Despatches from the conflict zone

BLOOD RED RIVER
A Journey into the Heart of India's Development Conflict
Rohit Prasad
Hachette India
325 pages; Rs 399

There is a grand narrative about the way areas impacted by Maoist insurgency operate. Maoist rebels are painted as villains of the worst kind. The people sympathetic to them, either by choice or under compulsion, are considered anti-development. Government servants are seen as helpless spectators unable to do much to make some breakthrough. And corporate houses willing to invest are perceived as saviours because they want to use money to bring some development in such neglected regions. Any deviation from this narrative is seen as a betrayal of the cause of development.

The story, unfortunately, has no place for victims who suffer silently because of their refusal to take sides. They are bound to suffer because their only interest is survival. After all, they are the ones who allowed the dreaded Maoists to flourish in their midst in the first place.

The book under review, however, questions this grand narrative and does so fairly persuasively. The author is a professor at a leading business school in the National Capital Region but he argues, with an investigative journalist's depth, that the reality has many layers and it is hard to distinguish heroes from villains. It is all contextual. Ideology becomes a facade to conceal greed and corruption. And the voices of the real stakeholders, the people, are rarely heard and seldom considered as valuable inputs while working out a development agenda.

The author has not relied on complex concepts or theories to make his point; instead he has used the tools common to journalists, of talking to various stakeholders and confronting them with tough questions, and making extensive field trips to come up with a brilliant book. His focus of attention has been the Naxalite-dominated zones in mineral-rich Chhattisgarh. His observation is that "the ongoing saga of Chhattisgarh, with its lofty paens to industrialisation, its bloody battles with insurgency, its constant grappling with the question of how the Indian State should address the rights of adivasis, and its virtual cornucopia of mineral wealth - which appears to be fast turning into a Pandora's box - places the conceptual questions of development in sharp relief."

All the chapters are well written, but the one that deals with the Tatas' failed steel plant in Chhattisgarh clearly stands out. The chapter describes the atrocities of the Salwa Judum, the state-sanctioned anti-Maoist vigilante armies, provides a context to explain why the Tatas retreated from their position in the state. It describes, in great detail, the hate-hate relationship between Mahendra Karma, the slain Congress leader, and the Maoists, and throws some light on the business practices adopted by the most respected corporate house in the country.

The excesses of Salwa Judum are well documented. What has not been frequently spoken about is the role played by Karma, the architect of the movement, in "manufacturing consent" among the people on behalf of corporate houses. Big investors are reported to have paid big money to buy this so-called consent.

Talking about land acquisition for big projects, the author writes that "in general, obtaining the consent of the locals before starting a project is often a process of playing off one group against another, co-opting leaders of different factions and severing the roots that keep common people attached" to their milieu. The tactics have been used by both public and private corporations as well as government agencies.

All this is done to the people in mineral-rich areas, mostly tribals, who are condemned to extreme poverty in the midst of rich natural resources. "Eighty per cent of the minerals in India come from tribal areas, 50 per cent of the tribals live below the poverty line. Only 43.2 per cent have access to safe drinking water and 28.9 per cent have no access whatsoever to doctors and health clinics. Among tribal children, only 42.2 per cent have been immunised," the author writes. Don't these figures say a lot about the kind of development agenda we have pursued thus far?

For academics looking for some theoretical perspective from a professor, the book may come across as a disappointment. But the issue at hand requires more people to have an empathic understanding. Without taking sides, the author has sought to achieve that. The only gap perhaps is the author's reluctance to offer some workable solution. Without that it reads like a good journalist's well-researched report compiled after months of hard work. But it is insightful reading nonetheless.