The Booker Prize winning author Arundhati Roy‘s 31-page, 19,556-word essay “Walking with the comrades” in Outlook magazine*, has produced a fast and succinct response from the journalistic Twitterati after Tuesday’s dastardly ambush of 76 CRPF jawans by said comrades in the jungles of Dantewada.
From top, NDTV English group editor Barkha Dutt, Pioneer senior editor Kanchan Gupta, Indian Express columnist Tavleen Singh, former Stardust editor Shobhaa De, and London based freelance writer, Salil Tripathi. Tripathi also has a finely argued critique of Roy’s piece in The Wall Street Journal.
Meanwhile, the adman turned magazine editor turned columnist Anil Thakraney offers this take on his Facebook status update.
* Disclosures apply
Screenshots: courtesy Twitter
Check out more Twitter comments on the Arundhati Roy essay here
***
Also read: ARUNDHATI ROY: India is not a democracy
churumuri 
It has taken 73 deaths for the chatteratti to romanticise their patriotism by commenting on Arundhati Roy’s essay. Barring Barkha (one assumes she has interviewed a few Maoists at least in her stellar career as a journalist in the field, as she did our brave soldiers in Siachen), what did the others know about Maoists other than the killings reported in the press, until Arundhati Roy’s essay came along? In all probability, they visualised a bunch of trigger-happy guns that went off on their own. I am sure messers Dutt, Gupta, Singh, De and Tripathi have a solution that they can offer while dining in their silks in Delhi and Mumbai. And if it is to only use armed forces to “contain” the Maoists, it only goes to show how little they understand the situation in that part of the world. The one question they should think about, when still dining in their silks: Why are our own countrymen turning into enemies and rising to destabilise the State? What has gone wrong? And then produce a 32-page essay, which hopefully Outlook will publish in public interest.
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Whatever the reason/cause, nobody can justify this kind of a violence.
IMHO, 60 yrs of congress rule, where none of the policies for poor have reached the target and there is such a isolated, patchy development across the country – is directly responsible for this. Is this how socialism works?
But I don’t agree that communist ideology is sustainable and we can clearly see it has been practically wiped out of the world leaving one or two countries.
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How do The Hindu, Outlook, NDTV, Tehelka etc. get exclusive interviews with maoists?
How naïve do these mao-worshipping media and ists think that we believe that these “activists” are sponsored by the gult workmen of diamond industry!?
Bloody maoists, if you have guts go blast Raisina Hills! That’s where these policies are made.
If you care about human rights then also liberate the oppressed in our dear neighbours ruled by dictatorship(I mean China too not just Myanmar!), oh sorry, I forgot you would never fight your Mother China or is it Father China, since they are financing you?
Bellary was supposedly a hotbed of communism till a few decades back, why aren’t workers organised there? Every stupid miner belonging to every damn party(including the royal family of Sandur) have mined illegally and treated the workers bad, why don’t these bloody bastards of mao, do anything there?
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one bunch of chatterers making noise about another chatterer. All utterly irrelevant in their own right, but prefer to thrust themselves into the limelight.
Thank God I got rid of my tv!
…but to the issue at hand.
The Maoists don’t want to negotiate. Mainstream India cares squat abt tribals or their alleged rights as long as the money keeps flowing.
The Maoists are not going to give up their guns and grenades to ride motorcycles and surf the internet. Mainstream India is not going to give up economic growth and large sections of Indian territory.
Unfortunately for the Maoists, there are a lot more where those CRPF men came from, and not enough tribals. Unfortunately for the tribals, we think they are all Maoists anyway.
This is the first of many massacres to come.
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Well said Vinutha!
This whole drama is sounding like the Avtaar movie to me. (“War with the Naavis”).
Ms Arundhati Roy seems to come under fire because she is taking a stand. I think she should have just reported the situation without coloring it with her opinion.
Note that I am not saying whether her opinion is right or wrong.. just that, it is a distraction in this case.
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This was going to happen and I am glad that finally the woolly romanticism of our media is somewhat stirred and shaken! I just hope it doesn’t lapse into its auto mode once the headlines recede and IPL or Sensex@18K take over the general mood and front page.
@Vinutha Mallya:
It’s nobody’s case that most of the tribal people are victims of the apathy of successive Govt.s – both central, state and local. How can one deny it when such apathy is widespread across the country? However to use the clichéd question is gun the answer?
