War is Peace: Ignorance is Strength: whowouldathunkit?

Stories of reporting the insurgency out of the South Bastar

This story appeared in The New Indian Express on the  7th of  February, 2010

‘Aaj kal bandook se zaada khatra laptop mein hai.’ – (In today’s world, the laptop is a lot more dangerous than the gun), the thaanedaar from Dornapal camp, Dantewada, tells me, checking my bags, on one of my frequent visits into the warzone.

His statement might have been meaningless if it wasn’t taken in context. In fact, he’s quite aware that the war against the Maoists is not being fought by guns alone. The greatest weapon both warring parties utilize very well, is in fact, silence and misinformation.

Earlier, one could ask the national media, how is it that a virtual civil war in the middle of the country goes almost unreported for more than four years. Salwa Judum started around 2005, more than 644 villages (official figures) were emptied, there were regular instances of killings and rapes, and there were regular deliberate attacks on non-combatants consistently throughout 2006. Encounter after encounter was reported. An infant was shot dead by the CRPF in the village of Cherpal. People returning from Salwa Judum meetings on tractors were hit by IEDs. Innumerable villages in the interior-jungles were raided by the Salwa Judum and they all reported arson and looting. People were arbitrarily arrested and left in jail without lawyers and without the awareness of any of their rights. Yet the police camp of Ranibodli was attacked, 55 policemen were slaughtered, and that was widely reported. As was the attack on the Salwa Judum camp of Errabore that was attacked by the Maoists that was widely reported.

Maoist atrocities hit the wire-services with no trouble at all over four years, and like a phantom their presence was acknowledged, yet they could be mostly ignored as a serious theat. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh may have called the Maoists, ‘the single biggest internal security challenge’ in 2006, but apart for that, what else did he say about them in three years until Operation Green Hunt?

By January 2009 in Bijapur district, people would strangely ask me: ‘When there’s an attack in your village (Mumbai) it’s international news, but when there’s an attack here everyday, no one reports anything.’

Barring occasional visits from the international press and few mainstream publications, the issue only managed to gain mainstream attention once Operation Green Hunt (Tribal Hunt) found itself to be surreptitiously declared by the Home Ministry and then condemned as a media creation. By November, the local administration was informing local reporters and social workers to cease from working in the jungles as Operation Green Hunt was taking place. This however, was a deliberate ploy to prevent journalists from reporting anything that counters the official point of view.

At a Press conference at Jagdalpur during the commencement of Operation Green Hunt, police officials had warned local journalists, saying that if anyone was shot in the crossfire, they wouldn’t be held accountable. Many other reporters were personally threatened or ‘requested’ from working in the jungles.

‘People come to us with their complaints and their problems, and yet we’re not allowed to talk to them.’ Said N R K Pillai, a veteran journalist of Chattisgarh’s Working Journalist Union, ‘it is our job to verify these so-called facts, yet who goes in here? The police are telling our journalists that you get your story from the IB, you get your story from the police station, why do you want to go inside the jungle?’

Over the last four years, many independent witnesses and reporters who reported state atrocity or Salwa Judum crimes were often beaten, harassed and some were even imprisoned. Binayak Sen being the most famous example, who was arrested under the draconian Chattisgarh Public Security Act. Operation Green Hunt has now made the environment far worse as independent fact-finding teams are often stopped, sent back, or in the case of Narayanpatna and Lalgarh, they’ve been attacked. Filmmaker Gopal Menon was beaten at Lalgarh and then stopped from entering Dantewada at Konta Police station. Activists are treated to orchestrated Salwa Judum protest rallies and national reporters are prevented from living in the only hotels in Dantewada, and risk the life of every local source and contact by simply talking to them.

A social worker from Andhra Pradesh, who has been working to offer humanitarian aid to the adivasis who have been escaping the civil war for more than four years, finds himself pondering on the current operation: ‘For years we’ve all be working for the centre to do something about what the state government was doing, and now look what they do.’ His NGO in Andhra Pradesh is now dealing with more Internally Displaced Persons with more stories of burnings and killings and the deliberate ‘sanitation’ of villages. The fact that the State administration and the police has made independent verification extremely difficult has helped to spread an environment of fear and suspicion. No one talks, no one needs to ask questions.

