"Salwa Judum : Interrogating the State and the Maoists" a talk by Dr. Himanshu Roy at Teen Murti House, Teen Murti Marg > 3pm on 10th December 2013

Time : 3:00 pm 

Entry : Free (Seating on First-Come First-Served basis)

Place : Nehru Memorial Museum & Library (NMML), Teen Murti House, Teen Murti Marg, New Delhi - 110011
Venue Info :  Events | About | Map | Nearest Metro Station - 'Race Course(Yellow Line)'

Event Description : The Nehru Memorial Museum and Library cordially invites you to the Weekly Seminar on ‘Salwa Judum : Interrogating the State and the Maoists’ by  Dr. Himanshu Roy, Fellow, NMML.

Abstract : This paper is a narrative of the resistance of local tribes and of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) in the Bastar region of Chhattisgarh against the state, of their counter-measures against the Maoists and tribals. Bastar is the southern part of Chhattisgarh which merges with the wider region of Dandakaranya, the forest of Dandak, comprising of parts of Orissa, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. It is a region with approximately 70% of Gondi tribal population divided into four major sub-regional categories of Maria, Muria, Halba and Dorla comprising of six old districts of Narayanpur, Bastar, Kanker, Dantewada, Sukma and Bijapur. The tribals, with their average life expectancy of 50 years and an average body mass of 50 kg, are mainly dependent on the subsistence economy of cultivation, hunting and local forest with marginal interaction with the market. The interaction of the state with the tribals, however, has been predominantly coercive rather than developmental. The entry of the CPI (M-L), and now Maoists in this region, since 1980, led to the beginning of the organized protests of the tribals against the state and local business which has further intensified and widened in the past 15 years. The entry of big capital since 2003 and the formation of CPI (Maoist) in 2004 also marked the beginning of the development of Salwa Judum, primarily a counter measure of the state government against the Maoists and the tribals. The state used a segment of the tribals who were dissatisfied/ were against the Maoists, to serve its interests, and of the big business by rooting out the Maoist-tribal resistance and by displacing them from the region. Since, the region is a larger reservoir of mineral and forest resources and of cheap labour, the big business is keenly in search of such regions across India that facilitates its expansion and of its property relations.  The critique of Salwa Judum and of Maoists by the judiciary and civil society has eliminated/restrained their violent functioning respectively. Simultaneously, it also must be stated that the governance and the development measures need substantive shift towards the tribals for their effective citizenship. In India’s liberal democracy the possibility of revolutionary overthrow of state by the Maoists is not feasible as it provides large public and legal space for its citizens.

Speaker : Dr. Himanshu Roy is currently Fellow at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi. His books include Indian Political System [2005], Peasant In Marxism [2006], Secularism And its Colonial Legacy in India [2009], Indian Political Thought [2011]. His forthcoming book is State Politics in India [2014]. His areas of research are Indian Politics, Indian Political Thought, and Political Theory.

Related Events : Talks