Chhattisgarh: Activists worried about Military intervention against Maoists

While Maoist sympathisers and their overground organizations are already crying hoarse about how the Centre will storm the Maad forests in September, even human rights activists and neutral observers are worried about the collateral damage — the tribal people in the forests of Maad — should the Centre indeed launch the offensive.

Writer and activist Arundhati Roy, who is just back from a visit to the troubled Dantewada region, says there are all telltale signs of an imminent massive military operation in the jungles of Chhattisgarh.

“As soon as the monsoon is over, the government is prepared to storm the forests. When I was there, I saw huge, newly-constructed roads running through the forests. Who are these roads for? Definitely not for the tribal people to walk on. It is for the troops to be moved and once the operation is over, for the steel to be moved to Paradip (in Orissa, the nearest port), from where they will be shipped to China,” she said.

She added that at least 25,000 troops have been trained at the Jungle Warfare School in Kanker and are ready to storm the forests.

“The two people who are behind this are P Chidambaram and National Security Advisor M K Narayanan. We should remember that Chidambaram was the lawyer for Enron. He was on the board of Vedanta, one of the biggest mining companies in the world,” she pointed out.

“Among the first things he said, soon after taking charge as the finance minister during the UPA’s earlier term, was that his vision was for 85 per cent of the country’s population to live in cities. This is how they are chasing the tribals out of the forests for the benefit of the corporates,” she said.

Doctor and activist Binayak Sen, who was recently released on bail after being jailed for two years under the draconian Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act, said the economy of the Madia Gonds, who inhabit the Maad forests, has already been affected due to the preparations for the Centre’s offensive.

“Their economy has been paralysed. The government must first ensure that the small forest economy, which is the bread and butter for these tribal people, is not crushed. If there is an all-out offensive on the Maoists in the forests, the tribals will be the ones who will be affected the most. The damage will be far worse than what is being caused by the Salwa Judum,” he said.

Roy also said that the tribal people will be hit the hardest if a battle breaks out between the Maoists and the central forces in the Maad forests. “They will be the collateral damage and it will be huge,” she said.

with Ref Rediff Admin (post writer).

P.Chidambaram, former Congressman, now Finance Minister

A profile of the man who started as a leftist, went on to be an architect of the Congress government's economic reform strategies as Rajiv Gandhi's right hand man, and has today ascended to the post of India's Finance Minister with the new United Front Government.

He is the darling of Indian industrialists who were relieved when the United Front government chose him to become the new Finance Minister. But very few know that P Chidambaram, the US educated votary of free enterprise and unbridled economic reforms used to be a hard-core leftist arguing in favor of the command economy in the late 1960s.

Since then he has come a long way. A scion of a prominent industrialist family from Madras, Chidambaram chose to stay away from the predictable path of joining the family business and went into politics. He joined the Congress after it lost power in 1967 and remained with Indira Gandhi when the party split in 1969.

As a young lawyer he boasted an impressive array of clients-even now, whenever he has been out of the government, he has been consulted by top notch firms including the controversial US company Enron which ran into trouble in India because of a power plant project. Chidambaram came to the attention of the youthful prime minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1984 and since then has had a meteoric rise to the top. He was Rajiv’s emissary to the Tamil Nadu leadership during the crisis of Sri Lankan Tamil refugees; after Gandhi was assassinated in 1991, Chidambaram was out of power for a short while but came back as Commerce Minister in the new government. He fitted in well with the new pro-reforms lobby and his ministry was responsible for doing away with several red tape regulations which boosted Indian exports. Ironically, though he played a big part in writing the Congress manifesto in the 1996 elections, a disagreement with his party’s decision over political alignments led to him resigning and setting up a new political outfit. He won his parliamentary seat handsomely andnow finds himself in opposition to the Congress.

But for many people, especially investors both domestic and foreign, Chidambaram’s presence in the government in such a sensitive post is a positive signal and they are all looking forward to what his budget proposals will be.

Left to himself, Chidambaram will come out with a pro-growth package which will welcome foreign investment. He has candidly invited foreign capital to India and said there would be no barriers to their entry. But this budget will be a political balancing act as much as an economic one-so Chidambaram, for all his suavity and smoothness will not be able to give free reign to his ideas.

with Ref by sir Sidharth Bhatia