Money of course, makes silence easier. I was with a reporter from a Hindi-daily, printed out of Raipur, who I had accompanied to the Essar complex at Kirandool, to pick up one of his two cheques of Rs.5000 as advertising revenue. Rural reporters need to collect their own advertisements to earn a living and they are obviously not going to risk their lives for a story where there is no money. According to him, he had to leave all mention of Essar Steel out of his reports. So when an estimated two lakh villagers hit the streets of Dantewada in 2007, screaming ‘Essar Essar hai hai.’ or ‘Mahendra Karma Chorr Hai.’ He didn’t write a word.

Yet the reporters on the Andhra Pradesh-Chhattisgarh border have another way to work altogether. According to them, the camp officers at Dornapal, Errabore and Konta have been instructed not to allow any reporters from Andhra Pradesh into Chhattisgarh. They’ve been given open threats considering they always find themselves on the spot, whenever there is news of an attack closer to the Andhra border.

The reporters obviously never travel through the camps of Dornapal, Errabore or Konta – they go straight through the jungles. And interestingly, there hasn’t been a single incident of violence around the Chhattisgarh-Andhra border even as the violence has exacerbated further north – out of reach of the free, independent, local press.

The last attacks around the Andhra border took place in November and every local and national reporter widely covered and documented the incidents.

Out of Sight, Out of Mind

Gotti Koya from Chhattisgarh often travel 70kms through the jungle to the markets in Andhra Pradesh and often move incognito, in fear of being apprehended by the security forces.

This story appeared in The New Indian Express on the 7th of Feb, 2010.

On the 18^th of March, 2008, 14 Maoists of a Dalam (armed squad) were killed by security forces near Dareli, at Pamed, Bijapur district, Chhattisgarh. The security forces claimed no casualties in the alleged gunfight while the Maoists claimed that they were poisoned after the police came to know of a meeting. It was a well-publicised local incident that was reported yet what was neither reported nor investigated was the retaliatory killing of at least five villagers deemed ‘informants’ by the Maoists.

Rava Oonga (30), Badse Masa (50), Kovasi Hidme (35), Madkam Durva (70) and Madkam Idma (21) were returning to their villages in Bijapur District from Hyderabad after an election rally for the CPI (ML) New Democracy. They were hacked to death by axes in front of other villagers by a mixed squad of Sangam and Dalam members as suspected informants. Their previous visit to Hyderabad seemed too suspicious to the Maoists who quickly organized a ‘Jan Adalat’ or ‘People’s court’ to condemn them to death.

One villager was from Pallagudem, two from Jeerlaguda and two from Dareli. When their relatives and neighbours were asked about the identities of the assailants and the Maoists who were present during the killing, they replied: ‘Agar hum aapko bol denge, phir woh log humko marne bhi aajayenge.’ (If we tell you who killed them, then they will come to kill us also.)

A majority of the villagers do not reside in their villages anymore. They left without lodging an FIR against the Maoists at Pamed Police Station for fear of being detained by the police as suspected Maoists, and are now, not eligible for compensation. They had initially moved to Andhra Pradesh where their shacks were broken down by Forest Officials. And as it is, it’s not just the Maoists, or the Forest officials they’re afraid of. The neighbouring village of Thadmetla was raided by the Salwa Judum and one man, Sodhi Nando (30) was burnt to death along with his house.

Similarly, as it was previously reported by the Express, the village of Tatemargu in Konta block was raided by the security forces on the 10^th of November, and seven villagers (four from Tatemargu, two from Doghpar, one from Pallodi) were allegedly killed by the security forces while more than 60 buildings were burnt down in Tatemargu and 30 homes in Pallodi. Some villagers of Tatemargu had lost around 40 quintals of rice to the fires that consumed their homes.

