Research Unit for Political Economy
For months on end, Indian peasants have tenaciously sustained mass protests at two very different sites. Not only are the locations of the protests vastly different, but so too are the sections of peasantry involved; the issues on which they are struggling; and the specific authorities to whom their demands are addressed. The two sets of agitators even look very different. And yet there are links too between the conditions of these two sections of peasants.
The peasants at Delhi
One site of protest, about which most newspaper readers are aware, and about which we have written earlier on this blog, is at the borders of Delhi. Since July 22, a limited demonstration by a select group of these agitators is also taking place at Jantar Mantar, a short distance away from Parliament. These are men and women peasants of relatively developed regions, largely Punjab, Haryana, and western Uttar Pradesh, in that order. Their immediate demand is the scrapping of the farm-related Acts which were rushed through Parliament by the Central Government in September 2020.
The rulers claim that these Acts have been brought in for the benefit of the farmers, and that the farmers are being misled or instigated by anti-national elements. The reality is, the peasants are agitating because they know that, with these Acts, the system of public procurement of foodgrains will be dismantled step by step; giant private corporations will take over the procurement, storage and distribution of agricultural commodities; these corporations will shift the pattern of cultivation acccording to their profitability; and large numbers of small peasants, without the guarantee of purchase of their crops at remunerative prices, will lose their lands to large farmers or to private corporations, even as they lack alternative avenues of employment.
The effect of these changes will be devastating for other sections of working people as well throughout the country: They will lose their claims on the physical supply of foodgrain rations (the experience of people under the lockdowns has underlined how critical this right is: it is the one relief that was actually available to the majority of people[1]); and the growth of unemployment will add to the ranks of those competing for the few jobs available – thus pressing down the level of real wages.
It is now nearly eight months since the kisan organisations began their mass sit-in. The rulers have at times tried to directly repress the agitation, with water cannons, arrests, and threats of eviction. At times they have conspired to split and divert the agitators, using communal elements or political adventurers. At times they have put on a display of reasonableness and willingness to negotiate. And finally they have simply tried to wear down the agitators by ignoring them.
However, the rulers have not succeeded, and the agitators doggedly continue at the same site through the cold, heat and rain. No doubt, their resources are greater than those of other sections of India’s peasantry, but the relatively systematic work of some of the main organisations too has sustained the protest beyond anyone’s expectation. The country’s rulers were compelled to hold talks with the protesters, though the talks got stalled on the refusal of the rulers to withdraw any of the Acts. The Opposition parties for their own reasons have voiced their support for the protests, with Congress leaders unfurling a banner outside Parliament against the farm Acts.
The peasants at Silger
The other site of peasant protest is far away from any city, let alone the country’s capital city. It is at an Adivasi village named Silger, in Sukma district of Chhattisgarh. Newspaper readers could be forgiven for not knowing about it, since it hardly figures in the newspapers. (So poor is the media coverage that, before writing this note, we were unable to confirm the present status of the dharna through an internet search.) A few websites such as The Wire and Scroll have carried detailed articles, and some intrepid activists have been trying to publicise the issue to the outside world. (see the article below – Eds.)
On May 11 this year, the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) set up a camp at Silger. The camp is ostensibly in order to provide protection for the construction of an 8-metre-wide 6-lane road being built through the village. The road in turn is ostensibly to bring development to these villages – for the benefit of the villagers. However, in the experience of the villagers, the camps are the source of harassment, arrests and rapes; the roads are not primarily to increase the villagers’ connectivity (for which much smaller roads are more than sufficient) but to bring in more police forces and send out minerals; and the promised ‘development’ is actually forcible land acquisition, wanton destruction of their forests and rivers, and rapacious mining by private corporations.
Villagers who protested were beaten back, but by May 17 thousands – one report says 15,000 – had gathered. The CRPF tried to drive them away, but eventually fired on them, killing three on the spot, and injuring 18. A pregnant woman crushed in the ensuing stampede died a few days later. Inevitably, the police later alleged that armed Naxalites had fired from among the crowd, forcing them to fire in response. No police personnel, however, appear to have suffered bullet injuries.
Remarkably, despite the police firing of May 17 at Silger, people continued to gather in thousands in the ensuing days at the same spot. The Chhattisgarh administration detained activists such as Bela Bhatia and Jean Dreze in an attempt to prevent them from visiting the site; it filed an F.I.R. against the villagers; and it asserted that, not only would it not withdraw the camp at Silger, but it would set up another six camps in the near future.
The media refer to the agitators at Delhi by their occupation, as “farmers”; the agitators at Silger are referred to by their social group, as “Adivasis”. (Indeed the Union agriculture minister took exception to a kisan union taking up the cause of political prisoners who had been taking up the cause of Adivasis; he told them to stick to farming issues.) The Silger agitators are no doubt Adivasis, but they are farmers too: according to the 2011 Census, 75 per cent of Chhattisgarh’s workforce is employed in agriculture, and this would include virtually all the families camped at Silger. The difference is that they are not surplus farmers, but subsistence farmers, who also gather a considerable portion of their subsistence needs from the forest. A threat to their agriculture is a threat to their precarious existence.
