E-Paper
Fix insurgency. Stop the rot
It’s really easy to find, actually. The Jharkhand village where Deepali Mahato (26) had to deliver her baby on the road — there was no hospital for 60 kilometres and barely any road — lies in the one-fourth of India that lives under insurgency.It is also in the richest part of the nation, one that holds the key to India’s economic progress.“She could not bear the bumpy ride in a jeep and delivered on the road, with the help of a midwife,” says Deepali’s husband Ranjit, a 31-year-old daily wage labourer in Gudabanda village, 230 kilometres south-east of the state capital of Ranchi.
It’s really easy to find, actually. The Jharkhand village where Deepali Mahato (26) had to deliver her baby on the road — there was no hospital for 60 kilometres and barely any road — lies in the one-fourth of India that lives under insurgency.
It is also in the richest part of the nation, one that holds the key to India’s economic progress.
“She could not bear the bumpy ride in a jeep and delivered on the road, with the help of a midwife,” says Deepali’s husband Ranjit, a 31-year-old daily wage labourer in Gudabanda village, 230 kilometres south-east of the state capital of Ranchi.
“Doctors refuse to live here,” says local activist Dhiren Nayak. “They say it’s a highly Naxalite-affected zone, but no government official has ever been attacked or harassed on Gudabanda soil.”
In large parts of the 180 insurgency-affected districts across the country, insurgency has become a convenient excuse for poor governance.
The crisis is huge: From Kashmir to Koraput to Kohima, India is home to an Islamic insurgency in the Valley, the spiralling Naxalite insurgency and a decades-old ethnic insurgency in the northeast.
So we suggest the government stop pigeonholing the militant movements as disconnected police problems to be crushed with force, and recognise them as a sign of public discontent and a collapse of governance.
Give the people in these regions a stake in their government again. Hold panchayat elections. Involve local cooperatives in the commercial exploitation of local resources.
Hold talks with Naxalites, as the country has done with other militant movements in the past. Finally, reduce the army presence in Jammu & Kashmir and ease out the legislation that is giving the armed forces free reign in this troubled state.
The government could begin by inviting the Naxalite leader, known only as Ganapathy, for peace talks, and announcing a cessation of hostilities — precisely what has been offered to other militant movements in the past.
“Yes, I agree. There should be peace talks,” says D Bandopadhyay, chairman of a Planning Commission-appointed committee to look into the causes of extremism in India. “They are talking to militants in Kashmir, in the northeast. Why not the Naxalites?”
The government must also set about fixing the massive holes in governance. Of the estimated Rs 60,000 crore in development aid sent to India’s militancy-affected districts, nearly 50 per cent of the money is just not used, according to the Rural Development Ministry.
“The health centre runs out of my house. I carry out at least 100 deliveries a year,” says Madhuri Bir (45), the midwife in Gudabanda who delivered Deepali’s baby on the road. Since January, she says, at least four women have delivered on the road while on the way to hospital.
The irony is that these poorest regions are India’s richest as well.
Forty per cent of India’s top 50 mineral-rich districts, many of them in Jharkhand, are insurgency-affected, according to the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE).
They are also the hubs of tribal discontent. Some 2.6 million people in India have been displaced by mining so far, according to CSE. Of them, less than 25 per cent have been rehabilitated.
The government must encourage the creation of tribal cooperatives for mining, following the model of successful ones like the Nicobarese Tribal Council in the Nicobar Islands, which is the government-authorised body to trade in coconut oil and forest produce and shares its earnings with the tribals.
A tentative step has been taken in Jharkhand's West Singhbhum district. The 7 lakh-strong Ho tribe formed the Adivasi Khadan, a cooperative society that aims to conduct mining operations in the area, possibly in joint venture with large mineral companies.
But with no government backing, they have failed to make any headway.
“It will require proposals that are similar to the Jharkhand idea from such [mineral-rich] states,” says J K Popli, director at the central government’s Ministry of Tribal Affairs. “If we get the proposals, then we will definitely work on this and implement this on a pan-India basis.”
Finally, there’s Jammu & Kashmir. Militancy has dropped dramatically here over the past few years and all too often it is the military's presence that triggers unrest. We propose that the military presence be reduced in Kashmir, and the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, which suspends many civil liberties, be eased out here and in parts of the northeast.
Judicial delays are a key reason for simmering discontent. So justice has to be fast-tracked. Special courts in insurgency areas could quickly try cases of disappearances, torture, and cases against both security forces and militants.
“You certainly can set up fast track courts. It will help to deliver justice… but this alone cannot help in building confidence among the public,” says Justice Bashir-ud-Din, chairman of the Jammu & Kashmir State Human Rights Commission.
“Due to Article 370 (which gives the state special status), human rights violation cases against the army and the paramilitary forces are sent to the Home ministry for their approval. There are cases pending for more than 10 years. There is no progress.”
Governance must be fast-tracked too. We propose a special authority to monitor governance in insurgency areas. The panel should include central government secretaries, state officials, security officials, and Comptroller and Auditor-General officials.
That sort of intervention could change the lives of villagers in India’s insurgency heartland. “It is our dream to see a smooth metal road connecting our panchayat to the block headquarters in Dalbhumgarh,” says Kashinath Karmakar (30), a daily wage labourer in Jharkhand.
Bag Singh Mahali (56), a tribal leader, adds that there is no accountability among the administrative officials. “They hardly bother to visit us,” he says. “The Naxalite threat is an excuse.”
The problem
Insurgency is spiralling across India and now has its shadow across some 180 of the country’s 600-plus districts — more than a quarter of India. The central government has pumped tens of thousands of crores of rupees in development projects in these regions but much of it is unspent or misused. The vacuum of governance is further helping Naxalites and other rebel movements.
HT’s fix
