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Hello, Bastar - The Untold Story of India's Maoist Movement
Hello, bastar is the inside story of the current maoist movement in india. With direct access to the top Maoist leadership, Rahul Pandita provides an authoritative account of how a handful of men and women, who believed in the idea of revolution, entered Bastar in Central India in 1980 and created a powerful movement that New Delhi now terms as India's biggest internal security threat. It traces the circumstances due to which the Maoist movement entrenched itself in about 10 states of India, carrying out deadly attacks against the Indian establishment in the name of the poor and the marginalised. It offers rare insight into the lives of Maoist guerillas and also of the Adivasi tribals living in the Red zone. Based on extensive on- ground reportage and exhaustive interviews with Maoist leaders including their supreme commander Ganapathi, Kobad Ghandy and other s who are jailed or have been killed in police encounters, this book is a combination of firsthand story telling and intrepid analysis. Hello , Bastar is the story of: How the idea of creating a guerilla base in Bastar came up What the rebels who entered Dandakaranya had to deal with The Jagtial movement that created the ground for the Maoist movement The first squad member who died for revolution How Maoists and their guerilla squads function Their goals, recruitment, par ty structure and funding Their 'urban agenda' for cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai Their relationship with people and peoples' movements Maoist supremo Ganapa thi and other top leaders
216 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2011
About the author
Rahul Pandita
8 books266 followersRahul Pandita is an Indian author and journalist. Pandita has worked as a war correspondent, and is known for his ample news reporting from the war hit countries like Iraq and Sri Lanka. However, in the recent years, his focal point has been the Maoist movement in India's red corridor. He has also reported from North-Eastern India. He has worked with The Hindu, Open Magazine among other media organizations. He is a 2015 Yale World Fellow. He was awarded the International Red Cross award for delivering news from war zones, in 2010.
He has written several books. Among them are The Absent State: Insurgency as an Excuse for Misgovernance, co-authored with Neelesh Misra, Hello Bastar – The Untold Story of India's Maoist Movement (2011), and Our Moon has Blood Clots: The Exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits.
He has written several books. Among them are The Absent State: Insurgency as an Excuse for Misgovernance, co-authored with Neelesh Misra, Hello Bastar – The Untold Story of India's Maoist Movement (2011), and Our Moon has Blood Clots: The Exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits.
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November 13, 2015
The Revolution That Was Not
"Hello, Bastar" is a scary book to read — it shows how organized, serious, wide spread and entrenched the Maoist movement really is.
This book is an authentic and detailed introduction to the Maoist movement, brought to you through some brave investigative journalism. It is also an excellent introduction to the Maoist viewpoint (yes, ideology) and operational strategies too. Trying to figure out first hand the issues and the conditions that gave rise to and sustains the revolution (if one may call it that, if not please use insurrection), Hello, Bastar goes a long way towards expanding the reader’s understanding of what is really involved. Pandita deserves plaudits for that.
This is especially so because, for the ordinary reader, the only access to the movement is through the popular press. To such an ordinary reader of the newspapers (or worse, a watcher of news channels) the key question is inescapably one of violence — the first image that the word ‘Maoist’ conjures up is of dense forests, gunfire and knives. But Pandita shows that this is a very selective image, even a censored one that is shown to us — in fact, the question of violence is secondary. The real question is one of inclusive development, human rights and the very core of democracy itself: Participation & Voice.
The Urban/rural/tribal oppressed are the ones most targeted for recruitment to the movement. They are recruited primarily by giving them human dignity, by giving them a voice — this is a clear indictment on the massive failure of government that afflicts these areas. The question is: In a democracy, why don’t they already have a voice?
The very existence of the Maoist movement is a present and clear signal that there is a void, created by a a government that opted to withdraw and leave the people to their own devices. Of a government that left class and caste oppression fester for so long that the tribals and villagers found it safer to opt for violent revolution over democratic option.
The Naxalites are only filling the void created by the Government.
But I believe that in spite of this, the movement, at a fundamental level, is still misguided — at least in terms of ideology and methods if not in sentiment.
At the same time, while I do believe that the Naxal leaders are misguided, the way they have achieved legitimacy is nothing short of miraculous. To run a quasi-govt for so many years is no mean achievement. Which again points us to the crying need for proper government in the area.
In any case, the question is whether it is inhumane to consider a well-intentioned (at least in propaganda) movement misguided? And my answer is, Yes. That is because it is a democratic country, and they could have done the same under the strictures of a constitution that was framed with express intention of social revolution. It could have been an vindication of the revolutionary potential latent in our constitution. It would have taken longer and would not have had the romance and urgency of a revolution. But with enough effort and mass education, they should have been able to command mass support, for the government and bring about change without the massive violence. Revolution too has proved to be interminably long. The same energy invested more constructively could have truly revolutionized the lives of the people in the affected areas, and perhaps beyond. I think the existence of the Maoist movement is a double disaster — perpetrated first by the missed opportunity for a democratic government to rule well; then by well-intentioned revolutionaries who opted to follow the ideologies blindly and visit devastation to the people who supported them, rather than choosing the more practical and productive options available.
All that is in the past, the burning question of the day is to bring about a resolution that is politically feasible. The human scale of the tragedy that has been unfolding is unimaginable. And it might be time to accept that it is the needs of the people who live there that has to be the primary consideration, not the race for power by the two sides contending for power over them. It is the obligation of the nation to deliver to the people of the affected areas their due: Participation. They should be allowed to choose for themselves.
Looked at in this perspective, the answer should not be to suppress the movement but to empower it and bring it within the overall democratic framework — this is precisely the greatest strength that a democratic framework has. And we should employ that to end the double-fold suffering inflicted on the poor ordinary citizens of the area who are caught in the crossfire.
One option that seems feasible to me is this: How about an election supervised by a third party (say UN) in which the Maoists contest along with the other major parties? At the end of which a separate constitutional status could be awarded to places where the Maoists win, which would allow them to institute the major reforms, which they will make part of their campaign commitments. We can also institute safeguards to ensure that the usual aftermath of a revolutionary victory in which the victors in turn become the oppressed is avoided by allowing a democratic revolution of this sort. In my readings, I have not come across such an option being discussed, even though it sounds perfectly obvious to me. I hope it gets political currency soon. I will try to elaborate on this in a separate article, preferably in the mainstream media.
Mention of the media brings me back to the book. As I said, the newspapers feed us the story through a perception-filter. The editorials may talk of some of the issues more humanely but the headlines always scream at us, demonizing the Maoists. A book like this is important to read to ensure that the human faces stay with us in the midst of this assault. The civilian society condoning military repression is unpardonable, especially when it is uninformed confinement. The least we can do is to take the effort to understand more and then react according to our won best ideals. Popular pressure is the only way to make the government seek more civilized (and democratic) ways of settlement. As long as we conveniently turn a blind eye, the government cannot see either.
As the afterword by the jailed Maoist Ideologue, Kobad Ghandy says, understanding the Maoist viewpoint is important for the furtherance of dialogue. That is an important goal toward which this book is aimed. I would only add that understanding the lives of the people under the Maoist sway is also important — to give moral force and direction to the dialogue, to ensure that it is no longer conducted through spitting gunfire.
December 17, 2018
I don't know whether this is a true memory - but I have this ghastly one of the photo a headless body, tied to a pillar. A grainy black and white photo from a 1970's Malayalam newspaper: the picture of a Naxalite attack.
(For those who don't know - a Naxalite or Naxal in India is a Maoist revolutionary, who does not believe in parliamentary democracy. The Maoists are engaged in guerilla warfare against the state, and hope to overthrow the government and establish a communist state, like Mao Zedong did in China.)
Those were the heady days of Naxalism in Kerala, with Varghese, Ajitha, Philip M. Prasad et al hogging the limelight in the short-lived uprising in Wayanad. Though frightening, the concept of waging armed rebellion against the state tickled my adolescent revolutionary fantasies. The leftist in me was slowly growing wings, much to the horror of my centrist mother and right-of-centre father.
However, it was only later that I learnt that the Naxal movement in Kerala was only a blip compared to movements of much larger scale elsewhere in India. Having its genesis in the village of Naxalbari in West Bengal (hence the term Naxalite or Naxal for the revolutionaries), this movement was spread across in India, waxing and waning periodically, in the so-called "Red Corridor" - the area stretching across the states of Bihar, Jharkand, West Bengal, Odisha, Chattisgarh, Telengana, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. Now termed Maoist, these insurgents are seen as the single largest internal security threat to India by the government; and since 2010, a relentless war is being waged against them by the state.
What makes the Maoists tick? Why do these people jump into a life of misery and danger voluntarily, often throwing away comfortable middle class existences? This is the question Rahul Pandita sets out to answer in this book. And he has done a wonderful job.
The official picture of the Maoist is that of a "terrorist", out to destroy democratic India, often with funding from enemy forces. They are painted either as inherently evil purveyors of a violent ideology, or stooges deluded by such people. But Pandita, travelling among them, talking to them and living with them, paints a more balanced, empathetic picture. These are the downtrodden of India, the totally dispossessed, the lowest of the low for whom mere survival is a battle - and the idealists who energise them, exhort them to action, and empower them to dream about an egalitarian world. Their means may be violent and unacceptable; but there is no questioning their sincerity.
The authorities are, of course, unwilling to see the Maoist other than as a "terrorist". This is the opinion P. Chidambaram, India's erstwhile home minister:
However, after reading the book, one would be excused for thinking that the government is fighting the symptoms rather than the disease. The disease, the elephant in the room that none of the Indian elite wants to see, is the feudal setup of the Indian society and the rampant caste and class discrimination that is the norm even now.
This is only a sample. There are countless other examples within the book; or one just needs to read any Indian newspaper. One is guaranteed to find at least one atrocity against the depressed classes every day.
Complaining to the authorities is useless. The policemen and the politicians will side only with the rich and powerful, as exemplified by countless instances. It is into this void, Pandita says, that the Maoists step in.
Where police fail, Maoists execute summary justice too:
---
The above snippets should make it clear that instead of injecting a "poisonous" ideology, Maoists are taking advantage of existing fissures within the Indian society. In fact, most of them appear to be genuinely sincere human beings who believe that armed rebellion and the establishment of a revolutionary state is the only solution to India's woes.
That is not to say that this idea is not dangerous. The outline of the revolutionary plan of the organisation shared in this book should make every thinking Indian pause and take stock. Armed insurgency is dangerous: it is very easy to slip into a bloody civil war and lead to the establishment of a totalitarian state. Before that happens, the government should seriously address the root causes of the problem and not the symptoms: and us citizens who are privileged and who lead comfortable middle-class lives should understand how the majority of India lives.
However, with the current penchant of the powers that be for branding anybody who speaks for the underprivileged as an "Urban Naxal", any hope for a permanent solution to this malady seems remote.
