Violence has always been a part
of human behaviour. It manifests itself in different forms and degrees. Humans
as hunter gatherers perpetrated violence by uprooting plants and killing
animals to survive. Settlements led to periodic and sustained violence by
clearing forests for agriculture, killing of pests to protect the produce and
harvesting the crop to feed oneself. Over a period of time some forms of
violence became acceptable. Survival is the biggest instinct and humans, like
all other forms of life ensure that they survive as individuals and as a
species. What was not acceptable was violence against a fellow human. It was
branded as crime and attracted punishment, often punishable by another set of
violent actions.
Humans have moved on from being
mere hunter-gatherers and farmers. We have codified laws, which warn us against
committing violence against fellow humans and animals. But violence still
persists. Throughout history we have evidence of violence against fellow
humans. The twentieth century saw some of the most heinous episodes of violence
where millions perished. The concentration camps run by the Nazis across
Europe, the death march of Armenians by Ottoman Turkey, the forced labour camps
run by Stalin
in Communist Russia, Mao’s Cultural
Revolution and the great
leap forward in Communist China, were all despicable acts of violence
against fellow humans. The five episodes of mass violence claimed approximately
86 million people. Of this 77% or 67 million lost their lives in Communist
Russia and China. The Red Brigade was a formidable force when it came to
killing its own people.
The ideology of eliminating one’s
opponent has not died down even after the death of Communism in both Russia and
China. Both countries remain extremely authoritative and suppress rights of
their own citizens. The Communist ideology has replicated its tendencies of
eliminating its opponents where ever it went. India is no exception. The seven
political murders this year in Kerala is a case in point.
The only two states where the
Communists could ever win elections have seen one of the worst kinds of
political killings. Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, then minister of Information and
Cultural Affairs, in a response to an assembly question has stated that between
1977 and 1996, around 28,000 political murders took place in West Bengal. That
is almost 3.8 murders a day. The political murders in West Bengal predate
their accession of power in 1977. The Sainbari Killings of 1970 is one such
incident where the Communists are believed to have fed rice drenched in blood
of the victims to their mother. The political opponents of the Left who were
killed belonged to the Congress and later on to the Trinamool Congress. The
cycle has hardly stopped after a second round of resounding defeat of the
Communists.
The state of affairs in Kerala is
not much different. Only the number of murders are less. There are no reliable statistics
available on the actual number of political killings in Kerala. However, an RTI
response revealed that between 1997 and 2008, 56 people were killed in
internecine violence. The numbers would have gone up since then. This year
alone has seen seven political murders in Kerala, most of them from the Malabar
region where the Communists have a strong support base.
It will be wrong to blame the
Communists for the spate of political murder since many of the dead belonged to
the Communist carders. The blame lies equally on the other side too. But then
there is the question of, “why only states ruled/dominated by the Communist
parties see such political killings”? The opponents of Communists, both the
Congress and the BJP are in power in many states. We do not read about mass
killings carried out by either the Congress or the BJP against each other in
those states. It is always the states ruled or dominated by the Communist
parties, from where such barbaric stories come from.
The red brigade in India is running
a riot. Killing opponents instead of defeating them at the ballot. Their
leaders have the courage to write opinion pieces and give television bytes to
portray themselves as victims. As India becomes more educated, more aware and
more informed, there is hope that the killing machines of Communist parties
will be stopped, by Indians.
