Narendra Modi and Chandrababu Naidu are more ruthless to Maoists, says activist Vara Vara Rao

Manasa Chennapragada Updated: Nov 12, 2016 21:05 IST #Andhra Pradesh #Bejangi #Chandrababu Naidu #Chandrasekhar Rao #Communist Party of India #Dadankarnya #Green Hunt Operation #Hindutva #Malkangiri #Maoist #Mission 2016 #Narendra Modi #Naxalbari #Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) #Telenagana #TheySaidIt #Vara Vara Rao #YSR 26 . 225 . . 3 . . . . Communist, poet, activist and writer Vara Vara Rao is not known to mince his words. He is angry at the coming together of imperialism and Hindutva — a dangerous cocktail which, he says, is bent upon killing the Maoist armed rebels. Following the 24 October encounter in Malkangiri, Odisha, when 31 Maoists were gunned down in the wee hours of the morning while they were camping in the forest, Vara Vara Rao and other civil liberties activists have called for justice for those killed. They have also alleged that the encounter was "fake" and that Maoists were tortured brutally before being killed. Representational image. AFP Representational image. AFP Rao’s engagement with the Maoist cause goes back many decades. He was one of the negotiators between Maoists and the YS Rajashekhar Reddy (also known as YSR)-led Congress government in united Andhra Pradesh in 2004. The talks failed and the state, once again, unleashed attacks not only on the Maoists but also foisted cases on Rao and other negotiators, throwing them in jail for months. A renowned writer, poet and founder member of Virasam — a Revolutionary Writers’ Association, Rao lives in Hyderabad and spoke exclusively to Manasa Chennapragada on the recent Malkangiri encounter. Manasa Chennapragada (MC): In your opinion, is the NDA government more aggressive towards Maoist rebels than the UPA government was? Please explain. Vara Vara Rao (VVR): Green Hunt Operation started during 2009 at the time of Manmohan Singh. Now it has reached its third phase and Modi has given it another name — Mission 2016. If you talk from the philosophical point of view, the imperialist has joined the Hindutva brigade. The Modi government, during induction itself had said that it is going to implement Gujarat model all over India. What is the NDA government doing in Chhattisgarh, Dandakaranya and elsewhere? Rajnath Singh twice congratulated the Chief Minister and DGP (of Andhra Pradesh), in fact, earlier to this action (Malkangiri encounter) he had been to Andhra Pradesh and Odisha. It’s a green signal from the central government, and the result is the Bejangi encounter. And, Chandrababy Naidu being a part of NDA, is also responsible. Naidu and Modi alliance is more aggressive because they believe the Maoist moment is a law-and-order problem, not a socio-economic problem. Naidu and Modi government is more ruthless as they are serving a World Bank programme in implementing the imperialist globalisation policy along with Hindutva philosophy. MC: What do you think happened in the Malkangiri encounter? VVR: The government target was the leadership of the party RK (Ramakrishna, a prominent Maoist leader), Uday, Chalapathi and Aruna and that leadership was not caught. They targeted them 16 times but couldn’t find the place they were. During the 17th time they were able to locate and kill other people. http://av.firstpost.com/2016/11/Vara_Vara_Rao.mp4 MC: Sudhakar Reddy, General Secretary of the Communist Party of India, alleges that the Malkangiri killing was not an encounter. He says it appears Maoists had been arrested and later gunned down. Your comments? VVR: Some of them were caught in the second round and tortured — Prabhakar, Barathi and Daya. That way it is not an encounter. MC: Do you feel the TRS (Telangana Rashtra Samiti) government in Telangana is friendlier towards the Maoists than earlier regimes? VVR: It (TRS regime) is Naidu plus YSR, former Congress CM of united AP. See the silence of the TRS government. We see it was Naidu’s action that happened in the Andhra-Odisha border. Among the 31 people who died, three people are from Telangana. Prabhakar worked for Telangana (from 1997 to 2014) longer than Chandrashekar Rao (Telangana CM) who worked from 2001 to 2014. Daya from Nalgonda district has 25 years of experience and Bharathi comes from Medak district. Even for them Telangana government didn’t raise its voice. When we protested against encounter killings they implicated cases against us. They are not friendly, and we don’t any government to be friendly with us. We just want you to obey your principals and the Fundamental Rights of the Constitution. We want the government to be friendly with the people. MC: Please tell us about the press release from Maoists threatening to kill the AP CM and his family. VVR: It was a police statement. They (Maoists) did not make that threat. Also we don’t believe in suicide squads