None of the villages around my hometown (in K’taka – one of the supposedly progressive and developed state) get power for more than 6 hours – over the last few months just a single hour of 3-phase supply to run the pumpsets. This has been the case for many decades. The APMC typically loots the farmers. The forest department winks when a contractor takes away the timber (beyond his licensed quota) but hounds the poor tribals.
What do you suggest we should do? Get in touch with Maoists and outsource the struggle to them? My worry is then we may jump from the frying pan into the fire. They may solve some of our problems but would seek eternal gratitude and subservience to them and their ideology.
Ofc I am not terribly naive or romantic to think that democracy is the only answer – atleast the kind that is being practised today. The apathy, breakdown of delivery mechanism and absence of humane policies – yes they all exist. I really don’t know the solution other than just hoping that trickle-down miracle would work someday. But guns and Maoism? Rather not..any one with gun would find it easy to crush his/her enemies and history shows that the construct of ‘enemies’ is a fluid one.
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After the stupid gov’t took its eyes of Nepal the maoist threat has increased…no surprises there. The chinese already control Srilanka, Pak and now Nepal. There is greater need to be involved in Af-Pak and Burma to ensure our security.
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state also killed thousands in the name of countering insurgency. Now the Moists turn. Keep an eye on news. you ‘ll be getting news of ‘Encounters’ soon.
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@Patelre,
“They may solve some of our problems but would seek eternal gratitude and subservience to them and their ideology.”
Have read many of your comments . You can be better than this. WHat is your ideology – American is it. TO burn fuel of Iraq for all cars of US and cause global warming and use the third world countries for minerals? Janardhana Reddy has already bored deep into core and exported it? How much more your ideology want?
Oh oh, men of “India” have turned so weak!!
They have started to worry about weak malnourished kids of jungle. This is what is called Karma. What you sow is what you reap.
Terrorized men. Jerked off virility. More fear.
Whole media hypes up 74 jawans of CRPF Killings while everyday the adivasis are subject to violence by the same jawans. Nobody really bothers because CRPF jawans are already told that they are at bottom of hierarchy and their lives are cheap.
Looking the other way the tribals have their own alternate governance. They don’t have hierarchies there. They are Kings and Queens till end.
Now if the former system attacks the latter system and loses some it means former system is a failure. while even when latter gets eliminated it’s a prized glory of having lived life to fullest.
Is it a joke to have one centre for a billion people? – by telling them that I studied under kerosene lamps and allowing 24 hour power to just two cities of country! Come out of closets and face the truth Jerk.
I would be more happy if the politicians and bureaucrats and TATA’s and others who are directly responsible are vanquished rather than police.
Terror begets terror. Destruction / Annihilation of greed is the betterment.
“There is a sufficiency in the world for man’s need but not for man’s greed.”
Great adventure Arundhati. Next time you go call me.
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Greatbong puts it right,
Arundhati Roy – Rakhi Sawant with a laptop and a Booker
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Does nobody remember Veerappan and the 1980s and 1990s anymore?
Does nobody remember the response of the State’s to Veerappan’s ambush?
Does nobody… eh what’s the point.
I am going to go look for some video games to get de-sensitized to violence.
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The predicament with Barkha et al is that they will never bite the hand that feeds them.
They are just news mongers and do not see why news happens. But want to give a sense of danger to the new middle class who are made to believe that adivasis are blocking India’s real destiny.
Barkha et al should stop and reflect on the very meaning of word adivasi. Adivasi means primeordial and their right on their forest is absolute. If the moneybags bag India government and make adivasis homeless in their own forests, don’t they have right to retaliate.
There is a war going on in the forests of Bastar. One side is fighting for greed and comfort to be gained by looting million year old forest to line pockets of fat cats.
Other side is fighting for its survival.
Why are Indian people trying to side with Police when it is crystal clear that it is an unjust war. Barkha needs to ask her conscience before mouthing inanities mouthed by government administration as a tribute to getting an undeserved Padma award.
For those who wanted to read the romance barkha referred here is the link .http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?264738-0. After you finish reading you will realize what is wrong with upper compartment of all the journalists twittering!!!
Kudos Arundhati. You are hope for the future of mankind. I hated you earlier for your brazen ways. But when I listened to “come september” lecture you delivered at US I became a convert.
The article on outlook is the most impassionate account of what is happening in Dandakaranya.
