Patriots & Partisans

by Ramachandra Guha

  Finally, in 1964, after a decade of civil war, a ceasefire was declared between the NNC and the Indian government. A three-member ‘peace mission’ was formed, consisting of the Anglican missionary Michael Scott, the Gandhian nationalist B.P. Chaliha, and Jayaprakash Narayan. Tragically, the mission collapsed within a year, and the rebels returned to the jungle. It was at this stage that JP wrote an extraordinary if still little-known booklet in Hindi, based on a speech he delivered in Patna on Martyrs Day, 30th January 1965. The booklet is called Nagaland mein Shanti ka Prayas (The Attempts to Forge Peace in Nagaland). While ostensibly about a dispute within a single small state of the Union, it is actually a meditation on the meanings of democracy everywhere.

  ‘In the history of every nation,’ began JP, ‘there have been disagreements among the servants and leaders of the nation. Where democracy prevails, these disagreements are discussed and resolved by democratic means; but where democracy is absent, they are resolved by the use of violence.’ However, history teaches us that violence begets counter-violence and, eventually, violence on one’s own comrades. Thus ‘when disputes arise, past alliances and friendships are forgotten, and allegations of betrayal, traitorous behaviour, etc. are levied on one’s opponents’.

  JP proceeded to recount the history of the civil war in Nagaland, the recourse to the gun by one side, then by the other, and the brutalities committed by both. Then, in the spirit of his master, Gandhi, he asked each party to recognize and respect the finest traditions of the other. First, he told the Nagas that, among the nations of Asia, India was unusual in having a democratic and federal Constitution. Were the rebels to abandon the dream of independence and settle for autonomy within the Union, all they had to give up control over was the army, foreign affairs, and currency. In every other respect, they would be free to mould their destinies as they pleased.

  Narayan recognized the distinctiveness of Naga cultural traditions. While both East and West Pakistan bore the impress of the Indic civilization, ‘what we call Indian culture has not made an entry into Nagaland’. That said, JP thought that the Nagas could not sustain an independent country, what with China, Pakistan and Burma all close by and casting covetous eyes on their territory. Why not join up therefore with a democratic and federal India? When New Delhi could not dominate Bihar or Bengal, how could it dominate Nagaland? Were the rebels to come overground and contest elections, said Narayan, they could give their people the best schools, hospitals, roads and so on.

  Towards the end of his lecture, JP turned to educating his Patna audience about the virtues of the Nagas. He was particularly impressed by the vigour of their village councils. Anywhere else in India, he said, to construct an airport the ‘government can uproot village upon village’, whereas in Nagaland it could not do so without the consent of the local people. He was even more struck by the dignity of labour, and the absence of caste feeling. In matters of cooperative behaviour, said JP, the Nagas could teach a thing or two to the people of India. He gave the example of a magnificent church recently constructed in a village near Mokokchung—with a seating capacity of five thousand, it had been built entirely with local materials and local labour, much of it contributed voluntarily by men with BAs and MAs. Narayan contrasted this with the contempt for manual work among the educated, upper-caste elite of the Indian heartland.

  V

  The conflicts I have dealt with had their origins in an inflexible state, but were often exacerbated by recalcitrant rebels. If such conflicts are to be successfully resolved, then they require both the state to be flexible, as well as the rebels to be more accommodating. That, certainly, is the lesson to be learnt from the most successful peace negotiations of contemporary times, which led to the demise of apartheid and the birth of a democratic South Africa. Had President de Klerk and his National Party not begun a dialogue with the African National Congress, and had Nelson Mandela and his comrades not turned their backs on the gun, there might yet be a civil conflict raging in that beautiful land.

  One notable aspect of the transition in South Africa was that the reconciliation was racial as well as political. The whites handed over power, but did not relinquish their rights as citizens or professionals. The need for black economic advancement was recognized, but it was not pursued in wanton haste. The comparison with neighbouring Zimbabwe is striking. There, the end of settler colonialism was followed by savage retribution, where the whites were forcibly dispossessed of their lands and encouraged—one should rather say coerced—to leave the country. As a result, what was once the bread basket of Africa has become a basket case where scarcity and famine stalk the land.

