The Burning Forest: India's War in Bastar

by Nandini Sundar

Starting from 2005 when a government-sponsored vigilante movement, Salwa Judum, killed hundreds and drove thousands of villagers into camps, to the present day when it is the most militarized area in the country, the war in Bastar has taken a heavy toll on the people of Bastar, the security forces, the Maoists and human rights activists.

This book chronicles how the armed conflict between the government and the Maoists has devastated the lives of some of India's poorest, most vulnerable citizens. The fact that Bastar has some of India's biggest mineral reserves has made the conflict even more intense, and also destroyed the ecology and culture of Bastar.

Genres: India, Nonfiction, Politics, History, Sociology, War

432 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2016

About the author

Professor Nandini Sundar is an outstanding social anthropologist of South Asia, who has made major and original contributions to our understanding of environmental struggles, of the impact of central and state policies on tribal politics, and of the moral ambiguities associated with subaltern political movements in contemporary India.

Professor Nandini Sundar obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Oxford University in 1989 and Master of Arts, Master of Philosophy and Ph.D. degrees in Anthropology from Columbia University in 1989, 1991 and 1995 respectively.

Professor Sundar is the co-editor of India's flagship sociology journal 'Contributions to Indian Sociology' along with Professor Amita Baviskar. She is associated with several governing boards of academic journals, government committees and non-governmental organizations in various capacities and working on issues related to the environment, tribal rights and discrimination/exclusion.

She is currently a Professor in and the Chairperson of the Department of Sociology at the Delhi School of Economics. She has held visiting positions at Punjab, Yale, Michigan, Cambridge and Chandigarh universities. She was awarded the M. N. Srinivas Memorial Prize of the Indian Sociological Society in 2002-03, the L. M. Singhvi Visiting Fellowship at Cambridge in 2003 and the Hughes Visiting Fellowship at Michigan in 2005.

Her publications include Subalterns and Sovereigns: An Anthropological History of Bastar and Branching Out: Joint Forest Management in India. Her research interests are wide and include citizenship, war and counterinsurgency in South Asia, indigenous identity and politics in South Asia, the sociology of law and inequality.
Source:http://www.infosys-science-foundation...

Reviews

[E.T. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an important yet biased book on "Salwa Judum", the Chhatisgarh state's counter-insurgency movement against the Naxalites. Dry, repetitive yet worth reading.
Let me try and arrange my thoughts on this :-
1) From the Bollywood movie "Baby"
Intelligence Chief (Danny) - "Collectively 24 officers shahid hue hain."
Defense Minister's secretary - "Log to marenge hi, unka to kaam hain..."
And intelligence officer Akshay Kumar gets up and slaps him. The author reminded me of the bureaucrat who was slapped. She totally de-humanised the police, CRPF and the villagers who became part of the counter-insurgency forces. That is the biggest shortcoming of this book for me. And it is the reason why the book will be called a polemic.
2) The biggest question in my mind - When India has free and fair elections, why stops the Naxalists from contesting them and managing their own affairs with executive and legislative power ? The author has no arguments to offer. Infact the fact that Maoism believes in violently overthrowing liberal democracy is not mentioned at all. Why should I choose Maoist sponsored violence over state sponsored violence/corruption ? Why should I choose an evil at all ?
However, it is true that crony-capitalists in their greed, have partnered with the state to rob the natural resources which belong to the society, especially to the locals. Regulation of mining and environment protection is non-existent. And in this age of statism masquerading as nationalism, books such as these need to be read so that we can know the gravity of the problem. Also, I agree with the author that the state needs to adopt a more humane approach.

[Akshay · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ultimately, this book is a lost opportunity for someone with significant on the ground knowledge to help put this complex social dynamic into a clear perspective – one that provides the pros and cons of all sides. Instead, this book just degenerates into a series of opinion pieces stacked with an overwhelming amount of information. This book is, quite literally, just a documentation of events rather than an attempt to coherently present the truth on the ground. (The author even says as much in the Introduction).

