Kashmir is Bleeding
Almost half a decade back, while passing through the Garhi Dopata, Hattian and finally Chokati Bazar of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJ&K) to attend a briefing being given by Pakistani Army authorities to journalists on Kashmir issue, I had a belief that this time we are going to solve the Kashmir problem. Over a dozen vehicles in a queue, passing through the bazaars gave an impression to the bystanders on sides of the road and those peeing through their shops that the group of international and Pakistani journalists after knowing the miseries of Kashmiri people on both sides of Line of Control (LoC) would definitely go back to their respective countries and use the power of their pens to kill the issue once for ever. Where I noticed hope, I could also notice disappointment on the faces of some old aged Kashmiris, who had a clear idea that the briefing of foreign and Pakistani journalists is a routine affair and it has nothing to do with solution of long standing Kashmir conflict. They view that each journalist would come up with an excellent piece of journalistic art to stay alive in media and sell their industrial products. Many years after this briefing, I found sentiments of old aged Kashmiris to be true as one fails to find an inch movement in the resolution of this problem. Kashmir is bleeding so are the Kashmiris but there is hardly any serious effort to unite Kashmiris on the both side of the LoC. Genocide of Kashmiris Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs is taking place at the hands brutal Indian occupying forces but the international community and media is observing as silent spectators.
The Confidence Building Measures between India and Pakistan faded away in a wave of suspicion. Mumbai attacks, which although were linked with foreign intelligence conspiracy and Maoists struggle for independence, left Pakistan and India at eye balls to eye balls position. India government claims that recently organized election in India held Jammu and Kashmir state is sufficient to find out the verdict of Kashmiri people. Isn’t India ignoring the fact that all the major political parties boycotted the elections and over and above the elections were held in the presence of bulk of brutal Indian occupying forces? How can any elections be free and fair under the bayonet of guns? The Kashmiris living in Indian held Jammu and Kashmir state are prisoners of conscience and are subjected to blackmailing and torture. It is being officially admitted by Indian government that Mujahideen’ activities in the Kashmir Valley have drastically come down in the recent months but protests during the last two months over the incidents of rape and killings of innocent Kashmiris speaks of Indian security forces highhandedness otherwise if justice was provided to Kashmiris, there could be no room for latest protests and violence. India must admit that Kashmiris are not free and are being treated by Indian occupiers as third rated citizens in their own state. The treatment of minorities in Indian held Jammu and Kashmir is also deplorable. The Indian government and Army have forcibly occupied the houses of Kashmiri Hindu Pandits and Sikhs. The have been settled in refugee camps and are not allowed to return to their ancestral land. Despite the fact that Hindu Pandits and Sikhs want to voluntarily return to Indian held Jammu and Kashmir as well as Muslim Kashmiris have given all sort of guarantees to them for their safe return, India government is not allowing to return.
When Omar Abdullah took over as the Chief Minister of Indian Held Jammu and Kashmir, he made vary tall claims and it appeared that he would ease the miseries of the Kashmiri masses but he proved another puppet of Indian occupying forces. The gang rape and murder of two women in Shopian, mysterious killing of a young man in Srinagar and mysterious death of a Kashmiri college girl, molested by a group of Indian Territorial Army Jawans in Kupwara have put a big question mark on his ability and credibility. Despite protests and violence all around burning India Held Jammu and Kashmir, local newspapers are publishing full-page advertisements highlighting Omar’s first six months achievements and there is no mention of his failures. Omar feels that by spending Rs 60-crore on road modernization project in Srinagar and Jammu cities is his successes but being a Indian occupying force puppet he cannot realize that Kashmiris want their right of self determination. In fact his government has even failed to provide justice with regard to crimes in Shopian, Srinagar and Kupwara what to expect anything else. In fact Kashmiris figured out Omar’s pain for the people of Kashmir from day one when Indian security forces shot a hearing-impaired person outside his residence at Gupkar Road two days after the oath-taking ceremony. Omar is a helpless and lifeless instrument in the hands of Indian occupying forces who has no say of his own. It is on record that during Press conference in May, 2009, while ruling out rape and murder, Omar supported the Indian official version that the two women in Shopian had died due to drowning. Even his announcement to order an Inquiry was only to establish the claim of the Indian authorities but forensic reports proved on the contrary. There is no doubt that Omar is brainwashed child of Indian intelligence but he must realize that he is Kashmiri first. There is a requirement from all Kashmiris to express solidarity with Kashmiris living on both sides of LoC. If Omar and his puppet government cannot do much about Kashmiris right for self-determination, at least they should not add to their miseries.
By: Afshain Afzal
Friday, May 14, 2010
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Beware of Indian Intrigue
Beware of Indian Intrigue
(Dr. M. Anwar)
India is full of diverse communities and ethnic divides with intricate social order and political structure. The life style in India is subjectively conservative and socially deceptive. When an Indian passes a smile on a neighbor it may not necessarily carry a positive message, as behind their smiles Indians maintain a different face which is full of jealousies, prejudices and an inbuilt hatred for the fellow human beings. The sense of negative competition which is an essential part of Indian socialization process leads them to treat their neighbors as their potential opponents and possible adversaries. Indian caste system is not only strong in its fundamental values but also overwhelmingly deceptive in nature. The society is built around a structure which proactively advocates deceit, cheating and trickery. The social system encourages and helps promotion of intriguing acts and the environment of exploitation. The poor and low caste communities including sub-caste stumpy Hindus are treated with contempt and disdain.
The political elite totally disregards human dignity, honor and respect and focuses on self advancement at any cost. They cannot be different while dealing with other neighboring states like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Maldives. Indian political leadership is cleverly mischievous and dangerously greedy to handle matters of mutual co-existence, peace and tranquility. They tend to create a mountain out of a mole to score political points and coerce the leaders of their neighboring states especially Pakistan. They do not understand that Pakistan is an atomic power and her leaders are to be treated with respect and formality. The flawed political socialization and somewhat voracious background forces them to draw schemes and use oblique angle treatment to every initiative undertaken by Pakistani leadership to restore the peace process. Indian leadership has to realize that resumption of inter-state dialogue between India and Pakistan will be in the interest of both of these states.
The South Asian region is already under a grave threat of terrorism and extremism having linkages with unresolved core issues like Kashmir, Sir Creek, Water and others. Indian schemers have intentionally conducted external maneuvers by developing lobbies and nexus with certain anti Pakistan forces like Israel and likeminded think tanks of Western World/USA to build their case based on single agenda of Mumbai terror attacks and telling Pakistan to not only do more to eliminate the terrorism from her soil but also exclude the Kashmir and Sir Creek issues from the peace process. Pakistani leadership must stand up and tell the Indians in clear terms that peace in the region is not possible without the resolution of Kashmir issue. In this regard no Indian scheme/manipulation to delay or dodge the real issues will succeed. Pakistan is a responsible nuclear state and therefore desires the Indian leadership to resolve all the core issues including the Kashmir dispute with a serious sense of purpose.
On the other hand US interests in the region especially in Afghanistan entail creation of permanent peace in the region. Pakistan is committed to fight the terrorists in the west-frontier region. India must also respond positively to resolve the Kashmir issue and facilitate creation of peace in the region. In this regard US pressure on India is the only factor which can convince the Indians to come to the terms.
Media hopes are high as the Indo-Pakistan premiers meet at Sharm-ul-Sheikh in Egypt on the side lines of NAM summit. The opinion makers, however, are likely to be taken by surprise as Indian spin masters are capable of tactfully averting any difficult situation and passing the buck to their opponent. The US policy makers must also realize the Indian intrigue and exert more pressure to force India to undertake meaningful initiative to resume the peace process with Pakistan and resolve all issues including Kashmir with Pakistan. The world anxiously watches and expects meaningful outcome of meeting between the Prime Ministers of India and Pakistan.
(Dr. M. Anwar)
India is full of diverse communities and ethnic divides with intricate social order and political structure. The life style in India is subjectively conservative and socially deceptive. When an Indian passes a smile on a neighbor it may not necessarily carry a positive message, as behind their smiles Indians maintain a different face which is full of jealousies, prejudices and an inbuilt hatred for the fellow human beings. The sense of negative competition which is an essential part of Indian socialization process leads them to treat their neighbors as their potential opponents and possible adversaries. Indian caste system is not only strong in its fundamental values but also overwhelmingly deceptive in nature. The society is built around a structure which proactively advocates deceit, cheating and trickery. The social system encourages and helps promotion of intriguing acts and the environment of exploitation. The poor and low caste communities including sub-caste stumpy Hindus are treated with contempt and disdain.
The political elite totally disregards human dignity, honor and respect and focuses on self advancement at any cost. They cannot be different while dealing with other neighboring states like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Maldives. Indian political leadership is cleverly mischievous and dangerously greedy to handle matters of mutual co-existence, peace and tranquility. They tend to create a mountain out of a mole to score political points and coerce the leaders of their neighboring states especially Pakistan. They do not understand that Pakistan is an atomic power and her leaders are to be treated with respect and formality. The flawed political socialization and somewhat voracious background forces them to draw schemes and use oblique angle treatment to every initiative undertaken by Pakistani leadership to restore the peace process. Indian leadership has to realize that resumption of inter-state dialogue between India and Pakistan will be in the interest of both of these states.
The South Asian region is already under a grave threat of terrorism and extremism having linkages with unresolved core issues like Kashmir, Sir Creek, Water and others. Indian schemers have intentionally conducted external maneuvers by developing lobbies and nexus with certain anti Pakistan forces like Israel and likeminded think tanks of Western World/USA to build their case based on single agenda of Mumbai terror attacks and telling Pakistan to not only do more to eliminate the terrorism from her soil but also exclude the Kashmir and Sir Creek issues from the peace process. Pakistani leadership must stand up and tell the Indians in clear terms that peace in the region is not possible without the resolution of Kashmir issue. In this regard no Indian scheme/manipulation to delay or dodge the real issues will succeed. Pakistan is a responsible nuclear state and therefore desires the Indian leadership to resolve all the core issues including the Kashmir dispute with a serious sense of purpose.
On the other hand US interests in the region especially in Afghanistan entail creation of permanent peace in the region. Pakistan is committed to fight the terrorists in the west-frontier region. India must also respond positively to resolve the Kashmir issue and facilitate creation of peace in the region. In this regard US pressure on India is the only factor which can convince the Indians to come to the terms.
Media hopes are high as the Indo-Pakistan premiers meet at Sharm-ul-Sheikh in Egypt on the side lines of NAM summit. The opinion makers, however, are likely to be taken by surprise as Indian spin masters are capable of tactfully averting any difficult situation and passing the buck to their opponent. The US policy makers must also realize the Indian intrigue and exert more pressure to force India to undertake meaningful initiative to resume the peace process with Pakistan and resolve all issues including Kashmir with Pakistan. The world anxiously watches and expects meaningful outcome of meeting between the Prime Ministers of India and Pakistan.
Officers’ Corruption Shattered Indian Army Confidence
Officers’ Corruption Shattered Indian Army Confidence
by Zaheerul Hassan
Soldiers always remember and feel pride over the time spent with their comrades in the training establishments, units, and field. Therefore, the feelings of unexpected meeting of war buddies always take them back in the past and pour fresh blood in old body. The sentiments of old associates are unforgettable and cannot be revealed in few words. In real sense good memories are assets of the units on which soldiers feel proud. However materialistic approach drastically changed the culture of some of the Armed forces. In this context, the Indian Armed forces are on the top of the list. The corruption in officer’s lot has converted it into rogue armed forces, which really shattered the soldiers’ confidence over their commanders. According to the old timers the Indian Army is now the most corrupted organization in India. Unfortunately, in most of the cases officers (including senior officers) are involved in the cases of sexual harassments, bribe, selling military secrets, terrorizing, kidnapping, sabotaged activities against minorities, abduction of scientists, smuggling of enriched uranium and other nuke equipments.
The young Indian married officers hesitate in attending family functions with their wives since in most of the functions seniors officers found losing their senses due to excessive drink. Few years back a senior Indian Air force officer assaulted the wife of a junior subordinate officer (the name of the officer has not been mentioned to conceal the identity). The culprit officer had not been taken on task and the intelligence agencies hushed up the incident to save the senior officer. In July 2008 Captain Poonam Kaur of the Army Supply Corps (ASC) alleged her three colleague officers for mentally and sexually harassment. She also narrated that she had been confined illegally when she resisted their advances. On her complaint, the army authorities constituted a court of inquiry whereby all three officers denied the allegations. However later on the alleged officers have been declared clean and complainant lady officer was convicted on at least 20 counts, including leveling false charges against her senior officers. Indian Army authority has dismissed the lady officer instead taking actions against the male officers. The irony of the case was that the court was headed by a male officer who became party to the alleged officers.
Indian Army did not even respect the country’s courts of law. On August 31, 2009 in a recent report, Hindustan times revealed that former judge advocate general of Indian Army Maj. Gen. Neelendra Kumar said: "The army has a standing policy that every case of serious nature invariably goes to the military court. The Supreme Court guidelines are not applicable as we have the Army Act."
On the other hand, the Army Act 1950 cannot deal the cases of sexual abuse. Thus the lady officer has been deprived with the justice and thrown out of the army for complaining against her colleague officers. As per the newspaper currently, 5,137 women officers serve in the armed forces. They include 4,101 in the army, 784 in the air force and 252 in the navy. As per media 45 cases of sexual harassment have been reported during the last seven years. In fact Indian armed forces are men dominated forces and never liked to see flourishing of females in the forces. In a case of female recruitment, on September 18, 2009 while addressing of Delhi High Court, Solicitor General of India Gopal Subramanium has submitted before Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul that the granting of permanent commission to women officers on short service commission in the Indian Army is not possible.
It is notable here that Indian government herself is promoting prostitution profession in the female troops deployed in border areas. Earlier on April 10 2007 CNN revealed in a report that Twenty-three-years old Smriti and 26-years-old Suhag are Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) constables on duty in strife-torn Kashmir found involved in prostitution profession. Both were educated, sharp and dedicated towards their [prostitution] profession and equally eager to keep healthy and perhaps that explains why they are all ears during an AIDS awareness session that was held. A month back the daily mail also reported that now 200 professional prostitutions have been inducted in the armed forces.
Probably, all such types of inductions are the brain child of notorious Indian intelligence agency (RAW). The aim of suggesting, planning and launching such kind of unethical employment in the forces is to attract the freedom fighters and malign Muslim soldiers in unlawful activities . Thus, increase of unhealthy activities has made the soldiers psychologically sick. The suicidal cases and disciplined problems in the units deployed in Kashmir have been many folds. The excessive dinks and involvement in sexual activities with colleague’s female officers has become the cause of spreading AIDS in the forces. Assam Military Units Commander Colonel Bhopinder Singh also admitted in a side meeting that the death toll because of AIDS is much higher than that of casualties in the clashes. It is quite evident from the reports that more than 200,000 troops deployed in northern Indian and Kashmir are confronting with separatist groups, freedom fighters and a hard hitter enemy “AIDS”.
Vice-Admiral V.K.Singh, Director-General of Armed Forces Medical Services, has said that we consider HIV as our enemy No. 1. As per reports so far 415 soldiers including officers had been expired as result of this killing disease and more than thousand cases of AIDS are under investigation. Families of the sick soldiers are actually main sufferers. The increase in divorce/separation cases have also been noticed by the reputed circle of the masses but unfortunately Indian top and military brass are not interested to lessen the worries of poor soldiers and their families.
Indian Army is considered to be the world’s second largest army with 1.2 million troops. According to Indian National Human Rights Commission, there were 1,039 cases of human rights violations (which include rapes, terrorizing, abduction & killing of innocent women, children youngsters & communal violence) by the security forces from 1990 -2009, an average of 110 per year. I would also like to reveal here that no downward trend in crime ratio have been noticed so far. The indecent activities against the innocent agitators almost raised 100%. If we consider that it reduced by 50 % even then figures will be quite alarming for the international community. Indian Ministry of Defence reported that it filed 17 rape cases against army personnel whereas media reported 20 cases of rapes from 2003-2004 and by adding 50 % per annum will make this figure 80 till December, 2008. There are reports that only two or three rape cases have been concluded so far in a guilty verdict. In the remaining cases, the investigations are still in process or terminated because of tremendous pressure on the presidents of the court of inquiries, investigating officers or on the eye witnesses.
