Siddhartha’s Musings

Articles by Siddhartha Mitra, Sanhati

Haiti and Bastar: Comparative notes on disappeared peoples - Jan 23 2009
The Strange Case Of Sodi Sambo - Jan 5 2009
Woh desh main kya hain? - Remembering Kopa Kunjam of VCA from before his arrest - Dec 23 2009
Now who is hiding, Mr. Vishwaranjan?

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Haiti and Bastar: Comparative notes on disappeared peoples

Jan 23 2009

200,000 or more dead in Haiti. Many more wounded and left homeless.

200,000 or more missing in Bastar. Nobody knows where they are. And many more living in Salwa Judum camps under atrocious conditions.

Wait, you might ask. Missing is better than dead, is it not so? After all, they must be somewhere, and there must be hope that they will be able to live?

Actually, not very likely. At least not for long. The jungles in Chhattisgarh are inhospitable, without easy access to food or drinking water. And there is always disease like malaria and bloody dysentery, which will get you if you if the forest does not. Even the hardiest tribals know that they will not last long hiding in those inhospitable jungles. It will not be death in a flash, but it will come very soon.

The world knows about Haiti. And no one knows about Bastar.

In Haiti, the civilisation as we know it, buildings, hospitals, schools, churches have ceased to exist, turned to rubble and dust.

In Bastar, civilisation as the indigenous people know has ceased to exist. Their mud homes broken down, their honey and food sources burnt or looted, their women and children raped or maimed, the very fabric of their well-knit society left tattered and destroyed.

Is it because we think that civilisation is necessarily that which the “developed” world wants it to be? That it necessarily consists of roads and buildings and concrete artifacts, where nature plays a secondary role? A world where humans need not gain succour from their natural habitats? A place where food necessarily has to be grown in factory like hothouses and sold in supermarkets, where fashionable clothes must necessarily be brought from glitzy malls which are one end of a long chain of exploited labour, where houses that people live in must be made of concrete and steel dug up from the bowels of the earth, shredding the very fabric of nature and the lives of the people that live with it?

Are we so lost in that fantasy that we cannot feel our humanity when it comes to the plight of people who think otherwise?

People whose only crime was to chose to live with nature, who grew their own foods in their nearby lands or gathered them from the forest, people who dressed simply if they could at all, people who lived in simply houses of mud and brick, but who unfortunately lived on top of the very steel and iron that is needed to make civilisation as we know it?

Or does technology and science tell us that such people are the lesser kind, not worthy of pity or commiseration? We are not even talking about helping them in a positive manner. With all our science we have done little to help the indigenous people

Haiti is getting some aid. At least it is in the international focus. Maybe the people there can begin to hope against hope.

But the indigenous people of Bastar have nothing to hope for. Bastar will never be the same. The hundreds of thousands of the Gondi’s, Koyla’s, and other indigenous tribals will never return to their shattered homes, their natural habitats. No one is going to replenish their looted food stocks, rebuild their mud homes, or make them feel that they have a future without an impending threat of killings, rape and arson.

These people, who know no language besides their own, will mostly perish in the fringes of the new cities that will take root in the decimated forests that they used to live in. If they survive the current carnage, that is. And maybe then, when perhaps a handful of them remain, will the world will throw a kind glance at their condition. Maybe let them live out their remaining lives in safer guarded enclosures, viewing them as objects of pity and curiosity.

Let us remember that over 3 million Taino’s, the original peace-loving indigenous people of Hispaniola, today’s Haiti and Dominican Republic, perished within eight years of the arrival of Columbus. Though there was no single apocalyptic event like the recent earthquake, it was a gradual and eventual process. After their population had started to get decimated by the Spaniards, many of the Taino’s chose to commit suicide, and the Taino women decided not to have children, embracing death as the only escape. A whole nation of people, perished in utter hopelessness. The Haitian’s we see in our TV screens today are not the native inhabitants of Haiti, but are the slaves brought there from Africa, who also had to go through centuries of suffering as they dared to declare independence and call themselves free people.

