One incident in his village, Belampalli, made Peddi Shankar very popular among the people there, particularly those from his own community. Two rowdies, Kundel Shankar and Dastagiri, who were active in the area had spread fear among the villagers. They would openly tease the women, but nobody dared to speak against them. Peddi Shankar and his comrades had warned them repeatedly to refrain from such acts. Finally, one day, Shankar and his close associate Gajalla Ganga Ram (who later died in 1981 when a hand-grenade went off in his hands) waylaid the two in a marketplace and in full public view, hacked both of them to death with an axe.
Later, in 1978, Peddi Shankar also led a major strike of coal miners who were demanding better air supply (called galli supply in mining parlance). But it was the Rajeshwari rape case the same year that catapulted him to legendary fame in this area.
Rajeshwari, a coal-mine worker's wife was raped by a mine officer, and later died in hospital. It was Shankar who initiated a massive agitation against the rape incident and is believed to have led a violent protest against the accused officer, in which his house was damaged. To quell the protestors, the police opened fire, killing two persons. Afterwards, a case of dacoity and arson and attempt to seize arms from the police station was filed against Peddi Shankar. It was then that he went underground.
By 1980, he had turned into a full-fledged Naxal guerilla. The same year, he was the leader of the squad that crossed the Godavari river and entered Maharashtra. They began work in three villages of Chandrapur district, on the border of Andhra Pradesh: Moinbinpetta, Bhourah and Paidgun. Shankar and his squad members began to talk to the local people, mostly Gond Adivasis, who lived in about 700 huts and had been exploited by the contractors and moneylenders.
On 2 November 1980, Shankar and his friends had stopped for food at a house in Moinbinpetta. It was around this time that Pota, a landlord's henchman, came to know of it and revealed their location to the police. At about 3 p.m., as Shankar and four other squad members were leaving, they were waylaid on the banks of the Pranhita, a tributary of the Godavari. The police party is said to have fired at them from behind. Shankar was shot in the back in full view of a number of villagers who were around. He fell, rose again, ran for a few metres but fell in a jowar field and died. His four friends managed to escape. In a short time, Shankar had become very popular in this area. His body was picked up by the villagers and kept in a school. Three days later, the police took his body. The constable who shot Shankar, Chandrika Deep Rai, was awarded 500 rupees while the other members of the police group were given 100 rupees each.9
With his death, Peddi Shankar became the first martyr of the People's War Group. Only a few months earlier, he had received a Mao badge from the party for his work. And now he was dead. The villagers later reclaimed his body from the police and cremated it themselves. It was an emotional farewell to their hero. His father came to know of it only ten days later, and went to see the spot where he was cremated. The police hoped that Shankar's death would put an end to Naxal activities in the region. But his death only served to make the Naxals more popular. Very soon, other squads would enter these areas.
Initially, when the squads entered, the Adivasis would run away from them, thinking of them as dacoits. The Naxal guerillas had a hard time even getting food since the people in the villages that they entered would vanish into the jungles upon spotting them. At certain places, the Naxals would then forcibly catch hold of someone and tell him about themselves, their party and their agenda.
But one incident in 1981 was to turn the Naxal movement into a major struggle in these parts. It happened in Inderavalli in Adilabad district on the Andhra Pradesh-Maharashtra border.
Situated on the western side of Andhra Pradesh, and bordering Maharashtra, Adilabad was the most backward district of the state. Fourteen per cent of the district's population in the '80s was tribal, of which Gond tribals constituted 70 per cent. According to a People's Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR) report, the district had the lowest literacy rate, medical facilities, electrification and transport facilities in the state.
Since 1978, the tribals, under the guidance of the rebels had begun to organise themselves into Girijan Rytu Coolie Sangams (tribal peasant labour associations) and had begun their struggles against forest officials and moneylenders. The tribals began to demand better wages for tendu leaf collection, control over the forest land and better wages for tribal labourers employed by government contractors. Buoyed by the increasing support of the tribals, the activists announced a rally in Inderavalli village of Utnoor taluka on 20 April 1981. The rally was announced days in advance and posters were put up all the way till Hyderabad, the state capital.
