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By Anosh Malekar
In the jungles of Gadchiroli in interior Maharashtra, it is clearly the Naxalites who call the shots. Caught between the gun-wielding ultras and the forest guards, impoverished locals say they prefer the Naxalites, whose presence has reduced harassment from the forest guards and forced the forest contractors to pay them higher wages
My informed source reclined in his office chair when I asked him about the presence of Naxalites in Gadchiroli. It was my first day in this far-eastern district of Maharashtra. Having arrived in town the previous night in pitch darkness -- the usual power cuts, the hotel owner explained -- I could not hold back my urban curiosity about Naxalite activity in the surrounding woods.
“Naxalites are not as dangerous as you urbanites think,” said my source. “They have issues with the authorities, specifically the police, but hardly ever bother the common people.”
I was not entirely convinced, having read how the writ of the Naxalites or Maoists, or whatever you call them, runs across 92,000 sq km of central India. From Bhamragad in Gadchiroli to Abujmarh in Chhattisgarh, it is they who make the laws, not the government, and also implement them. In fact, this roughly 40 sq km area on the Maharashtra-Chhattisgarh border is considered a ‘liberated zone’ where even the police dare not venture out.
 Gadchiroli has been as much home to ultra-left revolutionaries as it has to the impoverished Madia Gond tribals. Deprivation is widespread in this resource-rich jungle area bordering Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh. The Naxalites have been coming in from the adjoining states “to liberate people” since the 1980s; today Gadchiroli has become a hotbed of extremist activity.
According to the police, some 15 ‘dalams’ are active in Maharashtra, mostly in Gadchiroli and the adjoining district of Chandrapur. The Communist Party of India (Maoists) has around 250 full-time members and 3,000-odd local supporters. “Except around Bhamragad, they are not always in their olive-greens. They dress up like everybody else and move around during the day in villages and towns, keeping an eye on state transport bus-stops and marketplaces,” said my source. “But they will not cause any harm unless you decide to get on the wrong side (of them).”
On my way back to the hotel, in the evening, I picked up the latest edition of a pocket book in Marathi titled Gadchiroli Jhilyache Samanya Dnyan, from the local newsstand. The general knowledge book on the district was meant for local aspirants to jobs in the police force, forest, education, health and other government departments. It revealed some interesting facts.
Under the heading ‘Naxalite dalams and their commanders in the district’ was the basic information: Tipagad dalam -- Sureshanna; Charmoshi dalam -- Joganna; Aheri dalam -- Sudhakaranna; Permili dalam -- Narmadakka; Ettapalli dalam -- Goganna; followed by further details, like three commanders of the People’s War Group in the district -- Goyanna, Madhavanna, Bhupatianna; chief commander of Naxalite (military) dalam in the district -- Karan alias Santosh.
In the question-and-answer section I found: “From whom do the Naxalites get their training? Answer: from the LTTE”; “Which year did Radhakka, the first woman Naxalite recruit from the district, join a dalam?: 1983.”
The book also contained a long list of “most likely questions” on police-Naxalite encounters in the past, mentioning that the theatre of action covered 77.41% of the district’s total area of 14,91,500 hectares comprising forests and hills.
Surprisingly, Gadchiroli town, which served as the district headquarters, was far removed from the reality of the Naxalite presence in deeper pockets of the district. There was hardly any activity in this town, except the usual bustle of the main market. The only activity that sparked any curiosity towards the end of my three-day stay in the town was the movement of half-a-dozen police vehicles transporting armed men in uniform, ready for combat.
Nothing stirred the sleepy town of Gadchiroli. Not even news of seven labourers flung into the air by a pressure bomb explosion planted by Naxalites inside the trunk of a tree. The tree was apparently felled to hinder police movement on the Etapalli-Jaravandi road in Etapalli taluka. On the day of the incident (May 11), special anti-Naxalite squad members arrived at the spot and, ignorant of the bomb, sought out local labourers to move the tree. Four of the injured were taken to Chandrapur district hospital in a serious condition, limbs severed from their torsos.
