13 June 2011. A World to Win News Service. During the first week of June, the Indian army began moving into the Bastar region in the southern part of the state of Chhattisgarh, in central India, to set up what officials describe as an installation to train soldiers in jungle warfare. This area is a centre of the revolutionary movement of Adivasi (tribal) people led by the Communist Party of India (Maoist), and it is adjacent to the vast region of eastern and central India that the "Naxals", as the Indian Maoists are known, have made their stronghold.
Indian media have reported that several columns totalling 500 "jawans" (soldiers) and officers have reached Abujhmad in Narayanpur District, where 750 square kilometres of land has been allotted for the camp. A statement from the CPI(M) refers to a thousand central government troops. The 4 June statement says that while details remain secret, there has been talk that the central authorities plan to set up two more jungle warfare schools in the area. It warns that as these troops are trained, they are likely to be sent elsewhere in Chhattisgarh and also to Maharashtra, Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Western Ghats, West Bengal, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh, all areas where the Maoists have been leading struggles by Adivasis and other rural people. This is an escalation of "Operation Green Hunt", a military campaign against the people in the Maoist-led Adivasi areas. (For CPI[M] documents, see www.bannedthought.net)
Following is another press release, put out by the CPI(M) Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee 3 June, explaining and opposing this army deployment. The vast forests of Dandakaranya extend through the states of Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Maharastra and Orissa.
As the first column of the Indian Army arrived in Kanker, the formal process of Army deployment in Bastar has commenced. But hiding this fact from the eyes of the people, the rulers are propagating the falsehood that the Army was coming here just for training and not to fight the Maoists. It's being said that in the name of "self defence", the ministries of Defence and Law had issued "guiding principles" for the Army, but nobody is ready to reveal the details. It’s noteworthy that the Air Force was already given the right to attack in "self-defence".
The Central and State governments have been hiding the fact that this was obvious deployment and have been telling the world that they were just coming here for a training as part of their ploy of deceiving the people and pacifying those democratic forces who have been outrageous against Army deployment. The glaring fact is that the Army is now deployed in the ongoing war against people of our country. After Kashmir and the North-East regions, now the Indian Army is going to wage a brutal war against most oppressed people of India. Now the apprehensions seem to be realized that the draconian law, the AFSPA (Armed Forces Special Powers Act), would also be proclaimed in Bastar.
In fact the government gave a free hand to the Army and Air Force to attack the people in the name of "self-defence", as there are no measures defined for clear-cut demarcation between a Maoist combatant and an ordinary citizen. Since 2005, first with Salwa Judum [counter-revolutionary militias led by the local authorities and the police in Chhattisgarh] and now in Operation Green Hunt, state armed forces set ablaze more than 700 villages; murdered more than 1,500 people; raped hundreds of Adivasi women; burnt down the crops; looted the villages; and forced tens of thousands of people to flee from their native places. The recent carnage in Chintalnar was just an example of ongoing state terror in Dandakaranya.
And now, with the Army taking part in this onslaught and with all powers granted to it in the name of self-defence, the massacres of Adivasis and brutalities would increase manifold. This would pose a big question mark on the very existence of the Adivasi community. Particularly, the Jal-Jungle-Zameen and the ancient cultural heritage of the Mariya tribes, the indigenous residents of Maad, would vanish.
A heated discussion is going on across the country on the issue of land grab these days. Particularly, in the context of the Uttar Pradesh incidents [where farmers have been protesting against the government takeover of their land], all political parties belonging to the ruling classes, including Congress [currently the governing party] and BJP [the Hindu chauvinist party currently in the opposition], have been portraying themselves as the "champions of peasants" and vaguely speaking against the forceful land acquisitions as part of promoting their vested political interests. But all these "champions" are keeping themselves mum on this huge land grab taking place in one of the most backward Adivasi areas of the country in the name of Army training.
BJP's Raman Singh [Chhattisgarh state] government has decided to uncaringly give away as much as 750 square kilometres of land in the Maad area of Narayanpur district for one of the three proposed training schools to be set up. Raman Singh, the man who has been trumpeting his cheap tactic of selling one kilogram of chana per month for 5 rupees to each Adivasi family in Bastar region, is completely unmasked now. There has neither been any debate nor been any discussion about the decision of giving away such a huge portion of precious land and forest. Laws like PESA (Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas) and 5th Schedule [both laws supposedly meant to overcome discrimination against tribal people and others] have become a joke here.
The local Mariya people of Maad region are completely unaware that the land on which they have been living for thousands of years and the forest with whose support they have been able to survive till this day, belong to them no more. One fifth of the total 4,000 square kilometres area of the Maad region would now be given away to the army. It would be expanded further according to the reports coming in media. As Army vehicles started moving into Bastar, the Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) has declared that the Raoghat mining project would be privatized and a global tender notice would be issued. This makes the picture very clear now. On one side there would be a vast Army base and on the other side of the Maad region the Multinational Corporations would fall in line in a rush to plunder the precious iron ore from Raoghat hills. The mining mafia would become active with their pending mining projects and the lands of the tribal people would be acquired forcefully. Now it’s not at all difficult to realize who is coming with what intention and what the interrelation between them is!
Politically, today the Maoist movement is posing a serious challenge to the pro-imperialist neo-liberal policies being implemented by the servile rulers of our country. The struggles of Adivasis and the Maoists who are leading them have become gravest threat for the ruling classes of India and their imperialist masters, who are hell-bent on looting huge deposits of precious minerals from the Adivasi regions in particular. In Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal and other states, hundreds of MoUs [corporate-government agreements] were signed by state governments and the corporate houses are not getting implemented due to the opposition posed by people. Particularly in Dandakaranya, several projects of big corporate houses, such as mines, big dams and heavy industries have been held up due to organized protests and resistance struggles of the people. To sum up, in Dandakaranya the exploiters' juggernaut of "development" has not been able to move forward. That's why they have been waging this brutal war against the people in which now the Army is involved.
The Bastariya Adivasis have never bowed their head to exploitation, injustice, suppression and alien rule. They have a glorious history of several rebellions against the British colonialists. In 1910, at the time of Mahan Bhumkaal, a great tribal uprising, the British rulers deployed the army against the people of Bastar. Now, after a hundred years, the rulers have once again sent the Army so that their just struggles could be crushed cruelly. We call upon the people of Dandakaranya to face this challenge boldly. People are the creators of history! So, the ultimate victory will only be theirs!!
Our Special Zonal Committee appeals to all democrats, human rights organizations, anti-displacement movements, Adivasi organizations, and well-wishers of Adivasis, intellectuals, writers, artists and media persons to raise their voice against setting up of Army training schools in Bastar and the proposed huge land grab meant for this purpose. Come forward to build agitations with the slogan: "Indian Army, Go back from Bastar". Oppose the deployment of the Army in the ongoing war against people in the name of training schools. Demand to scrap all those MoUs signed by the government of Chhattisgarh with big corporate houses and all those projects of forceful land acquisition.
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