Just two days have passed ever since Mahendra Karma—the firebrand tribal leader and founder of the anti-naxal Salwa Judum movement in Chhattisgarh was gunned down and its armed cadres, now a handful of them residing in a total of 7 to 8 camps in Dornapal, Konta, Errabor and Injiram villages in Bastar region are suddenly beginning to lose hope.
Apart from the shadow of gloom spreading over these camps within 48 hours of the massacre at Darbha ghat, these armed tribals are not just without a leader, they are up against an army of heavily armed insurgents against whom the movement was launched but also the impossibility of returning home to their villages.
The Salwa Judum movement spearheaded by Karma since June 2005 seems to have died with its leader leaving 12,000 to 18,000 remaining fighters in the lurch.
A sizeable population of fighters in the camps, who left to lead a normal life in their villages during the past few years have been either shot or brutally murdered by the insurgents.
‘We have become the enemies of insurgents. We don’t receive free ration from the Government. There is no certainity of our security and being former chiefs of villages, we are prime targets of insurgents,’ says Punem Hurra of Batota Gram Panchayat in Bastar.
There was a time when the villagers who, before joining the cadres of Salwa Judum were pickers of forest produce such as ‘Tendu patta’, ‘mahua’ and other natural resources to earn a living.
Now most of the fighters and their families living in the training camps, earn living by selling country liquor and working in the nearby sites where development projects are run by the State Government as labourers, stated a camp leader who refused to be named.
With the Chhattisgarh Government withdrawing support to the Salwa Judum cadres following a Supreme Court order on July 6, 2011 declaring Salwa Judum as ‘illegal’ , many of its cadre leaders are now of the opinion that millions of rupees were spent on arming and training the tribals and the result had been a ‘zero’, he said.
Though exact numbers are not known, but over the last two years, it is believed that as many as one lakh people have been displaced from what are called the “liberated villages” in Bastar region on account of the anti-naxalite operation of the Salwa Judum cadres.
The tribal militia comprising local youth were receiving support and training from the State Government in the initial years of the armed struggle.
Following the Supreme Court order, the Government assistance stopped completely and the cadres were asked to fend for themselves.
The Salwa Judum also ran into other difficulties as the Supreme Court ordered the Chhattisgarh Government to investigate all instances of alleged activities of Salwa Judum.
The use of Salwa Judum by the Chhattisagrh Government received criticism for alleged violations of human rights and utilisation of poorly trained uneducated youth for counter-insurgency roles.
Thousands of families gave their sons for the movement who died fighting the rebels or lost their parents gunned down by the insurgents, a camp leader in Dornapal informed.
The data on Special Police Officers (SPOs) who were appointed by the Chhattisgarh government numbered 4047 till January 2007 with no updated data available with the cadres on the youth who were appointed SPOs in the suceeding years are all have been absorbed into the regular Chhattisgarh Police force.
Bastar and Datewada districts of State have traditionally been tribal dominated and sparsely populated with very rich natural resources. The first movement against the Naxalites was the 'Jan Jagran Abhiyan', started in 1991 by Mahendra Karma . This was mostly led by local traders and businessmen. This later ran into problems and its leaders had to seek police protection to survive.