Onion Uttapam : India's Leading Satire Daily

Back in the 1980s, Indira Gandhi was miffed with the growing influence of Akali dal, at best a regional party of Punjab that was eating into her party's votebank. As a counter to that, she began wooing Bhindranwale, a young firebrand activist who was not initiated into the fine art of back-stabbing that is as necessary as eating in the world of politics everywhere in the world and a lil more unrefined here. The finesse of a PV Narasimha Rao came much later. Manmohan Singh will be the only PM after him who will complete 5 years in governance. What Indira Gandhi did was to fund and encourage Bhindranwale and with Sitaram Kesri as the Treasurer of the Congress party, discreetnes in itself learnt how to be discreet. A few years later, the protege grew big for his shoes and as the lawlessness and the killing mounted, a ruthless KPS Gill was drafted in who pulled the bad tooth out. Countless innocents died and Indira paid for her folly with her own frail body cut by a burst of bullets on the lawns of her own home. An emotional India swore-in her surviving son who blundered and bluffed his way out. A few of his policies benefited India and when he too ventured into the complicated web of international politics, paid for his life dearly in pulped bits.

In far-flung Chhattisgarh state thousands of tribal families have been torn apart by a savage Maoist insurgency and a no holds barred crackdown aimed at suppressing it. It shows no signs of letting up. Says middle-aged Budhri lighting up her choolah in her mud hut, “My daughter used to go to Maoist meetings. After that they came to our house to ask for her”. As she stirred the broth she continued, “ My husband and son fought with the Maoists to prevent them from taking my daughter away but they took her anyway. Then, a man in the neighbouring village was murdered and since our hamlet is considered Pro-Maoist my husband and son were suspected and were carted off to jail. Now, I have a son in jail. I have a daughter who the Maoists took. How can I live?”

Chhattisgarh’s landscape is placidly beautiful with carefully thatched huts nestled in thick forests of mango, tamarind and teak.But any sense of tranquillity is regularly shattered by convoys of heavily armed police speeding along the one-lane National Highway 16 that cuts through Danteweda, the heart of the Maoist revolt.The rebels control large swathes of forest north of the highway, a “liberated zone” where their state within a state collects tax and conducts trials as a first step in their ultimate goal of overturning capitalist India. According to Manmohan Singh the rebels are a “virus” and the biggest single threat to the country. As the government struggles to keep the grindingly poor tribal villagers who live a world away from India’s economic boom out of the ranks of the Maoists, some 50,000 people have been driven into state-run relief camps.In the largest, Dornapal, 18,000 villagers who once lived in tiny hamlets spread spaciously over acres of land are crowded into a sprawling shanty of mud huts with tin roofs.Some camp residents say they fled their homes for fear of the rebels, who first made inroads by fighting for better prices for villagers who earn a meagre Rs.2000 a year gathering tobacco leaves used in cigarettes and the ubiquitous beedis. But the Maoists also beat or killed those who flouted their orders.

Says Lakmu, who asked that his full name not be disclosed,“They wanted to make the village their own, and we had to do what they told us to do”. An elderly resident Dharma of the Bhairamgarh camp chipped in “The police and people beat us. They said we gave the Maoists shelter,” adding that the rebels demanded food whenever they passed through his village. But others said they were hounded out of their villages by police and members of the state-backed Salwa Judum which local leaders translate as “peace movement” but which other political observers say is little more than hired guns. Some locals said they were coerced to go on Salwa Judum marches, where they saw police and camp residents burning huts and were threatened with the same chillingly-burning fate.

But what of the police? In a rare candid moment, the Dantewada police chief, Rahul admitted to being scared. “We are getting hunted” he admitted.The police official says he commands security forces of only 4,000, along with 1,800 temporary village recruits, against a Maoist army of 5,000 backed by a network of 15,000 supporters. Policemen are regularly killed in ambushes and in December last nearly 300 prisoners broke out of Dantewada prison — including accused Maoists.

As Sharma says, “We’re at the receiving end; look at the plight of the police — they’re terrified.” But perhaps no one here is as afraid as the villagers, forced to choose sides in a seething cauldron of suspicion.“We used to be together. Now some of us are on one side and some of us on the other. And both have guns,” said special police officer Ramesh, 22, adding that the Maoists particularly target tribals like him who guide the police.

“We are a worm that has a chicken grabbing at it from both ends.”

Sooner, not later, the netas will descend to seek their votes in the forthcoming general elections and that when the header to this blog will be answered. Right now, the burgeoning consumerist middle-class is blissfully unaware of the suppurating pus-boil under the skin of India as they chomp their veggie-burgers, onionuttapams and cheer the wasted-rupee consuming T20 on their 69" Plasma screen that shuts out Budhri's ask about getting on with her daughter, probably ravished and dead and her husband and son rotting in some jail or dead in a fake encounter becoming a statistic that is scattered across a wide swathe of eastern India where the real power lies with those who own more guns than the other side. And as they, turn in for the day wondering how to rename cities, roads and renaming Vada-pav to Udhav Vadapao and other such nationally important tasks, somewhere in Chattisgarh a dis-affected person would be plotting the exact sequence of moves to bring down a political fat-cat just to make a statement. In 36 pieces.