It is a pity that in the land of Gandhi we are shamelessly exploiting culturally different race whose ancestors predated aryan or dravidian blood and want to cheer a mindless police force that is seeing reverses on account of excesses it did in eighties. Yes. I was in Bastar in early nineties and have first hand account of what MP police did for which CRPF reaped the reward now!!!
Every self righteous Indian should stop supporting its own government which now wants to send helicopter gunships to steal the forest from Adivasis.
Just look at the economics of greed. For every tonne of ore mined in Bellary Karnataka government gets Rs 27 and Reddy brothers get to keep Rs 5000!!!!. This sheer profit drives megacorps to pocket Delhi goverment, insult adivasis with impunity and buy out news mongers who have nothing in their upper compartiments!!!.
Barkha has exposed her moral hollowness and intellectual inanity. Those who side with Barkha party are repeating history not learning from the wise saying of noble souls like Buddha and Gandhi.
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I would love it if people would read the essay and respond to the points made in it.
Take this claim –
“The Indian Constitution, the moral underpinning of Indian democracy, was adopted by Parliament in 1950. It was a tragic day for tribal people. The Constitution ratified colonial policy and made the State custodian of tribal homelands. Overnight, it turned the entire tribal population into squatters on their own land. It denied them their traditional rights to forest produce, it criminalised a whole way of life. In exchange for the right to vote, it snatched away their right to livelihood and dignity.”
I don’t think that its disputable that modernism is hegemonic in its very nature. This is Roy’s point (and many other post-colonial theorist’s point).
There are certainly counter-arguments, but instead of dismissing Roy as polemical, lets deal with them. To channel Roy, I think she’d say that To be polemical is the whole point. (but not to the extent that it disrupts thought itself). It’s a thought-provoking essay on modernism itself.
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Pingback: Pragmatic Euphony » Beyond CRPF in Dantewada
Forests, mines detere Operation Green Hunt. So? eliminate both! just leave the tribals alone. They need no ‘development’, mines, MNCs, browsing centres and ‘DEVELOPMENT’…
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Recently on American radio Arudhati said that the “Maoist leadership is almost entirely tribal”. Any Indian can tell that it takes a ‘Peddler of Untruths’ to make such a statement.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/3/22/arundhati_roy_on_obamas_wars_india
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If I were the local CRPF commander, I would strap on that 32-page-writing raving ‘secular lunatic’ on a tractor and head deep into jungles with my men shouting Har Har Mahadev!
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Vinutha Mallya
What is your point? I thought you spent some time in London!! Do you know who is a Silk? Please get some education before you start throwing some random phraseology at us.
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The inner happening is A.K.Anthony from Kerala has refused defence help to Tamil Chidambaram . Even in congress how can a Malayali attack adivasis? and that too on provocation from Tamil Nadu who have refused Mulla Periyar! It’s good to hear atleast our neighbours take care of their state interests and ideologies and don’t sell it like us to resorts and mines.
See our fate . S.M.Krishna or Kharge will never bat for Beerwal or other decade old pending projects of Kaveri while TN has already taken up Hogenakkal. For them(Gowdas) if Mandya has water that’s enough. Old Mysuru has no place at all!! Yeddy is such a oppurtunist of all, good for powercuts immediately after votebank circus.
Democracy – the biggest scam of world.
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It was expected and there shall be more bloodshed in the heartland of India unless the bigheads decide to give one last chance for peace talks…
People shouldn’t forget, the home minister had declared the war on Maoists much earlier than the attack on CRPF men. The mainstream media had romanticised it as the operation green hunt. The so called war was on. The poor CRPF jawans were there carrying out the orders from the capital to finish off the naxals. Would naxals have said to the state’s forces “please come and kill us??”. No, they’ll definitely kill the opposition forces that have come to hunt them down.
It is a question of survival in tribal areas. Survival for state forces and naxallites. Today CRPF Jawans have been killed. Tomorrow naxals will be killed. And the day after it will be turn table again. More and more people will be killed and almost all of them will be from the poorer sections of the society: (tribals, tribals turned naxals, tribals turned police informers, poor jawans from remote corners of the country,…). nobody from the cabinet ministry,corporate world and middle classes of Indian cities will die in this war. People can continue to get sucked into different agenda broadcast on 24×7 news channels that build an opinion for war in the heartland……. ridiculous countrymen.
say no to war in the heart of the country that in the end will leave behind dead forestlands with no life in it….
