A Response to Arundhati Roy: “The heart of India is under attack”

In a recently published article in the British newspaper, Guardian, Arundhati Roy offers another scathing critique of the ‘militarised’ Indian state. In her own words “to justify enforcing a corporate land grab, the state needs an enemy – and it has chosen the Maoists.” The arguments in this article are not new; if one has followed Roy’s other writings on the Maoist issue in India as also on other kinds of non-state violence. She has earlier said that the “Maoists are for the Congress what the Muslims were for the BJP”- in different words, the ‘other’, the enemy that needs to be feared and annihilated. Roy is a prolific writer and thinker and as an intellectual her critique of the state is valid and also much needed. However, it is her doomsday predictions, her vehement and almost rhetorical rejection of the state and her constant demonising of the state, her uncritical endorsement of non state actors and their violent politics, and absolving the people of any responsibility that I would like to problematise further in this article.

To be fair to Roy, her analyses of the Maoist insurgency holds merit in many ways as she talks about the rising gap between rich and poor, injustices faced by the socially backward at the hands of the influential, the ever-growing tentacles of the capitalist free market and the MNCs salivating at opportunities to grab the lands of the poor. All of these are enough to provoke the violent social and political unrest amongst the masses, such as the kinds we have seen with the Naxalites and Maoists. Fact is Roy is not the only one saying this. Several people have pointed this out even while discussing the security implications of and responses to the Maoist challenge. A mere travel across India will reveal the stark differences of wealth. The malls and shopping complexes cater to the growing consumer class while poverty continues unabated. The root causes of Maoist violence lie in such inequalities, in the exploitative economy, in the apathy of the governments and in the corrupt practices which are unhindered. Coming from Ranchi, the capital of the state of Jharkhand, I am not oblivious to these root causes that have prompted the less privileged to seek refuge in an armed rebellion. If the Chief Minister of a state is busy amassing wealth and purchasing mines in Africa, bureaucrats busy making money to finance their private travels and luxurious lifestyles; what does one expect of a people who struggle to make ends meet and who struggle for every dignity that is befitting of a human life? Armed rebellion and violence seems a viable option for people who have nothing to lose.

However, what Arundhati Roy and others like her choose to ignore is how the Maoist war is not just a war of the have-nots against the haves. By rejecting the offers of dialogue and peaceful negotiations, by refusing to give up violence, causing large scale destruction of infrastructure (schools, railway lines and other public utility goods), by extortions, kidnappings and gruesome killings, the Maoist violence has degenerated into a war against all peoples and public utilities. Any sympathy one may have had for their cause has eroded as one questions whether anti state resistance must involve such mindless destruction and violence that inconvenience people further and add to their miseries. The Maoists are creating and endorsing the very chaos, fear, apathy, exploitation destruction and violence that they are supposed to be resisting. Roy also overlooks the other important questions. How is the unending supply of arms and weapons, bombs and explosives being made available to the Maoists? If they are all the people dying of hunger, starvation and entrenched in poverty, where do they get the resources needed for their armed rebellion? Where is the money coming from? What are their networks, supply chains? The chaos and fear the Maoists have unleashed is preventing normal activities such as farming and agriculture in remote areas. People who do not agree with their methods are hastily disposing off agricultural land and property and are forced to flee their homes and villages. In several Maoist infected areas where the Maoists have driven out the people, land remains uncultivated. Clearly those terrorised by the Maoists are not “people” worthy of Roy’s sympathies.

Roy said in a CNN IBN interview that “my fear is that because of this economic interest the government and establishment actually needs a war. It needs to militarise. For that it needs an enemy…you have an army of very poor people being faced down by an army of rich that are corporate-backed.” On the ground level, how does it benefit the state or the governments to have a rebellious group constantly eroding their resources? The security provisions in the light of the Maoist attacks require massive financial and human resources investments that are hardly beneficial to the state. Even for a ‘militarised’ state it is one thing to have an external enemy and threat (that basically enhances its legitimacy) and another to have an intra state insurgency that would erode its resources, question its legitimacy and threaten its very existence. It is one thing to argue, for example, that Pakistan supports terrorism against India and another to say that a militarised state that Pakistan is, it needs the war against the Taliban; it creates and sustains this internal war against the Taliban. The latter, even the hard liners and hawks within the Indian establishment would find it hard to accept. An intra state insurgency aimed at over throwing the state cannot be part of the state’s own militarisation plans. It is not in the interest of the Indian state to create and sustain the war with a group of disgruntled citizens.

