life in general: a severe example of nasty custodial torture in india

The last few months has seen a severe example of custodial torture in India. It is about a woman named Soni Sori who is alleged to be a Maoist (a banned outfit in India) by the Indian government. Whether she really is a Maoist is yet to be confirmed but what is reasonably clear is the unwarranted and, in fact, criminal, use of torture afflicted on Soni Sori by the Indian police acting under the instruction of the Indian state.


Below are three write-ups and one video that throw more light on the goings-on in this matter.

1) http://kractivist.wordpress.com/2012/01/14/womens-groups-stopped-from-meeting-soni-sori-in-raipur/


*WOMEN’S GROUPS STOPPED FROM MEETING SONI SORI IN RAIPUR*


*DEMAND IMMEDIATE ACTION ON PERPETRATORS OF CUSTODIAL VIOLENCE ON SONI SORI


* A team of women representing various women’s groups from across the country were in Raipur on 12-13th January to meet Ms. Soni Sori, currently lodged in Raipur Central Jail. Ms Sori is a tribal school teacher who has been hounded by the Chhattisgarh Police as a Maoist conduit. She was arrested in October 2011 and was brutally assaulted sexually in police custody on the night of 8-9th October.
Even after applying for permission as per procedure and repeated requests to various concerned officials on 12th, the women were denied permission to meet her, despite already having an assurance from the Principal Secretary, Mr. Baijendra Kumar, during his visit to Delhi in October.For two whole days the team was shuttled from one authority to the other and back, with each and every official avoiding taking a decision or give in writing any denial or reasons for it. Finally, permission was denied on 13th citing `security’ concerns. We feel that such alleged `security’ concerns are being used as a smokescreen to prevent us from meeting her, and this constitutes a violation of Soni’s rights as a prisoner. Further, we fail to understand what security threats an all women’s team, following all proper procedures and which consented to meet her in presence of the jail authorities, poses to the jail. Even the State Human Rights Commission, when approached by the team, refused to take cognizance of the matter, stating that denial of access to an undertrial does not constitute any violation of human rights of the undertrial.
The team expresses deep anguish and horror at the brutal physical and sexual torture she was subjected to when in police custody, which included giving her electric shocks, stripping her and inserting foreign objects into private parts. This torture was carried out under the supervision of a senior police official, despite directive from the Delhi High Court to the Chhattisgarh police to ensure her safety. The medical report of Kolkata NRS Medical College and Hospital, where stones were recovered from her private parts, confirms the brutal sexual assault.
We feel that Soni Sori`s case is of national importance and urgency for several reasons. Firstly, such barbaric behaviour by police had been foreseen even before Ms. Sori was taken into custody and had been clearly placed before the Sessions Court and High Court in Delhi, when her custody was sought by the Chhattisgarh police. While such custodial torture is a blatant violation and a matter of concern, *that it can happen despite judicial scrutiny and monitoring is deeply disturbing and of even greater concern.*
Secondly, this is one of the rare cases where the allegations have been substantiated by incontrovertible evidence in the form of an independent medical report conducted under the orders of the Supreme Court. Yet no action has been taken. Despite the seriousness of these violations, the Chhattisgarh authorities have not even instituted an enquiry, let alone taking action against the officials concerned. In addition, it is also preventing any attempts from independent women’s groups to meet with her.
Given the brutal treatment meted out to Soni Sori, and the overall situation of conflict and repression prevailing in Chhattisgarh, we are deeply concerned about the situation of women, in general, and specifically of other women prisoners in Chhattisgarh. Speaking in the larger context efforts to get information by human rights activists about under trails in such areas has unsuccessful. We demand immediate suspension of the officers concerned pending enquiry. Free access of individuals and groups to meet with Soni Sori and her rights as an under trail should be upheld.
The members of the team that visited Raipur consisted members from Saheli, Delhi; Women Against Sexual Violence and State Repression (WSS), Delhi; WSS Orissa and Madhya Pradesh Mahila Manch, Bhopal.

