India: Democracy, Nationalism and Conflict - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

India: Democracy, Nationalism and Conflict II‘Maoist/Naxalite uprising in India’

Harinda Vidanage PhDSlide2

NaxalitesThe Maoist movement, also called the Naxalite movement, after Naxalbari

the name

of a rural town where a 1967 peasant uprising ignited this tendency

within the

Indian Communist movement, has the New Democratic Revolution as

its declared

objective, the overthrow of the ‘‘semi-feudal, semi-colonial’’

state through

protracted people’s war. Because of this, it has always faced

severe state

repression

. (

Giri

2009)Slide3

Why Naxalite, The word Naxal comes from the village of

Naxalbari

, near

Siliguri

in West Bengal where the movement first originated. The origins of all

Naxalite

groups come from the CPI (ML), the Communist Party of India-Marxist-LeninistSlide4

Until the 1990s the Naxalites were a marginal presence in Indian politics. But in that decade they began working more

closely with

the tribal communities of the Indian heartland.

About 80

million Indians are officially recognized as “tribal”; of

these, some

15 million live in the northeast, in regions untouched

by Hindu

influence. It is among the 65 million

tribals

of the

heartland that

the Maoists have found a most receptive audience.Slide5

TribalsEconomically The tribals are the most deeply disadvantaged segment

of Indian society. As few as 23

percent of

them are literate; as many as 50 percent live under

the poverty

line. The state fails to provide them with

adequate education

, healthcare or sanitation; more actively, it

works to

dispossess them of their land and resourcesSlide6

Tribal ImagesSlide7

Naxal + TribalThe naxals enjoy immense support among the lower strata of the society in what is known as the Red corridor, a collection of states with

active

naxalism

(most of these

atates

are mentioned in the above

para

). The

adivasis

regard the Maoists as their friends for it is these rebels who have stood by them. All the normal channels of redress are closed for them. The police beat them. The political parties – be they the Congress or the

Bharatiya

Janata Party – are with the Salwa Judum (A anti naxalite movement in Chhattisgarh.)The courts do not give them a hearing. The media does not care. Where else will they go except to the Maoists? When the police attack them, it is the Maoists who save them (Awaaz 2010)Slide8

OperationsThey were strongest in the states of Bihar and Andhra Pradesh, where they organized low-caste sharecroppers and laborers to

demand better

terms from their upper-caste landlords.

Naxalite

activities were

open, as when conducted through labor unions, or

illegal, as

when they assassinated a particularly recalcitrant landlord

or made

a daring seizure of arms from a police campSlide9

Two phase struggleThe original struggle was against feudal landlords and landownership

The new struggle is against state domination, modernization and development which parallels the rise of India as a strong economy propelled by capitalism and liberal economic gains.

The issue of identity politics is a strong driver of the conflict Slide10

Red CorridorSlide11
Slide12

Nation state and securityManmohan Singh, the Prime Minister of

I

ndia, called Maoist insurrection, “the single biggest internal-security challenge

”

Home Secretary G.K

Pillai

reiterated the magnitude of this threat, saying the Maoists want to completely overthrow the Indian state by 2050. Slide13

Framing of the problem.This security-centric understanding of the Maoist ‘‘problem,’’ is challenged by sections of the dissident left who see it as a socio-economic problem, arising

from deprivation

, loss of livelihood, lack of employment opportunities and abject

poverty, given

a neo-liberal state abdicating all welfare functionsSlide14

Politically the tribals are very poorly represented in the democratic process. In fact, compared with India’s

other subaltern

groups, such as the

Dalits

(former

Untouchables) and

the Muslims, they are well nigh invisible.

Dalits

have

their own, sometimes

very successful, political parties; the

Muslims have

always constituted a crucial vote bank for the

dominant Congress Party.Slide15

Space for expansionThe twin marginalization, economic and political, has opened a space for the Maoists to work inSlide16

Operation Green HuntGreen Hunt either began in July 2009, September 2009 or November 2009. Speaking off record, senior policemen confirmed that the intensification of “search and comb” operations in Chhattisgarh began as early as July last year. In September 2009 the press reported on the progress of “Operation Green Hunt”: a massive 3 day joint operation in which the central

CoBRA

force and state police battled

Naxal

forces in

Dantewada

. (Hindu 2009)Slide17

Chinese connectionCharu Mazumdar, the pioneer of the

N

axalite

movement had said: “China’s Chairman is our Chairman and China’s path is our path”.

While we Indians are sensitized about the ongoing proxy war by Pakistan, there is very little or no consciousness that Maoism or

Naxalism

is actually a proxy war by China being waged against India for last five decades. (Singh 2010)Slide18

IdeologyWhen more than 70 CRPF personnel were martyred in Chhattisgarh, some students of a university in Delhi, created for pioneering research but now considered a leftist bastion, celebrated the tragedy. Some students of the same university had celebrated the Tiananmen Square massacre of students in China in 1989 for what they thought was necessary to prevent China going down the Soviet Union way. This university does not lie in the ‘impoverished, underdeveloped and exploited tribal mineral heartland of India’. Its students thrive in excellent facilities made possible by the tax-payers money. (Singh 2010)