RED signals in the FOREST

(This article first appeared in Sunday Times of India, on May 2, 2010)

Maoists in the jungles of Dantewada routinely try to reach out to CRPF jawans posted there to fight them 

They don't have a fax machine.They dont send bulk mails either. Yet,the public relations of the Maoists in Chhattisgarh can give any PR agency a run for its money. Not only have they managed to make themselves heard across a section of the country, they've even managed to get the CRPF jawans posted in those thick jungles to think about their purpose in this civil war.

The latest reports about the police-CRPF ring that sold arms to Maoists may have nothing to do with the bulk of jawans but what they do corroborate tangentially is that there could be some sort of communication.

Indeed, jawans, dumped in subhuman conditions in the jungles to fight the enemy, are being reached out to by the Maoists, as this correspondent discovered in her foray into the jungles of Dantewada a few weeks ago. The Maoists have a lot of anger in them about the way this region has been neglected, said one of the jawans in the camp in Chintalnar. They leave leaflets for us, in which they say that we jawans are like their brothers who have been caught in this unnecessary battle because we are all poor.

The jawans at Chintalnar are weary of their dire living conditions. Yet they cannot voice their anguish before their seniors. A single query from this correspondent was enough to let flow the bottled resentment against the government. And the communique sent in by the Maoists specifically targeting the jawans and not the seniors further prods them to repeatedly wonder why they are posted in Chhattisgarh.

But it is essential here to understand what is so special about Chintalnar. Why did it become so infamous after all The answer lies in its geographical location.Forty-five kilometre from Chintalnar is Dornapal, a town where villagers in Chintalnar and the CRPF jawan posted at the camps next door have to go for something as trivial as a matchbox. Chintalnar is in the middle of the jungle, and further ahead are other villages, where only the Red eagles dare. No eagles from the government machinery, including the CRPF, have ever ventured beyond Chintalnar. A bus runs the three-hour distance between Chintalnar and Dornapal once a day.

"When we are walking down the road to Dornapal, if we are lucky not to have been blown apart by the IEDs, we see leaflets with text in red ink nailed to trees. They are addressed to us, telling us that we are their brothers and that this war is unjust. The letters would hit us hard because the Maoists know that we too are here to stave off our poverty," a jawan said, almost in whispers, lest his seniors hear him spill it all out.

Asked whether the letters don't help determine the locus of the Maoists, the jawan said: "They only generate a lot of discussions among us. What the Maoists are saying is valid. With much difficulty, my father paid for my fees so that I could get a BSc degree. But then there were no jobs. I saw the ad in the newspaper, and it was a matter of pride to fight for the nation. But here we are, rotting. We cannot drop out of CRPF. Where will we go? It is here that we understand why a young man or woman becomes a Maoist."

After a night spent at a villagers house, this correspondent saw the next morning what the jawans had been talking about. The Maoists had dropped some leaflets in the night just 300 metres away from where the correspondent had been sleeping in the open courtyard. They were poster papers, with Hindi words red-inked on them, and spoke of demands for development for the masses and removal of troops from the region.

"They keep an eye on every vehicle from Dornapal to here. A CRPF vehicle would have been blown off," said the villager. "But not the car you came in. You are alive, and this is their message to you."

'Why are we being tortured?'

(This article first appeared in Sunday Times of India, on April 25, 2010)

The day after I returned to Mumbai from Chintalnar in Chhattisgarh, I was still in a deep slumber at 7am when my phone rang. A hoarse voice on the other side greeted me and said that I had met him at the CRPF camp in Chintalnar where I had gone to find out more about the 76 jawans who were killed in the Maoist attack on April 6. I sprang up and asked, "Are you one of those jawans who asked me for my phone number when I was leaving your camp?" He said "yes", and asked me if I could keep my lips sealed about him calling me up. I did not know what was coming next, but I took the plunge and said, "Yes, you can trust me." And then he blurted out his story and asked me to save him and his colleagues from the 'concentration camp'. Two weeks later, such calls are still coming in from his colleagues.

At first, I thought it was just a joke. The phone number of a young woman could open up several options for these many men stationed in the barracks. I tried to sense slimy hints in their conversations, but I found none—instead there was anguish about the hellish life they were leading in the jungles. "I had completed my higher secondary education. My two sisters had to be married off. There were no rains and we could not grow anything on the farm. I saw the ad for recruitment to the CRPF in a newspaper and applied. We had grown up thinking it was a good job—after all, it was a matter of pride to die for the country. But now, after nine years in the CRPF, being posted in Dantewada is worse than getting killed by Maoists. We have to walk 50 km to buy something as trivial as a matchbox. There is no gas cylinder for us to cook food—we have to pick firewood. Does the government even bother about us?" said one of the jawans, letting out his anguish in a single breath.

