This book is not only the anthropological history of Bastar but it
also tells a complex story of its adivasis (tribals)
being displaced and
destroyed by centralised models of ‘development’ and thereby losing their
rights over land, water and forests. The author Nandini Sundar writes about an
anti-Naxalite countersurgency operation in Bastar. The Chhatisgarh government
calls it the Salwa Judum meaning a purification hunt and looks
upon it as spontaneous, self-initiated, people’s movement and a peace campaign.
It has taken the form of a State-sponsored drive against Naxalites and in
reality it has emptied villages, left burnt houses and displaced nearly a
million people. The book also reveals the indiscriminate arson, looting and
rape taking place with active connivance of the police and the politicians.
Skilfully combining
anthropology and history of Bastar it tells of the times
from when the colonial administrators attempted with their own prejudices to
impose peace and order on the adivasis till the present when state government
is sponsoring private
vigilantism to counter the Maoist movement. It also
brings out how the adivasis resisted these moves now as they also did in the
past.
However, despite the steady erosion of the adivasi way of life,
despite the modern state government’s indifference towards their needs and in
spite of the inroads of the modern market economy into the forests of Bastar in
the name of development there is no singular model by which we can understand
the complexity of choice and the modes of resistance that the adivasis employ. On
the whole the book is a well researched narration of the increasing failure of
the Indian State to sustain democracy and provide
good governance. Advocates of modern models of development and supporters of
globalisation and the World Bank’s methods can learn something from the Bastar
story.
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