  Looking further west, South Asians may also take heart from the political transition that took place after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Once run with an iron hand from Moscow, countries such as Poland and the Czech Republic have emerged as vigorous democracies. After the hold of the Soviets was loosened—through a process initiated by the visionary Mikhail Gorbachev—the different sections of Polish and Czech society eschewed the politics of revenge and retribution. Instead of turning on one another, Communists and anti-Communists formed political parties of their own and fought elections based on universal adult franchise. Autocrats became democrats, while rebels became governors (most famously, Lech Walesa and Vaclav Havel). Who, in 1960 or even in 1980, would have imagined a transition as painless and productive as this?

  South Asians might also profit from a look at the recent history of Ireland. After the Good Friday Agreement, the previously militant Sinn Fein put away their guns and entered the democratic process. The two parts of the island remain under separate sovereignties; however, the ceasefire has permitted a deeper engagement with the democratic process within the Republic of Ireland as well as within Ulster, a free movement of people across the borders, and a sharp diminution of sectarian violence. These changes led to a surge in economic growth, with investments pouring into an island always legendary for its natural beauty, but now known also for being a rule-bound and largely peaceful society. In forging their compromise, the two sides to the Irish conflict gave up pride and prestige, to gain, in exchange, prosperity and peace.

  VI

  I return now to South Asia, and move on from political conflicts to a celebrated environmental dispute. Consider the controversy over the Sardar Sarovar dam in central India. The benefits of this project flow wholly to one state, Gujarat; whereas the costs are borne disproportionately by another state, Madhya Pradesh. When it is built to its full height, the dam will displace close to 200,000 people, a majority of whom are tribal. From 1989 the oustees have been organized under the banner of the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA), whose leader is the remarkable Medha Patkar.

  Between 1989 and 1995, the NBA organized a series of satyagrahas to stop the construction of the dam. Their struggle won wide appreciation, both for its principled commitment to non-violence and for its ability to mobilize peasants and tribals. By now, several scientific studies had been published calling into question the viability of large dams. These studies adduced environmental arguments—the submergence of scarce forests and wildlife; economic arguments—the fact that high sedimentation rates and soil salinity had greatly diminished the financial returns from such projects; and social arguments—namely, the utter despair and demoralization of the communities whom the dams had rendered homeless.

  The struggle and the science notwithstanding, the construction of the Sardar Sarovar dam proceeded. Now, K.J. Joy and Suhas Paranjape, two engineers based in Pune, worked out an innovative compromise. Given that the dam had already come up to a height of about 260 feet, clearly work on it could not be stopped. But its negative effects could be minimized. The Pune engineers advocated a dam smaller than that originally envisaged, but with ‘overflow’ canals to take water directly to the drought-prone regions of Kutch and Saurashtra. The redesign of the dam would greatly reduce the area to be submerged, yet retain many of the benefits that were to accrue from the dam. The districts in Gujarat most despe
rately in need of water would get it. At the same time, many fewer families in Madhya Pradesh would be displaced.

  Unfortunately, the compromise was rejected both by the Gujarat government and by the NBA. The former insisted that the dam had to be built to its originally sanctioned height of 456 feet. The latter insisted that the dam must be brought down. As the Andolan’s slogan went, ‘Koi Nahi Hatega! Baandh Nahin Banega!’ (No one will leave their homes, for the dam will not be built.) However, a good chunk of the dam had already been built. Hundreds of tons of concrete had already been poured into its foundations. And thousands of families had already been displaced.

  At a meeting in Bangalore in November 2000, I heard the writer Arundhati Roy lead a group of college students in shouting: ‘Baandh Nahin Banega, Koi Nahin Hatega!’ This was an act that, to put it politely, was irresponsible. It was also in character, for shortly before this meeting, Ms Roy had written that the half-built dam should be made a museum for failed technologies. However, even as Ms Roy spoke the dam was eighty metres high. Some people were at work building it further upwards, as a consequence of which other people were being displaced. Not however, the college students or their cheerleader, who would move on to make lives of their own while the Sardar Sarovar dam continued to rise.

