The “red corridor” is a political standpoint

The current, ongoing conflict is taking place over a vast area of the country, from Odisha in the northeast down to Kerala on the southwest coast; a channel of armed resistance known as the “red corridor” or, depending on your political standpoint, the “memorandums of understanding corridor”. Hundreds of memorandums of understandings have been signed by the government on the one hand and corporate India and multinationals on the other, bestowing development rights for mines, dams, water irrigation, factories, roads and land rights. All have been signed away without due consultation with local people who, like the millions living in dire poverty in the cities, are seen as an embarrassing irritation from the past, to be hidden from view.

Both sides in the fighting claim to be acting on behalf of the rural poor, and both have committed appalling atrocities. Local people as well as civil society groups, are “being caught in the middle of the fighting killed, wounded, abducted, forced to take sides, and then risk retribution”, relates Human Rights Watch.

However, the government has slammed the door in the face of every attempt at non-violent resistance and, inevitably, when people take to arms, there is going to be all kinds of violence revolutionary and outright criminal. Thousands have been killed and many others have been tortured, raped, detained or beaten. Villages have been destroyed, homes blown up.

The insurgency movement estimated by the government to have a presence in almost a third of India’s approximately 600-odd districts across 20 states  is strongest in rural districts that have poor governance and public services, where the government has virtually abandoned the poor. These areas are populated predominantly by Adivasi, Dalit and tribal people.