2)   http://www.sacw.net/article2445.html
PEOPLE’S UNION FOR DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS
PRESS STATEMENT
9 December 2011
Soni Sori Case : our freedoms are at risk because people’s concerns receive a short shrift at the hands of the judiciary


Peoples Union for Democratic Rights is distressed at the hiatus between the sharp observations of the Supreme Court judges and their timid operative orders and judgments. If there was any doubt over this it has been laid to rest by the recent orders of the apex court hearing the case of Soni Sori and the clarification offered by a bench of the Supreme Court in the much touted judgment on the issue of SPOs.
After her arrest in Delhi, Soni Sori had pleaded before three judges of the Saket District Court when her transit remand was being heard, that were she to be handed over to the Chhattisgarh police, she would definitely be tortured. Indeed she had pointed to the judge at the Saket district court that one member of the police team which had come to take her in their remand and escort her to Chhattisgarh had tortured her on a previous occasion. Her pleas fell on deaf ears.
When her complaint of torture including sexual violence inflicted on her was submitted before the Supreme Court, the judges chose not to intervene. And now when the medical check-up ordered by the court by a Kolkata hospital has established that stones were recovered from her private parts, the veracity of her charge stands corroborated. Instead of taking cognition of this and immediately moving her to safety of a jail outside Chhattisgarh, the apex court on 2nd December 2011 gave the state authorities 45 days to respond to the medical report and meanwhile merely shifted her to Raipur jail from Jagdalpur jail in the same state.
Thus the very same delinquent police force, its personnel and associated authorities have got permission to incarcerate her for an inordinately long period, a period sufficient for the state government to threaten, brow-beat and destroy Soni Sori before its prepares its response. It appears that custodial rape and torture of a woman, adivasi at that, does not enjoy any premium as there is greater concern for the prestige of the state authorities engaged in the valiant game of prosecuting a war against its own people in the tribal belt of India. The order of the Supreme Court has also risked Soni Sori’s safety further by shifting her to Raipur jail as her travel to the Dantewada court now entails a journey of 22 hours. It threatens her already frail health, puts her in prolonged police custody during transit and provides the government an easy alibi to deny her access to the court altogether.
In the SPO case the apex court bench watered down, if not trivialized, its original order issued on 5 July 2011 which had directed the Central government to desist from providing any funds for supporting directly or indirectly recruitment of SPOs and engaging them in counter-insurgency activities and had declared that the appointment of SPOs as part of regular police as unconstitutional. Thus the deployment of SPOs anywhere including in J&K, North East, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal became illegal. By agreeing to remove reference to central government and by confining the judgment to Chhattisgarh alone and by maintaining scrupulous silence over how the Chhattisgarh state got around the restriction by raising a new force, the Supreme Court restored everything it had declared to be unconstitutional and thereby trivialised its own judgment and observations.
The only rationale for the issuing of such orders is that once ‘national security’ is invoked, the Courts, even the apex Court, fall in line behind the Executive. The most recent order on the deployment of SPOs and that regarding Soni Sori’s custodial torture show the Supreme Court in poor light and even more regrettably show it to be sacrificing people’s fundamental rights at the altar of “national security”.
For those of us who perceive the judiciary, at least its higher levels, as a protector of people’s interests there is salutary message: our freedoms are at risk because people’s concerns receive a short shrift at the hands of the judiciary as and when the executive invokes national security. Thus, radical observations and timid, if not trivial, operative orders must be condemned.
Harish Dhawan, Paramjeet Singh
(Secretaries)




3) http://www.binayaksen.net/2011/10/soni-sori-to-sc-sp-gave-electric-shocks-undressed-and-tortured-me/