Several of them have since given me varied information about the events preceding and following the attack on April 6, information which never appeared in the media. "The men who were sent to patrol had been transferred from another camp just a day earlier. They obviously would not know the terrain. How can anyone then accuse the CRPF men of not being well trained?" asked one jawan angrily.

"None of our jawans sleeps in the camp till 6am, let alone while patrolling. It is insulting to see media reports that say our colleagues were killed in their sleep. Besides, why was reinforcement sent only at 9am when the attack took place around 6.30am and lasted only 30 minutes?" revealed another. One of them went to the extent of saying, "A CBI inquiry should be ordered. It is not as black and white as it has been made to seem."

The gravity of the situation is slowly sinking in. These phone calls are from men whom we like to call 'soldiers'. Young, confident, robust—these are the images fed into our minds about a soldier ready to die for the country. But the phone calls that I have been getting say quite the opposite. No, these men are not weaklings who are scared of being blown up by land mines. These are men who have been sent into the jungles to fight their own countrymen, the Maoists. Yet, the government forgot about them until 76 of them were killed at one go. "The government thinks we are some rock statue which is best kept in a temple high up in the mountain where nobody can go," said another jawan over the phone.

My phone number seems to be the last vestige of hope for them. "We have no water, no proper food, no medicines—why are we being tortured like criminals? Please get our voices heard in Parliament. You are a journalist after all," yet another jawan said.

I recollect that one single minute under the sun near the CRPF camp, when I was getting into the car. As I was politely ushered out and glad to be entering the airconditioned car to escape the scorching heat, I heard the call, "Madam! Madam! Give us your phone number. Don't trust what our senior has said. We know the hellish life here. We have to tell you the truth about what really happened on the day the Maoists attacked."

I shouted out the digits of my phone number one by one, as the layers of barbed wire fences between us was quite a distance. At that minute, I did not realise what I had given to those men—the singular hope to make themselves heard, and lead a dignified life as a soldier of this nation.

'Save Us From This Hell'

(This is an article that appeared in DNA Sunday on April 18, 2010.)

Priyanka Borpujari visits the CRPF camp in Chintalnar — where the 76 jawans killed by Maoists on April 6 were based — and discovers that the current lot there are quite conscious of their status as 'sacrificial goats'

A square strip of aluminum with the words, "Welcome to Chhattisgarh. Welcome to Konta" informed us that we were about to cross over from Andhra Pradesh to Chhattisgarh. Till this signboard, the road was smooth. Enter Chhattisgarh, and it develops severe acne, with large rocks alternating with deep potholes. However, compared to the roads elsewhere in the state, as I was to realise later, these represented the pinnacle of driving comfort and safety — at least they weren't mined.

I was on my way to Chintalnar, a village in the Dandakaranya forests that has been in the news since April 6, when 76 jawans from the Central Reserved Police Force (CRPF) were killed by Maoists, and another six injured. Chintalnar is an adivasi village 90 km from Konta, the town bordering AP. Five hours of back-breaking drive later, we reached the village late in the afternoon.

The CRPF camp — the one to which the killed jawans belonged — was right outside the village. It looked formidable to my untrained eye — three layers of barbed wire fencing, and guarded by heavily armed men clad in bullet-proof jackets. For a moment, I felt I was standing outside the sets of a Hollywood war film. 

I was jolted back to reality by an authoritative voice from the other side of the fence, asking me in Hindi what business I had standing there peering into the camp. I told him I was a journalist. I could make out he wasn't thrilled to hear that. He glared at me in silence. He was dressed in military fatigues, and beads of sweat had formed on his brow. I had read somewhere that the daytime temperature here had crossed 43 degrees. Perspiration trickled down my spine beneath the loose kurta. I shifted uncomfortably in the heat.

Another man, dressed in a white vest and shorts came over. He asked me the same question in English. I again introduced myself, explaining that I was a reporter come to get an idea of the situation on the ground after the April 6 attack. He gave me a long, appraising look, and finally said, "Come."

I made my way into the camp through the zigzag maze of fences. Once inside, the scene didn't exactly match with the military camps of my imagination. I saw five half-naked men washing themselves at a hand pump. Some were boiling water on firewood. In one corner, boys — who couldn't have been more than 20 years old, with hardly any signs of moustache or beard, and little more than five feet in height — were eating rice from a huge plate. A middle-aged soldier was getting his moustache shaved by a younger man. Some men who had just bathed at the hand pump were toweling themselves.