Today, Bastar is no different from the Hispaniola that Columbus saw. The horror of Salwa Judum has yet to fade before the new onslaught on them has begun. If it took Columbus eight years to annihilate the Taino’s, the Gondi’s and the Koyla’s, who also number in the millions, might be pushed to a similar fate in an even shorter time frame.

Haitian’s are having amputation done at a rate possibly not seen since the Crimean war. The two year old boy of Gompad in Bastar, whose three fingers were chopped off, and Shodi Sambo, whose leg was shattered by the military bullet, are also being mutilated.

Sambo received treatment, not because people took mercy on her, but because she was a “medico-legal” case, and most importantly, she needs to be hidden from the media because she might talk about the massacre and killings she has witnessed. But the baby boy, and countless others, are just lucky to be alive, without some body parts, even if they did not receive any medical help. The killings, the mutilations, the trauma of the people of Bastar is a hidden tragedy that the world has failed to acknowledge.

The people of Haiti can at least hope for aid. Maybe they will live.

The people in Bastar cannot. They will be sent to their deaths.

A triumph for civilisation, but a fall for humanity.

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Woh desh main kya hain?

Remembering Kopa Kunjam of VCA from before his arrest. 23.12.2009
“Woh desh main kya hain?”, Kopa asked me. (What is there in that country?)

“Wahape bara bara makaan hain, rasta achcha hain, bohut saare gariya hain,” I responded, “lekin aadmi aadmi se etna aasani se mil nehin sakte, jo yahape mil sakte hain.” (There are big buildings there, the roads are good, and there are many cars, but it is difficult for people to easily interact with each other, as is possible here.)

We were sitting in a wayside small tea stall in Bairamgarh. There were only twenty or so odd kilometers to our destination of Lingagiri, and we had felt that it would be good to have a break and have lunch. Kopa knew the area well, and the shop keeper served us delicious warm idlis and hot steaming tea soon after we took our seats. The long ride in from Dantewada on Kopa’s motorcycle had left us exhausted, and the food gave us renewed energy and strength.

“To aap kyon udhar hain?” (So why are you there?)

Why? And, the hidden question, why I am not here? Why are you here if you stay there?

“Mera kuch kaam hain, wahape kar raha hoon, lekin haan, is desh ko bohut yaad aata hain”, I said. (I am doing some work there, but yes, I do keep on thinking about this country.)

“ Aayein, aayein, aap idhar chala aayein”, he said. “Idhar aap ko sab kuch mil jayaga.” (Come, come back to this country. You will get everything here.)

“Haan, main aunga, kuch saalon mein”, I said. (Yes, I will return in a few years.)

“Mein bhi giya tha shahar. Raipur giya tha training mein. Lekin bilkul achcha nahin laga. Udhar sab chota ghar hai, kamra bandh rakhne ko hota hain. Aur aadmi bhi sab apna kaam mein rahta hain, dusro ke liye wakt nahin hain”, he said. (I also had been to Raipur. I never liked it there the rooms are small, and one has to keep the rooms all closed up. People are busy in their own lives, and do not have time for others.)

“Yeh to baat hain”. (Yes, what you say rings of the truth.)

And if that is Raipur, what about Delhi? Mumbai? London? New York? The closed quarters, the isolation in a city of millions, the desperate rush all the people have to do what it takes to fulfill their own dreams?

“Mera idhar hi achca lagta hain. Ketna hara hain, khulla aasman aur zameen. Aur humko aadmiyon ka beech mein kaam karne mein achcha lagta hain. Yeh social work karne mein mera dil hain.” (I like it here. The open skies, the green expanse. And I like working with people. My heart is in social work and working with the people.)

And no wonder the people love you too.

I saw it in every place I went with him. He was the voice of authority, to whom the villagers listened, yet he was at all times eagerly listening to any of their problems, and encouraging them, sharing a laugh with them. When in Lingagiri, he would be telling an eager and excited crowd of villagers about the upcoming health training programs, the passion and dedication came through in his voice. He genuinely believed that it was through the bettering of the lives of the people that the problems could be solved.

