Mahendra Karma

Mahendra Karma^[1] is a politician from Chhattisgarh, India. He was the leader of the opposition in the Chhattisgarh Vidhan Sabha from 2003 to 2008 and belongs to the Congress party. In 2005, he organised the Salwa Judum movement against Naxalites (Maoists) in Chattisgarh. The initiative was praised by the Chief Minister Raman Singh, but has been criticized as a "Vigilante militia" (sic) by pro-Naxalite groups. He was a minister in the Ajit Jogi cabinet.

Career

Karma was accused of criminal conspiracy in a CBI FIR report dated 8.12.1998 on the malik makbuja scam.^[2] The malik makbuja right refers to the right of peasants to cut trees on their own land. A widespread scam in the 1990s led to the large scale illegal felling of trees in Bastar. It’s a classic instance of how forest and timber resources in the region have been cornered by non-adivasi and adivasi elites.

The CBI FIR stated "The facts contained in the writ petition, reports of Lok Ayukta and its connected papers, prima facie show that the above-named officials of Govt. of Madhya Pradesh and land owners namely Mahendra Karma, Rajaram Todem, Suresh Chand Surana, Srinivasan Awasthi, Brij Mohan Gupta and others were party of criminal conspiracy during 1992-96 to cause wrongful gain to the land owners in the matter of felling trees. It is alleged that the accused public servants bestowed undue favours to the said land owners and others and illegally accorded permission to fell a large number of valuable timber trees on the basis of forged and fabricated documents and in utter disregard of the provisions of the MP Protection of Aboriginal Tribes (Interest in Trees) Rule 1957 and Madhya Pradesh Land Revenue Code 1959."

According to a CBI letter dated 14.10.1999, FIRs had been filed against ten people for offences between 1992 and 1996 in 56 villages. However, no further action has been taken against Mahendra Karma or any of the other accused.

Formation of Salwa Judum

Karma, an ethnic adivasi, formed the Salwa Judum, a supposedly anti-Naxalite movement led by local elites. Despite being an opposition party member, Karma aggressively lobbied in order to get bipartisan support for the Salwa Judum, and largely succeeded in 2005, when Salwa Judum was adopted by the state government and recruited as a corp of "Special Police Officers". They were given broad latitude in their actions.^[1] After the Supreme Court expressed disapproval of the Salwa Judum movement in 2008 and asked the state of Chhattisgarh to implement remedial measures mentioned in the National Human Rights Commission report which had detailed widespread human rights abuses committed by the Salwa Judum, the movement slowly started to disappear from the Chhattisgarh state.^[3]

In 2008 he was showcaused by the election commission as he was photographed by a media outlet , allegedly offering money to vote for him. An FIR was also lodged.^[4] It was asked of him to "take it easy" and blamed him for the large scale exodus that took place from the villages by terrorised villagers .^[5] An estimated 60,000 people become refugees in their own homeland.^[5]

References

1. ^ ^{a b} [1]
2. ^ When the state makes war against its own people PUDR Report, May 17, 2006.
3. ^ Salwa Judum disappearing: Chhattisgarh Hindu, Feb 6, 2009.
4. ^ http://www.merabsp.com/UrNews.aspx?News=0001004
5. ^ ^{a b} http://www.hindu.com/fline/fl2310/stories/20060602001710100.htm

External links

• An article in Outlook

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