The Maoists and the urban Naxalites!

Bastar: The Naxal Story (Hindi; 2024)
Director: Sudipto Sen

This is supposed to be inspired by actual events. That part may be accurate, but the problem is that this part of Indian history has been ongoing for so long that the moviemaker took the liberty of cutting and pasting events that happened at different times in India's history. 

For the record, there was a rebellion in 1910 when the British were eyeing the minerals in Central India. Come to think of it, that may be when the word 'thug' came into the English language. Tribal people who resisted British invasion were labelled as carnivorous people worshipping a blood-thirsty form of Kaali named Thugeesewari. The tribals donned machetes for farming but were labelled as armed resistance forces instead.

In the late 60s, when the Communist Party of India split after the Sino-Soviet split, a group of them had the idea of a peasant revolution changing the status quo. This group came to be named Maoist (after Chairman Mao). In 1967, in Naxalbari, tribal people fought with armed forces for land, aided by radical left-wing Maoists. After that, they came to be called Naxalites. In the region's most remote areas, in the spine of India, cutting up to 10 states, the Naxalites took charge with their own brand of justice, local panchayat, and control of amenities.

Naxalite activities have been going sporadically. Occasionally, news of skirmishes along this 'red corridor' emerges. 

In 2010, 76 Indian Central Reserve Police Force personnel were killed in Dantewada district in Chattisgarh. This was sort of the starting point for the movie. Before that incident, an advaasi (tribal person) was hacked to death for hoisting the Indian flag. The vendetta against the Naxalite leader spurred the widow to join forces with the police to fight the terrorists. 

In the background is a trial in which the State Government is accused of forming a paramilitary vigilante force named Salwa Judum under the auspices of the ruling party. The accusers were concerned social activists and academics. The movie insinuates that the leftists of the world have united and are having a stronghold and working in tandem with academicians, Bollywood, writers, politicians, and even the judiciary. There is a not-so-veiled reference to Arundathi Roy as a leftist sympathiser. 

The silver lining behind the above incident is that things have improved since then. Violence has de-escalated, infrastructure has improved, and tourism has increased by many folds.

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Justice delayed is justice denied!

Indian Predator: Murder in a Courtroom (2022)

Documentary; Netflix

Humans thought living in big numbers protected them from the elements, predators and even enemies. Security concerns were taken care of by the individual community itself. It was jungle justice with no higher justice to recourse. Might decided what was right!

As communities coalesced into country-states, the job of security and protection was outsourced to the State. Suddenly there was no reason for the average citizen to hold powerful weapons. The duty to apprehend and punish wrongdoers was outsourced to State-owned agencies. These agencies were supposed to protect all levels of society, the powerful and powerless alike. It looks all nice on paper, but in reality, the mission statements of these agents are mere rhetorics to pacify the vote bank. The minorities and the weak can only cry foul, fill up the newspapers and breaking news segments and spit on the system.

People will bear with the imperfections of the system. Despite its follies, they believe that God and leaders will soon realise their shortcomings to rectify their errors. At a particular point of no return, the bow will break, and there will be no turning back. Justice must be seen to be done. Justice delayed is justice denied.

This must be what happened to Kasturba Nagar's dwellers in Nagpur, Maharashtra. Since 1999, a group of rowdies had been terrorising the inhabitants. They were brazenly beating up people and molesting girls there. Reports to local police did not achieve much. They became bolder. Akku Yadav is the de-facto leader of the pack. After a brawl, he killed one of his friends. Akku was imprisoned but was released after 10 months, bolder and blunter in his attacks on his victims. He terrorised the women, molesting, harassing and even raping them in the open. The people of Nagar were just too frightened to retaliate.

One brave lady, Asha Bhagat, went against Akku only to be stabbed to death. Another young student was almost killed by Akku but was saved by her quick thinking and when all her neighbours came to her rescue. This act empowered them. When Akku was produced in court, all the ladies of the colony planned an ambush on him. On August 13th 2004, over 200 people from Kasturba Nagar made their way to the Nagpur courts. They locked him up in the courthouse, sprinkled chilli powder into his eyes and mutilated every part of his body, including his ears and genitalia.

This took a big dent in the integrity and competence of the policing and justice systems of the country. When people take the law into their own hands, and the State has no control over protecting its own officers, how can it protect the country? The authorities arrested five random ladies for the murder of Akku. This prompted 200 over ladies from the colony to turn up at the local police station, all confessing to murdering Akku. 50 ladies were later arrested, but the justice system's slow wheel took ten long years to acquit them of all crimes.

The action of the members to ambush the court show and kill an accused in broad daylight exposed the impotence of the police and the courts. They could help but charge the authorities of caring less for them because of their depressed class status and perhaps their generally lower castes too. The purists insist that their actions could not be condoned and the State machinery must be respected. Detractors question the relevance of government servants who are only there to serve the upper echelon of society. Somewhere along the way, the Naxalites are accused of instigating the public to create anar
chy.

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The wheel of democracy moves on...

Newton (Hindi; 2017)

This movie is interesting because it is set in Chattisgarh, a state not usually featured in mainstream films.  Chattisgarh is located in the East-Central part of India and is a place with a very long history. It is mentioned in the Ramayana and Mahabharata and has seen many kingdoms rise and fall. The film's area is supposed to have been shot is Dakshina Kosala, the very jungle where Rama, Laxmana and Sita had undergone 14 years of exile in the wilderness.

Now that jungle is said to be filled with various minerals,  everyone wants to lay their dirty hands. The Naxalites are roaming around with rifles while the ruling government want to appear to be doing the democratic thing. Come elections, all political candidates promise a new dawn of affluence and prosperity. In reality, what the politicians are really eyeing is the deal to get businessmen to mine the fortune in their land and get their cut of the whole transaction.

Towards this end, the whole machinery is oiled; the local clerk to the armed forces to the local chief and the occasional election officers who drop by. The world gets a very conflicting view of what happens on the ground - a polished version from the ruling party and a picture of anarchy from the defeated. The final losers are the local dwellers. Whoever comes to power, their position, for the people of this story, poverty and melancholy remains the flavour of their day.

India's entry to Oscar's foreign film category in 2017 is a light drama depicting Nutan Kumar, a conscientious government clerk, who is sent to a communist-insurgent infested region to oversee a balloting station. Nutan who is embarrassed by his given name christians himself Newton. He tries as far as he can to be an honest servant. Faced with a disgruntled army officer who is assigned to protect him and his team of ballot officers, he tries, against all odds, to oversee an election centre in the middle of nowhere where the last political leader was assassinated by communist terrorists. The electorate list comprises Adavaasis (aborigines) who are least bothered of voting.

All these for just 76 voters? Everyone says that every vote matters. Can a single vote actually make a difference? Apparently, it does. In 2008 Rajasthan Assembly elections, the Union Minister, CP Joshi was defeated by a single vote by opponent Kalyan Singh Chouhan (62,215 vs 62,216). Chouhan's wife later was found to have cast her vote twice. It was a disappointing blow to Joshi as he was a candidate for the Chief Minister's post. A petition was filed, but the verdict in favour of Joshi only came four years later; almost time for the next election.

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