(For those who don't know - a Naxalite or Naxal in India is a Maoist revolutionary, who does not believe in parliamentary democracy. The Maoists are engaged in guerilla warfare against the state, and hope to overthrow the government and establish a communist state, like Mao Zedong did in China.)
Those were the heady days of Naxalism in Kerala, with Varghese, Ajitha, Philip M. Prasad et al hogging the limelight in the short-lived uprising in Wayanad. Though frightening, the concept of waging armed rebellion against the state tickled my adolescent revolutionary fantasies. The leftist in me was slowly growing wings, much to the horror of my centrist mother and right-of-centre father.
However, it was only later that I learnt that the Naxal movement in Kerala was only a blip compared to movements of much larger scale elsewhere in India. Having its genesis in the village of Naxalbari in West Bengal (hence the term Naxalite or Naxal for the revolutionaries), this movement was spread across in India, waxing and waning periodically, in the so-called "Red Corridor" - the area stretching across the states of Bihar, Jharkand, West Bengal, Odisha, Chattisgarh, Telengana, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. Now termed Maoist, these insurgents are seen as the single largest internal security threat to India by the government; and since 2010, a relentless war is being waged against them by the state.
What makes the Maoists tick? Why do these people jump into a life of misery and danger voluntarily, often throwing away comfortable middle class existences? This is the question Rahul Pandita sets out to answer in this book. And he has done a wonderful job.
The official picture of the Maoist is that of a "terrorist", out to destroy democratic India, often with funding from enemy forces. They are painted either as inherently evil purveyors of a violent ideology, or stooges deluded by such people. But Pandita, travelling among them, talking to them and living with them, paints a more balanced, empathetic picture. These are the downtrodden of India, the totally dispossessed, the lowest of the low for whom mere survival is a battle - and the idealists who energise them, exhort them to action, and empower them to dream about an egalitarian world. Their means may be violent and unacceptable; but there is no questioning their sincerity.
The authorities are, of course, unwilling to see the Maoist other than as a "terrorist". This is the opinion P. Chidambaram, India's erstwhile home minister:
He said that the Naxals were ‘simply bandits’. He snubbed those who called for development in this area instead of sending in military forces, branding them Maoist sympathisers. In a Parliament address he called them people ‘who write 33-page articles’, a reference to writer-activist Arundhati Roy who had spent a few days with the Maoist guerillas and written a long
essay in Outlook magazine. It would seem that instead of fighting Maoists, the home minister’s whole energy and that of his aides was directed at hurling diatribes at members of the civil society. Those who went as a part of fact-finding missions to Naxal areas would be targeted and branded as Maoists. That was not all. The government issued a decree that those found to be aiding the Maoists would be dealt with severely and charged under the anti-terror law UAPA (Unlawful Activities Prevention Act). It was like the cowboy doctrine propagated by the former American President George Bush after the 11 September 2001 attack: Either you are with us or against us.
However, after reading the book, one would be excused for thinking that the government is fighting the symptoms rather than the disease. The disease, the elephant in the room that none of the Indian elite wants to see, is the feudal setup of the Indian society and the rampant caste and class discrimination that is the norm even now.
Feudalism is one big factor that contributed to the rise of Naxalism since the beginning. In his jail diary, Naxal ideologue and poet Varavara Rao describes the plight of women working as labourers in the fields of a feudal landlord, Visunuru Deshmukh. Once the women begged him to let them off for a while to enable them to breastfeed their children who lay outside the fields. He is believed to have ordered them to fill a few earthen pots with their milk. Then he snatched away the pots and threw that milk over his fields.
---
The sexual exploitation of Adivasi women was rampant. In Gadchiroli’s Alapalli village, for example, one tehsildar would just walk into a girl’s school, select a girl at his will, drag her into an empty classroom and rape her. In Gadchiroli itself, a forest officer collected one lakh rupees in just three months from impoverished tribals in return for letting them into the forest on which they depended for daily sustenance.
---
Washing clothes like his father, grandfather and great-grandfather did not interest Ram Pravesh Baitha. He wanted to do a little better in life. But he knew his limitations as well. There was no point dreaming about bigger things. Smaller, manageable dreams would do for him, or so he thought. A pucca house, a proper kitchen for his mother, a scooter for himself. For this, Baitha had realised much earlier in his life, he would have to somehow complete his education. And he did. In Bihar’s Madhuban district, however, that a washerman’s son would flaunt his graduation didn’t go well with the upper-caste pride. So, Baitha was summoned and beaten up badly for possessing a Bachelor’s degree. He swallowed that insult. His whole focus was on his dream of a better life. He shifted to another university and completed his Master’s as well. And now, his dream was not far from being realised.
Baitha applied for various jobs like most of his friends did. But while his friends secured jobs, Baitha did not find employment. And he realised soon enough why. Apparently he had got a job and had even been sent an appointment letter. But the upper-caste staff at his village post office did not want him to get that job. They tore the appointment letter and threw it away. Baitha joined the Naxal fold. He rose to become the commander of the north Bihar cadre and was later arrested in May 2008.
This is only a sample. There are countless other examples within the book; or one just needs to read any Indian newspaper. One is guaranteed to find at least one atrocity against the depressed classes every day.
Complaining to the authorities is useless. The policemen and the politicians will side only with the rich and powerful, as exemplified by countless instances. It is into this void, Pandita says, that the Maoists step in.
In the field of education, the Maoists have done a tremendous job. All new recruits who join the Maoist fold, are made literate within a year. In hundreds of mobile and permanent schools run in their base areas, the Maoists educate children through BBC documentaries on science. Other modern educational aids are used as well. Apart from the regular curriculum, classes on political education and general knowledge are also conducted. Currently, the Maoists are working hard to create a curriculum in Gondi language. As mentioned earlier, Gondi has no script. But that has not deterred Maoists from introducing textbooks in Gondi language for primary classes in a few subjects including mathematics and social sciences. These books also contain lessons on hygiene and the ills of superstition. At various places, government teachers are encouraged to take classes regularly. In certain cases in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, even the teacher’s salary and his/her accommodation is being taken care of by the CPI (Maoist). Adult education classes are also run in their villages of influence at times when the villagers are mostly free from their agricultural work.
In the field of health as well, the Maoists often fill in large gaps left by the state. Their mobile medical units cover large distances to offer primary health care to tribals. Most of the guerilla squads have one person trained at a central medical camp. In every village the Maoists choose a few youth to be given basic medical training. It involves identifying common diseases, their symptoms, and then providing medicines for these. Various training camps are held regularly on preventive measures against diseases such as diarrhoea or malaria. The grass-root doctors in the medical squads can administer vaccines, identify a number of diseases through symptoms, and treat injuries that are not severe. Some can even conduct simple blood tests to arrive at a diagnosis. This is a significant advantage in such areas. For instance, on the Maharashtra-Chhattisgarh border, a hospital run by social activist Prakash Amte and his family attracts tribal patients from a radius of 200 km. A number of patients suffering from snake or bear bites or malaria or cholera are often brought on a string cot from afar to be treated at Amte’s hospital. In Chhattisgarh’s Dantewada district, which has a population of 70 lakh, there are only 12 doctors with an MBBS degree. Out of them, nine are either posted at the district hospital or are into administrative jobs.
Where police fail, Maoists execute summary justice too:
The tehsildar in Alapalli who was exploiting schoolgirls was caught by the Naxal guerillas, beaten up and then tied to a tree. Then the women of that area were asked to assemble and instructed to spit at his face. One by one, the women approached him and spat on him. Some of them cried.
---
The above snippets should make it clear that instead of injecting a "poisonous" ideology, Maoists are taking advantage of existing fissures within the Indian society. In fact, most of them appear to be genuinely sincere human beings who believe that armed rebellion and the establishment of a revolutionary state is the only solution to India's woes.
That is not to say that this idea is not dangerous. The outline of the revolutionary plan of the organisation shared in this book should make every thinking Indian pause and take stock. Armed insurgency is dangerous: it is very easy to slip into a bloody civil war and lead to the establishment of a totalitarian state. Before that happens, the government should seriously address the root causes of the problem and not the symptoms: and us citizens who are privileged and who lead comfortable middle-class lives should understand how the majority of India lives.
However, with the current penchant of the powers that be for branding anybody who speaks for the underprivileged as an "Urban Naxal", any hope for a permanent solution to this malady seems remote.
September 16, 2021
Democracy will not come
Today, this year
Nor ever
Through compromise and fear.
As soon as the TV screen blared that the Academy Awards for the best screenplay goes to the film Spotlight, and when there was adulation and praises for the work of Journalists and how important they are for the society, my mind raced up to remember none other than our own Rahul Pandita and Samanth Subramaniam. Ironical it is, I concede, that an elite west world's award function for entertainers should make me remember these journalists whose works usually revolve around the war zones, downtrodden, government and religious oppression, and almost all those topics which do not get covered in the cacophony of the mainstream 'The Nation wants to know' media.
Rahul Pandita is one those rare journalists who is courageous enough to plunge down to the ground level reality and brings us an honest account of what happens to that part of India which we have comfortably failed to notice. I greatly loved his Our moon has Blood Clots because it brought me closer to Kashmir without making it appear so bloody. It shook me. Made me go angry, yet brought me sanity. This work, Hello Bastar, is carefully written and well researched. It took away some sleep, gave me tremors, and in the end, exposed me to the true colors of my country.
Readings on Maoists or Naxalites is not completely new to me. I have always been following and reading magazines and newspapers which throw regular updates on what happens in the Red Corridor. Political discourses never go without mentioning the armed tension which happens at the very centre of India. Each and every discussion on how important Economic development to India always adds that the failure to uplift our masses economically would certainly contribute to more agitation, violence and anger. Having said that, Hello Bastar brings a new perspective by providing the almost humane side and necessity of the revolution. It begins with a cursory history of what prompted the Comrades to take up arms. It adds an authentic why, what and how.
I have as much right
As the other fellow has
To stand
On my two feet
And own the land.
When India got Independence, the then government ushered in great many land reforms that abolished the Zamindari system. Ambedkar was one of the loudest voices who proposed to bring a complete reform in the land laws. Although the letters of the law was complied, the ground level remained unchanged. The Congress party has to be blamed for it once again. It greatly depended on the Zamindars and land owners for funding and also for party cadre mobilization (an important reason for why the agricultural income still remains beyond the purview of taxation in India). Since, our economy remained close for a long time and failed to provide an alternative means of employment, the labourers and downtrodden continued to work under the land owners, all for a pitiance. The labourers and workers were made to work for long hours without a decent pay. Much worse, their women were raped; lands confiscated; and their produce were bought for a paltry sum. To add to their woes, the government officials contributed to another form of oppression.
For almost any oppression by those in power, there is always an equal reaction from the masses. Those in power are always too blind to realize it. History always repeats as a farce with a smirk. The Maoists brought an organized force to the downtrodden. They mobilized them. Brought them awareness. They told them that they are not alone and their fate doesn't has to be rescinded to hopelessness. As Rahul Pandita rightly says, it brought them an identity. A voice.