As per Indian press, one serving Lt General Sahni, one Lt General (Retired) S K Dahiya, four Major Generals, two Brigadiers and eight officers are being charred for various irregularities in relation to procurement of “certain items of dry rations” for soldiers in Jammu and Kashmir. The names of Sahni, Dahiya, four Maj-Gens, nine Brigadiers, a Navy Commodore, two Commanders a Lt-Commander, an IAF Group Captain and a Coast Guard DIG have figured in a list of 21 senior officers facing corruption charges tabled by defence minister A K Antony in Parliament. In the past too Tehelka.com opened the Pandora Box of corrupt Indian Generals.
Coming back to the discussion, I must say that world second army is now become the highly corrupt force. The troops do not have confidence on their immediate commanders .Senior officers do not enjoy good reputation amongst their subordinates. The deployed troops are playing with the lives of innocent children and women. Young local girls and female colleague officers are being victimized by the soldiers and their comrades. World community, organization of human rights and so called civilized western society should visit border areas of Kashmir to know the actual worth of Rouge Indian Armed Forces.
by Zaheerul Hassan
Soldiers always remember and feel pride over the time spent with their comrades in the training establishments, units, and field. Therefore, the feelings of unexpected meeting of war buddies always take them back in the past and pour fresh blood in old body. The sentiments of old associates are unforgettable and cannot be revealed in few words. In real sense good memories are assets of the units on which soldiers feel proud. However materialistic approach drastically changed the culture of some of the Armed forces. In this context, the Indian Armed forces are on the top of the list. The corruption in officer’s lot has converted it into rogue armed forces, which really shattered the soldiers’ confidence over their commanders. According to the old timers the Indian Army is now the most corrupted organization in India. Unfortunately, in most of the cases officers (including senior officers) are involved in the cases of sexual harassments, bribe, selling military secrets, terrorizing, kidnapping, sabotaged activities against minorities, abduction of scientists, smuggling of enriched uranium and other nuke equipments.
The young Indian married officers hesitate in attending family functions with their wives since in most of the functions seniors officers found losing their senses due to excessive drink. Few years back a senior Indian Air force officer assaulted the wife of a junior subordinate officer (the name of the officer has not been mentioned to conceal the identity). The culprit officer had not been taken on task and the intelligence agencies hushed up the incident to save the senior officer. In July 2008 Captain Poonam Kaur of the Army Supply Corps (ASC) alleged her three colleague officers for mentally and sexually harassment. She also narrated that she had been confined illegally when she resisted their advances. On her complaint, the army authorities constituted a court of inquiry whereby all three officers denied the allegations. However later on the alleged officers have been declared clean and complainant lady officer was convicted on at least 20 counts, including leveling false charges against her senior officers. Indian Army authority has dismissed the lady officer instead taking actions against the male officers. The irony of the case was that the court was headed by a male officer who became party to the alleged officers.
Indian Army did not even respect the country’s courts of law. On August 31, 2009 in a recent report, Hindustan times revealed that former judge advocate general of Indian Army Maj. Gen. Neelendra Kumar said: "The army has a standing policy that every case of serious nature invariably goes to the military court. The Supreme Court guidelines are not applicable as we have the Army Act."
On the other hand, the Army Act 1950 cannot deal the cases of sexual abuse. Thus the lady officer has been deprived with the justice and thrown out of the army for complaining against her colleague officers. As per the newspaper currently, 5,137 women officers serve in the armed forces. They include 4,101 in the army, 784 in the air force and 252 in the navy. As per media 45 cases of sexual harassment have been reported during the last seven years. In fact Indian armed forces are men dominated forces and never liked to see flourishing of females in the forces. In a case of female recruitment, on September 18, 2009 while addressing of Delhi High Court, Solicitor General of India Gopal Subramanium has submitted before Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul that the granting of permanent commission to women officers on short service commission in the Indian Army is not possible.
It is notable here that Indian government herself is promoting prostitution profession in the female troops deployed in border areas. Earlier on April 10 2007 CNN revealed in a report that Twenty-three-years old Smriti and 26-years-old Suhag are Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) constables on duty in strife-torn Kashmir found involved in prostitution profession. Both were educated, sharp and dedicated towards their [prostitution] profession and equally eager to keep healthy and perhaps that explains why they are all ears during an AIDS awareness session that was held. A month back the daily mail also reported that now 200 professional prostitutions have been inducted in the armed forces.
Probably, all such types of inductions are the brain child of notorious Indian intelligence agency (RAW). The aim of suggesting, planning and launching such kind of unethical employment in the forces is to attract the freedom fighters and malign Muslim soldiers in unlawful activities . Thus, increase of unhealthy activities has made the soldiers psychologically sick. The suicidal cases and disciplined problems in the units deployed in Kashmir have been many folds. The excessive dinks and involvement in sexual activities with colleague’s female officers has become the cause of spreading AIDS in the forces. Assam Military Units Commander Colonel Bhopinder Singh also admitted in a side meeting that the death toll because of AIDS is much higher than that of casualties in the clashes. It is quite evident from the reports that more than 200,000 troops deployed in northern Indian and Kashmir are confronting with separatist groups, freedom fighters and a hard hitter enemy “AIDS”.
Vice-Admiral V.K.Singh, Director-General of Armed Forces Medical Services, has said that we consider HIV as our enemy No. 1. As per reports so far 415 soldiers including officers had been expired as result of this killing disease and more than thousand cases of AIDS are under investigation. Families of the sick soldiers are actually main sufferers. The increase in divorce/separation cases have also been noticed by the reputed circle of the masses but unfortunately Indian top and military brass are not interested to lessen the worries of poor soldiers and their families.
Indian Army is considered to be the world’s second largest army with 1.2 million troops. According to Indian National Human Rights Commission, there were 1,039 cases of human rights violations (which include rapes, terrorizing, abduction & killing of innocent women, children youngsters & communal violence) by the security forces from 1990 -2009, an average of 110 per year. I would also like to reveal here that no downward trend in crime ratio have been noticed so far. The indecent activities against the innocent agitators almost raised 100%. If we consider that it reduced by 50 % even then figures will be quite alarming for the international community. Indian Ministry of Defence reported that it filed 17 rape cases against army personnel whereas media reported 20 cases of rapes from 2003-2004 and by adding 50 % per annum will make this figure 80 till December, 2008. There are reports that only two or three rape cases have been concluded so far in a guilty verdict. In the remaining cases, the investigations are still in process or terminated because of tremendous pressure on the presidents of the court of inquiries, investigating officers or on the eye witnesses.
As per Indian press, one serving Lt General Sahni, one Lt General (Retired) S K Dahiya, four Major Generals, two Brigadiers and eight officers are being charred for various irregularities in relation to procurement of “certain items of dry rations” for soldiers in Jammu and Kashmir. The names of Sahni, Dahiya, four Maj-Gens, nine Brigadiers, a Navy Commodore, two Commanders a Lt-Commander, an IAF Group Captain and a Coast Guard DIG have figured in a list of 21 senior officers facing corruption charges tabled by defence minister A K Antony in Parliament. In the past too Tehelka.com opened the Pandora Box of corrupt Indian Generals.
Coming back to the discussion, I must say that world second army is now become the highly corrupt force. The troops do not have confidence on their immediate commanders .Senior officers do not enjoy good reputation amongst their subordinates. The deployed troops are playing with the lives of innocent children and women. Young local girls and female colleague officers are being victimized by the soldiers and their comrades. World community, organization of human rights and so called civilized western society should visit border areas of Kashmir to know the actual worth of Rouge Indian Armed Forces.
India's Dirty War
India's Dirty War
A violent struggle over resource-rich land is pitting billionaires against Maoists. Thousands of villagers have been killed and displaced.
Early one morning last October police forces surrounded the residents of Gompad, a remote village in the state of Chhattisgarh in eastern India , and attacked. Sixteen people were killed, including an older couple and their 25-year-old daughter, who was stabbed in the head with a knife and had her breasts sliced off. Her 2-year-old son survived, but three of his fingers were chopped off. A neighbor who witnessed the massacre was shot in the leg as she tried to escape. What prompted the rampage? The cops suspected the villagers of sympathizing with Maoist insurgents, believing that some were informants. A criminal case has been filed by the survivors against the state.
Business as usual in this part of the world. The Indian government is trying to exterminate Maoists known as Naxalites and since 2004 have killed 1,300 of them; trapped in the crossfire, 2,900 villagers have also died.
The Naxalites have claimed their share of victims, too. A few months before the Gompad attack Vimal Meshram, a village head, was gunned down by Maoists in a market in the same district (Bastar). His crime: He was an outspoken supporter of a plant that Tata Steel, one of India 's luminary companies, has been trying to build for the past five years . He is one of 1,650 or more people--villagers, police and police-backed vigilantes--who have been killed by Maoists, just in this district. In the bloodiest attack yet, 80 or more paramilitary troops were killed in early April as they tried to flush out Maoist rebels in the forests of Dantewada in Chhattisgarh.
This is India's dirty war: a brutal struggle over valuable real estate that pits the Naxalites against some of the nation's most powerful commercial interests. What began 43 years ago as a small but violent peasant insurrection in Naxalbari, a West Bengal village, is now a full-fledged conflict led by the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist) across 20 of the country's 28 states (see map below), affecting 223 districts. The fight is over land, much of it in the interior, that has rich deposits of coal and bauxite. On one side of the struggle are the rebels--perhaps 10,000 of them armed and out in the field every day, and a militia of 100,000 who can be called up on short notice. Driven by a violent ideology, the Naxalites claim to be fighting for the land rights of the poor, especially farmers and small indigenous tribes who know only an agrarian way of life. On the other side are the wealthy families behind Tata Steel, Jindal Steel & Power and Vedanta Resources (run by mining mogul Anil Agarwal), who want to develop the untapped resources. (The three companies rank 345, 1,131 and 923 on the Global 2000 list.) Caught in the middle of the conflict between Maoists and billionaires are thousands of villagers. (See: "My Family's Narrow Escape From India's Dirty War")
In principle there ought to be an economic answer to the economic question of whether a steel mill is a better use of land than a farm. If the mill is so valuable, why can't its owner offer the peasants an irresistible sum to leave? But here the market takes a back seat behind politics and thuggery.
It's no mystery why things have gotten worse. " India 's boom period has coincided with maximum dissent and dissatisfaction in rural India ," says Ajai Sahni, executive director for the Institute for Conflict Management, a New Delhi think tank. Over the last decade the Indian government has been trying by legal and other means to lock up the land for public projects like power plants and, more recently, for private enterprises like Tata. (Under the Indian constitution nontribal people are prohibited from directly acquiring land in certain parts of the country, so the government must obtain it on their behalf and sell it to the companies.) That trend has put the state more and more in conflict with the Maoist rebels, and it has ratcheted up paramilitary operations against them. The government has also squared off more frequently against those who have farmed the land for centuries, using various legal entitlements--and, villagers often claim, resorting to fraud or force--to gain possession of the property. Other times the state simply seizes the land, labeling any resistance rebel-inspired. Hundreds of thousands of people have been dispossessed and displaced. Many now live in what could become permanent refugee camps, where they are prey to both sides of the proxy war and easy converts to radicalism.
Dantewada in Bastar is the epicenter of Naxal activity, where the New Delhi government launched a "cleansing" operation last fall. It also happens to be 50 miles from the town of Jagdalpur , the site of a planned factory by Tata Steel that will produce 5 million tons a year, and close to iron ore mines that could feed the plant. For the past five years the government has been trying to acquire 5,050 acres across ten villages that will affect 1,750 landowners but has met with resistance even as it is being accused of bullying and pressure tactics. Tata washes its hands of those allegations. "Land acquisition is the government's job," says a spokesperson.
Acres of rice, chickpeas and lentils stretch to the horizon. Standing among rows of chickpeas on his 6 acres, Hidmo Mandavi, the village head, says Tata reps have been telling him and other farmers to sell the land and have offered them jobs in the new steel factory. "We're not engineers," he says. "We'll get jobs--but jobs where we'll be serving water to others or sweeping the floors. Right now we live like owners. Why should we become servants?"
Their defiance doesn't go down well, even in the world's largest democracy. The police have been breaking up gatherings of as few as five people. A couple of winters ago two busloads of villagers were on their way to meet the governor of Chhattisgarh to complain about being bullied into selling their land for the Tata plant when the police stopped their buses and hauled them off to jail. Mashre Mora, 46, a farmer in the nearby Dabpal village who refused to sell out, was arrested a third time after returning from a weekly village gathering where farmers discuss issues like water supply, crop infestation and disputes with their neighbors. Charge: disturbing the peace. That evening about 40 cops came to his house, broke the lock and dragged him out. "I've told them I won't give up my land," he says. "I'm uneducated and can't get a job in an office, so once the money runs out what will I do? I only have the support of my farming, I don't have anything else." (The police say they have no involvement in land acquisition and show up only to hunt Maoists.)
Some villagers have found their names on lists of people who have sold their land-even though they say they haven't. Kamal Gajbiya, 40, is a towering, muscular figure with a thick beard. A resident of Kumbli village, he owns 8 acres along with his brother, sister and mother, and has met the same fate as Mora. On each trip to prison, he says, people he thought were Tata reps, accompanied by government officials, asked him to part with his land. (In its blanket denial of abuses, Tata declined to address specific incidents.) "They said, 'We'll let you go; take the money,'" Gajbiya recalls. "I said, 'I'm a prisoner, and I cannot talk to you.'" Last May he found out his name and those of his sister and mother had been struck from the revenue records because they had supposedly sold their farms. Gajbiya filed complaints with the Ministry of Information before he finally received a copy of the records. He also got copies of letters from 1,750 farmers--all of whom had purportedly sold their land--stating their opposition to selling.
There's nothing subtle about the threats. A teacher, Retu Ram, was told he'd be transferred to another district if he didn't sell. That's what happened to a colleague. In another village, Banga Peeta Aito, a farmer of 60 or so, had been in prison for a month on charges of disturbing the peace. His sons were told that unless they agreed to take the check from Tata, their father would rot in jail. They finally accepted it--and their father was released the next day, they say.
Tata says it was invited in by the government of Chhattisgarh and that it is bringing economic opportunity to the area, a frequent claim made by corporations. "Although rich in mineral resources, Bastar is among the most backward regions of the country," says a Tata spokesperson. "[The plant] will give a fillip to all-round development in the region." The company, he adds, paid double the amount per acre set by the government; it plans to offer to exchange real estate, perhaps acre for acre for up to 2.5 acres of land lost, as well as technical training and jobs to one member from each affected family. Moreover, Tata says that 70% of the residents have accepted its offers and the rest are coming around. (Villagers dispute the assertion that the payments were generous and say there are still many holdouts.) "Youth of the area is in favor of industrialization, in which they see their future," says the spokesperson.
Roughly 400 miles north, the thickly forested area in Raigarh, Chhattisgarh gives way to black, as soot blankets shrubs, the road, everything. Jindal Steel & Power dominates the region with its steel plant, coal mines and a 1,000-megawatt coal-powered plant. Naveen Jindal, executive chairman and Member of Parliament (Congress Party), has transformed the company from a moderate performer into a star. (His mother, Savitri, is chairman of the holding company, O.P. Jindal Group, and ranks number 44 on the forbes billionaires list with an estimated net worth of $12.2 billion.) Naveen's is among the lowest-cost steel producers, thanks to supplies of iron ore and electric power and use of sponge iron, which takes cheap bituminous coal transported by a 4.2-mile-long pipeline instead of the more expensive imported anthracite. To keep up this cycle of growth, Jindal needs more land. That push has created strife.
Residents say they aren't allowed to voice their concerns at public hearings to decide whether Jindal can build an additional $2.4 billion, 2.4-gigawatt coal-fired power plant in the same region. At one such meeting in January 2008 seven people, including Harihar Patel, the Khamaria village head, were beaten by police; some were hospitalized for a week. "The company has a 'no objection' certificate okaying the project, but we never gave it," says Patel. "Most of these hearings are being forged," adds Ramesh Agrawal, who runs an Internet cafe that funds his efforts to pursue court cases against Jindal and to inform villagers about their legal rights. "[We] had no role in conducting the public hearing except for making a brief presentation about the project," says Jindal. "I believe some people wanted to create trouble and the police had to intervene to maintain peace."
Krishna Lal Sao doesn't seem like a troublemaker. In 2003, he says, Jindal Power dumped 1,100 truckloads of mud on his 2 acres of arable land before his crop was harvested. Sao, a police employee who farmed on the side, says fellow cops wouldn't let him register a complaint and harassed him to the point that he resigned in late 2005. In March 2007 a district court gave him title to his land and directed the police to restore his property. However, without his permission, Jindal put up a cooling tower and warehouse on that same acreage. Sao has given up and started a stationery store. Raghunath Choudhary lost his 5.5 acres, he says, after Jindal put a boundary wall around it in 2004. He tried to fight in court, to no avail. Choudhary blames both the 2007 suicide of his younger son and his wife's recent fatal heart attack on stressful circumstances caused by Jindal. A separate 1.5-acre plot, he says, fell to the company in October when it set up a mixing plant there. Now he and his remaining son are forced to farm someone else's land.