There is a complete dearth of any discussion on the ideologies, objectives, and demands of the Maoists or the villagers. In essence, this book is all about the ‘What’ with little to no discussion on the ‘Why’. In addition, the author’s bias and lack of ethics manifests throughout the book distorting the truth by highlighting select facts and misrepresenting original sources. Yes, we all can agree that the solution to an armed insurgency is not for the Government and security forces to kill the villagers with impunity. But this book doesn’t go anywhere beyond that very narrow scope.

Read full review on my blog.

[Sai Kishore Kanagiri · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I think the knowledge came to him at last — only at the very last. But the wilderness had found him out early, and had taken on him a terrible vengeance for the fantastic invasion. I think it had whispered to him things about himself which he did not know, things of which he had no conception till he took counsel with this great solitude — and the whisper had proved irresistibly fascinating.

Anything approaching the change that came over his features I have never seen before, and hope never to see again. Oh, I wasn’t touched. I was fascinated. It was as though a veil had been rent. I saw on that ivory face the expression of somber pride, of ruthless power, of craven terror — of an intense and hopeless despair. Did he live his life again in every detail of desire, temptation, and surrender during that supreme moment of complete knowledge? He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision, — he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath — ‘The horror! The horror!”
― Joseph Conrad

[Anish · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is totally a biased one and only complaints of atrocities committed by the security forces and political parties on the so called innocent adivasi people. It also accuses every elected government of using the materialistic resources and not developing the conditions of the tribal people. Although the book is very well written and facts are well drawn from reputed sources it's biasness cannot be forgotten.

[Gaianee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really moving and terrible stories of state violence. Extremely saddening and infuriating stuff. A majority of the book just tells the story of the Salwa Judum and the people affected by it. However it does have some insightful commentary on democracy, development, and judicial systems. I’m glad I read this book.

[Eolann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Works as a polemic that is strongly (though not uncritically) sympathetic to the insurgency in Bastar; since so much coverage written about Naxalites is actively hostile, it was interesting to have this perspective. The long middle section of the book is a record of different atrocities carried out by state forces (torture, killings, rape and displacement) against Adivasi in the region. This works to show how comprehensively violent the state response had been, but Sundar doesn't use this reporting to build towards a bigger theme or argument; a few hundred pages of this book could have their order reshuffled and it wouldn't alter much the structure of the text. Sundar provides some wider context for the government's actions, but doesn't tie them in more broadly to other counter-insurgency violence in Jammu-Kashmir and the North East; I would have appreciated more of this, although its not a glaring omission; what is though is the lack of political perspective of the maoists themselves, and how the movement in Bastar ties into the wider Naxalite insurgency of the past half century.
The last section of the book becomes much more of a first person narrative as Sundar recounts her legal action at the supreme Court against state sponsored paramilitaries in the conflict; this is initially interesting, but as it goes on the text becomes overwhelmed with names of dozens of different actors and participants in the action, and became more difficult to follow. Overall found this to be informative and competently written, and a powerful record of state atrocities in the region, but also think it might have benefited from being better structured and edited.

[Ronit · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extremely informative and heart wrenching book written from the perspective of the tribal communities of Bastar. Gives particularly detailed information about the Salwa Judum and how it was utilized by the state to clear the grounds for big businesses to operate in the region. Puts the blame of the whole insurgency on the inability of the state to provide the tribals with their basic needs. Though she does not support Maoist violence but sympathizes with their need to do something to halt the exploitation of the local populace. They have come to see that unless they resort to violence the government does not pay any attention to the problems afflicting them. Points out how police stations vie with each other to declare themselves Maoist inflicted to get more funds for armament. As for the argument that development cannot happen as long as the Maoists are there she shows how in the adjoining regions without Maoists presence things are not much better in terms of administration. Also, shows the conflict between the indigenous tribals and the recent urban North Indian migrants who have lived there for a few decades now and consider themselves as belonging there and are the most vociferous supporters of anti-Maoist campaigns.