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Idol,
Very funny but too simplistic analysis:)
I think we will have to use the Army or even BSF to crush this Maobadis.
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All the tweets are uniformly inelegant- twerps more than tweets.
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It all looks to me much like a firangi movie AVATAR. Don’t you thinks so???
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@Do(a)ddi(a) Buddhi,
Eno heLidre eno artha maadkondu parihaasya maadi janagalannu tappu daarige yeleyuva prayatna!
I just gave an example how our elected representatives are eating shit instead of anna.
Don’t give names like Maobadis naxalites and all.
In the article if you can read, there is a Bijapur, names like Saroja, Nilesha and indigenous folklore with mud houses which reminded me of similar houses I used to visit around 2 decades back in my village.
How can our own self respecting people just protecting their land can be alien to us?
A Manmohan Singh calls Kashmir militants as terrorists.
That means a Sikh gets terrorized and watered from circumcized men.
Sikhs have even given tax to Taliban in pak.
At the same time he is not when he sees these short darker people.
Why ? because he thinks they can be easily thrashed.
This is infact a classical example of north south divide of India where a Chidu talks of weakness of south/non converted/pure indians and tries to negotiate with a refugee sikh from pakistan in deciding policies persuading themselves to be cool with the level head of European Sonia. What a fair world! The doctrine of Manu smriti – says the dark are rakshasas and they are just practicing it.
But unfortunately kadu manushyaru are not vedic ;also are not so naive. Indian blood is not limited to thrashing loose going and pant pissing women; there is more to it and they are just demonstrating it.
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Shobha de? who’s Shobha de?
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Murthy:
Get out of your imaginary world and stop reading too much into things.
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I suppose the indian constitution does guarantee ppl freedom of speech and thought, so technically there is nothing wrong with groups of people believing in a change by revolution.
On the other hand, the media and the comments here seem to make the killing of 74 jawans a unthinkable evil… WAKE-UP CALL!!! you declared an all out war on the naxalites OR rather, your democratically elected home minister declared an all out war on a group of ppl who believe in armed revolution.
Somebody please tell me that the possibility of casualties was considered in this planning.Or was this war also planned on unrealistic grounds like the numbers conjured up by our finance experts.
I mean, even USA running bombing raids one after the other with very high tech accurate weapons, with very few very well-equipped-with-sophisticated-weapons-and-gadgets soldiers on the ground in Afghan face quite a few casualties. You cannot possibly tell me that the idea of losing 74 CRPF jawans in the beginning stages of a war you declared publically enrages you!
Get real, you wanted a war, the maoists will give you one. You will lose many more soldiers, officers and “public servants”. The responses here are exactly the reason why such incidents are called terror strikes. Because ppl freak when their illusion of invincibility is shattered!
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Vinutha,
I don’t think we’ve met; you don’t know me. So please don’t make assumptions about what I have – or have not – done as a reporter and journalist and who I have – or have not – interviewed in my professional career. There’s enough material of what I’ve written, from many parts of the world, available fairly easily on the Internet. Thanks and have a nice day.
Salil Tripathi
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“The Indian Constitution, the moral underpinning of Indian democracy, was adopted by Parliament in 1950. It was a tragic day for tribal people. The Constitution ratified colonial policy and made the State custodian of tribal homelands. Overnight, it turned the entire tribal population into squatters on their own land. It denied them their traditional rights to forest produce, it criminalised a whole way of life. In exchange for the right to vote, it snatched away their right to livelihood and dignity.”
A Constitution determines the structure and freedoms enjoyed by the members of a country. India’s Constitution is a millstone around the neck of her populace. The truth being that the Indian Constitution is a left over from her colonial past; a document unfit for the kind of populace it seeks to govern.
The colonials drafted and passed laws that were favorable to their purposes of exploiting India. The Indians drafted theirs in the fashion of their erstwhile masters without paying heed to the fact that the vast majority of their countrymen were/are stuck at the bottom of the pyramid that is Maslov’s Hierarchy of needs!
How can any country that calls itself socialist be a Democracy? Any restrictions on the freedom of producing goods, the freedom to choose and the movement of capital is not democratic. The irony here is that it is okay with India’s leftist hordes if the freedoms of individuals to engage in economic activity( 40 years of slavery under Socialism) is curtailed but not that of the tribals to piss on “their” lands.