Take away the veneer of revolution, all the people want is a decent life with the basic needs met. They need their land and home untouched. All they require is the basic education , health care and a decent employment with a decent pay (Read As primary education, primary health care and a minimum wage employment). The Maoists are filling the void which is created by the state. The enemy of the Indian state, in most cases, is the Indian state itself. It is quite astonishing to read how organized and planned the Maoists work underground. They have their own Constitution, hierarchy of powers and a planned strategy. They bring education and assures the tribals a safety net from the oppression of the government officials. To be precise, they connect the tribals to civilization.
There had been talks between Maoists and the State which invaribly failed. Consider this: The CM Chandra Babu Naidu pooh-poohed the sane suggestion of a bureaucrat to redistribute land to the poor, because he just cannot irk his own friends who hold more than thousand acres of land. And, every tactics of the government to quell down is just plainly naive without understanding the needs and psyche of those who rebel.
I do not want to blame the State alone for the violence unleashed. The Maoists are equally brutal. Rahul Pandita fails to cover this part (another a reason why some critics has considered that this book is lopsided) and he even goes on to justify the violence on the part of the Maoists. To know this part of the truth I am quoting the words of the famous historian Ramachandra Guha*,
I knew beforehand that the Maoists were no Gandhians, but it took a conversation with a Muria tribal to see them in clearer light. This man, a first-generation graduate and former school-teacher who had been rendered homeless by the civil war, explained to me how behind the macho image of an armed revolutionary lay a man who lacked any moral courage whatsoever. His words ring in my ears still—he said, in Hindi, “Naxaliyon ko himmat nahin hai ki woh hathiyaaron ko gaon ke bahar chhod ke hamare beech mein aake behas karein (the Naxalites do not have the guts to leave their weapons outside our village and then come and have a discussion with us)."
Despite his machismo and certitude, the Maoist was actually so fearful of his own self that he dared not engage in democratic debate—even with poor and unarmed villagers. If he really had confidence in his beliefs, why would he seek in the first instance to enforce them at the point of a gun?
Also, there have been instances of attacks by Maoists on schools, panchayat leaders (who are good and work for the community), and in one case, they have even blowed a bus with civilians in it. None of this is addressed by the author.
Yet, I can honestly say that Rahul Pandita has made every effort to give a complete picture of the red comrades. His portrait of Anuradha Gandy is heart rendering. That he has reached almost every segment of the Maoism is commendable. The afterword by Kobad Ghandy brought out how well-read and well-informed the Maoists leaders are than our own elected leaders of democracy. Have the state learnt anything from the armed rising? The answer must in negative. The present government has only made stern in its enforcements, materially and in human resource, to Salva Judum. And, worse, it continues to oppress the tribals and their rights silently (This one incident is just an example: Dated February 18, 2016. http://www.business-standard.com/arti... ).
I tire so of hearing people say,
Let things take their course.
Tomorrow is another day.
I do not need my freedom when I'm dead.
I cannot live on tomorrow's bread.
Freedom
Is a strong seed
Planted
In a great need.
I live here, too.
I want freedom
Just as you.
It is quite easy to erase a particular tribe or class. History has evidences for it, especially when the State is strong and the democracy remains delusional. But, it also shows, that one can never obliterate an idea. It always and always sprouts again.
When the land which gave birth to Mao has itself forsaked him, it is better for the comrades to move to the democratic participation. The first step should be from the government. It is said that Sunlight is the best disinfectant. The whole issues and threats of what plagues both State and the Maoists should be brought to light for an open discussion. It should be brought for a sane discussion among the masses without vindicating or vilifying any party. This book does that. And, it is in this respect, it is very important.
Highly Recommended!
----------------------------
Notes: *Ramachandra Guha's quote is from this article published in Outlook http://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/...
** The poem is titled 'Democracy' and written by Langston Hughes
July 29, 2016
“At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality.” ~Ernesto Che Guevara
I belong to that generation who grew up on social studies text books teaching us Naxalism is one of the major devils India is dealing with, social media yelling how Naxalism is major internal security threat & reason for fall of country's economy, Tubes showing the atrocities committed by Naxal personnel. And for generations all these institutions succeeded in portraying Naxalism as an epidemic or a leper to a developing nation like India, and needs to be eradicated sequentially.
But it's not long before there grows a media to investigate it or at least to seek answers for basic questions like “why” and “How”, if not to expose the truth to the whole world. The deeper they dig, the more the secrets are revealed. Secrets which are in their fuller and more sensual form than what this government tried to dub as a freak show for decades. Secrets which are far reachable to be grasped by these civilized world full of materialistic minds. One such curious investigation into the dark secretive life of Naxal movement is Rahul Pandita’s ‘Hello Bastar’, whose account is not based on secondary sources but the findings of author’s direct interaction with ever mobilizing Mao brothers.
Book explores the past, the present and the future of the Maoist movement, but mainly revolves around the Bastar event. It relates the brief history of how it all started, then their major achievements which juggles between assassinating top notch politicos to bettering tribal lives. Then finally rounds off with specifying Maoists’ future agendas (Which sounded pretty unrealistic to me as they hope to dethrone the leaders and handicap the industries. An armed struggle into cities). My only complaint remains with the book is author trying to fill lastfew many pages with unimportant names and cadres or with documents and codes of Naxals, which should have been very crisp for this already small book. Barring that information just flows.
There is this one chapter which was wholly dedicated to UK return Indian citizen turned comrade Anuradha Gandy (married to another radical Kobad Gandy) who left her materialistic life only to penetrate into deepest of jungles, adopt anunimaginable humble lifestyle to become part of the revolution by rising herself into a powerful comrade to empower women who are treated lesser than animals by Landlords, to educate underprivileged youths and to bring an identity to whole of the wiped-off from map society.
If these are the reflections of the teachings of Chinese revolutionary Mao Zedong upon which Mao revolution principles are heavily influenced, at individual level, making it a small movement then transforming into a Revolution, then maybe it’s time, Government stop trying to resist this movement and join hands with them in improving the lives of people who are suppressed for more than 50 years.
“There is no other definition of socialism valid for us than that of the abolition of the exploitation of man by man.” ~Ernesto Che Guevara
I belong to that generation who grew up on social studies text books teaching us Naxalism is one of the major devils India is dealing with, social media yelling how Naxalism is major internal security threat & reason for fall of country's economy, Tubes showing the atrocities committed by Naxal personnel. And for generations all these institutions succeeded in portraying Naxalism as an epidemic or a leper to a developing nation like India, and needs to be eradicated sequentially.
But it's not long before there grows a media to investigate it or at least to seek answers for basic questions like “why” and “How”, if not to expose the truth to the whole world. The deeper they dig, the more the secrets are revealed. Secrets which are in their fuller and more sensual form than what this government tried to dub as a freak show for decades. Secrets which are far reachable to be grasped by these civilized world full of materialistic minds. One such curious investigation into the dark secretive life of Naxal movement is Rahul Pandita’s ‘Hello Bastar’, whose account is not based on secondary sources but the findings of author’s direct interaction with ever mobilizing Mao brothers.
Book explores the past, the present and the future of the Maoist movement, but mainly revolves around the Bastar event. It relates the brief history of how it all started, then their major achievements which juggles between assassinating top notch politicos to bettering tribal lives. Then finally rounds off with specifying Maoists’ future agendas (Which sounded pretty unrealistic to me as they hope to dethrone the leaders and handicap the industries. An armed struggle into cities). My only complaint remains with the book is author trying to fill last
There is this one chapter which was wholly dedicated to UK return Indian citizen turned comrade Anuradha Gandy (married to another radical Kobad Gandy) who left her materialistic life only to penetrate into deepest of jungles, adopt an
If these are the reflections of the teachings of Chinese revolutionary Mao Zedong upon which Mao revolution principles are heavily influenced, at individual level, making it a small movement then transforming into a Revolution, then maybe it’s time, Government stop trying to resist this movement and join hands with them in improving the lives of people who are suppressed for more than 50 years.
“There is no other definition of socialism valid for us than that of the abolition of the exploitation of man by man.” ~Ernesto Che Guevara
September 27, 2015
Be it true or false, what is said about men often has as much influence upon their lives, and especially upon their destinies, as what they do.
~ Victor Hugo
For most of us, urban white-collar Indians, who would like jump into conclusions with the information received primarily from television media, Maoists are nothing but barbaric terrorists, who kill because…because….who cares? The bottom-line is they kill and killing done anyone other than the elected government is unacceptable in a civilized society. The Maoist problem should be dealt with an uncompromising stand of drop-your-weapons-and-surrender. And moreover the Maoist sympathizers likes of the Sens, the Roys, the Choudhurys etc should be dealt with same iron hand as we deal with any other terrorists.
And then when you read a little bit about the history - about how this movement started, why they kill, what do they want, how do so many people get into their fold, etc - which this books does an honest attempt to illustrate in an un-biased tone of a research journalist, then your shattered beliefs and sympathetic heart would cry out some utopian solutions like - "oh! Government should provide their due share of development to these repressed, exploited section of people, they should have their representatives in the parliament, they should be somehow brought into the mainstream, etc"
If only, the problems could have had easy solutions……
May 8, 2014
Extremely biased book.
What I admire about Rahul Pandita are two things - one, that he takes incredible efforts to reach the grass root and conduct first-hand research. This is no arm-chair journalist. Two, he discusses real-world problems.
The problem with this book is that it provides a single narrative, and an oversimplification, of Naxalism in India. The problem is not so simple, and Naxalites are far from being the benevolent, if righteously vengeful activists that Mr. Pandita showcases them to be.
For a detailed opinion on Naxalism, check out http://theother10.blogspot.in/2014/05...
All-in-all, a disappointment in many ways, and a success in others.
Personally, found his "Our Moon Has Blood Clots" to be much better.
What I admire about Rahul Pandita are two things - one, that he takes incredible efforts to reach the grass root and conduct first-hand research. This is no arm-chair journalist. Two, he discusses real-world problems.
The problem with this book is that it provides a single narrative, and an oversimplification, of Naxalism in India. The problem is not so simple, and Naxalites are far from being the benevolent, if righteously vengeful activists that Mr. Pandita showcases them to be.
For a detailed opinion on Naxalism, check out http://theother10.blogspot.in/2014/05...
All-in-all, a disappointment in many ways, and a success in others.
Personally, found his "Our Moon Has Blood Clots" to be much better.
November 15, 2015
A book with confused narration, 'Hello, Bastar' tries hard to inform and educate the readers, and create awareness about the causes for the sufferings of tribals and backward people which resulted in the current Naxalite movement. But Sadly it fails miserably in informing and involving the readers about the whole history of Naxalite movement. It is almost certain by the views presented in the book that the author has soft feelings for the Maoist camp. And for many reasons one should have sympathetic feelings for the cause for which the whole movement was started. But after few pages you will realize that author is not just sympathetic but sort of fascinated by Maoists to an extent.
