Notes on a Dying People

COMMENTARY Notes on a Dying People and children without via ble livelihoods, minimal medical help or basic education, often without food, clothes and shelter, dragged into police custody and flogged, Sumit Sarkar, Tanika Sarkar mostly for unknown offences. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) The political movement that came ost-election West Bengal is, indeed, is unknown in this area and no state ven- up from among the people of a gloomy, even alarming place. ture for ensuring survival ever developed, Lalgarh in November 2008 cried PWith the first ever defeat of the let alone plans for development. The land- Communist Party of India (Marxist) CPI(M) scape of bleak wretchedness is dominated out for help and support from the after decades of virtually one-party rule, by the bizarre splendour of the party of- civil and democratic society – for leftists all over India had hoped to see the fices of the CPI(M) and the houses of l ocal basic human rights, for a right to beginnings of a new and democratic polit- party leaders: appa rently “whole timers” all decisions about what belongs ical culture. Especially after Singur, on a pay of Rs 1,500/a month and without Nandigram and multiple other movements any other ostensi ble means of livelihood. to them alone: their water, of resistance have shown how much popu- The media does not talk of the peaceful land and forest. The movement lar defiance can accomplish even against resistance that tribals had built up in an negotiated with the intransigent the combined might of an entrenched open and democratic manner over the last Left Front administration of state power, multinational corporates and six months or so which got little attention an autocratic party. Instead, we now see a from opposition parties, or from Kolkata- West Bengal for months, politics of reprisals: CPI(M) political prac- based middle class groups or “civil so ciety” without much success. Their tice seems to have left an indelible mark groups as they call themselves these days. peaceful movement now lies in on all organised politics in the state. Of course, there are many notable excep- tatters, because of the violent There are many outcries against Maoist tions: the Lalgarh Sanhati Mancha, a and Trinamool (Congress) violence. Even group of cultural and political activists intervention by the Maoists who though they do sometimes exaggerate the has given them all the help it could and have done incalculable harm scale of retaliatory violence, basing them- has tried its best to mobilise a wider and to both the objectives as also to selves on highly selective and dramatised influential support base for them. By and the people of Lalgarh and by the media reports, the larger point they make large, however, public attention has not is more or less justified: the precious time been forthcoming. There have not been armed retaliation from the centre for thinking about and acting on demo- any non-govermental organisations (NGOs) and state governments. cratic alternatives may just be frittered working there, nor groups of local activ- away in this manner. At the same time, ists trying to ensure livelihoods, protection there is the opposite danger of swinging from intimidation, basic human rights. In over to the other extreme in this mood of this regard, they are worse off than even disenchantment: of forgetting the imme- Chhattisgarh or Madhya Pradesh tribals. diate past, about state and party terror Bengali newspapers and television and, above all, about the way in which or- c hannels have written about and shown dinary and poor villagers live in West Bengal, some scenes of indiscriminate torture and especially in the tribal belt. flogging that the central and state forces We refer to Lalgarh, a place much in now engage in. National media blanks it news these days and destined to be the out altogether. centre of attention as the site of sensational When public response to their desperate media reportage on police and paramili- predicament came at last, it came as vio- tary troops on march through jungles. lent condemnation – often grossly unin- What the reports do not show is the abject formed – after Maoists started presenting poverty of villagers, their prolonged themselves as the real face of the move- e fforts to seek help from all possible quar- ment. We think that both the opposition ters before the Maoists built themselves a and the civil society groups have to answer base within their movement, and the the unanswerable now. In this hopeless sit- crude and brutal police and cadre intimi- uation which has continued for decades Sumit Sarkar ([email protected]) dation they face on an everyday basis. even as they turned in vain from one party and Tanika Sarkar are historians of They are not the happy, uninhibited trib- to another, asking for some relief, what modern India. als of B engali movies, but men and women would we have liked them to do? To keep 10 june 27, 2009 vol xliv nos 26 & 27 EPW Economic & Political Weekly COMMENTARY on dying? Obviously, that is so, that would dignity among the wretched of the earth e xperience and experiment that came up have been the decent thing for them to do are the enemies of the state. West Bengal from among the people of Lalgarh who – to be seen only in ways we like to see will be no exception. Its record in human have, for decades, cried out to everybody them, and not be heard. rights violations is among the worst in the for help and support and who conducted a country as is its record for the utter neglect peaceful struggle for basic human rights, Harm Done by Maoists of tribal belts. In fact, the moment the for a right to all decisions about what be- Maoists have done incalculable harm to CPI(M) was assured of central government longs to them alone: their water, land and the movement. Their activities and inten- help, they began a campaign about Trina- forest. They and other mediators patiently tions are shrouded in mystery, their secret mool Congress links with Maoists, hoping negotiated with the administrative autho- terror operations express total indiffer- to kill two birds with one stone. rities and the process dragged on for seven ence to human lives, their arms deals lead But the matter has gone well beyond months as the administration would not them, inevitably, into shady transactions West Bengal. The prime minister has al- cede an inch. Nor would the state autho- with rich and corrupt power brokers at ways been absolutely frank in saying that rities try and work for minimal improve- different levels. The typical pattern of he considers Maoism the greatest internal ment of the tribal quality of life, even after their activities is curious. They come into danger: not poverty, social injustice or the the peaceful agitation started and went on an already strong and open mass move- absolute levels of deprivation among cer- peacefully. Now, their aspirations for basic ment, they engage in a killing spree, dis- tain categories of people which create a protection from intimidation, torture, crediting the movement, and then they space for Maoism. He has also said recen tly livelihood, lie in ashes. leave, after giving the state authorities a that the mineral-rich areas of the country In March 2009, a friend from Kolkata splendid excuse for crushing it. One should be opened up to multinational in- was visiting us. Since he is a leading mem- wonders how and why the so-called leader vestment on the easiest of terms and that ber of the Sanhati Mancha, we asked him Bikas could arrange the entire media – press, he wants a climate of investment that to describe the movement. Even as he cele- state and national TV channels – to gather brooks no obstacles to it. Many of the brated the richness of the movement in around him as he claimed to represent the marked areas are the tribal belts. And the interview, he told us that he was deeply Janasadharaner Samiti and not have any wherever the poor and the dispossessed worried about the isolation of Lalgarh state forces to be around as he spoke. stake out claims to livelihood, land and from mainstream politics, about the dangers It is also curious that even though dignity, the climate for investment is en- of a Maoist infiltration. Janasadharaner Chhatradhar Mahato, the Samiti leader, dangered. Lalgarh is, therefore, only the Samiti is a loose federation of local elected has disowned all violent action, the forces beginning of a national mission: our bodies and anyone could join, but without and administration swear they will arrest land, our coastline, our water, forest and any party banner. No electoral party ven- him. It is very clear that it is a democratic agricultural resources and our poor people tured forth as they had nothing to gain. po pular upsurge that is the real target and are but the playthings of the corporate Maoists, therefore, may have a free field Maoists are an invaluable resource for the world. The Indian State has learnt from for their operations, he feared, even state for they help branding it as Maoist. Sri Lanka. though the movement from its inception State terror and Maoist terror seem to be Times are very strange. Left Front crit- had been remarkably open and peaceful. strangely interdependent, both working ics of the Congress and of Manmohan We transcribe the interview below. for the same results: the brutal end to a Singh in particular, who a few days back Interview with activist Sumit Chowdhury democratic popular struggle.

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