08) "INDIGENOUS PEOPLES WILL BE THE NEXT TARGET OF MODI"

By Gurpreet Singh, Surrey, BC

            Internationally acclaimed writer and social justice activist from India, Arundhati Roy, has warned that the Adivasis (Indigenous peoples) will be the next target after Muslims if Narendra Modi comes to power as Prime Minister. India's election is being held from April 7 to May 12 across the country.

            Roy, who was in Vancouver to attend the annual Indian Summer Festival, said in an interview with this correspondent that the Hindu nationalist Bhartiya Janata Party's candidate poses a threat to the tribal population, which continues to resist the expansionism of the corporate world in central India.

            "The corporate firms will be too happy to back anyone in power who can use military force to crush this resistance so that business companies can easily take control over natural resources in the tribal areas," said Roy. "Since Modi has displayed his brutality during the anti-Muslim massacre, the big corporations see him as their best bet to expand their business empire''

            Modi, the Chief Minister of Gujarat, is widely blamed for inciting anti-Muslim violence in that state in 2002, following the alleged attack on a train killing 59 Hindu passengers. Although one commission of enquiry found that it was an accident caused by the cooking gas on the train, Hindu nationalists have maintained that it was the result of an attack by Muslim fundamentalists.

            Modi is contesting the parliamentary election from two ridings, including Varanasi, the city known for Hindu pilgrimage. His party hopes to oust the Congress-led coalition to come to power with a majority.

            According to Roy, Modi has proved that he won't back away from any military adventure, such as Operation Green Hunt, launched by the Congress government to displace tribal populations in the name of fighting against Maoist insurgency, but abandoned under public pressure. She pointed out that many memorandums of understanding signed between the Indian state and corporate firms could not be implemented, creating great desperation among the big businesses.

            Over 200 districts of India form the so-called "red corridor" where insurgents are engaged in violent class struggle. These are the tribal areas, where the Maoists enjoy grassroots level support from adivasis, who have endured exploitation and oppression by the ruling classes for years. The area is rich with minerals, which is reason enough to draw corporate interest. Roy travelled to areas declared as liberated zones by the Maoist guerrillas in 2010. Her essay, "Walking With the Comrades," gives a detailed account of this conflict.

            Referring to a question on the "selectivity" of the Indian justice system towards minorities, Roy said the law treats Muslims, particularly Kashmiris, differently as compared to the ultra Hindu nationalists. She pointed out that BJP leader Varun Gandhi easily got away with his anti-Muslim rhetoric during the last election, whereas Muslim candidate Imran Masood was promptly charged for making an alleged hate speech against Modi.

            Roy participated in a campaign seeking amnesty for Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri militant who was hanged in 2013. She added that the Indian state wanted to satisfy the collective consciousness of the society and show the people of Kashmir that it can do anything, even if it means hanging a wrong person. She was once charged for sedition for suggesting that the disputed territory of Kashmir is not an integral part of India, a statement which outraged the Hindu right-wing forces. 

            She said the caste-based discrimination system has been entrenched and modernised by globalization, and any suggestion that it has disappeared with "economic liberalisation" is a myth.

            Roy's Booker Prize-winning 1997 novel "The God of Small Things" touches upon this sensitive issue. The novel takes a dig at the left parties, which Roy said have also failed to address this issue. She questioned the logic behind celebrating Mahatma Gandhi as a saint and the father of the Indian nation, despite his support for the caste system, which is "worse than the apartheid".

            "It's a shame that the Indian society treats caste system as divinely sanctioned," she said.

            She recently wrote the foreword for "The Doctor and the Saint", a book based on Dr. B.R. Ambedkar's paper "Annihilation of Caste" and his conflict with Mahatma Gandhi.

            "Through Gandhi's own writings I have proved how wrong he was on the issue of caste," Roy said.

            Ambedkar was the architect of the Indian constitution and a radical social activist. Born in a Dalit (Untouchables) family, he encountered prejudices at the hands of "upper caste" Hindus, and was locked in a tussle with Gandhi over the issue. Gandhi was opposed to Untouchability, but was not against the caste system. Ambedkar rose to become a leader of the Dalit emancipation movement in India, and is still revered by the oppressed groups.

(The above article is from the April 16-30, 2014, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading socialist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)