This relates to the National Interest article,The bleeding heartless,by Shekhar Gupta (IE,June 1). In the article,it is mentioned that Padma,the wife of leading Maoist Ramakrishna,managed an orphanage run by the NGO Aman Vedika,with which I am associated. The facts of the matter are as follows.
She requested,initially,for the chance to live in the home and volunteer her services. In time,when a position in the same home fell vacant,she was appointed as one of the home managers because she performed her duties of child care well. No one had the faintest idea about her true identity. After more than two years with us,she applied for 10 days of leave for the first time. A few days later,we heard from the newspapers that she was Padma,second wife of a Maoist leader,and she was arrested by the police in Orissa.
On the larger question of Maoist sympathies,I have absolutely none. I have consistently written and spoken about my unambiguous and resolute opposition to all forms of violence,including Maoist violence. I have strongly and consistently disagreed with those,among them my liberal friends,who in any way romanticise or even indirectly rationalise their resort to violence,and those who suggest that their violence is justified because of the structural violence of poverty,exploitation and state violence. I feel that there is no such thing as altruistic violence. Violence,even when deployed in the name of the oppressed,ultimately brutalises all,and the oppressed suffer the most. The only legitimate instruments to fight injustice,in my opinion,are non-violence and democracy.
Mander is a writer and activist
