Why was Niyamat Ansari Killed? : The Politics of NREGA and the Maoists

The gruesome murder of NREGA activist Niyamat Ansari has shocked the progressive civil society and political groups in the country. According to reports (one, two), Niyamat Ansari had exposed a case of corruption in NREGA and an FIR was lodged against a former BDO and another Panchayat Sevak of Manika block, Latehar (Jharkhand). On 2nd March 2011, Niyamat Ansari was picked from his house and beaten to death. The reports also suggest that the “real mastermind” behind the murder is a contractor who receives protection from local politicians. Some other media reports claimed that the local SP even made a statement saying that Niyamat Ansari had a “debatable past” and was wanted in several criminal cases. The Indian Express, however, published an apology for carrying such stories without much basis either in real events or the reports sent by DM and SP of Latehar (see here, point 13). It is known to all that most of these cases were lodged by the vested interests involved in fudging NREGA funds.

Most of the facts listed above are available in media and the vicious propaganda against Niyamat and others has been effectively countered by now. This note attempts to ask the more fundamental question about NREGA, civil society and the Maoists by going deeper into the problem of acute violence over NREGA in states like Jharkhand.

We propose, here, that the brutal murder of Niyamant Ansari constitutes a wake-up call for the progressive sections of Indian society towards at least two widespread tendencies among certain intellectuals and media. The first tendency concerns the dominant perception of NREGA in the liberal media as a “destabilising scheme” which orients fiscal policy and rural labour market towards disequilibrium. At the same time, “the discourse of NREGA-II has a disproportionate tilt towards tackling issues of migration, demand generation (through professional NGOs), high-value asset creation and skill generation so that one inexpensive act could compensate for historical injustices, agrarian crisis, unemployment, low education, drastically reduced public investment in agriculture and everything else” (see, ‘Musings on MGNREGA-II’ at http://www.pragoti.org/node/3908 for an extensive treatment of the politics behind NREGA-II). The neoliberal discomfort over NREGA cannot be more ironic since, in this version, NREGA merely disturbs the fiscal stance and distorts the labour markets. The neoliberal dilemma has nothing to do with the “fact of universal guaranteed employment” and its radical potential within the agrarian social structure and rural power configurations, even in its most limited avatar. As we have noted earlier about MGNREGA-II, “it is a way to de-emphasise the ‘political’ attributes and objectives of NREGA. It is routine yet profound; innocuous yet deep-reaching and procedural yet political. Hence, the only way to fight it is to expose it” (ibid.).

The second tendency is to link the struggle for NREGA in rural India to the Maoist movement. Interestingly again, the Maoist movement is touted as fighting for the rights of Adivasis and other deprived sections of the population but making a concession when the Indian state undertakes developmental programmes like NREGA. This view is located in a certain “welfare” model of Maoist movement in India and also tends to oversimplify the complex way through which NREGA has been perceived and implemented, both from the policy as well as people’s sides. The foregoing case has been made very strongly by Banerjee and Saha (2010) where they claim that,

(T)he social support base of the Maoists comprise mainly dalits and adivasis who are mostly landless or small/marginal peasants. Anything that helps them improve their livelihood is not going to be touched by the Maoists since they are not in a position to provide a better economic option. Also, the Maoists have been encouraging the conduct of social audits since this helps in the creation of a new kind of democratic practice hitherto unseen in India. The people have a say in their own development which is probably coterminus with the Maoist conception of people’s power over their own matters. Overall, it seems that the NREGA is not a programme with which the Maoists in backward areas have a tense relation.

The purpose of the present note is limited to contest, at a preliminary level, the aforementioned understandings about employment guarantee in the Indian context.

Let us begin with the original moorings of NREGA, as it was conceptualised and passed by the parliament. To cut the story short, it is illustrative to note that the Right to Food Campaign, while welcoming NREGA 2005 for its impact on poverty, rural-urban migration, women’s empowerment, public assets in rural areas, rural power equations and bargaining power of unorganized workers; defined the 2005 act as ‘half hearted employment guarantee act’. After the victory of UPA-II, however, NREGA began to be treated as a “once and for all” rural development policy. The very fact that NREGA which, at its best, provides a minuscule survival relief to rural poor households has become such an important public policy catch for the Congress party reflects on the wretched state of our social and political reality. If the causal link between NREGA and electoral gain of the UPA-II is established, then from the demand side, it shows deep levels of desperation and inequality that inflicts our society as well as a crude manifestation of widespread marginalization of rural labour in India. From the supply side, post-NREGA-II, it reflects the mischievous and farcical processes of insulated policymaking and mainstream politicking in the country. It is also clear that the ruling class, while absolutely appropriating NREGA, is positioning NREGA-II as the final panacea for resolving numerous contradictions and conflicts facing the country that historical processes and neoliberal policy have created and sustained.