Comments (5)

poppy said:

Spreading Maoist ‘menace’ alarms India NEW DELHI, July 14: India’s top security officials meet this week to discuss latest intelligence that Maoist rebels are encircling urban areas, upgrading their weapons and mounting frontal attacks on security forces. While expanding their influence in the countryside, Maoist rebels are spreading to cities, including the capital New Delhi, through a web of front organisations to boost their network, police said. Indian Maoists say they are fighting for the rights of the poor and landless, an insurgency that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has described as India’s biggest internal security threat. The rebels have at least 22,000 combatants, armed with light machine guns, automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades. Some of the weapons are made in secret factories, officials say. Security analysts say the rebels, who have a presence in at least 13 of India’s 29 states, are consolidating in rural belts outside big cities and towns and building buffer zones. “Their whole philosophy is to start from villages and move towards cities,” B.K. Ponwar, head of a top counter-insurgency and jungle warfare school, told Reuters. “The red corridor is expanding and their influence is growing and not reducing at all,” he said, referring to a huge swathe of mineral-rich areas controlled by the rebels. The police chiefs of several Maoist-hit states and senior government officials will meet on Wednesday to discuss rebel attacks and review their strategy, a home ministry official said. The rebels stumped security experts last month when they attacked a highly trained counter-insurgency squad in the eastern state of Orissa with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades, a far cry from the archaic .303 rifle and locally made pistols they had used previously. HITTING THE ECONOMY: The Maoists regularly use landmines and grenades to attack vehicles of security forces, power lines, government buildings, rail lines and factories, aiming to cripple economic activity over a large area. “The Maoists have drafted a detailed and coherent strategy for their work in urban areas,” Ajai Sahni of New Delhi’s Institute for Conflict Management said. “They are first building frontal organisations and simultaneously plan to create armed squads to back up this increasing militant political activity.” Yet, India’s response to the threat has lacked the enthusiasm shown in tackling militancy in the disputed northern region of Kashmir and the northeast, experts say. “What we really need is a long-term, well-thought-out strategy,” C. Uday Bhaskar, former director of New Delhi’s Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses said. “The situation is very disturbing and more serious than we perceived.”—Reuters

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July 15, 2008
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Dubbletrubble said:

Taking control of the entire tribal belt stretching from Abujhmar, Bastar and Dandakaranya, the Maoists in Chhattisgarh have announced the formation and functioning of their first-ever parallel “revolutionary government”. This “government” has also announced the forma tion of “ministries” of agriculture, finance, judiciary, health, school and culture and forests. The Chhattisgarh government appears to have completely lost control of this remote tribal-dominated region, over which soldiers belonging to the dreaded People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA) hold sway. While the Maoist health ministry is creating awareness on family planning and hygiene, the education ministry has come up with its own version of “revolutionary history.” Attacks on the government-sponsored “Salwa Judum” movement is a part of the “red” syllabus. A top central committee member, Comrade Sonu, told this newspaper: “We have rejected imperialist history and are teaching tribals about the revolution and of great heroes from their tribes.” The outfit plans to set up similar revolutionary governments in other Maoistinfested states like Jharkhand and Orissa. Though there is no “foreign ministry” as such, the highest policymaking body, the central committee, maintains links with the coordination committee of Maoist parties and organisations of South Asia. In a telephonic conversation from Raipur, Chhattisgarh’s DDP, Mr Vishwa Ranjan, said, that the police had been successful in “smashing” the Maoist bases and that the Naxalites were on the run. He claimed that the “so called parallel government” had been made “defunct” by the police onslaught. He said that apart from forming a special task force, the state police was also coordinating with the Greyhound force of the Andhra Pradesh police in its battle against Maoists. Running short of arms and ammunition, the Maoists are planning another strike on the lines of its February raid on the police post at Noigarh in Orissa when the militants killed 13 policemen and fled with a huge cache of arms, including AK-47s and machine-guns. It is learnt that the Maoist agriculture ministry had taken complete control of forest products. Maoists in Chhat tisgarh have taken control of the economy and education. “Private contractors have been paying more for tendu leaves,” the Maoist leader, Comrade Sonu, said. The Maoist “judiciary” controls the kangaroo courts where “justice” is delivered by self-styled Maoist “judges”. “We let local people decide punishments for cul prits,” he said. The culture ministry teaches children revolutionary songs. The Maoists claim to have set up at least 100 primary schools, from kindergarten to Class 5. Besides Mangal Pandey, children are also taught about Babu Rao Sarmek a tribal hero who rose against the British in 1857. The children are trained in armed combat by the Maoist-controlled “Adivasi Bal Sangathan.” In history class they are taught that “Gandhi and Nehru had misled people.”

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May 31, 2008
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ragamuffin said:

	Unfortunately no one's realized the magnitude of the problem.The govt. should take pains to understand the problem and adopt measures to redress all wrongs and help the tribals.
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May 23, 2008
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neda_3684 said:

	if people be united ,no one can become their masters.
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May 23, 2008
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derebail2008 said:

	There are some zones in India where rebels have taken over and have their own kingdom, if it is not nipped in the bud India itself will self destruct
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May 21, 2008
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