Jindal Steel says Sao's and Choudhary's land was acquired after the Chhattisgarh Industrial Development Corp. followed due process. The two farmers say their land was seized to develop a "greenbelt." (Today the belt consists of a cooling tower and warehouse.) Their review petitions were rejected by the High Court of Chhattisgarh. Naveen Jindal adds: "There is some initial resistance as villagers are obviously aspiring to obtain maximum prices for their land and other benefits."
Many villagers--some driven out by the Naxalites, others by police on orders from state officials--end up in refugee camps. Dornapal, in the heart of the conflict-riddled Bastar district, is one of 23 camps, containing 45,000 or more people, run by a state-backed civilian militia known as Salwa Judum (literally, "purification hunt"). Row after row of single-room mud huts with thatched roofs line the camp, punctuated by occasional piles of garbage and hand pumps, where women fill buckets and children (who should be in the camp's elementary school) bathe. There is no work for the farmers. A few may chance a day trip to check on the land they were forced from, even sneak sowing a crop. Most just hang out; the air is filled with the acrid smoke of bidis, the cheapest cigarettes.
Kathar Ganga arrived at Dornapal roughly five years ago. He says that Maoists held a meeting in his village and accused his son, then 20 years old and newly married, of being a police informant. They killed him in front of everyone. Another resident, Markam Joge, 21, earns $46 a month as a police officer for the Judum and supposedly protects the refugees. He's married and has a 5-year-old child. "I will raise my daughter here in the camp," he says. "I do miss my village, but now that I've picked up arms I can't go back."
Salwa Judum members aren't merely the protectors of the villagers, as they claim. "There is a complete collapse of the rule of law--with the root cause of violence in the area being the Salwa Judum and Naxal counterattacks," says Nandini Sundar, a sociology professor at the Delhi School of Economics. Some 15 miles from the Dornapal camp, deep in the forests and inaccessible even by mud road, is Naindra village, inhabited by an indigenous tribe. In 2006 the Salwa Judum raided the old part of Naindra and burned down homes before attacking new Naindra. Those who didn't escape, like Muchaki Ganga's father, were killed. "They slit his throat with a knife and left [his neck] hanging by a piece," he says. "I'm too scared to go to the police. They'd finish us off if we complained." Not so, says Amresh Mishra, superintendent of police for Dantewada. "There are many incidents where Naxals have done this and blamed it on Salwa Judum and the police."
After the houses were torched, Maoists came and gave the villagers clothes. The Judum returned twice more, set fire to the homes and abducted two boys and a girl who have never been seen since. The village was lately rebuilt by Himanshu Kumar, who has run an ashram and a nonprofit to teach literacy and basic hygiene in the heart of Naxal territory for the past 18 years. An ardent supporter of the tribals, he has recorded atrocities by the police, the Judum and the government. He has also supported perhaps 600 legal complaints against them, many still grinding through the court system. The cops are now trying to tag him as a Maoist. Kumar says there's an easy way out of this mess: "If you want peace, give the tribals schools, hospitals, ration shops--the Naxals will never interfere with any of this."
Not so easy, says Dilip Choudhary, Additional Secretary to the Home Ministry. The Maoists, he says, "have refused to respond to the simple call to give up violence"--the condition the government has set for talks.
Next door, in the state of Orissa, villagers have been fighting off a five-year push by South Korea's Pohong Iron & Steel Co. (Posco ( PKX - news - people ), number 137 in the Global 2000) to acquire 4,400 acres in order to build what would become the world's third-largest steel plant, producing 12 million tons a year. The resistance is headed by Abhay Sahoo, a leader of the leftist Congress Party of India--unlike the party of the Maoists, it is legal and largely supported by farmers and some labor unions. Farmers from four villages have barricaded and patrol all access roads to keep out police, government and company officials. The area is rich in cash crops, particularly cashew nuts and betel nut leaves that sell for 2 cents apiece. "[Everyone] from a 10-year-old boy to an 80-year-old man can earn at least $109 per month just from harvesting these leaves," says Sahoo. "If Posco is allowed in, this economy and livelihood will be destroyed as no company can employ so many people or pay as well."
Over the last couple of years, in two episodes, pro-Posco sympathizers have thrown homemade bombs at anti-Posco villagers, resulting in one death and multiple injuries. In January 2010 four Posco employees entered the villages to carry out a land survey and were captured by Sahoo's men. They were held the entire day and released only after they signed a letter promising not to return. "We told them this is a warning--come back at your own risk," says Sahoo, who has 37 police cases against him for his resistance and has served 10 1/2 months in prison on charges that include attempted murder and kidnapping. There are 150 or so cases against the villagers and warrants for 642 others hiding there. "If the state will create violence, retaliation is a must," says Sahoo.
The land belongs to the government, says a Posco spokesperson. Villagers, he adds, have encroached on it for at least a couple of generations. " India is in grave danger of losing the development race against China ," he says. " India produces a twelfth of China 's steel and wants to double this in the next two years but can't do that without such megaprojects."
On the western side of Orissa there is push-back against Vedanta Resources. Run by mining tycoon Anil Agarwal (number 113 among the FORBES billionaires, with an estimated fortune of $6.4 billion), Vedanta is trying to mine bauxite from the Niyamgiri Hills to produce aluminum. For generations the Dongria Kondh, an indigenous tribe of 8,000, has been has been living off the bounty of the thick forests--home to tigers, barking deer, elephants and bison, as well as to hardwoods like the flowering sal trees. The region also holds an estimated 2 billion tons of bauxite along a 300-mile belt. Mukesh Kumar, Vedanta Aluminum's chief operating officer, says the mining and land lease is with the state-owned Orissa Mining Corp., which plans to acquire just 1,800 acres of Niyamgiri and intends to mine only half of that. Because of tribal opposition, though, Vedanta has been able to build only an aluminum refinery nearby. Profits are minimal because it must import bauxite from other regions.
The refinery's emissions, along with the waste-disposal pond, may well be making life hazardous for residents. Last year villagers say nine people died of complications from tuberculosis and bronchitis; the government admits to only one. Kumar says the state is aware of the health problems and is investigating. In February Amnesty International issued a damning report on the refinery and the proposed mine--harsh enough that the Church of England and the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust sold their $5.7 million and $2.9 million investments, respectively, in Vedanta. "Local NGOs are anti-industry and instigating people," Kumar fumes. "This is not an agitation against a project but a movement against industry in Orissa."
That may be. The Dongrias still come to sell their wares at a weekly market in the heart of the forest, bearing lentils, rice, dried fish, tobacco, potatoes, ginger, turmeric and bananas. "Other than salt I get everything from these hills," says Ranga, a tribal member, through a translator. He earns his living with the ax that casually rests on one shoulder. But he's apparently prepared to use it in defense of his way of life. "We will kill with this," he says, gripping the handle. "We will not let the company come in here."
A violent struggle over resource-rich land is pitting billionaires against Maoists. Thousands of villagers have been killed and displaced.
Early one morning last October police forces surrounded the residents of Gompad, a remote village in the state of Chhattisgarh in eastern India , and attacked. Sixteen people were killed, including an older couple and their 25-year-old daughter, who was stabbed in the head with a knife and had her breasts sliced off. Her 2-year-old son survived, but three of his fingers were chopped off. A neighbor who witnessed the massacre was shot in the leg as she tried to escape. What prompted the rampage? The cops suspected the villagers of sympathizing with Maoist insurgents, believing that some were informants. A criminal case has been filed by the survivors against the state.
Business as usual in this part of the world. The Indian government is trying to exterminate Maoists known as Naxalites and since 2004 have killed 1,300 of them; trapped in the crossfire, 2,900 villagers have also died.
The Naxalites have claimed their share of victims, too. A few months before the Gompad attack Vimal Meshram, a village head, was gunned down by Maoists in a market in the same district (Bastar). His crime: He was an outspoken supporter of a plant that Tata Steel, one of India 's luminary companies, has been trying to build for the past five years . He is one of 1,650 or more people--villagers, police and police-backed vigilantes--who have been killed by Maoists, just in this district. In the bloodiest attack yet, 80 or more paramilitary troops were killed in early April as they tried to flush out Maoist rebels in the forests of Dantewada in Chhattisgarh.
This is India's dirty war: a brutal struggle over valuable real estate that pits the Naxalites against some of the nation's most powerful commercial interests. What began 43 years ago as a small but violent peasant insurrection in Naxalbari, a West Bengal village, is now a full-fledged conflict led by the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist) across 20 of the country's 28 states (see map below), affecting 223 districts. The fight is over land, much of it in the interior, that has rich deposits of coal and bauxite. On one side of the struggle are the rebels--perhaps 10,000 of them armed and out in the field every day, and a militia of 100,000 who can be called up on short notice. Driven by a violent ideology, the Naxalites claim to be fighting for the land rights of the poor, especially farmers and small indigenous tribes who know only an agrarian way of life. On the other side are the wealthy families behind Tata Steel, Jindal Steel & Power and Vedanta Resources (run by mining mogul Anil Agarwal), who want to develop the untapped resources. (The three companies rank 345, 1,131 and 923 on the Global 2000 list.) Caught in the middle of the conflict between Maoists and billionaires are thousands of villagers. (See: "My Family's Narrow Escape From India's Dirty War")
In principle there ought to be an economic answer to the economic question of whether a steel mill is a better use of land than a farm. If the mill is so valuable, why can't its owner offer the peasants an irresistible sum to leave? But here the market takes a back seat behind politics and thuggery.
It's no mystery why things have gotten worse. " India 's boom period has coincided with maximum dissent and dissatisfaction in rural India ," says Ajai Sahni, executive director for the Institute for Conflict Management, a New Delhi think tank. Over the last decade the Indian government has been trying by legal and other means to lock up the land for public projects like power plants and, more recently, for private enterprises like Tata. (Under the Indian constitution nontribal people are prohibited from directly acquiring land in certain parts of the country, so the government must obtain it on their behalf and sell it to the companies.) That trend has put the state more and more in conflict with the Maoist rebels, and it has ratcheted up paramilitary operations against them. The government has also squared off more frequently against those who have farmed the land for centuries, using various legal entitlements--and, villagers often claim, resorting to fraud or force--to gain possession of the property. Other times the state simply seizes the land, labeling any resistance rebel-inspired. Hundreds of thousands of people have been dispossessed and displaced. Many now live in what could become permanent refugee camps, where they are prey to both sides of the proxy war and easy converts to radicalism.
Dantewada in Bastar is the epicenter of Naxal activity, where the New Delhi government launched a "cleansing" operation last fall. It also happens to be 50 miles from the town of Jagdalpur , the site of a planned factory by Tata Steel that will produce 5 million tons a year, and close to iron ore mines that could feed the plant. For the past five years the government has been trying to acquire 5,050 acres across ten villages that will affect 1,750 landowners but has met with resistance even as it is being accused of bullying and pressure tactics. Tata washes its hands of those allegations. "Land acquisition is the government's job," says a spokesperson.
Acres of rice, chickpeas and lentils stretch to the horizon. Standing among rows of chickpeas on his 6 acres, Hidmo Mandavi, the village head, says Tata reps have been telling him and other farmers to sell the land and have offered them jobs in the new steel factory. "We're not engineers," he says. "We'll get jobs--but jobs where we'll be serving water to others or sweeping the floors. Right now we live like owners. Why should we become servants?"
Their defiance doesn't go down well, even in the world's largest democracy. The police have been breaking up gatherings of as few as five people. A couple of winters ago two busloads of villagers were on their way to meet the governor of Chhattisgarh to complain about being bullied into selling their land for the Tata plant when the police stopped their buses and hauled them off to jail. Mashre Mora, 46, a farmer in the nearby Dabpal village who refused to sell out, was arrested a third time after returning from a weekly village gathering where farmers discuss issues like water supply, crop infestation and disputes with their neighbors. Charge: disturbing the peace. That evening about 40 cops came to his house, broke the lock and dragged him out. "I've told them I won't give up my land," he says. "I'm uneducated and can't get a job in an office, so once the money runs out what will I do? I only have the support of my farming, I don't have anything else." (The police say they have no involvement in land acquisition and show up only to hunt Maoists.)
Some villagers have found their names on lists of people who have sold their land-even though they say they haven't. Kamal Gajbiya, 40, is a towering, muscular figure with a thick beard. A resident of Kumbli village, he owns 8 acres along with his brother, sister and mother, and has met the same fate as Mora. On each trip to prison, he says, people he thought were Tata reps, accompanied by government officials, asked him to part with his land. (In its blanket denial of abuses, Tata declined to address specific incidents.) "They said, 'We'll let you go; take the money,'" Gajbiya recalls. "I said, 'I'm a prisoner, and I cannot talk to you.'" Last May he found out his name and those of his sister and mother had been struck from the revenue records because they had supposedly sold their farms. Gajbiya filed complaints with the Ministry of Information before he finally received a copy of the records. He also got copies of letters from 1,750 farmers--all of whom had purportedly sold their land--stating their opposition to selling.
There's nothing subtle about the threats. A teacher, Retu Ram, was told he'd be transferred to another district if he didn't sell. That's what happened to a colleague. In another village, Banga Peeta Aito, a farmer of 60 or so, had been in prison for a month on charges of disturbing the peace. His sons were told that unless they agreed to take the check from Tata, their father would rot in jail. They finally accepted it--and their father was released the next day, they say.
Tata says it was invited in by the government of Chhattisgarh and that it is bringing economic opportunity to the area, a frequent claim made by corporations. "Although rich in mineral resources, Bastar is among the most backward regions of the country," says a Tata spokesperson. "[The plant] will give a fillip to all-round development in the region." The company, he adds, paid double the amount per acre set by the government; it plans to offer to exchange real estate, perhaps acre for acre for up to 2.5 acres of land lost, as well as technical training and jobs to one member from each affected family. Moreover, Tata says that 70% of the residents have accepted its offers and the rest are coming around. (Villagers dispute the assertion that the payments were generous and say there are still many holdouts.) "Youth of the area is in favor of industrialization, in which they see their future," says the spokesperson.
Roughly 400 miles north, the thickly forested area in Raigarh, Chhattisgarh gives way to black, as soot blankets shrubs, the road, everything. Jindal Steel & Power dominates the region with its steel plant, coal mines and a 1,000-megawatt coal-powered plant. Naveen Jindal, executive chairman and Member of Parliament (Congress Party), has transformed the company from a moderate performer into a star. (His mother, Savitri, is chairman of the holding company, O.P. Jindal Group, and ranks number 44 on the forbes billionaires list with an estimated net worth of $12.2 billion.) Naveen's is among the lowest-cost steel producers, thanks to supplies of iron ore and electric power and use of sponge iron, which takes cheap bituminous coal transported by a 4.2-mile-long pipeline instead of the more expensive imported anthracite. To keep up this cycle of growth, Jindal needs more land. That push has created strife.
Residents say they aren't allowed to voice their concerns at public hearings to decide whether Jindal can build an additional $2.4 billion, 2.4-gigawatt coal-fired power plant in the same region. At one such meeting in January 2008 seven people, including Harihar Patel, the Khamaria village head, were beaten by police; some were hospitalized for a week. "The company has a 'no objection' certificate okaying the project, but we never gave it," says Patel. "Most of these hearings are being forged," adds Ramesh Agrawal, who runs an Internet cafe that funds his efforts to pursue court cases against Jindal and to inform villagers about their legal rights. "[We] had no role in conducting the public hearing except for making a brief presentation about the project," says Jindal. "I believe some people wanted to create trouble and the police had to intervene to maintain peace."
Krishna Lal Sao doesn't seem like a troublemaker. In 2003, he says, Jindal Power dumped 1,100 truckloads of mud on his 2 acres of arable land before his crop was harvested. Sao, a police employee who farmed on the side, says fellow cops wouldn't let him register a complaint and harassed him to the point that he resigned in late 2005. In March 2007 a district court gave him title to his land and directed the police to restore his property. However, without his permission, Jindal put up a cooling tower and warehouse on that same acreage. Sao has given up and started a stationery store. Raghunath Choudhary lost his 5.5 acres, he says, after Jindal put a boundary wall around it in 2004. He tried to fight in court, to no avail. Choudhary blames both the 2007 suicide of his younger son and his wife's recent fatal heart attack on stressful circumstances caused by Jindal. A separate 1.5-acre plot, he says, fell to the company in October when it set up a mixing plant there. Now he and his remaining son are forced to farm someone else's land.