There were even some allegations of rape that were investigated yet there were no women willing to come forward to give their testimonies. Yet recently, at least, three women from Tatemargu claim to have been raped on the day of the raid, allegedly by members of the security forces who dragged them into the jungle. One woman claims she was held down by two men, and raped by a third who spoke ‘Koya’ – the tribal dialect.

She has neither lodged a complaint at Kistaram Police station for fear of being apprehended by the police as a ‘Maoist’, nor has she any access to a lawyer.

Previous incidents of rape from Samsetti, Bandarpadar and Arlampalli that were investigated and then taken to court led to nothing but the mental and physical harassment of the victims by their assailants. None of the accused SPOs or members of the Salwa Judum have ever been arrested even as warrants have been issued by the courts.

Yet even before the cases of rape are tried as criminal cases, witnesses and victims of all incidents of violence perpetrated by the state, have a tendency to disappear.

Both Katam Suresh (20 months) and his father Katam Dulaiah (20 years) of the village of Gompad are still missing. Katam Suresh lost three of his fingers during an attack on his village on the 1^st of October, 2009, when nine villagers were killed. He was last seen on the 14^th of January, 2010 at Konta Police station.

Similarly, Rava Jimey (17) and Madkam Sana (22) from the village of Boorgam were traveling to Kuakonda in Dantewada on the 25^th of January, 2010. They disappeared somewhere between Konta police station and Dornapal police station and their relatives haven’t heard of them since. They were residing in Khammam district of Andhra Pradesh and were going to meet relatives at Kuakonda. The tribals from Chhattisgarh often travel incognito from Andhra Pradesh to South Bastar, claiming to be from other villages and other districts. Many of them travel around 70kms through the jungle to Andhra Pradesh for the regular ‘saptaah’ – market day. Their local markets are often out of bounds to them out of fear of being apprehended by the security forces for questioning.

Gompad Encounter Baby Missing

Katam Suresh (20 months) with his father Katam Dulaiya (20 years) were last seen on the 14th of January at Konta Police Station, Chhattisgarh.

20 month-old Katam Suresh who lost three of his fingers during a fatal attack on his mother during a combing operation on their village of Gompad on the 1^st of October, was last seen at Konta police station, along with his 20 year old father Katam Dulaiya.

They were apprehended by the police from the botched public hearing on Operation Green Hunt to be held in the town of Dantewada and were last seen on the 14^th of January, 2010 at Konta police station. Along with them, were two other villagers Soyam Dulaaih and Soyam Ramu, relatives of victims Soyam Subaiya and Soyam Subhi of Gompad village.

Police have denied detaining them but relatives in Khammam District have complained for days now that they have been missing. Reports started to surface that more than twenty-five villagers who had come for the public hearing were detained by the police. The villagers from Gompad were seen at Dantewada police station and later seen at Konta Police station.

Previously, on the 1^st of October, security forces had raided the village of Gompad and the Superintendent of Police, Amresh Mishra had announced that nine Maoists had been killed in an encounter but no bodies could be recovered as they were ‘taken away’ by the survivors. Amongst the dead were the maternal grandparents of Katam Suresh – his grandfather Madvi Bajaar (50), his grandmother Madvi Subhi (45), as well as his mother Katam Kanama (20) and his aunt Madvi Mooti, (8) who were killed, as their home was the closest to the approaching forces.

His grandmother Madvi Subhi had lived for three days after the attack before she succumbed to her injuries from lack of medical assistance.

Their neighbours, Soyam Subaiya (age 20) and Soyam Subhi (18) were only married for a year before they were killed. Madvi Yankaiya (age 50), and two visiting villagers from the village of Bandarpadar were also killed on the same day.

The matter of the killings of the village of Goompad was taken to the Supreme Court, against the State Of Chhattisgarh, Respondent no.1, via social activist and petioner no.1 Himanshu Kumar of Vanvasi Chetna Ashram and the victims of violence.

Sodhi Sambo, petioner no.13 of the said Writ Petition (Criminal) No.103 of 2009,  had also disappeared from AIMS in Delhi after receiving treatment for a bullet wound that she received during the said day of attack. She had no access to the outside world once she was detained by the police on the 3^rd of January 2010, and is now missing.

