Telangana's one and only goal since centuries...

చల్..స్వయంపాలనకై ఓరుగల్లు కోటల మీద
మా సమ్మక్క సారక్కల మెరుపు తిరుగుబాటు

అహ..కోహినూరు రక్షణ కోసం బ్రిటిషోని
మెడలొంచిన నా 'బోనాల్' లష్కర్ సైన్యం

అరె..అడవి బిడ్డల హక్కుల కోసం రజాకర్లను
కొదమసింహంలా వేటాడిన నా గోండు భీముడు

వాహ..భూమి కొరకు భుక్తి కొరకు నిజాం నాజీలతో
మా తెలంగాణ రైతుల గెరిల్లా సాయుధ పోరాటం

అహ..నాటి దిగ్గజాలైన ఫ్రెంచి పోరగాల్లను మించిన
ధీరులమ్మ నేటి నా ఉస్మానియా కాకతీయ పిల్లలు

చల్..జై తెలంగాణ అంటే జై జై తెలంగాణ అని
ప్రాణమంటే త్రునప్రాయమనే వీర శహీదులు

నాటి మేడారం సమ్మక్క సారక్క గద్దెల సాక్షిగా
నేటి గన్ పార్కు అమర వీరుల స్తూపం గుర్తుగా

శతాబ్దాలకెల్లి తెలంగాణ బిడ్డలది ఒకటే లడాయి
ఆత్మగౌరవమే ధ్యేయం స్వయం పాలనే లక్ష్యం

ఆ లక్ష్యం కోసమే మా తర తరాల ఆరాటం
ఆ తల్లి కొరకే ఈ బిడ్డల రాజీ లేని పోరాటం

ఇదే మా వీర తెలంగాణం పోరు తెలంగాణం
ఆఖరి రక్తపు బొట్టు వరకు జై తెలంగాణ

So now adivasis cannot go even to the media. Who will they go to?

Please read part 1: http://nishanthdongari.blogspot.com/2010/04/who-is-culprit-maoists-or-indian-state.html

In the first phase of Operation Green Hunt held in September, the forces had attacked an entire family. First, they stabbed the father, then the mother, then the young daughter. With rifle butts, they broke the teeth of her two-year-old son and chopped off a part of his tongue. Human Rights Commission and Tribal activists wanted the press to hear their stories, so they decided to take them to Raipur. The Raipur Press Club asked  them for proof that they were not Naxalites. They told them even the government is not calling them Naxalites! They decided not to allow them (HRC) the use of their premises. So now adivasis cannot go even to the media. Who will they go to?

All roads are closed for them. The police beat them. The political leaders – be they Congress or Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) – are with the Salwa Judum. The courts do not give them a hearing. The media does not care. Where else will they go except to the Maoists? When the police attack them, it is the Naxalites who save them. If you really want peace, put an end to the root cause of the popularity of the Naxalites.

We have tried to create conditions in which violence comes to an end. But in an atmosphere where the police cut off breasts of old women and stab old men, and rape… You can imagine what would be the fate of any policeman who falls into the villagers’ hands. The State should not create such conditions. The political leaders must ask why the Naxalites are popular. Why are our democratically elected governments not popular? If an adivasi goes to the police and says, the patwari took away my money, will the police go and investigate?

The day your police’s guns are raised to defend the rights of the poor, Naxalism will end. If our child is creating havoc, would not we try to find out why he is acting like that? Cannot the prime minister ask the Maoists: why is there so much violence? The Naxalites have been preparing the adivasis for decades, telling them there will be a big fight.

That is why HRC activists tell political leaders of the mainstream parties, do not enter this area. The adivasis are waiting; you will be trapped, they have been telling them. These adivasis are not like people in Uttar Pradesh. They can jump on you and snatch your bodyguard’s AK 47. In Operation Green Hunt the forces will be killed in greater numbers than they have in Jammu & Kashmir. In September, they began Operation Green Hunt. They could not kill a single Maoist. But six COBRA jawans got killed. All they could kill were old adivasis and children. A six-year-old was stabbed; an 85-year-old was bayoneted and killed in his bed… The police are committing cold-blooded murder. Then the government asks – are you with us or with the Naxalites? HRC and Tribal activists can openly say – we are not with your police. We are with those adivasis who are being killed.

Digvijay Singh wrote an article on how development is the counter to the Naxalites’ influence. Himanshu Kumar, the tribal activist wrote to him, putting forward four demands. The first is – withdraw your forces. Seven hundred villages have been cordoned off. The villagers cannot go out; no outsider can enter. If the adivasi goes to the weekly bazaar five km away, she knows the SPOs will catch her. So she goes to a bazaar that is 85 km away. It takes two days to go and two days to come back. So four days of every week was spent walking. One may ask, why do not she buy enough rice for a month? She can buy rice worth only as much as they get for their mahua. If their mahua sells for Rs 20, they can bring rice worth Rs 20.