My informed source chose to maintain a studied silence on the civilian casualties of a Naxalite attack. “Accident, perhaps,” was all he would say. Such ‘accidents’ are beginning to happen only too frequently in Gadchiroli. On May 16 came the news that Naxalites had blown up a truck transporting a marriage party in Etapalli, killing half-a-dozen innocent people.
 In neighbouring Charmoshi taluka, which is closer to the Naxalite bases, one could clearly feel their presence. Villagers here complained that the tendu leaf-picking season was not progressing well due to the presence of Naxalites in the adjoining hills. A message had been received to stop cutting the forests. I asked the village head of Malermal village about this, and his reply was terse: “We do not discuss them (Naxalites).”
The women of the village were more forthcoming. Between the constant fear of gun-wielding ultras and the forest guards, they said they preferred the Naxalites who were at least making the contractors pay them higher wages. The Naxalites demand a day’s wages from every worker, for party funds. Local police sources say that besides this the Naxalites collect between Rs 10 crore and Rs 12 crore from the jungle contractors every year. They call it ‘tax’ in Charmoshi.
The villagers also say the Naxalite presence in the forests has reduced harassment at the hands of forest personnel and the rampant cutting of trees by contractors.
I was curious about the police-sponsored ‘Gaon Bandh’ scheme wherein around 232 villages in the district have reportedly pledged to impose a ban on the entry of Naxalites. The villagers said they were made to sign the documents under pressure from the police. “Even if you sign a document for the police, can you refuse food and water to a guest carrying a gun?” asked one elderly man.
I moved on to Vairagad, a sleepy village surrounded by hills that dotted Armori taluka, a major trading centre in the district. I took a state transport bus from Gadchiroli to Armori, an easy distance of 22 km, and then decided on a jeep packed like sardines with people bound for Vairagad. This should be the safest mode of transport, I felt, unaware that, of late, the police had been using these very jeeps to avoid becoming sitting ducks for the Naxalites, inside their official vehicles. As a result, these private taxis were now being closely watched by the Naxalites!
I was visiting a voluntary organisation, which has ongoing projects in 15 hamlets surrounding Vairagad. Ten of the hamlets were Naxalite-affected. While the activists were conducting base surveys in April-October 2005, they received a summons from the ultras’ base in the nearby hills. Two activists trudged through the forested hills, past 9 pm, to be grilled by the ultras till the wee hours of the morning. The local dalam demanded minute details of the organisation, including its social targets and financial reports. They objected to the presence of a senior activist because he was an outsider from the neighbouring taluka.
I travelled with Dilip Navghare and Suresh Thakre, the two activists who were now being frequently summoned by the Naxalites to the forested hills. We had hired a jeep ‘known to the Naxalites’, to visit the project villages, and hence could travel even after sunset.
Around 9 pm, while speeding past a narrow, winding road in the dark hills, Dilip pointed to a small branch of a tree lying in the middle of the road, briefly illuminated by the headlights. “This is for direction in the forests,” he said. Typically, when you are summoned by the ultras, you have to reach a spot atop a hill or deep inside the forest at the predestined hour. “On the way you keep looking for tree branches that lead you to the meeting place,” said Dilip. From here, armed Naxalites escort you around the hill or round and round inside the forest all night ensuring you lose direction. Business over, and if you sound convincing enough to be let off, the ultras drop you at a spot from where it’s easy to find your way back home.
There was a select group of people in each village I visited who received regular summons from the jungle. Not all were keen on making contact with the Naxalites because it also meant inviting the wrath of the police. It was difficult to tell which among them were informers, either of the Naxalites or of the police. Worse still was a Naxalite, unarmed and minus the battle fatigues, keeping watch on your every movement.
There were a few odd questions here and there about my identity. Why was I visiting Gadchiroli? And what was I going to write? But there was no summons. I was spared the terrifying experience of having to follow the tree branches in the middle of the night, to a place deep inside a forest or atop a hill. “I told you, they do not bother ordinary folks,” said my informed source. I remained unconvinced.
(Anosh Malekar is an independent journalist based in Pune)
InfoChange News & Features, June 2006
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