SAMADHAN-PRAHAR is an official policy of the government of India. Started in 2017, SAMADHAN is the acronym for S- smart leadership, A-aggressive strategy, M-motivation and training, A-actionable intelligence, D-dashboard based key result area (KRAs), H-harnessing technology, A-action plan for each theatre and N-no access to financing (Roul, 2021) (MHA, 2017). This strategy has been proclaimed as the method to eliminate the Maoist movement in the country. Under this plan the government has started an all out campaign similar to operation Green Hunt which was operative from 2009 to 2017 in its various avatars, as was evident in that operation Adivasis were killed in large numbers, women were raped and were forcibly asked to live in camps outside their villages and those who did not follow this dictates were killed under the pretext of being Maoist (Sethi, 2010). Green Hunt was never presented as an official plan; in fact the government denied this operation in press. P. Chidambaram the then home minister called this a media invention (Agencies, 2009). But the unofficial reports claimed that such an operation was really being implemented and was backed by foreign capital.
For this government of India received technical and financial help from Israeli, US and UK govt that includes aerial bombing technology and the ideological methodology to deal with communist movements (Fernandez, 2020). The ideological perspective of wining hearts and mind of people is a part of such aid. The method of wining heart and mind of the people was official designed by the British Marshal Gerald Templer in 1951 to counter the communist movement in Malaysia. The method included ideological propaganda against the communist movement, propaganda of the state`s development model, exporting capital in the region and creating island of development to present a model of development to the people. In SAMADHAN the government of India has designed KRAs which includes propaganda against the people`s movement and concentrating export of capital through roads and railways networks. It is in this interest that makes World Bank and Japanese corporations pump millions of dollars with the aim of putting an end to the people’s movement by implementing development programs by developing networks of transportation and exploiting the natural resources through mining projects and dam building (adb, 2018).
This fact makes the operation like SAMADHAN a global phenomenon, a part of the larger offensive of the capital against the people. The then Home Minister Rajnath Singh addressed the top bureaucrats and the army officials by saying that “the fight against Left-Wing Extremism is a coordinated battle on the security and developmental front that has to be fought to the finish and won” (MHA, 2017). It was in this meeting that the Home Minister categorically said that “the solution to LWE is not possible with any silver bullet” and for this he envisaged an aggressive plan under the letter A of the SAMADHAN. The aggression in A has to be placed in the global capitalist crisis during the decade of 2008 to 2018 which intensified in the years of corona pandemic. The crisis of finance capital got reflected in massive unemployment and housing issues in the powerful capitalist power like France, US, Germany, China etc. This crisis of finance capital is something which is inherent in a capitalist mode of production. In the era of finance capital when money capital becomes powerful over industrial capital the economic crisis finds resolution through export of capital to the oppressed regions of the world. Every economic crisis in the beginning of the twentieth century has been resolved through such methods. Export of capital to new regions of the world and thereby producing a new space for the valorization of capital is the logic of imperialism. At times when the crisis is severe the export of capital becomes more difficult but yet very urgent for this better controls over the oppressed countries are maintained by politically controlling the countries. The rise of fascist government world over is a result of this financial crisis. To mark this phenomenon Georgi Dimitrov defined Fascism as open terroristic dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital. Fascism comes to the rescue of capital in peril. Fascism aims at the most unbridled exploitation of people and their resources. The operation like Green Hunt and at present operation SAMADHAN-Prahar is an example of the imperialist sponsored project to facilitate unbridled exploitation of people and people`s resources by the monopoly finance capital and their running agents in India. This loot is expressed in the export of capital in mining and other so called development projects. For the capital to flow in these sectors the government of India works to build ideological and logistically support to the imperial capital. That includes promoting the imperialist development model and creating propaganda against indigenous or other alternative development model. To ensure the unbridled exploitation of resources state facilitates the political and economic unity of the local feudal ruling class with the finance capital.
