What governments virtually dismiss as ‘collateral damage’ really amounts to grave violations of human rights, and eventually return to haunt transgressing regimes. History has proven this time and again but, somehow, governments in power lose sight of people and what is casually referred to as people’s power, and use their might without a thought for the consequences.
Nothing works so effectively to alienate people—be it a community, a sect, a gender, a caste—than the use of state power to annihilate. Of course democratic governments—unlike authoritarian regimes—justify military or police crackdown as action being taken against rebels or terrorists but if this brings with it the death of innocent civilians, the consequent anger and resentment can play havoc with the future of those in power.
US President George W. Bush and his party was shown the door by the American people, when the negatives arising out of military action in Iraq and West Asia could not be ignored or wished away. It took the Americans ten years to come out of the jingoistic triumph of a war, but as soon as the facts of the injustice and the violations sank in Bush was moved out of office. The power he wielded, the fists he clenched came to nought and today Bush is one of the many unsung Presidents of the United States.
The list from history itself is long, as those like Stalin and Hitler who had the crowds rah rahing after them for a few years ended up in the gallery of the most reviled. Hence it is imperative for any government in power to first realise that a strong nation does not emerge from military prowess, but from the ability to engage in dialogue, to follow peace as an ideology, and to keep the military in harness. Collateral damage in democracies is unforgivable, and the death of innocent lives cannot be passed off as ‘inevitable’ for what might be claimed to be the larger good. These deaths have a strangely unifying factor, and feed deep into the sense of alienation of people who are also neglected, deprived and marginalised.
The recent death of alleged Maoists at the hands of the police in Jharkhand smells of authoritarian action. Four children were killed in this operation, and clearly four too many. Some media reports now suggest that most of those killed as Maoists were not so, having no prior record of insurgency of any kind. This might not be reported in the media, but will impact severely the psyche of the affected people with the anger and helplessness becoming a breeding ground for militants.
This is how insurgency grows, and it is no secret, not even to insensitive governments that the Maoists have gathered strength from the inability and apathy of the state to address the concerns of the poverty debilitated people of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa and, of course, Andhra Pradesh and now Telangana. The use of force that invariably leads to the death of innocents exacerbates the situation, creates more cadres, and keeps an issue simmering that could have been dealt with through dialogue and actual deliverance of promises by the governments at the first instance. Violence begets violence, and the state is the big force that needs to reach out and deal with the problems affecting sections of society.
The Maoist insurgency is a case of complete mishandling, right from the very beginning. The poor villagers, not in any government’s economic agenda, join or support the armed insurgents in a bid to bring some level of succour to their families. They are attacked and killed by the state, in the belief that this will break the back of the Maoist movement and drive away the ordinary villager. It does not really work like that, except perhaps very temporarily. Even if military action creates some kind of space that the state believes it can capitalise on, this is only momentary in its impact. Largely, because of the state’s inability to follow through with concrete action and build on whatever little space it believes its action against the insurgents has created. However, if the collateral damage is high and beyond acceptable limits, the violence strengthens the anger and hence the resistance with more and more being persuaded to join the militants in a bid to keep themselves afloat.
Women and children should be left out of this war. If not by the militants than certainly by the state. The argument that the state cannot do what the insurgents don’t really is so absurd that it should merit no response. Except for the fact that the police and the authorities often mouth this as the truth, without realising or acknowledging that the state is the custodian of all its citizens, and cannot mow down little children just because they have been indoctrinated at some level.
It is unfortunate, and a matter of deep regret and worry, that with every successive government the Indian state is being made more intolerant of and indifferent to its people. Instead of being of, for and by the people it often seems to have turned against its own, particularly the impoverished and the marginalised.
