"People do not take up arms, in an organized fashion, against the might of the State, or against fellow human beings without rhyme or reason.
Guided by an instinct for survival, and according to Thomas Hobbes, a fear of lawlessness that is encoded in our collective conscience, we seek an order.
However, when that order comes with the price of dehumanization, of manifest injustices of all forms perpetrated against the weak, the poor and the deprived, people revolt. That large tracts of the State of Chattisgarh have been affected by Maoist activities is widely known. It has also been widely reported that the people living in those regions of Chattisgarh have suffered grievously, on account of both the Maoist insurgency activities, and the counterinsurgency unleashed by the State."
No this is not from Arundhati Roy's article in op-ed page of news paper ,it is excerpt from Supreme court order against SPOs of Chattisgarh (salva judum).Chattisgarh government recruits local tribals as special police officers to counter ever aggravating Maoist insurgency. A PIL was filed by activists like Swami Agnivesh , Ram Chandra Guha and SC termed SPOs as unconstitutional and ordered Chattisgarh government to stop all SPO operations and unarm all SPOs.
You may agree or disagree with merits of SC judgment to abolish SPOs however what is extremely disturbing is ideological bias shown by SC in its 58 page order.Language used in the this order comes dangerously close to providing aura of legitimacy to Maoist violence. In every sentence of the order where SC mentions Maoist violence it also mentions violence by state in the same breath. Stated principle of Maoists is to overthrow democratically elected Indian state with the help of guns. Maoist ideologues always try to hide behind tribals however on numerous occasions Maoists have wreaked heinous havoc on innocent tribals, blown up ambulances, hospitals, schools and every possible infrastructure that state tries to build for betterment of tribals. Thus claim by naxals and their intellectual ideologues that they are fighting for people is pretty hollow one .
In another attempt SC tries to blame globalization for this insurgency
"The problem rests in the amoral political economy that the State endorses, and the resultant revolutionary politics that it necessarily spawns. In a recent book titled
“The Dark Side of Globalization” it has been observed that: (SC puts a paragraph from the book here) "
"That violent agitator politics, and armed rebellion in many pockets of India have intimate linkages to socio-economic circumstances, endemic inequalities, and a corrupt social and state order that preys on such inequalities has been well recognized.”
As you can see Maoist actions are termed as "revolutionary politics" and privatization policy is attacked as "amoral political economy" and blamed for spawning Maoist insurgency. You may try to put it in as much politically correct words (to avoid contempt of court) but this is unfortunate rationalization of naxalism by apex court of India and an insult to innocent sufferers of barbaric Maoist violence and demoralizing for brave security forces fighting against it.
"The root cause of the problem, and hence its solution, lies elsewhere. The culture of unrestrained selfishness and greed spawned by modern neo-liberal economic ideology, and
the false promises of ever increasing spirals of consumption leading to economic growth that will lift everyone, under-gird this socially, politically and economically unsustainable set of circumstances in vast tracts of India in general, and Chattisgarh in particular."
"The justification often advanced, by advocates of the neoliberal development paradigm, as historically followed, or newly emerging, in a more rapacious form, in India, is that unless development occurs, via rapid and vast exploitation of natural resources, the country would not be able to either compete on the global scale, nor accumulate the wealth necessary to tackle endemic and seemingly intractable problems of poverty, illiteracy, hunger and squalor. Whether such exploitation is occurring in a manner that is sustainable, by the environment and the existing social structures, is an oft debated topic, and yet hurriedly buried"
Here SC gets extremely critical of liberal economic policies. Judiciary is very important pillar of our democracy but it has absolutely no business in trespassing policy matters which are best left to executive. Executive is elected by people and therefore should have only and last word on deciding which policies are best for people. Judiciary can and must step in whenever policies deviate from constitution .Our founding fathers have very intelligently established this separation of power in the constitution and this extreme judicial activism passing adverse comments on a particular ideology (neo-liberal economic policy) is not at all healthy for our democracy.
Whether liberal economic policies proved good for India may be debated (though prosperous results are there for everyone to see) however supreme court is not the place for those debates let alone taking sides of one policy while writing off the other one completely. Supreme court can strike down any act formed by legislature on the grounds that it is unconstitutional , not because Judges believe state must pursue particular ideological path.
Same judicial overreach/activism can be seen in SC orders in Noida case and formation of SIT on black money. Black money order is also another document while reading which you get feel of reading literature on Marxism. Let me put one more excerpt from SC order this one related to black money.
"In addition, it would also appear that in this miasmic cultural environment in which greed is extolled, conspicuous consumption viewed as both necessary and socially valuable, and the wealthy viewed as demi-gods, the agents of the State may have also succumbed to the notions of the neoliberal paradigm that the role of the State ought to only be an enabling one, and not exercise significant control. This attitude would have a significant impact on exercise of discretion, especially in the context of regulating economic activities, including keeping an account of the monies generated in various activities, both legal and illegal. Carried away by the ideology of neoliberalism, it is entirely possible that the agents of the State entrusted with the task of supervising the economic and social activities may err more on the side of extreme caution, whereby signals of wrong doing may be ignored even when they are strong. Instances of the powers that be ignoring publicly visible stock market scams, or turning a blind eye to large scale illegal mining have become all too familiar, and may be readily cited."
One more instance of SC taking gloves off and pulling no punches back in an ideological leftist assault on capitalism. Contention here is not about whether socialism or capitalism should be way forward for India, that debate may go on forever but for Judges of apex court to castigate one ideology while endorsing other in such a blunt manner in consecutive judgments is very disturbing trend.
Anurag Choudhary
