‘Gram Swaraj’ that the Father of the Nation envisaged

Tushar Gandhi writes:

• “Bapu had said that it is a patriotic duty to fight against an anti-people government, even if it was one elected by us. What is happening in Chhattisgarh, Orissa and Jharkhand is the beginning of this battle. On the face of it, it does appear that Maoists or Naxalites are waging a war against official India, but in reality they are succeeding because they have convinced the rural poor and especially the tribals that they are fighting on their behalf. The Maoists have convinced the rural poor and the tribals that the government is their en emy and the only way they can get what is rightfully th­eirs is by waging war on the government and to destroy by violence the system and society that denies them their rights as citizens.
• India has been a independent democracy for more than sixty years and in that period, successive governments have successfully created two very different nations, a minority one in its developed, parasitic, affluent urban areas and the other deprived, undeveloped, poverty stricken and criminally exploited in its villages, populated by its majority poor citizens. An affluent, westernised, high net worth India and a poor, illiterate, undeveloped Bharat. Two nations deeply divided by poverty, disparity, illiteracy and official apathy. In the not too distant past, the present homer minister, who was then the finance minister, shamelessly toasted the boo ming economy of India with the barons of Indian industry in New York. It did not matter to him that the women of rural India were still defecating in the open, it did not matter to him that village children had to travel 25 km one way to reach schools imparting higher education, it did not matter to him that tribals in many states were dying of malnutrition and starvation, it did not matter to him that farmers in Vidarbha were committing suicide because they were facing total economic ruin.
• ,………..the massacre of the security forces, must be condemned in the severest terms, but the government is more to blame for this then the Maoist, Naxalite killers. Look at the working conditions of our police and paramilitary forces.
• The war on the Naxalites, Maoists will not be won by police action. If the Maoists, Naxalites are to be defeated, the government will have to work to bring about ‘Gram Swaraj’ that the Father of the Nation envisaged. An India made up of self sufficient, self reliant, equitably developed villages and villagers.”