Reclaiming Radicalized Youth in India

Eighteen  Panchayats – local self government councils-, covering  700+ villages,  in Maoist  insurgency affected tribal administrative blocks of  Banka District in the state of Bihar in India, elected in local self government elections held in July 2016 , candidates who lead Nonviolence campaign in this area deep in the jungle over past two years when Swaraj Peeth’s Nonviolence dialogues /campaign, initiated six years back won over most popular youthful radicalized leaders and their followers - from violence to nonviolence; from Maoism to Gandhian path.

Nonviolent transformation:

Let me today tell the story on one person and his team of followers whose change of heart and thoughts  made this difference.

Mr Bhola is  a youthful,  most  popular, soft spoken, honest and astute tribal leader in Banka district of Bihar. Till three years back he was a formidable Maoist rea Commander; wielded considerable influence on tribal youth not only over several districts but on the tribal insurgency corridor spanning three states.  He would come unannounced to the Swaraj Peeth dialogues and camps organized in this Jungle area. Silence would decend in his presence, but slowly developed interest in what Swaraj peeth had to say Rajiv visited him several times in his home where he would call radicalized youths- his followers  and others. When in 2012 he came to Delhi camp, several from Bihar who knew of him alerted us.  In 2013 camp he said “I could not sleep the entire night after hearing you and aunty on what is freedom as defined by Gandhiji in Hind Swaraj.  I sat through the night, read the Hind Swaraj completely.  I realized that you are not an NGO-type interested only in ‘projects'. You want to lift our morals, our spirits and empower us within. “aap hamaare ma no uthaanaa chaahte  ho.”  He told others: “ I have found what I was searching for”.  During 2013 months of July-August he did 156 Km with Ganges water from the Ganges in Sultanguanj to Baidyanathdham , Deoghar, one of the seats of Lord Shiva, falling prostrate on the ground with each single step in the direction of the great temple of Shiva.  During one night-camp on the way he was surrounded by a pose of 300 armed police lead by no less than a Deputy Inspector General of police. No gun was found that police suspected of. On receiving the news, the  threat he faced, Rajiv  immediately flew to Patna, then by train to Deoghar and then by road  to meet up and be with him.   Bhola  has been several times a target of ' encounter,' though he has never killed or even hurt or  even harassed anyone. He stands for justice; he is truthful, fearless and soft spoken. 

He started organizing Rajiv’s visits in his area; one-day meetings and two and three-day Hind Swaraj camps .Every camp attended by his followers and those he wanted to change the path. We would select a place in the midst of radicalized villages. We would plan and budget for not more than 30 youth but would have no less than 60 to 70 in each camp. In February 2015  he, with a team of 15 took out a week long Nonviolence and Gandhi Shanti Mitra yatra (march) through  5 Maoism affected blocks  out of 10 block of Banka districts , culminating in public meeting  in district HQ attended by about 300 from the visited villages. Influenced by Gandhi’s  Hind Swaraj , Bhola renounced the path of violent ideology and diverted many a young men towards attending these camps and dialogues; has build up dedicated teams of Gandhi Peace  Builders.  They are now called by people to intervene in disputes mainly relating to land, involving  litigations,  rivalries,  factionalism  and violence , as old  as 35 years and as entrenched as to cause  ruptures in family and community, violent revelries and killings. They ensure unity and establish harmonious relationship. People see the difference. They like it. It gives them a reputation that is different and enhances self-esteem and a sense of self- contentment, inner peace, which violence can never give.

Bhola was called by a newly deployed senior officer of the Anti- Naxal  (Maoist insurgency)Special Police Task Force.  When the officer asked his name and he told him both his name and that of his village, the officer said “Oh! So, you are the famous Aria Commander.....!  There is an Intelligence   report on you.  … We can arrest you any moment “ Bhola asked him to go ahead if he had sufficient reason.  Then he told the officer: “Yes, you are right, I was Area Commander. But for past two years, ever since I met Rajivji and attended their camps I have changed my path. I am a Gandhi’s soldier and believe in nonviolence…. Can you appreciate that? If you wish still to arrest me I will not resist.” Police too have generally appreciated such change.

A journalist from a reputed Delhi based Hindi weekly visited the area to cover elections. He was quite amazed that peple there talked about the change in the region due to nonviolence campaign. We have never gone to the media for publicity. He however wrote a special story on this transformation, followed up by an extensive story on police high handedness on  youths including those involved in nonviolence campaign  mentioning  Rajiv’s one-to-one meeting with Union Home Minister who said to Rajiv that he does  believe that the only Gandhian way can retive the radicalized.

Six years back when Rajiv for the first time entered this area he was warned -  if he loved his life. Swaraj Peeth has since organized a number of one, two, three day dialogues in the jungle area where only the Maoists were known to hold their camps. Once therefore an armored car with a huge armed police pose surrounded one such camp deep in the jungle but left when came to know who was taking the camp. There a former Zonal Commander of the insurgents declared that now we will not be labeled as Maoists if we talk justice since we are now with Swaraj Peeth.  To an another former Maoist Area Commander a police officer of his area once stopped him on the way  and congratulated him for choosing Gandhian path. “ It is difficult but it is the right path.”

Intellectual-Spiritual Hunger:

Maoists reach out to them and satisfy their political-intellectual hunger by teaching them why they are what they are, and the way to their liberation. It is a false, hence misleading belief that theirs is only an economic hunger. There is both political and spiritual hunger in every one.  The poor want to know why they are how they are; and why the others, - the well-to-do, the powerful, are how they are.  And even one who has taken to the gun and to the idea of class-struggle harbors an innate quest for relating with the ‘other’ with empathy. This fundamental Indian teaching that the One and the many are the manifestation of the same, the transcendent  Absolute,  and therefore God, the divinity or , as Gandhiji puts it, innate goodness  resides in every one, has gone deep into the consciousness of these  ordinary ‘uneducated’ children of Nature.  Therefore they have no difficulty understanding ‘Swaraj’(Self-rule) and ‘nonviolence’ – oneness of all sentience being - in harmony with one's sovereignty in terms of and in the context of his ‘swadharma’, the Law of Being.  This is what we have learnt in the course of Sawarj-dialogues among these people.

Our Hind Swaraj journey is essentially a journey of self-exploration.  Therefore they well understand and accept that self-cleansing, struggle against our own weakness and common social, cultural defects  is primary to building Swaraj-awareness, and  meaning of nonviolence that external struggle is essentially  the extension of inner struggle.

However, central to all this is the positive, innate morality affirming understanding of (their) human suffering and deliverance from all forms of violence that Hind Swaraj gives.  Above all, primary transformer of violence is the power of good-will, compassion and self-less love. They told us that in past so many years it is we who have gone to visit them in such desolate villages without fearing them.  

Links:

• http://www.swarajpeeth.org