Jindal Steel says Sao's and Choudhary's land was acquired after the Chhattisgarh Industrial Development Corp. followed due process. The two farmers say their land was seized to develop a "greenbelt." (Today the belt consists of a cooling tower and warehouse.) Their review petitions were rejected by the High Court of Chhattisgarh. Naveen Jindal adds: "There is some initial resistance as villagers are obviously aspiring to obtain maximum prices for their land and other benefits."
Many villagers--some driven out by the Naxalites, others by police on orders from state officials--end up in refugee camps. Dornapal, in the heart of the conflict-riddled Bastar district, is one of 23 camps, containing 45,000 or more people, run by a state-backed civilian militia known as Salwa Judum (literally, "purification hunt"). Row after row of single-room mud huts with thatched roofs line the camp, punctuated by occasional piles of garbage and hand pumps, where women fill buckets and children (who should be in the camp's elementary school) bathe. There is no work for the farmers. A few may chance a day trip to check on the land they were forced from, even sneak sowing a crop. Most just hang out; the air is filled with the acrid smoke of bidis, the cheapest cigarettes.
Kathar Ganga arrived at Dornapal roughly five years ago. He says that Maoists held a meeting in his village and accused his son, then 20 years old and newly married, of being a police informant. They killed him in front of everyone. Another resident, Markam Joge, 21, earns $46 a month as a police officer for the Judum and supposedly protects the refugees. He's married and has a 5-year-old child. "I will raise my daughter here in the camp," he says. "I do miss my village, but now that I've picked up arms I can't go back."
Salwa Judum members aren't merely the protectors of the villagers, as they claim. "There is a complete collapse of the rule of law--with the root cause of violence in the area being the Salwa Judum and Naxal counterattacks," says Nandini Sundar, a sociology professor at the Delhi School of Economics. Some 15 miles from the Dornapal camp, deep in the forests and inaccessible even by mud road, is Naindra village, inhabited by an indigenous tribe. In 2006 the Salwa Judum raided the old part of Naindra and burned down homes before attacking new Naindra. Those who didn't escape, like Muchaki Ganga's father, were killed. "They slit his throat with a knife and left [his neck] hanging by a piece," he says. "I'm too scared to go to the police. They'd finish us off if we complained." Not so, says Amresh Mishra, superintendent of police for Dantewada. "There are many incidents where Naxals have done this and blamed it on Salwa Judum and the police."
After the houses were torched, Maoists came and gave the villagers clothes. The Judum returned twice more, set fire to the homes and abducted two boys and a girl who have never been seen since. The village was lately rebuilt by Himanshu Kumar, who has run an ashram and a nonprofit to teach literacy and basic hygiene in the heart of Naxal territory for the past 18 years. An ardent supporter of the tribals, he has recorded atrocities by the police, the Judum and the government. He has also supported perhaps 600 legal complaints against them, many still grinding through the court system. The cops are now trying to tag him as a Maoist. Kumar says there's an easy way out of this mess: "If you want peace, give the tribals schools, hospitals, ration shops--the Naxals will never interfere with any of this."
Not so easy, says Dilip Choudhary, Additional Secretary to the Home Ministry. The Maoists, he says, "have refused to respond to the simple call to give up violence"--the condition the government has set for talks.
Next door, in the state of Orissa, villagers have been fighting off a five-year push by South Korea's Pohong Iron & Steel Co. (Posco ( PKX - news - people ), number 137 in the Global 2000) to acquire 4,400 acres in order to build what would become the world's third-largest steel plant, producing 12 million tons a year. The resistance is headed by Abhay Sahoo, a leader of the leftist Congress Party of India--unlike the party of the Maoists, it is legal and largely supported by farmers and some labor unions. Farmers from four villages have barricaded and patrol all access roads to keep out police, government and company officials. The area is rich in cash crops, particularly cashew nuts and betel nut leaves that sell for 2 cents apiece. "[Everyone] from a 10-year-old boy to an 80-year-old man can earn at least $109 per month just from harvesting these leaves," says Sahoo. "If Posco is allowed in, this economy and livelihood will be destroyed as no company can employ so many people or pay as well."
Over the last couple of years, in two episodes, pro-Posco sympathizers have thrown homemade bombs at anti-Posco villagers, resulting in one death and multiple injuries. In January 2010 four Posco employees entered the villages to carry out a land survey and were captured by Sahoo's men. They were held the entire day and released only after they signed a letter promising not to return. "We told them this is a warning--come back at your own risk," says Sahoo, who has 37 police cases against him for his resistance and has served 10 1/2 months in prison on charges that include attempted murder and kidnapping. There are 150 or so cases against the villagers and warrants for 642 others hiding there. "If the state will create violence, retaliation is a must," says Sahoo.
The land belongs to the government, says a Posco spokesperson. Villagers, he adds, have encroached on it for at least a couple of generations. " India is in grave danger of losing the development race against China ," he says. " India produces a twelfth of China 's steel and wants to double this in the next two years but can't do that without such megaprojects."
On the western side of Orissa there is push-back against Vedanta Resources. Run by mining tycoon Anil Agarwal (number 113 among the FORBES billionaires, with an estimated fortune of $6.4 billion), Vedanta is trying to mine bauxite from the Niyamgiri Hills to produce aluminum. For generations the Dongria Kondh, an indigenous tribe of 8,000, has been has been living off the bounty of the thick forests--home to tigers, barking deer, elephants and bison, as well as to hardwoods like the flowering sal trees. The region also holds an estimated 2 billion tons of bauxite along a 300-mile belt. Mukesh Kumar, Vedanta Aluminum's chief operating officer, says the mining and land lease is with the state-owned Orissa Mining Corp., which plans to acquire just 1,800 acres of Niyamgiri and intends to mine only half of that. Because of tribal opposition, though, Vedanta has been able to build only an aluminum refinery nearby. Profits are minimal because it must import bauxite from other regions.
The refinery's emissions, along with the waste-disposal pond, may well be making life hazardous for residents. Last year villagers say nine people died of complications from tuberculosis and bronchitis; the government admits to only one. Kumar says the state is aware of the health problems and is investigating. In February Amnesty International issued a damning report on the refinery and the proposed mine--harsh enough that the Church of England and the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust sold their $5.7 million and $2.9 million investments, respectively, in Vedanta. "Local NGOs are anti-industry and instigating people," Kumar fumes. "This is not an agitation against a project but a movement against industry in Orissa."
That may be. The Dongrias still come to sell their wares at a weekly market in the heart of the forest, bearing lentils, rice, dried fish, tobacco, potatoes, ginger, turmeric and bananas. "Other than salt I get everything from these hills," says Ranga, a tribal member, through a translator. He earns his living with the ax that casually rests on one shoulder. But he's apparently prepared to use it in defense of his way of life. "We will kill with this," he says, gripping the handle. "We will not let the company come in here."
Saturday, May 8, 2010
13 July – A Benchmark of Kashmiri Resistance
13 July – A Benchmark of Kashmiri Resistance
Momin Iftikhar
The ongoing Kashmiri uprising that erupted in Dec 1989 and has maintained momentum for almost two decades is something to be greatly admired for its resilience and tenacity. It has withstood full fury of the unrestrained Indian military might and yet found sustenance to draw upon unfathomable sources of grit and determination to defy the Indian will to prevail. In this clash of wills, it is heartening to observe that it is not the Kashmiris who are buckling but the Indian Army which is disintegrating; turning its soldiers into psychiatric patients through strain of unending operations in Kashmir. One wonders what sustains Kashmiri spirit in such an unmatched contest. But history tells us that every freedom struggle has a defining moment that sets into motion the march of a people towards their destiny of freedom. For the oppressed Kashmiri Muslims of the Jammu and Kashmir this occurred on 13 July 1931. It was the day when Kashmiris, for the first time under the Dogra Raj, rose en mass and displayed an unflinching manner of defiance in quest of their rights. As many as 21 people were shot by Maharaja’s forces and the day came to be known as Youm-e-Shuhada, the martyrs’ day. 13 Jul 1931 is verily the landmark in the political movement of Kashmir and is manifest of the politicized Muslim identity that drives the freedom movement in Kashmir; even to this day.
It is one of the greatest injustices of the modern history that Kashmir, along with its predominantly Muslim population was sold by the British to Maharaja Gulab Sigh for seventy-five lac rupees through the provisions of the Treaty of Amritsar (1846). The Kashmiris got a raw deal from their rulers. The Dogra rulers paid no heed to the lamentable conditions of the masses and undertook no reforms to alleviate their sufferings or make adjustments to the change of political winds in British India. The unrest was beginning to accumulate and stir, slowly but surely as the realization began to dawn that Kashmiris’ deprivation flowed from their identity as Muslims within the Dogra Hindu Regime. The first mass expression of discontent of Kashmiri Muslims made its forceful emergence on 13 Jul 1931.
The countdown to the eventful day started on June 25, 1931 when the Reading Room Party convened a mass meeting at Khanqah-e-Muallah. The meeting was attended by over 50000 people and materialized as the biggest political congregation held till then in Kashmir. The ambience of the meeting translated into a highly charged and emotional political atmosphere, which held great promise for the oppressed souls of Kashmir. As the meeting dispersed, no one had an idea that that the event to launch a great freedom movement was at hand; but so are the designs of the providence. Suddenly a young man appeared before the crowd and mesmerized it with a stirring speech. He told them that they were slaves and that a government, which didn’t hide its contempt for their religion, ruled them. He also assured the captivated gathering about the sympathy and passion that the Muslims of the British India held in their hearts for the oppressed Kashmiris. Finally he exhorted them to rise and fight for the vindication of their honour. This young man who ignited the fire and passions of freedom was Abdul Qadeer who hailed from Amroha in U.P and was visiting Kashmir. Such a dare devil display of boldness couldn’t be let off by the Maharaja’s administration. His speech was recorded by the C.I.A and he was arrested on 25 June on charges of treason. The trial was moved to Central Jail in first week of July and public mood made it manifest that things were moving for a showdown.
On 13th of July thousands of Muslims assembled outside the Central Jail and demanded permission to enter the compound and allow Muslim reps to watch the proceedings of the trial. Authorities’ refusal to entertain these demands caused the situation to turn grave. The situation became dangerously confrontational when the crowd attempted to force its entry into the compound. Instead of handling the situation with tact, the Governor ordered the Police to open fire leading to the martyrdom of 21 people besides injuries to over forty people. It goes to the velour of the ‘Shuhadas’ that according to Mr Wakefield” the wounds of dead Kashmiris (Shuhadas) were all in front”. The violent mob then set the police quarters on fire and using the blood soaked shirt of a martyr as flag, took the bodies to the Jamia Masjid where these were kept under a vigil for the whole night by the entire procession. The Maharaja clamped immediate martial law and handed over the city to the army, which encircled the Jamia Mosque. The standoff continued until Shuhada’s were buried in the compound of Khanqah-e-Naqshbandi on the third day of the incident amidst heart-rending incidents of devotion and inspiration. The entire population of the city had assembled to bid its salutations and homage to its heroes. The site of these graves has come to be known as Mazar-e-Shuhada where every year on 13 July, Muslims from all over Kashmir gather to dedicate themselves to the cause of freedom and honour.
The spilling of Kashmiri blood on 13 July, to lay claim to their political rights as a community, made a singular contribution towards the evolution of the freedom struggle in Kashmir. Blooding of a docile people broke the collective spell cast by the tyranny suffered in silence through centuries and underscored the power of sacrifice and character for securing the ideals of independence and freedom. The 21 martyrs of 13 July blazed a trail of glory that, ever since, has inspired the generations of Kashmiri youth to follow in their illustrious foot steps.
Momin Iftikhar
The ongoing Kashmiri uprising that erupted in Dec 1989 and has maintained momentum for almost two decades is something to be greatly admired for its resilience and tenacity. It has withstood full fury of the unrestrained Indian military might and yet found sustenance to draw upon unfathomable sources of grit and determination to defy the Indian will to prevail. In this clash of wills, it is heartening to observe that it is not the Kashmiris who are buckling but the Indian Army which is disintegrating; turning its soldiers into psychiatric patients through strain of unending operations in Kashmir. One wonders what sustains Kashmiri spirit in such an unmatched contest. But history tells us that every freedom struggle has a defining moment that sets into motion the march of a people towards their destiny of freedom. For the oppressed Kashmiri Muslims of the Jammu and Kashmir this occurred on 13 July 1931. It was the day when Kashmiris, for the first time under the Dogra Raj, rose en mass and displayed an unflinching manner of defiance in quest of their rights. As many as 21 people were shot by Maharaja’s forces and the day came to be known as Youm-e-Shuhada, the martyrs’ day. 13 Jul 1931 is verily the landmark in the political movement of Kashmir and is manifest of the politicized Muslim identity that drives the freedom movement in Kashmir; even to this day.
It is one of the greatest injustices of the modern history that Kashmir, along with its predominantly Muslim population was sold by the British to Maharaja Gulab Sigh for seventy-five lac rupees through the provisions of the Treaty of Amritsar (1846). The Kashmiris got a raw deal from their rulers. The Dogra rulers paid no heed to the lamentable conditions of the masses and undertook no reforms to alleviate their sufferings or make adjustments to the change of political winds in British India. The unrest was beginning to accumulate and stir, slowly but surely as the realization began to dawn that Kashmiris’ deprivation flowed from their identity as Muslims within the Dogra Hindu Regime. The first mass expression of discontent of Kashmiri Muslims made its forceful emergence on 13 Jul 1931.
The countdown to the eventful day started on June 25, 1931 when the Reading Room Party convened a mass meeting at Khanqah-e-Muallah. The meeting was attended by over 50000 people and materialized as the biggest political congregation held till then in Kashmir. The ambience of the meeting translated into a highly charged and emotional political atmosphere, which held great promise for the oppressed souls of Kashmir. As the meeting dispersed, no one had an idea that that the event to launch a great freedom movement was at hand; but so are the designs of the providence. Suddenly a young man appeared before the crowd and mesmerized it with a stirring speech. He told them that they were slaves and that a government, which didn’t hide its contempt for their religion, ruled them. He also assured the captivated gathering about the sympathy and passion that the Muslims of the British India held in their hearts for the oppressed Kashmiris. Finally he exhorted them to rise and fight for the vindication of their honour. This young man who ignited the fire and passions of freedom was Abdul Qadeer who hailed from Amroha in U.P and was visiting Kashmir. Such a dare devil display of boldness couldn’t be let off by the Maharaja’s administration. His speech was recorded by the C.I.A and he was arrested on 25 June on charges of treason. The trial was moved to Central Jail in first week of July and public mood made it manifest that things were moving for a showdown.
On 13th of July thousands of Muslims assembled outside the Central Jail and demanded permission to enter the compound and allow Muslim reps to watch the proceedings of the trial. Authorities’ refusal to entertain these demands caused the situation to turn grave. The situation became dangerously confrontational when the crowd attempted to force its entry into the compound. Instead of handling the situation with tact, the Governor ordered the Police to open fire leading to the martyrdom of 21 people besides injuries to over forty people. It goes to the velour of the ‘Shuhadas’ that according to Mr Wakefield” the wounds of dead Kashmiris (Shuhadas) were all in front”. The violent mob then set the police quarters on fire and using the blood soaked shirt of a martyr as flag, took the bodies to the Jamia Masjid where these were kept under a vigil for the whole night by the entire procession. The Maharaja clamped immediate martial law and handed over the city to the army, which encircled the Jamia Mosque. The standoff continued until Shuhada’s were buried in the compound of Khanqah-e-Naqshbandi on the third day of the incident amidst heart-rending incidents of devotion and inspiration. The entire population of the city had assembled to bid its salutations and homage to its heroes. The site of these graves has come to be known as Mazar-e-Shuhada where every year on 13 July, Muslims from all over Kashmir gather to dedicate themselves to the cause of freedom and honour.
