Far from fair

At a Salwa Judum training camp at Kasoli village of Dantewada district in Chhattisgarh.-BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

A team appointed by the National Human Rights Commission says that naxalites are to blame for Salwa Judum activists use of force.

SALWA JUDUM, a vigilante group formed to prevent naxalite attacks in the districts of Dantewada and Bijapur in Chhattisgarh, is at the centre of a controversy involving the state, civil society and human rights groups. A fact-finding team of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), in its report submitted to the Supreme Court, has justified the armed resistance to naxalism. The 16-member inquiry team, headed by Deputy Inspector General of Police Sudhir Chowdhary and comprising police officers, concluded its report thus:

Selective killings by naxalites of Salwa Judum [meaning peace mission] leaders and activists and attacks by naxalites on Salwa Judum leaders were responsible, to a large extent, for changing the complexion of the movement from a non-violent one to an armed resistance (paragraph 7.02).

In April 2008, the Supreme Court expressed serious misgivings about the legitimacy of such resistance and directed the NHRC to appoint a committee to inquire into the allegations of large-scale human rights violations by Salwa Judum activists, naxalites and security forces in the State of Chhattisgarh.

A Supreme Court Bench comprising the Chief Justice of India, Justice K.G. Balakrishnan, and Justice Aftab Alam warned the State government that it could not supply arms to private persons and abet murder. It made the observations while hearing two writ petitions alleging human rights violations by Salwa Judum and the security forces. The petitioners included a Delhi-based academic, Nandini Sundar, and the historian Ramachandra Guha.

What is disturbing is the NHRC-appointed teams attempt to absolve the State government of any role in building up the armed resistance. The report observed: The State government cannot be said to have sponsored Salwa Judum but it certainly has extended support to it by way of providing security to the processions and meetings of Salwa Judum [activists] and also to inmates of the temporary relief camps (paragraph 7.06).

Ironically, this observation stands somewhat contradicted by the preceding paragraph, which clearly admits that the distinction between Salwa Judum activists, on the one hand, and the Special Police Officers (SPOs) and the security forces, on the other, has been blurred.

In paragraph 7.05, the report says: While the naxalites have been involved in violations of human rights, there have been instances where Salwa Judum activists, the SPOs and the security forces have also been involved in the violation of human rights. The violations on the part of the latter being more serious as the State must act within the four corners of the law even in the face of grave provocation.

The inference that Salwa Judum activists in contrast to the SPOs and the security forces are not under any legal obligation to respect human rights is indeed ominous. The Police Act, 1861, empowers a local magistrate to appoint temporarily civilians as SPOs to perform the roles of ordinary officers of police.

The provisions of this Act are clear that the SPOs can be appointed only where the police force is felt to be insufficient and where there has been a disturbance of peace, or its reasonable apprehension, and that they cannot be appointed indefinitely.

The distinction the team has sought to draw between sponsoring Salwa Judum and supporting its activities in the form of provision of security, is misleading. The petitioners have given ample evidence to suggest that the State governments support to Salwa Judum was more than just provision of security. A report brought out in July by Human Rights Watch (HRW), a non-governmental organisation (NGO), and titled Being Neutral is Our Biggest Crime, has revealed certain incontrovertible facts, which have not been disproved in the NHRCs report. According to the HRW report, in June 2005, some local protest meetings against naxalites in Bijapur district resulted in the creation of Salwa Judum. The Central and State governments saw in the protests an opportunity to challenge the naxalite influence in the area. They provided support, primarily through the security forces, and permitted the protesters to function as a vigilante group aimed at eliminating naxalites. This dramatically transformed the protest meetings into raids against villages believed to be pro-naxalite.

The NHRC report also ignores the fact that the State government initiative to form Salwa Judum coincided with a prescription to do so from the Centre. The 2005-06 annual report of the Ministry of Home Affairs states: The States have also been advised to encourage formation of Local Resistance Groups/Village Defence Committees/Nagrik Suraksha Samitis (civilian protection committees) in naxalite-affected areas. In 2005, Chhattisgarh witnessed significant local resistance against naxalites in some areas.

