What's new about your model, comrades?

March 6, 2010 Governancenow.com

The Maoists now claim to have developed an“alternative development model”. If you remember, while dubbing the Maoists as the biggest internal security threat since 2006, Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh has also been taunting the rebels and their

civil society sympathisers by saying that they didn’t have an alternative vision or development plan. More than four years later, these sympathisers have come out with their
alternative model and circulated it at a press conference in New Delhi on March 5.

The note, titled “What the State Wants to Destroy is the Alternate Development Model”, is unsigned but carries names of 38 ideologues and intellectuals. Most of them are unknown and hail from Sangrur, Patiala, Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Taran Taran, Sirsa and Bathinda. One or

two are from DU sand JNU. The alternative model they talk of has been developed in the Dandakaranya, the forest spreading through Chattisgarh's Bastar and nearby districts of Orissa, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh.

This is where the rebels run their Janatana Sarkars.

This is how the model is prefaced: “It will give us a glimpse of what the Maoists hold as a vision for the progress and development of our country—development which is indigenously and self-reliantly built, one which is people-oriented and is constructed in the course of the
people’s democratic participation, and the one which cares for this land and its resources. ….such development will free us from the stranglehold of imperialist capital and its dictates….a course of
action which can only be executed by the truly patriotic.”

What are the key points of this model? The note says lakhs of acres ofland has been distributed among the peasants; women have been given rights over land; developed agriculture from the primitive form of shifting cultivation to settled farming; introduced wide range of
vegetables like carrots, radish, brinjal, bitter gourd, okra, tomato etc; planted orchards of bananas, mangoes, guavas etc; have built dams, ponds, water channels for breeding fish and for irrigation; dug wells for safe drinking water and set up rice mills.

Other elements include, running schools and hospitals, publishing books and magazines in Gondi language, providing remunerative prices for Tendu leaves, bamboo, timber and other forest
produce; establishing People’s Court to settle disputes; stopping sexual harassment and rape; and building up People’s Militia for defence in almost every village.

But hey, what the heck, every NGO worth its name has been doing all these! What is new in this list? Or innovative? Or alternative?

Besides, check out with the ministries of rural development, social welfare, tribal welfare, panchayati raj or agriculture, all these ministries run these schemes! Yes, their implementation sucks and corruption rules, but the point is, the model exists.

The only thing new with the Maoists' alternative model then is the People's Militia and that raises a simple question: In these model villages where everything is run for the people, by the people and of the people (there you go again, isn't that what the rest of us call democracy?) who is the People's Militia protecting from whom?

And how many villages have been blessed by this alternative model given that the Maoists control 40,000 square kilometers as Union Home Secretary G.K. Pillai told a parliamentary panel last September? The Maoists' note does not tell us that. And since none can enter the area under Maoist influence without their express clearance and escort, we have only their word for proof. Too bad if you can't believe them, your problem.

At the said press meet Arundhati Roy openly admitted: "Yes, I am a Maoist sympathiser.” She also said the battle between the government and the Maoists is a clash of two “imaginations” and wondered how talks would help because they had no meeting ground. Is this “alternative development model” a third “imagination”?

Shouldn't the supreme court have regional benches?

Hot Topic
February 22, 2010

The full court of the supreme court has again rejected the demand for setting up its regional benches. The full bench, comprising 27 judges and headed by the Chief Justice of India, was unanimous in its decision and said setting up regional benches would affect the country's "unitary character". The apex court had rejected such demands four times in the past as well--through resolutions passed in 1999, 2001, 2004 and 2006. The latest resolution came following a fresh proposal from the law minister, M Veerappa Moily.

For ages, lawyers have been demanding regional benches, particularly those in Tamil Nadu, because of the need to travel to Delhi from across the country every time a high court order is challenged. The Law Commission had suggested that the apex court be split into a Constitution Bench in Delhi and four Cassation benches in four regions of the country. The first to deal with constitutional matters and the latter four to deal with appellate work arising out of high court orders, i.e., to ensure law has been applied correctly. Successive parliamentary committees too have supported this saying setting up benches outside Delhi "would neither impair unity and integrity nor undermine the importance of the supreme court".

The views of the Law Commission and the parliamentary panels seem quite reasonable. Regional benches, not dealing with constitutional matters, should cut down on the need to travel to Delhi and de-clog the apex court by way of extra benches. Given the long list of cases pending before courts, more than 50,000 cases are pending with the supreme court alone (out of a total of 3 crore cases pending), this step would surely help in ensuring speedy justice. At present, it takes on average 15 years for a case to come to conclusion. Shouldn't the apex court be alive to these issues? How would the country's unitary character be threatened by more benches? Don't the high courts have more than one bench in many of the states?

Futility of talking to Muivah

What is the point of talking to Muivah when the other
stakeholders—other Naga groups and states of Manipur, Assam and
Arunachal Pradesh—are not present?

