It is disappointing to see that the preferred State approach to the recent events in Lalgarh in West Bengal continues to be framed in terms of ‘law and order’. Whatever happened to the Central government’s 'blueprint', drawn up less than two years ago, that had envisaged various development initiatives in addition to security-strengthening measures in order to counter the Naxalite insurgency?
In the following article, published in August 2007 in the Rights and Development Bulletin of the Centre for Development and Human Rights (New Delhi), I had argued for a human rights approach perspective on the Naxalite insurgency. The problem is knotty but not irreparable. But the State must first break out of its security-first mindset…
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The Naxalite Insurgency – Time for a New Strategy
In early October 2007, the Central government drew up a “blueprint” to counter Naxalism, the armed Maoist movement that is spread across nearly half of India’s states. The plan reportedly includes various development initiatives in addition to measures to strengthen the security set-up in those areas.[1] It can only be hoped that the development approach will be give adequate attention and emphasis.
The Naxalite insurgency, for the most part, has been conceptualised as a security issue. Using that approach, the Indian government has taken a number of measures to stamp out the insurgency, but the movement shows no signs of abating. It must be recognised that it is a social, economic, cultural, and political problem just as much as it is a security issue. It is an outgrowth of wider societal ills, and therein lies the crucial human rights dimension of the conflict.
Taking the state of Chhattisgarh as an example, this article will recommend a number of reforms which, taken together, would significantly undermine the appeal of armed revolution.
Education
Over the past decade, education in Chhattisgarh has improved substantially. Since the launch of the Education Guarantee Scheme (EGS), according to which a new school is opened whenever the parents of 30 or more children petition the state government to set one up, literacy has improved for both males and females, enrolment has gone up, and dropout rates have been reduced.[2] Around 255,303 children are currently enrolled in EGS schools.[3] This is clear evidence that Chhattisgarh is moving in the right direction.
It is absolutely essential that the government of Chhattisgarh preserve and further these positive developments. The most obvious way to accomplish this would be to continue the highly successful EGS, and to ensure that the schools opened under the scheme maintain a high standard of academic quality. High pupil-to-teacher ratios are a major obstacle to educational advancement, so the government should take active steps to increase the number of qualified teachers in the state. This can be accomplished by offering higher salaries and better benefits to teachers, as well as by putting greater emphasis on the development and recruitment of teachers within Chhattisgarh. It is also vitally important to ensure that schools remain distanced from the ongoing Naxalite conflict, and that school buildings are not used by security forces for shelter or for any other purpose.
Health
Improving public health in Chhattisgarh is a complex undertaking, yet this goal can be achieved through sustained attention and investment. The most glaring need is to provide universal access to medical care— because Chhattisgarh’s dense forests and poor infrastructure make transportation difficult, many rural-dwellers are not within reach of basic medical facilities or trained health professionals. One promising strategy for rectifying this situation would be the continuation and expansion of the local-level community health programmes that have been so successful in reducing infant mortality. Even where it is financially or logistically impractical to build a hospital, the government should ensure that each village has immediate access to trained doctors and nurses, as well as to basic medical equipment that can be used to provide at least a rudimentary level of care. Training more healthcare professionals would therefore be advisable, as would offering better compensation packages to doctors working in rural areas and working in concert with international bodies and NGOs to supply medical resources to neglected areas.
Land reform
Although the underlying causes of the Naxalite movement are complex and multifaceted, it is clear that conflicts over land are at its core. The vast majority of India’s rural poor is landless and enjoys very little upward mobility.[4] Overall, the landless and the near-landless (owning less than half an acre of land) make up 43 percent of rural Indian households[5], thus creating a steep socio-economic inequity that supplies much of the impetus for the Naxalite movement.
Tenancy reforms, and land reforms in general, have fallen well short of their objectives, and the consequent discontent of poor rural Indians has been vital to the Naxalite resurgence. Legal ambiguities, inadequate enforcement, and landlords’ practice of rotating tenants to prevent them from acquiring ownership rights are obstacles that must be tackled for land reform to succeed.
