Dandakaranya, in its decades of revolutionary journey, pioneered several social and cultural experiments that India needs. It has been bearing the brunt of unparalleled violence for four decades. But now, it is in the midst of a ruthless battle for the past three months. Operation Kagar (The Final Mission), with more than a hundred thousand paramilitary forces supported by drones, helicopters, and satellite surveillance, reminds us of an invasion of the poorest of poor indigenous people. It resembles a war of aggression as if the Mission were on a hostile nation. Unquestionably, it is a gory, and an uncivil war.
Large Casualties in Kanker
On April 16, 29 revolutionaries, including at least 12 women, were killed in an attack in a joint operation by the BSF and the State police in the Maad area. They all dreamt of a beautiful life for all of us. In that quest, they bestowed the ultimate tribute to the revolutionary legacy: the tender sacrifice of their mortality. The massacre took place as part of a new war called Operation Kagar [Final Mission] by the Central Government. The North Block in Delhi deployed maximum forces to Dandakaranya [official figures -80,000] to capture the Abuzmad [Unknown Maad] area.
On one hand, the BJP is trying to win for the third time in the General Elections. On the other hand, it is trying to hold its hegemony on the revolutionary bases. The installation of Ram in Ayodhya, the bringing of CAA as part of the conspiracy to make the Muslims pariahs from their own land, and attempts to bring a Uniform Civil Code by the saffron government to legitimize the Hindu Brahmanical culture- all are incremental steps to turn India into a Brahminical Hindutva fascist state. On the economic front, all trade, business services, and natural wealth are being brought under corporatization. War on Dandakaranya is to expedite this process. Is such a massive conflict taking place only to regain a too-remote and hitherto unknown forest area? Sounds like a fairy tale. Truth is indeed stranger than fables.
Indeed, in the age of finance capital, this internal conflagration is led by a government running under a modern constitutional democracy. This war aims to deliver vast swathes of natural resources to mega-corporations. Owing to unflinching resistance in Dandakaranya against the large-scale corporatisation of its natural wealth beneath the earth, the rulers turned Dandakaranya into one of the most extensive military zones. Militarization has not begun now but started three decades ago. It has a history of at least thirty years. The government considers the Adivasi movement a Himalayan obstacle to their corporatization designs. Ironically, the seizure of the so-called remotest areas has become a pivotal problem for the Centre.
After the Abhuj Maad incident, Union Home Minister Amit Shah expressed his ecstasy. He said that the Maoist movement was the biggest enemy of development and they would liberate the country soon. There is a clear political outlook in considering the Maoist movement as the biggest threat among the existing mass movements rising against corporatization in the country. The Central government’s slogans – We will liberate the country from the Maoist movement and hand over the country’s wealth to the corporates– reflect the same. The present Operation Kagar, though part of Operation Samadhan-Prahar, which started in 2017 and planned to realize its primary objective, is a qualitatively different military campaign.
The Farce of Inviting Maoists for Talks and the Janus-Faced State
Immediately after the BJP came to power in Chhattisgarh, two crucial announcements came out from the central and state governments. One: From Union Home Minister Amit Shah, the Maoist movement will be eradicated completely; Two: State Home Minister Vijay Sharma is ready to talk with the Maoists. There seem to be two opposing views from the Janus-faced state, but they aimed at serving a single mission. The first was extermination. So, hundreds of thousands of CRPF, BSF, and other local forces were moved to Dandakaranya. The second is the call for negotiations. The conditions for the talks are as follows: no obstruction to the construction of roads and mining in the forest area. The CM said that corporates should have a favorable environment for smooth mining, and only then would negotiations take place.
Whether the Maoists were ready for talks or not, the government felt it was immediately responsible for creating such a “favorable” environment. Within this short period, six base camps were set up in one Maad area—the most innovative way of creating favorable conditions!!
Whoever proposes negotiations between the two sides in the backdrop of a military conflict should attempt to find a political solution to the conflict. After all, any war is the continuation of politics by different means. However, Chhattisgarh-Delhi’s double-engine government has made a queer proposal for the talks. The government came forward shamelessly on behalf of the corporates and proposed negotiations to ensure that mining barons’ operations go unhampered. One face proposes negotiations to achieve unabated corporatization, and another deploys vast forces; the call for talks and militarization go together, unsurprisingly!!
