From Close Quarters: Protecting an Adivasi Culture the State Wants to Destroy
The unrest in and around Bastar is fundamentally about respect, dignity and trust in our behaviour towards other people.
When there is no longer any violence, there is no need for help
Therefore you should not demand help, but abolish violence
Help and violence form a whole
And the whole has to be changed.
∼ Bertolt Brecht, Gesammelte Werks, 1967
Over the last two decades and more, the internal war in large parts of central India has been simmering, every now and then bringing whatever is accepted as “normal life” to a stop. Our former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2010 declared that “I have been saying for the last three years that Naxalism remains the biggest internal security challenge facing our country,” but one hardly ever hears about any sensible and credible long-term plan that the government has laid out to neutralise this challenge. In 2016, present Prime Minister Modi added that “… natural resources in forests should not be exploited at the cost of tribals” and warned of strict penalties to those who encroach upon tribal lands. This stand is appreciated. At the same time, there are several places where precisely such exploitation continues.
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