India is a country driven by its so-called economic miracle. Towers of concrete, glass and steel are changing the face of the nation's cities. But while the rich are growing very rich, behind these facades India's epic poverty still runs deep.
ARUNDHATI ROY, AUTHOR: Now you have a generation of young, urban Indians who are as uncomprehending of that other India as any Westerner. They have lost the language to be able to communicate with each other. They've become a different species.
The growing divide between those different species, as Arundhati Roy calls them, is causing deepening resentment amongst India's poor and the seeds of revolution are beginning to take root.
AJAI SAHNI, INSTITUTE OF CONFLICT MANAGEMENT: What we are now seeing is an intentional expansion of the areas of conflict by the Maoists to the entire country.
Maoists – or Naxalites as they’re known in India - now exert influence over a third of the Indian subcontinent. In one state alone, Chhattisgarh, police have been powerless to stop a series of shifting and violent clashes between state forces and a strengthening band of Maoist rebels.
AJAI SAHNI: There is a lot of force that comes from a defined area and hits a defined area. It’s a force that abruptly condenses in a particular area, executes an attack and then disperses, and that’s the genius of the system. It makes it that much more difficult to predict, prevent or even take effective action after the incident.
The Maoists find refuge in the dense forests of Chhattisgarh but they're wary of the media. The commander of this unit would only speak with his back to the camera.
MAOIST COMMANDER, (Translation): We don’t force our ideology at the point of a gun, on anybody. We explain our principles, if they do not accept our principles and want to stay the way they are, then they are not forced. We have taken action only against our enemies, there is a political motive and that motive brought people together. Then they realised that force is the only way.
SOLDIER, (Translation): Long live the CPI Maoist Party! Long live Marxism, Leninism and Maoism! Death to Imperialism!
The Maoists have mined roads, bombed railways, buses, buildings and schools. And they've carried out brutal attacks on villagers - sometimes as revenge for betrayals, sometimes simply to intimidate. The government has responded by relocating entire villages, shifting over 100,000 people into special camps like this. These camps are protected from the Maoists by a vigilante group called the Salwa Judum whose members are now assembled from the displaced villagers.
AJAI SAHNI: There can be absolutely no, under any circumstances, no justification for the Salwa Judum. You can't just throw guns into their hands and say, "OK, you do the fighting, we will support you." Civilians fighting the state's battles are completely outside the realm of legal and constitutional methods as far as I’m concerned.
From the ranks of the Salwa Judum are picked the special police officers, or SPOs. Armed by the state and given the most rudimentary training, the SPOs are then put in the front line in the fight against the Maoists.
RAHUL SHARMA, SUPERINTENDENT OF POLICE, DANTEWADA: They are stakeholders in the fighting. Most of their family members have been killed by Naxalites so they have that anger in them. We can't unleash them so we have given them the most basic of weapons.
But the government's efforts to pit displaced villagers against Maoists rebels have only led to an escalation of violence.
ARUNDHATI ROY: By creating the Salwa Judum, it's like pouring poison into the veins of society and, once you've done it, it's very hard to come back because you've created a situation in which you've paid one part of a community, you've armed them, you've given them the power to go and rape and kill and burn people's houses.
Arundhati Roy is probably best known for her Booker Prize-winning novel 'The God of Small Things' but she's also a tireless campaigner for the rights of the Indian underclass. She sees the emergence of the Maoists as a symptom of India's blinkered economic drive.
ARUNDHATI ROY: Basically you have one India which has now seceded into outer space and has joined the elite of the world and is looking down at the old India and thinking, "Why are these tribals living on our bauxite and why is our water in their rivers and why is our furniture in their forests and how do we get them off the land?" And this is what the government wants - it wants 85% of the population to move into cities where it can be easily policed, where it can be easily controlled.
And control is what these camps are all about. I was told these people are free to come and go as they please. But, in truth, that's not an acceptable choice anymore. If they go back to their home villages, they risk the anger of the Maoists for leaving in the first place. But remaining here puts them at the mercy of their protectors - the Salwa Judum and the police. And that's not a comfort to anyone.
HIMANSHU DANTY, HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST: One month back, police people and Salwa Judum people killed three tribals who were living in the Salwa Judum camp, Mathwada. They were killed before the eyes of their wives. The police came out with the press statement that these three people were killed by the Naxalites.
