I don’t know whom to believe any more.
Some say that Maoists are fighting for the tribals because of the abuse they face by the corporates and government. Maoists seem to be a group of people fighting for a cause.
But then I see Maoists killing people, jawans and civilians alike, and that makes me think how can such a group of killers ever fight effectively for a just cause.
Then some activists, including some ex-Naxalites, sign a press copy saying that they condemn the heinous acts of Maoists. They say that both the state and Maoists are abusing the tribals. They say that the fight against the mining industry was born even before Mao himself. And if Maoists have any sincerity in the matter, they should first fight the mining corporates than just plainly taxing them for business.
I don’t know. The picture that I get from all these is of the state and its politicians who make way for some corporates to function smoothly because there is big money for everyone to make in those thick, dark layers of land. And a set of killing machines who kill people to overthrow a corrupt system to replace it with another more centralized and violent system in the name of revolution. And a state-sponsored militia that fights/kills/abuses it’s own people.
I don’t know whom or what to believe anymore. But I do know that I should thank God that I was not born a tribal. For, at the end of the day, they are the ones who are most suffered, abused and wiped out of history that we, rest of the people in this land, keep making. I should be happy that I am not one of those unlucky tribals. But then that darn line keeps ringing in my head:
“THEN THEY CAME for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up.“