The New Offensive From the New Year
The BJP government made all these preparations rapidly, starting in the first week of December last year. On New Years Day, the security forces attacked Muddum village, near Gangalur, in the Bijapur district, and killed a toddler- Mangli- in the lap of her mother while she was being breastfed. Relentless attacks have been regular, and killings have become routine. On April 2, 13 Maoists were killed in an encounter at Korcholi in Bijapur district. For sure, all of them are Adivasis, if not Maoists. Four months into this year, 80 adivasis and revolutionaries have been shot dead in the name of encounters. Aerial bombing was also carried out for the fifth time on January 13 as a continuation of the aerial attacks carried out by the previous Congress government.
Before launching this final battle, Amit Shah stated that the next General Elections would be held in the country free of Maoists. He meant his forces would completely eliminate the Maoists from the map of India by 2024. The BJP made such statements several times during its decade-old rule. Congress also announced such deadlines but failed to achieve them.
In fact, a brainstorming meeting (Chintan Sivir) was held at Surajkund, Haryana, on the 27th and 28th of October 2022. It was attended by the Home Ministers, the Home Secretaries, police and military officers of various states. They all discussed a dream of ‘New India’ coined by the present regime. They said that it should be realized by 2047. Around the same time, the RSS’ official press announced that 2047 was the goal of realizing the Hindu state. The Maoist movement is standing in the way of their ‘New India’ and the establishment of a Hindu state. This is not an idea that sprang up suddenly in Surjakund. The Sangh Parivar had already decided on their objective a long time ago. Unlike in the yester periods, Sangh Parivar wants the Hindu Rashtra based on Hindutva and a robust political and economic foundation. Surajkund decisions are part of that. That is why the Centre is giving immense prominence to making unprecedented war preparations and spending more than a lakh crores rupees in the budget to suppress the revolutionary movement completely.
As long as the revolutionary movement exists, there is no chance of a ‘New India’ on the foundations of corporate Hindutva. The establishment of a crony corporate Hindutva state is not just an ideological, cultural strategy for the Sangh Parivar. It is a political, military and administrative strategy for the BJP government. Central India has witnessed at least fourteen major mass struggles in the last three years. Silinger’s unarmed struggle, which started during the earlier farmers’ movement in Delhi, is ongoing. These political and economic struggles are taking place because of environmental, cultural and geographical reasons to save forests, water, and lands. Millions of people have been fighting for years on many issues like lack of bridges and roads, ill effects of mining and tourism, lethal and divisive propaganda of Hindutva, and against anti-farmer, unconstitutional laws. Governments at the Centre and the states cannot digest these mass movements. The Centre and state felt that the previous Samadhaan operation could not quell the growing mass movement and brought the Operation Kagar by equipping more teeth to the security forces.
Country Under the Iron Wheels of the Fascist Juggernaut
The entire country has been facing oppression, experiencing insecurity and watching the destruction of constitutional bodies for the past ten years. The emergency of 1975-77 looks pale before the draconian measures of the present regime. It was short-lived. But the ominous character of the present situation is too obvious to ignore. The dark decade of the saffron rule was much more vicious than the post-liberalization period ushered in by PV Narasimha Rao. When the two revolutionary parties merged to form the CPI (Maoist), there was not merely an announcement by the then PM in 2009 that “Naxalites are the biggest threat to internal security”, but it followed a prolonged unprecedented military campaign in the name of Operation Green Hunt. The Final Mission is much beyond the Operation Green Hunt, which ran from 2009 to 2017. This is the latest Operation Kagar to establish a Corporate Hindu Rashtra, which the Sangh Parivar wants to achieve.
This brutal Dandakaranya Operation Kagar against adivasis or Maoists will not end at suppressing adivasis or merely crushing the revolutionary movement. Operation Kagar is meant to be the final assault to remove its last and most formidable obstacle for bringing in the inhuman Corporate Hindutva state. Indian people’s common future depends on how best we can resist and fight the onslaught. Otherwise, India will be under a new dystopia called a corporate Hindutva state.
April 19, 2024
Revolutionary Writers’ Association
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