Like many other Indians, I turn to the ancient epics totry and understand a difficult situation. Faced with civil war inside thecountry -- and after the scale of the Nayagarh incident and the government'sresponse, we can only call it that, rather than a mere 'law and order problem'-- what better place to turn to than the debates around that immortal war, theMahabharata?. A war fought not just within a kingdom, but between members of thesame family. How fortunate or perhaps unfortunate we are, in Irawati Karve'swords, that we can "read today a story called Jaya, which was sung threethousand years ago and discover (our)selves in it."
The Gita is sometimes understood as an exegesis for a just war, but as a numberof scholars and interpreters have argued, if there is anything the Mahabharatateaches us, it is the futility of war. The Pandavas attained a kingdom that hadbeen totally devastated. As the philosopher Bimal Matilal pointed out in his Epicsand Ethics, Krishna's advice to Arjuna in the Gita is not to be taken as ajustification for war, but an ad hoc resolution of a moral dilemma. Once Arjunahad gone this far, it would have been pointless for him to turn back. In otherwords, it is not in the moment of the encounter that the soldier or insurgentcan afford to develop moral qualms about fighting. The time for thinking comeslater -- as in the regret that has driven some Naga reservists to suicide fortheir role in the savagery of Salwa Judum -- or much before, when actions arebeing planned.
And it is the very existence of a moral dilemma -- or rather several of them --that elevates the Mahabharata to the status it has. It promises no salvation,showing sternly and uncompromisingly that each person is responsible for makingtheir own decisions, and bearing the tragic consequences that follow. In Indiatoday, the Maoists' decision to take to arms cannot be abstractly blamed on'structural violence', nor, on the other hand, can the government escape itsresponsibility for killing its own citizens through some vague notion of thehigher interest of the state. Every citizen killed -- whether a policeman blownup in a landmine or a civilian killed by the police in the midst of a combingoperation -- must be accounted for. Every death is mourned by someone, whetherguerrilla or soldier or village woman.
Yet, in calling for peace and the possibility of a negotiated settlement betweenthe Maoists and the government, the motive is not simply pacificism. Instead, asMatilal argues, "it is a proposal to talk about politics rather thanethics, about principles of prudence rather than principles of morals",about alternatives, rather than inevitability. Both the Maoists and thegovernment have other alternatives, and the fact that they chose not to exercisethem must be seen for the flawed choices that they are.
The Maoists claim, in their response to an open letter bythe Independent Citizens Initiative (EPW, January 6 2007) that they were drivento fight since there is not a single instance where the rights of the adivasiswere ensured through non-violent and open means. This is a misreading ofhistory. The great adivasi rebellions of the past were open, if not non-violent,and involved the mass of people acting in their villages, upon their ownunderstanding, and not a vanguardist party.
If asked what the adivasis of Kalinganagar or the Narmada valley havereceived for their peaceful struggles, one could equally well turn the questionaround and ask what the people of Dantewada or Nayagarh have received for theMaoists' armed struggle. And the answer would be rape and repression. If, asthey claim, they "value life and peace as no other party or humanistdoes", it must be strange love that leads to such suffering for the peoplethey claim to be fighting for.
While the Maoists cannot be blamed for the terror unleashed by the governmentthrough Salwa Judum, for which the government alone is legally and morallyresponsible, they can certainly be blamed for their own acts of violence. Howdoes blowing up policemen, shooting at a Collector, attacking camps anddestroying schools and transformers, lead to any change in the system?
The government, on the other hand, talks of theNaxalites as the greatest 'virus' affecting the country, in a language that onlyimplies extermination. As Michael Walzer points out in Just and Unjust Wars,insofar as guerrilla wars are successful only because they enjoy the support ofthe public, any counterinsurgency strategy that aims to isolate them from thecivilians they live among inevitably turns into an anti-social war againstcivilians. And the end result is the systematic destruction of the very peoplein whose name the government claims to speak.
In the government-backed Salwa Judum counterinsurgency campaign inChhattisgarh, the scorched earth fight to secure its control against the Maoistshas resulted in half the district of Dantewada being emptied out, and hundreds,if not thousands, being killed by the Salwa Judum and security forces. Inreturn, hundreds have been killed by the Maoists. A fact-finding team consistingof Shantha Sinha, J.M. Lyngdoh and Venkat Reddy for the National Commission forthe Protection of Child Rights in December 2007, noted the 'enormous tragedy'facing the villagers of Dantewada.
They held public hearings at which "every testimony included a narrativeof extreme violence committed against them, their families and property, by theNaxalites, Salwa Judum and the security forces. Many people shared accounts offamily members being killed and women raped by the Salwa Judum."" Whilenoting that some people had fled to camps because of fear of Naxalites, they addthat "Salwa Judum has forced many villagers to move to the camps, and burnthouses, livestock and in some cases standing crops, so that those who stay backin villages have no means of subsistence."
Whose security is being defended here? Force is not the only way to takecontrol of a place, much less of a people. There are other concepts that mightwork just as well as weapons, if not better -- words like justice, equality andcare, manifested in the provision of schooling, healthcare or land rights.
If both must fight, ignoring saner counsel, let me drawtheir attention to another aspect of the Mahabharat. As Matilal points out, itwas indeed a dharmyuddh, but only because both parties were expected toobserve certain laws of dharma, or codes of conduct in war. In the presentcontext, a code of conduct must involve ensuring the safety of civilians anddesisting from atrocities on the other. Neither side should use minors assoldiers.
The government also has the obligation to play fair, to stop harassing andfabricating evidence against all those who have highlighted violations of therule of law. While neither contender believes there is a neutral ground, asobservers we would be failing in our own dharma if we let either side stop us incalling for peace.
Nandini Sundar is Professor of Sociology at the Delhi School of Economics.