One has to admire the efforts and long duration of hard work put in by Rahul Pandita for the research work. Even the language is lucid and gripping. But the thing lacking is the proper presentation and the content. For example, the most frustrating part of the book was the chapter dedicated to Anuradha and Kobad Gandhy. I understand that she must be a brave lady having an amazing ground work done, but when I want to read about the Naxalites then it should be about the whole movement which is now three decades old. Such movements need a careful and detailed presentation of the issues and its corollaries, not an elongated version of a love story.
Further, reader is forced to go through endless names of various movements and places, and the committees to handle the situations with their abbreviated or acronyms. And the worst part was that many stories of same pattern with no connection of incidents were described on the same note and in continuity. The poor presentation of geographic details adds to the misery of a reader. Most of the time it was hard to keep the track of the area being discussed as it was just stated that 'on the border of so and so states'. I believe if a proper map with the timeline and the areas marked on it would have been provided in initial pages then it would have been a better work to read.
Author needs to be commended for his heroic efforts but also have to be told that this book missed few crucial aspects. As far as I know, Naxalite movement is a very complex set of situation. It needs a thorough and detailed explanation. And of course, we need to be more careful as to see whether we are tilting toward a particular side more than other. This book may be suffering from this phenomenon.
One has to admire the efforts and long duration of hard work put in by Rahul Pandita for the research work. Even the language is lucid and gripping. But the thing lacking is the proper presentation and the content. For example, the most frustrating part of the book was the chapter dedicated to Anuradha and Kobad Gandhy. I understand that she must be a brave lady having an amazing ground work done, but when I want to read about the Naxalites then it should be about the whole movement which is now three decades old. Such movements need a careful and detailed presentation of the issues and its corollaries, not an elongated version of a love story.
Further, reader is forced to go through endless names of various movements and places, and the committees to handle the situations with their abbreviated or acronyms. And the worst part was that many stories of same pattern with no connection of incidents were described on the same note and in continuity. The poor presentation of geographic details adds to the misery of a reader. Most of the time it was hard to keep the track of the area being discussed as it was just stated that 'on the border of so and so states'. I believe if a proper map with the timeline and the areas marked on it would have been provided in initial pages then it would have been a better work to read.
Author needs to be commended for his heroic efforts but also have to be told that this book missed few crucial aspects. As far as I know, Naxalite movement is a very complex set of situation. It needs a thorough and detailed explanation. And of course, we need to be more careful as to see whether we are tilting toward a particular side more than other. This book may be suffering from this phenomenon.
April 6, 2016
A thought provoking first hand narration of "happenings" in the "failed" regions of the country. The author has taken pains to traverse the region personally and speak to the people on the ground. Hence, it is difficult to challenge the authenticity of what has been stated even though one may not totally agree with the rationale and justification for the path taken by those that are disgruntled with the state. This path has not worked anywhere in the world, including China where true development happened only after the death of Mao and gradual erosion of the ideology he espoused.
March 19, 2015
"Hello, Bastar", as strange as it may sound has got nothing to do with Bastar at all. It is the chilling, blood-curdling story of the rise of India's biggest internal security threat ever. But only a 'threat' is what they are.
The author captivatingly winds his story around the exploitation, neglect, suffering and heart-wrenching misery that the tribals and rural landless peasants face. His is an olympian effort to generate sympathy in us for their cause. And he is definitely successful at that too. It sure is easy enough to get swayed by the opinion of the author you are reading.
But stop and think. And you realize how foolish and logically incoherent their agenda is. Sure they suffer. So they pick up arms against the most visible and easily perceived villain, the big landowners. The landowners owing to their instinct of self-preservation, seek the legal support of the government. The 'People' direct their wrath on the government instead and the government on them. It's a vicious cycle is what it is. Whom can you blame? Whom can you fault? Can you ever justify war? Does a 'just war' even exist?
A captivating book but a communist sympathizer at that.
The author captivatingly winds his story around the exploitation, neglect, suffering and heart-wrenching misery that the tribals and rural landless peasants face. His is an olympian effort to generate sympathy in us for their cause. And he is definitely successful at that too. It sure is easy enough to get swayed by the opinion of the author you are reading.
But stop and think. And you realize how foolish and logically incoherent their agenda is. Sure they suffer. So they pick up arms against the most visible and easily perceived villain, the big landowners. The landowners owing to their instinct of self-preservation, seek the legal support of the government. The 'People' direct their wrath on the government instead and the government on them. It's a vicious cycle is what it is. Whom can you blame? Whom can you fault? Can you ever justify war? Does a 'just war' even exist?
A captivating book but a communist sympathizer at that.
September 25, 2015
A concise, historical and romanticised account of the Maoist movement in India. I loved the sections on Anuradha Ghandy. She's a truly inspirational figure. Kobad Ghandy's afterword provides an excellent summary of the "development" in India.
The author here touches a very important point. For the Adivasi's, Naxalism is not just politics but is the only way of casting off their animal status for a human one. The party and the uniform gives them dignity and a sense of purpose.
The author here touches a very important point. For the Adivasi's, Naxalism is not just politics but is the only way of casting off their animal status for a human one. The party and the uniform gives them dignity and a sense of purpose.
September 24, 2014
I am an author and for my next book, I wanted to research Naxalism in India. This is the first book I read on the topic and I must admit, it has left me angry and fuming. It is difficult to imagine the hardships that our people have suffered, and are still suffering, in the name of caste and bias. Being from a higher caste and being born and brought up in a city, I used to think that nobody cares for what caste you belong to these days. I would help poor and old without asking what caste they belonged to. If I was thirsty or saw someone thirsty or hungry, I would give them water/food or take water/food from someone without asking the caste of that person. I thought that our government was propagating the caste structure by imposing caste-based reservations all over the country, especially Maharashtra, and I firmly believed that people should be given jobs and promotions based on their quality of work and their caliber alone. But after reading this book, I realize that job reservations are necessary in India, only not in the cities, but in small towns and villages. There's an incident mentioned in this book where a villager from lower caste completed graduation and got beaten by the higher caste villagers for studying more than them. He then completed Masters and cleared a job interview, but the village Post officials tore his Appointment Letter up because they couldn't bear to see a lower caste boy securing a nice job in the city. And the boy's only dream was to earn enough to build a kitchen for his mother and purchase a two-wheeler for himself. Such a small dream, yet denied by the society. How could the human race show so much compassion and at the same time so much cruelty, is beyond me.
The Indian government has neglected certain parts of our country since before independence to this date (!!) and yet, expect the peasants to die without attempting a fight for survival. Can any of you readers imagine a person earning a meager Rs. 1 in exchange for 100 bamboo shoots to be cut, packed & transported, which takes the Adiwasis a whole day? And what do they eat to draw strength for such hard physical labour? They put 3 or 4 grains of rice in a 'matka' full of water and boil it throughout the night. Whatever broth is formed in the morning, the whole family consumes that and they set out for another back-breaking labour of the day. Even businessmen have turned into leeches when they realized the Adiwasis weren't educated and weren't connected in any way to civilization - they would give 1 kg of SALT in exchange for 1 kg of DRY FRUITS!! Imagine the profits and then imagine the injustice.
Those poor creatures would clear some land and try to do farming, while the forest officers would arrive with tractors at harvest time and threaten that they would raze the field unless those Adiwasis paid them a hefty amount of money or gave them two thirds of their farm produce, or sent their wives and daughters for their entertainment. How can a person survive like this?
After reading this book, I realized that even the media personals sympathize with these so called Naxalite rebels because they understand these poor people are fighting for nothing but survival - which should actually be their birth right! We say India is a democracy; everyone has the right to speak, but what's the use if nobody listens? A country where everyone has the right to speak, there is a massive chunk of us who don't even have the right to survive!! It is NOW that I realize why Somalians have turned to dacoity and armed struggle. As I always say: 'The most dangerous person in the world is the one who not only knows his own hunger, but the hunger of his kids.' If the world community wants to reduce crime and danger to their lives, they only need to feed the hungry. Btw, hungry can't be fed by you striving to NOT waste food and stuff yourself with whatever comes on your plate. That's the recipe to obesity, not feeding the hungry. If the world really wants to feed the hungry, then stop stuffing yourself and make an effort to 'distribute' the food to the people who really need feeding. Like, for example, for the Kashmir flood victims, the Golden Temple is making a 'langar' (free food service) for one lakh people on a daily basis, which is being air-lifted by Indian Air Force helicopters and distributed to the needy. Only stopping the wastage isn't enough; correct distribution of food is the need of the time.
I would have given a five star rating to this book, but the narration needs a bit of improvement - the timelines aren't clear and in a few places, you feel like reading a newsflash (different incidents, not related to each other, are mentioned in one sentence after another in the same paragraph). This means that the author's thoughts or pieces of information/facts need to be grouped logically into paragraphs, which sometimes is not seen and the reader tends to get confused because of that. There are also some grammatical mistakes and comma use mistakes throughout the book. Otherwise, the book served the purpose for me for now.
P.S: It is said that whoever sympathizes with the Naxals, the government (especially under Chidambaram as Home Minister) brands them as either Naxals themselves or Naxal-sympathizers and punishes them for speaking up. I only want to say that I cannot be a Naxal because I'm from a higher caste, but I am a strong advocate of moral justice. I am a humanitarian and even though different societies have different laws, I stand by what is 'right', not what is written or believed or practiced.
The Indian government has neglected certain parts of our country since before independence to this date (!!) and yet, expect the peasants to die without attempting a fight for survival. Can any of you readers imagine a person earning a meager Rs. 1 in exchange for 100 bamboo shoots to be cut, packed & transported, which takes the Adiwasis a whole day? And what do they eat to draw strength for such hard physical labour? They put 3 or 4 grains of rice in a 'matka' full of water and boil it throughout the night. Whatever broth is formed in the morning, the whole family consumes that and they set out for another back-breaking labour of the day. Even businessmen have turned into leeches when they realized the Adiwasis weren't educated and weren't connected in any way to civilization - they would give 1 kg of SALT in exchange for 1 kg of DRY FRUITS!! Imagine the profits and then imagine the injustice.
Those poor creatures would clear some land and try to do farming, while the forest officers would arrive with tractors at harvest time and threaten that they would raze the field unless those Adiwasis paid them a hefty amount of money or gave them two thirds of their farm produce, or sent their wives and daughters for their entertainment. How can a person survive like this?
