24 January 2013, 04:10 PM IST
Depending on which statistics and reports you want to believe, between 15% and 30% of India's districts, mostly in the centre of the country but of late in the North East too, are known as "Maoist" or "Red Corridor" districts. These are seriously affected parts of the country, where the writ of the State or Central Government simply does not run, or is marginal at best. Yes, some of these areas have major trunk railway routes passing through them - but if you look at the railway time-tables, then trains connecting major cities and towns in these areas gives you an idea of how weird things really are.
I mean, please try and research trains between, say, Patna and Raipur or Ranchi and Raipur. So much we've done for our "scheduled tribes", not.
Frankly speaking, beyond extracting, looting and then scooting with as much mineral and forest wealth as we can, we've done nothing much since Independence for the heart of our country, where live our real native Indians so shamelessly still called "scheduled tribes" in an Independent India. Jairam Ramesh's presentation, neatly and logically presented in a way that reminds one of lectures in technical colleges precisely fitting into vertical columns and horizontal rows, 7 questions, 4 reasons and similar, said pretty much the same.
For example, he said that globally, mineral and natural wealth rich areas were invariably also the poorest. That's really not true, USA is an example, China another, Australia and Canada buck the trend, and then you have the whole Arab world.
But. One thing about him, he sure can speak, though side-remarks about Bihar reveal that he may have not been there in a while lately. Jairam Ramesh ji, Bihar has moved on, really.
So, back to the topic at hand. There is ample coverage of that event, just search for "Jairam Ramesh Maoist 21st Century", held a couple of days ago in Delhi at the "you are all welcome" environs of Teen Murti Bhavan (unlike the intellectuals over 80 only kind of air that prevails at the amazingly badly named "India International Centre), and attended by a standing and aisle sitting room only crowd of well-behaved people, mainly youngsters. And where, for a change, questions were taken from people who most certainly differed with the views put forth by Jairam Ramesh, AND they were provided with answers.
Not the usual ignore the difficult questions kind of inter-action one usually sees at such events. Though some good friends of mine from these Maoist affected area, law abiding citizens working in Delhi, refused to attend out of fear that they would be photographed and then that would mean trouble for their family.
I don't think that was true for this event, but it does reveal the fears uppermost, and says something that we do need to address. In Delhi, of late, everybody is as worried about the authorities as they were, say, in '75, though many who were worried in '75 are often now "the authorities" themselves.
For example, one solution, which many believe will work, is the Gandhian approach. Especially since Wardha is so close to the epicentre of Maoist affected areas, Gadchiroli. But then up spoke Himanshu Kumar, who with his wife Veena, went and sat down under a tree there about twenty years ago, full of Gandhian zeal and thought. Now the authorities can hardly keep him out of jail, it seems, and the same with Dr. Vinayak Sen.
To be fair, again, Jairam Ramesh extended more than an olive branch to Veena and Himanshu Kumar and some others present.
Another solution offered was the oft repeated development with political resolution process, which appears to have worked well according to many in the North East and more recently in Punjab - though the simultaneous narcotics issue in these two parts of the country is also a coincidence which can not be ignored.The larger issue here is that even the rest of the country now appears to have a large trust deficit with the political process, while development is compared with syphoning of public funds, so this may need to be re-defined too.
So should we experiment with a new kind of political process in the "Maoist affected areas"?
Clearly, the present system in India doesn't seem to be doing all that well in the "non affected areas" too, and trying to shove that down the throats of our real, true and native Indians, with security forces in tow for enforcement, is just not going to work. I mean, are we going to try to impose something like the MCD on the "Maoist affected areas", as an example.
Incidentally, I happened to attend this event with two people just back from the "Maoist affected areas", both of them young journalists of excellent integrity and observational powers. Travelling by train, truck, car and bike across these areas, they sat quiet and didn't ask any questions.
But they also felt that Jairam Ramesh probably did not know how bad things really were on the ground. In both Maoist affected and the rest of India.
Now that's a sobering thought?
+++
Every which way, it was good of Jairam Ramesh to have taken this initiative in Delhi, and not a moment too soon too. The Maoists are being made foot soldiers to a more evolved strategic think tank which could be of foreign origin. The presumption is that Maoists are a rural jungle fighting force. But if they were to come into the urban setting for a campaign the scene could change fast and the babus would have the carpet swept clean from under their preoccupied feet faster than they can shout 'Madam' or 'Mama'! Ho Chi Minh has already shown the efficacy of moving a fight from hinterland to an urban frontier.
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