POSTED AT OCTOBER 30, 2011 // PRESS REPORTS 
  Despite a Delhi High Court directive to the Chhattisgarh police to ensure  the   safety of the jailed adivasi teacher who had apprehended custodial torture, Soni Sori has alleged that in clear violation of the Court’s order, the Dantewada SP gave her electric shocks, underdressed her and tortured her on the night of October 8. In a letter addressed to the Supreme Court, and received by a social activist in Delhi today, Sori has described the torture to which she was subjected by the Superintendent of Police, Ankit Garg, and has demanded to know who is responsible for her condition.
On the night of 8.10.2011, from 12 midnight to 2:30 am, SP Ankit Garg called me into a room in the police station, gave me electric shocks (current shock), took my clothes off and severely tortured me. Why has no action been taken against him? Sori has asked in the letter in Hindi, a scanned copy of which is attached herewith. Sori, whose case is currently being heard in Delhi, has written this letter on a small scrap of paper and asks the apex court five incisive questions.
Describing herself as a suffering adivasi women who is also a daughter and sister of this country, she asks the Court to tell her who is responsible for the brutal custodial torture to which she has been subjected by the police in Chhattisgarh. It may be recalled that Soni Sori had apprehended this physical torture when she was picked up by the police in Delhi, and had moved the Sessions court and the High Court in Delhi to oppose her remand to the custody of Chhattisgarh police. Keeping her fears in mind, the Saket Court in Delhi had awarded her custody to the Chhattisgarh police only upon receiving their assurance of her safety. The Delhi High Court also asked the Chhattisgarh police to submit a report listing out steps to ensure Soni’s safety.
However, as Soni points out in this recent letter, despite these safeguards and the assurance given to her by the Saket Court, she was tortured brutally, both mentally and physically, by the Chhattisgarh police. Why did the police do this to me, why was this allowed to happen? Soni asks the Supreme Court in this letter. Describing her police harassment over the past year and a half, she writes about how the police kept showing her as an absconder in half a dozen cases, even though she was meeting with them, going to the police station and regularly attending her job as an ashram school teacher, as evidenced by the entries of the school attendance register. Why did the police not arrest me at that time? asks Soni in this letter. Referring to the most recent case, in which the police alleges that Soni has acted as an intermediary between Essar and the Naxalites, she claims that she was asked by a police constable Mankar to flee from the place, which has made her into a criminal.
In the letter, Soni asks the apex court why no action has been taken against the erring police constable. Soni also refers to the fact that she was kept chained to her hospital bed when she was undergoing treatment for her injuries due to custodial torture in the Raipur hospital,which is explicitly prohibited under Supreme Court orders. At the end of the short letter which lists these five questions, Soni plaintively asks the court, Who is responsible for my condition? The Chhattisgarh government or the police administration? Soni affirms in the letter that she is still on hunger strike since she has still not obtained justice. Social activist Himanshu Kumar says that this letter will be delivered to the Supreme Court once it reopens on Monday and notes,These questions which Soni is raising are important not only for her, but for all of us in this country. We must be prepared to face these questions and ensure that our democracy is strong enough to answer them.
For more information contact: Himanshu Kumar ph: 9013886571 email: vcadantewada@ gmail.com
Letter for the Supreme Court
1. Why are my feet chained?
2. Mankar constable is the culprit in the Essar case. He made me into a criminal by asking me to abscond. Why is there no action taken against him on this?
3. For a year and a half, the police have been harassing me by lodging false cases against me. I used to openly come and go in front of the police force. I was called at the police station many times, and I used to go there. Why did they not arrest me at that time? For no reason, they declared me as an absconder, even though I was regularly doing my service at the ashram school at that time.
4. I was brought here from the Saket Court in Delhi by promising that there would be no physical or mental torture, and I believed this to be the order of the court and came here. Then why did the police do this to me (torture me), why was this allowed to happen?
5. On the night of 8.10.2011, from 12 midnight to 2:30 am, SP Ankit Garg called me into a room in the police station, gave me electric shocks (current shock), took my clothes off and severely tortured me. Why has no action been taken against him? Today, who bears the responsibility for my condition? The government of Chhattisgarh or the police administration? I am a suffering adivasi woman and I want to the Supreme Court to answer my question. I am also a daughter and sister of this country. Why did this happen to me? This is why I have not yet broken my hunger strike.
Applicant Mrs. Soni Sori Central Jail, Jagdalpur




4) Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5lO6cEcUeI

life in financial markets & general: using lies to garner public support

Governments can lie. Before WW2 started, very very few in the then-mainstream media, worldwide, were inclined to understand that Adolf Hitler's Nazi government was very adept in spreading falsehoods. In this ugly game, Jews, Gypsies etc were used as the favorite whipping boys of German authorities.

In India, at present, the same deadly, ugly game is being played out. Almost every tragic incident in the eastern states of India is being attributed to be the causation of Maoists (Left extremists). To be sure, Maoists are involved in quite some of them. But there is absolutely no surety that they are involved in all of them or even 60-70% of them.

The latest is the tragedy that struck the passengers of a train in West Bengal that derailed in the early morning hours a few days back. All television channels and print media companies were quick to attribute the train derailment to Maoists. Proof is, of course, hard to come by. Maoists have not admitted to being involved.

Forget wrong attribution. Governments can, at times, even create incidents and then wrongly attribute to their favorite whipping boys. Many records of the Nazi government that came to light in the late 40s and early 50s clearly brought this out. The 11 September 2001 attacks on New York and the US, I have very little doubt about, could have not happened without active participation by insiders in the George Bush Jr. regime.

Anyway, since Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, P Chidambaram and Kamal Nath do not resemble Nazis in style and looks, it is very easy to get swayed by their subtle attribution of anything and everything dangerous in India to Maoists, or the other one, Islamic extremists from Pakistan (the latter though, in my view, are indeed deadly and criminal in their acts). 

But looks can deceive.

I was reading a news story in a latest issue of Tehelka weekly newsmagazine that emanated from ground zero (an area where Maoists are fighting a dirty war against the state and the state is fighting the whole tribal population with still-dirtier tactics).

Here is the news story:

http://www.tehelka.com/story_main45.asp?filename=Ne050610fish_rice.asp

Fish, Rice, Blood A CIVILIAN BUS IS BLOWN UP. SIX MEN ARE ARRESTED. BELOW RADAR, A MINDLESS CYCLE OF VIOLENCE ROLLS ON IN DANTEWADA. TUSHA MITTAL REPORTS FROM GROUND ZERO Mood shift A civilian bus is blown up by Maoists in Dantewada, with 15 SPOs on board Photo: AFP The mangled remains of a charred bus lie on an empty road in Chhattisgarh. On may 17, an ied blast trigged by the Naxals blew up a private bus travelling between Dantewada and Sukma. 31 died: all ordinary people with ordinary lives. Yet, distinctions emerged. There were 15 SPOs — special police officers, one CRPF constable, and 15 civilians. Rummage amid the debris, where blood stained clothes have already begun to mix with earth — and the distinctions seem to melt. All you find are leftovers of lost lives. There is a diary page that rips at ‘I love V’, a wedding invitation to Shri padmbhan Thakur, an audio cassette of Gautam Kumar, a photo of durga, a ruled book with English Lesson 9: Whom does the sunshine wake up every morning? In many ways, the distorted wreck tells the story of Chhattisgarh — a zone of escalated conflict, where it is becoming impossible to create any categories of hero and villain, victory and defeat, oppressor and oppressed; where everyone seems to be a victim first. There are the nine Adivasi women of Durvaras village — all were on that bus, returning from Malaiwara with mahua fruit crushed into oil. Miraculously, all of them survived. Sodi Deva, 8, had crawled out the bus window to help the women. The incident has left many in the village scared of bus rides. “I’ll never again go on the same bus as the security forces,” says Sodi Huva, a farmer in Durvaras. “I’d rather walk for miles.” The SPO says, ‘The Naxals have nothing. They loot because if they don’t, how else will they eat?’ There is the 25-year-old SPO, one of many survivors recovering at Jagdalpur hospital. He joined the Salwa Judum 5 years ago and earns Rs 2,150 a month. “I became an SPO to protect my country, but we have achieved nothing. The salwa Judum hasn’t solved the problem. The government has everything. The Naxals have nothing. They loot because if they don’t, how else will they eat?” There is a CRPF jawan huddled in a tent outside a salwa Judum camp, which he is convinced the Naxals will attack in 25 days. “I’m counting down,” he says. “10 days up. I’m prepared to die.” And yet he reverts to the Mahabharata when you ask what he thinks of his enemy. “They are like Krishna,” he says with a long sigh. “There was a yug during which even Krishna had to kill the Rajas. It’s inevitable.” There is Madvi Pojje, an Adivasi woman in Mukram village. Last week, an SPO threw her on the ground and tried to shove her into an irrigation sewer pipe. A few kilometres ahead, Madkam Deva was also hurled down, stripped and beaten so hard he limps now. Only days earlier, the cRpf had asked villagers from Mukram for fish from the pond. There weren’t enough to distribute even among the villagers, so none were sent to the CRPF. The anger resurfaced as Deva was being dragged to the camp. “Is our money any different from the Naxals. You give them fish. Why not us? You are with them,” the jawans bellowed. Victims all Sodi Dhule, one of the bus survivors. PHOTOS: TARUN SEHRAWAT Oyem Aitte, mother of Oyem Hirma arrested as a Maoist Ever so often, a major event brings Chhattisgarh back into the national public gaze. Yet below the radar, a lowintensity conflict continues to simmer — a senseless cycle of violence and counter violence. Each local incident can be traced back to another, sometimes as micro as the outrage over fish. It is as if the Adivasis of Chhattisgarh have become pawns in a dangerous game of chess where every move is a trigger, an action and a reaction at the same time. THE MOST recent move has come from the security forces, who have been on the back foot after a recent surge in Maoist violence. on April 6, the Maoists ambushed a CRPF patrol team in Chintalnar, killing 76 security personnel. It was the biggest Maoist attack in India. A bus explosion only a month later came as a major embarrassment. The report of the EN Rammohan committee highlighting procedural lapses in the Chintalnar incident and calling for the dismissal of both CRPF and police top brass only added to the disgrace. On May 21st, CRPF’s Deputy Inspector-General Nalin Prabhat, was transferred out of Chhattisgarh. On May 24th, the Chhattisgarh Police announced a major breakthrough — the arrest of six Naxals — a “self-styled” Naxal commander called Barse Lakhma and five others — responsible for the Chintalnar attack. Only Lakhma was presented before the press. Police identified the five others as Podiyam Hidma, Oyam Ganga, Durga Joga, Oyam Hidma, Kawasi Budra, arrested from Minapa village on May 23. “The six arrested were part of a 150-strong jan militia. Along with Barse Lakhma, the five men planned and executed the Chintalnar attack. They were arrested during recent search operations,” says Dantewada SP Amresh Mishra. TEHELKA travelled to the village to verify police claims. The locals say that these five men were picked up a month ago and have been in police custody since. Each incidence can be traced back to another, sometimes as micro as the outrage over fish A rugged pathway through the forests leads to the remote village of Minapa, about five kilometres from the sight of the CRPF ambush in Chintalnar. In Minapa, the huts are smaller and spread further apart; the women are skeletal, the children are mostly naked, and even many men wear nothing but a patch of cloth. There is a sense of bareness, even the usual flutter of chicken and wild boar is absent. The only sign of government is a pDs ration shop, 10 km away in Chintagupha, where Adivasis get 25 kilos rice monthly. Nothing else is available. It is this Chintagupha market from where locals allege the men, excluding Oyam Hidma — were picked up. This is the version of their families: On April 10, the four men — aged 22-25, left for Gunjaigunda village in Orissa. It was haldi farming season during which locals customarily go to Orissa. Podiyam Hidma, the village sarpanch’s nephew and Oyam Ganga, an ordinary farmer, had consecutively visited Orissa the last two haldi seasons. For the others, it was their first visit. The four boys returned from Orissa on April 14 and stopped at the Wednesday bazaar in Chintagupha. Forces arrived for random search