After reading this book, I realized that even the media personals sympathize with these so called Naxalite rebels because they understand these poor people are fighting for nothing but survival - which should actually be their birth right! We say India is a democracy; everyone has the right to speak, but what's the use if nobody listens? A country where everyone has the right to speak, there is a massive chunk of us who don't even have the right to survive!! It is NOW that I realize why Somalians have turned to dacoity and armed struggle. As I always say: 'The most dangerous person in the world is the one who not only knows his own hunger, but the hunger of his kids.' If the world community wants to reduce crime and danger to their lives, they only need to feed the hungry. Btw, hungry can't be fed by you striving to NOT waste food and stuff yourself with whatever comes on your plate. That's the recipe to obesity, not feeding the hungry. If the world really wants to feed the hungry, then stop stuffing yourself and make an effort to 'distribute' the food to the people who really need feeding. Like, for example, for the Kashmir flood victims, the Golden Temple is making a 'langar' (free food service) for one lakh people on a daily basis, which is being air-lifted by Indian Air Force helicopters and distributed to the needy. Only stopping the wastage isn't enough; correct distribution of food is the need of the time.
I would have given a five star rating to this book, but the narration needs a bit of improvement - the timelines aren't clear and in a few places, you feel like reading a newsflash (different incidents, not related to each other, are mentioned in one sentence after another in the same paragraph). This means that the author's thoughts or pieces of information/facts need to be grouped logically into paragraphs, which sometimes is not seen and the reader tends to get confused because of that. There are also some grammatical mistakes and comma use mistakes throughout the book. Otherwise, the book served the purpose for me for now.
P.S: It is said that whoever sympathizes with the Naxals, the government (especially under Chidambaram as Home Minister) brands them as either Naxals themselves or Naxal-sympathizers and punishes them for speaking up. I only want to say that I cannot be a Naxal because I'm from a higher caste, but I am a strong advocate of moral justice. I am a humanitarian and even though different societies have different laws, I stand by what is 'right', not what is written or believed or practiced.
December 8, 2022
Couple of years ago I read Rahul Pandita’s Our Moon Has Blood Clots and it has remained one of my top non fiction books since then. When @penguinindia sent across Hello, Bastar, I jumped at the chance to read and review it. Much like the former book, this one too has been researched extensively and it shows. As much as I liked this one, I do admit that this book probably wouldn’t work for everyone. But if you do want to know about the birth of Maoism and the slow yet inevitable rise of it, this is probably the best book to learn from.
Rahul Pandita writes crisply and this is what I enjoy most about his books. He introduces the biggest names responsible for the evolution of Maoism and where they derived inspiration from. It’s no secret that India has a severe imbalance of the rich and the poor. The poor keep getting poorer and the rich keep getting richer. Landlords for years have been abusing bonded labourers or tribals for their own benefit and over time they have begun to fight back. Maoism has undoubtedly helped these communities by taking justice into their own hands rather than leaving it up to the judicial system. Because as it so often happens, history has shown how they side eventually with the powerful.
The trials and tribulations of being part of the Maoist community is well known. They don’t have a home of their own and are on constant move, with the risk of being arrested or worse, of being executed. There’s bloodshed on both sides. The government and the Maoists have hands dripping with blood.
I read this book slowly and understood the reason behind their fierce actions. It’s always conflicting to side with either of them but I do understand what Rahul Pandita tries to say through this book. Imagine to what extent did they have to suffer to take guns into their own hands?
Thanks for the copy @penguinindia 🙌🏼
Rahul Pandita writes crisply and this is what I enjoy most about his books. He introduces the biggest names responsible for the evolution of Maoism and where they derived inspiration from. It’s no secret that India has a severe imbalance of the rich and the poor. The poor keep getting poorer and the rich keep getting richer. Landlords for years have been abusing bonded labourers or tribals for their own benefit and over time they have begun to fight back. Maoism has undoubtedly helped these communities by taking justice into their own hands rather than leaving it up to the judicial system. Because as it so often happens, history has shown how they side eventually with the powerful.
The trials and tribulations of being part of the Maoist community is well known. They don’t have a home of their own and are on constant move, with the risk of being arrested or worse, of being executed. There’s bloodshed on both sides. The government and the Maoists have hands dripping with blood.
I read this book slowly and understood the reason behind their fierce actions. It’s always conflicting to side with either of them but I do understand what Rahul Pandita tries to say through this book. Imagine to what extent did they have to suffer to take guns into their own hands?
Thanks for the copy @penguinindia 🙌🏼
May 21, 2015
A compelling summary of events that fostered Maoism to spread its footprints across India - from Naxalbari regions to its current stronghold Bastar. It also speaks extensively on the origins and working methodologies of various underground and overground Maoist organisations. The author handles the violence issue from a neutral stance by both mentioning all attacks and counterattacks by Naxalites and the State as well as ensuring not to over-emphasize on atrocities against tribals.
A entire chapter has been dedicated to the life of Comrade (or Naxalite?) Anuradha Ghandy. It also leaves you in apprehensions by talking about the urban agenda of Maoist and how it may be too late?
Nevertheless it makes you think about the big question to look for ways to solve Naxalism! The question of developing the country and its people. The Maoist have one method as reflected in their policies and elaborated in this book while the government has another, seen in their economic and political policies over the past years.
In the end, you couldn't agree more with the comments of government economic survey in 2009-2010, "A nation interested in inclusive growth views the same growth indifferently depending on whether the gains of the growth are heaped primarily on a small segment or shared widely by the population. The latter is the cause for celebration but not the former. Growth must not be treated as an end in itself but as an instrument of spreading prosperity to all"
A entire chapter has been dedicated to the life of Comrade (or Naxalite?) Anuradha Ghandy. It also leaves you in apprehensions by talking about the urban agenda of Maoist and how it may be too late?
Nevertheless it makes you think about the big question to look for ways to solve Naxalism! The question of developing the country and its people. The Maoist have one method as reflected in their policies and elaborated in this book while the government has another, seen in their economic and political policies over the past years.
In the end, you couldn't agree more with the comments of government economic survey in 2009-2010, "A nation interested in inclusive growth views the same growth indifferently depending on whether the gains of the growth are heaped primarily on a small segment or shared widely by the population. The latter is the cause for celebration but not the former. Growth must not be treated as an end in itself but as an instrument of spreading prosperity to all"
November 14, 2020
This is a very hard-hitting read.
The best thing about this book is that the author did not just research the topic but also spent considerable time with Maoists in their own bastion.
If words like Maoists, Naxalites, ULFA seem alien to you and you are curious to explore then this book can be a good start for you.
The reason this book hits harder than the other books is that it quantifies the plight of India's poorer section. The abysmal wages paid to the workers and the amount of exploitation inflicted even in today's time makes you question your own situation in society.
Pandita also tries to link casteism along with the peasantry, which makes sense in a lot of scenarios.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is a responsible citizen of our country.
The best thing about this book is that the author did not just research the topic but also spent considerable time with Maoists in their own bastion.
If words like Maoists, Naxalites, ULFA seem alien to you and you are curious to explore then this book can be a good start for you.
The reason this book hits harder than the other books is that it quantifies the plight of India's poorer section. The abysmal wages paid to the workers and the amount of exploitation inflicted even in today's time makes you question your own situation in society.
Pandita also tries to link casteism along with the peasantry, which makes sense in a lot of scenarios.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is a responsible citizen of our country.
December 13, 2014
If you want to know about the recent developments of the naxalite movement in India, this is the book to pick up. A very well researched book with a neutral perspective, not guiding you to take a stand. The reader will be provided with the condition of the naxalites, their activities, their ideologies, the people they claim to represent, the problem faced by the naxals and the state alike and it will be left to him to decide on his own the stand he wish to take. The forward written by Kobad Ghandy beautifully summarizes the entire concept which motivated the maoist movement in the country.
September 6, 2017
The book provides an in-depth look into the Naxalite/Maoist movement in the heartlands of India, a persistent and explosive situation which has been simmering as a result of decades of social injustice, policy paralysis, creation of a power vacuum, ignorance and politics. The book goes into the history of the movement, how it began, the factors which have led to its widespread virulent distribution, the nature of the violence, their core beliefs and their goals. The book is well researched and kudos to the author for spending time with the naxalites in their camps to get their perspective on the whole issue.
One cannot disregard the prevailing conditions that have led to the insurgence of of Naxalite problem. It is a product of age old social injustices like the caste system, the disregard towards the poor and the tribals, power wielding feudalism, crony capitalism, rampant corruption, greed, lack of empathy and a variety of other reasons that have alienated a big chunk of the population, the most deprived and the most repressed who have taking up to guerrilla warfare and rebellion to take back what they believe is rightfully theirs. Violence, they believe, is the way to bring about revolution, one which they believe will ensure will lead to a definite and strong proletariat and a community Utopia.
The flaws in their belief are plenty, but there is some idealism in their intentions too. The stress on the elimination of discrimination, the emphasis on education, social and economic equality, gender parity and other sociological changes towards the positive.
The book reflects on the nature of the strife, where opposite ideologies interact and leads to a lot for bloodshed. There are a huge number of innocents who are trapped in this turmoil and see no way out of it. The cases of rampant human right abuses, sexual exploitation, encounter killings and executions of innocents and accused alike does not make things any easier. The book paints a gruesome,but realistic picture that depicts the nature and scale of the potent threat that our nation faces. There have been attempts made at the policy and the ground level but the problems plaguing the country like corruption and power abuse makes very little change at the ground level.
The book is a good way to understand the naxal movement as a grassroots movements in which the people who have bore the brunt of decades of atrocities and abuse have been primed to imbibe and be massively influenced by the communist-maoist ideology that was at the heart of the Chinese peasant uprising and the revolution. The book charters the life and fate of some of the biggest names and personalities of the movement, the difference in their approach to the problems, their propensity towards violent means and their eventual fate.
The writing in the book is nothing superlative, but it is well researched and lucidly written, a good starting point for more in-depth reading in the future.
One cannot disregard the prevailing conditions that have led to the insurgence of of Naxalite problem. It is a product of age old social injustices like the caste system, the disregard towards the poor and the tribals, power wielding feudalism, crony capitalism, rampant corruption, greed, lack of empathy and a variety of other reasons that have alienated a big chunk of the population, the most deprived and the most repressed who have taking up to guerrilla warfare and rebellion to take back what they believe is rightfully theirs. Violence, they believe, is the way to bring about revolution, one which they believe will ensure will lead to a definite and strong proletariat and a community Utopia.
The flaws in their belief are plenty, but there is some idealism in their intentions too. The stress on the elimination of discrimination, the emphasis on education, social and economic equality, gender parity and other sociological changes towards the positive.
The book reflects on the nature of the strife, where opposite ideologies interact and leads to a lot for bloodshed. There are a huge number of innocents who are trapped in this turmoil and see no way out of it. The cases of rampant human right abuses, sexual exploitation, encounter killings and executions of innocents and accused alike does not make things any easier. The book paints a gruesome,but realistic picture that depicts the nature and scale of the potent threat that our nation faces. There have been attempts made at the policy and the ground level but the problems plaguing the country like corruption and power abuse makes very little change at the ground level.
