They may be remote and disconnected from electricity, dispensaries and schools, but several villages in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar region abutting large tracts of forest boast of well-maintained roads. An activist who works to boost awareness among the Adivasis about their traditional rights to forest land attributes the quality of these roads in the conflict region to the influence of Naxalites.
Several villages and administrative blocks in Kanker district (about 150 km from Raipur), such as Narayanpur, Antagarh and Abujhmad, are considered part of the ‘Red corridor’, a zone where Naxalite influence is considered pervasive. Keshav Shori, co-founder of DISHA, says: “In their efforts to reach deeper into the State and counter the Naxalites, the government and security forces have invested in building pucca, all weather roads. Where you see great roads, you also see military men and their camps. That brings about its own set of problems.”
Indeed, no settlement of the forest villages in Kanker or Narayanpur district is too far away from a camp site. A soldier from the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) says he has already spent four years in the Antagarh forest. A photographer colleague and I were in the district for a story about the forest rights of the Adivasis. When my colleague took some innocuous photographs of the majestic sal and mahua trees, a barrage of Army men approached us and demanded that the photographs be deleted.
The SSB is tasked with guarding the various infrastructure projects coming up in the region, particularly the 235-km railway line that will connect Jagdalpur district with the Rowghat mines. Though the project was commissioned more than two decades ago, the Maoist insurgency and the general intractability of the region had considerably delayed the railway line’s progress. “Even if everything looks peaceful on the surface, there’s always uncertainty. Anything can happen any time over here. Half a kilometre from here, some months ago, an improvised explosive device went off,” the soldier says. “If any adverse report from this area reaches our superiors, we’re hauled up and get into trouble.”
The solid roads bring the Army men closer to the villages, but without dispelling the mutual suspicion that seems ever-present among the tribals and the security personnel. It’s hard to tell if a particular villager is a Naxalite, an informant or a courier, another soldier says.
The passive friction plays out even among the stray dogs in the villages. Several camps have their police dogs who accompany the soldiers when they are out patrolling. The dogs are well fed and well nourished, and several times, says Mr. Shori, the local strays tag along with the Army dogs and attack the domestic fowl in the villages. “When the villagers demand compensation from the Army men, they refuse to pay saying that it wasn’t their dogs that devoured the fowl,” he says.
With India’s cities incessantly hungry for the coal and minerals that abound in Chhattisgarh’s forests, governments — whether Congress or the BJP — are unlikely to ever stop building roads that will reach deeper into the heart of the forests. But how effectively they win hearts is still a story in the making.