A sociologist documents the decades-long war in Bastar between the Indian state, Salwa Judum vigilantes, and Maoist insurgents, and its toll on adivasi communities and Indian democracy.
A state can obey a court ban in name only. When judges banned arming civilians as special police, the government renamed them an auxiliary force, effective from the date of the judgment, and gave them better guns. Watchdog bodies either did nothing or helped cover up abuses, and no victim was compensated.
When a government arms local villagers as vigilantes to fight rebels, burning villages and driving people into camps, it pushes more people toward the rebels. In the case the book examines, the state's own intelligence reports found that the vigilante campaign greatly increased support for the insurgents.
Armed movements gain acceptance among the poor by taking up their daily complaints. These include bullying by forest and revenue officials, land distribution, and control over forest produce and other livelihoods. From there they can build a rough parallel government of their own.
A government can frame a revolt as a law-and-order problem to be crushed when it is really a problem of rights and the rule of law. Those who profit from the land and its resources have reasons not to see this. Once the problem is framed this way, killings, security camps and militarised land follow, and the police become the main source of insecurity.
Violence, even when aimed at real injustice, can decay into brutality and corruption. Both sides can claim to want peace for the people while holding on to armed methods. The people they claim to protect are the ones crushed between them.