Before the Congress party came to power in Chhattisgarh in the November 2018 Assembly elections, it criticised the destruction of forests, in particular the dense, biodiversity-rich Hasdeo Arand, for mining; it described the allocation of coal mines to Adani as a giant ‘scam’; it promised justice to the families of those killed in the Sarkeguda firing of 2012 (in which 17 unarmed Adivasis were killed and labeled ‘Maoists’); and Rahul Gandhi tweeted in 2017 that “I stand with Bela Bhatia and all those fighting for justice for the tribals of Chhattisgarh.”
However, the Congress government in Chhattisgarh has in fact pressed ahead with clearances for coal mining. Recently, it approved 17 of 18 blocks identified by the Centre for coal mining, including part of Hasdeo Arand.[2] Among the principal beneficiaries of this policy is the Adani group.[3] The Adani Enterprises website states: “Just about a decade since our inception, we became one of the largest developers and operators of coal mines in the country. Globally, we have established footprints in Indonesia and Australia. We aim to become one of the largest mining groups in the world.”[4]
In this period, thousands of Adivasis have also protested the fact that the public sector National Mineral Development Corporation has made the Adani group the mine developer and operator of its rich iron ore mine at Bailadilla Deposit-13 in Dantewada; inevitably, the district police chief declared that “We have strong evidence that Maoists are involved in the agitation”. In the wake of the protest, the Chhattisgarh government halted work on this project on a technical ground[5], but the sword continues to dangle over the people of the region. In March 2021, the Chhattisgarh police arrested, under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, a prominent mass activist of the movement against harmful mining in general, and against the Adani mine in Bailadilla in particular.[6]
A judicial enquiry has found the security forces culpable in the 2012 Sarkeguda firing, but the Congress government has sat on the report of this enquiry for 19 months. Indeed, it has continued its predecessor’s policy of militarisation of the region: it is reported to have constructed 28 police camps in Adivasi areas, 14 in 2020 alone. The Silger CRPF camp is a mere 5 kilometres from a similar camp at Tarrem – an indication of how militarised the region is becoming. There appear to be clear links between some of these camps and the allotment of mining leases to private firms at these sites, as at Abujhmad and Narayanpur.
The Silger dharna has not emerged out of the blue. Since October 2020, 12 protests have taken place across Chhattisgarh against the setting up of police camps. Inevitably, the police see the hand of Maoists behind all of these protests. However, thousands of people have participated in these protests, sometimes, as at Silger, walking two or three days to arrive at the protest site. Reports note the large-scale participation of women at Silger, even those nursing babies. The protesters blocked the Silger-Bijapur road with logs. Although there was a lull in the agitation, it is said to have revived in the last week of June, and continues to date, as far as we have been able to determine.
The leadership of the protests appears to have been taken by the youth of the region – many of whom have some education – under the banner of Moolniwasi Bachao Manch. These youth display articulateness, political awareness and cultural inventiveness in their protests, for example at the mass memorial rally they organised for the victims of the Sarkeguda firing. They demand that, rather than police camps, they want schools and clinics – a stark contrast to the rulers’ claim that they are bringing ‘development’ through their roads and police camps.
Indeed the situation of education and healthcare in the region is critical. Schools in the region have been shut for over a year now due to the lockdowns, and it seems likely children will lose two years in all by the time they can return. Meanwhile online teaching can reach only those with connectivity, devices, and suitable conditions at home for study, all of which are scarce in Chhattisgarh’s rural areas. This terrible blow to education does not in itself appear to concern the rulers much, as they have made little effort to address it; but, according to news reports, it worries them that students may go politically astray: “officials fear that the 50,000-odd children now at home could veer towards Naxals. ‘They are educated enough to write banners, letters and posters for Maoists and yet young enough to be ideologically brainwashed,’ a senior IPS officer in Bastar says. ‘During recent protests, we have seen a rise of children between the ages of 16-18, who are now being used as mouthpieces and shields.’”[7]
The protesters’ demand for healthcare is equally justified. At Chhattisgarh’s primary health centres and community health centres, 41 per cent of positions for staff nurses and 57 per cent of positions for medical officers are vacant. So too are 71 per cent of positions for specialist doctors at district hospitals.[8] It is worth recalling that the Congress manifesto for the 2018 elections promised to strengthen the public health set-up to achieve universal healthcare, in contrast to the Central Government’s model of ‘public-private partnership’. But in fact, on June 26, 2021, to the outrage of public health activists, the Chhattisgarh government announced that it would provide grants to private investors to put up private hospitals in the rural areas. Thereby the state government in effect is washing its hands of the responsibility to provide free public healthcare to the poorest regions, even as it displays its concern for public health through continued lockdowns.