Himanshu Danty is a human rights activist committed to finding justice for the villagers. He treads a dangerous path between the Maoists, the police and the Salwa Judum.
HIMANSHU DANTY: If you go to the villages which are attacked by these police and Salwa Judum people, the people will tell you some 10 times, 15 times their houses are burned. People come back again, they try to reconstruct their own house. Again they are attacked by Salwa Judum they run away again to the forest and they come back and every time Salwa Judum kills people, rapes women, kills children. They have least respect for the law.
WOMAN, (Translation): They took my husband to the road outside the camp, they tied his hands behind him and beat him brutally. All the Salwa Judum and the police were there and they were all involved in killing my husband.
But the police who are fighting the Maoists deny the Salwa Judum are out of control.
RAHUL SHARMA: The Salwa Judum leaders, without our help and without our asking them, they cannot do anything. They are completely in our control. We don't allow them to violate the rule of law, come whatever the case may be.
Villagers claim the SPOs and militia are involved in assault and murder but the villagers have yet to see any of them face a court or even be charged.
REPORTER: Has there been any successful prosecutions against police excesses?
HIMANSHU DANTY: Not so far. I asked the government how many special police officers are accused by anybody. They said none. There was no report lodged so far.
CROWD, (Translation): Death to Naxalism!
I ask the Salwa Judum about stories I'd heard of villagers being forced into the camps.
SALWA JUDUM, (Translation): The people who are talking about the use of force must be those who are fully supported by the Naxalites. That is what I think, this is a free struggle, it has not been forced on anyone. You know it, we all know it. We can’t accept the idea they were brought in forcibly. Salwa Judum will continue to protect the rights of the people and to protect human rights. Until the Naxalites leave, people can’t get their rights here. The Naxalites are the ones who deny people their rights.
REPORTER: Why are you armed?
SOLDIER, (Translation): The Naxalites harass ordinary people, they catch them and kill them, that is why I carry a gun.
Serious tensions are tearing at the government's relocation camps, with some villagers wishing to leave and others in training as SPOs. With villager turning against villager, this conflict has become what is essentially a civil war. This young woman, assigned to protect her neighbours, may have to turn her gun on her old village friends who have been recruited by the Maoists.
REPORTER, (Translation): You are an SPO?
WOMAN, (Translation): Yes.
REPORTER, (Translation): Your friends are now your enemies.
WOMAN, (Translation): Yes, enemies.
REPORTER, (Translation): Will you fight them now, how will you deal with them?
WOMAN, (Translation): I will fight them.
REPORTER, (Translation): But they were your friends.
WOMAN, (Translation): Yes, but now they are enemies, now I will fight them.
And she's on a death list too. Becoming a special police officer means becoming a prime target for the Maoists. In March last year rebels overran this isolated Chhattisgarh police station, killing 55 policemen and making off with their guns and ammunition. 39 of the victims were special police officers.
With attacks and reprisals and claims of violence on all sides, some tentative steps are under way to establish peace and justice. This is the Polampali camp run by the Salwa Judum. Today a delegation from a government-sponsored human rights team has come to speak to the villagers about alleged atrocities by the Salwa Judum. This heavily armed convoy must seem intimidating to villagers who don't want their discussion monitored by police, even though Superintendent Sharma gives an assurance that police will keep their distance.
RAHUL SHARMA: We are strictly instructed to stay out of the village. They go and talk and go on their own. And I think they are hearing all of the parties, and they are taking their own time to release their conclusions. It's a very good fact-finding body.
But the Superintendent's promise that his officers would stay away was clearly misleading. As the villagers lodged their complaints, I filmed armed police and Salwa Judum looking on and listening in. This man told me that after arriving in a Salwa Judum camp he and his fellow villagers were regularly beaten by the militia. When they decided they couldn't take the beatings anymore, they ran away and returned to their village. The Salwa Judum tracked them down and singled out an old man for public execution.
VILLAGER, (Translation): They beheaded him. They tied his hands behind his back and then cut off his head. The women, there were two, Kumari and .....Kumari was one and the other.....What was her name? Yes, Mangali, they were grabbed by the neck and they were raped, they were taken away by the police and they were accused by the police of being Naxalites. Though..in reality.. they were not Naxalites.
The Salwa Judum then killed all the livestock, destroyed their crops and burned down their houses. As a result, 15 young people from the village decided to join the Maoists.
