Out of War: Voices of Surrendered Maoists

By Swati Sengupta

Over the course of two intense years Swati Sengupta spoke to dozens of surrendered Maoist soldiers. In this book she focuses on their complex individual narratives and examines the reasons for, and the methods and contexts of, their surrenders. The disquieting voices of these foot-soldiers of the Maoist struggle reveal a harsh, on-the-edge world

• Language: English
• Publisher: Speaking Tiger Books
• Release date: Dec 9, 2016
• ISBN: 9789386338174

Swati Sengupta

'Swati Sengupta' (Translator) is an author and journalist based in Kolkata. Her published books are 'Out of War' (Speaking Tiger, 2016), 'Half the Field Is Mine' (Scholastic, 2014), 'Guns on My Red Earth' (Red Turtle, Rupa, 2013) and 'The Talking Bird' (Tulika Books, 2014). Swati worked as a journalist for fourteen years for various newspapers in Kolkata. She runs a workshop on gender for the young called 'Elephant in the Room' and spearheaded the much talked about Dear Boys project in Kolkata schools supported by the Kolkata Police.

Book preview

Part I

THE YOUNG ONES

‘When battles are fought, its reins are in the hands of

experienced leaders; and the young ones are hardly aware

of the larger picture. Suman told me that many youngsters

like him were shocked at how the movement unfolded before

their eyes. "It wasn’t the simple, straightforward battle of

good versus evil that I had perceived it to be, he said. I had

joined the war thinking I was part of the sea of poor people

fighting the cruel government, but I soon found out that there

were shades of grey in this conflict."’

This picture has been taken from a video shot inside a camp by a Maoist cadre. The boy playfully aims the gun at the person shooting the video. This boy is said to have once pulled the trigger and killed a cop but there is no confirmation on this.

1

Suman Maity (alias Saontha)

It’s early November. There’s a slight nip in the air, and people are lazing about with their first cup of tea—the sweet, milky, thick tea popular in large parts of rural India. Somewhere in the distance, there are rows of mud huts with thatched roofs and saal trees.

Here, within Lalgarh police station, where I had spent the night in a tiny, eight ft. by seven ft. room, new living quarters for police personnel are being constructed. Cement, sand, stone chips, bricks lie scattered around. It is on its way to becoming a ‘fortified’ police station under a central government scheme where Rs 2,00,00,000 is being spent per police station. Or perhaps it is being done up with state government funds, I am not sure, but there is a lot of activity all around to enhance its security.

True, it is less a police station and more a fortress: the boundary wall is nearly twelve feet high with the additional buffer of barbed wires; these are further covered with aluminium sheets, making it impossible for anyone to catch a glimpse of the station from outside. On top of either side of an enormous iron gate—the main entrance—there are watch towers guarded round the clock by armed policemen.

Inside, there is a tiny temple in one corner of the clean, earthen compound. Where life exists on the brink of death, prayers are somewhat of a necessity. If nothing else can, surely divine miracles should be able to save the policemen from a Maoist attack?

Lalgarh, 180 kilometres from Kolkata, is a cluster of 118 small villages in the West Midnapore district of West Bengal. It had been in the national headlines in 2008. A CPI (Maoist)-led agitation against the then Left Front government in West Bengal, had created a virtual ‘liberated zone’ here. Tribal villages over a 300 sq. km area had become heavily armed with bows, sickles, arrows and a huge back up of sophisticated and indigenous firearms. Lalgarh had geared up for an armed confrontation with the State. And a war did take place—a protracted, bloody war whose scars have not faded completely yet.

Armed Maoist cadres who were already living in the forests and trying to create a major impact for over a decade were finally successful in creating a free zone in Lalgarh. Roads were destroyed, government vehicles were burnt and hundreds of villagers took up arms and voluntarily joined the Maoists in an enormous show of protest against the Left Front government’s apathy and misrule.

This continued till the death of CPI (Maoist) politburo member Koteswar Rao (alias Kishanji) in November 2011. In this time the Naxal movement was the most successful it had ever been in West Bengal since the Naxalbari upsurge of the 1960s. Between 2009 and 2011, in West Midnapore district alone, forty police personnel, twenty-six Maoists and 276 civilians were killed, twenty-five civilians and eight policemen were kidnapped, sixty arms were looted from police and 122 firearms were snatched and looted from common people (this last figure alone indicates how many licensed arms civilians had been carrying). During this time, over 1,100 Maoists were arrested and nearly 500 arms were seized by policemen—what is known as ‘police recovery’.

The Left Front government—led by then Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee—grappled in the dark seeking the perfect plan to win the war against the Maoists. But it is never easy to overpower a movement that has the support of ordinary people and the Left Front that had ruled West Bengal for over three decades, had become unpopular (the 2011 election results were soon going to confirm this) and cut off from the people. Their leaders were unable to take firm decisions for fear of further losing their domination. Things went out of control, especially because the opposition Trinamool Congress was breathing down its neck. The Trinamool Congress was at its most powerful and popular since its inception and was backing the people’s agitation that also had the support of the CPI (Maoist). It was the perfect recipe for a disastrous end to the thirty-four years of continuous Left rule in West Bengal.

The Left Front government had earlier introduced a ‘rehabilitation’ scheme for the surrender of the CPI (Maoist) cadres, taking its cue from other states. But it was no surprise that this had few takers in 2010. Once the Trinamool Congress came to power in Bengal, it wasn’t long before the ruling party and the Maoists drifted apart, and soon the relationship turned bitter. CPI (Maoist) politburo member Kishanji was killed in an encounter with the police, and the Maoist movement began to lose steam in Bengal. It was from here on, that Maoist cadres began to lay down arms, and surrenders followed one after