The book is a good way to understand the naxal movement as a grassroots movements in which the people who have bore the brunt of decades of atrocities and abuse have been primed to imbibe and be massively influenced by the communist-maoist ideology that was at the heart of the Chinese peasant uprising and the revolution. The book charters the life and fate of some of the biggest names and personalities of the movement, the difference in their approach to the problems, their propensity towards violent means and their eventual fate.
The writing in the book is nothing superlative, but it is well researched and lucidly written, a good starting point for more in-depth reading in the future.
July 13, 2015
It's thousands of years old
their anger
thousands of years old
is their bitterness
I am only returning their scattered words
with rhyme and rhythm
and you fear that
I am spreading fire.
-- Gorakh Pandey (Revolutionary Poet)
In a lecture to the Bombay Chamber of Commerce in 2008, then honorary economic adviser to Prime Minister ManMohan Singh, Dr. Raghuram Rajan - who is now the governor of the Reserve Bank of India - said some words which can be considered mundane or prescient, depending on how it is viewed. He said that Indian political and in extension, social structure, is against the poor.
http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/raghu...
"Let me explain. Our entire bureaucratic system of provision of public goods is biased
against access by the poor. Ration shops do not supply what is due, even if one has a ration card,
teachers do not show up at schools to teach, the police do not register crimes, or encroachments,
especially by the rich and powerful, public hospitals are not staffed, public sector banks do not
want to lend…I can go on, but you get the picture. This is where the local politician fits in. While
the poor do not have the money to purchase services that are their right, or to bribe the public
servant, they have a vote that the politician wants. The politician does a little bit to make life a
little more tolerable for his poor constituents – a government job here, an FIR registered there, a
land right honored somewhere else. For this, he gets the gratitude of his voters. But he then also
has little reason to improve their lot – because the local politician in India today owes his reelection
to the totally corrupt and compromised system of delivery of public goods, and the paucity of reliable
jobs, especially for the very poor.
And the system is self-sustaining. An idealist can promise to change the system, but the
voters know there is little one person can do. Moreover, who will provide the patronage while
the idealist is fighting the system? Why not stay with the devil you know…Of course, for those
who are truly disillusioned with the system, violence offers an alternative path. The growth of
Naxalites that the prime minister has warned about is only more evidence of the total breakdown
of the delivery of public goods to the poor. "
He went on to warn that if not checked, India can turn into what modern day Russia is. An oligarchy. He noted that compared to the tiny, tiny GDP that India has, the no of billionaires is alarming. To top that, those billionaires are not computer whizs like Gates, Jobs, Ellison or Zuckerberg.
"You might think these are the software billionaires. But there are not that many among
India’s billionaires. Indeed, three factors – land, natural resources, and government contracts or
licenses – are the predominant sources of the wealth of our billionaires. And all of these factors
come from the government. "
...
" Reforms have created new sources of
rents for the establishment, as the political scientist, Ashtosh Varshney argues: Scarce national
resources like forests, coal, and minerals can be allocated. Land can be expropriated from those
who do not have connections or formal title, converted to industrial use and allocated. Public
land can always be disposed off to favored parties. Contracts can be assigned to chosen friends
despite a sham of public bidding. In all this, the public exchequer is defrauded, while the rents
are shared between the politician and the corrupt businessman".
And in this void, in this gaping void between two India, what Arundhati Roy describes as 'Two vans full of people, one going towards the light, the glitz and one going towards the dark, the gloom' - there is discordance, disenfranchisement and disillusionment. There is a large swathe of territory, where Indian politics does not and cannot enter. In fact, it doesn't care to enter.
According to Global Hunger Index of 2014,
India is in serious danger
According to Human Development Index Trends of 2014, India is at 135, at the lower section of Medium Human Development countries - table 2 of the spradsheet available at http://hdr.undp.org/en/data
According to Multidimensional Poverty Index of 2014, 27.8% of the entire Indian population lives with extreme poverty - table 6 f the spradsheet available at http://hdr.undp.org/en/data
It is very hard to imagine that these people, living in extreme poverty, extreme social deprivation, extreme oppression will be in tune of what Government or civil society thinks. And it is equally impossible to imagine that unless this population gets better food, shelter or health, they will stay static and not resort to violence. Inequality breeds violence.
Instead of terming Naxals as anarchists (not the Chomsky nomenclature), instead of using military force and coercion, there should be some alternative attempts. At the very minimum, we should acknowledge that there is a problem and we have the onus to fix the problem. Like the great P. Sainath had said in his legendary Nero's Guests documentary, "We can differ how to solve this problem, we can differ in our analysis of the problem, but we can make one starting point, we can all agree that we cannot be Nero's guests".
Rahul Pandita has done us a favor by writing this book. We can ignore this, at our own very peril.
their anger
thousands of years old
is their bitterness
I am only returning their scattered words
with rhyme and rhythm
and you fear that
I am spreading fire.
-- Gorakh Pandey (Revolutionary Poet)
In a lecture to the Bombay Chamber of Commerce in 2008, then honorary economic adviser to Prime Minister ManMohan Singh, Dr. Raghuram Rajan - who is now the governor of the Reserve Bank of India - said some words which can be considered mundane or prescient, depending on how it is viewed. He said that Indian political and in extension, social structure, is against the poor.
http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/raghu...
"Let me explain. Our entire bureaucratic system of provision of public goods is biased
against access by the poor. Ration shops do not supply what is due, even if one has a ration card,
teachers do not show up at schools to teach, the police do not register crimes, or encroachments,
especially by the rich and powerful, public hospitals are not staffed, public sector banks do not
want to lend…I can go on, but you get the picture. This is where the local politician fits in. While
the poor do not have the money to purchase services that are their right, or to bribe the public
servant, they have a vote that the politician wants. The politician does a little bit to make life a
little more tolerable for his poor constituents – a government job here, an FIR registered there, a
land right honored somewhere else. For this, he gets the gratitude of his voters. But he then also
has little reason to improve their lot – because the local politician in India today owes his reelection
to the totally corrupt and compromised system of delivery of public goods, and the paucity of reliable
jobs, especially for the very poor.
And the system is self-sustaining. An idealist can promise to change the system, but the
voters know there is little one person can do. Moreover, who will provide the patronage while
the idealist is fighting the system? Why not stay with the devil you know…Of course, for those
who are truly disillusioned with the system, violence offers an alternative path. The growth of
Naxalites that the prime minister has warned about is only more evidence of the total breakdown
of the delivery of public goods to the poor. "
He went on to warn that if not checked, India can turn into what modern day Russia is. An oligarchy. He noted that compared to the tiny, tiny GDP that India has, the no of billionaires is alarming. To top that, those billionaires are not computer whizs like Gates, Jobs, Ellison or Zuckerberg.
"You might think these are the software billionaires. But there are not that many among
India’s billionaires. Indeed, three factors – land, natural resources, and government contracts or
licenses – are the predominant sources of the wealth of our billionaires. And all of these factors
come from the government. "
...
" Reforms have created new sources of
rents for the establishment, as the political scientist, Ashtosh Varshney argues: Scarce national
resources like forests, coal, and minerals can be allocated. Land can be expropriated from those
who do not have connections or formal title, converted to industrial use and allocated. Public
land can always be disposed off to favored parties. Contracts can be assigned to chosen friends
despite a sham of public bidding. In all this, the public exchequer is defrauded, while the rents
are shared between the politician and the corrupt businessman".
And in this void, in this gaping void between two India, what Arundhati Roy describes as 'Two vans full of people, one going towards the light, the glitz and one going towards the dark, the gloom' - there is discordance, disenfranchisement and disillusionment. There is a large swathe of territory, where Indian politics does not and cannot enter. In fact, it doesn't care to enter.
According to Global Hunger Index of 2014,
India is in serious danger
According to Human Development Index Trends of 2014, India is at 135, at the lower section of Medium Human Development countries - table 2 of the spradsheet available at http://hdr.undp.org/en/data
According to Multidimensional Poverty Index of 2014, 27.8% of the entire Indian population lives with extreme poverty - table 6 f the spradsheet available at http://hdr.undp.org/en/data
It is very hard to imagine that these people, living in extreme poverty, extreme social deprivation, extreme oppression will be in tune of what Government or civil society thinks. And it is equally impossible to imagine that unless this population gets better food, shelter or health, they will stay static and not resort to violence. Inequality breeds violence.
Instead of terming Naxals as anarchists (not the Chomsky nomenclature), instead of using military force and coercion, there should be some alternative attempts. At the very minimum, we should acknowledge that there is a problem and we have the onus to fix the problem. Like the great P. Sainath had said in his legendary Nero's Guests documentary, "We can differ how to solve this problem, we can differ in our analysis of the problem, but we can make one starting point, we can all agree that we cannot be Nero's guests".
Rahul Pandita has done us a favor by writing this book. We can ignore this, at our own very peril.
October 25, 2022
Okayish!! Too much core information which normally won't be able to understand.
August 29, 2011
#Cross-posted from my blog:-http://wp.me/p2fcH-l0
Few years back I was searching for information on Naxal Movement in India, when I encountered website of Hilary Pais. I found good amount of knowledge about Naxals or Maoists. It is one of the best-written documents about Naxalism. However, one thing that lacked was the views of Naxal Movement leaders and members. Rahul Pandita now fills this gap in his book “Hello, Bastar.” This book mentions anecdotes after anecdotes and keeps answering questions that you must have thought about: How the idea of creating a guerrilla base in Bastar came up? How Maoists and their guerrilla squads function? What are their goals? How do their recruit? What kind of relationship they have with people and peoples’ movements? And many other such questions. It answers why highly literate people are attracted towards it. What is that attraction that pulls doctors, engineers, etc. towards it? This book attempts to answer them all.
Let us know some facts about the Maoist movement that has come to the fore in the recent years before commenting on the book. Prime Minister Shri Manmohan Singh has described Naxalism as the most important security threat facing the country. Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odissa and Bihar remain the most seriously affected states. Total 76 districts across various States are highly affected by Naxal violence. The government has been unable to handle this internal security threat because of several reasons. Naxalism is an outcome of socio-economic problems, perceived injustice and inequality. The issues raised by them are people-centric and have certain legitimacy in the eyes of the common people. Land reforms have not been implemented in many states in India including Bihar and Andhra Pradesh. Naxalism has also improved in training and are increasingly taking recourse to high-end technology. Their method of operation resolves around stealth, speed and surprise. Under this backdrop, it is important to understand and have knowledge about Naxal menace. Rahul Pandita’s book helps you in knowing this.
I have all praise for Rahul Pandita for taking pain in sharing so many anecdotes, which must have required a lot of patience and research. The book is an outcome of real hardwork as the author has gone to the Naxal area, built rapport with them and has managed to get some real anecdotes and real pictures. That definitely would have required deeper and sincere understanding of the misery of the people and good rapport with the “Comrades.”