I never heard him singing, but I had heard that his voice mesmerized people. He could spread his word of joy and happiness, yet convey his message, in the most pleasing tones. The Gondi language is a tonal language, and its sing-song nature makes songs even more appealing.
And little did he know that in a few months, he would be languishing in the corner of a dark prison cell in Bairamgarh itself, perhaps only a little distance from this shop, mercilessly beaten and bruised, for some trumped up crime that he never committed?

Does he know why this has happened to him?

“We are not interested in those stupid crimes you have committed – the thought is all we care about”, O Brien told Winston Smith in George Orwell’s 1984.

Does the state at all care who killed Punem Honga? Even if they claim that Kopa did it, which they very well know he did not, like they knew Binayak Sen had absolutely nothing to do with Maoists, does it matter to them?

You see, Kopa, the problem is not that you might have committed such and such a murder or something as irrelevant as that. The authorities know that very well. Do not worry, some day you will be set free. Even if you are found guilty and asked to serve a long sentence, or perhaps after several years some “evidence” suddenly turns up proving your innocence. You will eventually be set free. Maybe, if they are feeling generous, with a word of apology.

For you have committed a thought crime. You have dared to hope, more so in your own way. You have dared to imagine a world in which the people of Bastar live in harmony with their surroundings, as they have every right to. Gantala Baby, Adavi Ramadu’s mother, also dared to hope that she might not have to move again. This is your crime. And Gantala Baby also has committed a crime by hoping - maybe she will have to be punished as well.

As O’Brien went on the explain Big Brother’s ideology in 1984, “Humanity is the Party. The others are outside – irrelevant.”

You are irrelevant. Yet, you are unable to see it and are intent on spreading the illusion. Therefore you must be stopped.

Now, did you really not like Raipur? Why not? Are you sure? Don’t you think that the pattern of development that banishes people like you to the fringes of Indian cities is the correct way society should function? That there will be people who have everything, and some nothing, and that is the pre-destined order? Can’t you see the grand scheme of things? And for heaven’s sake, what is this nonsense that you are singing about green fields and open skies? Cannot you be happy watching the television, even if you have not learned to browse the internet?
Or will some more blows with the rubber tipped bamboo cane convince you?

You see, development cannot be stopped. In this world everything has its place, every person or object must be viewed as a resource. If that resource is not economically productive, it will be deemed unnecessary and will have to be eliminated.

If you do not like going to Raipur, Raipur will come to you. And you will like it. We tried to make model cities by putting people into camps, even opened schools for the children there, but most people did not seem to like it! Perhaps it was because of misguided people like you? Don’t you know that it costs a lot of money, and we owe large amounts to certain mining interests who will not be named – these things do not come for free?

Yes, there were one or two incidences of people being killed in camps like Matwada and in places like Singaram, but could you not see that those were an inevitable part of the process? We do not think you were able to understand the big picture. And who asked you to open your big mouth and talk about these killings to the whole wide world? What would they understand? Do they know what it is like in the forests of Bastar? Have they ever bothered to come here in all these years?

No, they have not. Because they do not care. But we do! And we love you Kopa, just as much the people in Bastar do. It is just that you are unable to see it at this time. But we are sure you will understand. It just would take some time. And it would be good for your own future. Think of it. Say when you are older, and stumbling along like a lost soul in a street of some megapolis, you might still look up with a clouded vision to the lights that shine from the rooms in the buildings above, and perhaps ask yourself the same question again - “Kya hain us desh mein?”

You do not want your life to come to that!

Look at the tribals who have joined Salwa Judum, if they could believe in the vision, why not you? Ok, we had to pay them a bit. But we were willing to give you a lot more, and even “requested” you after administering ten of the best with the heavy stick; You were not “forced”, as the VishwaRanjan, the DGP of Chhattisgarh was, during his visit to Berkeley, when he signed the petition urging for Dr. Binayak Sen’s release after being offered a pen and a piece of paper by a member of the audience. Yet you hold on your dreams, your aspirations, and the misguided notion that people can live within each other in the midst of nature and have a fulfilling life?

“When you finally surrender, it must be of your own free will”.

Dreams die last, but die they must. The civilized world has lost that power to dream in which humans can reside in nature, and along with each other. Yet dream people must. For that, they must recreate those imagined worlds, through the internet and television and other appliances. But in that world, people who have dreamed on their own will be considered threats, something that must be eliminated or sidelined. And it would be the dream only of a few select people, for there are not enough resources to make these dreams for all.