  In retrospect, it must be considered a pity that the NBA did not adopt the dam of lower height proposed by the Pune engineers. They could have asked the Supreme Court to order a moratorium on future large dams, while seeking to find the most feasible solution to this dam, which lay not in demolishing it or in completing it in full, but in the Joy–Paranjape ‘compromise’. Meanwhile, the Chipko leader Chandi Prasad Bhatt had suggested that the Narmada Andolan ask for irrigated land in Gujarat for those made to surrender their homes and lands in Madhya Pradesh. This proposal was likewise met with a resounding silence.

  The call to demolish the dam only made Gujarat and the Gujaratis more intransigent. They saw it as symptomatic of a lack of concern for their predicament. If the Narmada Andolan said ‘Bring down the Dam!’, they answered: ‘Build it to its Full Height, not an Inch Less!’ Both sides were adamantly opposed to any compromise. But, I still think, if the petition to the Supreme Court had placed the Joy–Paranjape alternative in the foreground, it might yet have been favoured. Faced with the alternatives of continuing with the dam’s construction or putting an end to the project, the court would always be inclined to the former course—if only because many thousands of crores of public money had already been spent on the project. But if the court had been adequately alerted to the compromise solution, which would still bring water to the most deprived parts of Gujarat, while minimizing the suffering of the displaced, they may have been persuaded towards reducing the height of the dam.

  VII

  The case of Sardar Sarovar forcefully brings home the need for social movements to be flexible in their strategies. What seems feasible and plausible in Year 0 may no longer be so in Year 5 or Year 10. (As John Maynard Keynes liked to say, ‘When the facts change, I change my mind.’) Unfortunately, the leaders of the major oppositional movements in South Asia have found it hard, if not impossible, to change their approach and strategy. In Kashmir, in Nagaland, and in northern Sri Lanka, the rebels have refused to abandon their dream of a sovereign homeland in exchange for greater autonomy within an existing nation state.

  Kashmir is in part a conflict between two South Asian nations. On the other hand, the Naga and the Tamil insurgencies are manifestations of conflicts within a single nation, and, as such, perhaps more amenable to dialogue and reconciliation. Now the Nagas in India and the Tamils in Sri Lanka share certain attributes. They are both hard-working peoples. They have a better-than-average acquaintance with English, the language of professional advancement in the global economy. As compared to other South Asian cultures, they practise less gender discrimination—here, there are many women who assume leadership roles, women who are teachers, doctors, entrepreneurs, and guerrilla fighters. And if one is able to make the last of these professions redundant, there will be much greater scope for the others.

  Among the things that have stood in the way of a successful resolution of the Naga and the Tamil issues is the burden of history. Both sides to these conflicts have much to complain about. The Jaffna Tamils cannot forget the burning of the great library or the pogrom of 1983; the Sinhalese remember only the assassinations of their leaders and the bombs that exploded in markets, killing innocent civilians. The Nagas recall the burning of villages and the killings of civilians by the paramilitary and the army; the Indian state remembers only the seeking by the Naga rebels of Chinese help and the killings of Naga moderates. If one looks at the past, then one only sees crimes committed by the other party—crimes real as well as imagined. How can one then get the contending parties to look to the future instead, to think of the fate of the generations that are yet to come? Or do they want them too to live a life of uncertainty and instability, plagued by the shadow of the gun?

  History is a burden in another way too. In the thick of the rebellion, rebels are prone to rhetorical excess, to make commitments and promises that make compromise at a later stage difficult. Thus, the LTTE often said that it will hold out for nothing less than an independent nation, a Tamil Eelam. The NSCN has likewise stood for an independent Nagalim—this to consist of the Naga-speaking areas of the Indian states of Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh and Assam as well as Nagaland. When the rebels come to the negotiating table, these past promises come back to haunt them. If they are not reminded of these claims by their own cadres, then surely rivals within the movement will make certain to draw the public’s attention to them. (In the same manner, Medha Patkar was constrained by the stirring slogan that captivated her followers when the Narmada movement was at its height: ‘Baandh Nahin Banega! Koi Nahin Hatega!’.)

