For many of us whose ideas were moulded in the mid-1970s, there have always been two incontrovertible truths. One, the Naxalite fight is for an equal and just society. Two, the State is The Enemy, not just of the Naxalites, but of anyone fighting for fundamental constitutional rights.
These truths remain unchallenged, with one big difference. Then, the one doubt some of us had was self-doubt. We knew that the life of a revolutionary was not for everyone. More than three decades later, the doubts are of another kind. Is ‘revolutionary violence' always right? Can people fighting for an ideal society replicate the corrupt practices of those they want to replace?
After reading Jason Miklian's ‘Purification Hunt', such questions seem pointless. Despite knowing the horrors of Chhattisgarh's state-financed vigilante programme, one is left chilled to the bone reading Miklian's account of how Salwa Judum has helped politicians, mining companies and lumpens carve out the state's riches. His account stands out because of its interview with the founder of this totally amoral campaign, the Congress' Mahendra Karma, who feels it should last another 50 years (till all the state's resources have been swindled?), and the supportive statements by high-ranking policemen, one of whom was slapped by a Salwa Judum leader when he tried to save a journalist being roughed up by the latter's men.
Uncertainty
Such stories in Windows into a Revolution: Ethnographies of Maoism in India and Nepal , edited by Alpa Shah and Judith Pettigrew, remain with the reader much after all the jargon-laden analysis has been forgotten. One wishes there had been more case studies of life in the Red Corridor, but even those recounted by the 12 authors are enough to show how troubling it is to live under constant uncertainty.
Maoists thrive where the State has never stepped in. But, shows the book, for those who are not wretchedly oppressed, a distant and uncaring State at least leaves you alone to make what you can of circumstances. Once the revolutionaries move in, you are left with no control. You may choose to stay aloof, but not for long, as the State moves in to decimate them. One — or, if you are unlucky — both of them will get you, for doing something you couldn't have refused. Neighbours become suspect; betrayal is in the air, but you can never be sure if it did happen.
The breakdown of trust is perhaps the most damaging fallout of such a situation, not just for ordinary villagers, but also for street smart operators who act as brokers between terrified government officials and the Maoists, only to find themselves dragged into the bloody conflict.
But the book goes beyond the caught-between-two-enemies narrative, giving the reader a glimpse into the minds of those who decide to join the Maoists, be it Bihar's Dalits, for whom violence was a necessity, not a choice; or the idealistic young Bengalis who chucked up college to follow Charu Mazumdar, only to find themselves unequipped to assume the traditional roles expected of them once out of jail.
What is even rarer to find in other accounts — the dilemmas Maoists must wrestle with — are discussed here, from the viewpoint of the ‘liberated' masses. Can superstition and wasteful rituals simply be ordered away? Amit Desai's essay has an interesting revelation — Maoists in Maharashtra have not intervened in the Gond tribals' traditional ways of dealing with “witchcraft”.
Treatment of people
A disturbing constant in these essays is the treatment of the ‘people' as subjects, by the security forces of course, but also by the Maoists. Sumanto Banerjee's personal memoir recounts party leaders holding meetings with villagers (ironically, the village women didn't look kindly upon men leaving their families to work for the revolution!), but most of the essays show little evidence of Maoist leaders raising mass consciousness, or, explaining changes in strategy even to their core followers. Such arrogance rebounded on them in South Bihar, with the Party Unity's original Dalit members growing disillusioned. In one of the book's rare jargon-free essays, George J Kunnath discloses that these Dalits saw the commissions taken by their party to allow development works in their area, as no different from the corruption of government officers. In Jharkhand, Alpa Shah finds such cuts accepted as a legitimate way of putting government money to better public use! Except for one essay “Red Terror in Nepal”, where the author uses words such as “pure'' and “impure'' castes without putting them in quotation marks, every author while describing the all-pervasive fear in Maoist conflict areas, unambiguously concludes that the unpredictable, aloof and brutal State is feared far more than the shadowy and often very brutal revolutionaries.
And in Nepal as in Chhattisgarh, the more brutal the State, the greater the recruitment of the Maoists. On the other hand, Banerjee's essay shows that villagers who had once supported Maoists, were quite content to follow personal ambitions once their basic needs were provided for by the State, be it in areas of West Bengal or Andhra Pradesh. Perhaps Manmohan Singh and P Chidambaram should read this book.
WINDOWS INTO A REVOLUTION — Ethnographies of Maoism in India and Nepal: Edited by Alpa Shah and Judith Pettigrew; Social Science Press, New Delhi & Orient Blackswan Pvt. Ltd., 1/24, Asaf Ali Road, New Delhi-110002. Rs. 695.
