An eye for an eye, making the whole
world blind
Be it the justification for the massacre of Sikhs by
influential men of the ruling Congress ably aided by policemen in 1984 –
or the state-sponsored genocidal carnage in Gujarat in 2002 when the chief
executive presided over a statewide massacre – brute violence by non-state
actors while state agencies watched or joined in and the unchecked use of
force against its own people, Sikh and Muslim, was the result. While most
of the perpetrators of the 1984 massacre have escaped punishment or
political isolation, the struggle for justice in Gujarat continues. Will
the Indian state, which includes its investigating agencies and the
judiciary, deliver? Latest developments in Gujarat reveal that
eyewitnesses, reassured by the Supreme Court’s monitoring of the major
trials, have been giving bold and forthright testimonies in courts within
the state. It remains to be seen whether the grit and courage of the
survivors succeed in punishing all the guilty. CC dedicates this
issue to commemorating 25 years since the Sikh carnage of 1984.
Violence by the Indian state, and in reprisal by groups
agitating for the people, also figures in this issue of CC. Be it
the state of Jammu and Kashmir, reeling under the effects of two decades
of systemic violence, or Operation Green Hunt in the Naxal-affected areas
of central and eastern India, proposed by the union government ostensibly
to counter the movement launched by those who call themselves Maoists,
more violence against Adivasis (tribals) is likely to be the result.
Extensive debates on this issue have dominated mainstream media attention
over the past few weeks. The Indian state, directly through its own
agencies and also through sponsored outfits like the Salwa Judum in
Chhattisgarh, has for some decades matched the violence of poverty and
denial of basic rights in the tribal areas of central and eastern India
with the actual creation of armed outfits to militarily control tribal
populations.
Being cynically dismissive of non-violent and Gandhian
movements by agricultural labourers and workers in these areas, the state,
including the Indian judiciary, has allowed the systematic decimation of
democratic rights-based mobilisations within Adivasi populations while
privileging groups that are armed to the teeth and anti-democratic to the
core. The struggles of the Adivasis have ranged from the non-violent to
those by groups who openly espouse the violent overthrow of the state.
With the easy flow of arms through the infamous arms bazaar that travels
the length of the ‘Red corridor’, today cold-blooded mercenaries are also
in the fray.
The brutal murder of Shankar Guha Niyogi, a leader of the
non-violent Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha, in the 1990s, by hit men hired by
corporate groups out to benefit if the movement was crushed (they were
attempting unlawful land and resources grabs in the state), followed by
the acquittal of his murderers by the Madhya Pradesh high court and the
Supreme Court, signalled an all-time low for Indian democracy. Today the
same representatives of the Indian state, its government, its lawyers and
its courts, are involved in massive plans to permanently lease out tribal
lands to companies in agreements (MoUs) that are being kept out of the
democratic domain. Adivasis, threatened with displacement, hunger and
genocide, are fighting back with any and all they have got.
Be it Jammu and Kashmir, or the states with large Adivasi
populations, or those in the north-east of India (in Manipur, schools and
colleges have been shut for over three months), democratic India faces its
most serious challenge today. Though we have survived as a democracy, in
itself no mean achievement, the disproportionate influence of money (and
therefore corporate interests, builders and the underworld) during
elections has diminished the glow of representative democracy. The media
too, in large measure, is today controlled by the same interests which,
using the money power needed during elections to bring in votes, control
our politicians and through them, our institutions. When the people of
India begin to feel that their elected representatives do not protect or
represent the protection of their basic human rights of survival with
dignity, where then should they turn??