<p>“I am on this side of line. I do not care...pick me up, put me in jail,” she said, while delivering a lecture on Thursday, organised by the Committee for Protection of Democratic Rights (CPDR) on Naxal voilence here.<br /><br />Yet she opposes their reliance on violence and wonders how different they will be if they come to power in the mineral-rich tribal belts.<br /><br />According to Booker-winner Roy, the Naxals cannot but take up arms for their struggle. “It ought to be an armed movement. Gandhian way of opposition needs an audience, which is absent here,” she said.<br /><br />Roy had drawn flak for calling the Naxals ‘Gandhians with guns’ in her article in a magazine. She said: “I never called them ‘Gandhians with Guns’. It was a blurb carried by a magazine. What I meant was that they (Naxals) are more Gandhian than any other Gandhian in their consumption pattern... their lifestyle, which is in stark contrast to their violent means of resistance.”<br /><br />To her, “while 99 per cent of Naxals are tribals, 99 per cent of tribals are not Maoists”, and the Naxal voilence is a corollary to the battle between the tribals and the corporate houses to gain control over natural resources. “What the government calls Maoists corridor, is in fact MoU-ist corridor. You have an MoU on every mountain, river...MoUs signed by biggest corporations in the world who are waiting to gain hold of the resources,” she said. The profit that the companies earned from the resources, especially iron ore mining, was huge, Roy said, quoting Lokayukta’s report that says while the government earns Rs 24 per tonne, the mining company gets Rs 5,000.<br /><br />“Here we have the poorest, most malnourished waging a war against the corporates supported by all the institutions of world’s biggest democracy. To a large extent, they have won in stopping the mighty corporates in their tracks,” she said, adding “If we join them, we can make them win this war.”<br /><br />‘No war’ policy<br />Roy urged the government to declare a clear ‘no war’ policy against its own people. According to her, the media and even the people goaded the government to launch war on its own people.<br /><br />Yet, despite having a fair cause and the strategy to wage a war, the Naxals lacked the revolutionary vision that Gandhian activists like Medha Patkar had. A reason why Roy is not sure what will happen to the mining industry in the tribal region, if the Maoists come to power there. Will their leadership be able to withstand the inducement of the corporates? she wondered.<br /></p>
<p>“I am on this side of line. I do not care...pick me up, put me in jail,” she said, while delivering a lecture on Thursday, organised by the Committee for Protection of Democratic Rights (CPDR) on Naxal voilence here.<br /><br />Yet she opposes their reliance on violence and wonders how different they will be if they come to power in the mineral-rich tribal belts.<br /><br />According to Booker-winner Roy, the Naxals cannot but take up arms for their struggle. “It ought to be an armed movement. Gandhian way of opposition needs an audience, which is absent here,” she said.<br /><br />Roy had drawn flak for calling the Naxals ‘Gandhians with guns’ in her article in a magazine. She said: “I never called them ‘Gandhians with Guns’. It was a blurb carried by a magazine. What I meant was that they (Naxals) are more Gandhian than any other Gandhian in their consumption pattern... their lifestyle, which is in stark contrast to their violent means of resistance.”<br /><br />To her, “while 99 per cent of Naxals are tribals, 99 per cent of tribals are not Maoists”, and the Naxal voilence is a corollary to the battle between the tribals and the corporate houses to gain control over natural resources. “What the government calls Maoists corridor, is in fact MoU-ist corridor. You have an MoU on every mountain, river...MoUs signed by biggest corporations in the world who are waiting to gain hold of the resources,” she said. The profit that the companies earned from the resources, especially iron ore mining, was huge, Roy said, quoting Lokayukta’s report that says while the government earns Rs 24 per tonne, the mining company gets Rs 5,000.<br /><br />“Here we have the poorest, most malnourished waging a war against the corporates supported by all the institutions of world’s biggest democracy. To a large extent, they have won in stopping the mighty corporates in their tracks,” she said, adding “If we join them, we can make them win this war.”<br /><br />‘No war’ policy<br />Roy urged the government to declare a clear ‘no war’ policy against its own people. According to her, the media and even the people goaded the government to launch war on its own people.<br /><br />Yet, despite having a fair cause and the strategy to wage a war, the Naxals lacked the revolutionary vision that Gandhian activists like Medha Patkar had. A reason why Roy is not sure what will happen to the mining industry in the tribal region, if the Maoists come to power there. Will their leadership be able to withstand the inducement of the corporates? she wondered.<br /></p>