Part of the camp area was wet and water from the pump had gathered in pools. On one side, to my left, was a large, green tent, patched up with bits of cloth and tarpaulin. Inside, some men — boys — were talking quietly among themselves. They wore vests and pyjamas, no slippers. I counted 10 of them, but there weren't that many trunks or mattresses. Shirts and trousers in fatigue print lay scattered around. I turned my face away, and walked on.

A Tata Sky dish sat on a rickety bamboo stool. On the inner stretch of barbed wire fence, and on a clothesline improvised between banana plants, trousers, shirts, vests, and towels had been hung out to dry. As I neared the other end of the camp, I spotted a solar panel glinting in the sun. 

My tour of the camp done, I was invited to have tea with men from the Combat Battalion for Resolute Action (COBRA) force of the CRPF. In crisp English, they told me they had been airdropped on April 6 to counter the Maoists who had attacked their colleagues. 

I asked one of the officers about the morale of the entire force. "The morale of the boys here has gone down. They lost too many of their colleagues in one go."

"Do you think your enemy is smarter than you?" I asked. "None of their men were killed." 

"The Maoists are not smarter," he countered quickly. "They are cowards. They attack from the back. The jawans fought bravely and laid down their lives for the country. We regret their demise but we are proud of them." 

I had heard this line too many times — whenever a soldier breathed his last on the battlefield. I wondered why these suave men referred to their dead colleagues as 'jawans' and not as 'our men.' One of them, who seemed eager to talk but hadn't opened up till then, presumably intimidated by the words of his politically correct colleagues, finally spoke. 

"You see the barbed wire fence," he said. "Do you think they can offer any protection against bullets? Look at the way our men are living…" Before he could complete the sentence, he was cut off by his colleagues. 

After I had downed the tea, I decided to take another tour of the camp. A senior officer followed me. I spotted some men standing near a stove, sharing a joke as they cooked. They became serious the moment they saw us. 

"There are more barracks being built now," the officer informed me. "This place was originally a police post, then it became a police station, and for the past two years, it has been a CRPF camp. So yes, positive changes are taking place." 

The officer then summoned fifty of his men and instructed them, "Speak to her about your living conditions. But nothing about policy."

I asked them: "How is it to live here?" Silence. Then I heard someone say, "The government has forgotten us. We are made to rot here and die." The voice had come from the back, and the tense senior officer strained to locate the 'rebel'. Another voice piped up, "One of our colleagues lost his mother today. He has been crying since morning because he cannot go home." 

A third voice joined in, "There are just two hand pumps for us 400 men. And in this heat, no electricity for the fans. Is this the way a country treats its soldiers?" 

The senior officer looked horrified. The men were now charged up and wanted to say more. Many started speaking at the same time. I couldn't grasp all that they were saying, but their anguish was palpable in the chorus. 

Finally the officer stood up and decided enough was enough. He told me it was time for me to leave. I wished the men, and stood up. As I was making my way outside, along the perimeter of the camp, I heard a jawan yell, "Will you take our grief to those in Delhi? Tell them that this is the worst posting ever. Ask them why we were sent here to become sacrificial goats!" 

The senior officer told me to hurry up. "Our men fought bravely," he said. "These jawans may have some complaints, but everything is being taken care of." Even as I nodded my head, I heard him instruct a fellow officer, ""Find out which company they are from. I need to have a talk with them."

He escorted me all the way out, till the last fold of the barbed wire fence. I thanked him for the tour. He gave me a half-hearted smile and rushed back in. 

As I walked out of the entrance, a jawan posted there caught my eye. "Madam," he said, in a barely audible voice, "Save us from this hell."

'Avatar': Sans The Blue Aliens?

For those who found the blue 'creatures' that flew in James Cameron's magnum opus 'Avatar' creepy, here is a simpler version. Sans the technological inputs that cost Cameron $500 million. This is a real version. Hence cheaper. Only, the reality is too stark to digest.

This simpler, 11-minute long film, is called 'Mine - Story Of A Sacred Mountain'. The analogies between the two films cannot be ignored. To begin with, both films revolve around one central topic: What would one tribe do to save their forest, their mountain, their god?

Avatar: The strange planet in question is called Pandora.

Mine: The area in question is section of Orissa, an eastern state in India.