Forest rights
The issue of forest management has also long been contentious in India, pitting the interests of developers and industrialists against the rights of indigenous tribal communities that depend on forests for sustenance. The long struggle of indigenous peoples to preserve their rights over ancestral lands has played a pivotal role in the recent spread of the Naxalite movement— most new Naxal recruits are reported to be poor tribals.[6] In the hope of alleviating the problems facing forest-dwelling tribals, the Central government adopted the Provision of Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas Act (PESA) in 1996. Although PESA presented a bold reform package on paper, implementation has left much to be desired, with many state governments yet to operationalise the reforms that the Act was to have brought about.
Similarly, the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act 2006 sought to improve upon the draft Scheduled Tribes (Recognition of Forest Rights) Bill. It rightly made the envisaged reform measures more inclusive. However, this, coupled with the later cut-off date and higher land ceiling, gives state governments and local elites more room to exploit the situation.[7] Moreover, it is likely to create or worsen local conflicts between tribal communities and non-tribal indigenous peoples, and between indigenous forest-dwellers and those who have only recently settled on forest land, often at the expense of the traditional inhabitants.[8] These problems will be worsened by the Act’s failure to create a voluntary resettlement programme for forest-dwellers who wish to relocate, a provision that might defuse nascent conflicts over forest lands.[9]
The 1988 National Forest Policy, PESA, and the 2006 Forest Rights Bill were all steps in the right direction, but until they are fully implemented and given more legal muscle to safeguard the rights of vulnerable forest-dwellers, the deep-rooted conflict over forest lands will continue to feed into the Naxalite insurgency.
Economic opportunities
A lack of economic opportunities in the countryside is one of the main spurs to the expansion of the Naxalite movement. Alienation arising from heavy-handed government and corporation-run development projects, coupled with endemic rural poverty, has given the Naxalite insurgency much of its forward thrust in recent years.[10]
The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) 2005, which was intended to improve the economic conditions of the rural poor, suffers from a number of practical difficulties. These are exacerbated by corruption, confusion and mismanagement, which brought the programme to a standstill in some states.[11] Careful revision and substantial improvements in the implementation of the NREGA, coupled with making credit available and affordable, would go a long way in reducing rural poverty and taking the edge off the armed Maoist campaign.
Rule of law
The foremost responsibility of a government is to provide security to its citizens, but democratic institutions lose their integrity when a government seeks to impose this security by extra-legal means. The government must come to the forefront and cut off its support for the unaccountable Salwa Judum militia. More than that, it must put a definitive end to the culture of impunity by which the Salwa Judum has thus far been allowed to operate. Special courts should be set up to examine and prosecute human rights abuses by Salwa Judum members, including but not limited to extrajudicial killings, illegal detentions, and torture.
Citizens must also be assured the full range of civil and political rights without which democracy would not be worthy of the name. One recent piece of legislation— the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act 2005— is sharply inimical to this end, and will only serve to clamp down on essential freedoms and exacerbate the climate of fear and arbitrariness that allows the Naxalite insurgency to thrive.
Conclusion
Because it is the product of a complex confluence of factors, the law-and-order approach, by itself, will not help erode the Naxalite armed movement. This does not, however, mean that the problem is irresolvable. Through a comprehensive, holistic, carefully crafted and implemented series of positive steps aimed at improving the conditions of its poorest citizens, the Indian government can chip away at the foundations of rural discontent upon which the movement is built.
Success in combating the Naxalites cannot be attained through strictly law enforcement means, and the government must therefore break out of its security-first mindset if it hopes to quash the insurgency. The Naxalite movement is shadowy, decentralized, and elusive: it cannot be overwhelmed with a crushing display of force. It will not die with a bang, but it might fade if the problems that fuel it are meaningfully addressed. That is why the human rights perspective on the Naxalite insurgency is so instructive: it illuminates the underlying causes of Naxalism rather than the effects. The Indian government would do well to analyse the problem through the lens of human rights, and use a broad-based, non-security strategy to resolve it.
In the following article, published in August 2007 in the Rights and Development Bulletin of the Centre for Development and Human Rights (New Delhi), I had argued for a human rights approach perspective on the Naxalite insurgency. The problem is knotty but not irreparable. But the State must first break out of its security-first mindset…
************************************************************************
The Naxalite Insurgency – Time for a New Strategy
In early October 2007, the Central government drew up a “blueprint” to counter Naxalism, the armed Maoist movement that is spread across nearly half of India’s states. The plan reportedly includes various development initiatives in addition to measures to strengthen the security set-up in those areas.[1] It can only be hoped that the development approach will be give adequate attention and emphasis.