[Abhishek Kanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Burning Forest, is one of the most urgent books and we all should read it. It is filled with intensive research and depicts what is it like to be a tribal in Bastar. But the book can be very easily be said to be representing the lives of any tribal or aboriginal population living in a mineral-rich land, be it the story of tribals in Africa who are consumed by the trade of blood diamonds or the tribals in our own country, India.

Extremely informative and heart wrenching book written from the perspective of the tribal communities of Bastar. Gives particularly detailed information about the Salwa Judum and how it was utilized by the state to clear the grounds for big businesses to operate in the region. They suffer from the hands of the state, the corporates and the naxals. Nandita, the author, has been working on tribal issues for decades now and was a part of the fact finding committee constituted by the Supreme Court to probe the excessive use of state power to oppress tribals. This is a story of villages being burnt, it's people being killed, it's women being raped and kids who are handed guns to kill their own. Puts the blame of the whole insurgency on the inability of the state to provide the tribals with their basic needs. Though she does not support Maoist violence but sympathizes with their need to do something to halt the exploitation of the local populace.

Nandini Sundar is an anthropologist who is well-versed in the history of Bastar and she bases this narrative in the historical and economic roots of the conflict. It's an important book if you want to understand the nature of the civil war and the displacement of populations in central India...

[Vijay Upadhyay · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Burning Forest, is one of the most urgent books and we all should read it. It is filled with intensive research and depicts what is it like to be a tribal in Bastar. But the book can be very easily be said to be representing the lives of any tribal or aboriginal population living in a mineral-rich land, be it the story of tribals in Africa who are consumed by the trade of blood diamonds or the tribals in our own country, India.
They suffer from the hands of the state, the corporates and the naxals. Nandita, the author, has been working on tribal issues for decades now and was a part of the fact finding committee constituted by the Supreme Court to probe the excessive use of state power to oppress tribals. This is a story of villages being burnt, it's people being killed, it's women being raped and kids who are handed guns to kill their own. This is a testimony of Bastar though it's people.
.
The only drawback of this book is, as the life of every person (and these are real people) in this goes through similar phases, as each one of them has seen the same fire and blood, that it feels repetitive at times. But then I think this repetition of pain is necessary for us to realise what they go through everyday, and how we watch of this in impunity, how we turn a blind eye to our fellow citizen, to our fellow humans like an ostrich who buries its head in the sand and thinks that nothing is happening. But having said that I think this book narrates such an important story that giving it anything less than 5 star is criminal.

[Sridhar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Naxalism vs Democracy. Salwa Judum vs Human Rights. Police vs SPO. Political judiciary vs Adivasi rights.

Nandini is an accomplished human rights writer. Her book is based on her various field trips in the interiors of Dantewada/Bastar/Usoor and numerous dialogues with the local communities.

While the debate is not new, for those who are interested to read more about Adivasi rights (particularly Salwa Judum movement of 2005), The Burning Forest provides a detailed on-ground view of the happenings. The injustice, helplessness and the tragedy of human life.

At times, the book does seem a bit repetitive and into far minute details- like an FIR report or a personal diary of the author.

[Sako H · Rating 5 out of 5]

I did not know what have happened (or have been happening) to the Adivasis in Baster, India. Nandini Sundar, an anthropologist, reports it clearly and vividly with critical thinking. The contents are cruel and disturbing but since her writing is basically beautiful it is easy and exciting to read. This book should be read more widely not only in India but also in the world because the cruelty towards the Adivasis is still going on and international attention must be paid to it and also because the Adivaisis's circumstances would be applied to other tribes or minority groups; similar cases are more likely to be happening everywhere in the age of neoliberalism.

[Mary Girard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Few books on the subject of the Adivasi and just as few attempt to see their reality from the Adivasi perspective. Bit by bit authenticity of experience is being voiced by the people themselves. Meanwhile Nandini Sunday has opened awareness to those of us who are outsiders. We all must know the true human and ecological cost of development and find a different way that just might include the Adivasi.