The creation of Salwa Judum an armed militia of feudal landlords of central India in order to promote the interest of the capital is an example of the state sponsored facilitation of political and economic unity between the feudal landlords and the imperial capital. In order to hide this unholy alliance the state uses its ideological apparatus to create an ideological perception of development that is always pro-capital and pro feudal ruling class, it also presents people resisting the takeover of their resources as someone who is anti-development and anti-national and by that logic can be eliminated for the larger interest of the country.
It is in this connection that we see people like Prof. GN Saibaba, who was has been a fierce intellectual voice against the neo-colonial loot of resources by the capital is left to die in the prison. He has been in prison for last 9 years. The arrest of GN Saibab was due to the losses which the imperialist finance capital incurred by his speeches and writings, which were against the massive loot of jal, jungle zameen of the Adivasis. He was the fierce voice against the operation Green Hunt. Indian state in its comprador capacity has put him under incarceration and anyone speaking about him is also being targeted. Even his advocated has been put behind the bars. The committee for the defense and release of Professor is a regular target of the state.
As a result of this incarcerations the movement against the corporate loot of Adivasis`s jal, jungle and zameen lost its representative voice among the urban middle classes. But in spite this one of the world`s longest struggle compromising mostly of Adivasis and Dalit population is resisting this take-over of the country`s resources by the imperialist powers and their comprador in the country. Recently the people of Silger in Chhattisgrah had marked a year of the protest against the military camp in Sileger in which a protestor was shot dead by the police. The protest against camps in Sileger is not a new kind of protest. Similar protest did happen in Jharkhand, Odhisa, Maharashtra, Telangana and Manipur. Setting up camps in these regions is the a part of the state`s policy under SAMADHAN-Prahar. This has not just hallowed out the Right to Privacy of the people, it has created a concentration camp like conditions in the villages. Unlike the model of Green Hunt in which concentration camps were made outside the villages in SAMADHAN-Prahar we find the conversion of village itself in a concentration camp. In this hundreds of para-military forces are deployed with weapons in the villages. People live at the mercy of the forces.
Many cases of extra legal forces deployed against the Adivasis have been reported. If the people escape such camps and forms movement against the corporatization and militarization of the regions they are put behind the bars and sometimes even killed in pretext of Maoist encounter. The mass organizations of the people get banned frequently on the charge of being a Maoist organization. Under the pretext of fighting Maoists the state is banning all sorts of democratic dissent in the regions. The approach of SAMADHAN is very clear; it would curb all sorts of democratic expression of the Adivasis against the corporate loot of their resources. This genocidal policy is based on the Brahamanical understanding of Adivasis, Manusmriti mentions that Adivasis or the people in jungle are different from the Aryans and has to be civilized or killed so that the rightful person can get over the resources and deploy them for their benefits (Chattopadhyaya, 2019). This makes SAMDHAN and its military part Prahar a part of the historic offensive of feudal brahmanical ruling class against the Adivasis. In the present time imperialism is strengthening this brahamnical policy in order to enhance the loot of resources for its profit maximization. The genocide waged against the Adivasis by the Indian state sponsored and financed by imperialist capital has reached a new stage in SAMADHAN-Prahar in which the state is using aerial bombing methods to wipe out the struggle of people.
Works Cited
adb. (2018). Chhattisgarh Road Connectivity Project: Development Coordination. Retrieved 2022, from adb.org: www.adb.og/sites/default/files/linked-documents/52002-001-dc.pdf
Agencies. (2009). Operation Green Hunt is purely amedia intervention. IndianExpress.
Chattopadhyaya, D. P. (2019). The Concept of Bharatvarsha and other essays. Permanent Black.
Fernandez, A. N. (2020). OPERATION GREEN HUNT IN INDIA. PARIS: FOREIGN LANGUAGE PRESS.
MHA, P. G. (2017). Union Home Minister addresses the Review Meeting of Left Wing Extremism affected states . New Delhi: PIB GOI MHA.
Roul, A. (2021). Maoist Trends in India:- A combination of mass and mine warfare. SSPC.
Sethi, A. (2010). Green Hunt: the anatomy of an operation. thehindu.com.v