Avatar: The inhabitants of Pandora are humanoids, called Na'vi

Mine: The inhabitants of this area on Orissa are one of the most remote tribes, called Dongria Kondh

Avatar: Eywa is the deity and guiding force of the Na'vi, which they believe, keeps the ecosystem of Pandora in perfect equilibrium

Mine: Niyam Raja is the deity and guiding force of the Dongria Kondh, which provides them with all their needs

Avatar: The floating Hallelujah mountains are sacred to the Na'vi

Mine: The Niymagiri hills are worshipped by the Dongria Kondh

Avatar: The Hallelujah mountains is the resource bed for Unobtainium, which sell for $20 million a kilo

Mine: The Niyamgiri hills is the resource bed for 70 million tonnes of Bauxite

Avatar: Resources Development Administration is the company that has bestowed upon itself the onus of mining Unobtainium

Mine: Vedanta Resources has taken upon itself the onus of blasting the Niyamgiri hills to mine the Bauxite

Avatar: The Na'vi don't need roads to the Hallelujah mountains - they have the Mountain Banshees with which they have a symbiotic relationship that transports them to the mountain.

Mine: The Dongria Kondh do not need roads built into the Niyamgiri hills, by Vedanta Resources. The hills are their home with which they have a symbiotic relationship that goes back to their ancestors.

Avatar: Jake Sully is welcomed innocently among the Na'vi

Mine: The Dongria Kondh initially welcomed the move of Vedanta Resources, as it was lured by its promises of giving them a 'better way of life'.

The indigenous people are innocent. They look upon the urban folk as their brethren - after all, aren't we all the same? Don't we all come from and go back into the same Mother Earth? Unlike the urban folk, who stare back at a stranger wondering what 'use' could that person be to him, all that the indigenous people know is outright acceptance. Yet, history has shown time and again that it is this innocence and blind faith on the urban foreign brethren that has led to the annihilation of the indigenous people. 

Avatar: Colonel Miles Quaritch says that the Na'vi would be eliminated with minimum casualties - "We'll clear them out with gas first."

Mine: Vedanta has bulldozed houses of the Dongria Kondh when they refused to move from their lands

Even the bulldozers in the two films are alike - huge yellow beasts that crash three branches and everything else that comes in its way.

Avatar: The Na'vi fight off their corporate land grabbers' large machines with 'primitive' tools of bows and arrows

Mine: The Dongria Kondh use the 'primitive' tool of axe - they chop the trees and block the road leading up to the Niyamgiri hills

Vedanta Resources, on its website, mentions that it currently operates in India, Zambia and Australia - the countries where indigenous people have been systematically eliminated for the 'development' of the few. What then, is the definition of development? Development at what cost? Development to be decided by whom? Would you let your development and thus, your life, to be decided in a corporate boardroom? Ponder: What would you do if you were to fight for your survival? Whom would then be your friend and foe?

Do we need our lives to be decided in a corporate boardroom?

Just like the way the Na'vi needed Dr Grace Augustine and eventually, Jake Sully (it is Hollywood after all - "And a hero comes along..."), to save themselves from annihilation, the Dongria Kondh need you and me and our loud voices of dissent against the atrocities committed upon them. 

The last scene in 'Mine' shows an adolescent boy, gnashing his teeth and striking down his axe in anger as he declares, "No, we won't give up our mountain." 

If Vedanta Resources continues to be the much-hated beast in Orissa, just like Tata Steel and Essar Steel are in Chhattisgarh; and if the urban folk choose to be blind to this annihilation of its indigenous brethren, then it wouldn't be surprising that few years later, this same kid with gnashing teeth will grow up with a bigger axe and sickle in hand. And he would be declared a 'Naxalite', a 'Maoist', a 'rebel', a 'threat to the nation's security'. 

Then, would there be a moment to ponder why did he choose that path of defending his basic right, through violence?

Small Talk: Raj Thackeray = Ajmal Kasab?

I had long stopped reading the newspapers. But Friday afternoon while trying to dodge sleep in office after a heavy lunch, my eyes fell on the headlines on a newspaper, which stated that the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) was now targetting Indian National Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi. I couldn't help exclaim, "Why can't MNS let people just be? Why doesn't it understand that Mumbai cannot do without the mix of people from different places?"

I had assumed that my muttering would go ignored, but that wasn't the case. My Gujarati-speaking colleague, who is as much a Mumbaikar as I am, said, "But what Shah Rukh Khan said was also wrong." 