and picked them up. Since the incident, the village women have protested at Chintagupha thrice, only to be turned away each time. Meanwhile, Oyam Hidma, 20, studies at a local school in Sukma town. His father alleges that Hidma was picked up from his rented room in Sukma. After being held for 10 days in the Chintagupha station, the locals claim that on April 24, all five men where flown out on a helicopter from the Chintagupha camp. They say they received this information from other villagers living nearby. While it is impossible to independently corroborate either version, travel through the Chintalnar forests and there is a sense that the security forces are escalating operations, under pressure to show results. MUKRAM VILLAGE, around three kilometres from Chintalnar, has become the epicentre of another cycle of violence. This village is significant because it is here the 82-strong CRPF patrol party lost their wireless set. The security forces reportedly ate dinner here on April 5, hours before they were ambushed. for several days post the April 6 incident, the villagers of Mukram had abandoned their huts fearing a backlash. Enter Mukram a month later and there is still an eerie sense of desertion. The first thing you see is a local school blasted by the Maoists, their signature scrawled across its broken walls: Sabhi Chunavi party dokhebaz hai. Dushman ke hathiyar hamare hathiyar hain. (All electoral parties are traitors. The enemies’ weapons are our weapons) Walk on and a silent row of locked huts greets you. They are abandoned, but not by choice. On May 22, villagers say security forces entered Mukram at around 10 am and barged into the first few houses they found. Four Adivasis — Nuppo Bhima, Nuppo Hadma, Madvi Kosa, Iama Nanda, and the village Sarpanch Iama Ganga were picked up from their homes. “I saw them beating my father. I don’t think they knew he was the Sarpanch,” says his son Keshav, a security guard in Raipur home on vacation. “When my brother and mother tried to save him, they were also beaten with sticks. I was too scared to come out.” Police have arrested five Maoists this week. Families say they are farmers in custody for a month While Nuppo Hadma’s wife is able to produce his voter ID, others cling to newly made plastic cards. After the on-set of Operation Green Hunt, several villages including Mukram got together and trekked into town to have photos clicked and private IDs made. All have listed their occupation as “farmer”. Though the ID is not considered legitimate by security forces, it is telling of the fear psychosis the war has triggered. Travel along the Dantewada-Sukma road, on which the May 17th bus attack took place, and every turn yields a potential trigger. There is Gumyipal village, where the security forces had conducted search operations on May 16, a day before the bus attack. Police claim to have killed two Naxals. But villagers claim they were innocent Adivasis. “Malla and Aituram were sleeping at home,” says Gujjo Bai, the sarpanch. “They were woken up and killed. Their houses and fields were burnt. They are not Naxals.” While these claims cannot be independently verified, the incident is significant because it resurfaced in CPI(Maoist) leader Ramanna’s statement about the May 17 incident. he claimed it was revenge for the Gumyipal killing, and other such encounters. Then there is Bhusharas village — the SPos at Jagdalpur hospital have told TEHELKA they were on a search operation here immediately before they boarded the bus to Sukma. Stop at Bhusharas at you will meet a frail a 30-year-old widow, Hidme Mandal. On April 21, at around 10:30 pm, the Naxals barged into her hut. Threatening Hidme into silence, masked men sliced a knife through her husband Manoj Mandal while he slept beside her. After the killing, they fired three shots in the air and disappeared into darkness. Mandal had been murdered for being a police informer, but villagers say he was an ordinary farmer. Hunter, hunted Kawal Singh Nar, 21, in Jagdalpur Hospital, an SPO who survived the latest Maoist attack MURLI KUMAR, a local teacher in the area is no stranger to such killings. it was the mid 1980s, Kumar’s family lived in a remote village in Bijapur district, where the Naxals ensured the local patwari and the local contractor could not overcharge villagers. “We thought it was a good thing. Everytime the Naxals called a baithak, we went for it.” Things changed in the 1990s, when his father, an Adivasi farmer, was accused of being a police informer. “Some Maoist cadre started this rumour because of personal rivalry,” Kumar says. his father was called for questioning by the Maoist top brass — Ramanna and Ganesh VK. They found no evidence of guilt and let him go. Yet, a few months later, Kumar’s house was attacked, his family beaten and his father killed by the Maoists. Aghast, Kumar wrote a letter to Ramanna asking why his men had killed an innocent man. Within weeks, the reply came. An apology and an offer of compensation. “We did not know our comrades killed him. We are sorry. Come and meet us.” Kumar refused the money and left the village with his family. If you travel the remaining 80-odd km up to Sukma town, the microcosm of violence becomes more evident. Mediyum Bandhi was shot inside Sukma Police Station on May 19, two days after the bus attack. Sukma Sho Sandeep Chandrakar confirmed the death of Bandhi, 25, but said he was shot while trying to flee from the police station. According to Chandrakar, Mediyum Bandhi and Pariyam Kosa were picked up from Neelavaram village, a few kilometres from the station. “We found them randomly in another village. When asked why they were visiting, they could not answer, so we brought them for questioning. Soon after we received a message from the Sho of Gadhiras that they are wanted in other criminal cases,” he told TEHELKA. “on May 19, we brought them out of their lock up to have dinner. At around 7:15 pm, the Naxals fired at the station. The police took up their positions and began firing in return. Bandhi escaped from behind the policemen. he was shot by a police bullet while trying to run away.” Bandhi and Kosa belong to the Aitpal village in Korra block. “Around 300 security forces came to Aitpal on the morning of May 16 and dragged them from their houses,” Korra deputy sarpanch Mooya told TEHELKA. “There are ordinary farmers like the rest of us. We feel helpless.” Again, the counter narrative. WRITER’S EMAIL tusha@tehelka.com