The police sensed danger and a large number of police deployments took place in the area days before the rally. Section 144 was also imposed. But the poor Adivasis who had been informed about the rally in advance had no means of knowing what Section 144 meant. On the stipulated day, they came out in hordes, some of them hoping to buy essential items from the haat. The local Congress workers who had their ear to the ground, had already alerted the senior party leadership in Hyderabad about these developments.
The police clamped down on the tribals. Leading a brutal attack against the Adivasis, the police fired upon them. Officially, 13 Adivasis died, but according to eyewitnesses, more than 50 were left dead and at least 100 injured. Those who tried to rescue the injured were also not spared. Later, the government said in its defence that the tribals were armed. But the fact-finding team that visited Inderavalli right after the incident testified that the tribals were carrying no more than sticks and lathis which they habitually carried. The police did not return even a single body. Instead, they cremated all the bodies, in violation of the Gond custom of burying their dead.
Many say that the Inderavalli incident did to the state's authority in this whole region what Jallianwala Bagh did to the British.
There were a few speakers who were supposed to be addressing the tribals that day. One of them was Kobad Ghandy. Soon, he would be at the forefront of the Maoist movement as one of its ideologues.
The five men had been walking for days. They were exhausted, and the thought came to them that they might die without anyone even knowing. The jungles of Bastar were unending. It was summer time and in the harsh sun, the five men walked slowly, drinking water wherever they could find it. But food had been scarce and they had not been able to eat for two days now. One of them was losing his patience.
The men had entered from Andhra Pradesh, and they knew that this was the life they had to lead now. Not for days, weeks or months, but for years. Or till a police bullet snuffed out their lives. They were one of the squads sent to establish a base in Bastar. But right now, they were worried about the gnawing hunger in their stomachs. Without food, they would not survive for long—this they knew very well. Even after hours of walking, they would rarely encounter a single human being. In some villages that fell on their way, the Adivasis would be so scared at the sight of them that they would run away and disappear into the jungle. In any case, the Adivasis had barely enough food even for themselves. One of the five remembers watching an Adivasi bring a handful of red ants and making a chutney out of it. The young man who was growing restless could not restrain himself any longer. 'If I don't find anything to eat in the next village, I am returning home,' he told his comrades. His four friends were too tired to try to convince him to stay back.
In the next village, the men found a chicken. They pounced on it, wrung its neck and devoured it after roasting it over a crude fire made of sticks. And they stayed back. The man who had threatened to return became one of the leading lights of the Naxal movement in this area. His name, however, is not known. In the complex history of the Naxal movement, some identities remain shrouded in mystery.
To begin with, the Naxals concentrated upon fighting the authority of the contractors and forest officials. Struggles also broke out against the management of the paper mill and contractors exploiting
the forest produce. Massive struggles were waged to increase the rates for tendu leaf and bamboo collection. Within the first year, the Adivasis stopped paying taxes to the forest department. Large tracts of forest land were occupied forcibly for cultivation. Also, large portions of land occupied by traders and moneylenders were redistributed among the landless. Within a few years, thousands of acres of land were occupied through the might of the gun. The Adivasis, buoyed by the Naxalite presence, had begun to assert themselves. They would come out in hordes to press for their demands and, when required, forcibly occupy land.
The Adivasis had now tasted the power of the gun. In Gadchiroli, a woman comrade, Samakkha, took to task a forest officer who had grabbed a vehicle to confiscate forest produce from Adivasis. In front of a huge crowd of people he had dominated for years, the forest officer's collar was grabbed by a single woman, and he was forced to apologise. This left a big impression on the psyche of the Adivasi populace. The tehsildar in Alapalli who was exploiting schoolgirls was caught by the Naxal guerillas, beaten up and then tied to a tree. Then the women of that area were asked to assemble and instructed to spit at his face. One by one, the women approached him and spat on him. Some of them cried.
