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PROXY ATTACK FROM FAR LEFT

  • 14/09/1998

It seemed absurd. The naxalite People's War Group (PWG) forced a non-government organisation (NGO), Samata, to move out of the hill tracts of Visakhapatnam. The absurdity was not so much in the forced eviction, as in the fact that the PWG does not operate in this part of Andhra Pradesh. Reportedly, the PWG charge against the NGO was that it was "creating an illusion among the masses that their problems could be solved within the existing system".

Samata, which had been working in the area for some years, had filed a public interest petition on behalf of tribals opposing the proposed calcite mining in Volasi taluka. The Birlas had been given a licence to mine the calcite and construct a road to transport it from the district. Both the mining and the road construction would have displaced tribals.

The litigants won the case in the Supreme Court, which directed the state government to cancel all private leases in scheduled (tribal) areas. But even as they were celebrating their 'victory', the PWG got interested in the issue and asked Samata and other NGOs to leave the hills.

Who benefited from this? Certainly not the tribals. Nor the government for that matter.

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