By Talveen Singh
There are disturbing signs that the state is increasingly turning to violence to solve its problems. And not only the state, What does this trend portend? Will the nation survive it?
Nothing tells the story better than newspaper headlines. Here are some taken from the major national dailies on a Monday morning: 13 Dead, 50 Hurt in Police Firing Near Rajkot. In Kashmir Two Killed In Grenade Blast. In Punjab UAD Leader, 16 Others Shot. That particular Monday was a relatively quiet day for the Bodos but one newspaper clarified that this should not be taken as any indication of peace, breaking out with a story which said, “ The All Bodo Students Union has called for a three day dusktodawn curfew beginning at 5 p.m. tomorrow in Assam’s Kokorajhar, Darrang, Dhubri, Barpeta and Lakhimpur districts, in protest against alleged indiscriminate arrests of Bodo people.” On the same day there was report from Srinagar which quoted chief minister Farooq Abdullah as saying, “Anyone who picks up a gun will be shot dead. If necessary we might enter the houses and catch extremists. Don’t blame me later if we have to take these extreme steps.”
If Farooq’s diatribe against extremists can be dismissed as mere rhetoric Mr. N.T Rama Rao’s against Naxalites no longer can. The Andhra Pradesh chief minister has already announced a plan to arm landlords against the depradations of Naxalite land reformers. Ina truly filmi approach to the problem violent politics he has recommended that two guns be issued to the president and vice president of each village protection committee. So keen is the government to see Naxals killed (in self-defense of course) that it is prepared to provide loans to those wishing to buy weapons which otherwise at Rs 12,000 apiece are fairly unaffordable even for rich landlords. According to one estimate if the scheme is ever fully implemented there will be 36,000
guns provided for use against Naxalities in Andhra’s extremist affected districts.
In Punjab similar schemes to arm villagers against Sikhs have been in existence for several months. But so far there has been no sign of the level of violence dropping there.
In some ways Punjab can be directly blamed for the upsurge of violence elsewhere in the country. This is because so obsessed have most political analysts, planners and the press been with the secessionist threat in Punjab in the past few years that other areas of political violence have been ignored if not completely neglected. So much so that even Gorkhaland only got attention when the situation was already out of hand.
“The problem is compounded by the leadership’s penchant for cultivating their own coteries of criminals. This is true of all political parties.”
If politicians in the ruling party are to blame for their fire brigade approach to political violence (rush in only when the fire starts) political analysts and journalists are much to blame for their very short sighted analysis of problems like Punjab. In fact, their approach to political analysis have been remarkably similar to the government’s fire brigade approach to putting out the problem. This is most evident in the case of Punjab where nearly everyone got into the act only after Operation Bluestar, immediately dubbed the problem to be tackled as a religious one and left it at that. On the contrary, it should be clear that at the root of the violence in Punjab are the same serious economic and political problems that are now manifesting themselves in political violence elsewhere in the country.
“It was after the Karamchedu carnage that the Andhra Pradesh Dalit Maha Sabha (APDMS) was formed. It has filed a case against several Kamma landlords and the first accused was Chenchuramaiah himself, While the case dragged on the main prosecution witness, Flishamma was killed. Again there was no protests and the government also remained indifferent. Only APDMS issued a statement condemning the murder. It seems that Chenchuramaiah was killed by Naxalities in retaliation against the murder of this woman.
“The Dalit Maha Sabha had no program of taking to arms to fight against atrocities. It was only organizing public meetings and processions to educate Dalits. But now that NTR is giving arms to landlords, even organizations such as APDMS may be provoked to. organize armed defense…
The prospect thus is of increasing shootouts in the village. Indeed a Bihar type situation may soon prevail in parts of Andhra Pradesh.”
If Andhra does go the way of Bihar and if other states follow as well it will be largely due to what Janata Dal leader and political analyst Inder Gujral, describes a5 “bad political management.” Says Gujral: “The system has lost its sensitivity to dissent so it looks upon all dissent as wrong. It has also lost its capacity to forestall the situation and to deal with such problems in 4 nonpartisan way. It is basically a failure of political management, a decline in the quality of leadership.”
The problem is compounded by the leadership’s penchant for cultivating their own coteries of criminals. This is true of all political parties as can be seen from the comedy of errors that resulted when the Congress (1) tried to discredit opposition leaders by circulating photograph of them taking tea with a convicted heroin smuggler in Uttar Pradesh, Within days the opposition was able to produce a photograph of the Prime Minister being entertained by the same Nazir Ali but they were careful to circulate the photograph only after they had cropped out Zafar Ali Naqvi who has now Switched sides to become one of their senior U.P. leaders.
Part I of this article will be published in the next issue.
Article extracted from this publication >> July 7, 1989
