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Presently, 156 districts in 15 states face "threats" from armed movements with the states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Chhattisgarh the worst affected. Today the Naxalite movement in India has evolved into several armed and rebelling groups, well organized and fighting locally against the "state." Although the theory and practice of the Naxalite movement is debatable, their moral roots are not based in China or elsewhere but in decades of neglect and oppression in India.
Armed resistance is localized in some of the most backward villages in India that have been ignored by the government. Taking up arms to fight against a state and facing the consequences, often death, is not a decision that a person makes casually. Take the case of Uttar Pradesh, for example. It is one of the most impoverished states in India, a state rich in natural resources. The question is: Why are people in this state taking up arms in increasing numbers?
Probably the answer lies in the way peoples' needs are addressed in Uttar Pradesh. The villages there are still under feudal control. Thousands are forced into bonded labor and face social ostracism in the name of caste. The state has an alarming number of starvation deaths, mostly from the lower-caste communities. Caste-based discrimination and bonded labor are prohibited by law, and the government has declared that its food-for-work program has been created to eradicate poverty. But where are these laws and policies in actual practice?
Golahanpur village in Rajghar Block of Mirzapur District in Uttar Pradesh is among the hundreds of villages in the state. In this village, there are 150 families of the lower caste Kol community. The Kol are considered untouchable by the Patel community that literally rules the village. Members of the Kol community starve and work as bonded laborers for the Patels. The district administration and the government of India have been informed about the acute food shortage of the Kol families since 2004. However, the district administration and the government thus far have done nothing to address the plight of the starving Kol families in Golahanpur. This continuing negligence has forced the Kol community to work as bonded laborers in the granite quarries run by the village head and his family.
There is a public food distribution shop in the village, operated for several years by the Patel community, which has provided the village head for 27 years. The Kol, being untouchable, are prevented from approaching the public food distribution shop for ration supplies. They are refused death or birth certificates. The government school does not allow Kol children to enter. The district administration has refused to record members of the Kol community in the census register. The Kol families are only permitted to live in Atari, a separate area in the village. Although not a single Kol family has sanitation facilities, this village received the President's Award as the best village for sanitation in 2005.
If the Kol community is dissatisfied with the government, who should be blamed? What should be the approach to address these injustices? For a state government concerned with its people, the answer should be simple and the response immediate. The state must ensure that those who are deprived of food are immediately provided with food. The licensee of the public food distribution shop must be asked why rations are denied to the Kol. The local police must be made answerable for not taking any action against the practice of caste-based discrimination. The school administration must be asked why they deny education to Kol children. The district administration must explain why they ignored the request for help from the Kol community.
Instead of meeting these basic requirements, what if the state administration provided arms to the Patels to suppress the Kol community's protests against the injustices meted out to them? If responding to injustice with violence assisted by the authorities is a gravely mistaken approach, then the reaction of various state governments in India and that of the central government in Delhi is also misguided.
The state of Chhattisgarh is an example. Instead of the Patels, the state government has armed a faction of the tribal community, the Salwa Judum, to fight armed protest against state-supported injustice.
The state has also enacted a draconian law to "curb" the armed uprising. The Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act of 2005 provides arbitrary powers to the local police and the administration. For example, a person can be detained on suspicion of showing a "tendency to pose an obstacle to the administration of law."
The law also provides severe punishment to anyone engaged in an "unlawful" activity. The definition of what is unlawful though is imprecise and vague, a definition that also covers journalists reporting about banned organizations. Moreover, the permission for any organization can be arbitrarily withdrawn and their assets frozen and properties seized. Contradictory to the accepted principle of non-retroactivity in criminal law, any person in the past who had been a member of or has participated in meetings or accepted contributions for and on behalf of prohibited organizations can be punished as well.
The state, of course, is justified in drafting laws to counter anti-government activities. What is lacking in India is the basic premise of equity and natural justice in addressing this issue. In the past few years, there has been an increase in the number of people empathizing with armed resistance within several states of India. The simple statistics of a few hundred to a few thousand cadres is an indicator.
When a state continues to ignore the continuing and pressing demands of its ordinary people, it is natural for people to organize and demand respect for their rights. When these demands are met with opposition, especially by state and non-state actors who exploit the country's weak justice system and thus enjoy impunity, it is natural for the oppressed and neglected to take recourse to alternative means, which unfortunately can include armed rebellion.
In today's high-level discourse, human rights and equality are like comforts that everyone would like to possess but often fail to find or access. In these circumstances, it can be argued that it is those who take up arms against blatant everyday injustices who are, in fact, effectively engaged in a discussion with a failed administration and a democracy that is non-existent. To punish them and suppress their voices is the choice of a few who have exploited them without any resistance in the past. The difference between a sensible and a nonsensical approach is in how a state responds as a "state," not as a representative of the privileged.
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(Bijo Francis is a human rights lawyer currently working with the Asian Legal Resource Center in Hong Kong. He is responsible for the South Asia desk at the center.)