The poor and exploited of India deserve better. But, What made them so impoverished? The answer lies in the Constitution of India that has the word Socialist. It lies with the scores of Leftist chutiyas that stifled freedom and imposed their banal mediocrity on their countrymen.
Arundhati Roy is right in fighting for the rights of the tribals. But, She is wrong to insist that their salvation lies in ideas of a foul smelling peasant called Mao. She is wrong in making it sound as though the “tribals” are all similar Robots with no individuality of their own; unwilling and incapable of leading individual lives. If Arundhati has the courage, She will see that the answers lie not in left or right but in a pragmatism that is based on immense imagination, courage and wisdom.
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@Melange,
>> “How can any country that calls itself socialist be a Democracy? Any restrictions on the freedom of producing goods, the freedom to choose and the movement of capital is not democratic. The irony here is that it is okay with India’s leftist hordes if the freedoms of individuals to engage in economic activity( 40 years of slavery under Socialism) is curtailed but not that of the tribals to piss on “their” lands.
The poor and exploited of India deserve better. But, What made them so impoverished? The answer lies in the Constitution of India that has the word Socialist. It lies with the scores of Leftist chutiyas that stifled freedom and imposed their banal mediocrity on their countrymen”
You hit the nail on the head there… well said.
Garibi hatao == Garib raho.
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Melange,
Impressive bullshit of historical proportions. I think the problem is with bad governance and not the constitution. Land reforms and less corruption among government officials in these affected states would be the first steps in solving this problem.
Wishing A Roy coming to her senses is delusional. That mad rabid keyboard terrorist is full of shit! What is the fascination with all this Leftist shit? If people like her want to improve the living conditions of tribals and impoverished farmers, they should start building schools and hospitals and offer loans to enable them to live better–without disturbing their way of life too much. Instead it is much better to come up with phrases like “Gandhians with Guns”, “India is not a democracy” and so on right?
Our own Saketh Rajan who was ‘encountered’ went ape shit with Leftist ideology and joined the Naxalites. Even when the local ‘affected’ poor farmers wanted to simply farm and live, Saketh and his friends were goading them to declare war on the State. Of course it helped Saketh and many of his comrades enjoy some ‘unaccounted’ encounters with the female cadres and hence they wanted to keep this ‘romantic’ illusions alive which resulted in deadly consequences. Again they could have served the people they were fighting for by making some contribution towards improving their health, education and farming.
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http://news.rediff.com/slide-show/2010/apr/05/slide-show-1-how-i-joined-the-naxals-and-why-i-left.htm#contentTop
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Melange ,
Very sensible.
Making it more sensible is to know A Roy’s position. She is not in favour of killings be it from Maoist or state. Neither does she term them as Maoist. They are Adivasis but called as Maoist just to add them to gravest internal threat banner. Read her article in full 8 pages.
As Narayana quoted also read through her “Come September” article .
and also one more – this on democracy.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/3/22/arundhati_roy_on_obamas_wars_india
Can Doddi show some evidences for Saketh Rajan’s unaccounted encounters with female cadres.( If possible with some Namitha types to add more weight like Ayesha Siddqui on SHoaib’s case – just for being sensational.)
If yes, Can Vinay comment with his liberal touche`?
If No, Can you please find out what happens with Mallya’s bare all legal and celebrated by eligible and first order urban citizen liquor parties after every RCB match?
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Salil Tripathi: to write about Indonesian textiles in Ireland you need not go either to Indonesia or Ireland (though you might have!). Tweeting with limited words is easy. Surprised to see your ‘I dont know you, you dont know me’ attitude! come on! your name appears along the clan comprising Shobha de at al, who found the occassion to show their patriotism. where were you when daily couple of CRPF were being killed? 76 makes it great, is it?
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Idol,
Those ‘unaccounted for encounters’ will remain of course unaccounted. It is fairly well known that these Naxal types freely take in some magic mushrooms and other stimulants to cope with the stress of running their orgs many activities among the ignorant folk.
.
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Rama, I don’t get your logic :-) First, patriotism is the refuge for the scoundrel; I claim no patriotism. I’ve written enough stuff for which I’ve been called a traitor and anti-national, particularly when I’ve attacked Narendra Modi and defended MF Husain. What I’m questioning is something simple: Ms Roy’s lack of logic in comparing Maoists with Gandhians and her – and Maoists’ – amoral nihilism. Read Churumuri’s post and what he has linked to, and I have elaborated my points in my article in the Wall Street Journal (after the CRPF jawans were killed) and in Mint (before the CRPF jawans were killed). And do take a stroll through the web and read other things I’ve written on similar issues.