Rahul has written a lot about Maoists, their misery, their plans and their outlook of the society without talking from government’s perspective. It is both a negative as well as positive. Negative because there would be people who would like to know the situation from both the perspectives. Positive because we are going to get the other side of the story anyway from the government itself and so it makes sense to concentrate and bring the views and story from the other side of the table and Rahul has done that “immensely” well.
The book has made my views of dealing with the situation stronger. A purely security-based approach in dealing with Naxalism is hardly likely to succeed. The need of hour is to improve people-centric development and schemes. Also, more than that we need to sensitize the public servants about the people-centric approach and to make them understand that it is not their kingdom where they can do anything they want. They have to understand that they are “public” servants and have to work likewise. Governance deficit must be resolved as early as possible. Before ending, I would like to quote Rahul from the book to summarize the whole debate: “It may sound like a far cry, but it’s not as far as the government thinks it is.”
My rating 9/10
Few years back I was searching for information on Naxal Movement in India, when I encountered website of Hilary Pais. I found good amount of knowledge about Naxals or Maoists. It is one of the best-written documents about Naxalism. However, one thing that lacked was the views of Naxal Movement leaders and members. Rahul Pandita now fills this gap in his book “Hello, Bastar.” This book mentions anecdotes after anecdotes and keeps answering questions that you must have thought about: How the idea of creating a guerrilla base in Bastar came up? How Maoists and their guerrilla squads function? What are their goals? How do their recruit? What kind of relationship they have with people and peoples’ movements? And many other such questions. It answers why highly literate people are attracted towards it. What is that attraction that pulls doctors, engineers, etc. towards it? This book attempts to answer them all.
Let us know some facts about the Maoist movement that has come to the fore in the recent years before commenting on the book. Prime Minister Shri Manmohan Singh has described Naxalism as the most important security threat facing the country. Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odissa and Bihar remain the most seriously affected states. Total 76 districts across various States are highly affected by Naxal violence. The government has been unable to handle this internal security threat because of several reasons. Naxalism is an outcome of socio-economic problems, perceived injustice and inequality. The issues raised by them are people-centric and have certain legitimacy in the eyes of the common people. Land reforms have not been implemented in many states in India including Bihar and Andhra Pradesh. Naxalism has also improved in training and are increasingly taking recourse to high-end technology. Their method of operation resolves around stealth, speed and surprise. Under this backdrop, it is important to understand and have knowledge about Naxal menace. Rahul Pandita’s book helps you in knowing this.
I have all praise for Rahul Pandita for taking pain in sharing so many anecdotes, which must have required a lot of patience and research. The book is an outcome of real hardwork as the author has gone to the Naxal area, built rapport with them and has managed to get some real anecdotes and real pictures. That definitely would have required deeper and sincere understanding of the misery of the people and good rapport with the “Comrades.”
Rahul has written a lot about Maoists, their misery, their plans and their outlook of the society without talking from government’s perspective. It is both a negative as well as positive. Negative because there would be people who would like to know the situation from both the perspectives. Positive because we are going to get the other side of the story anyway from the government itself and so it makes sense to concentrate and bring the views and story from the other side of the table and Rahul has done that “immensely” well.
The book has made my views of dealing with the situation stronger. A purely security-based approach in dealing with Naxalism is hardly likely to succeed. The need of hour is to improve people-centric development and schemes. Also, more than that we need to sensitize the public servants about the people-centric approach and to make them understand that it is not their kingdom where they can do anything they want. They have to understand that they are “public” servants and have to work likewise. Governance deficit must be resolved as early as possible. Before ending, I would like to quote Rahul from the book to summarize the whole debate: “It may sound like a far cry, but it’s not as far as the government thinks it is.”
My rating 9/10
August 3, 2014
Although this is a bit whitewashed, one-sided account of Maoism in India, the plight of the peasants and adivasis described that cause them to turn into naxal-sympathisers and the appalling statistics are by no means exaggerated. Quite an insightful book. It was heartwarming to read about people like Kobad and Anuradha Ghandy and about the efforts of naxalites wrt literacy, women empowerment and secularism. Throughout, I kept wondering why the government won't prioritize the development of these areas over annihilating naxals. I still don't support naxal ideology but I can understand why they felt choiceless and took up arms and violence in order to be heard. I keep wondering that while one government after other keeps coming, plauding themselves for all the progress they've made happen, the human development indices stay glued to the abysmal levels. Reports every now and then in national and international forums keep appearing telling of all the horrifying figures wrt health and life standards of indian population. The disparities between the rich and the poor keep worsening exponentially. Rarely are there policies like NREGA devised and even when they are, it's even rarer to see them implemented effectively(Always leads me to question what is even the use of having the most intelligent brains sifted and chosen through exams like IAS if these people can't even come up with more good policies to pass on to the lawmakers!) The exploitation by public servants is a commonplace no-surprise-there. The army and police oppression in Kashmir, NorthEast, Red Corridor zones is nothing we don't keep hearing. Unemployment is a monstrously large deterrent towards our *shining* India. Even after more than 66 years of independence we have a large chunk of India that does not have schools, hospitals, electricity, FOOD! Farmers keep suiciding in areas like Telangana and vidarbha and in shameful numbers. And YET, alongside such headlines what I read about is how a pea-brained politico made an insensitive comment to incite communal riots, or some other brickhead very proudly declared something hateful to advantage his political ambitions going on with their demagogues rather than doing any actual work of significance! That our beloved MLAs and MPs never show their faces or give a damn about their constituencies after their wins is an over-cliched FACT. I might be sounding like a naive person, who is thinking things too simplistically, but i'm not asking for utopia, nor are those naxalites. And this is what I fail to comprehend every time. Why can't our policy makers make sure that the welfare of people is ACTUALLY taken care of so that they don't HAVE TO resort to violence! Exactly as has been said in this book, you can kill the naxalites but you can't finish off the revolution because to tackle that the govt has to first tackle the injustice rampant throughout the country! Just thinking you're magnanimous because you revised the poverty line to a still-mocking ₹47 for urban and ₹32 for rural areas is just plain tragic. I had a very heated debate with a friend, not long ago, over whether India is the most stable and the most progressing among new democracies. He showed me stats after stats of how India fared better than Brazil, Pakistan, even US when it came to per capita debt, rapes, crime, etc etc. But i'm sorry to say, mere wikipedia figures can't have me convinced tgat India is a developing heaven COMPARATIVELY, when you only have to look around you to see how much of the *rising bharat* it is. I don't have to go visit the worst poverty-stricken areas. Just the villages and urban backward areas in Delhi, Haryana(one of the most prosperous states of India) are enough to see how pathetic the situations are!
August 15, 2014
Frankly, this is some eye opener for me on the Maoists movement in India. This is not the story that main stream media would cover in such details - the best is to portray them as an internal threat to the country. There are millions of people in our country who are harassed and exploited in one form or the other. What trickles through and fed into the bigger main stream media is what they want us to hear. Stories of exploitation, of tribal people and farmers being trashed out and squeezed - is not a TRP material unless there is an NGO or political or a celebrity angle to it.
This is a good read - while it might seem like a collection of newspaper articles and series of interviews chronologically ordered, the subject of Maoists movement, their network, intent and goals are well dealt with. In a country like India, it will be difficult for the red movement to be successful. Atleast I would not want a movement that takes up gun to succeed, but the cause that they are fighting for - the oppressed segment of people - is just. The largely ignored fringe society, the poorest of poor farmers, the tribal people who have been in a way uncorrupted by civilization and hence their human capital exploited - needs a voice - and the Mao-communism that talks about permanent revolution and holds out hopes for these people is a channel for the same.
Stronger laws, better representation, swift justice to the exploiter and stronger opportunities in terms of education, access to better farming methods, respecting the exploited as fellow human beings and being empathetic to their way of life - is when we can become a better human society.
While I definitely like the story of 'Che', as a political structure, I feel communism and revolution will invariably not be supportive of democratic structure and lead to an inward looking economy. The balance between trade, equal representation and a limit on individual influence on a society be it ideas or wealth and controlled incentive to work harder in an ethical way - such a socio economic political structure will have to evolve.
It is too early for me to comment on any one form of political or economic framework, be it capitalism or communism - given that I have just taken to reading this subject with greater interest. While the loud proclamation propaganda of the West that communism (Marxism / Maoism / Leninism) has no place echoes through many popular books, I am not convinced if capitalism is any better (free speech is more of a feature of democracy which is a political structure - but the unlimited incentive and the associated greed is really scary of capitalism - I am saying this though I am a recipient of the benefits of global economy and free trade).
With a new government in the center and a promised 'inclusive' government, I am hoping the grass root problems are addressed and we don't deviate from the democratic secular socialist society that we think we are. When that happens, hopefully, the cause that Maoists are fighting for will cease to exist.
This is a good read - while it might seem like a collection of newspaper articles and series of interviews chronologically ordered, the subject of Maoists movement, their network, intent and goals are well dealt with. In a country like India, it will be difficult for the red movement to be successful. Atleast I would not want a movement that takes up gun to succeed, but the cause that they are fighting for - the oppressed segment of people - is just. The largely ignored fringe society, the poorest of poor farmers, the tribal people who have been in a way uncorrupted by civilization and hence their human capital exploited - needs a voice - and the Mao-communism that talks about permanent revolution and holds out hopes for these people is a channel for the same.
Stronger laws, better representation, swift justice to the exploiter and stronger opportunities in terms of education, access to better farming methods, respecting the exploited as fellow human beings and being empathetic to their way of life - is when we can become a better human society.
While I definitely like the story of 'Che', as a political structure, I feel communism and revolution will invariably not be supportive of democratic structure and lead to an inward looking economy. The balance between trade, equal representation and a limit on individual influence on a society be it ideas or wealth and controlled incentive to work harder in an ethical way - such a socio economic political structure will have to evolve.
It is too early for me to comment on any one form of political or economic framework, be it capitalism or communism - given that I have just taken to reading this subject with greater interest. While the loud proclamation propaganda of the West that communism (Marxism / Maoism / Leninism) has no place echoes through many popular books, I am not convinced if capitalism is any better (free speech is more of a feature of democracy which is a political structure - but the unlimited incentive and the associated greed is really scary of capitalism - I am saying this though I am a recipient of the benefits of global economy and free trade).
With a new government in the center and a promised 'inclusive' government, I am hoping the grass root problems are addressed and we don't deviate from the democratic secular socialist society that we think we are. When that happens, hopefully, the cause that Maoists are fighting for will cease to exist.
February 9, 2017
I recently shifted to Chhatisgarh for pursuing my fellowship and the first question that I get asked by a lot of people is "Isn't the state infested with Naxalism? Why are you shifting there?" It made me realize how people, including me, fail to recognise their own biases and believe a single story. With this realization, my quest for reading up more about Naxalism started and I ended up ordering this book from Amazon. I have also read Our Moon has blood clots by the same author, so I had high expectations from this book as well.
