The poor cannot be left to fend for themselves while the elites party

The Times of India, 21 June 2009

Maoists breed in swamps of hunger and anger

Media commentary on Lalgarh seems to miss out one crucial fact: Till less than a month ago, it was not a Maoist fortress but a place where a
fascinating experiment with a new kind of politics was being done. Maoists were there but they had to go along with the mood inside Lalgarh, which was certainly not one of forming ’dalams’ or roving guerrilla squads. In fact, as People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCPA) leader Chhatradhar Mahato told The Times of India this week, "if the state government had done even 10% of what we have done, the situation would have been very different."

For more than five months, the PCPA, with popular participation, built reservoirs, dug tube-wells and built roads in the area. The Lalgarh Sanhati Mancha, based in Kolkata, collected money and helped set up a health centre. A committee with five men and five women would take decisions. Compare this with any other place where Maoists are active and the difference is immediately apparent. The Maoists, known for their impatience with any kind of developmental work, put up with this.

In fact, Koteswara Rao, a senior leader in charge of Maoist operations, even told some journalists that "the CPI(M) government is not implementing any Central government projects". The reference was clearly to the non-implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). It also showed the extent to which Lalgarh’s issues are different from the ones the Maoists usually like to take up.

All this will be in the past, a few days from now. Already, marauding Maoist gangs have taken over and emerged in their preferred mode. The model of Chhattisgarh or Andhra Maoist-dominated areas will be replicated and soon, there will only be armed Maoist gangs and the armed forces of the state. All the possibilities offered by democratic politics and developmental activities, including through the NREGA, will become impossible. One can even wager that the Maoists will decree the NREGA "unlawful". For, along with the NREGA and development, comes the state.

True to their style, the Maoist cadres who roamed freely thus far will come out only under cover of darkness, leaving Lalgarh’s hapless inhabitants to face the brutality of the security forces. This has already begun. Ordinary people will be arrested and tortured, while the guerrillas move to safer havens.

The CPI(M) is fond of narcissistically flaunting its world record of 32 years in power in West Bengal as "proof" of its performance. But in the past two decades, a new kind of virtually totalitarian power has been put in place. The local panchayat, MLA, district administration, police and the ubiquitous ’party’ act in tandem. There is no avenue forum for redress, no way to appeal against corruption, non-implementation of schemes and the absence of simple developmental activity such as water and electricity. There have been starvation deaths in neighbouring areas and in the tea gardens in the north but there is no way of even making the CPI(M) acknowledge this. No other state has such a closed situation, where power speaks only to itself.

Classically, in such situations, piecemeal correction is impossible. Discontent slowly builds into anger, waiting for the opportune moment to strike. That moment began with Nandigram, which showed the arrogance of the party bosses in dealing with peasants who had long supported them. Successive elections since then have shown that the dam has broken. Mass anger was waiting to burst forth and the Maoists were waiting in the wings, ready to take over. They have taken over. In Lalgarh, we are in for the long haul.

But the lesson here is not just for the CPI(M). It is for the Congress as well and for the UPA and everyone else. The poorest of the poor cannot be left to fend for themselves while the elites party. The NREGA, RTI and Forest Act are a good beginning but they need to be followed through and their implementation monitored.

Aditya Nigam is a Fellow at Delhi’s Centre for the Study of Developing Societies. His new book, ’After Utopia: Modernity and Socialism in the Postcolony’, is soon to be published