The Naxalite insurgency, for the most part, has been conceptualised as a security issue. Using that approach, the Indian government has taken a number of measures to stamp out the insurgency, but the movement shows no signs of abating. It must be recognised that it is a social, economic, cultural, and political problem just as much as it is a security issue. It is an outgrowth of wider societal ills, and therein lies the crucial human rights dimension of the conflict.
Taking the state of Chhattisgarh as an example, this article will recommend a number of reforms which, taken together, would significantly undermine the appeal of armed revolution.
Education
Over the past decade, education in Chhattisgarh has improved substantially. Since the launch of the Education Guarantee Scheme (EGS), according to which a new school is opened whenever the parents of 30 or more children petition the state government to set one up, literacy has improved for both males and females, enrolment has gone up, and dropout rates have been reduced.[2] Around 255,303 children are currently enrolled in EGS schools.[3] This is clear evidence that Chhattisgarh is moving in the right direction.
It is absolutely essential that the government of Chhattisgarh preserve and further these positive developments. The most obvious way to accomplish this would be to continue the highly successful EGS, and to ensure that the schools opened under the scheme maintain a high standard of academic quality. High pupil-to-teacher ratios are a major obstacle to educational advancement, so the government should take active steps to increase the number of qualified teachers in the state. This can be accomplished by offering higher salaries and better benefits to teachers, as well as by putting greater emphasis on the development and recruitment of teachers within Chhattisgarh. It is also vitally important to ensure that schools remain distanced from the ongoing Naxalite conflict, and that school buildings are not used by security forces for shelter or for any other purpose.
Health
Improving public health in Chhattisgarh is a complex undertaking, yet this goal can be achieved through sustained attention and investment. The most glaring need is to provide universal access to medical care— because Chhattisgarh’s dense forests and poor infrastructure make transportation difficult, many rural-dwellers are not within reach of basic medical facilities or trained health professionals. One promising strategy for rectifying this situation would be the continuation and expansion of the local-level community health programmes that have been so successful in reducing infant mortality. Even where it is financially or logistically impractical to build a hospital, the government should ensure that each village has immediate access to trained doctors and nurses, as well as to basic medical equipment that can be used to provide at least a rudimentary level of care. Training more healthcare professionals would therefore be advisable, as would offering better compensation packages to doctors working in rural areas and working in concert with international bodies and NGOs to supply medical resources to neglected areas.
Land reform
Although the underlying causes of the Naxalite movement are complex and multifaceted, it is clear that conflicts over land are at its core. The vast majority of India’s rural poor is landless and enjoys very little upward mobility.[4] Overall, the landless and the near-landless (owning less than half an acre of land) make up 43 percent of rural Indian households[5], thus creating a steep socio-economic inequity that supplies much of the impetus for the Naxalite movement.
Tenancy reforms, and land reforms in general, have fallen well short of their objectives, and the consequent discontent of poor rural Indians has been vital to the Naxalite resurgence. Legal ambiguities, inadequate enforcement, and landlords’ practice of rotating tenants to prevent them from acquiring ownership rights are obstacles that must be tackled for land reform to succeed.
Forest rights
The issue of forest management has also long been contentious in India, pitting the interests of developers and industrialists against the rights of indigenous tribal communities that depend on forests for sustenance. The long struggle of indigenous peoples to preserve their rights over ancestral lands has played a pivotal role in the recent spread of the Naxalite movement— most new Naxal recruits are reported to be poor tribals.[6] In the hope of alleviating the problems facing forest-dwelling tribals, the Central government adopted the Provision of Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas Act (PESA) in 1996. Although PESA presented a bold reform package on paper, implementation has left much to be desired, with many state governments yet to operationalise the reforms that the Act was to have brought about.
Similarly, the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act 2006 sought to improve upon the draft Scheduled Tribes (Recognition of Forest Rights) Bill. It rightly made the envisaged reform measures more inclusive. However, this, coupled with the later cut-off date and higher land ceiling, gives state governments and local elites more room to exploit the situation.[7] Moreover, it is likely to create or worsen local conflicts between tribal communities and non-tribal indigenous peoples, and between indigenous forest-dwellers and those who have only recently settled on forest land, often at the expense of the traditional inhabitants.[8] These problems will be worsened by the Act’s failure to create a voluntary resettlement programme for forest-dwellers who wish to relocate, a provision that might defuse nascent conflicts over forest lands.[9]
The 1988 National Forest Policy, PESA, and the 2006 Forest Rights Bill were all steps in the right direction, but until they are fully implemented and given more legal muscle to safeguard the rights of vulnerable forest-dwellers, the deep-rooted conflict over forest lands will continue to feed into the Naxalite insurgency.
