India's Maoist Problem Resurfaces

The weekend attack by alleged Maoists in the eastern state of Chattisgarh that left two dozen people dead, including local leaders of the ruling Congress party, was a chilling reminder that India's problems of inequality haven't gone away.

Maoists and their brutal attacks haven't come out of nowhere as I exposed in a story I did for Forbes Magazine in 2010 (You can read that story--India's Dirty War--here.)

Chattisgarh is rich in coal and bauxite, valuable resources for some of India's biggest and best companies-- Tata Steel and Jindal Steel & Power  (owned by Naveen Jindal and his family who figure on the Forbes billionaires list) who have been trying for several years to use these untapped resources to build steel and power plants.

Over the last decade the Indian government has been trying by legal and other means to lock up the land for public projects like power plants and, for private enterprises like Tata. (Under the Indian constitution nontribal people are prohibited from directly acquiring land in certain parts of the country, so the government must obtain it on their behalf and sell it to the companies.)

That trend has put the state more and more in conflict with the Maoist rebels (who are also known as Naxals), and it has ratcheted up paramilitary operations against them. Some of the best roads I have traveled on in India--a country notorious for its poor infrastructure--have been in Bastar district, the Maoist heartland and the area where the weekend attack took place. The government built those roads not because Bastar is a popular tourist area or because companies are rushing in to build malls and super markets. But to be able to send in paramilitary forces to tackle the Maoists and their sympathizers.

Normal people don't usually sympathize with rebels and killers. But the Indian government's own actions have created those sympathizers.

The government has been squaring off more frequently against farmers, those who have farmed the land for centuries, using various legal entitlements--and, villagers often claim, resorting to fraud or force--to gain possession of the property for companies like Tata. Other times the state simply seizes the land, labeling any resistance rebel-inspired. Hundreds of thousands of people have been dispossessed and displaced, living in refugee camps, where they are prey to both sides of the proxy war and easy converts to radicalism.

The government was helped in these efforts by the Salwa Judum, which in a local tribal dialect called Gondi means "Purification Hunt". The Judum were a civilian militia founded by a Congress leader, Mahendra Karma as a means to counter Naxal violence in the region. They did so by killing any alleged Naxals or supporters. (You can read more on Karma here.)

I met some of the villagers who managed to live to tell the tale in Naindra Village, deep inside a forest--the Judum burnt down homes and killed those who didn't manage to hide, like Muchaki Ganga's father. "They slit his throat with a knife and left [his neck] hanging by a piece," he told me.

After the houses were torched, Maoists came and gave the villagers clothes. The Judum returned twice more, set fire to the homes and abducted two boys and a girl who have never been seen since.

Karma was one of the people killed in the weekend attack and rebels reportedly danced around his bullet-ridden body.

After the attack Congress leader Sonia Gandhi (who ranks #9 on Forbes list of 100 most powerful women) and her son and Congress heir apparent Rahul Gandhi expressed shock and have been asking how such an attack could happen.

Maybe it's time for some introspection on what is it that the government--and corporate India--are doing wrong that can lead to such brazen killing.