But the fight will go on forever. It will never end.
Here is another report, this time quoting the Army chief, in which this dude says that the Armed Forces Special Powers Act should NOT be diluted in the North-East and Jammu & Kashmir. In Manipur, the AFSPA has been in force since before I was born - and peace is nowhere in sight. Ditto for J&K.
So let us not laud all this "tough talk" about using military might (like UAVs) against the disaffected tribals. They are citizens of India and the only solution must be political. As Jug Suraiya recently put it, "Pehele Aap, Mantriji."
Once again, I repeat the classical liberal line that Private Property is the only solution. Let us consider this extract from the column I referred to in my post of yesterday. The author says:
One positive measure taken in 2006 was the Forest Rights Act. But its implementation leaves a lot to be desired. As of end February 2010, out of the 27 lakh claims filed, 7.6 lakh have been accepted, 9.3 lakh have been rejected and the rest have still to be decided. There are also problems about recognising community rights and the linkages with Joint Forest Management.
The author goes on to make a damning statement:
The rights of the tribals to capture the value of the natural resources in their homelands have never been fully accepted by the rest of us. We displace them in the name of development, compensate them for the loss of their meagre livelihood but fail to accept that they should have a share in the rents that accrue today to mining mafias, forest contractors and corrupt officials.
The word "adivasi" means "original inhabitant." The very word implies that these people have been inhabiting these forests for thousands of generations; indeed, since before the Aryan invasions. It is unthinkable that they should not be possessed of Property in their homelands.
Dunno too much about Mao except that "power flows through the barrel of a gun" - but I know enough about John Locke, who said, in 1691, that "where there is no Property there is no Justice."
It is because there is no Property that power is flowing from the barrel of a gun. The answer is not the UAV; the answer is Settlement Officers who will physically visit the areas and award property titles - just as Munro did in Baramahal. There is no other way. State violence I condemn.
How does a Settlement Officer know who owns what?
One story I read somewhere is that of a Brit who approached a house to check out who owned it, and found a dog barking. He found out who was the dog's master and concluded that the same person must be the owner of the house.
It is as simple as that - if you know something about the science of government.
And if you don't - then there is the UAV, the AFSPA and all that endless blood and gore.
That is the choice before the nation.
I agree completely. The state should not use army or even the CRPF against the poor people living in tribal areas. The best way to solve this problem is to make these areas tax free zones. Any investment done in these areas will attract ZERO tax. Do away with the license-quota-permit raj for these areas. That will lead to an avalanche of investments flowing into these areas. Millions of new jobs will be created. State of the art infrastructure will come up in a matter of few months.
ReplyDeleteWe might even have a city like Shanghai in Naxalbari. Indians are really enterprising people, with Zero tax rate and complete freedom to operate our own enterprise, we are capable of creating miracles. The so called Maoist infested areas of today, could become India’s engines of growth in near future. But for that government will have to withdraw from these areas, and let private individuals takeover the task of managing their own life and business.
But this is something that the government will never do. Using brute force is a dictator's greatest wet dream. No politician worth his salt is going to give up the chance to deploy CRPF, army, air force, navy etc. It is such deployments that bring glory and make history. The world worships tyrants. So, as usual, I am pessimistic about the future.
There are challenges titling land "owned" by hunter-gatherers or foragers. Any thoughts how to avoid the Native American displacement that occurred in USA due to similar issues (Western settlers encroached their lands due to sheer scale of numbers and lack of fencing around such large properties)?
ReplyDelete@Swap: The most important thing is that the Settlement Officers must be instructed clearly that the government does not want to dispossess anyone or "redistribute" property. It should be "as is, where is." Further, there are issues of "homesteading" - where too the Lockean principle of "mixing labour with the original soil" must be used to title property. For mahua plantations, for example. There can be private property rights over wildlife ranches too.
ReplyDeleteMining is passe - it is "primary industry" after all - and these people need to move further into tertiary activities like tourism. But mining royalties can be awarded to local governments, and they should have the right to decide whether they desire this activity in their area or not.
But overall I agree with Anoop Verma: there is HUGE potential to bring these disaffected people into the mainstream of modern Capitalism.
Unfortunately, our government is more "maoist" in their thinking than these people. Never forget that the chief ideologue of the Maoists in Nepal holds a PhD (phuddi ka dhakkan!) from New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University. Another reason to close Chacha's education system down.