By: Santosh Jha
The usually calm and neglected jungle areas of the eastern Indian states of Bihar and Jharkhand are now humming with beautiful and young ladies. Barely out of their teens, most of them wear military khakis with a red band around their heads. Even a passerby can understand, these young ladies are not out picnicking here in the jungles as sophisticated rifles and even AK 47s neatly held close to their chests speak off their purpose. Yes, they are the newly recruited cadres of the outlawed Indian Maoists being trained in jungles for guerilla war techniques.
The jungles have been second home for many of these young girls as they belong to the Tharu tribe who has lived here in the jungles since ages. Other girls are Santhals and other tribeswomen for whom jungle have been a major source of livelihood. No trace of civil administration except the remains of a decrepit primary school or a desolate primary health center are usually available here. The ladies who now stroll freely with sophisticated arms in these jungles are members of the outlawed Communist Party of India (Maoists) and after their training in arms in the jungles here they will move to places with specific tasks assigned to them.
The Maoists:
The Communist Party of India (Maoists) or popularly known as the Indian Maoists, are the most widespread and most powerful extremist group in India. Maoists are outlawed in India but still hold great deal of acceptance among rural masses. The Maoists are in powerful positions in 11 states of Central, South and East India including the mineral-rich states of Jharkhand, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Chattisgarh". The state governments of the 11 states have launched a joint operation against the Maoists but have failed to do much harm to them. The Maoists have killed over 100 cops in the last one decade. The Maoists claim themselves as the friends of the poor and are against democracy and Indian government branding them as capitalist tools of exploitation for the rural and poor masses. They have earned the epithet Maoists from China's Mao tse Tung who said, "power comes out of the barrel of the gun".
The Women Gang:
Police records say that Maoists have recruited large numbers of women, especially young tribeswomen in their trained and armed cadre and they perform a lot of tasks for them including guerilla attacks on the cops. It is believed that in large areas of Maoists influence, the women are the law and for a rapist the one and only sentence is death.
Villagers say that the Maoists conduct a training camp in any one village of Tharus or other tribes for only three days and a 'Utpidan Mukti Vahini' (anti-exploitation force) is formed by the trained women cadre itself. The women team includes mostly young ladies. Some of them even speak English. They carry AK47s and AK56s. The other arms include police rifles, carbines and SLRs. The Maoists also push in the women cadre in the guise of vegetable sellers and vendors in markets to "work as their eyes and ears".
Why Do Women Join?
It is very interesting to know that the Maoists do not have to force young tribeswomen into their cadre as most themselves offer their services to them. The reason has been the reaction of the exploited tribeswomen to make them not only safe but also retaliate. The human rights activists and many NGOs who are working for the welfare of tribeswomen in the states of Bihar and Jharkhand say that in most cases the police atrocities on the tribeswomen and the exploitation by non-tribesmen force the young tribeswomen to join the Maoists and pick up arms. Rights activists have been making a lot of hue and cry about the large-scale trafficking of young and poor tribeswomen and low caste women by organized gangs who mostly sell them for flesh trades. The police have been blamed as the willing conduit in the trafficking. Many such exploited women fall back to the Maoists to retaliate the wrongs that were committed against them. The anger is primarily against the cops and as the Maoists usually kill cops, the women feel more than inclined to join the Maoists who train them properly and by giving them skills of self-defence and arms, they ensure that women get back their lost pride! National Women Commission of India has also raised this issue of growing numbers of rural women joining the left wing extremists because of the torture by police force.
What They Say:
In the last few years, the police have been successful in arresting at least a dozen of such women Maoists in Bihar and Jharkhand states. The women Maoists have also narrated the same story of social as well as police exploitation forcing them into the Maoist business but they do not seem to regret. It needs to be understood what the women actually face in their societies that make them so reactionary as to enter an unlawful and dangerous lives? In the poverty-stricken societies where caste considerations make live highly inhuman, the atrocities on women can actually take varied forms. Poverty is the single largest factor for exploitation. Even the state government agencies admit that there are number of criminal gangs who have been eyeing the young tribeswomen and other poor and illiterate low-caste women for trafficking them into the global flesh trade. These unscrupulous gangs lure many young women by false promises of decent jobs and free marriages in bigger cities. These women are then deported to big cities of India and there they are sold to pimps and agents who sold them further to brothels in India and even to middle-east countries. Indian women are being trafficked as far as Europe for flesh trade. Many such exploited women join the Maoists cadre and in return get their lost prides back.
Women Do Wonders:
As a trained cadre of the Maoists, the women gang is said to perform a lot of tasks for them. They are trained with sophisticated arms and quite often, they are part of the ambush and guerilla attacks that the Maoists mount on the police. It is also believed that the women cadre specializes in planting landmines for the cops. The women force is used successfully in garnering intelligence for the Maoists. The police sources say that the Maoists use the women to lure young and educated youth into their cadre, as the women are "open minded and friendly with their male counterparts".