I honestly did not know what SRK had said. I was least bothered about what a man in an independent country could have said. Nor should it bother anyone else. My Marathi-Tamil speaking colleague said, "SRK said that Raj Thackeray was equivalent to Ajmal Kasab." Her eyes almost popped out, indicating her understanding of blasphemy in the words of SRK. 

I replied, "What wrong did he say? Isn't Raj equivalent to Kasab, in the way he is going about annihilating the non-Marathis here?" 

Marathi-Tamil speaking colleague replied, "How could you say that? Kasab killed so many innocents! Raj is only fighting for the Marathi manoos."

Gujarati speaking colleague: "See, if you look at it historically, Raj hasn't done anything wrong. It is only politics."

Marathi-Tamil speaking colleague: "Raj is slogging and fighting for the working class, those have been deprived on their jobs."

Me: "How different is Raj from Kasab? Kasab killed many innocents. Raj has managed to disrupt the kiln of several people residing here, who are trying to eke out a living. They are being targetted simply because they are non-Marathis. Hasn't he burnt taxis and buses?"

Both girls vehemently nod their head in denial. By now, my Marathi-Tamil colleague has turned her back towards me. I say nothing. I turn towards my Gujarati speaking colleague, and she cannot ignore me either as I am too close to her face.

Me: "The problem is that we choose to let him continue his non-sense. Do you think Mumbai can ever be the Mumbai it is, without the non-Marathi people?"

Gujarati speaking colleague: "If u go to Bihar, you will have to speak in their dialect. That's what he is asking here too - that non-Marathi speaking people should abide by the culture of the Marathis. That's all he wants, which is legitimate."

Me: "Why should I abide by justifications laid down by Raj? Ain't I a free citizen? And Mumbai is not rest of Maharashtra, where only Marathi is spoken or Marathi culture is observed. This is a cosmopolitan place. People come here because it is cosmopolitan, because it offers them opportunities."

Gujarati speaking colleague: "But the Marathi manoos doesn't get jobs because the Biharis have taken them! There are apparently no jobs left for the original inhabitants of Mumbai!"

Me: "The key word here is 'apparently'. And why wouldn't others take up the jobs? Why should anyone stop them? And Mumbai has enough resources and jobs for all. Why doesn't the Marathi manoos take them up?" 

Another Tamil speaking colleague interjects. "The Marathi manoos didn't get jobs because people from other places were ready to come and do the same job for lesser pay. It is the same everywhere. The Marathi manoos is at fault. They lost opportunities due to their own laziness."

Gujarati speaking colleague agrees, but adds, "But that doesn't mean others take the jobs." 

Me: "Why not? The job has to be done. This is Mumbai, the city of dreams - dreams for all. Why couldn't the Marathi manoos come forward and take up the jobs?"

Gujarati speaking colleague: "But Raj is aware of all this. This is all politics. When he broke away from Shiv Sena, he took up this cause. He needed the support of the people..."

Me: "It is exactly this same people and their support which will help topple him down, if they open their eyes and see it for themselves. This is democracy and the government is supposed to fear its people. Not the other way round." 

She disagrees, shakes her head wildly. "We cannot correct it. Nobody can. It is all politics."

Me: "When democracy is faulty, then you have dirty politics. It is we who need to go and tell Raj that we all coexist and continue to do so without him or his intervention. We need to go and tell him that Mumbai is what it is because people from different places are here together."

Gujarati speaking colleague: "You cannot say that to him! You think he doesn't know it?"

Me: "Of course he knows it. Of course everyone knows it too. Just that Raj chooses to reinforce selective truths such that others are blinded by his words. Everyone can see it all, but they choose not to see."

Gujarati speaking colleague: "Yes, it may be true. But only the Marathi manoos, who bears the brunt of it all, can see it and feel what Raj is doing what he is doing. For them it is justified." 

By now our voices are quite loud.

My boss walks in, looks at me, smiles, and says, "Please don't corrupt the employees of this office."

I tell her, "Everyone else is corrupt in their own small ways. Even I have that liberty....."

She has already walked past me by the time I complete my sentence. And so has my Gujarati speaking colleague. I walk over to my seat as my Tamil speaking colleague tells me, "If you want to continue this debate, please go to the other room. Do not disturb me."

Silence.

Moment later, the Gujarati speaking colleague reads aloud from the newspaper, "BJP is now accusing MNS of raising this SRK issue because apparently, MNS does not want to talk about inflation." She then exclaims, "What politics yaar!"

I say, "Yes.. all politics in a democracy. And the middle class chooses not to see anything."

A longer silence. And the conversation ends. We are back to ordering coffee for ourselves.

And I still don't know what SRK really said.