From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 7, Issue 22, Dated June 05, 2010

life in general&financial markets: extremism on both sides -- maoists & government

The tragedy that struck the families of the 74 Centre Reserve Police Force (CRPF) men who were killed in a attack by Maoists is distressing. These CRPF men, coming from non-affluent backgrounds and in their jobs primarily for a little bit of financial security, are the victims of not just the Maoist extremists who deserve no empathy for their indiscriminate violent methods but also of the machinations, apathy and inefficiencies of the powers-that-be in the central government of India as well as several state governments in the country.

P. Chidambaram, the Home Minister, was earlier the Finance Minister. There have been several cases of companies, bureaucrats and politicians colluding to brutally oust the remote people of India living in tribal and forest areas where the companies want to set up their mining and other industrial projects on the back of huge governement subsidies (that you and me as India's taxpayers ultimately bear).

There was a genuine resistance from the people and this got support from some concerned citizen groups all over the country. Hiding behind this genuine resistance, the Maoists took to violence against government forces and agents in those areas. The companies started complaining to the Finance Minister (Chidambaram then) and the Prime Minister of India, Manmohan Singh. They (along with Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Kamal Nath and other members of the coterie that turns a blind eye to the extreme violations taking place of human rights and environmental laws in those remote regions of India) must have decided on a strategy.

The first step was to transfer Chidambaram from the Finance Ministry to the Home Ministry as the latter is in charge of internal security matters of the country. Chidambaram would get the companies to provide him with details of which areas they want to set up their projects in (whether or not they are in genuine compliance of ecology laws and human rights clauses of Indian laws) and then use the paramilitary force (such as CRPF) to suppress the genuine resistance of the affected people using the Maoist violence as a convenient excuse.