This situation is because of the State, not because of the Naxalites. Characterising those areas as liberated zones is part of the State’s strategy. They can then complain that the State is not allowed to function there. It is actually the Salwa Judum that has stopped the functioning of the State. No institution of the State functions there, nor does any law. Even Article 21 – the right to life – does not exist there. The adivasis are being hunted. Sometimes violence grows of fear and helplessness.

In these villages that are cordoned off, everything has been closed down by the government. There is nothing there – no schools, no doctors. The government told the high court these are all Naxalites. The police kept saying there is no point distributing rice through ration shops because the Naxalites will loot them. So for the last five years, there is been no distribution of rice. Has any Naxalite died of starvation? The medical officers tell HRC, if their doctors go to treat patients in the jungle, the CRPF beats them up. If teachers go, they beat them up. They are furious – they tell the teachers, you do not get blown up when you are going, why do CRPF? You must be in league with the Naxalites. Teachers and doctors do not go in with weapons like CRPF does!

Vinoba Bhave used to say about the Naxalites: “these youth are motivated by compassion for the poor. I salute them.” When he began his Bhoodan movement, he set back the Naxalites by 30 years. For carrying one bundle of firewood, the forest guards would punish an adivasi woman by raping her. If they did not pay a three-rupee fine, the guards would extort Rs 300. Then in the 1980s, the Naxalites came there. They would capture a forest guard and tie him up and ask the adivasis to beat him. That was the first time the adivasi realised they too had some power. The State should have empowered them by punishing the guards! The State never fixed a minimum price for mahua; the Naxalites did. The adivasis had never been violent. But whenever they tried to raise their voice, the State would send the police.

People talk about Maoist violence against the police, against innocent citizens. You must go to the depth of the violence to understand it. If an SPO is killed, the government declares that an innocent was killed and the media goes to town. If an old adivasi is killed, the police say a Maoist area commander was killed. The adivasis live in perpetual fear. If they feel, this man will inform the police where naxals are hiding… If you are continuously hunted, made to flee your home, and you find a place to live away from the police, then someone comes who you suspect might inform the police about your whereabouts…

We are sowing the seeds of violence and mayhem. Before Salwa Judum, Maoists numbered only 5,000. After Salwa Judum, the Maoist strength grew to 1,10,000 – a 22-fold increase and now may be close to 5 lakhs??. After Operation Green Hunt, every surviving adivasi will become a Maoist full-timer. And when the Maoists increase in number, they expand their base. They will reach Mumbai, Delhi. We feel sorry for the young men in the forces too. They lose either way. If they do not join the paramilitary and police, they will die of hunger. And once they join, they will die too, for sure. Why the goverment is sending these young men to their death so that the wealthy corporations will benefit? You are making young people fight other young people so that those corporations may accumulate more wealth.

Third part will be followed soon......

Random Thoughts From Red Man.....

ఓ పోరి ఓ మారు పో పో పోరా అంటావ్..
మరు క్షణమే రా రా అని మేఘసందేశమిస్తవ్
 

దూరం పోతే ఉపిరాడట్లేదంటావ్...
మరి చెంతకొస్తే సుడి గాలినంటావ్..

ఏడడుగులు నీతో వెయ్యమంటావ్ కానీ
నన్నేమో ఏడు సముద్రాల అవతల వదిలేస్నవ్

నా మనసులోని రాజ్యానికి యువ రాణినని..
నీ గుండెలో నన్ను యుద్ధ ఖైదీని చేస్నవ్

కృష్ణుడి పై సత్యభామలా ఈ పంతం దేనికే
నీ మనసుతో నీకే ఈ అంతర్యుద్ధం ఎందుకే

ఈ నిశా రాత్రిలో ఒంటరి పయనం ఎక్కడికే..
ఆ నిశా అంతం చేసే చంద్రునిగా నే ఉండగా

చందమామ మబ్బుల్లో కొద్దిసేపు దాక్కుందని
వెన్నెలను జీవితాంతం వెలి వేస్తామా

నీ ఆత్మ నీకు ఎప్పటికి కనపడట్లేదని 
నీ ఉనికి మీదనే అనుమానపడ్తావా

పీడ కలలాంటి గతంలోంచి మేలుకో చెలియా
రేపటి ప్రతి క్షణం పరవశమే ప్రియతమా

Random thoughts from the Red Man.....

కొమ్మ చాటు కోయిలలా నల్లని కురుల చాటు నీ ముఖం ||
మబ్బు చాటు వెన్నెలలా నీ రెప్ప చాటు కంటి పాపలు ||
ఇన్ని దినాలు ఉన్న విషయాన్ని నాకు చేరనివ్వట్లేదనుకున్న ||
సిగ్గుతో తల దించి నడుస్తూ నీ ముసి ముసి నవ్వుల, 
బాణాలతో నాకు సైగలు పంపటమే నేర్చుకుంటివా ||  
నమ్మలేని ఈ నిజం కోసం కాల చక్రాన్ని ఆపనా ||
నమ్మదగిన ఈ కల కంటూనే నీ ధ్యాసలో లినమైపోనా ||
అస్సలు గుప్పెడంత ఈ గుండెకి కొండంత ఆశలెందుకో ?

