Tribals angry with activists fighting for human rights of Naxals while ignoring poor ‘adivasis’ threw rotten eggs and tomatoes at Magsaysay award winner Medha Patkar and Sandeep Pandey as they reached Dantewada town in Chhattisgarh on Wednesday January 6 2010, While Medha, being a woman, did not face much humiliation, her companion Pandey was pulled down from the motorcycle and given a hiding. He was pushed around and asked why the activists had done nothing for the tribals but found cause to support Naxals.

Medha, who leads Narmada Bachao Andolan, and Pandey who founded Asha for Education, were on their way to participate in a ‘jan sunwai’ (people’s court) in Naxal-hit areas on Thursday. Patkar and Pandey were on a motorbike when tribals carrying banners of ‘Maa Danteswadi Adivasi Swabhimaan Manch’ surrounded them, asking them to go back. Shouting slogans like “Wapas jao, wapas jao (go back)’, the tribals alleged that NGOs “support Naxals under the pretext of human rights.”

The police resorted to lathicharge to rescue Patkar and Pandey. Dantewada SP Ambreesh Mishra, however, said the two should have been more careful. “We have been telling human rights activists that the situation in Dantewara is highly volatile. If they plan to visit these areas, they should inform the administration so that we can provide them with protection. Neither Patkar nor Pandey informed us. After they were rescued, we advised them to leave Dantewara,” SP Mishra said.

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People get long jail sentences in Thailand for criticizing the royal family. So the Thai media have been silent on the question of what happens after the death of King Bhumibol Adulyadej. But the king is 81 years old, and he has been in hospital for a month now. So there are widespread fears that he is dying. Recently, the Bangkok stock market fell by 8 per cent in a day on rumours that his health is worse than the palace admits.

Bhumibol has been on the throne for 63 years, and he is universally revered. Thailand is three years into the worst political crisis it has seen since it became a democratic country two decades ago, and the king is just about the only unifying factor that remains.

The crisis is the result of democracy. Thailand has become a semi-developed country — average income has risen forty-fold since Bhumibol came to the throne — but most of the population is still rural and quite poor. Their votes used to be bought by powerful local politicians and delivered to whichever urban-based party paid the highest price, but no more. As the people of the overwhelmingly rural north and north-east acquired more education, they started using their votes to back politicians who promised to defend their interests. In 2001, they elected a populist politician of humble origins called Thaksin Shinawatra as prime minister.

Thaksin had made a fortune in telecommunications, and he probably couldn’t have won the elections if he wasn’t rich. But he did govern in the interests of the poor, and he was re-elected with an increased majority in 2005. It was how you would expect a maturing democracy to work, for the poor always outnumber the rich. But you would also expect a backlash from the traditional ruling elite, and it came in the form of the People’s Alliance for Democracy, a yellow-shirted movement that actually aimed to roll back democracy. By provoking confrontations in the streets with Thaksin’s supporters, the PAD created a pretext for its allies in the army to seize power in a coup in 2006.

Silent prayers

The PAD’s urban, middle class supporters can control the streets of the capital and even overthrow governments they don’t like, but they cannot force the rural majority to abandon its own loyalties. The country is dangerously polarized and politically paralysed, and many Thais believe that only King Bhumibol can hold the country together.

Maybe it’s true, although there are suspicions that he actively supported the 2006 coup. At any rate, the king’s death would greatly deepen the crisis, for his likely successor is not loved.The crown prince, Maha Vajiralongkorn, has led a turbulent life, including three marriages. His attitude has probably not been improved by living for 57 years in the shadow of his father. He would be a perfectly serviceable constitutional monarch in normal times, but the Thai people have decided that they do not like him very much.

Vajiralongkorn is so lacking in the respect that has enabled his father to play a mediating role that there are those who quietly suggest that his sister, Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, might perform the duties of the monarchy better. Thai law has been changed to allow women to occupy the throne, and the constitution leaves the final right to designate an heir to the senior advisors to the king.

They are unlikely to change the succession, but the mere fact that it could happen introduces another element of uncertainty into the equation. This gives Thais another reason to pray for Bhumibol’s recovery. The almost daily reports from the palace on the king’s condition are always upbeat, but there have been references to a “lung inflammation,” which is a delicate way of saying pneumonia. That is potentially a killer in a man of his age, and the worries of the Thai public are justified.