In need of an egalitarian society, India
chapter 1
Bastar, Chhattisgarh.
Anand was only 5 year old when he had first seen a couple of gunmen kill a cop in the forest. Roaming alone in the Jungle, which used to be a daily excursion with his friends, was now prohibited by the elders of the village.
One night while they were pretending to be asleep on the cold floor of their thatched hut, he whispered to his elder brother, “Who are these people?”
“Khaki ones are the jawans while the others are Naxalwadis”, replied his elder brother, Kishan. Anand hardly understood anything but memorized those names.
By the end of that year, Naxalites had murdered the school head master as he used to pass on useful information to the government. This resulted in increase in the number of security personnel. Soon the school premises turned into their camps. Classrooms, kitchen, toilets!! They were everywhere. A feeling of hesitancy grew among the parents who feared that their children would become victims of sexual harassment in the hands of security persons or their children could be tagged as Maoist. Unfortunately, school was shut down for an indefinite period.
Whenever someone was killed due to naxal violence, Anand would ask several odd questions to the jawans whom he had befriended at his mother’s tea stall.
“What do they want?” he would ask. Though their reply was always as simple as- “They want a different government”, a seven year old kid hardly understood the ten letter word.
During the daytime, he and his friends played near the pond. Here, Anand would stand on the top of a large rock while his friends would gather around him to gain knowledge.
“They want a different gone-ment,” Anand declared while his friends gaped at him.
“What does gone-ment mean?” one of them asked curiously.
Some suggested it was a toy while others said it was some kind of property as elders generally have disputes over properties. But all awaited their leader’s final verdict. Whenever Anand didn’t know an answer, he would cleverly reply, “Its top secret! I can’t share it with kids!”
He didn’t go to school anymore but he hadn’t stopped studying. He treasured his books. He wrote stories on mountains and rivers. Among his writings, there was a strange longing that a child craves for. Be it a toy or simply attention. But the thing he most longed for was his father. He had never seen or heard from him. All he knew about him was that he was fighting a war.
On one of the winter nights, Anand broke into a fist fight with his brother in the open space near their tea stall. Hearing the fracas, their mother came out of the house and stopped them.
“What is this all about?” she demanded.
The ten year old Anand, turned to his mother with tears in his eyes. He pointed towards the small bonfire beside them. Unfortunately the glowing embers were not of wood or coal but of books.
Before she could start arguing with her elder son she noticed some movement near the trees.
“Move inside the house! Fast!” she ordered them. As soon as all of them moved inside, she locked the doors. “Hide!” she shouted. And then there were several knockings on their door.
In that dim light of the lantern, Anand could make out that his mother was panting. She waited for sometime but the poundings didn’t stop. Nervously she unlocked the door and a large man entered. Squinting in the dark, Anand who was hiding behind the small cupboard tried to see the stranger. The unkempt, tall man was covered in shawl.
“Why are you here?” his mother asked.
“I have come to collect my son,” the man replied.
“YOUR SON? I must remind you that you had abandoned me and your children nine years ago for the so called war.”
“And war has brought me back,” he said. “I need him for the same cause.”
“Kishan is only 15. He won’t go anywhere!” she announced.
“Please Maa, let me go. I am ready for this. Those useless books won’t bring peace to this place,” said Kishan who came out of hiding and stood beside his father now. The man smiled proudly at his son.
Her eyes turned moist. “You can’t achieve peace by means of violence. These methods are wrong.”
The man replied calmly. “We are more concerned about the results it will yield.” And with that, he left with his son. Anand’s mother cried night after night. Though Anand never cried, he wondered why his father chose Kishan over him. Am I not strong enough? Daddy didn’t even ask about me? Why? Questions were many but the answers never existed.
Nearly after four months, one night jawans were circling in a Maoists camp in the forest when they saw a figure emerge from the bushes and break into a run. They took aim and shot him. Only later they realized it was an unarmed teenager. Kishan died on the spot.
The whole village was shocked and staged protests against CRPF jawans calling them ‘Destructor’. Anand stayed in the house with his mother who had become ill and bedridden.