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రాబోయే రోజుల ఊహల కదన రాగమువా

సరిగమలు తెల్వని నా యదలోని సప్తస్వరానివా..
మూగబోయిన నా మనసులో కవనం రాసే మౌనానివా..
తూరుపు పడమరలను కలిపే ఇంద్రధనస్సువా..
ప్రతిఘటించలేని ఘాటైన ప్రేమఘటనవా

కాటుక చీకటి రేయిలో తోవను చూపే వెలుగువా

Who is the culprit? the Maoists or the Indian Govt.? -- Part 1

This is a culmination of talks and articles written by Gandhian activist Himanshu Kumar on the situation in Dantewada, Chhattisgarh.

The adivasis regard the Maoists as their friends for it is these rebels who have stood by them. All the normal channels of redress are closed for them. The police beat them. The political parties – be they the Congress or the Bharatiya Janata Party – are with the Salwa Judum. The courts do not give them a hearing. The media does not care. Where else will they go except to the Maoists? When the police attack them, it is the Maoists who save them. In the past 30-40 years (Naxalbari movement started in 1969) many intellectuals, professors, human right activits and peace activists have been in Dantewada and they have seen how the Naxalites have worked among the adivasis. This is the violence resulting from the fight of the poor. If the centre thinks it can crush these people, it is mistaken. Sometimes extreme oppression can embolden those who are fighting.

Seventeen years ago Himanshu went to Dantewada following Gandhiji’s belief that the real India lies in the villages, and young people must go there to rejuvenate them. The villagers gave him land to build his ashram. Under the Fifth Schedule, the gram sabha was empowered to do so. But the government demolished the ashram this year, sending a force of 1,000 policemen, anti-landmine vehicles…That is when the adivasis finally acknowledged that Himanshu was like them! His home could also be demolished. It is not just a single experience of Himanshu, it all most the same experience with majority of human right activists, who have been to Dantewada. In the forests of Dantewada, people live like aboriginals used to, in tune with nature. Natural justice prevails there. In the jungles, there is no police, no crime.

In 2005, the Chhattisgarh government started feeling the Maoists in Dantewada were a danger. It started the Salwa Judum, which means Collective Peace Campaign. They knew the Maoists had support among the adivasis, so they decided to empty the villages. They forced the villagers out of their villages and tried to shift them into camps near police stations, at the edge of the village road. They got together a force of goondas who along with the police, would pounce on the villagers and force them into camps.

But adivasis are used to living in the midst of nature, near a stream, on top of a mountain. Each adivasi house is far away from the other. Here, the government had built sheds; you step out of one and face the next; behind yours is another one. When the adivasis tried to run away from these sheds, this “patriotic” force would shoot on them, catch them and put them in jail, rape them.

At one point, there were 54,000 people in the camps, from 1,000 villages. The government claimed it had “sanitised’’ 644 villages. Fifty thousand adivasis had run away to the jungle. That is when the Chief Minister (CM) Raman Singh declared that those who have come to the camps are with us, and those who have run away are with the Naxalites.

Human right champions like Late Shri K. Balagopal wrote an Open Letter to the CM – as the chief of the state, you are saying that those citizens who choose to stay in their own homes are Naxalites! And will you give orders to shoot them? That is exactly what he did. There would be attacks on the same village again and again. The adivasis would try to come back and cultivate their land; every time they would be caught and terrible atrocities inflicted on them. Their harvests would be burnt. In such a situation, it was the Naxalites who supported the adivasis. That is why they regard the Naxalites as their friends.

The Salwa Judum forces want liquor, chicken, mutton, women; and they want these every day. They take these from the adivasis. We are blind to that. But when the adivasi picks up a lathi to oppose the police, we cry foul.

The State talks of the violence of the Maoists, but it is the State which is violent. The home minister keeps on talking about peace. But how can peace come when you are all the time attacking the adivasis? Then you expect the Maoists to stop violence. The situation has now reached a point where every outsider is looked upon by the adivasis as an enemy. The State has created a situation in which the adivasi looks upon his own fellow countryman as an enemy.

The Supreme Court has ordered the government to rehabilitate the villagers, compensate them. Not one village was rehabilitated, nor one adivasi compensated. On 10 June 2008, the Supreme Court gave instructions that the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) investigate the conditions in Dantewada in the wake of Salwa Judum. NHRC activists took tribals from Dantewada and some of those who had fled to Telangana, region of Andhra Pradesh (AP) to meet the NHRC team. On 11 June, when the villagers of Nendra were returning, some Salwa Judum people stopped the jeep and beat up the tribals. NHRC phoned the director general of police, asking, is it a crime to talk to the NHRC? Nothing happened. Those adivasis were made to sign a paper saying that they were forced to give statements to the NHRC.

(Part 2 will soon be followed)