The spilling of Kashmiri blood on 13 July, to lay claim to their political rights as a community, made a singular contribution towards the evolution of the freedom struggle in Kashmir. Blooding of a docile people broke the collective spell cast by the tyranny suffered in silence through centuries and underscored the power of sacrifice and character for securing the ideals of independence and freedom. The 21 martyrs of 13 July blazed a trail of glory that, ever since, has inspired the generations of Kashmiri youth to follow in their illustrious foot steps.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Naxalites insurgency in India
Naxalites insurgency in India
Dr. A. Z. Hilali
India is a Hindu dominant country and its society is pluralistic and its political history is full from a rash of spiteful religious and ethnic clashes. There are over 200 different languages, customs and more than one dozen different religions and seven of them being very prominent ones including Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Sikhism and Zoroastrians. Imagine a nation where the majority of population does not understand their national anthem or the President’s address to the nation but surprisingly still called one nation. Since long the country is under the grip of severe ethnic tension and socio-cultural violence is common in several corners and continues clashes between Hindus, Muslims, Christians and other minorities presenting the worst scenario of the country. The India’s Constitution guarantees fundamental rights to all its citizens but it has failed to dismantle the Hindu caste system and in particular to erase centuries of discrimination against the “untouchable” Dalit caste. The ethnic and communal tension is totally indigenous in India and many internal security threats are purely home grown and numbers of secessionist and revolutionary movements born because of grave economic and socio-cultural deprivation. They are against the federal structure and New Delhi’s discriminatory treatment with the small states and struggling for secession from the Indian Union. So, since independence (1947), India is facing variety of violent conflicts based on religion, caste, language, ethnicity and regional loyalties. The world media reported that India is the home of largest number of domestic terrorist organizations in the world and according to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), the CPI (Maoist) as 34th terrorist organization under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention). In this regard, the small states of India’s northeast are ethnically and culturally distinct from the rest of the country. They are fighting to expand their social and political autonomy and to protect their land against encroachment from India’s expanding Hindu population. Historically, the Naxalites are from West Bengal and have taken an informal name given to communist groups based on India, inspired by China’s leader Mao Tse-Tung. They have popular support from the poor tribal and rural masses and fighting for their legitimate rights for jobs and land ownership. They have expanded their insurgency to 220 districts out of 630, targeting landowners (feudals) and central government institutions. The most recent figures also shows that the strength of the movement is around 25,000 and claimed the guerrillas control an estimated one fifth of India’s forests, as well as being active in 160 of the country’s 604 districts. The states of Maharashtra in the west, Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh in the north, the eastern state of West Bengal and the southern state of Andhra Pradesh are the main areas of Naxalites activities. They are around 40,000 and have a loose connection with the Maoist insurgents of Nepal, who are now the leading party in the post-royal government. In the beginning, the Naxalite movement had its centre in West Bengal but in recent time they revolutionary spread into backward tribal areas and in rural central and eastern India particularly in Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh areas through the activities of underground groups such as the Communist Party of India (Maoist). They are conducting an insurgency under the umbrella of the Naxalite or Maoist movement and have great influence in northeast of India, especially concentrated in an area known as the “Naxal Belt” (approximately 92,000 square kilometers). The term Naxalites comes from Naxalbari, a small village in West Bengal, where a Communist Party of India (Marxist Group) led by Charu Majumdar and Kanu Sanyal against the domination of New Delhi rule. The leadership started movement on May 25, 1967 from Naxalbari village where a peasant was attacked by hired hands over a land dispute. The local peasants retaliated by attacking the local landlords and the violence escalated and Majumdar advocated Indian peasants and lower classes that they must follow Mao’s footsteps and overthrow the government and upper classes whom he held responsible for their plight. Majumdar formed Naxalite movement through his writings and the now this is a one of the most organized party in the country. The Naxalites have gained a strong presence amongst the radical sections of the students movement in Kolkata (Calcutta) and large number of students have divorce their education and joined revolutionary activities. Naxalites claimed that the revolutionary warfare have been taken place not only in the rural areas but also in the urban places. They have entirely indigenous movement and have been trained by volunteers of Indian ex-army personnel. They are actively involved to provide training and guidance about weapons against Indian army. They have high-altitude warfare equipments and hundreds of young women and men have given training about anti-air and tank attack against the Indian army and paramilitary forces. So, it is normal for the Naxalites guerrillas to attack on Indian army barracks, storage depots and power plants. According to Western sources, many fascist militant organizations based on India are involved to provide funds, training methods and special guidance to the volunteer fighters. According to Anasuya Ray (researcher for an NGO based in Pune, India), writes about her recent fieldwork in India’s tribal belt, where grinding poverty and malnutrition are driving villagers to support the Naxalites and rebel group seeking to overthrow the government. She also mentioned that the Naxalites are an assortment of violent Maoist rebel groups who stage internecine attacks on Indian government targets to bring attention to region’s blight. Varavara Rao (the renowned communist author and Naxalite sympathizer based in the southern city of Hyderabad) also indicated that hundreds of thousands of poor people, particularly from India’s tribal belts, are joining the Naxalite militia to conduct raids and participate in attacks for their struggle of freedom from New Delhi’s imperialistic rule. There are also reports that the New Delhi government have been accused of gross human rights violations and for each alleged government abuse, the Naxalites have responded with double the level of violence. In fact, the day indigenous Naxakites freedom movement has been extended in different parts of Karnataka, Kerala, Uttaranchal, Tamil Nadu, Chotanagpur, Maharashtra, and Orissa, the New Delhi security establishment has deployed around 110,000 military and para-military troops to eliminate indispensable spirit of freedom but completely failed to control the situation. They initiated chronic war crimes and thousands of people are imprisoned for political reasons, often without charges of trials. Torture and ill-treatment are common, and hundreds have died in custody. Hundreds more are victims of extra-judicial executions or forced disappearances. Military groups under the planned programme are involved for grave human rights violations, including killings, tortures and rapes, with impunity. In reality, human rights abuses have been a part of a campaign by the Indian military against Naxakites and it is continues to be a major instrument of Indian repression against the northeast freedom fighters. Nonetheless, Naxakites are determined to fight for freedom struggle and they have commitment that they will continue to fight against Indian illegitimate occupation. In this connection, Naxal leader Varghese described that Naxal struggle is an ideal movement to seek inspiration to carry their struggle for freedom to its logical end. The movement is also a message for New Delhi that if the Naxakites did not bow down their heads before the tyranny of British empire, as to how they will succumb to the despotic Indian rule. However, the Naxakites are determined that struggle against India’s occupation will continue because it is a struggle for the basic rights of freedom and democracy.
Email: azahilali@yahoo.co.uk
Dr. A. Z. Hilali
India is a Hindu dominant country and its society is pluralistic and its political history is full from a rash of spiteful religious and ethnic clashes. There are over 200 different languages, customs and more than one dozen different religions and seven of them being very prominent ones including Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Sikhism and Zoroastrians. Imagine a nation where the majority of population does not understand their national anthem or the President’s address to the nation but surprisingly still called one nation. Since long the country is under the grip of severe ethnic tension and socio-cultural violence is common in several corners and continues clashes between Hindus, Muslims, Christians and other minorities presenting the worst scenario of the country. The India’s Constitution guarantees fundamental rights to all its citizens but it has failed to dismantle the Hindu caste system and in particular to erase centuries of discrimination against the “untouchable” Dalit caste. The ethnic and communal tension is totally indigenous in India and many internal security threats are purely home grown and numbers of secessionist and revolutionary movements born because of grave economic and socio-cultural deprivation. They are against the federal structure and New Delhi’s discriminatory treatment with the small states and struggling for secession from the Indian Union. So, since independence (1947), India is facing variety of violent conflicts based on religion, caste, language, ethnicity and regional loyalties. The world media reported that India is the home of largest number of domestic terrorist organizations in the world and according to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), the CPI (Maoist) as 34th terrorist organization under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention). In this regard, the small states of India’s northeast are ethnically and culturally distinct from the rest of the country. They are fighting to expand their social and political autonomy and to protect their land against encroachment from India’s expanding Hindu population. Historically, the Naxalites are from West Bengal and have taken an informal name given to communist groups based on India, inspired by China’s leader Mao Tse-Tung. They have popular support from the poor tribal and rural masses and fighting for their legitimate rights for jobs and land ownership. They have expanded their insurgency to 220 districts out of 630, targeting landowners (feudals) and central government institutions. The most recent figures also shows that the strength of the movement is around 25,000 and claimed the guerrillas control an estimated one fifth of India’s forests, as well as being active in 160 of the country’s 604 districts. The states of Maharashtra in the west, Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh in the north, the eastern state of West Bengal and the southern state of Andhra Pradesh are the main areas of Naxalites activities. They are around 40,000 and have a loose connection with the Maoist insurgents of Nepal, who are now the leading party in the post-royal government. In the beginning, the Naxalite movement had its centre in West Bengal but in recent time they revolutionary spread into backward tribal areas and in rural central and eastern India particularly in Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh areas through the activities of underground groups such as the Communist Party of India (Maoist). They are conducting an insurgency under the umbrella of the Naxalite or Maoist movement and have great influence in northeast of India, especially concentrated in an area known as the “Naxal Belt” (approximately 92,000 square kilometers). The term Naxalites comes from Naxalbari, a small village in West Bengal, where a Communist Party of India (Marxist Group) led by Charu Majumdar and Kanu Sanyal against the domination of New Delhi rule. The leadership started movement on May 25, 1967 from Naxalbari village where a peasant was attacked by hired hands over a land dispute. The local peasants retaliated by attacking the local landlords and the violence escalated and Majumdar advocated Indian peasants and lower classes that they must follow Mao’s footsteps and overthrow the government and upper classes whom he held responsible for their plight. Majumdar formed Naxalite movement through his writings and the now this is a one of the most organized party in the country. The Naxalites have gained a strong presence amongst the radical sections of the students movement in Kolkata (Calcutta) and large number of students have divorce their education and joined revolutionary activities. Naxalites claimed that the revolutionary warfare have been taken place not only in the rural areas but also in the urban places. They have entirely indigenous movement and have been trained by volunteers of Indian ex-army personnel. They are actively involved to provide training and guidance about weapons against Indian army. They have high-altitude warfare equipments and hundreds of young women and men have given training about anti-air and tank attack against the Indian army and paramilitary forces. So, it is normal for the Naxalites guerrillas to attack on Indian army barracks, storage depots and power plants. According to Western sources, many fascist militant organizations based on India are involved to provide funds, training methods and special guidance to the volunteer fighters. According to Anasuya Ray (researcher for an NGO based in Pune, India), writes about her recent fieldwork in India’s tribal belt, where grinding poverty and malnutrition are driving villagers to support the Naxalites and rebel group seeking to overthrow the government. She also mentioned that the Naxalites are an assortment of violent Maoist rebel groups who stage internecine attacks on Indian government targets to bring attention to region’s blight. Varavara Rao (the renowned communist author and Naxalite sympathizer based in the southern city of Hyderabad) also indicated that hundreds of thousands of poor people, particularly from India’s tribal belts, are joining the Naxalite militia to conduct raids and participate in attacks for their struggle of freedom from New Delhi’s imperialistic rule. There are also reports that the New Delhi government have been accused of gross human rights violations and for each alleged government abuse, the Naxalites have responded with double the level of violence. In fact, the day indigenous Naxakites freedom movement has been extended in different parts of Karnataka, Kerala, Uttaranchal, Tamil Nadu, Chotanagpur, Maharashtra, and Orissa, the New Delhi security establishment has deployed around 110,000 military and para-military troops to eliminate indispensable spirit of freedom but completely failed to control the situation. They initiated chronic war crimes and thousands of people are imprisoned for political reasons, often without charges of trials. Torture and ill-treatment are common, and hundreds have died in custody. Hundreds more are victims of extra-judicial executions or forced disappearances. Military groups under the planned programme are involved for grave human rights violations, including killings, tortures and rapes, with impunity. In reality, human rights abuses have been a part of a campaign by the Indian military against Naxakites and it is continues to be a major instrument of Indian repression against the northeast freedom fighters. Nonetheless, Naxakites are determined to fight for freedom struggle and they have commitment that they will continue to fight against Indian illegitimate occupation. In this connection, Naxal leader Varghese described that Naxal struggle is an ideal movement to seek inspiration to carry their struggle for freedom to its logical end. The movement is also a message for New Delhi that if the Naxakites did not bow down their heads before the tyranny of British empire, as to how they will succumb to the despotic Indian rule. However, the Naxakites are determined that struggle against India’s occupation will continue because it is a struggle for the basic rights of freedom and democracy.
Email: azahilali@yahoo.co.uk
Saturday, May 1, 2010
The most vulnerable naked nukes of India
The most vulnerable naked nukes of India
More than 80% of India’s nuclear and missile infrastructure based in the insurgency-hit areas or extremists’ dominated region
By
Makhdoom Babar in Islamabad
Christina Palmer in New Delhi
While the western media and the western governments keep shouting about vulnerability of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and keep ex pressing the fears that these are likely to fall in the hands of extremists like Taliban, they have kept their eyes wide shut regarding the state of affairs of the nuclear weapons and nuclear capable missiles of neighboring India where the situation is highly alarming, reveal the findings of The Daily Mail’s investigations into the matter.
According to The Daily Mail’s investigations, the Indian government, in bid to keep it maximum possible away from the striking capabilities of Pakistan that lies across India’s northern borders, decades back decided to install all its nuclear and missile facilities in the Eastern zone of the country. However, with the passage of time, the eastern region of India emerged as the most disturbed, fragile and ungovernable region of the country with a variety of insurgency movements including that of Naxal rebels, emerging in that very part of the country.
According to a map, graphed by India’s own security agencies, the eastern region and some other parts of the country have been declared as ” The Red Corridor” of India due to being unstable, ungovernable and being highly fragile, security wise. According this “Red Corridor” map, there are some 51 districts that are very badly hit by the rebels while the total number of rebel struck districts remains around 164, ranging from Dehradhun to Kerala.
The Daily Mail’s investigations indicate that most of India’s top nuclear and missile facilities are located in the extremely Nexal terrorists struck districts of India, located deep down in the “Red Corridor”. According to The Daily Mail’s investigations, in the direction of Indian nuclear facilities, Uranium processing plant by the name of Uranium Corporation Of India Limited (UCIL) is located in adversely insurgency and terror struck region of Jharkhand where Nexal guerrillas are dominating and are on the rampage, Taicher Heavy Water Plant again in the same area, Institute of Physics(IOP) again in the same area while Atomic Minerals Directorate for Exploration and Research(AMD), Ceramatic Fuel Fabrication Facility(CFFF), Electronics Corporation of India Limited(ECIL), Mishra Dhalu Nigam Limited(MIDHANI), National Centre for Compositional Characterization of Materials(NCCCM), New Zirconium Sponge Plant(New ZSP), Nuclear Fuel Complex(NFC), Special Materials Plant, Uranium Fuel Assembly Plant and Zirconium Fabrication Plant, Seha Institute of Nuclear Physics and Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre(VECC) are located in the most Nexal warriors hit areas of Orissa, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal. Similarly, Fast Breeder Test Reactor(FBTR), Fast Reactor Fuel Reprocessing Plant (FRFRP) General Services Organization(GSO), Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research(IGCAR), Kalpakkam Atomic Reprocessing Plant(KARP), Kamini Research Reactor, Madres Atomic Power Station (MAPS), Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor(PFBR), Manuguru Heavy Water Plant, Institute of Mathematical Sciences(MSc), Southern Petrochemical Industries Corporation Limited(SPIC), Tuticorin Heavy Water Plant, Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited(BHEL), HMT Machine Tools Limited(HMT-MTL), Indian Institutes of Sciences(IISc) and Super Computer Education and Research Centre(SERC) are located in the areas, Indian government has included in the most disturbed Red Corridor while Apsra Research Reactor, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre(BARC), Boron Enrichment Plant(BEP), Central Workshops, Plutonium Reprocessing Plant, Purnima 1,II & III Research Reactors, Uranium Conversion Plant, Uranium Enrichment Plant, CIRUS Research Reactor, Dhruva Research Reactor, Hazira heavy Water Plant, Larson and Toubro, Hazira Water Works, Advanced Fuel Fabrication Facility(AFFF), Tarapur Atomic Power Station(TAPS), Power Reactor Fuel Reprocessing Plant(PREFRE), Beryllium Matching Facility(BMF), Construction Service and Estate Management Group(CSEMG), Directorate of Purchase and Stores(DPS), Heavy Water Board, Tata Institute of Fundamental search(TIFR), Rshtrya Chemicals & Fertilizers (RCF), Thal-Vaishet Heavy Water Plant, Centre for Development of Advanced Computing(C-DAC), Kiroskar Brothers Limited and Walchandnagar Industries Limited(WIL) are located in State of Maharashtra, which, though, is not included in the Red Corridor map of India, yet the whole world knows that Maharashtra is the hub of Extremist Hindu Militant Groups where Hindutva Brotherhood, Shiv Sena, Bajrang Dal, Durga Vahini and Sangh Parivar like terrorist organizations are on the rampage for past many years, without any check from authorities and all these Hindu militant organizations are very well known for their extreme anti-Pakistan policies and are full capable of getting hold of any of the Indian nuclear facility that exists in their respective state and region.
