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Mining and militarism have a deeply intimate history. In 2003, when India liberalised its mining policy, the de facto Maoist control over the region was seen as constituting a major obstacle to rapid industrialisation and land acquisition. Industry associations like the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) explicitly supported the government’s offensive against the Maoists and called for the involvement of the private sector in this effort:

The growing Maoist insurgency over large swathes of the mineral- rich countryside could soon hurt some industrial investment plans. Just when India needs to ramp up its industrial machine to lock in growth and when foreign companies are joining the party – Naxalites are clashing with mining and steel companies essential to India’s long-term success.Human rights activists argue that it is not a coincidence that Salwa Judum began just when the state government had signed a memorandum of understanding for a steel plant with the Tatas in June 2005.

Those villagers who refused to sign were arrested, and Section 144 (prohibitory orders on assembly) was imposed on the area.

In North Bastar, 22 paramilitary camps fortify the prospective Raoghat mines. Villagers near the mine told us that some 10 years ago, when the project was being proposed, the police took away all their bows and arrows, leaving them vulnerable to attacks by wild animals. Since then they have arrested several village leaders protesting against the mines and railway line. Even the prosaic words of the Rapid Environmental Impact Assessment report on the Raoghat mines reveal how incalculable the loss to both people and nature would be if the mines and the railway line linking Dalli Rajhara to Jagdalpur came up. The country would lose:

26 plant species that are included in the red list of rare and endangered species of vascular plants of India; high average growing stock and ultimately, the presence of 22 mammalian species of which 15 are in either Endangered or Vulnerable list of IUCN appendices or WPA schedules; large number of insects including a few rare ones (identification in progress), 28 species of Butterflies and 102 species of bird from 38 families.

The site proposed for the mining waste dumps, the report warned, would destroy the drainage of the entire valley; and indeed the entire culture of the people would likely become extinct.
Important as mining and resource extraction are, they are not the whole story. Land acquisition has been taking place across the country, and while the police often work as corporate agents, firing on villagers protesting against land acquisition, they have not resorted to Salwa Judum–style grouping elsewhere. Instead, what we see is the coming together of several interests – the security establishment in Delhi, local politicians, the police, the mining industry, the Hindu chauvinist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and unemployed youth.

The Indian state may have let its sovereignty slide in the abandoned adivasi homelands of India, untouched for years by basic services like education or health.

Elsewhere in Uttar Pradesh or Bihar, the police coexist with and are often subservient to the armed power of local big men. However, Maoist control over vast areas is untenable for the state. A casual glance at the topography through which the Salwa Judum moved and the burned villages it left in its wake will show that there is no one-to-one correlation between the villages attacked and the mining areas. Instead, major Maoist strongholds were targeted for the first attacks, and others that fell en route were burnt almost randomly.
The RSS has always seen the left as its primary enemy. A report by an RSS think tank talks of the history of conflict between the Maoists and Sangh organisations such as the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, Vidya Bharati and ideologically similar groups like the Gayatri Parivar, and proudly confirms the RSS hand in Salwa Judum:

The participation of Gayatri Parivar, Sangha Parivar and the Divya Seva Sangh [sic] situated in Gumargunda village of Dantewada is incredible…This movement [Salwa Judum] started fifteen years ago through the peaceful People Awakening Programme. The overall objective of the movement is to form a village security committee. This movement stays completely away from any publicity or propaganda. This is their main strength.

For Congress politician Mahendra Karma, the alleged leader of the Judum, the campaign was a chance to make a name and money for himself and his followers. In 2005, several people also told me that Karma got involved in the Judum so as to save himself from CBI prosecution in the malik makbuja scam, in which timber had been illegally felled on a large scale. For at least a century before mining became the main attraction, Bastar’s forest wealth has been a source of huge profit for both the state and private traders.

Before 1947, felling teak or fruit-bearing trees on private land was prohibited except when shade or falling leaves upset standing crops. After Independence, peasants were given the right (malik makbuja) to cut trees on their own land, after taking government permission.

Contractors used this to persuade peasants with little understanding of market prices to sell them teak trees – which cost lakhs – at ridiculously low rates. The contractors also removed timber from government forests, which was then passed off as coming from private lands. Several hundred truckloads of timber were thus taken away. In response, the government enacted the MP Protection of Scheduled Tribes (Interest in Trees) Act, 1956, under which the sale of trees from adivasi lands has to be sanctioned and supervised by the Collector, to ensure the adivasis are not cheated.

