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During 1998/99, the bourgeois media all over the
country propagated widely how villagers had organised themselves to oppose the
PW in a village in East Godavari district. India Today, Outlook and a
number of national dailies had this photo of belligerent looking village women
with lathis — subtitled, "ready to chase out the Naxalites." Even the EPW
(Economic and Political Weekly) added to the propaganda machine of the rulers by
carrying an edit piece castigating the PW for not taking up the people’s
problems which therefore had to be taken up by NGOs. It was a concerted campaign
against the PW, not only in Andhra Pradesh, but throughout the country.
As this region comes under the AOB, I quite
naturally asked BK what exactly transpired in this village. He explained the
entire history of PW’s work in this village, the events of 1998/99, and what the
situation is there today.
The name of the village is Pedda Mallapuram. It is
a relatively large village, in the Shankhavaram mandal of the East Godavari
district. It falls within the Nagulakonda squad area.
The work of the Party was started in the
Nagulakonda area as early as 1980. In East Godavari there are notified and
unnotified areas. In the sub-plan this village is categorised as unnotified as
it does not have an exclusive adivasi population. Pedda Mallapuram is a big
village situated in the forest with a satellite of 43 small villages affiliated
to it.
Landlord exploitation in this region was acute,
together with the political subjugation of the people. Upto 1990 the Party had
taken up a series of struggles on the land question, against usury, for increase
in wage rates, etc. As a result there was very good support not only in this
village but also in the neighbouring villages. All the mass organisations —
peasant’s, student’s, children’s — were well developed, and even a number of
Party units existed in this cluster of villages. There had been extensive
recruitment to the Party from these villages.
To counter the PW’s influence the enemy adopted a
two-pronged attack. First they unleashed massive repression and encouraged the
landlords to form an association, with their own goonda force. These goons
attacked people, destroyed property, burnt their belongings, etc. In mid-1991 a
police camp (40-50 police) was set up in the village, combing operations
conducted and repression stepped up. Despite this, the PW maintained relations
with the people, taking up people’s issues, including the campaign against
liquor.
The second aspect of enemy policy to counter the
movement, was to introduce social reforms to wean the masses away from the PW.
And together with the government’s social reforms entered the NGOs. One such NGO
that began work in Pedda Mallapuram was ‘Samata’ whose director was a
person called Ravi.
As BK explained
"the NGO utilised some of our mistakes in handling
contradictions amongst the people. This is a big village, with a large
non-tribal population who own land and run shops and petti-businesses. There are
three categories of adivasis — called Kondakammaris, Kondakapus and Kondareddys
— all of whom gained as a result of the land struggles. But when we took up the
anti-liquor struggle, a section of the Kondakammaris who, not only brew, but
sell liquor, opposed the campaign. Instead of convincing these people, our
sangham forced them to give up sale of liquor and even beat and humiliated some
of them. Some of the women associated with this group joined ‘Samata’. Another
error we made was in handling a land problem. The 1/70 rule disallows non-adivasis
to purchase adivasi lands. Besides the landlords, some middle peasants had
bought adivasi land. Again, instead of handling the contradiction between the
non-adivasi middle peasants and the adivasis properly, the sangham forced them
to return the land to the tribals. This group of middle peasants also joined
Samata. Also some landlords were with the NGO."
Having gathered some support the NGO began to
provoke the people against the PW. They went so far as to burn down the Girijan
Cooperative Society and propagate widely that this was done by the Naxalites.
Ravi, with his wide connections, immediately brought an India Today reporter to
the village to show how the whole village had turned against the Naxalites. The
NGO utilised the services of the police camp which prevented the PW from
immediately explaining the issue to the masses. The women of the liquor group
took the lead in the government schemes and in assisting the NGO.
About this time the government brought in
prohibition. Then, there were two types amongst the adivasis — those who brew
and consumed the liquor; while another section, with prohibition got into the
business of illegal sale of liquor. The latter group pretended to be part of the
anti-liquor movement so that all brewing would stop, and their illegal,
surreptitious sales could increase. This was the same NGO group of women.