  Then there is the issue of pride: having fought for so long for a certain goal, it cannot be let go of easily, or at all. There is the issue of sacrifice—having lost so many lives in the cause, would it be fair to the memory of the martyrs to settle for less than what they gave their lives for? Sentiments such as these have been widespread among the leadership of the Naga National Socialist Council (I-M), the leading insurgent group in Nagaland, and among the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, which was for many years the main, indeed, unchallenged, representative of the Sri Lankan Tamil cause.

  In both the Naga and the Tamil cases, compromise has also been made more difficult by the desires of the diasporic community. Nagas and Tamils in exile have been even more emphatic that no solution short of complete independence is acceptable or desirable. Since they often paid for the guns, their voice carried much weight. This is a depressingly familiar story, the story of the expatriate who is even more unyielding than those who live on the ground. Palestine might be a less violent place were it not for the Jews of the East Coast of the United States. The Good Friday Agreement might have come earlier had it not been for Americans of Irish–Catholic extraction. Many fewer lives would have been lost in the Indian Punjab in the 1980s had Sikhs in the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States not decided to support and encourage the struggle for an independent Khalistan.

  One last parallel between the Naga and the Tamil struggles lies in the character of their main leaders. Like the pre-eminent Naga separatist, T. Muivah, the Tamil Tiger supremo, Velupillai Prabhakaran, possessed an extraordinary energy and drive. Like Muivah, he nurtured, by personal example, the strengths and talents of countless cadres and followers. The Naga struggle was inconceivable without Muivah; so too the Tamil struggle without Prabhakaran. Their charisma and determination played a crucial part in the making and deepening of the struggle. But once the struggle had acquired a certain credibility, could not that same charisma and determination have played their part in forging a compromise? For, if anyone could have persuaded the Tamils to give up the gun, it was Prabhakaran. If anyone can charm the Nagas now into accepting the Indian Constitution, it is Muivah.

 
; In a prescient essay published in 2007, that long-time student of the Sri Lankan conflict, D.B.S. Jeyaraj, speculated on the future of Tamil separatism when its leader died or disappeared. ‘Will the LTTE be as effective without Prabhakaran at the helm?’ asks Jeyaraj. He continued: ‘The answer clearly is “no”. If Prabhakaran is no more, it will not be an immediate end of the LTTE. It will however be the beginning of the end and the decline and fall could be quite rapid.’

  Prabhakaran had a legitimacy and popular appeal denied to his colleagues, and possibly also to his successors. While he was alive and in command, the state may have considered giving up more than it wished to. However, now that he is dead, the Sri Lankan state may be tempted to withhold these concessions, in the hope that in their leader’s absence the rebel movement shall splinter into factions and thus lose its energy and legitimacy.

  That is indeed what seems to be happening now in Sri Lanka, where the end of the civil war has led to an upsurge of Sinhala triumphalism. Writing in the Economic and Political Weekly, the political scientist Neil DeVotta quotes a government minister in Colombo as saying: ‘The Sinhalese are the only organic race of Sri Lanka. Other communities are all visitors to the country, whose arrival was never challenged out of the compassion of the Buddhists. But they must not take this compassion for granted. The Muslims are here because our kings let them trade here and the Tamils because they were allowed to take refuge when the Moguls were invading them in India. What is happening today is pure ingratitude on the part of these visitors.’

  Such statements, says DeVotta, form part of a ‘nationalist narrative that combines jeremiad with chauvinism’. In this narrative, ‘the Sinhalese only have Sri Lanka while the island’s other minorities have homelands elsewhere; Sri Lanka is surrounded by envious enemies who loathe the Sinhalese; those living across the Palk Straits in Tamil Nadu especially those who want to overtake the island; and NGOs, Christian missionaries, human rights groups, and various western powers and their organizations conspire to tarnish the image of the Sinhalese Buddhists and thereby assist the LTTE. Those who subscribe to this narrative are patriots; the rest are traitors.’*