ARUNDHATI ROY: I can be accused of exaggerating or going overboard and so on, but what I would like to say is that genocide is not only when you move people into concentration camps and gas them. Most of the genocide in this world is about cutting people off from their resources and letting them get thirsty or get hungry and slowly annihilate themselves. And that is happening in India.
While I'm travelling with human rights activist Himanshu Danty, there's a report of a shooting at a nearby Salwa Judum camp.
HIMANSHU DANTY: We are going to verify this incident. We are going to Bijapur now.
A 2.5-year-old boy and a young woman have been shot and killed.
HIMANSHU DANTY: The lady and the child were sitting here and they were shot by the policeman and the flesh from the child went there on the tree and was taken away by the police.
WOMAN, (Translation): They hit the door like this..’Get up! Get up! Why are you still in there? We’re here for you and you are sleeping! Get up!’
MAN, (Translation): We were sleeping, it was around 3 in the morning, three or four CRP policemen went inside each house, they beat us with batons and made us sit by the road, they told us we were there for a meeting. We just sat on the road, they told us nothing, if we tried to go to the toilet they wouldn’t let us, they threatened to beat us up.
Himanshu speaks to the villagers, urging them to speak truthfully about what happened and not to feel pressured to blame the insurgents for the attack.
HIMANSHU DANTY, (Translation): You are all very angry today but tomorrow the police will arrive and they will tell you if you complain against them you will get nothing, if you say the Naxalites did it you will get money. The dead are dead, report against the Naxalites.
MAN, (Translation): We can’t do that!
HIMANSHU DANTY, (Translation): All right, if you all agree let us do it this way. Let us write a letter and those willing may sign it or put their thumb print. All right? If you are afraid, that is okay. We can die in one of two ways, a brave death or a coward’s death ..... decide how you want to die. So let’s write about today’s incident and decide that we want to live with self respect. That child was our child, they killed a child, they can kill another tomorrow. All right, do you all agree? Then I will write.
REPORTER: Are the Maoists winning?
HIMANSHU DANTY: Yes. Yes.
REPORTER: How do you measure that?
HIMANSHU DANTY: Support has increased, their area of control has increased. Earlier, they were scattered in some village or that village, now that have... Government does not exist in more than half their district.
RAHUL SHARMA: We are trying hard for some people to mediate on behalf the three parties – the Salwa Judum people, the Naxalites and the administration. Some sort of reconciliation has to happen. Violence will only lead to more violence. It can never be a solution.
India prides itself on being the largest democracy in the world, but Ajai Sahni sees it as deeply flawed.
AJAI SAHNI: We are a tremendously imperfect democracy. The only thing we have to our credit is the fact that we are able to hold credible elections on a regular basis. But are those elections actually resulting in honest representation? Do the people really have a choice of decent leaders? I think the answers are very easy to get. There are more than 100 criminals accused of serious crime sitting in India's Parliament today. As far as I'm concerned, the electoral regularity is the limit of the Indian democratic system.
ARUNDHATI ROY: If you look at the caste system in India, if you look at the violence against untouchables, if you look at the fact that more than a million people make their living carrying other people's shit on their heads, if you look at the kind of murders and honour killings and all that that's going on here, I mean, India's marketing itself as a democracy is one of the biggest public relations scams of the 20th and 21st centuries. That's for sure.
AJAI SAHNI: The overwhelming majority of India’s population goes unrepresented, operates under conditions that are unrelated to the rule of law, does not see the state as a beneficiary - as someone who gives something to them - but sees the state as a tyrant and an oppressor. And everywhere in India today we find a complete and a comprehensive and a relentless incapacity on the part of the Indian state to deliver justice. There is no part of India where you can say, yes, at least here, the rule of law prevails absolutely and without compromise. There is no part of India where this happens.
GEORGE NEGUS: A couple of damning report cards there on the state of Indian democracy to end on. Jonathan Matthews filming and reporting. A footnote - in its latest report on that tit-for-tat struggle, Human Rights Watch accuses both the Indian Government and the Maoist rebels of using kids in the conflict.
Reporter/Camera
JONATHON MATTHEWS
Reporter/Producer
PRU COLVILLE
Editor
NICK O'BRIEN
WAYNE LOVE
PRU COLVILLE
Translator
BAPPI RAY
PROF. R.N SHARMA
PAHLAJ WADHWANI
Subtitling
AESH RAO
Producer
ASHLEY SMITH
Original Music composed by
VICKI HANSEN