The Daily Mail’s investigations further indicate that like the nuclear facilities, India’s maximum missile facilities are also situated in either the Red Corridor or in the areas, dominated by Hindu extremist and militant organizations. These Investigations reveal that out of India’s Missile facilities, Defence Electronics Applications Laboratories (DEAL), Metallurgical & Engineering Consultants Limited, Interim Test Range (ITR), Bharat Dynamics Limited(BDL), Defence Research and Development Laboratory(DRDL), Research Centre Imarat(RCI), Defence Metallurgical Research Laboratory(DMRL), Defence Electronics Research Laboratory(DERL), Mishra Dhatu Nigam Limited(MIDHANI), Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL), SKM Tools Private Limited, Pantex Gee Bee Fluid Power Limited, Sriharikota High Altitude Range(SHAR), Combat Vehicle Research & Development Establishment(CVRDE), The KCP Limited, Microwave Tube Research & Development Centre(MTRDC), Electronics and Radar Development Establishment(LRDE), Gas Turbine Research Establishment(GTRE), Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE), Bharat Electronic Limited(BEL), Bharat Earth Movers Limited (BEML) and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited(HAL), all are situated in the highly disturbed Red Corridor while Terminal Ballistic Research Laboratory(TBRL) and Semi Conductor Complex Limited (SCL) are located in Chandigarh where Six separatists are running the insurgency movement under the banners of Babbar Khalsa group and Storage Site for Pirthvi-1 Ballistic Missile is located in disputed territory of Jammu where Muslim separatists are engaging Indian Army and Air Force for the past many years.
The Daily Mail’s investigations further disclose that around 90% of the Red Corridor areas are just a No Go Zone for the Indian troops and Air Force. In these areas there is no writ of the Indian government nor there is any proper implementation of State laws of India. The nexal rebels are enjoying full control and keep striking at will. Just recently they killed over a dozen officials of Police and even shot down a chopper of Indian Air Force (IAF). It is also evident from the record of IAF that IAF has now started having commandos, airborne on all IAF chopper sorties in the Red Corridor to protect the choppers from a possible Nexal attack. Similarly the police officials have also advised the politicians and other VIPs to avoid flying over the Red Corridor in chopper and also not to travel in these areas without appropriate security arrangements. The Daily Mail’s investigations indicate that even a couple of days back, the Nexal rebels set ablaze three trucks and damaged a bridge in Jharkhand as they began their two-day Jharkhand-Bihar shutdown to protest against the Centre’s alleged effort to put down the CPI(Maoists) movement by force.
The Naxals also bombed railway tracks between Bokaro thermal-Jarandi station. About 12 armed Maoists set fire to three trucks at around !AM in Giridih’s Isri area and cut down trees to block traffic on the Dumri-Giridih road, Giridih Superintendent of police Ravi Kant Dhan told The Daily Mail.
They also partially damaged a road bridge, which connects Dumri to the Grand Trunk Road, using explosives, the police officer said, adding gunshots were also heard in the area. Maoists also pasted posters in Giridih’s Parasnath area despite verytight security arrangements.
To gauge the capabilities of Indian government to safeguard its nuclear and missile arsenal and research and development facilities as well as production infrastructure, The Daily Mail constituted a team of freelance reporters and photographers, based in different parts of India and embarked them on the investigative mission under the command of our Delhi Bureau Chief Christina Palmer. The team was given the test task of exploring the state of affairs at Jharkand which is considered to be hub of India’s nuclear energy programme. See what we discovered.
EAST Singhbhum district in Jharkhand, bordering West Bengal and Orissa, is the capital of India’s nuclear energy programme. It is rich in uranium that is mined by the Uranium Corporation of India Limited (UCIL) and converted later into nuclear fuel for the reactors. East Singhbhum is also rich in Naxalites who are active in the area and well aware of the mines that produce uranium. Little to no security separates the uranium ore or the processed yellowcake from the Naxalites, who are currently extending their control, with the local administration officials admitting that it is just a matter of time before they strike the mines.
According to Superintendent of police Navin Kumar Singh, “This district is on the list of Naxalite-affected areas. They are making full efforts to gain control over the Jadugoda region. They already have a very strong presence in the adjoining areas of Potka, Dumaria, Dalbhumgarh and Ghatshila.”
The raw uranium from the mines is processed by the UCIL in Jadugoda, a small town located at a distance of 30 km from district headquarters Jamshedpur. This entire region is India’s only source of natural uranium to feed the country’s heavy-water nuclear reactors. According to local officials, of India’s annual requirement of 300 tonnes of yellowcake, at present, UCIL in East Singhbhum produces 220 tonnes. Massive expansion is underway in the area to increase the production to the required 300 tonnes.
East Singhbhum has seven uranium mines and two processing mills that function under the UCIL. The UCIL campus serves as the headquarters for the mines, and itself has a processing unit and the oldest mines in the region. The Bhatin and Narwapahar mines are 2 km and 10 km respectively from Jadugoda. Turamdih, which has a mine as well as a processing mill, is 20 km from Jadugoda. The Mohuldih and Banduhurang mines are 5 km away from Turamdih. Bagjata is around 30 km from Jadugoda.
In the words of India’s widely circulated fortnightly magazine The Covert’s correspondent Appu Esthose Suresh “This correspondent travelled on the same route used to ferry uranium ore from the mines to the processing plants in Jadugoda and Turamdih. The absence of policemen along the entire route was striking. There was not a single police picket or post. In Jharia, on the way from Narwapahar to Jadugoda, a large warehouse that is used to store explosives had no guard worth the name. This so-called restricted area located on a small hilltop and surrounded by mountains and dense forests, is guarded by just four policemen in two bunkers. The sole watchtower at the warehouse did not have a single guard on duty. This scribe visited the sport several times on different days, but the watchtower remained vacant, always. This road is routinely used by the trucks that transport uranium ore mined at Narwapahar and Bhatin to the UCIL mill at Jadugoda, and is therefore a vital link to the mines”.
Appu further writes that On 1 August, 2009, Jadugoda was preparing itself for a strike called by the Naxalites. News came in of heavy gunfire and the torching of a few trucks near Jamshedpur. A policeman at the Jadugoda police station said, on condition of anonymity, “Naxalism was always a problem in the district. But they have never succeeded in gaining ground near this town. But things have changed: the panic that you see among the people is a case in point. We all know that if they want to put up a bloody show they can. They are cowards, they hit and run into the mountains, but blood spills nevertheless.”
IT TAKES a 30 km bone-rattling drive to reach Bagjata mine from Jadugoda. The narrow and dusty road running through a hill-locked valley is marked with potholes and numerous bends. Bagjata is less than 10 km from Dumaria by road, and surrounded by mountain ranges that are reportedly under Naxalite control. SP Navin Kumar Singh said, “Last year, we busted a Naxalite central office in Dumaria, Eight of them were killed and a large quantity of arms, including AK-47s, and ammunition were recovered.” Bagjata is under the jurisdiction of the Mosabani police station, and as Ramesh Kumar Singh, who is in charge of the police station, pointed out, “The forest areas surrounding Bagjata are the nerve centres of Naxalite activities. They oppose uranium mining. Recently, they confirmed their presence through posters pasted inside Bagjata mine and in the areas surrounding it.”
Mosabani police station is located nearly 10 km from the mine in Bagjata and functions from a derelict building. It has a total strength of 55 policemen. Ramesh Kumar Singh added, “The mountain range stretches into West Bengal and Orissa, and encompasses and other mines. We are aware of the movement, but constant surveillance is literally impossible considering the terrain.” While the UCIL and the district police admit that Bagjata mine faces a major security threat from the Naxalites, the journalists’ team could not find a single policeman in the area to prove that the threat has been taken seriously. This correspondent just walked into the mine complex from the forest and was not stopped even once by any policeman or anyone else.
Walking a few miles through the paddy fields near Bagjata took our team to the Dalboonkand block. The villagers there appeared terrified. One of the villagers, Mangal Murmu had been killed, allegedly by the rebels. Mangal was vocal about the rights of the labourers employed at Bagjata, and one day, he was found dead. The police insist that the Naxalites were responsible for his death. Ramesh Kumar Singh said, “His murder created further tensions between the UCIL management and the labour. The Naxalites must have factored this in.” The fear is palpable and we were chased away by the villagers when we tried to get a response from Murmu’s family and his neighbours about his murder.
The Daily Mail’s investigation team learnt that the radiation was a big problem in the area, yet it was unaddressed by the government. According to The Daily Mail’s findings,on Aug. 16, 2008, a new tailings pipeline burst near Jaduguda caused a uranium mill tailings spill that reached nearby homes.
The management of the Uranium Corporation of India Limited (UCIL) agreed to rehabilitate the 26 families affected by the radioactive waste that spewed in Dungridih Jadugoda. The UCIL also proposed a modern village in its leasehold area, besides providing the villagers with other facilities but nothing such happened later on. These investigations further reveal that During flash floods in June 2008, radioactive uranium waste dumped into a tailing pond of Uranium Corporation of India Ltd (UCIL) in Jadugoda of Jamshedpur spilled over into nearby village ponds, wells and fields, and destroyed crops as well.
While UCIL authorities admitted that radioactive waste had spilled into villages, they maintained that it would not pose any health threats to villagers. “We are monitoring the situation. Our scientists are taking samples from villages,” P.V. Dubey, UCIL spokesperson told media in June 2008. “There will be no negative impact on human beings. The waste has been neutralised by the large amount of water,” he added.
Residents of nearby villages have stopped using water from their ponds and wells, fearing health problems. Villagers have also complained that the nuclear waste had destroyed a large amount of crops. “The waste that spilled from the tailing pond has destroyed our crops. If this continues, there might not be any crops in the coming years,” said Kannhu Murmu of Tilaitand village. Some experts also feel that the radioactive waste would also have a harmful impact on the soil for years. “The waste will get mixed with soil and in the long run would pose health-related problems to both human beings and animals,” said Nitish Priyadarshi, a local geologist.
The Daily Mail’s investigations further disclose that in a shocking revelation, a team of the Indian Doctors for Peace and Development (IDPD) had come out with some bare truths regarding health hazards faced by miners working in the Uranium Corporation of India Limited (UCIL) in the form of a detailed survey report. The survey was undertaken by the organisation affiliated to Germany-based International Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) in association with Jharkhandi Organisation Against Radiation (JOAR).
“The study was conducted between May and August 2007,” said Shakeel Ur Rahman, the secretary of the national council of the association. Conducted in two different phases, while one survey concentrates on villages within the radius of 2.5 km from the mines, a similar one was undertaken in villages about 30 km from the mining areas. A total of 2,118 households in the first category, while another 1,956 households were studied in the second category.
According to the survey, more children – about 9.5 per cent of the newborns – are dying each year due to extreme physical deformity, primary sterility is becoming common with 9.6 per cent of women not being able to conceive even three years after marriage. Cancer deaths in nearby villages are about 2.87 per cent and 68.33 per cent people are dying before the age of 62.
The Daily Mail’s investigation team found that the UCIL’s lethargic approach and inability handle such a sensitive programme of handling Uranium can be judged that the UCIL’s pipelines, carrying Uraniumand that are always lying in open, have a history of leakages and bursts. According to these investigations ,on April 10, 2007, a new tailings pipeline burst near Jaduguda caused a uranium mill tailings spill. According to UCIL, the spill was caused from damage to the rubber lining of the tailings pipeline “by a wooden log left inside the pipe during replacement”, and comprised 1.5 tons of solids and 20 cubic metres of liquid; the spilled material was contained within the earthen bund constructed beside the channel and did not reach any water body or public domain. Similarly, earlier on December 25, 2006, the tailings pipeline carrying uranium mill tailings from the Jaduguda uranium mill to tailings dam No. 3 broke, spreading tailings into a tributary of river Subranarekha. UCIL then started cleaning up the tailings spill. The findings into the matter further indicate that on Feb. 17, 2007, two NGOs – Friends of South Asia (FOSA) and Association for India’s Development (AID) – submitted a petition to the UCIL and the Department of Atomic Energy demanding an investigation into the accident and seeking full remediation. The petition was signed by hundreds of individuals from around the world.
According to UCIL, the spill was caused from damage of the rubber lining and metal of the tailings pipeline “due to prolonged use”, and comprised 6-8 tons of solids and 60 cubic metres of liquid.
The Daily Mail’s investigations reveal further that in 2001 and 2002, Hiroaki Koide from the Research Reactor Institute at Kyoto University performed field trips to monitor environmental impacts of the Jadugoda uranium mine. He monitored external gamma dose rate, radionuclide concentrations in soil, and radon concentration in air. His results are compiled in a report available for download. The main conclusions are:
• The contamination from the uranium mine has spread in Jadugoda:
o The external gamma dose rate exceeds 1 mSv/y in the villages, and reaches 10 mSv/y around the tailing ponds.
o The soil surrounding the tailings ponds is contaminated by uranium. Particularly high contamination levels were found in the village of Dungridih that borders tailings pond No.1. In other villages, no serious contamination was found.
o Radon emanated from tailings ponds etc spreads contamination.
o Waste rock from the mine used for construction material spreads contamination.
• Other findings include:
o The No.1 tailings pond shows contamination by cesium. This fact shows that radioactivity was brought in from a source other than a uranium mine.
o Product uranium concentrate is dealt with carelessly and was found dispersed at Rakha Mine railway station.
The Daily Mail’s investigations reveal further that The River Subarnarekha literally translates into “streak of gold”. But the only streaks in this river are untreated sewage, industrial and mineral wastes and unbelievably, radioactive wastes, affecting human health.
Radioactive wastes in Indian rivers is an undocumented environmental tragedy in India
This once-pleasing river originates in the Chotanagpur plateau of Jharkhand in eastern India and finally enters the Bay of Bengal after a 452 km journey. Along the way, it courses a picturesque countryside, plunging 74 metres at Hundrugargh.
Though there are 15 water quality monitoring stations, the Subarnarrekha is a receptacle of wastewater (urban as well as industrial) from three major townships – Jamshedpur, Ranchi and Ghatsila. Organic pollution loads from the countryside pollute equally.
Uranium ore tailings from the Jaduguda mines operated by Uranium Corporation of India Ltd (UCIL), causes various degrees of radioactivity along a 100 km stretch. This has resulted in documented cases of deformities among human beings, but, the Indian scenario being what it is, precious little has been done for them.
“UCIL alleges that the deformities are not unusual to the Indian rural scenario,” says Manish Tewari, a journalist who had traveled to Jaduguda from Delhi. “It alleges that the uranium and deformity link is a creation of the media,” he says, unbelieving.
Curiously, no studies have been commissioned to check on the veracity of these reports and possible linkage with uranium. It’s all conveniently swept under the carpet. Reports would always remain confidential in any event, because uranium ore is strategic to national security. Anything related to nuclear science is treated as a holy cow that cannot be questioned.
Back on Safari to explore Uranium affairs in Jharkhand out team narrates, THE ROAD that connects Turamdih and Jadugoda is once again without any security presence. The processing mill at Turamdih was commissioned in 2006 to process the uranium ore obtained from the open cast mine of Banduhurang and the underground mines of Mohuldih and Turamdih.
Once the uranium ore is processed at the mill and converted to yellowcake, these it is sent to the Nuclear Fuel Complex in Hyderabad, Yellowcake is 80% rich in uranium oxide and is used to make fuel road for nuclear reactors. The UCIL plant in Jadugoda and Turamdih send the packed yellowcakes to Hyderabad by trucks guarded by the Central Industrial Security Force. Sources confirmed that the trucks travel via NH 33 till the Jharkand-Orissa border and then use the NH 6 for a few kilometres before taking the NH 5 to Vijaywada, and from there to Hyderabad by NH 9. SP Navin Kumar Singh had earlier told Covert, “Ghatshila, Dalbhumgarh and Dumaria are the Naxalite hot belts in East Singhbhum.” And NH 33 goes through this same “hot belt”.
According to UCIL spokesperson P.B. Dubey, “They UCIL has been functioning here for more than 40 years and so far there has not been any incident. Moreover, we have security arrangements, the details of which cannot be disclosed.” When the question of the safety of UCIL trucks was put to SP Navin singh, he expressed similar views: “This has been going on for years. There is no report of any imminent threat from the Naxalites.”
In 2008 Bihar police arrested two persons carrying uranium ore reportedly worth Rs 23 crores. According to Shyam Kumar, the then superintendent of police in Bihar’s Saupal district, “The uranium was on its way to Nepal. The origin of the uranium is unknown.” Security experts, however, have little doubt that the uranium is from East Singhbhum, while it remains a fact that the area is the only source of uranium in India.