Links
Despite the vast differences between the two sets of protesters, there are significant links between their respective situations.
1. Both are confronting powerful corporate interests backed by the State machinery. It is striking that the same Adani group which has built giant grain silos in Punjab, and is considered a major beneficiary of the recent farm Acts, has also acquired vast mining interests in Chhattisgarh. In the first case the State is dismantling an existing social infrastructure (the system of public procurement and public distribution) to allow corporate firms to set up their infrastructure and capture the activity of procurement and distribution. In the second case the State is installing an infrastructure of State repression and control, to allow the capture and extraction of natural resources by the corporate sector. In different ways, both processes threaten to dispossess peasants of their lands.
2. While the Modi government at the Centre has enacted the three farm Acts, the groundwork for this policy has been laid by the agricultural policies of successive central governments of different shades, including the Congress and the United Front, over the last three decades. Similarly, the present Baghel government in Chhattisgarh has by and large carried forward the militarisation and extraction agenda of its predecessor government of Raman Singh.
3. At both sites the peasants appear to have understood, through long experience, the scale of the challenge they face. They have mobilised in large numbers despite various hurdles, and they appear determined to sustain their protests.
4. At both sites, the State tried an initial bout of direct repression (harsher, no doubt, at Silger: bullets rather than water cannons). It followed this with a game of waiting and trying to exhaust the protesters. At both sites it has erected barricades at different places, as if against a hostile army; at both it has used the Covid epidemic as an excuse to try to disperse the protesters. At Delhi the central government has made a show of negotiation, but so far refused to concede on the basic demands. At Silger the state government has received a delegation of human rights activists, and sent a committee of public representatives to enquire into the firing, but has remained unmoved on the central demand for the removal of the camp – indeed, it has announced the setting up of yet more camps. The central and state governments, respectively, have charged the protesters with being instigated by Maoists (and, at Delhi, by Khalistanis as well), as a way of diverting the question of the demands of the protesters.
Apart from the obvious differences in the economic, physical and cultural conditions of the two sets of protesters, there are other significant differences too. At Delhi, peasants are demanding a withdrawal of Government policies which will threaten their control of their land, and thereby their existence. Therefore they have come from the villages to the country’s rulers with their demands. Whereas at Silger, the country’s rulers have set up an armed camp in the countryside.
While the immediate context of the Adivasis’ protest is the setting up of police camps, it has a broader implication. Whether implicitly or explicitly, all such Adivasi protests are mass assertions of the local people’s collective right over the region, their right to decide which projects are to be set up and which are to be prevented, their right to determine the use of the land, forests, water and resources in harmony with their long term interests. It is this democratic mass assertion over their means of production which may pose a long term threat to the plans of various predatory interests to capture and drain or destroy those various forms of natural wealth. As such the Silger dharna, and other struggles of this nature, will be watched closely for the signals they send.
Notes
[1] Centre for Sustainable Employment, State of Working India 2021: One Year of Covid-19, pp. 154-56.
[2] Ritesh Mishra, Jayshree Nandi, “Chhattisgarh approves auction of 17 coal blocks, triggers wildlife concerns”, Hindustan Times, July 21, 2021.
[3] “Chhattisgarh govt to hold public hearings on mining in Kente Extension coal block which includes 98% forest cover”, Moneycontrol News, June 17, 2021, https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/chhattisgarh-approves-auction-of-17-coal-blocks-triggers-wildlife-concerns-101626892033706.html; Geoff Law, “New Adani coal mine in central India will worsen already toxic situation”, May 18, 2021 https://www.adaniwatch.org/coal_industry_poisons_land_air_water_and_politics_in_central_india
[4] https://www.adanienterprises.com/businesses/mining-and-mdo/india
[5] According to the NMDC Annual Report 2019-20, “MRD, Govt. of Chhattisgarh has issued a show cause notice to NMDC-CMDC Limited (NCL) for lapsing the Mining Lease of Deposit-13 for non-commencement of mining operation within 2 years from grant of mining lease. NMDC-CMDC Limited (NCL) has submitted the reply to the MRD, GOCG and requested for its withdrawal.”
[6] Geoff Law, “Prominent human-rights campaigner and opponent of Adani mine jailed by Indian authorities”, March 28, 2021
https://www.adaniwatch.org/prominent_human_rights_campaigner_and_opponent_of_adani_mine_jailed_by_indian_authorities
[7] Gargi Verma, “Chhattisgarh: Residential schools shut, students home, officials fear Maoist influence”, Indian Express, July 2, 2021.
[8] Niti Aayog, “Healthy States, Progressive India: Report on the Ranks of States and Union Territories”, June 2019.
