And why we need a New Peace Process
Dandakaranya the Maoist ‘Rear Area.’
Maoist fighters first arrived in in Dandakaranya forest in 1980, as a deliberate decision – based on the example of Chairman Mao, of peasant uprisings in rural areas, followed by revolution in the cities. The forest was to be their ‘rear area’ – a place to hide out.
The decision was taken at a meeting at Nagpur in Maharashtra to regroup after a crushing defeat at the hands of Indian forces in 1972. From that emerged the ‘Rear Area Document.’ The meeting concluded that they would not have lost so many comrades, or been defeated in earlier uprisings, if they had had a place to hide.
Kondapalli Sitaramaiah, then head of People’s War, one of the major factions in Andhra Pradesh, was given the responsibility to find this rear area. He chose the 100,000 sq km Dandakaranya forest flanked by the sea to the east, between the railway lines connecting Mumbai to Kolkata and Hyderabad to Delhi. (In 2000 much of this area became the new state of Chhattisgarh.)
In their ideology, revolution would not happen in the forest. It was just a place to hide. One leader said, "The Adivasi people do not have political consciousness, so revolution will not happen there, but we need to develop the area in our favour."
" ... The forest was to be their ‘rear area’ – a place to hide out."
Pre-Naxalite story of communism in India
- 1930s: Communist Party of India (CPI) fought against Nizams of Hyderabad (later Andhra Pradesh).
- 1947: After independence CPI followed democratic road.
- 1964: CPI(M) ‘M’ for Marxist faction split off, accusing CPI of being too close to governing Congress party. CPI(M) pro-Chinese; CPI pro-Soviet.
- 1967: Uprising in Naxalbari in West Bengal; violently suppressed by state govt led by CPI(M).
- 1967: CPI(ML) ‘ML’ for Marxist-Leninist faction split – aim to follow revolutionary path, followed Chairman Mao’s model based on peasant uprisings in rural areas then moving to the cities. Crushed by Indian forces in 1972; leader Charu Mazumdar killed in gaol.
Adivasi people of the forest:
The tribal Adivasi people of this region have a highly distinctive culture, probably predating Hinduism. Their main language Gondi, with its own pictorial script, is spoken by many people outside the region. They are among the poorest people in India, collecting forest products for sale.
Until 1990 Maoists ranged freely in the forest villages, where they received food and shelter, but they won few Adivasi recruits. Mainly thanks to high-handed policies of the government, more and more Adivasis joined the Maoist ranks. Attracted by the dance and drama troupe of the party most learnt politics later; only a few came for ideological reasons.
Forty years after the Maoists arrived to make this their rear area, no Adivasi from Chhattisgarh has reached the Central Committee or Politburo of the Maoist party. The concerns of the Adivasis were never the Maoists’ main agenda, and were pursued only to keep the Adivasis onside. These included proper payment for forest products such as Tendu leaf, and preventing atrocities by government officials and businessmen.
The failure of the Maoist plan for a China-style march on the cities left them with just this rear area, which became their only base. 99% of Maoists in Dandakaranya region are now Adivasis – the 1% who are not are the top leaders.
" Forty years after the Maoists arrived to make this their rear area, no Adivasi from Chhattisgarh has reached the Central Committee or Politburo of the Maoist party. The concerns of the Adivasis were never the Maoists’ main agenda...
From the 1970s to 1990s, their leaders were middle-class revolutionaries who came from the cities. But that flow stopped twenty years ago. All of the 1% non-Adivasi Maoist leaders are in their fifties and sixties. The top leaders are even older and more than half of Central Committee and Politburo members have either died, been killed, been arrested or surrendered in last few decades.
Government response to the Naxalite threat:
In 1990 the BJP Govt of Madhya Pradesh started a Jan Jagran Abhiyan (Programme for People’s Awakening) led by the police. In a cynical move, the ‘old left’ who had followed the parliamentary road, Congress and the Communist Party of India, joined a secret pact to back the programme. Police moved into the forests burning houses and beating up Adivasis who supported the Maoists. This was the real birth of the Maoist party in Dandakaranya, as forest people were left with no option but to join them to protect themselves.
This was the time when Sitamaraiah was expelled, and Ganapathy, the leader who really formed the modern party, took over. There was another Jan Jagran Abhiyan crackdown in 1996, but now the Congress Government in the state of Madhya Pradesh did not support it. Chhattisgarh was formed as a separate state in 2000.
By 2004, after a failed peace deal, Dandakaranya formally became the HQ of the movement, and almost all the leaders moved there. Maoists in Jharkhand and Bihar merged with the People’s War Group and the party became bigger, now called CPI-Maoist.
The Chhattisgarh state under the BJP began a new crackdown, moving people out of their homes into resettlement camps as they burnt villages in the forest. The name for the new initiative Salwa Judum, translates as Peace March, but it was far from peaceful. It set villager against villager, claiming there was a ‘popular uprising’ against the Maoists and arming those willing to join it. Hundreds of Adivasis were killed by Indian security forces, and the conditions in the new resettlement camps were appalling. This filled the rank of the Maoists at super speed. They wrote ‘We had called ourselves People’s War but it was Salwa Judum which made us a real People’s War.’
WE HAD CALLED OURSELVES THE PEOPLE'S WAR BUT IT WAS SALWA JUDUM WHICH MADE US A REAL PEOPLE'S WAR...
They remain a centralised party, mainly powerful in 3 districts in Bastar – namely Bijapur, Narayanpur and Sukma. There is also a presence in Gadchiroli in Maharashtra, Malkangiri in Odisha and some parts of Jharkhand. They are capable of surprise attacks on security forces, including some big operations; but their area of operation is definitely not increasing while Indian security forces, their numbers now increased several-fold, have made inroads into Maoist strongholds. There have been many surrenders in last few years, and while many were faked by the security forces, Adivasi cadres have started surrendering in bigger numbers which is a significant development.
Fewer urban leaders and less ideological purity has led to reduced discipline, and as the number and effectiveness of non-Adivasi leaders reduced, the number of Adivasis in the rank and file increased.
" THE FOREST PEOPLE HAVE BEEN CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE, UNWILLING VICTIMS IN A WAR NOT OF THEIR MAKING. iS IT TIME FOR A NEW PEACE PROCESS?"
The Adivasi community mainly work on a collective consciousness and decision-making process. That was the reason that few joined the Maoists until the 1990s when a collective decision from the community gave the go-ahead. There are indications now that the Adivasi collective consciousness is changing its mind – and giving a signal that enough is enough. The forest people have been caught in the middle, unwilling victims in a war not of their making. Is it time for a new peace process?