To understand what goes behind the curtains of red corridor it’s important to know about the history of Naxals. Who are these Naxals and what do they want? 

“Naxal” got its name from a small village in West Bengal called Naxalbari.

1967 saw the peasant uprising here in Naxalbari which eventually gave the followers of this far-left radical communist ideology, the name- Naxal. This movement was founded by Kanu Sanyal, Jangal Santhal and Charu Majundar, whose “Historic Eight Documents” eventually became the guideline for “Red Revolution”. This ideology slowly started spreading into undeveloped areas, mostly the tribal parts of Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. As per R&AW data, by the end of 2008, Naxalites were active in as many as 200 districts across 10 states of India. July 2011 the number of Naxal infested districts were reduced to 83 across 9 states, but this list had 20 additional districts. 

Now, coming back to “what do they want”, there are numerous articles written about oppression of tribals by Landlords leading to the uprising and revolt, so on and so forth. But rarely have we seen someone talk about the nexus that works behind closed doors, and to understand that nexus it’s important to know the natural resources available in these naxal infested lands or the Red Corridor. This nexus not only involves the landlords and politicians but also the “naxal” leaders, Christian missionaries and foreign funded NGO’s. Roots of this nexus run very deep and dates back to British era, when British supported “zamindars” against tribals because they needed good quality wood from forests for building ships. Eventually it was not just wood but also “tendu patta” which is used in making beedis, and then came the mining part which became bigger reason than all of these. 

Let’s have a quick look at Bauxite mining that happens in India. 

Bauxite mining isn’t easy for many reasons and most important being that it’s an open mining also known as strip mining. For bauxite mining, the land is first cleared of all the vegetation and stripped naked. Then almost 4-5 meters of top soil is removed to get through the red bauxite ore underneath. Ideally the mining company can store this top soil and can later fill the land once bauxite is extracted, thus making the land more or less fertile once again. But sadly this doesn’t happen as the whole process gets expensive. Hence what actually happens is, the land Mafia steps in and squires this land to convert into commercial land, yielding high profit. This is the nexus between mining company, politicians, local administration and land Mafia.

Now let’s see where Naxals fit in this unholy nexus.

Because the mining company has to acquire land which belongs to tribals, and because this land will eventually be completely useless for these tribals, protests start to happen. Tribal protests brings in picture the “naxal leaders” who play a double role here. They lead these tribals for protests against mining companies. They even instigate armed and violent protests to get on the advantage side of the bargain. Once the protests turn extremely violent the naxal leader sits on the bargain table with the mining company deciding compensation, and death of few tribals during violence makes the position of naxal leader even more profitable. 

The compensation decided gets distributed amongst politicians, local authorities and naxal leader. The tribal who lost his land gets either pushed to some other patch of land or is forced to leave for nearby town in search of labour work. He still believes his leader is fighting for his rights and land. This whole game keeps playing till mining is over and land gets grabbed by land Mafia and eventually some commercial venture gets erected. 

Have we ever thought who provides arms and ammunition to these tribals? How come these naxal leaders have money to provide and sustain an armed protest?

In 2007, there was a report that had come out, which claimed that the Naxalites were negotiating with an Austrian company for the purchase of arms and ammunition. Our governments have always failed to block the routes funding these Naxalite and from where these arms are procured. Why hasn’t any government yet published the list of corporates that provide direct or indirect funds to these Naxals? 17th April 2010, police confiscated the laptop belonging to Maoist leader Kishanji, and from this laptop they got to know that Naxals had received 12 crore from Jharkhand in 2010 itself. The total money collected by Maoists over 3 years is somewhere above 100 crore. There was also this media report some time back which described how Naxals divert a big chunk of government grant that is being allotted for developmental projects in Maoist affected areas, into their kitty, and it’s done mostly through government staff and sarpanches. 

Talking of funds, a very important source of funding has been foreign NGO’s and missionaries, the last point finishing the full circle of this unholy nexus. Let’s see the role played by these NGO’s and their reason for providing funds to these Naxals.

In the Year 2013, govt identified almost 128 NGO’s who were operating on behalf of various Naxal groups. These NGO’s are spread across 16 states and some being in states with no apparent naxal insurgency whatsoever.

Have we ever thought why only Christian missionaries are present in these naxal infested areas? Why do naxals prefer converting to Christianity and not to any other religion? Remember the huge conversion drive in Andhra Pradesh and Orissa? Both being highly naxal infested states. Christian missionaries get huge funds from the west to carry on their conversion game and tribals from naxal area are the easiest prey. These tribals have been leading a life devoid of basic amenities for ages and Christian missionaries bring them that promise of a civilized life providing medical facilities, schools, toilets and basic lessons on cleanliness. All of this comes with a price tag which is called conversion. Though many Hindu organizations are working towards tribal welfare but a) this awakening came pretty late, and b) Hindu outfits can never match up to the Christian NGO's funded by west. These Christian missionaries keep the deep pockets of naxal-tribal leaders full and in return get full cooperation to operate amongst tribals. The Joshua project's modus operandi is- make life miserable for the tribals and then lead them to conversion giving them the dream of "promised land".

There were few reports that revealed how George Bush had given 20 Billion dollars into the conversion project which is popularly known as the "soul harvesting". The money was used to prepare world database of ethnographic data to make it easy to identify target. The exercise also included a lot of intelligence gathering. Christian organizations like International Mission Board, Christian Aid and Southern Baptist Convention are multi billion organizations and have been investing in conversion projects of tribals in India. Is there any religious organization that buys mines? Why did Church of England invest in mining in India? This 3.8 million pound investment was routed through Vedanta which was one of the biggest mining groups in India till 2010. Vedanta is apparently controlled by Rothschild through funding by some big financial players like HSBC, Deutsch Bank, Citigroup etc. Interestingly Vedanta is also blackened by the infamous Coal Scam of UPA.