In many villages in Bastar, even the use of the plough was unknown to the Adivasis. The earth was considered as mother and using the plough, in the minds of the Adivasis, was akin to cutting through her chest. In fact in the entire Dandakaranya region, only two per cent of the land was irrigated. To the Adivasis, even basic agricultural techniques such as weeding or usage of natural fertilisers like cow dung were alien concepts. The exploitation of women was rampant. In the forest, the Adivasis would store forest produce in isolated hamlets called Ghotul. These hamlets were used by forest guards to sexually exploit tribal girls. If the girls protested, they were threatened and in many cases evicted from work In one such case, when the husband of the woman protested, he was killed by the forest guards and contractors. During a public meeting, this was brought to the notice of the Maoist guerillas. Immediately, the culprits were apprehended and publicly thrashed.
Because of such acts, many young Adivasis were attracted to the Maoist cause. In Gadchiroli district's Aheri taluka was a young girl who grew up witnessing the exploitation of her people by the forest officers. Every year, they would come and take rice and jowar from her father. She would also hear stories of her friends being caught and sexually exploited by them. 'I would ask my father not to bow to their demands but he would catch hold of me and ask me to keep quiet,' she recalls. This was in the early '80s and a Maoist squad had come to their village and set up camp by the river. "We were not allowed to even venture towards that side since our elders thought the Maoists were dacoits and would kidnap us,' she says. But one day the rebels caught hold of a boy called Raju and explained to him their aim and agenda. The word spread.
A few weeks later, the girl who was then 15 went to the riverside where she met a senior Maoist leader she calls Shankar anna (big brother). By 1986, the girl had become a full-timer. Her first military action commenced seven years later when her squad attacked a police post.
Today, the girl is a woman and one of the senior Maoist guerillas, who goes by the name of Tarakka. She is a ferocious fighter, and in several press reports,10 she has been described as 'a woman known not just for her commitment to the "Naxalite cause" but also for her beauty'. Her name figures prominently in the October 2009 attack on police personnel in Gadchiroli's Laheri area in which 17 policemen lost their lives. 'But I was not there,' she told me when I met her inside a Maoist camp, somewhere on the Maharashtra-Chhattisgarh border.
Within a few years of entering the Dandakaranya forests, the Naxals held sway over the whole region. Many landlords, contractors, and tradesmen who tried to fight back with the help of the police were annihilated and their properties distributed among the peasants.
The biggest challenge the Maoists faced in this area was that of language. In some areas close to Andhra Pradesh, Telugu was spoken, but once they went deeper, they found that the people spoke only Gondi. The problem with Gondi was that it had no script. The Maoists worked on it gradually. Today, every Maoist guerilla in this region can speak and understand Gondi no matter which part of the country he belongs to. The Maoists have been working on a script for the language and, in the schools run by them, they have tried to introduce textbooks in the language.
Gradually, the Maoists organised the tribals. Many protest rallies and strikes were held under the supervision of the Maoists in support for demands like better wages and better rates for forest produce.
In North Telangana the movement extended to all the talukas of Karimnagar and Adilabad district, except one taluka in each. In Warangal district the focus developed from an urban to a rural movement. In the Dandakaranya forests, the movement spread to Gadchiroli, Chandrapur and Bhandara districts; Bastar, Rajnandgaon and Balaghat of the then Madhya Pradesh and to Koraput in Orissa. In 1985 alone, in two talukas of Gadchiroli district, the Maoists liberated 20,000 acres of land from the government or landlords' control and distributed it among Adivasis.
The area had begun to turn into a guerilla zone.
9As mentioned in a CPDR fact-finding report.
10Vivek Deshpande, Indian Express, 12 October 2009.
V
GUNPOWDER IN
BHOJPUR
Let me fill my nostrils with it, with the aroma of gunpowder, the soil of Bhojpur is fragrant.
—Nagarjun*
The most dangerous thing is to be filled with dead peace.
