Out of the Red

‘‘WE welcome media friends to India’s first Liberated Zone in the making,’’ says the welcome note handed out by the Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee the moment we enter the ‘base area’. We are also handed a document titled ‘Janatana Sarkar: Policy Statement’.

The Janatana Sarkar, we learn, is an alternative form of governance established by the Maoists after overthrowing the present government system. Their three concerns: local administration, development and defence.

Dandakaranya is home to various primitive tribes undivided by caste and religion. The area we visit is inhabited mostly by Gotti Koyas and Gonds, who prefer to be known as Koya Doras, after their language, Koya. Some members of the Maoist squad and a few locals who know Telugu or Hindi act as interpreters, allowing us to talk to many village elders.

‘‘Twenty years ago, when these dadas first came here, we thought they would rob us and molest our women. But they kept on visiting our villages, whether we gave them food or not. Gradually, our fears died down,’’ says one elderly villager. ‘‘In fact, harassment by village chiefs, forest and police personnel decreased after the dadas set foot here.’’

From what they say, it seems the tribals—dependent on the forest for their livelihood—were taxed or fined for everything, from grazing and firewood collection to house-constructions and weddings. The alternative was arrest.

One elderly villager tells us an interesting story: ‘‘Though we had pattas for our land, our patel told us our rights were restricted to the top six inches of that land—and it was government land below that! We were fined if we ploughed a little deeper or dug a pit.’’

Root of Reform

The idea of establishing a guerrilla zone in Dandakaranya was first mooted by Kondapalli Seetharamaiah, founder of People’s War. Way back in 1979, a squad was sent here for a recce; another five squads followed the next year.

But their task was not limited to organising the tribals against atrocities. The Naxalites understood that the tribals—still dependent on gathering food—needed to develop their skill in agriculture. ‘‘Teaching them to plot, plough, manure and weed land was a herculean task,’’ recalls a long-time Maoist leader, showing off rows of nursery fields within the forest.

In the early days, after erratic rains undermined their agricultural efforts, the Naxalites came up with the idea of digging lakes, which would ensure at least one crop a year. That idea laid the foundation of today’s Janatana Sarkar: Since 1995, hundreds of such lakes have been dug in Bastar and Dantewada districts, irrigating land and breeding fish.

The Janatana Sarkar has also experimented with cooperative teams, usually comprising five families each, who work together on their own fields while the landowner claims the harvest. After many trials and errors, the system is now running successfully in many villages.

Though the very existence of private property means that society is class-based, the Maoists believe that the experiments taking place here will serve as a model for tomorrow’s classless society.

Two-Way Bond

There exists a strong bond between the Maoist party and the local people, fostered through monthly village meetings that discuss common problems and the needs of the village. It helps that a majority of squad members are from the local tribes. ‘One from each family to the People’s Army’ is the slogan of the Maoists.

The bond works both ways. To tackle malaria—a major scourge, which claims hundreds of people every season—the Janatana Sarkar has set up a small team trained to administer a few medicines and injections in each village. To simplify things, each team-member is in charge of a particular medicine. So a villager goes to one person if he has fever and to another if he has loose motions.

In return, the armed village militia act as a shield for the Maoists, the first gatekeepers for police combing squads, informers and spies.

So integrated are the Maoist squads with the adivasis’ lives that the village children play ‘Ambush’ and ‘Lal Salaam’ just as other children play ‘Chor-Police’. ‘Ambush’ pits one team playing police with sticks (guns) against another team, which surprises the first to snatch away their weapons. In the other game, the teams stand facing each other and conduct a kind of marchpast with the usual saavdhan-vishram punctuations.

FEMINISM IN THE FORESTS

At one time, it was common for Adivasis to kidnap young girls and ‘marry’ them forcibly. The Maoists played a crucial role in ending the jabardasti marriages and removing taboos that barred women from the granary and proximity to deities.Today, there are two main people’s organisations for the party in Dandakaranya: the Adivasi Kisan Majdoor Sangh and the Krantikari Adivasi Mahila Sangh. While the first focuses on tribal agriculture, the second works on the uplift of tribal women. The Mahila Sangh won a major victory when it acquired, for married women, the right to wear a blouse. If women constitute around 30 per cent of each squad today, the Sangh gets a major share of the credit. Women head two of the five divisions of the Janatana Sarkar committee in Dandakaranya.