So it has been a war by the Indian government, supposedly against Maoists, in the last few months. Maoists receive their arms from international arms suppliers (mostly private extremist organisations but sometimes quasi-government arms manufacturing companies). That the Maoist violence should be put a halt to is a given but at least it can be done without endangering the lives of poor paramilitary force troops on whom the government and Chidambaram does not wish to spend adequately on their salaries and training. Read the full text of the news story (that I am giving below) about how stupid it was for CRPF men to be blindly asked to enter a forest at dawn and how they were sitting ducks.

Simultaneously, the government of India should do away with its nefarious intentions behind the reckless and blind approvals it is granting to companies in the remote areas of India for mining and other projects. 

 

The newsreport:

http://www.mumbaimirror.com/article/3/2010040720100407024900498322cb9a3/Bloodbath-in-Chhattisgarh.html

Operation Green Hunt is flawed: Experts
New Delhi: The gruesome killing of 75 security personnel by Maoists in the jungles of Dantewada in Chhattisgarh brought the faultlines of Operation Green Hunt, the massive mobilisation of forces against Naxals, into the open.

Leading security experts like former Punjab Director General of Police KPS Gill and Ajai Sahni of Institute of Conflict Studies questioned the merit of sending policemen to battle the Maoists without any intelligence or preparation.

“What is the objective of these operations? How can they send a company of 120 men into the jungle - roaming, hunting for Naxals without any back-up or support? What were they expected to do? These men were sitting ducks. They are not IIT graduates or men of high intelligence,” said Singh.

Singh was adviser to Chhattisgarh Government in 2003-04 for tackling Naxals.

According to Singh, there was no point in walking into the Naxal territory and attacking them without precisely assessing their strike capacity.

“You will launch an attack after which they disperse into the jungles and regroup to mount a counter. They did it in Dantedwada, in Lalgarh before that and a number of other places. We must have the intelligence otherwise we will simply lose our uniformed men to such attacks,” Singh said.

Sahni pointed that the political class suffers from the problem of continuously doing things without any planning or strategy.

“When they do not have a strategy they call it an Operation. Do you know the total central forces deployed for the entire anti-Naxal operation is 57 battalions - each battalion will have 400 men,” he said, adding, “That means altogether about 22-23,000 central forces are battling a vast army of Maoists spread across six states against whom they will never be to dominate.

This is what we say outright adventurous.” Sahni said the jawans were being thrown to their death because of lack of any planning by the Government.

life in general: al-queda/taliban & maoists are the other side of the terrorism coin

One side of the terrorism coin is the state itself. The other is the private, renegade groups on the lines of Al Qaeda/Taliban and India's Maoists. Both are doomed to fail as human qualities of goodness and peace increases and sustains.

In the last one week, the violence by such groups have killed innocents. Just today, according to one news report among many, India's Maoists have murdered about 10 villagers in the eastern state of Bihar. A few days back they had gone a killing spree, shooting dead around 20 policemen, in a town in the eastern state of West Bengal.

A few days back, a high-intensity bomb exploded in a bakery in Pune city in the western state of Maharashtra and killed around 10 people, mostly college students. This was, very likely, an act of a new recruit of the Taliban-like extremist groups operating mostly out of Pakistan. Al-Queda is also active in its plans and American cities are still at risk (although I do not think 11 September 2001 involved only Al-Qaeda and I think there was an involvement of the Bush regime to bring down three buildings on that day).

These renegade groups put forth the rationale of revenge -- say, something like "your country/government has killed our innocent people and we are only seeking justice". But what these private groups forget that justice is not got if served on those who are not directly responsible for the pain of the people they claim to represent. What they indulge in is nothing but murder and is nowhere close to being any kind of justice.

These groups will not succeed. What will succeed, however, is a persistent and non-violent approach to seeking justice. The same amount of money and passion used by extremists if channeled in non-violent and legal direction then a positive outcome is guaranteed.