Prison diaries of a suspected Naxal

Sreelatha Menon
EAR TO THE GROUND

Business Standard, August 10, 2008

Ajay TG, arrested on suspicion of being a Naxalite, plans a film on those who are jailed for no reason at all.

What does a film-maker do in jail? When it is Ajay TG, the jail becomes his muse, prompting to him stories about a man spending his time in jail for no reason at all, stories about 74 men like him in Durg jail who have been branded Naxalites.

For Ajay TG, arrested four months ago and released this week, the prison was a time to revisit the past three decades he spent in Bhilai since he left his village in Engandiyur in Thrissur district of Kerala as a 15 year old.

He came to Bhilai to join his father, who ran a petty business to keep afloat a large joint family back home. But he learned to wield the camera and worked for anthropologists like Jonathan Perry, who was researching on poverty amid industrialisation , and finally landed in jail after being accused of being a Naxalite.

Ajay TG was released this week after the Chhattisgarh police failed to gather enough evidence. The release was the culmination of a loud chorus of condemnation from film-makers like Adoor Gopalakrishnan and Mrinal Sen. It was a victory of illusion-makers as the Chhattisgarh police realised they were chasing an illusion.

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August 12, 2008 | Filed Under articles | Leave a Comment 

Sreelatha Menon: A homecoming in Bastar

Business Standard, July 20, 2008
EAR TO THE GROUND
Sreelatha Menon

The collector of Dantewada has agreed to give 10 quintals of paddy seed to restart farming in Nendra. Nendra is a village in Konta block in Dantewada district in Chhattisgarh which has been lying deserted for the last three years after multiple attacks by the government-backed anti-Naxal militia, the Salwa Judum, and the police. The collector’s gesture was in reciprocation of a rehabilitation effort by an NGO called Vanvasi Chetna Ashram to facilitate homecoming for the villagers who were living either in jungles fearing reprisals from the Salwa Judum and the police, or in neighbouring villages of Andhra Pradesh. Some of them are in camps set up by the state government.

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July 20, 2008 | Filed Under Press Reports, articles | Leave a Comment 

Chhattisgarh tribals having sleepless nights

Meri News
K. Sudhakar Patnaik

Tortured and tormented by Chhattisgarh government backed Salwa Judum – a Naxalite movement – thousands of Chhattisgarh tribals migrated to Andhra Pradesh. Adding to their agony, the Andhra Pradesh government considers them pro-Maoists..

THE TRIBALS living in about 800 villages of Dantewada, Bijapur and Bastar district of Chhattisgarh forests migrated to Bhadrachalam and Khamam district of Andhra Pradesh one year back. They settled there to save themselves from both the Naxalites and the Chhattisgarh government, which is backing Salwa Judum - a Naxalite movement.

These tribals at present are neither the citizens of Chhattisgarh nor the citizens of Andhra Pradesh. The tribals, who depend upon forest produce and cultivation as they live in the forest, are forcibly displaced by the Chhattisgarh government, police and Salwa Judum. The Salwa Judum burnt some of their villages, killed people, raped women and snatched away domestic animals of those who refused to leave their birthplaces.

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July 14, 2008 | Filed Under Press Reports | Leave a Comment 

Justice travestied

by Sandeep Pandey
(The Statesman, July 8, 2008)

I first met Dr Binayak Sen, his wife Ilina and their two daughters, Aparajita and Pranhita, at the conclusion of the ‘Pokhran to Sarnath Global Peace March’ on 6 August 1999 at the Central Tibetan Institute of Higher Learning in Sarnath, near Varanasi. Sarnath is where Buddha delivered a sermon to his first five disciples after attaining enlightenment at Bodh Gaya. The peace march was symbolically between a place of destruction ~ Pokhran ~ and a place of peace ~ Sarnath. It began exactly a year after the day India tested nuclear weapons in 1998 and concluded on Hiroshima Day. The objective of the march was to push for total global nuclear disarmament.

While the march was in progress for 88 days and over 1,500 km, the Sens were busy organising activities in Raipur, now in Chhattisgarh, and their work area in its support. We also later got a chance to work together for the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace, a national platform.

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July 9, 2008 | Filed Under articles | Leave a Comment 

Bullet can’t be tackled with bullet: Sandeep Pandey(Interview)

By Sujeet Kumar

Raipur, June 27 (IANS) Slamming the government-backed Salwa Judum civil militia movement against Maoists in Chhattisgarh, social activist and Magsaysay award winner Sandeep Pandey says “the bullet can never be tackled with the bullet”. “Violence is not the reply to violence. The Maoist problem was a product of the decades-old government neglect of the basic needs of forested people. The only way to overcome the insurgency is to ensure all-round development in trouble-torn areas,” Pandey told IANS in an interview here.

Pandey, who lives in Lucknow, observed a 10-day fast here along with three other social activists from June 16 against the detention of Binayak Sen, a physician-cum-rights activist since last year.

Pandey, known for his work in the education sector, said: “India’s Maoist movement is a product of poverty, backwardness and neglect of the forested masses by the government. Any socio-economic-political problem should be handled with care and development, this is the best way to get over the problem.

“But surprisingly, the Chhattisgarh government created the Salwa Judum in June 2005 which is largely handled by armed anti-social elements.”
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June 28, 2008 | Filed Under Press Reports | Leave a Comment 

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