—Avtar Singh Pash *
Washing clothes like his father, grandfather and greatgrandfather did not interest Ram Pravesh Baitha. He wanted to do a little better in life. But he knew his limitations as well. There was no point dreaming about bigger things. Smaller, manageable dreams would do for him, or so he thought. A pucca house, a proper kitchen for his mother, a scooter for himself. For this, Baitha had realised much earlier in his life, he would have to somehow complete his education. And he did. In Bihar's Madhuban district, however, that a washerman's son would flaunt his graduation didn't go well with the upper-caste pride. So, Baitha was summoned and beaten up badly for possessing a Bachelor's degree. He swallowed that insult. His whole focus was on his dream of a better life. He shifted to another university and completed his Master's as well. And now, his dream was not far from being realised.
Baitha applied for various jobs like most of his friends did. But while his friends secured jobs, Baitha did not find employment. And he realised soon enough why. Apparently he had got a job and had even been sent an appointment letter. But the upper-caste staff at his village post office did not want him to get that job. They tore the appointment letter and threw it away. Baitha joined the Naxal fold. He rose to become the commander of the north Bihar cadre and was later arrested in May 2008.
Caste is one major reason why Naxalism flourished in Bihar. And crushing poverty. The Bihar of the '60s was even more steeped in hunger and caste division than it is today. Most of the land holders were upper caste. The landless labourers and marginal farmers lived a miserable life. The upper-caste zamindars owned gangs of henchmen who would help them to maintain their political clout and also keep the poor suppressed. The poor had no voice. Sexual exploitation of their womenfolk was the norm. It was against this backdrop that the seeds of rebellion were sown in Bihar.
In Bhojpur in central Bihar trouble began when a young educated man, Jagdish Mahto confronted the goons of a landlord who were trying to rig votes during the 1967 assembly elections. He was severely beaten up. Taking a cue from the Naxalbari, Mahto forged a relationship with Naxalite leaders in West Bengal. In his endeavour he was joined by a former dacoit, Rameshwar Ahir, convicted of killing a constable. They were later killed in 1972 and 1975 respectively.
In north Bihar's Muzaffarpur district, the Musahiri block saw major disputes between zamindars and peasants over crop sharing. In April 1968, some peasants forcibly harvested the crop o
f arhar (a pulse crop) belonging to a landlord, Bijlee Singh. Bijlee Singh is believed to have led his gang of goons sitting astride an elephant. But the peasants fought them back and ultimately Bijlee Singh and his men had to retreat. By 1969, Naxalites from West Bengal had arrived here to spread the movement.
In West Bengal's Jangal Mahal area, two men, Kami Chatterjee and Amulya Sen, started an organisation called Dakshin Desh (Dakshin because India is in the south of the Himalayas while China is in the north, hence referred to as the Uttar Desh). The group formed many squads and carried out several actions against landlords.
It is this organisation that was rechristened into the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC).
In early '70s, a Naxalite rebel called Kalyan Roy formed a group called MMG (Man, Money, Gun) that was active around Singhbhum and the neighbouring belt of then undivided Bihar. The group had set up a base in a forest near the steel city of Jamshedpur. In May 1970, a group of Naxalites from this group was arrested from their base including a British woman, Mary Tyler.
Mary Tyler worked as a teacher and a translator, and she had met Amalendu Sen, an Indian engineering trainee working in West Germany while returning to north London from there. The two fell in love and later married in April 1970 in Kolkata where Sen's family lived. Amalendu was a member of the MMG group and both he and his bride left soon after for Singhbhum district, on the Bengal-Bihar border. The police arrested them on charges of raiding a police station. Mary Tyler spent five years in jail, mostly in the Hazaribagh prison. She describes her experiences in jail in her memoir, My Years in an Indian Prison.11 Writing about the condition of the male Naxalite prisoners in the jail, she writes:
'The men are in dreadful conditions. Their yard is as dreary and desolate, as ugly a place as one could imagine— a cemented yard, a water tap and a row of dark little cells, in which they are locked, five or six to a cell, in fetters, twenty-four hours a day. Even in the daytime it is dark. Only if they squat in front of the barred door can they see to read. At night they do not even have a light inside their cells. And, to cap it all, one complete madman is locked up with them.'
Hello Bastar Page 5
