Dual Power in a Guerrilla Zone: Two Reigns of Political Violence in Bastar

by Bernard D’Mello and Gautam Navlakha

The ambush on May 25 by Maoist guerrillas in the Darba Ghati valley (in the Sukma area of the Bastar region in southern Chhattisgarh), 345 kms south of the state capital of Raipur, of a convoy of provincial Congress Party leaders has shocked the Indian state apparatus. The Z-plus and other categories of armed security personnel — entitlements of the ‘lords’ of India’s political establishment — were no match for the guerrillas. The main targets of the attack were Mahendra Karma, founder of the state-promoted, financed and armed private vigilante force, Salwa Judum (SJ), and Nand Kumar Patel, the chief of the Congress Party in the province and a former home minister of the state.

A press statement issued by Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) (CPI [Maoist]) on May 26 states that the “goal of this attack was mainly to eliminate Mahendra Karma and some other reactionary Congress top leaders”. It pointedly reminds Chhattisgarh’s state government leaders and state police officials “who are hell-bent on crushing the revolutionary movement of Dandakaranya” that they suffer from a “big illusion that they are unbeatable”. Mahendra Karma too falsely believed “that Z-plus Security and bullet proof vehicles would save him forever”. The statement also clarifies that in Chhattisgarh “there are no differences between [the] ruling BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party] and opposition Congress in terms of policies of suppressing the revolutionary movement. Only due to public pressure, as well as to gain electoral benefits, some of the local leaders of the Congress at times came [out] in condemnation of incidents like [the] Sarkeguda and Edsametta massacres”.

The convoy was returning from a “Parivartan Yatra” (“March for Change”) rally in Sukma and the Maoists knew not only that Karma and Patel were in the convoy, but even the route that it was to take. The assassinations were thus meticulously planned and executed, though they took a two-hour long gun battle with the state forces to accomplish, a clash in which many who merely serve or protect (the latter, armed personnel) the oppressors, and do so because they have little choice, were either killed or injured. The Maoist guerrillas reportedly even provided first aid to some of these persons who suffered injuries.

Kishenji Fought for a Better World

Indian ‘Republic Killing Its Own Children’ – Kishenji Fought for a Better World

by Bernard D’Mello 

India’s Union Home Minister P Chidambaram, West Bengal Chief Minister (also in charge of the province’s home affairs) Mamata Banerjee, Union Home Secretary R K Singh, and the top bosses of the security forces involved in the operation have all been bent on establishing one point: that the alleged encounter in the Burishol forest in West Midnapore district, 10 km from the West Bengal-Jharkhand border, in which Mallojula Koteswara Rao, popularly known by his nom de guerre Kishenji, a member of the politburo of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) [CPI (Maoist)], was supposedly killed was “real”.  Frankly, given the complicity of the media bosses and the journalistic profession (the latter, at the higher levels) with official mendacity, we must admit that the circumstances of his death are as yet unknown.  A press statement from Abhay, spokesperson of the Central Committee of the Party, dated 25 November 2011, unambiguously states that Kishenji was killed “after capturing him alive in a well planned conspiracy”.¹

The renowned radical Telugu poet Varavara Rao, who accompanied Kishenji’s niece Deepika to bring the body back to Kishenji’s hometown of Peddapalli in Karimnagar district of Andhra Pradesh, is reported to have said: “In the last 43 years, I have seen so many bodies killed in so-called encounters but have not seen a body like this one. . .  There is no place on the body where there is no injury.”²  Indeed, according to CDRO (Coordination of Democratic Rights’ Organisations) activists who saw the body before the commencement of the postmortem, “on the back side of the head, part of [the] skull [and] brain [was] missing”; the right eye had come out of the socket; the lower jaw was “missing”; there were four stab wounds on the face; knife injuries were observed on the throat; there were hand fractures and two bullet injuries under one of the arms; “one-third of the left hand index finger was removed”; there were signs of enrooted bullets through the lungs; the right knee was hacked; the foot of the left leg was “totally burnt”; in all, “there were more than 30 bayonet-like cut injuries on the front of the body”.  And, while there were “bullet, sharp cuts and burn injuries”, “surprisingly” there were “no injury marks on his [Kishenji’s] shirt and pant corresponding to [those on] his body parts”.  (The postmortem report is yet to be handed over to Kishenji’s relatives.)

A press release (“Killing the Talks and Faking an Encounter”, Kolkata, 2 December 2011) by the CDRO — based on the observations of a CDRO fact-finding team who visited the spot in Burishol forest where the alleged encounter took place on 24 November — states that “the extent of the damage caused to the body against the rather undisturbed surrounding of the spot where the body lay raises our suspicion about the official version”.  Indeed, “right next to where his [Kishenji’s] body lay on the ground is a termite hill” that “remains undamaged by all the alleged exchange of fire”.  Indeed, even nearby, “not a single termite hill was damaged and [there was] no visible sign of burn or fire due to heavy rifle and mortar firing!”  Clearly, the veracity of the official story must be seriously doubted (actually, there are now versions of it that are contradicting each other!) and it is high time that an independent judicial inquiry headed by a sitting or retired Supreme Court or High Court judge into the circumstances surrounding Kishenji’s death is constituted at the earliest.