Press Statement of the Forum Against Corporativization and Militarization (FACAM)
We publish the press statement by FACAM we received:
OPPOSE THE INITIATION OF OPERATION KAGAR: A LARGE- SCALE MOBILIZATION OF PARAMILITARY IN ABUJMARH UNDER THE GUISE OF COUNTERING MAOISM
21 st January 2024
News has emerged that the Indian state is transferring 3000 Border Security Force (BSF) personnel from the state of Odisha to Chhattisgarh, particularly the Abujmarh region where already 10000 personnel of various units of the paramilitary Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF), such as the CRPF, are deployed. Since 1 st January 2024, the Indian state is rapidly mobilizing more and more paramilitary personnel into the 6 military camps established in the Abujmarh region under a new Operation Kagar. This region, home to the Gond, Muria, Abujmarhia and Halbaas tribes also falls in the area which contains 700 million tonnes of India’s iron ore reserves, along with graphite ore, limestone and even uranium deposits. With the onset of Operation Kagar, for every 7 Adivasi persons in Abujmarh, there are now 3 paramilitary personnel in the hills once fiercely defended by the Adivasis against the feudal Nizam rule and the imperialist British Raj for preserving their way of life against the brutalities of imperialism and feudalism. The onset of Operation Kagar is soaked in the blood of the 6- month-old infant killed in Bijapur, on the 1 st January, by the drunken District Reserve Guards who shot at protestors after having come back from the New Year celebrations at their camp.
Operation Kagar itself is part of the larger Operation SAMADHAN-Prahar (OSP), which began in 2017 after the brutal Operation Green Hunt was defeated. This operation, began under the guise of countering the Maoists in the region, has seen the development of 195+ fortified camps in the so-called “Left Wing Extremism-affected” regions and heavy deployment of CRPF, BSF and even National Security Guard (NSG) as a means of providing outposts for the Indian state. These outposts have then been used in an attempt to crush the region-wide mass movements against rapacious mining projects which have contributed to the loot of India’s natural resources and threaten to displace thousands of Adivasi peasants from their lands for the sake of imperialist and big Indian corporate interests. Since the creation of the fascistic militia Salwa Judum, such attempts have continuously increased as the Indian state seeks to remove the Adivasi peasants from their lands to extract the natural resources within them for the sake of imperialists abroad.
Salwa Judum began in 2004 and since then, people’s movements have continuously thwarted these attempts, be it the movement against American giant Dow Chemical (the same imperialist corporation behind Agent Orange and napalm used in the Vietnam War and behind the Bhopal gas leak) in Nandigram, against the landgrab to set up a Special Economic Zone for Tata Motors in Singur, against the South Korean steel company POSCO in Dhinkia, Odisha etc. In Chhattisgarh alone at the present, there are 34+ ongoing sit-in protests against these mining projects and displacement which are continuously opposing the joint nexus of the Indian state’s paramilitary and its camps with that of imperialist and corporate interests. Operation Kagar, as part of the larger Operation SAMADHAN-Prahar, represents an escalation that is reminiscent of the old Operation Lalgarh in 2009, which began as a desperate measure by the Indian state to wipe out the resistance of the Adivasis in the West Midnapore region, West Bengal who had arisen against brutalities of the police meted out against their protests opposing Jindal Steel’s plant being set up in their area. These protests themselves echo the same sentiment that is being raised in Silger, Bastar, where the first mass sit-in protest in Chhattisgarh began after police open-fired on peaceful protestors who were opposing a mining project. Fake encounters, rapes of Adivasi women, burnings of villages, abductions, and killings of infants, all for the sake of imperialism’s and big Indian corporate’s interests, this is the legacy that Operation Kagar carries forward.
The mobilization of Indian state’s paramilitary under Operation Kagar is a highly alarming situation that comes right after the victory of the BJP government in Chhattisgarh State assembly elections which has given unfettered impunity to the brahmanical Hindutva fascist Indian state to carry out its core purpose of intensifying the loot of India’s resources while clamping down on all forms of people’s resistance. The BJP government, under Operation SAMADHAN-Prahar has also introduced the Surajkund offensive (as discussed in the 2022 Surajkund Chintan Shivir) to expand OSP to clamp down on “Naxalism of both the pen and the gun.” This means that for the Indian state, all forms of people’s resistance falls under the category of Maoism, whether it be armed or unarmed. This has seen even Gandhian organizations in the state of Jharkhand being listed as potential “Maoist-linked” fronts by the NIA in 2022! The joint onslaught of direct paramilitary attack on people’s resistance on ground in Bastar, particularly Abujmarh under Operation Kagar along with the use of draconian UAPA law and the NIA against democratic-minded peace-loving individuals and organizations which are raising concern against these developments has ensured that this becomes an all-out war against which is undeclared and undocumented. These developments in the region will only increase the cases of fake encounters, abductions, rapes of Adivasi women and the woeful killings of infants.
Forum Against Corporatization and Militarization (FACAM) vehemently condemns Operation Kagar and the large-scale deployment of CAPF forces in the Abujmarh region under this Operation.
FACAM urges all democratically minded peace-loving individuals and organizations to rise against, agitate and write against the undeclared and undocumented war on people being waged in central India under Operation SAMADHAN-Prahar and the Surajkund offensive.
FACAM demands an immediate end to Operation Kagar, Operation SAMADHAN-Prahar and the recalling of all paramilitary deployed in the region along with an end to rapacious mining projects which promote an anti-people model of development.