When a ceasefire was announced with the most violent and dominant Naga
insurgency group, the Nationalist Social Council of Nagaland
(Isak-Muivah), in 1997, it was hailed as a big step to bring peace to
the region and eventually integrate the fiercely independent Naga
tribes into the national mainstream. Barring minor incidents of
violence and violations of ceasefire agreements, peace has prevailed
but negotiations have not moved an inch forward in the past twelve and
half years. The reason is not far to seek. What is essentially a
political problem is being dealt by the bureaucrats in their typical
bureaucratic ways.
That is why nobody knows what precisely former home secretary K
Padmanabhaiya talked in his numerous meetings with Naga leaders,
sometimes in India but mostly abroad, for ten years. (Former Mizoram
Governor Swaraj Kaushal was the first interlocutor when talks began in
1998. Padmanabhaiya replaced him a year later and continued till
2009.) Even now, as it was at the beginning, the two contentious
issues remain the same--demand for complete sovereignty for Nagaland
and formation of a Greater Nagaland by assimilating Naga inhabited
areas of Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh and Assam.
The baton has now passed to another bureaucrat, R S Pandey, a Nagaland
cadre IAS officer and former chief secretary of the state who retired
a month ago as petroleum secretary.
Pandey would begin afresh with Thuingaleng Muivah, general secretary
of NSCN(I-M), who flew in last week for the talks. While it is
understood that the sovereignty issue was a mere posturing by the Naga
leaders after the talks began in 1998, the talks broke down over
unification of Naga inhabited areas. On the one hand, the Naga leaders
are adamant that all Naga inhabited areas be made a single
geographical and political unity, on the other the states of Manipur,
Arunachal Pradesh and Assam have ruled out any such possibility.
Assemblies in these states have even passed resolution pledging to
maintain territorial unity and integrity. When, some years ago, the
central government extended ceasefire with Nagas to districts of
Manipur, the state went up in flame.
The only way any progress can be made on this issue, therefore, is
through a political dialogue involving these states, which has not
happened in all these years. While it can be safely assumed that
these states are unlikely to yield ground, any alternate formula, like
granting autonomy to Naga inhabited areas outside Nagaland and
providing powers to Nagaland to carryout development work in these
areas, can only move forward if other states are involved in the
negotiations.
The other key to solving the Naga problem is to bring all the
insurgent groups to the negotiation table. NSCN (I-M) may be the most
prominent and powerful group, but it would be foolish to assume that
any negotiated settlement can be achieved without involving the other
faction, NSCN (Khaplang) and the Naga National Council. These warring
groups were brought together by the local church and Naga
Reconciliation Forum was set up last year to take the talks further.
But it is strange the government has invited Muivah alone for the
talks.
So what happens if the impossible were to happen and Muivah’s talks
with the interlocutor R S Pandey succeeded? It would have no meaning
unless other Naga insurgency groups accept it and the states of Assam,
Arunahcal Pradesh and Manipur endorse it. What is the point of talking
to Muivah alone then?

How not to hold peace talk with the Maoists

Talk by all means but don’t lower the guard and allow the rebels to
regroup, re-arm and emerge stronger, as happened during the failed
talks of 2004

By the time you read this the government would probably have taken a
decision to hold peace talks with the leftwing extremists and worked
out broad parameters within which to carry the process forward. There
are good reasons to hold talks and stop the bloodbath witnessed in the
past few weeks, even if sincerity of the rebels is doubtful. Union
Home Minister P Chidambaram, who is rightly, and for the first time
since the problem erupted, confronting it as a big threat to the
national security, has been at pains to explain that it isn’t a war
“because we don’t wage war against our own people”. Seen from that
perspective, peace talk is a logical step to take. But there are a few
lessons from the past that should not be ignored.

The first lesson from the last failed attempt in 2004--when Andhra’s
Rajasekhara Reddy government invited rebels--is that the rebels used
the opportunity to rest, re-group, re-arm and emerge a far more deadly
force than ever before. In the present instance, the rebels have asked
the centre to stop its offensive for 72 days as against Chidambaram’s
offer to stop violence for 72 hours. That should raise eyebrows but
more than that it is the timing of the peace offer which raises
serious doubts. Remember, it came days after rebels killed 24 Eastern
Frontier Rifles jawans in West Bengal, when a counter offensive could
have been expected. It was also the time when Chidambaram was planning
a second round of talks with chief ministers of West Bengal, Bihar and
Jharkhand within days of the first one in Kolkata (which Bihar and
Jharkhand CMs had skipped). That wouldn’t have escaped rebel’s
notice. It would, therefore, be reasonable to suspect that the rebels’
offer could be a ploy to buy time, rework their strategy and possibly
relocate the militia away from the borders of Bihar-Jharkhand-West
Bengal.

In 2004, the ceasefire was used by the rebels to hold public meetings
throughout the state and mobilize over-ground support. Rebel leader
Ramakrishna and his comrades flaunted their weapons publicly and gave
an impression that they were about to take over the state power. Local
political leaders were pressurized to mobilize crowd for their rallies
and funds were collected openly. A senior officer of Andhra Pradesh
recalls how many traders migrated to bigger cities out of fear. He
also recalls how it sent a wrong signal to the security force and
demoralized them. None of these should be allowed to happen again.

While the 2004 talks were in progress, the rebels made it clear they
would not lay down arms even if the talks succeeded. When it failed,
Ramakrishna said: “The talks are not about the armed struggle but are
about efforts to solve some immediate socio-economic problems of the
people”. During the peace talks he and his men had asked YSR to
produce proof to establish that he had actually distributed land free
to the landless, which was one of the agreements to carry the process
forward. Read Maoist leader Kishenji’s statement (carried by PTI)
offering peace talks carefully: “State governments and the centre
should not indulge in violence between February 25 and May 7 and
concentrate on development of tribal areas which will be reciprocated
by Maoists” (emphasis ours). Can you see similarity?

The government must talk but on no account the guard be lowered or the
forces deployed in rebel-hit areas be withdrawn. The training for
security forces, most of which is completely incapable of handling the
guerilla warfare techniques used by the rebels, must continue. So
should the effort to take Bihar and Jharkhand on board in the fight
against the menace. It should never be forgotten that one of the
first lessons taught to these rebels is Mao’s famous statement: “Every
communist must grasp the truth; political power grows out of the
barrel of a gun.” Only when the rebels realize that the government has
a more powerful gun which it intends to use decisively, peace will
break out.