Ajit Doval, a former Director of India’s Intelligence Bureau (IB) says “The Naxalites can easily turn their attention to illegal uranium trade for their funding. This is a real possibility.” He further added, “The end user of this uranium can be a threat to the country. Hence, it should not be treated merely as a case of theft. Rather, the Government must conduct a serious investigation and identify the buyers.” The case has not made any headway even after a year.
THE LOCAKADAISICAL attitude of the Indian Government is all the more evident from the lack of safety precautions at the sites. Just last year, 2008, the pipe that carries radioactive waste from the processing mill to the tailing pond at Jadugoda, burst near Dugridi village. Massang Soren, the village sarpanch, told the investigating journalists, “No UCIL official turned up until we started protesting. Our fields were flooded with uranium waste and we could see the danger we faced. The paddy field turned yellow and then red but no one came,” said a local adding, “For at least three months the entire village reported various kinds of health problems. Everyone in the village developed blisters on the soles of their feet and these could not be cured easily.” The villagers complained that the UCIL did not give them any assistance to clean the water and the fields polluted by the spillage.
At the Bagjata mine, tonnes of uranium ore lie in the open. Local activists allege that by using uncovered trucks to transport the ore, and by keeping the ore for days and weeks in the open the UCIL has exposed the entire region to radiation. Confirming their fears Dr S.P. Aggarwal, who heads the Radiological Safety Division at the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB), says, “Uranium ore is naturally radioactive.” At the same time, officials at AERB refused to comment on the radiation level in East Singhbhum.
The Investigations indicate that in 2008, Andhra Pradesh had a near brush with radioactive poisoning. The trucks carrying the yellowcakes from Jadugoda met with an accident and overturned on the NH 5 near Narsannapeta in Andhra Pradesh. Luckily, there was no leakage of radioactive material. But UCIL officials dismissed that as a “one off incident” and continued to use the same mode of transportation.
UCIL spokesperson Dubey is on the record to confirm that there were plans to open a nuclear power plant near Jadugoda. He says, “The proposal is under serious consideration. But it is a lengthy process, so it can take a while.”
AJIT DOVAL spoke of the possibility of the Naxalites posing a grave security threat to the region because of “poor security and the Naxalites’ increasing influence”. A senior police official, on condition of anonymity, said “There is a lack of political will to fight the Naxalites. We all know that if this region goes to the Naxalites, the nation can be held to ransom.” He added: “If they just erect road blocks on the route which ferries the uranium ore they can stop the functioning of the UNIL complex in Jadugoda.” But SP Navin Kumar arrested, “This is an exaggerated view. As I said earlier, there is no such case so far.” He went on to add, “This sort of cynicism only boosts their confidence.” However, while he spoke, it was evident from his voice and body language that he didn’t mean at all what he was saying in his official capacity.
The statistics available from the district police headquarters reveal that in 2008 there were 35 incidents related to Naxalite violence; 15 landmines, 500 kg of explosives and 109 pieces of ammunition were seized. In 2003, at Peddagattu in Andhra Pradesh’s Nalgonda district, the Naxalites kidnapped 25 officials of Atomic Mineral Directorate for Exploration and Research before setting their equipment and machines on fire. Yet, the police superintendent and UCIL are hopeful that the Naxalites will not try to disrupt mining related activities, even though they publicly oppose all such activities.
Former Jharkhand Governor Ved Marwah says, “I think increasing investment is the right thing to do, especially in mining. If the Government steps back from initiating development projects in a particular region, it is only natural that the area will come under Naxalite influence.” When asked about the security threats that the Naxalites pose tot eh strategic nuclear programme in East Singhbhum he said, “If the Government is serious about fighting the Naxalites it can easily fight them:” He added, “When I was the Jharkhand Governor there were regions that had not been visited by the administration. I happened to be the first person going there. The police should be reorganised. With constant surveillance the problem can be tackled. Why should we refrain from starting development projects fearing Naxal attacks? That will give the wrong impression.”
Interestingly, the Union Home Minister Mr P Chidambaram continues to deny the existence of “liberated zones” and the “Naxalite corridor”. In one of the recently concluded sessions of Indian parliament, Minister of State for Home Affairs, Ajay Maken, in a written reply rubbished the claims of liberated zones and the Naxaline corridor as “baseless propaganda”. However, the officers in the field insist that “There are areas where we don’t dare to go.” As Ved Marwah pointed out, “To fight Naxalism we need a realistic plan.”
The Daily Mail’s investigations also disclose that there are certain Nexal sympathisers in the ranks of Indian nuclear scientists who are secretly helping the nexal rebels to learn to utilize and transport Uranium. These investigations reveal that N Mahalingam an Indian nuclear scientist from Kaiga Nuclear Power Plant in Karnataka was one of those Nexal facilitators. Mahalingam went mysteriously missing in June this year. After a few days, his dead body was found from a lake and it was presumed that he had committed suicide. Indian Minister for Home Affairs P Chidumbaram, who recent showed his muscles to The Daily Mail regarding one of its investigative reports about Indian army, on the eve of the discovery of the dead body of Mahalingam, assured the public and the media that he will soon reveal the causes and reasons of the death of the nuclear scientist but as usual he has never come up with a single word over the issue since then. The Daily Mail’s investigations reveal that Mahalingam was actually picked up by Indian Intelligence Agency RAW for doubts about his links with Nexal rebels but was killed due to a severe third degree torture during the interrogation. Later RAW people threw his dead body in a pond and informed police through an unknown call. The bruises on the dead body Mahalingam proved that he was tortured to death.
Happening of such incidents and the absence of a plan and even security on the ground, a red question mark hangs over the future of India’s ambitious nuclear projects. At the same time it raises a big, big question mark that how could the United States government sign a civilian nuclear deal with a country, having such state of affairs in the direction capabilities to handle nuclear related matters.
This also gives a shut-up call to all those Western journalists and Western governments that keeping expressing fears that neighboring Muslim State Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal was prone to fall in the hands of religious extremists. This state of affairs in the direction india’s naked nukes clearly proves that Indian Nuclear arsenal and the entire nuclear infrastructure is much, much more fragile and vulnerable to fall in the hands of militants and extremists than that of Pakistan’s.
More than 80% of India’s nuclear and missile infrastructure based in the insurgency-hit areas or extremists’ dominated region
By
Makhdoom Babar in Islamabad
Christina Palmer in New Delhi
While the western media and the western governments keep shouting about vulnerability of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and keep ex pressing the fears that these are likely to fall in the hands of extremists like Taliban, they have kept their eyes wide shut regarding the state of affairs of the nuclear weapons and nuclear capable missiles of neighboring India where the situation is highly alarming, reveal the findings of The Daily Mail’s investigations into the matter.
According to The Daily Mail’s investigations, the Indian government, in bid to keep it maximum possible away from the striking capabilities of Pakistan that lies across India’s northern borders, decades back decided to install all its nuclear and missile facilities in the Eastern zone of the country. However, with the passage of time, the eastern region of India emerged as the most disturbed, fragile and ungovernable region of the country with a variety of insurgency movements including that of Naxal rebels, emerging in that very part of the country.
According to a map, graphed by India’s own security agencies, the eastern region and some other parts of the country have been declared as ” The Red Corridor” of India due to being unstable, ungovernable and being highly fragile, security wise. According this “Red Corridor” map, there are some 51 districts that are very badly hit by the rebels while the total number of rebel struck districts remains around 164, ranging from Dehradhun to Kerala.
The Daily Mail’s investigations indicate that most of India’s top nuclear and missile facilities are located in the extremely Nexal terrorists struck districts of India, located deep down in the “Red Corridor”. According to The Daily Mail’s investigations, in the direction of Indian nuclear facilities, Uranium processing plant by the name of Uranium Corporation Of India Limited (UCIL) is located in adversely insurgency and terror struck region of Jharkhand where Nexal guerrillas are dominating and are on the rampage, Taicher Heavy Water Plant again in the same area, Institute of Physics(IOP) again in the same area while Atomic Minerals Directorate for Exploration and Research(AMD), Ceramatic Fuel Fabrication Facility(CFFF), Electronics Corporation of India Limited(ECIL), Mishra Dhalu Nigam Limited(MIDHANI), National Centre for Compositional Characterization of Materials(NCCCM), New Zirconium Sponge Plant(New ZSP), Nuclear Fuel Complex(NFC), Special Materials Plant, Uranium Fuel Assembly Plant and Zirconium Fabrication Plant, Seha Institute of Nuclear Physics and Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre(VECC) are located in the most Nexal warriors hit areas of Orissa, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal. Similarly, Fast Breeder Test Reactor(FBTR), Fast Reactor Fuel Reprocessing Plant (FRFRP) General Services Organization(GSO), Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research(IGCAR), Kalpakkam Atomic Reprocessing Plant(KARP), Kamini Research Reactor, Madres Atomic Power Station (MAPS), Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor(PFBR), Manuguru Heavy Water Plant, Institute of Mathematical Sciences(MSc), Southern Petrochemical Industries Corporation Limited(SPIC), Tuticorin Heavy Water Plant, Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited(BHEL), HMT Machine Tools Limited(HMT-MTL), Indian Institutes of Sciences(IISc) and Super Computer Education and Research Centre(SERC) are located in the areas, Indian government has included in the most disturbed Red Corridor while Apsra Research Reactor, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre(BARC), Boron Enrichment Plant(BEP), Central Workshops, Plutonium Reprocessing Plant, Purnima 1,II & III Research Reactors, Uranium Conversion Plant, Uranium Enrichment Plant, CIRUS Research Reactor, Dhruva Research Reactor, Hazira heavy Water Plant, Larson and Toubro, Hazira Water Works, Advanced Fuel Fabrication Facility(AFFF), Tarapur Atomic Power Station(TAPS), Power Reactor Fuel Reprocessing Plant(PREFRE), Beryllium Matching Facility(BMF), Construction Service and Estate Management Group(CSEMG), Directorate of Purchase and Stores(DPS), Heavy Water Board, Tata Institute of Fundamental search(TIFR), Rshtrya Chemicals & Fertilizers (RCF), Thal-Vaishet Heavy Water Plant, Centre for Development of Advanced Computing(C-DAC), Kiroskar Brothers Limited and Walchandnagar Industries Limited(WIL) are located in State of Maharashtra, which, though, is not included in the Red Corridor map of India, yet the whole world knows that Maharashtra is the hub of Extremist Hindu Militant Groups where Hindutva Brotherhood, Shiv Sena, Bajrang Dal, Durga Vahini and Sangh Parivar like terrorist organizations are on the rampage for past many years, without any check from authorities and all these Hindu militant organizations are very well known for their extreme anti-Pakistan policies and are full capable of getting hold of any of the Indian nuclear facility that exists in their respective state and region.
The Daily Mail’s investigations further indicate that like the nuclear facilities, India’s maximum missile facilities are also situated in either the Red Corridor or in the areas, dominated by Hindu extremist and militant organizations. These Investigations reveal that out of India’s Missile facilities, Defence Electronics Applications Laboratories (DEAL), Metallurgical & Engineering Consultants Limited, Interim Test Range (ITR), Bharat Dynamics Limited(BDL), Defence Research and Development Laboratory(DRDL), Research Centre Imarat(RCI), Defence Metallurgical Research Laboratory(DMRL), Defence Electronics Research Laboratory(DERL), Mishra Dhatu Nigam Limited(MIDHANI), Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL), SKM Tools Private Limited, Pantex Gee Bee Fluid Power Limited, Sriharikota High Altitude Range(SHAR), Combat Vehicle Research & Development Establishment(CVRDE), The KCP Limited, Microwave Tube Research & Development Centre(MTRDC), Electronics and Radar Development Establishment(LRDE), Gas Turbine Research Establishment(GTRE), Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE), Bharat Electronic Limited(BEL), Bharat Earth Movers Limited (BEML) and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited(HAL), all are situated in the highly disturbed Red Corridor while Terminal Ballistic Research Laboratory(TBRL) and Semi Conductor Complex Limited (SCL) are located in Chandigarh where Six separatists are running the insurgency movement under the banners of Babbar Khalsa group and Storage Site for Pirthvi-1 Ballistic Missile is located in disputed territory of Jammu where Muslim separatists are engaging Indian Army and Air Force for the past many years.
The Daily Mail’s investigations further disclose that around 90% of the Red Corridor areas are just a No Go Zone for the Indian troops and Air Force. In these areas there is no writ of the Indian government nor there is any proper implementation of State laws of India. The nexal rebels are enjoying full control and keep striking at will. Just recently they killed over a dozen officials of Police and even shot down a chopper of Indian Air Force (IAF). It is also evident from the record of IAF that IAF has now started having commandos, airborne on all IAF chopper sorties in the Red Corridor to protect the choppers from a possible Nexal attack. Similarly the police officials have also advised the politicians and other VIPs to avoid flying over the Red Corridor in chopper and also not to travel in these areas without appropriate security arrangements. The Daily Mail’s investigations indicate that even a couple of days back, the Nexal rebels set ablaze three trucks and damaged a bridge in Jharkhand as they began their two-day Jharkhand-Bihar shutdown to protest against the Centre’s alleged effort to put down the CPI(Maoists) movement by force.
The Naxals also bombed railway tracks between Bokaro thermal-Jarandi station. About 12 armed Maoists set fire to three trucks at around !AM in Giridih’s Isri area and cut down trees to block traffic on the Dumri-Giridih road, Giridih Superintendent of police Ravi Kant Dhan told The Daily Mail.
They also partially damaged a road bridge, which connects Dumri to the Grand Trunk Road, using explosives, the police officer said, adding gunshots were also heard in the area. Maoists also pasted posters in Giridih’s Parasnath area despite verytight security arrangements.
To gauge the capabilities of Indian government to safeguard its nuclear and missile arsenal and research and development facilities as well as production infrastructure, The Daily Mail constituted a team of freelance reporters and photographers, based in different parts of India and embarked them on the investigative mission under the command of our Delhi Bureau Chief Christina Palmer. The team was given the test task of exploring the state of affairs at Jharkand which is considered to be hub of India’s nuclear energy programme. See what we discovered.
EAST Singhbhum district in Jharkhand, bordering West Bengal and Orissa, is the capital of India’s nuclear energy programme. It is rich in uranium that is mined by the Uranium Corporation of India Limited (UCIL) and converted later into nuclear fuel for the reactors. East Singhbhum is also rich in Naxalites who are active in the area and well aware of the mines that produce uranium. Little to no security separates the uranium ore or the processed yellowcake from the Naxalites, who are currently extending their control, with the local administration officials admitting that it is just a matter of time before they strike the mines.
According to Superintendent of police Navin Kumar Singh, “This district is on the list of Naxalite-affected areas. They are making full efforts to gain control over the Jadugoda region. They already have a very strong presence in the adjoining areas of Potka, Dumaria, Dalbhumgarh and Ghatshila.”
The raw uranium from the mines is processed by the UCIL in Jadugoda, a small town located at a distance of 30 km from district headquarters Jamshedpur. This entire region is India’s only source of natural uranium to feed the country’s heavy-water nuclear reactors. According to local officials, of India’s annual requirement of 300 tonnes of yellowcake, at present, UCIL in East Singhbhum produces 220 tonnes. Massive expansion is underway in the area to increase the production to the required 300 tonnes.
East Singhbhum has seven uranium mines and two processing mills that function under the UCIL. The UCIL campus serves as the headquarters for the mines, and itself has a processing unit and the oldest mines in the region. The Bhatin and Narwapahar mines are 2 km and 10 km respectively from Jadugoda. Turamdih, which has a mine as well as a processing mill, is 20 km from Jadugoda. The Mohuldih and Banduhurang mines are 5 km away from Turamdih. Bagjata is around 30 km from Jadugoda.
In the words of India’s widely circulated fortnightly magazine The Covert’s correspondent Appu Esthose Suresh “This correspondent travelled on the same route used to ferry uranium ore from the mines to the processing plants in Jadugoda and Turamdih. The absence of policemen along the entire route was striking. There was not a single police picket or post. In Jharia, on the way from Narwapahar to Jadugoda, a large warehouse that is used to store explosives had no guard worth the name. This so-called restricted area located on a small hilltop and surrounded by mountains and dense forests, is guarded by just four policemen in two bunkers. The sole watchtower at the warehouse did not have a single guard on duty. This scribe visited the sport several times on different days, but the watchtower remained vacant, always. This road is routinely used by the trucks that transport uranium ore mined at Narwapahar and Bhatin to the UCIL mill at Jadugoda, and is therefore a vital link to the mines”.