It was this group of women who was portrayed in the
press as fighting the Naxalites, with lathis. In addition, NGO Ravi, began
another extensive propaganda campaign. Only lately a bus had been started to the
village. The government stopped this bus, while Ravi propagated that this too
was burnt by the PW.
After the burning incident, inspite of the police
presence, the squad took a three hour meeting in the village. In that meeting
they did a self-criticism of having taken a wrong approach to those selling
liquor and towards those non-adivasis who had bought tribal land. They also
explained that they did not burn the society or the bus, and this was the
propaganda of Ravi and the police. Most of the people were convinced, but the
pro-NGO people not only created disturbances, but tried to provoke the people to
attack the squad. While the meeting was going on the squad was given
information, that one person had sneaked off to the police camp, to inform the
police of the squad’s presence. The squad had to therefore disperse. Ravi and
the NGO women’s campaign of lies and falsehood against the PW continued.
Three months later when the squad was near Pedda
Mallapuram village it was spotted by one Rambabu. This person was a former
member of the mass organisation. But due to his corrupt practices he was
criticised. During the 1991-93 repression he surrendered to the police. He later
became village president and was very close to Samata. Rambabu on
spotting the squad informed the police. In the firing a Professional
Revolutionary and one mass organisation leader were martyred while the deputy
commander was severely injured.
Prior to the encounter, the squad had been studying
the situation. The people said that the gang led by Rambabu together with the
NGO women had degenerated and were harassing the people. But after the encounter
and the loss of two comrades the squad took a serious view of the situation. The
squad took the decision to annihilate Rambabu; beat up his chief henchmen,
Venkateswarlu (a ward member) and bring the two NGO women ringleaders before the
masses to apologise.
When the squad went to implement the decision, the
two gangsters turned aggressive and the two women ringleaders came to their
assistance. In the milieu, though Rambabu was eliminated as planned;
Venkateswarlu also died of his injuries, and the main woman ringleader,
Ramulamma, also got some beatings — both of which were not part of the plan.
Immediately after this incident the Chief Minister,
Chandrababu Naidu and his Home minister flew to this village — he announced Rs.
1 lakh for those killed, and Rs. 25,000 for the women supposedly injured.
The people saw for themselves the close nexus
between the NGO, police and top politicians. In addition people’s discontent
with the presence of the police camp grew as the masses faced continuous
harassment. The people so hated them, which made them paranoic, not knowing when
they would be attacked. Over these last couple of years they have opened fire
thrice, on hearing some rustle in the bushes. Each time a dog was killed !!
People have openly demonstrated against the camp, to leave the village.
Besides, the people have accepted the squads
self-criticism on behalf of the sangham, and even those who had begun to oppose
the PW, have once again begun supporting them. A month after the incident even
Ramulamma issued a statement saying she had been manipulated by the politicians
and was yet to see the promised compensation. She also demanded that the police
camp in the village be removed and that the NGO should leave the area and leave
the village people to themselves.
Meanwhile the NGOs got further discredited for
having swallowed flood programme funds not only of the government, but those
raised by the masses. There were many protests against them. The PW also exposed
the fact that some of these NGOs function as direct wings of the government,
with 15% of the project money of ITDP funds being reserved for them. A pamphlet
brought out by them said that Samata-type NGOs are nothing but a part of the
government’s ‘reform’ package, and people like Ravi are nothing but a part of
the officialdom, which is also being funded by them.
While Ravi has fled the area to continue his
mischief in a new place, the PW has done an entire review of the incident. In
that review, besides the mishandling of local contradictions, they have sought
to find out the errors that enabled the NGO/Govt/Police combine to take
advantage. BK explained : "We did not respond immediately to the
developments, so some people were able to be misled. In future we should respond
fast. Also, though some of our mistakes in dealing with local contradictions had
been identified, there was a liberal approach towards rectifying that error.
This delay fueled the misunderstandings and discontent. Finally, as had been
planned, only Rambabu should have been punished... Anyhow, we have learnt from
these mistakes, and will now be better equipped to deal with similar situations
in the future." |
