barely Mukhiayas had widely propagated that had swelled to a membership of 60,000; wore anything on their bodies. 180 years these are robbers, child-lifters, and today it is over one-and-a-half lakhs. First of British ‘modernising’ rule and another dangerous bandits. When they came to a the village organisations defended three decades of so-called freedom had village in the initial phases people would themselves with lathis; then they formed passed-by this huge population of Gonds all either lock their doors or flee to the Gram Raksha Dals (Village Defence of Central India. The British and Indian jungles. The Maharashtra and MP police Squads) with country weapons; now they rulers were merely interested in looting the were already on the prowl combing the are organised into militias on a mass scale mineral and forest wealth of the region. forests even before they could get a base with a minimum of military training. Even in this excruciating poverty they were amongst the people. Together with the People’s Liberation robbed and cheated in every possible way They came with kit bags on their back, Guerrilla Army the people have been — by the officials, by the contractors, by a few shot-guns for self-defence, and three fighting back the government attacks. An the traders, by the forest and police main slogans of “Land to the tiller”, “Full entire new generation has grown up now officials, and even by their ‘mukhiyas’, rights of the Adivasis over the forests”, and they cannot even think of going back PEOPLE'S MARCH, January 2006 3 to the horrors of the past life of servitude scorched-earth policy of burn-all, loot-all, terrible patriarchal practices. Liquor was and starvation. kill-all!!! every where and widely promoted. Poverty The main fruits of the two-and-a-half But justice will prevail and Maoists, was such that people had hardly any decades of struggle are to be seen in an no doubt learning from earlier mistakes clothes even to wear, let alone any entire populace having gained enormous in the world revolutionary moment, will commodities of modern civilization. self-confidence, self-respect and the ability advance forward to build a paradise on Struggle’s on People’s Issues to determine their own destiny. The earth. On this silver jubilee year we First the masses were organised on the oppressors of all types have been banished introduce these historic changes to the issue of increase in wage rates for tendu- from the region, their ruthless exploitation people of our country. leaf picking and the cutting of bamboo. is now minimum, they have rudimentary Situation in DK Before the Entry of Tendu leaf-picking rates have, over the health-care and education, their standard Naxalites years, increased from about one to two of living has improved and they are taking In those days people were living a rupees per bundle to over Rs.100 per to more scientific methods of agriculture. primitive existence mostly off forest bundle. Even today where the movement They are also learning to administer the produce. The people had no rights over is not there the contractors give under region themselves by the setting up the the forests as various forest acts arbitrarily Rs.30 per bundle. Similar is the case with rudimentary organs of political power. And made them trespassers in their own habitat. bamboo cutting for the paper mill. In to the defend the fruits of these victories To take anything from the forests they addition the masses were organised against the peoples armed forces have grown, from would have to face the exploitation and the atrocities of the forest department — small squads of 5 to 6 to platoon size and oppression of the officials. There would they were virtually chased out of the area. even a few of company size equipped with not be a single family who would not have As a result, all were able to till land and modern weapons snatched from the enemy. paid some ‘fine’ (bribe) to the forest cut fire wood without having to face their What has taken place in DK is earth- department and the local village elders. terror and loot any longer. shaking where every aspect of the people’s Besides this, they would be arrested and It is these two issues that initially built lives have been transformed.