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<h1><b>Harsha Walia: Searching for Jake Sully in India’s
heartland</b></h1><font size=3>By
<a href="http://straight.com/archives/contributor/197">Harsha
Walia</a><br>
<a href="http://straight.com/article-320575/vancouver/harsha-walia-searching-jake-sully-indias-heartland" eudora="autourl">
http://straight.com/article-320575/vancouver/harsha-walia-searching-jake-sully-indias-heartland<br>
<br>
</a>Building traditional irrigation systems, practicing forest
conservation and cooperative farming, and providing educational and
medical facilities in the isolated rural forests of India. This could be
the role of any nongovernmental organization or charity, but is actually
the work of armed Naxalite Maoists. In addition to community development,
Naxalites have <a href="http://sanhati.com/articles/2250/">organized
politically</a> to self-govern and have claimed responsibility for
numerous killings of government officials, security personnel, and
alleged informers. Today, many of the Naxal cadres are
<a href="http://www.zcommunications.org/sandwich-theory-and-operation-green-hunt-by-radha-d-souza">
Adivasis</a> (tribal indigenous) and 40 percent are women. Naxalites have
been operating since the 1970s in 20 states around the jungles of Central
and Eastern India. <br><br>
Naxalites recently made headlines, as Indian prime minister Manmohan
Singh declared them “the most serious internal threat to India’s national
security” and unleashed Operation Green Hunt. Under Green Hunt, 250,000
police, armed forces, and counter-insurgency teams have been deployed,
while the U.S.
<a href="http://www.countercurrents.org/wop200410.htm">provides</a>
military intelligence and tactical guidance. The jungles are under a
heavy siege: checkpoints, army patrols, helicopter missions, and gunfire
battles that kill
<a href="http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?264255">40 civilians
per week</a>. Based on the
<a href="http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KB18Ak02.html">
counterinsurgency model</a> of soft power alongside military might
(charity from the barrel of a gun), government-sponsored agencies are
setting up rehabilitation camps for the 200,000 already-displaced
villagers. <br><br>
It is easier to fixate on the real and perceived violence inflicted by
armed insurgents. As political groups in the Middle East, Pakistan, and
Afghanistan are presumed to all be “Islamic jihadis”, the caricature of
Naxals as fanatic ideologues is compelling. It behooves us, however, to
ask why the Maoist insurgency persists, why Adivasis would choose a life
that inevitably leads to confrontation with the world’s third largest
military, why the depths of the jungles holds a greater promise than the
heavenly slogan of economic development. <br><br>
The neoliberal model that led to the nine-percent “India Shining” growth
rate could more accurately be described as India’s Doom. The statistics
are chilling: although they comprise only nine percent of the country’s
population, more than 40 percent of
<a href="http://www.forestrightsact.com/current-situation/75-chargesheet-on-governments-violations-of-forest-rights-act">
usurped land</a> for development is Adivasi land; over 60 million
Adivasis were
<a href="http://infochangeindia.org/200804167047/Agenda/Battles-Over-Land/Land-as-livelihood-vs-land-as-commodity.html">
displaced</a> from 25 million hectares of land between 1947 and 2004
including by burning of villages, rape, illegal detention, mass murder,
and
<a href="http://www.pucl.org/Topics/Human-rights/2006/salwa_judum.pdf">
vigilante raids</a>; and there have been approximately 200,000
<a href="http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/01/06-0">farmer
suicides</a> in the past decade. Home to 52 billionaires and a
millionaire population that has grown by 20 percent in the past five
years, India also boasts 230 million people living in hunger,
overwhelmingly Adivasis. <br><br>
The most convenient distraction of India’s Red Scare has been that the
beneficiaries of the military occupation of the forests and attendant
<i>terra nullius</i> are corporations. The Maoist heartland coincides
with the mining heartland. In the words of the prime minister: “if Left
Wing extremism continues to flourish in important parts of our country
which have tremendous natural resources of minerals and other precious
things, that will certainly affect the climate for investment.” <br><br>
The area has been slated for more than 300 tax-and-labour-law-free
special economic zones. Corporations have signed 650 billion rupees worth
of memorandums of understanding for resource extraction (imagine this:
the value of bauxite ore, just one of the 28 precious minerals, is valued
at almost $6 trillion), and infrastructure development such as dams and
power plants. A Ministry of Rural Development report has termed it “the
biggest grab of tribal lands after Columbus”. <br><br>
In her most recent
<a href="http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?264738">essay</a>,
Arundhati Roy writes: “The Maoists are not the only ones who seek to
depose the Indian State. It’s already been deposed several times by Hindu
fundamentalism and economic totalitarianism....Almost from the moment
India became a sovereign nation, it turned into a colonial power,
annexing territory, waging war.” <br><br>
There is now a complaint against Roy under the Chhattisgarh Special
Public Security Act. Outrageous but not as gruesome as the arrests,
police shootings, and in-custody torture of non-Naxal activists including
doctors and journalists. Yet another purpose of Green Hunt emerges:
quelling any dissent by brandishing the conveniently exaggerated “Maoist
sympathizer” catch-phrase. Like the other democratic oases U.S. and
Israel, Enemies are necessary (and easily drummed-up post-9/11) to
justify military crackdowns, corporate looting, and human rights
violations. <br><br>
Still, rural resistance is declaring <i>Jaan denge par jameen nahin
denge</i> (We’ll give our lives, but never our land) and mobilizations
across the country are reaffirming the demand <i>jal, jangal, jameen</i>
(water, land, livelihood). A communique from the Kenddungri Panchyat in
West Bengal reads: “You distribute a few crumbs amongst us, the poor, and
then hang the label ‘development’. Every 300 out of 1000 adivasi children
die before the age of five. If we call this your silent terrorism would
that be wrong? We regard as a new independence our power to stand up
united and resist.” <br><br>
The human rights network
<a href="http://www.icawpi.org/fr/intl-campaign/the-campaign/80-wwwicawpicom">
Sanhati</a> has drafted a proposal calling for negotiations upon the
cessation of police-paramilitary actions and cancellation of development
projects. A recently concluded
<a href="http://radicalnotes.com/journal/2010/04/11/interim-observations-and-recommendations-of-the-ipt-jury-11th-april-2010/">
Independent People’s Tribunal on Land Acquisition, Resource Grab, and
Operation Green Hunt</a> released comprehensive recommendations
including: immediate termination of Green Hunt; ending all compulsory
acquisition of land and forced displacement; publicly releasing details
of all memorandums of understanding; and transforming to a sustainable
model based on local agrarian economies instead of extractive industries.
<br><br>
This epic battle of a fattened corporate capitalism versus a dying land
and its inhabitants, of blood-thirsty robotic paramilitaries versus a
contradictory and living rebel force is fit for an <i>Avatar</i> remake.
Except Jake Sully may want to add his name to the struggle by staying
home and dismantling North American mining and investment interests that
are colonizing India’s (heart)land and most of the planet. <br><br>
<i>Harsha Walia is a local activist and writer who has been named one of
B.C.’s 100 most influential Indo-Canadians. Walia is a member of the
<a href="http://sansad.org/">South Asian Network for Secularism and
Democracy</a>, which will host a film screening and discussion“What
Operation Green Hunt Mean<br><br>
<br><br>
</i></font><x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
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