You are welcome to judge my work on the basis of one tweet – the loss will be yours :-) Have a nice day.
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Idol,
I just watched A Roy on the link you suggested. As usual she was being completely delusional offering all sorts of over-simplified opinions. The other two Amy Goodman and ms Kamath were asking leading questions on World affairs:) Hilarious. Must watch.
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Doddi,
“over-simplified opinions and Must watch”
exactly. that’s what she does. she makes things simple.
What chidambaram couldn’t do for months a simple woman does in a few days.
Even when Gandhi spoke about non-violence Churchill and Nehru made fun of him. On the same lines the modern Indians are so much Americanized that anything Indian become over simplified for them.
Tune into Rajdeep and Barkha for more serious and complicated ones. Didn’t they predict congress rule in Karnataka ? They will comfort you with feel good axe effect :-)
See our PM. He just left to US to produce India being clean for routine nuclear security certificate.
Bhoomiye biriyali saagara keraLali……
Bidenu ninna paada America bidenu ninna paada…..
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@Salil, I know you cant’ distinguish between tribals and maoists. Ms.Roy called the Tribals ‘Gandhians with Guns’. Maoists are just a reason. see her reasoning that the Tribals have faught against encroachers from early days in History. what you have done is to join the bandwagon of ‘intellectuals’ who sit in ‘limited star’ hotels and look at the world!
***
@ Messenger (Shobha, Barkha, Salil). Do you write on Request. pl write on
http://www.survivalinternational.org/
. it’s a request
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Rama, thanks. You seem to know me better than I do. Now let me go back and order another gin and tonic at this five star hotel’s bar. Finally, I don’t understand your last part – that I write on request on Survival’s website; please elaborate.
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Nothing is real, and nothing to get hung about.
History is a re-telling of the story of man’s inhumanity to man. Arundhati Roy is just a distraction from the real issues – what engendered the Maoists? What has the Indian state done to address the basic issues?
The CRPF men who died were, in more ways than one, just poor sods caught in the crossfire.
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not on survival’s website! on the content, on tribals…. let me say again, Naxalites are just incedental. if it’s not machine guns it would be bows and arrows. My point was you (though may be unknowingly) have joined the bandwagon… by the way I’ve also asked earlier: “who’s Shobha de”. Seriously!
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Many of the commentators above seem to intone the inseparability of Maoists and tribals/adivasis. Is that correct? To me they are different and constitute two different layers. The difference needs to be recognised by all of us armchair analysts.
Ofc many tribals may be sympathetic to the Maoists and indeed may be helping them by being foot soldiers, informants and providers of tactical support.
But still the difference between Andhra/Bengal driven leadership and the young impressionistic brigade is clear to me – or am I seriously mistaken? The leadership defines and holds the key to the ideology and the means being adopted to attain the goals and the foot soldiers seem to diligently carry them out.
The major element of the debate is about the means being adopted and possibly the ideology. If we are really concerned about the adivasis, do some of us really think they are in good company? Will Maoism serve them well? Atleast according to pop theory, the tribals have their own unique mode of worship, local deities, customs, culture and relationship with nature.
Does and will Maoism respect their indigenous way of life? Will an ideology that seeks inspiration from China and essentially atheistic in belief, respect the adivasis and let them lead the much romanticised pastoral life?
I have my own doubts. Nothing from the communist experiences across the world inspire that confidence. The co-existence with the nature is the moot point in the adivasi debate. But in reality neither China nor USSR (just to the main examples) are known particularly for their love for environment, ecology and ‘green’ thinking.
Somehow this whole thing gives a sense of deja vu – of the Soviet era in Afghanistan. Perhaps the mujahideen were seen as the saviours by ordinary Afghans while they took on the evil Soviets. But once they captured the power and later morphed into Taliban, we know what befell the Afghans. Because the Mujahideen/Taliban never renounced the guns and their ideology flowed through the barrels of it. Perhaps it’s a simplistic analogy but then not much in history provides shining stories of tolerance from the Maoists.
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Rama, thanks for clarifying. If I have joined some people in your mind, I can’t change that perception, except by suggesting you keep a look out for what I write. As for Survival, I know the organization well, and I’m familiar with its work. If I want an objective understanding of tribals or indigenous people anywhere, Survival is not the site where I’d start, for a range of reasons too complicated to go into here.
