Why Naxalism thrives in Andhra Pradesh?

My friends from Mumbai and Delhi have often asked me this question and I must admit that I could never give them a straight answer. Why is that Naxals do not blast railway stations, burn buses or even try and knock of a politician or two in other states, as much as they do here. I don’t have a straight answer for that. It was then that some one told me the answer to the riddle – if you want to know why Naxalism came to Andhra Pradesh then drive around Jubilee Hills.
First, the reasoning didn’t seem to have any logic. But one drive around starting out from somewhere near LV Prasad eye hospital, up the TDP office on to the Check Post and then Road no.36, and I was enlightened. Palatial houses, which must have cost crores abound, as do poor patients and their attendants who sleep on the pavements outside LV Prasad eye hospital.

Each of the palatial houses has an army of servants most of whom have been ‘bought’ at a price and then bonded for life. The ban on child labour does not seem to have any effect on the modern day ‘zamindars’. Servants are treated like dogs by their doras, and with it comes the resentment at what is now a familiar story of exploitation in Andhra Pradesh.
For one thing, there is nothing called a middle class in the villages of Andhra Pradesh. Either the folks are stinking rich or they are dirt poor. Land was the key, and it still is. Which is funny when you consider that politicians are suddenly discovering that they own hundreds of acres of what was assigned lands - ones which legally belong to the poor and downtrodden, specially among the scheduled castes and tribes.
Those who have made a fortune out of these very lands are now ‘donating’ it back to the government. And pray, what about filing cases against them? The reasoning given is obvious. Since the land has been surrendered there can be no case. Using the same logic, all petty thieves lodged in Cherlapalli jail should be freed, since the police have already recovered the loot.

West Bengal has been one state in the country that has been exception in land reforms. The communist party leaders have over decades distributed land to the needy, and with it built up an impregnable voter base in the state. The state is home to Naxalbari, from where the fight began. But it has not seen any major naxal activities in the recent past.
Andhra Pradesh on the other hand failed, and failed miserably. The zamindari system may have gone, but their modern day equivalents are around. Land is only with a select few in this state, and huge numbers of poor are left to kill themselves or take up the gun. I am not advocating the naxal cause, far from it. I think the annalu have made a mess of their cause. Every revolution has a reason, and the naxals in the state lost their moral high ground with mindless killings of so called class enemies.

Which brings us to the hue and cry that has been on for the past two days. How does it matter if Ramoji Rao or Girish Sanghi gobbled up hundreds of acres of land? What have the other doras done? Are their hands clean? True these two big media men are guilty. Punish them. And punish the other big crooks too.

In the name of the poor we know how political leaders have grabbed lands even in the twin cities. Walk around Addagutta in Secunderabad or Bibi ka maktha near the Hussain Sagar Lake. What was once government land, was grabbed by politicians and sold to the unsuspecting poor in the form of pattas. In the rural areas, grabbing is more rampant and brazen, which is what led to all this uproar now.
Close to six decades after Independence, we are a failed state. Despite all the talk of snazzy software companies and glossy pubs, we have not been able to provide a meal a day for millions of our countrymen.
Trust me, just draw you car window down as you drive along Jubilee Hills. Prosperity lives cheek in jowl with poverty — brightly lit Pizza joints to people sleeping on the road outside LV Prasad. There are lots more places in the city where I can give you a conducted tour on what it means to be poor. But then I will sound like Satyajit Ray trying to sell poverty to the West.

Because as someone once sang out, “the whole thing is that bhaiyya, sabse bada rupaiyya.”