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I shook my head in disbelieve. "That adds a whole new meaning to the term, the untouchables," I interjected. "They try to destroy a people without ever having to touch anyone."
"It's easy to loose one's humanity in this chaos," said Indira. "Is it any wonder then that no one dares to even think in terms of the universal marriage of humanity, much less acknowledge it as an absolute fact?"
"Still, the overriding fact remains," I said. "After everything has been considered the fact remains that we are all human beings, regardless of the evidence to the contrary."
Indira nodded and smiled again. She even said that she agreed with me. "Still, I want you to know how we live," said Indira. "I want you to understand how it is that our people are driven into the arms of the guerrilla organizations, the Naxalites, and how the whole society becomes evermore deeply divided in its total denial of its most precious pearl, its humanity. This loss happens more or less on all sides, and on levels. But why is it happening? Why are we doing this to ourselves? The Naxalites are advocating the use of violence to achieve a just land redistribution, which can never be achieved on the platform of violence. There have been many violent attacks by the Naxalites on the Thevar groups, against both the landlords and the police, even against some village officials. The Naxalites have been killing them, and killing their families, even seizing their property. The Naxalites have also often been in direct combat with the police, which they regard as the people's enemy. In response, the police have targeted all villagers whom they believed to be sympathetic to the Naxalites. Since the Naxalites pose a threat that the police have a mandate to counter, the police use this faint excuse to terrorize the Dalits as a group, regardless of whether or not any of them are members of Naxalite organizations. In these raids the police routinely beat the villagers, sexually assault the women, and wantonly destroy the little bit of property that the Dalits own as the poorest of the poor. Still, I agree with you that we are all one people of a common humanity. Unfortunately our society just hasn't learned yet what this means. But then, which society has?"
I nodded. "The turnaround hasn't even begun?" I said. "It hasn't begun anywhere in the world. Mankind as made no real progress for 4,000 years in creating a higher respect for people's humanity. Fascism is bigger today than it was in the days of the Roman Empire, or the Venetian Empire, or the countless other empires. The 'Whore of Babylon' still rules. For 4,000 years violence has ruled, and fighting violence with violence, and things only got worse. We haven't learned this lesson in the West either. I suppose your landlords fight back with violence against the Naxalites," I added. "I suppose they too want to prove that they value their humanity just as little as the Naxalites do."
Indira nodded, then shook her head. "The Thevars don't fight back themselves. They fight back in other ways. They've hired organized private militias, the Senas, to do the killing for them. The Senas are bands of professional killers who target Dalit villagers that are believed to be sympathetic to the Naxalites. There have been hundreds of murders of Dalits at the hands of the Senas. One of the more prominent militias is said to have massacred more than 400 Dalit villagers. They are proud of their record. Last months alone, on the first of December, one of the Senas shot dead sixteen children in the village were I had worked, and twenty-seven women, and eighteen men, all in a single night. The village is Laxmanpur-Bathe. Five of the teenage girls were raped. Then they were mutilated alive before they were shot in the chest. That is how they treat children. The members of the Sena claimed that the villagers were sympathetic to a Naxalite group that had been demanding more equitable land redistribution in the area."
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