Its thousands of years old
their anger
thousands of years old
is their bitterness
I am only returning their scattered words
with rhyme and rhythm
and you fear that
I am spreading fire.
- Gorakh Pandey
Hello, Bastar by Rahul Pandita is the story of Maoist movement in India. The book starts with a very gripping story. In fact, throughout the book, the author seamlessly weaves one story into another. The book sheds some light on the beginning of the movement. It further explains that how the struggle continued in different parts of the country with special focus on Bihar and Andhra Pradesh. The book is very well researched and backed with chilling statistics.
The book gives us insights into the hardship that people face. It tells us how the simple agitation against landlords in West Bengal turn into a nationwide movement. The author also throws light on how this issue has been politicised and made into what it is not. The role of media in furthering this agenda has also been discussed.
The party's ideology, structure and funding is explained in a very simple manner. I especially love the part where the author's experience of staying in camp is described. It reminded me of Arundhati Roy's Walking with Comrades. The section on Anuradha Ghandy's life is very informative. The book culminates with the issues faced by slumdwellers and how they can be unionised to further the Maoist agenda.
All in all, the book covers the subject adequately. The narrative style makes it an intresting read. The only thing that I dont like is that I feel the narrative is one-dimensional.
In a nutshell, this book is perfect for a beginner who wants to understand the issue.
Its thousands of years old
their anger
thousands of years old
is their bitterness
I am only returning their scattered words
with rhyme and rhythm
and you fear that
I am spreading fire.
- Gorakh Pandey
Hello, Bastar by Rahul Pandita is the story of Maoist movement in India. The book starts with a very gripping story. In fact, throughout the book, the author seamlessly weaves one story into another. The book sheds some light on the beginning of the movement. It further explains that how the struggle continued in different parts of the country with special focus on Bihar and Andhra Pradesh. The book is very well researched and backed with chilling statistics.
The book gives us insights into the hardship that people face. It tells us how the simple agitation against landlords in West Bengal turn into a nationwide movement. The author also throws light on how this issue has been politicised and made into what it is not. The role of media in furthering this agenda has also been discussed.
The party's ideology, structure and funding is explained in a very simple manner. I especially love the part where the author's experience of staying in camp is described. It reminded me of Arundhati Roy's Walking with Comrades. The section on Anuradha Ghandy's life is very informative. The book culminates with the issues faced by slumdwellers and how they can be unionised to further the Maoist agenda.
All in all, the book covers the subject adequately. The narrative style makes it an intresting read. The only thing that I dont like is that I feel the narrative is one-dimensional.
In a nutshell, this book is perfect for a beginner who wants to understand the issue.
October 14, 2016
Yes, India has problems, which country doesn't ? But the solution of those problems does not lie through the barrel of the gun. The modus operandi of communists is very simple. They look for areas where an escalation of conflict is possible, whether this be ethnic, religious, economic or administrative in nature. Then they go there and start with the propaganda (which is always anti-state and is disguised as pro-people, in reality it is just pro-communism). After propaganda, comes the recruitment. There are 2 kinds of recruits, foot soldiers (poor & gullible) and ideologues (brainwashed by some Marxist professor in universities like JNU). Communism aims to use public anger as a weapon to overthrow a democracy. And thereafter to establish a "dictatorship of proletariat". In reality, communism is never the dictatorship of the masses, But the dictatorship of one party, which "claims" to represent the masses and never allows any other narrative to gain foothold or offer resistance. Dissent is silenced by violence or execution. Its sad that some indian "intellectuals" have imported this dangerous ideology into India. You can judge communism by 2 facts alone :
1, Every single application of this ideology has eventually ended in failure
2, Wherever it has gone, it has committed mass murder and genocide. Khmer rouge killed 25% of Cambodian population in just 4 years. That's how dangerous this is. Killing fields and mass graves lie all over the world : Latin America, Soviet Russia, North Korea, Ukraine....you name it. It is not a coincidence that communists are the traitors of the very country they live in and are reviled once they are kicked out and democracy is ushered in.
1, Every single application of this ideology has eventually ended in failure
2, Wherever it has gone, it has committed mass murder and genocide. Khmer rouge killed 25% of Cambodian population in just 4 years. That's how dangerous this is. Killing fields and mass graves lie all over the world : Latin America, Soviet Russia, North Korea, Ukraine....you name it. It is not a coincidence that communists are the traitors of the very country they live in and are reviled once they are kicked out and democracy is ushered in.
June 1, 2017
A short, well-rounded account of India's Maoist movement. Pandita is no writer, but he does a decent job in covering the ascent of the Maoist in extensive swathes of the countryside, and the governmental apathy and exploitation that enabled it.
December 27, 2013
The universe is infinite and we are none but infinitesimal.
As if I detoured another galaxy and stars did shine down.
The whole glittering 'great' Indian growth story now seems losing its sheen when I see the apathy of these excluded and discarded sections of our nation. Having at the receiving end for so long, they might not have left with any other option but to revolt (Maoism) to gain independence from the feudalistic society of ours. I don't think bloodshed is a solution to any problem but yes, it becomes the last resort if situation has become as bad as it has and there is no sight of improvement, not at least for another 100 years. The history is replete with examples how only revolutions have ended opressions across the globe from Emmeline Pankhurst to Bhagat Singh.
If our history 'remembers' Bhagat Singh then the Anuradha Ghandys and Charu Mazumdars need a mention as well.
As Fidel Castro once said 'History will absolve me'.
I will give a 4.5/5 for focuing on the cause not symptom.
As if I detoured another galaxy and stars did shine down.
The whole glittering 'great' Indian growth story now seems losing its sheen when I see the apathy of these excluded and discarded sections of our nation. Having at the receiving end for so long, they might not have left with any other option but to revolt (Maoism) to gain independence from the feudalistic society of ours. I don't think bloodshed is a solution to any problem but yes, it becomes the last resort if situation has become as bad as it has and there is no sight of improvement, not at least for another 100 years. The history is replete with examples how only revolutions have ended opressions across the globe from Emmeline Pankhurst to Bhagat Singh.
If our history 'remembers' Bhagat Singh then the Anuradha Ghandys and Charu Mazumdars need a mention as well.
As Fidel Castro once said 'History will absolve me'.
I will give a 4.5/5 for focuing on the cause not symptom.
May 9, 2017
my takeaway from the book: maoist movement is a way to rebel against caste based socio-political repression/discrimination/exploitation faced by adivasis/dalits. tribals are unaware of the laws & their rights, get exploited by govt officials etc. this is a reaction to that exploitation, dehumanization.
unsurprisingly, media harks at the violence w/o going into the roots of the movement. however, that's the extent of my sympathy (somebody asked me if i was a sympathizer yet) and extremism is extremism, and killing crpf men (even though there have been instances of human rights violations on their part) can never be justified.
rahul pandita is in awe of the movement throughout the book and may come off as biased. very informative & a great example of journalism nonetheless.
also, i feel i have merely scratched the surface of this vast debate - do you want me to read sth more? let me know
unsurprisingly, media harks at the violence w/o going into the roots of the movement. however, that's the extent of my sympathy (somebody asked me if i was a sympathizer yet) and extremism is extremism, and killing crpf men (even though there have been instances of human rights violations on their part) can never be justified.
rahul pandita is in awe of the movement throughout the book and may come off as biased. very informative & a great example of journalism nonetheless.
also, i feel i have merely scratched the surface of this vast debate - do you want me to read sth more? let me know
November 4, 2017
A well written book on the causes of the Maoist movement in India. The book explores the ideology and development of Naxalite movement in Dandakaranya region and beyond. The author has done some quite original research through investigative journalism by immersing himself in the Maoist squads.
The narrative flow broken in places but the author does make up in content. I especially liked his exploration of how the Maoist movement is slowly trying to get a foothold in Urban areas. This is the seen unseen having grown up in Bombay. He also does a good job of tracing the evolution of the Maoist movement in different geographical area especially neglected by the government. The Naxalite movement fills this void in a very meaningful way.
The book is left leaning but does not fall into the trap of fanboyism and still is very balanced and objective of the failures of the movement.
The narrative flow broken in places but the author does make up in content. I especially liked his exploration of how the Maoist movement is slowly trying to get a foothold in Urban areas. This is the seen unseen having grown up in Bombay. He also does a good job of tracing the evolution of the Maoist movement in different geographical area especially neglected by the government. The Naxalite movement fills this void in a very meaningful way.
The book is left leaning but does not fall into the trap of fanboyism and still is very balanced and objective of the failures of the movement.
July 30, 2013
When you put excellent research into a book and when you narrate it so well, you know have more than succeeded in sensitising your reader to the issue. This is my second read on the Maoist situation in India, after Sudeep Chakravarty's Red Sun. Hello, Bastar goes specifically into the regions of Bastar and the influence the Maoists there derived from the origins of the movement in Andhra. Its hard not to shudder at the instances of deprivation faced by the people of those regions as pointed out so brutally by Pandita. And coincidentally, I finished reading this just at the time when the state of Telangana officially became a reality. Needless to say, the Maoists had a deep role to play in the struggle and that it went beyond mere regional identities.
September 27, 2015
Rahul Pandita narrates the story of the origin of the Naxal Movement from the Naxal point of view. This is something you dont get in the news channels and newspapers. The book will at least make you accept that labelling them as terrorists by P. Chidambaram is not completely correct. Determining the naxals as good or evil is a paradox. As you can argue that why wont the Government try to stop the Naxal movement by force while on the other hand a tortured, oppressed and exploited young tribals becoming maoists is more or less justified.
Winning over the Naxals shoud not exactly mean killing them all. It can mean providing them their rights. The lack of diplomacy and will to compromise on both sides is the fuel which has unfortunately kept the struggle going!
Winning over the Naxals shoud not exactly mean killing them all. It can mean providing them their rights. The lack of diplomacy and will to compromise on both sides is the fuel which has unfortunately kept the struggle going!
May 20, 2014
Certainly a prefect introduction to the people's Maoist Revolution in India.
First thing I liked about this book is its narrative. Which just makes it much more interesting to read.
Second thing is that the Author have given first person inputs into the book that makes it more believable and you will connect to the situation, people are facing in all those 10 states.
Why they chose a path of revolution where they can die any moment? Why armed struggle is important in a country that had a history of saints from Kabir to Gandhi?
This book will give answers to all of such questions. All in all very inspiring and great book.
Kudos to Rahul Pandita..
First thing I liked about this book is its narrative. Which just makes it much more interesting to read.
Second thing is that the Author have given first person inputs into the book that makes it more believable and you will connect to the situation, people are facing in all those 10 states.
Why they chose a path of revolution where they can die any moment? Why armed struggle is important in a country that had a history of saints from Kabir to Gandhi?
This book will give answers to all of such questions. All in all very inspiring and great book.
Kudos to Rahul Pandita..
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