Appu further writes that On 1 August, 2009, Jadugoda was preparing itself for a strike called by the Naxalites. News came in of heavy gunfire and the torching of a few trucks near Jamshedpur. A policeman at the Jadugoda police station said, on condition of anonymity, “Naxalism was always a problem in the district. But they have never succeeded in gaining ground near this town. But things have changed: the panic that you see among the people is a case in point. We all know that if they want to put up a bloody show they can. They are cowards, they hit and run into the mountains, but blood spills nevertheless.”
IT TAKES a 30 km bone-rattling drive to reach Bagjata mine from Jadugoda. The narrow and dusty road running through a hill-locked valley is marked with potholes and numerous bends. Bagjata is less than 10 km from Dumaria by road, and surrounded by mountain ranges that are reportedly under Naxalite control. SP Navin Kumar Singh said, “Last year, we busted a Naxalite central office in Dumaria, Eight of them were killed and a large quantity of arms, including AK-47s, and ammunition were recovered.” Bagjata is under the jurisdiction of the Mosabani police station, and as Ramesh Kumar Singh, who is in charge of the police station, pointed out, “The forest areas surrounding Bagjata are the nerve centres of Naxalite activities. They oppose uranium mining. Recently, they confirmed their presence through posters pasted inside Bagjata mine and in the areas surrounding it.”
Mosabani police station is located nearly 10 km from the mine in Bagjata and functions from a derelict building. It has a total strength of 55 policemen. Ramesh Kumar Singh added, “The mountain range stretches into West Bengal and Orissa, and encompasses and other mines. We are aware of the movement, but constant surveillance is literally impossible considering the terrain.” While the UCIL and the district police admit that Bagjata mine faces a major security threat from the Naxalites, the journalists’ team could not find a single policeman in the area to prove that the threat has been taken seriously. This correspondent just walked into the mine complex from the forest and was not stopped even once by any policeman or anyone else.
Walking a few miles through the paddy fields near Bagjata took our team to the Dalboonkand block. The villagers there appeared terrified. One of the villagers, Mangal Murmu had been killed, allegedly by the rebels. Mangal was vocal about the rights of the labourers employed at Bagjata, and one day, he was found dead. The police insist that the Naxalites were responsible for his death. Ramesh Kumar Singh said, “His murder created further tensions between the UCIL management and the labour. The Naxalites must have factored this in.” The fear is palpable and we were chased away by the villagers when we tried to get a response from Murmu’s family and his neighbours about his murder.
The Daily Mail’s investigation team learnt that the radiation was a big problem in the area, yet it was unaddressed by the government. According to The Daily Mail’s findings,on Aug. 16, 2008, a new tailings pipeline burst near Jaduguda caused a uranium mill tailings spill that reached nearby homes.
The management of the Uranium Corporation of India Limited (UCIL) agreed to rehabilitate the 26 families affected by the radioactive waste that spewed in Dungridih Jadugoda. The UCIL also proposed a modern village in its leasehold area, besides providing the villagers with other facilities but nothing such happened later on. These investigations further reveal that During flash floods in June 2008, radioactive uranium waste dumped into a tailing pond of Uranium Corporation of India Ltd (UCIL) in Jadugoda of Jamshedpur spilled over into nearby village ponds, wells and fields, and destroyed crops as well.
While UCIL authorities admitted that radioactive waste had spilled into villages, they maintained that it would not pose any health threats to villagers. “We are monitoring the situation. Our scientists are taking samples from villages,” P.V. Dubey, UCIL spokesperson told media in June 2008. “There will be no negative impact on human beings. The waste has been neutralised by the large amount of water,” he added.
Residents of nearby villages have stopped using water from their ponds and wells, fearing health problems. Villagers have also complained that the nuclear waste had destroyed a large amount of crops. “The waste that spilled from the tailing pond has destroyed our crops. If this continues, there might not be any crops in the coming years,” said Kannhu Murmu of Tilaitand village. Some experts also feel that the radioactive waste would also have a harmful impact on the soil for years. “The waste will get mixed with soil and in the long run would pose health-related problems to both human beings and animals,” said Nitish Priyadarshi, a local geologist.
The Daily Mail’s investigations further disclose that in a shocking revelation, a team of the Indian Doctors for Peace and Development (IDPD) had come out with some bare truths regarding health hazards faced by miners working in the Uranium Corporation of India Limited (UCIL) in the form of a detailed survey report. The survey was undertaken by the organisation affiliated to Germany-based International Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) in association with Jharkhandi Organisation Against Radiation (JOAR).
“The study was conducted between May and August 2007,” said Shakeel Ur Rahman, the secretary of the national council of the association. Conducted in two different phases, while one survey concentrates on villages within the radius of 2.5 km from the mines, a similar one was undertaken in villages about 30 km from the mining areas. A total of 2,118 households in the first category, while another 1,956 households were studied in the second category.
According to the survey, more children – about 9.5 per cent of the newborns – are dying each year due to extreme physical deformity, primary sterility is becoming common with 9.6 per cent of women not being able to conceive even three years after marriage. Cancer deaths in nearby villages are about 2.87 per cent and 68.33 per cent people are dying before the age of 62.
The Daily Mail’s investigation team found that the UCIL’s lethargic approach and inability handle such a sensitive programme of handling Uranium can be judged that the UCIL’s pipelines, carrying Uraniumand that are always lying in open, have a history of leakages and bursts. According to these investigations ,on April 10, 2007, a new tailings pipeline burst near Jaduguda caused a uranium mill tailings spill. According to UCIL, the spill was caused from damage to the rubber lining of the tailings pipeline “by a wooden log left inside the pipe during replacement”, and comprised 1.5 tons of solids and 20 cubic metres of liquid; the spilled material was contained within the earthen bund constructed beside the channel and did not reach any water body or public domain. Similarly, earlier on December 25, 2006, the tailings pipeline carrying uranium mill tailings from the Jaduguda uranium mill to tailings dam No. 3 broke, spreading tailings into a tributary of river Subranarekha. UCIL then started cleaning up the tailings spill. The findings into the matter further indicate that on Feb. 17, 2007, two NGOs – Friends of South Asia (FOSA) and Association for India’s Development (AID) – submitted a petition to the UCIL and the Department of Atomic Energy demanding an investigation into the accident and seeking full remediation. The petition was signed by hundreds of individuals from around the world.
According to UCIL, the spill was caused from damage of the rubber lining and metal of the tailings pipeline “due to prolonged use”, and comprised 6-8 tons of solids and 60 cubic metres of liquid.
The Daily Mail’s investigations reveal further that in 2001 and 2002, Hiroaki Koide from the Research Reactor Institute at Kyoto University performed field trips to monitor environmental impacts of the Jadugoda uranium mine. He monitored external gamma dose rate, radionuclide concentrations in soil, and radon concentration in air. His results are compiled in a report available for download. The main conclusions are:
• The contamination from the uranium mine has spread in Jadugoda:
o The external gamma dose rate exceeds 1 mSv/y in the villages, and reaches 10 mSv/y around the tailing ponds.
o The soil surrounding the tailings ponds is contaminated by uranium. Particularly high contamination levels were found in the village of Dungridih that borders tailings pond No.1. In other villages, no serious contamination was found.
o Radon emanated from tailings ponds etc spreads contamination.
o Waste rock from the mine used for construction material spreads contamination.
• Other findings include:
o The No.1 tailings pond shows contamination by cesium. This fact shows that radioactivity was brought in from a source other than a uranium mine.
o Product uranium concentrate is dealt with carelessly and was found dispersed at Rakha Mine railway station.
The Daily Mail’s investigations reveal further that The River Subarnarekha literally translates into “streak of gold”. But the only streaks in this river are untreated sewage, industrial and mineral wastes and unbelievably, radioactive wastes, affecting human health.
Radioactive wastes in Indian rivers is an undocumented environmental tragedy in India
This once-pleasing river originates in the Chotanagpur plateau of Jharkhand in eastern India and finally enters the Bay of Bengal after a 452 km journey. Along the way, it courses a picturesque countryside, plunging 74 metres at Hundrugargh.
Though there are 15 water quality monitoring stations, the Subarnarrekha is a receptacle of wastewater (urban as well as industrial) from three major townships – Jamshedpur, Ranchi and Ghatsila. Organic pollution loads from the countryside pollute equally.
Uranium ore tailings from the Jaduguda mines operated by Uranium Corporation of India Ltd (UCIL), causes various degrees of radioactivity along a 100 km stretch. This has resulted in documented cases of deformities among human beings, but, the Indian scenario being what it is, precious little has been done for them.
“UCIL alleges that the deformities are not unusual to the Indian rural scenario,” says Manish Tewari, a journalist who had traveled to Jaduguda from Delhi. “It alleges that the uranium and deformity link is a creation of the media,” he says, unbelieving.
Curiously, no studies have been commissioned to check on the veracity of these reports and possible linkage with uranium. It’s all conveniently swept under the carpet. Reports would always remain confidential in any event, because uranium ore is strategic to national security. Anything related to nuclear science is treated as a holy cow that cannot be questioned.
Back on Safari to explore Uranium affairs in Jharkhand out team narrates, THE ROAD that connects Turamdih and Jadugoda is once again without any security presence. The processing mill at Turamdih was commissioned in 2006 to process the uranium ore obtained from the open cast mine of Banduhurang and the underground mines of Mohuldih and Turamdih.
Once the uranium ore is processed at the mill and converted to yellowcake, these it is sent to the Nuclear Fuel Complex in Hyderabad, Yellowcake is 80% rich in uranium oxide and is used to make fuel road for nuclear reactors. The UCIL plant in Jadugoda and Turamdih send the packed yellowcakes to Hyderabad by trucks guarded by the Central Industrial Security Force. Sources confirmed that the trucks travel via NH 33 till the Jharkand-Orissa border and then use the NH 6 for a few kilometres before taking the NH 5 to Vijaywada, and from there to Hyderabad by NH 9. SP Navin Kumar Singh had earlier told Covert, “Ghatshila, Dalbhumgarh and Dumaria are the Naxalite hot belts in East Singhbhum.” And NH 33 goes through this same “hot belt”.
According to UCIL spokesperson P.B. Dubey, “They UCIL has been functioning here for more than 40 years and so far there has not been any incident. Moreover, we have security arrangements, the details of which cannot be disclosed.” When the question of the safety of UCIL trucks was put to SP Navin singh, he expressed similar views: “This has been going on for years. There is no report of any imminent threat from the Naxalites.”
In 2008 Bihar police arrested two persons carrying uranium ore reportedly worth Rs 23 crores. According to Shyam Kumar, the then superintendent of police in Bihar’s Saupal district, “The uranium was on its way to Nepal. The origin of the uranium is unknown.” Security experts, however, have little doubt that the uranium is from East Singhbhum, while it remains a fact that the area is the only source of uranium in India.
Ajit Doval, a former Director of India’s Intelligence Bureau (IB) says “The Naxalites can easily turn their attention to illegal uranium trade for their funding. This is a real possibility.” He further added, “The end user of this uranium can be a threat to the country. Hence, it should not be treated merely as a case of theft. Rather, the Government must conduct a serious investigation and identify the buyers.” The case has not made any headway even after a year.
THE LOCAKADAISICAL attitude of the Indian Government is all the more evident from the lack of safety precautions at the sites. Just last year, 2008, the pipe that carries radioactive waste from the processing mill to the tailing pond at Jadugoda, burst near Dugridi village. Massang Soren, the village sarpanch, told the investigating journalists, “No UCIL official turned up until we started protesting. Our fields were flooded with uranium waste and we could see the danger we faced. The paddy field turned yellow and then red but no one came,” said a local adding, “For at least three months the entire village reported various kinds of health problems. Everyone in the village developed blisters on the soles of their feet and these could not be cured easily.” The villagers complained that the UCIL did not give them any assistance to clean the water and the fields polluted by the spillage.
At the Bagjata mine, tonnes of uranium ore lie in the open. Local activists allege that by using uncovered trucks to transport the ore, and by keeping the ore for days and weeks in the open the UCIL has exposed the entire region to radiation. Confirming their fears Dr S.P. Aggarwal, who heads the Radiological Safety Division at the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB), says, “Uranium ore is naturally radioactive.” At the same time, officials at AERB refused to comment on the radiation level in East Singhbhum.
The Investigations indicate that in 2008, Andhra Pradesh had a near brush with radioactive poisoning. The trucks carrying the yellowcakes from Jadugoda met with an accident and overturned on the NH 5 near Narsannapeta in Andhra Pradesh. Luckily, there was no leakage of radioactive material. But UCIL officials dismissed that as a “one off incident” and continued to use the same mode of transportation.
UCIL spokesperson Dubey is on the record to confirm that there were plans to open a nuclear power plant near Jadugoda. He says, “The proposal is under serious consideration. But it is a lengthy process, so it can take a while.”
AJIT DOVAL spoke of the possibility of the Naxalites posing a grave security threat to the region because of “poor security and the Naxalites’ increasing influence”. A senior police official, on condition of anonymity, said “There is a lack of political will to fight the Naxalites. We all know that if this region goes to the Naxalites, the nation can be held to ransom.” He added: “If they just erect road blocks on the route which ferries the uranium ore they can stop the functioning of the UNIL complex in Jadugoda.” But SP Navin Kumar arrested, “This is an exaggerated view. As I said earlier, there is no such case so far.” He went on to add, “This sort of cynicism only boosts their confidence.” However, while he spoke, it was evident from his voice and body language that he didn’t mean at all what he was saying in his official capacity.
The statistics available from the district police headquarters reveal that in 2008 there were 35 incidents related to Naxalite violence; 15 landmines, 500 kg of explosives and 109 pieces of ammunition were seized. In 2003, at Peddagattu in Andhra Pradesh’s Nalgonda district, the Naxalites kidnapped 25 officials of Atomic Mineral Directorate for Exploration and Research before setting their equipment and machines on fire. Yet, the police superintendent and UCIL are hopeful that the Naxalites will not try to disrupt mining related activities, even though they publicly oppose all such activities.
Former Jharkhand Governor Ved Marwah says, “I think increasing investment is the right thing to do, especially in mining. If the Government steps back from initiating development projects in a particular region, it is only natural that the area will come under Naxalite influence.” When asked about the security threats that the Naxalites pose tot eh strategic nuclear programme in East Singhbhum he said, “If the Government is serious about fighting the Naxalites it can easily fight them:” He added, “When I was the Jharkhand Governor there were regions that had not been visited by the administration. I happened to be the first person going there. The police should be reorganised. With constant surveillance the problem can be tackled. Why should we refrain from starting development projects fearing Naxal attacks? That will give the wrong impression.”
Interestingly, the Union Home Minister Mr P Chidambaram continues to deny the existence of “liberated zones” and the “Naxalite corridor”. In one of the recently concluded sessions of Indian parliament, Minister of State for Home Affairs, Ajay Maken, in a written reply rubbished the claims of liberated zones and the Naxaline corridor as “baseless propaganda”. However, the officers in the field insist that “There are areas where we don’t dare to go.” As Ved Marwah pointed out, “To fight Naxalism we need a realistic plan.”
The Daily Mail’s investigations also disclose that there are certain Nexal sympathisers in the ranks of Indian nuclear scientists who are secretly helping the nexal rebels to learn to utilize and transport Uranium. These investigations reveal that N Mahalingam an Indian nuclear scientist from Kaiga Nuclear Power Plant in Karnataka was one of those Nexal facilitators. Mahalingam went mysteriously missing in June this year. After a few days, his dead body was found from a lake and it was presumed that he had committed suicide. Indian Minister for Home Affairs P Chidumbaram, who recent showed his muscles to The Daily Mail regarding one of its investigative reports about Indian army, on the eve of the discovery of the dead body of Mahalingam, assured the public and the media that he will soon reveal the causes and reasons of the death of the nuclear scientist but as usual he has never come up with a single word over the issue since then. The Daily Mail’s investigations reveal that Mahalingam was actually picked up by Indian Intelligence Agency RAW for doubts about his links with Nexal rebels but was killed due to a severe third degree torture during the interrogation. Later RAW people threw his dead body in a pond and informed police through an unknown call. The bruises on the dead body Mahalingam proved that he was tortured to death.
Happening of such incidents and the absence of a plan and even security on the ground, a red question mark hangs over the future of India’s ambitious nuclear projects. At the same time it raises a big, big question mark that how could the United States government sign a civilian nuclear deal with a country, having such state of affairs in the direction capabilities to handle nuclear related matters.
This also gives a shut-up call to all those Western journalists and Western governments that keeping expressing fears that neighboring Muslim State Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal was prone to fall in the hands of religious extremists. This state of affairs in the direction india’s naked nukes clearly proves that Indian Nuclear arsenal and the entire nuclear infrastructure is much, much more fragile and vulnerable to fall in the hands of militants and extremists than that of Pakistan’s.
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