Moreover, it is hardly a case of ‘an army of the poor against the army of the rich’, as Roy suggests. On the contrary, it seems like the Maoists are better armed, better equipped and have better intelligence facilities. The police and paramilitary forces in India are hardly the ‘army of the rich’. Joining the police in India is fuelled more by an economic need than with the real intention to be an agent of the state. Several policemen and constables are unwilling to risk their lives in Maoist infected areas and are utilising their life savings to get civilian and urban postings. They do not have the requisite arms and weapons to fight the Maoists nor the willingness to fight them. An ill equipped and demotivated police force where constables and policemen are also from poor and backward classes hardly merits such harsh criticism as Roy posits. In many conversations with policemen in Ranchi, I have found them fearful of any postings in Maoist areas, and continuously requesting for more urban postings like in Ranchi or Jamshedpur. And all of them are not exactly high class wealthy policemen but young and poor men who might eventually be the victim of a Maoist landmine attack or be killed in an encounter. On the other hand, an armed movement, like the Maoists, requires tangible resources and not mere rhetoric and ideology as Roy would have us believe.

I have never argued nor believe that the state is sacrosanct and we should not be critical of the state and its policies. As a feminist I would be the first to argue that patriarchal states promote unequal gender relations and are especially biased against women and minorities. Critique of the state is very necessary in any informed intellectual and democratic policy discourse. However, Roy makes the state into a monstrous actor and absolves ‘people’ of all responsibilities. She never suggests alternatives as to how we must fight/critique the state and instead legitimises anti-state violence all the time. She conveniently overlooks that those who actually die in this anti state violence are not corrupt and wealthy politicians, but poor people, and poor policemen. Francis Indwar, the police inspector of the special branch of the Jharkhand police was the only bread earning member of his family. He was kidnapped and brutally killed by the Maoists not in an armed combat, but in an act contrary to the revolutionary path. The body of the inspector was found in Bundu Police Station area near Ranchi on 6 October 2009. The unarmed policeman was beheaded all in the name of the anti state resistance that Roy justifies. There are many other Francis Indwars. Human rights activists like Roy and others remained silent on the death of Indwar and continue to make noises about the arrests of Maoist leaders and ideologues like Kobad Ghandy and Chhatradhar Mahato. Hundreds of other policemen and other unarmed people have died in the Maoist attacks while Roy accuses the media of demonising the Maoists and coming up with figures about Maoist violence that are inaccurate and even false. The state, the media and also the international community are all against the “people”, some people on whom Roy’s intellectual discourse inscribes the status of victims!

Roy refuses to hold the Maoists accountable for their violence. Again this would not surprise anyone who follows her writings. She also justified the 26/11 attacks forgetting that the people who died in the brutal acts of terror had nothing to do with the ‘state’ and its policies. Her stance was more problematic when she suggested in another Guardian article last year that it was justified for a group of terrorists to come from across the border and carry out the carnage one saw in Mumbai, all in the name of resisting the state’s policies and injustices. She reminded us that we deserved it and it would continue to happen because of the way minorities were treated in India. It did not worry her that those delivering the violent justice were not even part of the Indian state but misguided jihadis from across the border. What she also forgot to ask in her over zealous need to justify the violence was whether the Muslim minority in India preferred to be represented by such brutal killers. They did not and expressed their sentiments quite clearly by refusing to consider the terrorists as Muslims in the first place. Her sympathies were not for those who died in the Mumbai attacks. Her sympathies are not with Francis Indwar. She had more sympathies for the Taliban who needed to be ‘understood’ as she famously said during her visit to Pakistan. Mourning for the dead in her intellectual understanding is always about which class or discourse the dead belong to.