Then one day a policeman entered their hut and said, “If you give in writing that your son was killed by Naxals and not by us, then government will give compensation of one lakh rupees.” Anand’s mother was shocked. She refused as she knew if she agreed she would be troubled by naxals for the rest of her life.
That very night she passed away in her sleep. Doctors said that she couldn’t deal with the trauma of her son’s death. Anand was an orphan now. He refused the shelter given by government and instead lived in his own house. Day by day he became a loner. There was no one he could speak to. He made and served tea for the jawans to earn Rs. 30/- daily while the villagers provided him with food. Toys and books didn’t interest him anymore. While sitting by the pond in his free time, he too thought if only he too had a gun…
One evening, Anand was lying flat on his back near the pond, watching the various shapes of the grey clouds, when a sharp voice made him jump.
“You don't have anyone to live for son. Come with me and work for the party”, said the man who visited his home once. His father.
chapter 2
Anand had never traveled so deep in the forest. But he wasn’t scared as he was with his father. After walking for an hour, he saw several check posts guarded by armed men. Few boys and girls were playing cricket at one corner while armed men and women were parading and demonstrating their prowess at another. To his surprise, there were many people whom he had seen in the village before but didn’t know about their occupation.
“You said I can help you win this battle. How?” he asked his father.
“You will know very soon.”
And soon he realized what was about to come. Everyday he and other kids woke up at 4 am for PT and drill, followed by breakfast. Then they were taught about the fundamental percepts of Maoism and communism. After lunch they followed the same routine. At night, they were taught how to draw maps of police stations, how to gherrao police posts, how to snatch a rifle from a constable and other such military acts.
Sometimes after the training, he touched his small palms. It has become rough. But he didn’t care as long as he could make his father happy. But unfortunately, he hardly got a chance to speak to his father as he hardly saw him. And whenever he did, he remained busy lecturing on the quiescence of the government towards the development of their region to the young soldiers.
Whenever anyone was seriously injured, a doctor from the city was brought to the forest. Anand assisted the doctor with injections and saline drips. But some operations were just confusing for him.
“He looks perfectly fine to me. He is getting married next week”, Anand said to the doctor who was operating on the lower half of an unconscious man. The doctor smiled, “As he is marrying another naxalite, bearing kids in the future may bring weakness to the war. He won’t be able to become a father after this.” Anand only gaped at him.
On a rainy night, after hearing some quarrel outside his tent, Anand went to check. He saw all the elders including his father standing near a blindfolded cop who was gagged and tied to the bark of a tree. On seeing Anand, he called him. Anand went running towards him. He was handed a pen and a piece of paper which had a map on one side and blank on the other.
“I have heard that you were the best student in your school.”
A smile leaped across his face. Finally his father was praising him, he thought. But he never did.
“Write two lines for me.”
He sat on the ground and held the pen inches away from the paper. He realized that his hand was shaking nervously. He had not touched a pen for several months. I can hold a gun so easily but what is wrong with a pen? Finally he wrote as he was told with great difficulty.
Then a large, burly man lifted the cop and asked Anand to accompany him into the forest. After walking for about half an hour, the large man threw the cop amongst the bushes.
“What will you do Anand if I tell you that this man killed your brother?” the large man asked him. He had already forgotten about his brother. So many things happened after that night that he had lost the count of friends and family who have died. But the thought of his brother’s death resurrected a suppressed anger. He always wanted to do something evil to the man who killed his brother. He looked for something sharp but found nothing. Then he broke a branch of a tree and began hitting the blindfolded man. Every time he hit him, he felt a release of poison that has grown inside him. He stopped when he realized the man was crying. He knelt forward and removed the cloth from his mouth. The man, who was bleeding profusely, coughed a little and then spoke in an extreme rush as if he knew what was coming.
“Anand you know me… Your mother served tea to us…I never wanted to kill Kishan…it was an accident-”
And in a split second, the large man knelt beside him and slit the man’s throat. Hot sprinkles of blood fell on Anand’s face and tongue. He felt as if something bitter has been put forcibly in his mouth. The feeling was disgusting.
