A Development Problem
The Red Corridor, the central swathe of India, crosses 12 states, from Bihar in the north and West Bengal in the east, to Andhra Pradesh in the south and the edges of Maharashtra in the west. It covers some of the most rural, underdeveloped and poverty-stricken areas of the country, areas in which there is only occasional and passing sign of the state. This region is increasingly under the control of armed revolutionaries, members of various factions consolidated in 2004 as the Communist Party of India (Maoist). The Maoists threaten moneylenders, burn debt papers, organise jailbreaks, redistribute land and steal weapons. They organise and arm local dalams (militias) to fight against the state and its usurpation of indigenous peoples’ land. They create sanghams, communities of village support for the guerrillas. They extract “permissions” from forest contractors, traders and big businesses for access to land under their control. They set landmines, kidnap bureaucrats, kill landlords and torture informers.
Chakravarti spends much of his time documenting the hardships faced by the Red Corridor’s residents. Inroads made there by large mining and metal corporations have displaced thousands of tribal people in Orissa and Chattisgarh; in Jharkand and Bihar, illiterate farmers have been told they contractually own just six inches of their land. Farmer indebtedness, increased seed costs and low crop prices have led to tens of thousands of farmer suicides. Caste violence, perpetrated both by individuals and upper-caste militias like the Ranvir Sena in Bihar, continues with a regularity and ferocity that challenges even the most dedicated documenters.
Within the Red Corridor, Chakravarti spends the majority of his time in Chattisgarh, the state which has spawned the controversial Salwa Judum, a state-sponsored paramilitary organisation that recruits and arms citizens in an attempt break down the Maoist web of support. Well-equipped and fantastically violent, Salwa Judum “resettles” people after burning down their villages, destroying food sources and killing suspected Maoist sympathisers. In 2005, Salwa Judum members gouged the eyes of a Maoist sympathiser and dismembered him in front of his children; there are many such atrocities on both sides of this conflict.
In Raipur, the head of an anti-Naxal police cell tells Chakravarti: “If you spend some time in that area, you begin to empathise with the Naxals. You should see what happens – the levels of exploitation are so high.”