'Salwa Judum was not a people's movement'

Dr Nandini Sundar, who filed a Public Interest Litigation in the Supreme Court asking for the disbanding of armed Salwa Judum, on Friday said that there has been a 22 per cent increase of Maoist activities since Salwa Judum was launched.

Nandini, who is a Professor of Sociology at the Delhi School of Economics, said that the government called the Salwa Judum as a spontaneous, Gandhian and democratic movement, whereas, it was completely state sponsored.

 "Villagers were provided arms by the government. So much for the government's claim that the movement was non-violent and Gandhian," Nandini said, showing a photo of armed villagers at a rally.

Nandini was speaking at a function organised by the Forum for protection of Democratic Rights, which is a body formed by different lawyers of Delhi.

Nandini, whose PIL in the Supreme Court led to the apex court declaring Salwa Judum as "unconstitutional", said that tribals in south Chattisgarh lived in a constant state of emergency.

"Villagers are jailed for offenses like cutting trees from the forest. They stay in for a long time because they can't manage the bail amount. The reason Maoists became popular there was because they redistributed land among villagers. And the government response to this was to issue a purely military approach," Nandini said.

Nandini said that the Salwa Judum was not a people's movement as the government claimed.

"Proper planning went into organising the movement. The state sponsored it and distributed arms among the villagers. The police and the administration claim that people came out voluntarily, but the truth is that they were forced. They were threatened with fines and the homes of many villagers who did not join the movement were burnt." Nandini said.

Nandini said that in all, according to official figures, 644 villages were affected by the movement. Many villagers fled to Andhra Pradesh. Schooling collapsed as security forces used schools as camps, which the Naxalites then blasted.

Nandini said despite a court directive, the Chattisgarh government has not compensated even a single victim of the Salwa Judum.

"It is like a slap in the face of the judiciary. The government has recruited SPOs into auxiliary police force and retained the 'preferably fifth class pass' qualification. These  SPOs, many of whom are minors, are not even given the basic training and they are sent on the frontlines. The government has ignored the SC judgment. What do you do when the state government itself does not believe in the constitution?" Nandini said.