Ethnic Cleansing: Indian Style

While addressing the closing ceremony of Bastar Pandum, a tribal event in Dantewada, Union Home Minister Amit Shah described Maoists as “brothers” and asked them to drop arms and join the mainstream. They have been systematically killing indigenous people of Bastar for decades to clear the forest area and make opening for corporate mining on a massive scale. It is being delayed due to resistance built by the tribals of Bastar under Maoist banner. All parties, left and right alike, are in favour of corporate-financed mining or what they call development and growth. In other words, they are too eager to allow global mining magnates to loot the earth that legitimately belongs to the tribals. Only the Naxalites are fighting against forceful eviction and tribal people have earned self-respect and dignity by mobilising against state terror.

The British originally developed mining and allied industries in the eastern region and exploited mineral resources to the maximum at the expense of mostly indigenous people without bothering about the environmental crisis and human catastrophe. In truth, mining reached saturation point in many places, creating subsidence and ecological disaster even before the British left India in 1947. How major coal companies, both British and non-British, ruined the eastern coal fields is a case in point. There is fire underground that has made life miserable for hundreds of thousands of people. The Jharia coalfield has been burning for decades, defying solution. They have almost finished the critical minerals and ores in the Jharkhand region. Reckless mining in violation of all laws of the land has virtually destroyed hundreds of tribal villages in Sighbhum and its adjoining areas in Jharkhand. Large parts of Jharkhand’s forest cover have gone forever, courtesy of: mining industry. Very few people know the bitter tale of Noamundi iron mines that supply iron ore to TISCO–Tata’s flagship company. The villages around government-owned Uranium mines are today uninhabitable. With old mines becoming redundant, the persons in power and their business friends have long been trying to acquire the virgin soil of central India, or geographically what is now called Chhattisgarh and the state, ever since its inception, has been frequently hitting the headlines because of what they call left-wing extremism.

Alienation of land is nowhere as rampant as in various tribal belts, which are again mineral-rich. Tribals are fighting for their livelihood, they are fighting for survival. For them, ‘development’ as prescribed by the Shahs to execute with bullets, is nothing but blood.

The Dantewada region is scattered with numerous police camps as if it is a war zone. And the government of India has literally waged war against its own people. Shah’s repeated announcement of finishing Naxalite movement by March 2026 is one way to tell their corporate CEOs that their long wait will be over soon, as the ethnic cleansing is in full swing. They are now killing young boys and girls aged 18-19 years to cripple the future of the tribal society. In many ways, today’s Bastar resembles the ‘70s of Bengal.

Meanwhile, the Shahs are using carrots and stick as well to depopulate Bastar. So they are highlighting the surrender of Maoists with a lot of fanfare. Days after Shah’s visit to Bastar 26 Maoists, including 3 carrying a collective bounty of Rs 5 lakhs on their heads, reportedly surrendered before the police in Chhattisgarh’s Dantewada district. Since the beginning of this year, the security forces have managed to gun down over 130 Maoist cadres in separate ‘encounters’. Despite all their repressive measures and dubious designs to divide the ranks of the movement for the land, even police sources admit that beyond the Indravati River and Indravati National Park in the Bijapur region, there is little presence of the state. Amit Shah may have to revise his deadline soon.

Young people will continue to join the anti-government Maoist campaign because no so-called mainstream party will be coming forward to agitate against the corporate aggression in tribal lands. Everybody thinks these voiceless people are expendable in India’s ‘development’ march.

08-04-2025

Back to Home Page

Frontier
Vol 57, No. 44, Apr 27 - May 3, 2025