[Conrad Barwa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heart=breaking account of the Indian state's war against its own adivasi citizens in central India. Particularly eye-opening are the detailed stories about the extensive atrocities committed by the Salwa Judum, including killing of children and old people, mass rapes, aribitrary executions, burning of villages and widespread looting. Essential reading.

[Kushal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very informational but a bit too wrapped up in repetitive minutiae. Explores the view from the ground level in great detail, but not enough from higher up.

[Neha · Rating 4 out of 5]

A must read book really. What makes you trust the writer and give a huge value to this book is the sheer amount/ years of ground work done and described in the book. The first hand accounts of interaction with all parties involved in the conflict. It tells you the real picture of the conflict in chattisgarh and also tells you how unreliable our media is when it comes to painting the whole picture. The writer mainly talks of the failure of government to prevent and deal with and manage the adivasi rights violation and following naxalism. She is more of pro adivasi rather than pro naxalism. She briefly talks about the opportunities naxalism failed to utilize to actually improve the lives of adivasi. Although the wishful dreamy happy ending she has painted in the epilog is too fairy tale like and unrealistic.

[Formed · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The late nineteenth century belonged to the forest department, where forests were reserved to meet the shipbuilding and railway needs of the British, and the twentieth century belonged to the public engineers who built dams, the twenty-first century is undoubtedly – at least so far – the century for public–private partnerships in mining."

[Anandh Sundar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though the author is biased she does write a neutral view of how counter insurgency; non tribals;; development and class difference between tribals has resulted in the Bastar issue. Must read

[Paras · Rating 3 out of 5]

A detailed and often disturbing account of the goings on during the worst of Naxal terrorism and the hapless tribals caught in the cross fire.

[Arun R · Rating 4 out of 5]

Over the last few years, there were many books published on the Maoists in Bastar and their conflicts with State. But, most of them tried to paint the picture with a broader brush and mainly narrated the travels made to the inlands of Maoist strongholds, their way of life in the forests and the rough terrain of Dandakaranya. Little time and efforts were spent on the life and struggle of the villagers caught in the crossfire between the insurgents and the State sponsored army, Salwa Judum.

Nandini Sundar's book, The Burning Forest is an answer to this. She is a respected sociologist and Activist who has been working and writing about the Maoist vs State conflict for more than a decade. In this book she narrates the life of the villagers who are at the mercy of the Maoists and the officials at the same time. Details of the atrocities done by the civilian army, Salwa Judum, with the support from State Police and other paramilitary forces, over the years are explained with narration from the affected people.

The book gives insights on the games the politicians play across the parties to amass power and wealth, the burning of villages and killing the innocent people including small children in the name of naxalite affiliation, the killings by Maoists in the name of informers, the individual heroes who try to bring out the truth even while living in life-threatening situations.

Reading this book is recommended for anyone interested to know politics of the maoist insurgency and the counter-insurgency of State with innocent people caught in-between. It will give a true picture more than any box column news inside the English print press or a scroll in your TV screen.

[Vn · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first 2/3 of the book seemed like reality must be somewhere between the author's romanticism and the State's demonisation of Maoists and the Vice versa for the Salwa Judum. I almost gave up reading. But the last third chronicles the efforts on bringing in normalcy by the civil society activists and makes for compelling reading. Highly recommended reading for everyone who is interested in the subject.

[Ujval Nanavati · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not much more needs to be said about this book than what Amartya Sen says on the cover: "A very important book which should be widely read".

A country waging war on its own people; perhaps the most innocent of people. First in the name of development and then when these people said they do not want this "development", in the name of security.

Read about how a government murders the constitution and its own people without an ounce of guilt.

[Anushri Nanavati · Rating 5 out of 5]

This woman's courage to write a book like this in times like these is phenomenal.