Kopa, it will be difficult for you to surrender, but you can try. Only you can set yourself free.
The dreams of the developed world requires metals and other resources. Like the iron ore that comes from Bailadila in Bastar. The ore is washed in the river, as a result of which it flows red through Dantewada. As if the life of the tribals is ebbing away. Operation Green Hunt is meant to destroy everything that is verdant and vibrant, to hunt out what is green and living. It is not meant to capture this person or that; it is meant to break the will of the people and purge their minds of their false dreams and illusions, because of which they seem to stand against development.

Kopa, even after this, you might never find the answer to the question – “Woh desh mein kya hain?”

But it is because of you that I can question “development”, and somebody else will do so as well. And maybe, someday many more people will.

I hope your spirit will always be that light in the dark, which will shine in other people’s mind as it has done in the minds of the people you have lived for.

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Now who is hiding, Mr. Vishwaranjan?

The long wait. The pips. And then the phone rang.

He picked up the phone on the fourth ring.

“Hello?” a gruff voice inquired.

It was a voice of authority. After all, Mr. Vishwaranjan, the person I was calling, was the Director General of Police of Chhattisgarh, the person at the top of the law enforcement institution in the state.

“Sir, my name is Siddhartha Mitra, and I am calling from New York. I am a computer professional working here.”

“Hem”. He cleared his voice. And waited. Evidently we both knew where the call was going. So I dived into the topic, without further ado.

“Sir, I am calling regarding the arrest of Kopa Kunjam”, I said.

“We have been getting many calls regarding this. He has been arrested on a six month old murder case. He was hiding in Himanshu Kumar’s ashram, and when he came out during that time, he was arrested”, the DGP placidly explained.

No doubt this was something he had prepared in advance, and must have repeated it several times by now.

However, there was a big catch to it.

“But I know that is not true. I myself was there in Dantewada two months ago, and I went with Kopa Kunjam to Lingagiri. He came and went from the ashram as he pleased, and he was very much out in the open. He was not hiding there.”

There was a distinct pause at the other end of the line. This was clearly an unexpected and unwelcome counter.

“Look, I do not know the exact details, the SP Bijapur is handling this case”, he paused, desperately thinking of something else to say. “At least, this is what Kopa has confessed. He said he was staying at the Ashram”, he seemed to be trying to backtrack. No, Kopa was not hiding there, but was staying there. And yes, I do not know all the details, so I cannot answer all your questions.

“I know that he was not staying at the ashram at night, because I was there”, I persisted.

His voice took a soothing tone. He condescendingly explained, hoping to clear my ignorance - “Kopa himself has said so. That is why we know he was staying at the ashram. “

“But he might have said so because he was beaten” , I responded, offering the reason why such allegations might have surfaced.

Slander! Calumny! There was a notable shock in his voice. “That is not how the Indian police system works. Nobody is beaten. The arrested make their statements before the magistrate. I am telling you what Kopa has himself has said during his confession.”

“There was witness to the fact that he was beaten. Mr. Alban Toppo, the lawyer who was with him saw him getting beaten up.”

Click.

And then a silence.

We shall have to wait another day to know why Mr.Toppo was making up this egregious lie. Perhaps the blows with the cane that he had received himself before he witnessed Kopa’s beating must have caused him to have hallucinations.

Anyway, the conversation had gone a lot longer than expected. After all, my call on the same issue two days earlier to Amresh Mishra, the SP of Dantewada, had lasted only a few seconds. Mr. Mishra, prior to disconnecting the line, had hurriedly mentioned that this case was out of his region of control, and Kopa was in the custody of the Bijapur police, and I should contact SP Bijapur.

And of course, the SP Bijapur was on “vacation”.

At least Mr. Mishra had some excuse. But the DGP is the overlord of the entire police force in the state. In the end, it is his sole responsibility on how law is enforced in Chhattisgarh. He has no SP Bijapur or vacation to excuse himself with.

Now who is hiding, Mr. Vishwaranjan?