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@Anshuman – good post.
Maoists are not fighting for tribal welfare. They want to
capture political power in India with the help of guns. Overthrow Indian state. Power flows through the barrel of gun. Remember?
2 groups –
A) Those who are genuinely helpless and who are not benefited by the economic progress (we cannot dismiss this fact).
B) Those who want political / cultural revolution (like in China)
(B) takes advantage of the fact that (A) exists and uses (A) to advance their plans.
Now, (A) cannot kill others just because they are poor and helpless.
If a person belonging to (A) joins (B) then he / she becomes (B) i.e he becomes a maoist. A threat to the state. No longer a poor / helpless tribal.
Read this –
http://news.rediff.com/slide-show/2010/apr/05/slide-show-1-how-i-joined-the-naxals-and-why-i-left.htm#contentTop
Govt should address the concerns of (A) and prevent them from getting brainwashed by (B). As far as tackling (B) is concerned, use all the might of the state and crush them.
(B) can be further divided in to 2 groups –
(B1) -Those who take up guns and fight in the jungles.
(B2) -Those who enjoy the comforts of an urban life but romanticize (B1)
People like Arundhati Roy belong to (B2). (B2) is as dangerous as (B1).
Why does (B) blow up schools in the tribal areas? Not because it is pro development. Not because it wants tribal welfare.
Because it wants (A) to remain poor and helpless so that it can recruit from (A).
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Patel,
“If we are really concerned about the adivasis, do some of us really think they are in good company?”
Good one.
I have no idea about madhwa brahmin Koteshwara Rao’s concerns.
But I have enough evidences of congress concerns and adivasis are a threat to congies. While they bred 60 crores after independence for workers in huge nehruvian industries, they now want to eliminate the excess or the origins for the same nehruvian industries.
Never practiced dharma, they have artha and need kaama as next venture.
Can that be possible without american help. No.
Shashi Taroor at 54 into third venture; not that Jairam is far behind with sms’es racing with wiggy halli hakki foreign krishna.
For them the only concern is growth rate and america.
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Anshuman Patel,
Interesting posts.
In my village too (which I have long abandoned), some of the people who work in the fields have been approached by Maoist types to join their movement. These workers in turn fear them and notify the estate and farm owners of some of the happenings. But for hundred people who do not join the Maoists, there may be one who does. And this proportion may vary on various factors, including how much the workers in the farms and estates feel exploited.
If I were a laborer in a system or an adivasi on the outside, and I felt constant exploitation and things taken away from me starting from birth, I would eventually join someone who shows me a way out – however difficult the way is. Once I realize the structure of oppression and how man-made it is, why wouldnt I?
While a set of Maoists may have some agenda related to China etc., if the basic problem is one of exploitation and oppression inbuilt into the system, how many people are we going to kill with the police and the army? Shouldn’t the government (and all parties who want long term stability in India) start thinking seriously about taking steps towards losing the death grip that a few people have over the majority in most villages in India? Is the solution just shooting down ‘Maoists’ and muzzling whoever sympathizes with some their reasons?
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Every one becomes instantly aware on reading Arundhati Roy’s Walking with comrades, that it smacks of embedded journalism.
She is being either disingenuous or naive to believe and make use believe that all Maoists are tribals and that their motives are very noble and they can do no wrong.
No they are not. Most of their leadership comes from Telangana in AP.
The methods they use involve sheer terror, regimentation and extortion.
Somehow the Maoists remind me of the Champawat man eater from the man eaters of Kumaon, which was chased out of Nepal by armed Nepalese guards and ended up in Uttaranchal to terrorize villages in those areas.
The same thing has happened in Central India.
After being chased out from AP, these Naxalites are operating in Chattisgarh and Orissa and are spreading Mayhem there.
All the same, I DO want forest lands to be preserved especially if they support apex predators like Tigers etc. I do not want indiscriminate mining in our forested areas.
But in the same breadth, Naxalism is NOT what the intellectual fifth column wants Indians to believe:
That is it some pious organization which is doing a great deal of good to tribals, defending them against police atrocities and born out of tribal frustration.
It has HIJACKED the grievances of tribals and will bring more misery to them if they continue to support it even out of terror.
In fact a lot of tribals are coming out openly against it and regard it as a nuisance.
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