The large man then placed the letter he was carrying inside the dead man’s left shoe when Anand was busy vomiting at a corner.
The next morning they were given personal handguns looted from the police stations. He saw kids of his own age showing off their new toy to each other. But he kept it to himself. Atleast they never saw a murder. Even if they did are they still willing to contribute for the war? More he thought more he got confused. And one day a strange question hit him. Why was Kishan unarmed when he was killed? As soon as handguns were distributed, they were asked to keep it with them under every condition. He knew of only one man who could have answer to this mystery.
2 kms away, a constable found a corpse of a cop. After checking, he found a map which showed a highlighted region where naxals were supposed to hold their next meeting. He looked on the other side of the page. It read- 8 pm, APRIL 6th. APPROX 25 NAXALS. The constable smirked. The dead cop found out the location and hid it in his shoe before he was murdered.
“What is it son?” his father asked him after Anand took him away from a meeting to a secluded area.
“Did my brother wanted to leave?”
Before he could answer anything, both of them heard a distant voice shouting. It was the messenger. “THEY HAVE FALLEN INTO THE TRAP. NEARLY 120 OF THEM ARE COMING.”
Both of them were aware of the plan. The map was a decoy. As soon as the cops will reach the highlighted space of the map, they will be attacked from all directions.
All the naxals ran towards the spot with their arms. His father moved towards the voice when Anand aimed the gun towards his temple. He checked his pockets but his handgun was missing.
“Very clever! You hid my gun. But I don’t know what are you talking about,” he said calmly. But Anand didn’t lower his gun. “Say the truth or else I will kill you.” The confidence scared him. Reluctantly his father confessed.
“Yes. At first he showed real courage. He liked my talks about the development of our village. I showed him the glorious dream. He loved it and so I asked him to join us.”
Anand never knew of his brother’s secret meeting with his father.
“But he was soon frustrated. He knew too much of our secrets. We couldn’t let him go. We decided to eliminate him. But somehow he got the air of it and he ran away. Luckily he got killed the same night.”
For the first time after his brother’s death, tears rolled into his eyes. How can a father plan of killing his own son? All these years he had asked himself why his father abandoned his family. Now he knew why. He was simply incapable of being a father.
And then it happened so fast that he hardly saw anything. His father jumped on him and he pulled the trigger unknowingly. For a few seconds he didn’t react. Slowly it dawned on him what has happened. Blood was oozing out of his father’s temple.
He then thought of the naïve jawans who will die an innocent death. There will be more orphans like him. It was time for reparation. He didn’t waste any more time and broke into a blind sprint towards the place. A new wave of positive energy filled his veins as he ran through the dense forest which he knew like the back of his hand.
The armed jawans stopped short aiming their gun towards an unarmed boy running towards them and shouting something. And then they saw movements around the trees.
He waved and shouted, “GO AWAY! GO AWAY!!!” But they could hardly hear him. He leapt forward and ran towards them. Suddenly he heard a gunshot and then several others followed. He crouched on the ground as soon as he realized that the naxals had launched the attack. The jawans surged towards him firing in different directions. Suddenly sharp pain arised from his right leg from where blood was spilling. Then a jawan fell over him. Then two more fell over him. He applied his full strength to prevent himself from choking by their weight. Of late he realized that they were not breathing. Slowly it started suffocating. He didn’t realize how many more fell over him. He closed his eyes and saw both his brother and mother smiling at him. The sounds of gunshots were fading. It was the best dream he had seen in months. And he didn’t want to be disturbed.
On April 6 2010, 76 CRPF personnel and a state policemen were killed in Dantewada after over 500 Naxals ambushed the patrol party. Anand survived as Naxals didn’t check under the debris of dead bodies. He lost his right leg. As soon as he surrendered, he spent four months in the rehabilitation center before starting with his education once again at government’s expense at Raipur
-- ARITRA SEN