Roy justifies and legitimises violence by non state actors in the name of self defence and resisting an oppressive state and condemns state violence. It is the exact opposite of what statist discourses do; they do not question violence perpetrated by the states while non state actors become illegitimate monsters and a nuisance. She does not prefer the intellectual middle ground nor concerns herself with the multiplicities of experiences and ideas within any discourse. It is worthwhile to note that she does not engage with the idea of violence itself (a favourite of both the right and the left within the political spectrum). Victimhood is the construct she often uses to justify violence, but victimhood is politically and sparingly applied to those resisting the state alone. Why is one type of violence okay, one type of exclusion okay, one type of fear and exploitation okay, one type of communalism okay? The burden of the ideology she carries is more than the weight of these questions, perhaps.

I have argued that violence has its uses but should not become an end in itself. This seems to be the case with the Maoists as also with the Taliban both of which continue to reject democratic methods and peaceful solutions. Militants and separatists in the North East of India and even Kashmir have all at various points come to the negotiating table. Groups such as the Hamas and even the LTTE had brief periods where they realised the potentials of non violent engagement with the states they resisted and participated in democratic processes. Wherever violence outlives its purpose, the political entity or resistance group meets its doom and fails the very people it represents/acts for. It has happened most recently with the LTTE in Sri Lanka. Excessive use of violence by states also results in their failure and ultimate demise. Khmer Rouge, German Nazism, Italian Fascism all saw their end. Most recently and closer home even the Pakistani regime has realised that violence can turn its ugly head like a Frankenstein monster. By refusing to not engage in a democratic manner and persisting in their violent methods, the Maoists are making the same mistake that groups such as the LTTE have done in the past.

Democracy and democratic methods can also give rise to Nazism and Fascism as we have seen in the past. We could also contest the idea of democracy and democratic methods in India. But I still prefer this democracy to what I see in the neighbourhood (Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal, Burma and Bangladesh) or for that matter in many parts of the Western world. Home Minister Mr. Chidambaram has on different occasions said that “Maoists must abjure violence and take the path of democracy and dialogue.” The governments of states affected by Maoist violence have been asked to discuss the issues of development, neglect, deprivation and government structure in case they (Maoists) give up arms. Are they willing to seize the opportunity? Roy says that government should talk to the Maoists unconditionally. Is that even a legitimate or logical demand?

And what exactly is this monster called the ‘state’ that Arundhati Roy continues to spell doom for? State comprises of territory, sovereignty, government and most importantly population. We do not exist outside the state but are part of it. In IR theory, as also in other disciplines there is a great deal of pessimism about the state as the international and political actor. However, a total rejection of the state in the developing/underdeveloped world is not only dangerous but is also an indication of a very narrow understanding of the state. Where civil society is still in the nascent stage and where state with all its evils remains the only hope of the people, Roy’s arguments are at best empty rhetoric. Feminists also who have been very critical of the statist discourse and the treatment of women under patriarchal states have not called for the total annihilation of the state, but have tirelessly worked for reforms. Even non state groups have been keen to capture political power and run de facto states (LTTE is an example). I am not suggesting that the state is beyond questioning but only that there needs to be a constant and more sustained theoretical and intellectual engagement with the idea of state and alternatives to it. The state, as an idea and as a political entity exists and cannot be wished away overnight.

Roy has raised some very good points/good critiques earlier but making the state into some monster and all of us as helpless people who are victims of the state, manipulated by the state is not exactly an analytical framework which can provide succour to the helpless or serious policy alternatives. State is not an entity out there, but a creation in which most people have a role. She deprives the people of their agentive capabilities, forgetting that state is because of the people and not people because of the state. If the state must change, reform or even be overthrown, we, the people have to accept responsibility and act accordingly.

And finally, violence of all sorts, though sometimes necessary must not outlive its purpose. History bears testimony to that.

“In violence, we forget who we are.”
---Mary McCarthy---