In this specific context, the longstanding and powerful resistance at the lower-end of NREGA implementation presents a shocking contrast to the neoliberal version. This happens even while NREGA is far from a “guaranteed” programme and most of the provisions under the act are rarely followed in backward regions like Jharkhand. The list of threats and harassment of NREGA activists across the country is long. In Jharkhand, the murder of Lalit Mehta in May 2008 and now the brutal killing of Niyamant Ansari show that the rural power elite are deeply in opposition to the state employing “wage labour” above subsistence wage rates. In semi-feudal agrarian contexts, the problem is the sheer amount of control that landlords exercise over the productive workforce. The core of resistance against NREGA is not merely “corruption” but the fact that corruption exists because of deep-rooted nexus between the contractors, the landed elites and the local government functionaries. NREGA did start to lay open the secrets of rural labour market in India to the uninitiated, not restructuring labour relations in agriculture. In this way, many concerns regarding reduction in migrant labour due to NREGA back in the village are, to say the least, premature and misplaced.

This leads us to the second aspect of the dominant perception of NREGA and the Maoists. The murders of Lalit Mehta and Niyamat Ansari (and, of course, many others) have something in common, that is, the clear involvement of the local contractors, government officials and the local landlords-turned-politicians. The supposed “contradiction” in the second tendency identified in the opening paragraph is the following: why should Maoists kill NREGA activists?

We highlight, here, the facts related to the involvement of Maoists in the killing of Niyamat Ansari. The statement (also see local newspaper reports) issued by South Latehar Sub-zonal Committee of CPI (Maoist) not only claims the responsibility of the murder but also provides a motive for the act. According to the statement, Niyamat was killed because he did not report for a “Jan Adalat” conducted by CPI (Maoist) and turned police informer[1]. The statement also accuses Niyamat and Bhukan Singh of usurping forest land and creating discord between villagers in the area while threatening Bhukan Singh of the same fate if he does not fall in line. Bhukan Singh has been staying in Manika block office/Latehar district office since then to save his life. Another fact finding committee led by PUCL and United Milli Forum reports the same sequence of events. A press release by PUDR titled “On the Gruesome Killing of Niyamat Ansari in Latehar District” (dated 8th March) also corroborates the responsibility and motive of the Maoists in this “most horrifying” act. The PUDR statement, however, maintains that since CPI (Maoist) claims to further the agenda of justice for all, such murders do not befit their ideological goals. Further reports also suggest the same events as many prominent NREGA activists and others issued a statement demanding judicial probe and “apology” from CPI (Maoist). The Right to Food Campaign has also issued a statement (dated 7th March) condemning the murder and has demanded a CBI probe into the matter. The statement concludes by saying that, “(T)his murder is an act of despicable barbarity for which no excuse can be allowed”.

It is interesting to note that many of these statements contain (and, sometimes, expressed) an element of surprise that the Maoists have committed this heinous crime. Here, we need to take a closer look at the statement issued by the CPI (Maoist). The said statement absolves all other accused named in the FIR as innocents, including notorious criminals of the region. Lest this sounds like a conspiracy theory, we must clarify that Maoists have enduring interests in colluding with local contractors and receiving protection money, often taken in the form of a fixed “percentage” of total project amount. The Maoists, for this reason, have never objected to the rampant private contractors under NREGA, which is illegal according to the provisions of the act. Nor have they intervened in the matters of wage payments and decentralisation of powers to Panchayats. This is not only true of NREGA but many other government schemes and even landed interests in agriculture. No wonder, it is far more important for the survival of Maoists to oppose any state intervention in whatever form and ideological direction. A related feature of this Maoist project is its inherent closeness with the post-modern worldview and attempting to chart an ostensibly “independent”, backward-looking reinvention of the wheel. This project imposes more severe constraints on democratic choices of people and forces them to adopt the singular political way through military means.

On the other hand, the security reason i.e. roads and other development projects make Maoists susceptible to attack by police, as proposed by Banerjee and Saha (cited above) is obviously even more outrageous. This effectively means that Maoists have every right to first forcibly establish an extensive armed apparatus encircling civilian populations and then “defend” it from the state agencies. Nothing can be far from mass-democratic political practice.

To conclude, let us go back to the original proposition made during the opening paragraphs. Both the neoliberal regime and the Maoists have similar fears about NREGA and, by implication, state involvement in development. While neoliberalism has an ideological agenda against state intervention, Maoists are ideologically against the state itself. The civil society should not be misled by the Maoists about their “developmental” concessions to the Indian state rather we must, at a basic level, problematise the role of Maoists in large-scale forced militarisation, mindless cycles of violence and their idea of democracy and progress. If the mass-democratic left in the country forces the state to carry out positive developmental tasks in the “free red corridor”, what legitimacy would Maoists possess?

References

Banerjee, Kaustav and Partha Saha (2010). “The NREGA, the Maoists and the Developmental Woes of the Indian State”, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 45, No. 28, pp. 42-47.

Bhatia, Bela (2005). “The Naxalite Movement in Central Bihar”, Economic and Political Weekly, April 9, pp. 1536-1549.

Note

[1] We must note that the standard manner in which ideological (or petty-personal) conflicts are resolved in the Naxalite movement is through long drawn factional fights and often terming the individual concerned as police informer (see Bhatia 2005). The killing, in the cocoon of Naxalite movement, is then justified.

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