The Dantewada Collectors proposal of 2005 cited in the HRW report as well as by the petitioners illustrates how the State government encouraged and assisted Salwa Judum. The work proposal states:

So far the people have been conducting the abhiyan [campaign] on their own. The naxalites are trying to dissuade them through persuasion or through threats. If they are not given support from the administration, the abhiyan will die out. In addition to training the villagers, they should be given traditional weapons like bows and arrows, axes, hoes and sticks. Although most villagers already have such weapons, it would be good to encourage them by distributing ready-made arrows or iron to make arrows.

The petitioners alleged that there had been several incidents of killing, abduction, rape and arson by Salwa Judum activists in Chhattisgarh and that many youngsters were being given arms by the State government, which had led to an increase in the crime rate. One of the petitioners, Kartam Joga, also provided the names of some 500 persons who had been allegedly killed by Salwa Judum activists or the security forces. The petition highlighted the miserable living conditions in the settlement camps.

The State government claimed that the peculiar circumstances arising from naxalite activities had necessitated certain remedial steps to save the lives of people from naxal attacks and that the government had designated willing local people as SPOs under the Police Act. The government submitted that appropriate action would be taken if any crime or violation by any SPO was brought to its notice. The Central government supported the State governments submissions in this regard. It is in this context that the Bench directed the NHRC to appoint a committee to ascertain the facts and report to the court.

The committees justification of vigilantism has worrying implications. In paragraph 7.04 of its report, it says: The allegation of the petitioners that naxalite violence has increased after Salwa Judum and further aggravated the problem, which shows that this experiment has failed, is a very narrow view of this complicated problem. Surely, the petitioners would not support the subjugation and killings of tribals by naxalites for years before Salwa Judum. The tribals cannot be denied the right to defend themselves against the atrocities perpetrated by the naxalites, especially when the law-enforcers are themselves ineffective or not present.

The Campaign for Peace and Justice in Chhattisgarh (CPJC), an NGO campaigning against Salwa Judum, has observed in a press release that the NHRC teams findings do not reflect the ground realities and the need to enforce the rule of law and human rights. It has deplored the composition of the team, given the fact that the primary conflict in this area is between the police and naxalites, with villagers caught in the crossfire.

The CPJC has alleged that the presence of Salwa Judum leaders, SPOs and the Superintendent of Police of Dantewada in the armed convoy of the NHRC team during its visit to the affected areas made an impartial and independent inquiry impossible.

Whatever the truth in these allegations, some facts revealed in the NHRC teams report must cause concern. One of them is that a large number of civilians have been displaced since Salwa Judums formation. Some of them are at present staying in camps in Bijapur and Dantewada districts, while the others have gone to Andhra Pradesh. The NHRC team has observed that those who moved to Andhra Pradesh continued to live there and did not feel safe enough to return to their villages. The reasons for their reluctance to return, as speculated by the team, include apprehensions about Salwa Judum activists, the SPOs, the security forces and naxalites, and the better economic opportunities available for them in the neighbouring State.

The team has rejected the petitioners claim that 537 villagers were killed by Salwa Judum and the security forces. After looking into a representative sample of 168 of these cases, the team concluded that most of the allegations were based on hearsay and that many of the villagers were killed by naxalites.

The team found the living conditions in the 23 temporary relief camps with regard to health, education and employment opportunities and the public distribution system inadequate. Yet, it found the overall conditions satisfactory. These camps are inhabited mainly by the SPOs, their relatives and Salwa Judum activists, who are the prime targets of naxalites and are unable to return home. The NHRC team has recommended the facilitation of their safe return to their villages and provision of adequate security in the camps. The teams finding that many tribal people are missing vindicates the petitioners apprehensions.

The report said: It is not known whether they are inside the jungles with the naxalites, or they have migrated to some other place, or perhaps even dead. Most of the allegations in the petitions pertain to these missing persons who, on hearsay, are alleged to have been killed. The committee, therefore, recommended preparation of a villagewise list of all those who went missing and the circumstances under which they disappeared.

It remains to be seen whether the Supreme Court accepts all the conclusions and recommendations made by the NHRC committee in the light of the CPJCs misgivings about the report.