Economic opportunities
A lack of economic opportunities in the countryside is one of the main spurs to the expansion of the Naxalite movement. Alienation arising from heavy-handed government and corporation-run development projects, coupled with endemic rural poverty, has given the Naxalite insurgency much of its forward thrust in recent years.[10]
The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) 2005, which was intended to improve the economic conditions of the rural poor, suffers from a number of practical difficulties. These are exacerbated by corruption, confusion and mismanagement, which brought the programme to a standstill in some states.[11] Careful revision and substantial improvements in the implementation of the NREGA, coupled with making credit available and affordable, would go a long way in reducing rural poverty and taking the edge off the armed Maoist campaign.
Rule of law
The foremost responsibility of a government is to provide security to its citizens, but democratic institutions lose their integrity when a government seeks to impose this security by extra-legal means. The government must come to the forefront and cut off its support for the unaccountable Salwa Judum militia. More than that, it must put a definitive end to the culture of impunity by which the Salwa Judum has thus far been allowed to operate. Special courts should be set up to examine and prosecute human rights abuses by Salwa Judum members, including but not limited to extrajudicial killings, illegal detentions, and torture.
Citizens must also be assured the full range of civil and political rights without which democracy would not be worthy of the name. One recent piece of legislation— the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act 2005— is sharply inimical to this end, and will only serve to clamp down on essential freedoms and exacerbate the climate of fear and arbitrariness that allows the Naxalite insurgency to thrive.
Conclusion
Because it is the product of a complex confluence of factors, the law-and-order approach, by itself, will not help erode the Naxalite armed movement. This does not, however, mean that the problem is irresolvable. Through a comprehensive, holistic, carefully crafted and implemented series of positive steps aimed at improving the conditions of its poorest citizens, the Indian government can chip away at the foundations of rural discontent upon which the movement is built.
Success in combating the Naxalites cannot be attained through strictly law enforcement means, and the government must therefore break out of its security-first mindset if it hopes to quash the insurgency. The Naxalite movement is shadowy, decentralized, and elusive: it cannot be overwhelmed with a crushing display of force. It will not die with a bang, but it might fade if the problems that fuel it are meaningfully addressed. That is why the human rights perspective on the Naxalite insurgency is so instructive: it illuminates the underlying causes of Naxalism rather than the effects. The Indian government would do well to analyse the problem through the lens of human rights, and use a broad-based, non-security strategy to resolve it.
Notes
1. Aloke Tikku, “Centre declares war on Naxals”, Hindustan Times, 3 October 2007.
2. United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Government of Chhattisgarh, “Human Development Report: Chhattisgarh 2005,” 2005, p. 104. Available at http://www.undp.org.in/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=239&Itemid=322.
3. Ibid.
4. Andrew Foster and Mark Rosenzweig, “Democratization and the distribution of local public goods in a poor rural economy,” Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD) Working Paper No. 10, January 2003, at p.3. Available at http://www.cid.harvard.edu/bread/papers/working/010.pdf (last accessed 15 October 2007).
5. Patralekha Chatterjee, “Land reform in India: Necessary but not sufficient to fight poverty,” D+C Development Cooperation, March 2002, at http://www.inwent.org/E+Z/1997-2002/de202-8.htm (last accessed 15 October 2007).
6. “A Spectre Haunting India,” Economist, 17 August 2006. Available at http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7799247 (last accessed 15 October 2007).
7. Ashish Kothari, “Rights and promises,” Frontline 23(14), 15-28 July 2006. Available at http://www.flonnet.com/fl2314/stories/20060728000706400.htm.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Rajat Kumar Kujur, “Underdevelopment and Naxal movement,” Economic and Political Weekly, 18 February 2006.
11. “Staff shortage, delayed wages under NREGA in Ranchi,” The Financial Express, 25 June 2007. See also Manoj Prasad, “Corruption clouds UPA job scheme,” The Indian Express, 23 May 2007.
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