(Research Unit for Political Economy is a Mumbai based trust that analyses economic issues for the common people in simple language.)
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Chhattisgarh: Silger Protests Continue, Increase in Violence Hinder Access to Justice
As protests against increased military footprint in Chhattisgarh’s Silger area continue to rage after three months of their initiation, increasing instances of violence have surfaced. Meanwhile, lawyers claim that access to legal justice continues to elude the tribal community of the region.
In the latest instance on July 15, three men were reportedly gunned down in the region of Pedapal by the team of District Reserve Guards (DRG). While the forces claim that they were members of the outlawed Communist Party of India (Maoist), local testimonies and lawyers are highlighting that the men were innocent and had ventured out to buy cattle.
Speaking with NewsClick, lawyer Bela Bhatia explained, “The movement in Silger has been rooted in the opposition to militarisation of the region which leads to violence against the community. And, there has been an increase in violence this year – which makes access to justice and basic rights such as filing complaints difficult.”
She further added, “We have been able to file complaints on the behalf of the wives of those who were killed in an encounter with great difficulty, with the police refusing to admit our complaint.”
Testimonies of residents reveal that the men had gone to Nilbaya to buy two cows. As evening approached, the men were having a meal at a house when they were surrounded by the DRG forces. The villagers state that they were dragged out with ropes and shot dead.
Commenting on such incidents, Inspector General of Police (Bastar range) Sundarraj P told NewsClick, “The aim of these camps is to clear out the naxal footprint and pave way for developmental activities. We have so far recovered 26 bodies of naxals this year from January onwards.”
No mechanism for redressal
As instances of encounters and judicial killings prevail in the region – access to legal recourse eludes the communities. The report of the magisterial inquiry on the killing of three more people from Silger in May during the protests has not yet resulted in a report.
Bela Bhatia said that even though these are routine procedures as claimed, the results, however, are not made public. She said, “Law has to be in service of the people and the situation on the ground is that scores of such cases are emerging. However, the basic complaints of the victims have not been taken in. Only when the complaints are taken in will they translate into FIRs which is yet again only the first step in the access to legal justice, the complaint is not an end in itself.”
Registering complaints and FIRs remains a task given the fact that the police file their own complaints on their versions of things, according to her. She added, “This leads to the creation of a counter FIR. As per case law, there have been a few instances of this kind. Allahabad High Court had said that if interpretation of facts are perceived differently by different parties then there is a possibility of a second FIR.”
Given these glaring loopholes, the Silger movement in its third month is now taking the shape of an all encompassing movement for the rights of the communities and legal justice. As it continues on the ground – support pours in everyday to stall the expansion of camps across the state.
Media reports state that in the last two years, 28 security camps have been established in Bastar. Scroll.in reported that Bastar Police, under its policy of ‘Vishwas, Vikas aur Suraksha’, or ‘trust, development and security’, established 14 new security camps in 2020 – one in Narayanpur, two each in Kanker and Sukma, three each in Bastar, Dantewada and Bijapur districts.
The camps have been seen as tools of repression by the community – those yielding to increased instances of violence in the state. Tribals in the state have been conducting sustained protests against the infiltration of more forces, saying that the increased presence leads to brutal repression.
On May 12, security forces set up their latest camp in Silger village in Sukma district, despite stiff opposition from the locals. The opening of the camp had led to widespread protests in the region, also spreading to other villages. However, on May 17 security forces opened fire on a gathering of about 3,000 tribals, killing three. While the police forces claim they were targeting naxals in a crossfire, tribal villagers have been asserting that the unprecedented move was aimed at dispersing the crowds and suppressing their movement.
Over 43 incidents of killings in 2021 have been reported due to conflict in the region. Tribal villagers on the ground hold that the presence of security camps have given rise to fears of fake encounters and oppression against tribal villagers.
On May 30, an 18-year-old tribal girl was reportedly gunned down by security forces in Bastar, Chhattisgarh. Her family has alleged that she was raped by the security forces before she was murdered by the District Reserve Guards (DRG) personnel.
As per the police version, the girl was an active member of the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army, platoon number 16, and carried a reward of Rs 2 lakh, while her family members and villagers assert that was innocent and was not involved in Maoist activity. More importantly, they allege that she was denied a fair probe.
Villagers also fear that with proximity of security camps to tribal settlements, instances like these will become rampant.
In a similar case in February this year, a 20-year-old tribal woman – Pande Kawasi – was taken into custody after which she was allegedly murdered by the forces. The police, however, claim it was a case of suicide. But, her family members and activists have stated that Kawasi was not someone who would have killed herself. Her family reportedly stated that the police detained her from her home and allegedly tortured her and forced her to surrender. The family told reporters that they were allowed to meet her on February 20, and found her crying and begging them to take her home.
(Courtesy: Newsclick.)