However, the administration proved an unreliable protector, colluding with timber merchants to subvert the law.

Agents, usually immigrants, contacted villagers, tempted them to sell trees and offered to pursue the complex paperwork involved in return for a commission. But their profits went beyond any reasonable commission, helped by the widespread illiteracy in the area.

In 1997, while researching the malik makbuja scam, I interviewed a man called Mundru in Kukanar. The agent kept Mundru’s bank passbook and merrily withdrew whatever he wanted from the account. Of the Rs 2,72,000 deposited in his account for sale of trees, Mundru got merely Rs 16,000. Timber merchants bought not just trees but, where they could, the land itself, in order to fell trees. Rich adivasi politicians from both the Congress and BJP, like Mahendra Karma and Rajaram Todem, were legally able to buy land from other adivasis. Again, land records and timber transport permits were fudged with the help of forest and revenue staff, to enable theft from government forests.

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Excerpted with permission from The Burning Forest: India’s War in Bastar, Nandini Sundar, Juggernaut Books.

(This article was first published on Scroll.in.)

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Between March 11 and March 16, 2011, the Chhattisgarh police, special police officers (SPOs) and CRPF carried out a round of combing operations in the villages of Morpalli, Timapuram and Tadmetla. They burnt some 300 homes, killed three men and raped three women. Three old people died of starvation.

(In July 2011, the Supreme Court ruled that the SPOs be disarmed with immediate effect. While the Chhattisgarh police claimed that SPOs form a vital part of their anti-Maoist strategy, an ever-increasing body of complaints, petitions and news reports holds the tribal force responsible for a series of violent crimes). http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/an-uncertain-future-for-spos-in-chhattisgarh/article2208070.ece

When this was reported, the district collector tried to deliver relief but was stopped by SPOs. Swami Agnivesh and Art of Living representatives were also attacked. SRP Kalluri, the inspector general of police, Bastar range, was suspected to be behind that attack.

Once this became public, questions were raised in the assembly (28 March). The Communist Party of India (CPI) held a rally in Jagdalpur at which one of the rape survivors spoke. The villagers have named the SPOs who were involved. The Salwa Judum leaders involved in attacking Swami Agnivesh were also identified. Both the district collector and Kalluri were transferred. Chief minister Raman Singh even visited Tadmetla. 

The police were forced to file FIRs in which, however, they made no mention of the rapes and killings and said that the Maoists has burnt the houses.  

The Supreme Court ordered a CBI enquiry in July 2011. In the meantime, in order to pre-empt the apex court, the state government ordered an enquiry by Justice TP Sharma (who had tried Binayak Sen). What this meant was that two parallel enquiries were being conducted and the poor villagers were summoned by both. 

In February 2012, the SPOs attacked the CBI team members after which they started calling the villagers to Jagdalpur, 187 km away. The villagers had to travel standing on pick-up trucks, women and children, giving up their wages for a week. They have really done their best to give testimony, several times over the last five years. 

In July 2015, since the CBI was doing nothing, we again filed an application asking for a speedy enquiry. The bench hearing the case was new. Despite our repeated asking the CBI to file fresh FIRs, they preferred to take over the police FIRs. In one of the status reports they filed, they said: “We investigated on the basis of the FIRs, and also found rapes and murders”. In December 2015, Justice Lokur and Justice Lalit of the apex court asked them to clarify whether the rapes and murders were part of the same incident, or a different incident in which case they could be investigated by the CG police!

The CBI was supposed to file an affidavit last December, but instead they submitted a report in a sealed cover. We asked for it again in August 2016. Now they have given a report which says the barest common thread that links the incidents is that they happened on the same day when the police were in the village, but the villagers are all illiterate. 

It appears from the CBI affidavit (attached) that they will say rapes and murders happened, but can’t say by whom. For some time now, with the dropping of charges against Amit Shah and others in Gujarat’s false encounter cases, it is clear that the CBI is fully compromised. 
The CBI is now supposed to submit its final report by October (two months from the date of order, 2 August 2016).

It is extremely important that the public is made aware of the composite set of events. The CBI must not get away with this kind of rubbish. The villagers have invested too much in this for us to let them be betrayed like this. Justice cannot depend on the whims of the investigating agency.

What is most important is that there has to be some principle of command responsibility. One cannot expect victims of gang rape by the security forces to say who did it. But there has to be some prosecution.

CBI Affidavit 26.8.2016
 

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