Role Of Naxalites In India

In this essay, I examine some possible historical reasons as to why one of the routes being taken by the state to resolve the Naxalite conflict is by providing free education opportunities. The ideas explored in this essay are – Schooling as a method of shaping modern society, the importance of national integration and the role the school plays, and education in the realm of Naxals and Adivasis and their integration in to modern Indian society.

15th August 1947, sees India taking control of itself as an independent, sovereign nation. Jawaharlal Nehru instructs the new citizens of India, in his speech ‘Tryst with Destiny’ of the ‘task ahead’ which would transform India, by ‘ending poverty and ignorance and disease and inequality of opportunity’.
This marginalized population have “gained least and lost most from six decades of democracy and development in India”. The Adivasis of India see no hope for survival in terms of their citizenship and livelihood, connected to the state. The state on the other hand has neglected the marginalized population and has not kept to their constitutional responsibilities. The Naxalites, assumed protectors of the Adivasi are also in two minds about the emancipation of the marginalized. They see the participation of Adivasis in everyday life as treason to their cause. Looking at an Adivasi obtaining rations or surplus from the government shops is an act of encouragement for the government and the politicians, whom the Naxalites are fighting. It is the physical location of the Adivasis that have put them in this unfortunate position. The hills and forested regions are inaccessible for politicians and lawmakers and are prime lands for organized guerilla warfare. But there is a historical reason for this as well. Jaipal Singh, in 1946 said, “if there is any group of people that has been treated shabbily it is my people… we have been neglected for 6000 years… a child of the Indus Valley civilization that I am, I can say that it is you who are the outsiders, who have pushed us to the forests”. We can say with certainty that the treatment of Adivasi’s by both the government and the Naxalites
We require numerous certificates and validations proving that we are ‘educated’. For this, all of us must attend schools, and study “numerous texts, and pass innumerable tests at different stages of our ‘cognitive development’. According to Dewey, “Education in its broadest sense, is the means of this social continuity of life”. It helps us retain and communicate our cultural heritage. There is a difference between socialization and education. Children in an adivasi community are perhaps far more socialized than educated because they tag along with their parents to the work place. Seeing their parents work, introduces them to their reality on a first-hand basis. Whereas they may not be educated at all. Adivasi communities in India face a great deal of difficulty when trying to prove their identities at government centers. Because they are illiterate, they are unware of the documents required and the requirements for their basic rations, that they are enlightened to. Primarily this is the fault of the government. Being aware of the situation ever since independence and neglecting the adivasis is probably the largest mistake made by the government regarding marginalized