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.