Two years ago, when we set out on a three-month peace journey, people in many villages of Bastar had organised meetings in their village’s gauthans (common cattle yards). The gauthan was the flagship scheme of the previous Congress government, so at that time it had fencing, water, and good seating arrangements.
The tribals who have been displaced from Bastar and are now living in Andhra and Telangana have placed certain demands before the Chhattisgarh government for their rehabilitation — among them, 5 acres of irrigated land (with solar pumps) along with full fencing of the fields. Although the cow economy is not as significant in tribal areas as it is in central Chhattisgarh, if someone thinks of growing a different crop with the help of solar pumps, they will either have to keep the cows in the gauthan or put up fencing.
Another ambitious programme of the Chhattisgarh Congress government was to build a Sevagram on 75 acres of land in the new Raipur capital, modelled on Bapu’s Wardha Ashram. After the end of the Maoist movement in Bastar, people are asking — what happens next? Can killers and victims live together? Where are the Gandhians? Are they doing or thinking anything?
Recently, I attended a programme of Rajeev Vora of Gandhi Peace Foundation in Delhi, where he had invited some surrendered Maoists from Jharkhand. He shared that he has been working with them for the past few years. Among them, the biggest Naxal leader, Bhola, said he has now joined the JDU. Rajeev ji is conducting similar experiments in Kashmir too.
For the past few years, I have also been associated with organisations of Naxal victims. They told me, “The government is giving roses to those who destroyed our families, while our complete rehabilitation is still pending.” These people repeatedly mention certain Maoist leaders who were synonymous with terror and who committed hundreds of murders.
Clearly, it will not be simple for killers and victims to live together in the same village. The government is giving some training to surrendered Naxals, but some of them say, “99% of those who surrender will go back home and do farming. Just like government training, we didn’t learn much of anything special in the Naxal movement either.”
Examples like South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission are also found in countries like Peru and Colombia that have emerged from Maoist problems. For this, the tribal society of Chhattisgarh itself will have to play a special role — the same society that the government has been using to hand out roses in surrender programmes.
But this work needs to be made more systematic. Gandhian leader Rajgopal had demanded that the previous government appoint a Peace Minister. Now there should at least be a Rehabilitation Ministry, and the Sevagram of new Raipur could be its headquarters — where Naxals and their victims are brought together and conversation about the future is begun.
And the gauthans that exist in every village should be developed as peace parks. The state’s Home Minister recently said something significant — that he will develop security camps as Livelihood Resource Centres. This plan should be linked with the gauthan in every village as well.
Many medicinal herbs from the forests of Bastar are disappearing. These peace forests (Shanti Vans) should work to conserve those herbs, and statues of people martyred from the village over the past 50 years should also be installed. Just as villages once had a sacred grove where no tree was cut, this can become the village’s new devgudi (sacred space). Alongside this, work on making medicines from these herbs should begin. On the lines of Kerala, these can also be developed as Ayurvedic health centres, which could provide employment to many young people.
People in forest villages still treat most illnesses today with forest herbs. Their village’s traditional healers should be integrated with the modern health system — taught to use modern medicines only for those illnesses they cannot treat themselves.
The previous government, rejecting the traditional health system, had started a parallel mitanin (community health worker) system, which was also implemented across the country. Instead of making a daughter-in-law of a household a mitanin, those who have been doing traditional healthcare work for generations should be given respect and training to carry their work forward — and these Shanti Vans can serve as suppliers of medicinal herbs for this purpose.
If traditional healers in Bastar take up the responsibility of primary healthcare after a little training, then the government should channel most of the health budget at the block and district level into building secondary and tertiary hospitals with all kinds of specialists — for those patients whose cases cannot be handled in the village.
Three years ago, as part of the new peace process, we conducted a peace walk from Abujhmad — the Naxal capital — to Raipur, the state capital. Both Naxal victims and surrendered Naxals were invited on that journey. The two groups walked together for 10 days and at the end of the journey addressed the press together.
A widowed Naxal victim woman told the press: “Before this journey, we considered Naxals as enemies. But in these ten days, when we walked together, we understood that both of us are victims. They had a gun in their hands, but the key was in someone else’s hands. On this journey we learned that we can live together.”
Such experiments should happen more in Chhattisgarh’s new Sevagram. If Bapu were alive today, this is what he would be doing. The experiment of Bapu’s Nai Talim (New Education) should also be seriously understood for surrendered Naxals. In 1936, Gandhi had a telephone installed in Wardha — if he were alive today, he would also be experimenting with AI for village development in Sevagram.
Disclaimer
Views expressed above are the author’s own.
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