This article appears in The New Indian Express as…

The Tribal ‘Ruchikas’ Of Dantewada

This Story First Appeared in The New Indian Express

The Tribal ‘Ruchikas’ of Dantewada

The Muria don’t know anything about rape, as they say, their word for it is closer to ‘baalatkaar’ than anything else. But when four tribal girls were allegedly gang-raped by SPOs in the village of Samsetti in 2006, neither does the entire state machinery of Chhattisgarh.

Recently, the same girls were beaten by the very accused and forced to give their thumb-prints on blank papers. They were then detained for five days in Dornapal police station, where the very accused are stationed. Once the girls were released they flatly refused to talk to anyone, let alone their lawyers. The villagers of Samsetti had told the victims to let go of the matter as well. Previously, throughout September, the Sarpanch of Samsetti would ask the villagers to withdraw the cases and to put their thumbprints on blank papers otherwise the police and the SPOs would come to their village again. They did not heed to his threats.

According to victim testimonies, on the 6^th of July 2006, in the village of Samsetti, in the district of Dantewada, three girls, aged 19, 22 and 23 were gang-raped by government appointed SPOs and members of the Salwa Judum during a raid on their village. Another girl had been raped in January of that very year.

When the girls had gone to file a complaint at the police station, they were threatened and chased away. Time would pass. It was discovered that there were allegedly 24 cases of rape in the entire Konta block, out of which, only six of the women were willing to speak up. Four of them were from Samsetti, one from Arlampalli and another from Bandarpadar.

The girls first wrote their complaints straight to the Superintendent of Police and the Collector on the 27^th of March, 2009. Nothing happens. Then a complaint case was jointly filed to the Judicial Magistrate First Class, Konta on the 29^th of April, 2009.

Interestingly, while statements were being recorded at the court on the 16^th of June, 2009, the accused were loitering around the corridors. On the next court date, the 17^th of July, when the testimonies of the victims were meant to be heard, the Magistrate was absent, allegedly, ‘called away to headquarters.’ The Magistrate also magically disappears on the next court date, the 12^th of August.

The Magistrate, Amrit Karkate nervously rides his bicycle to court everyday from his house in Konta – the bastion of the very accused. A warrant for the thirty accused is finally issued by the court in October to the police stations of Dornapal, Konta and Bhejji. Yet no arrests are made. The accused are missing. One of them is even giving speeches. The accused SPOs are on duty yet for some reason they’re missing too.

Harassment of the victims still continued, the women fled their village and began to live on the premises of the Vanvasi Chetna Ashram. They had even approached the Collector Reena Babasaheb Kangale on the 11^th of August to ensure the safety of the women. Yet nothing would happen. There would be no security. They returned to their village. They’d be beaten. They’d be dragged to jail. Irrespective of the fact that once a warrant is issued, the accused cannot withdraw the case unless the accused are brought to court and the matter can proceed. What’s the point of beating them now? What can they do?

Take the case of Madkam Madvi (name changed) of Bhandarpadar, Konta block, who was allegedly gang-raped by SPOs at Konta police station in April of 2008. According to her testimony, she claims that she was taken to the police station by the Salwa Judum, robbed of some Rs. 25,000, then kept alone in a room. She was first raped by a SPO in an isolated room in the police station, then blindfolded and gang-raped over two days at the station by three more unidentified persons.

Eventually, she was set free and after further harassment she escaped to Andhra Pradesh. She had hoped to start over and had even married.

At this point, members of the Salwa Judum traced her down in Andhra Pradesh and the harassment continued. According to her husband, they had threatened him saying, ‘we were going to sell this girl and earn some money but now that you married her, we have suffered a loss that you shall now have to payback.’ They then stole Rs.3500, one cow, three goats and two chickens to ‘make up for their loss.’ After further threatening them, they went back to Chhattisgarh, ensuring that Madvi would sleep in a different room in a different village every night.

Finally, through the Gandhian NGO Vanvasi Chetna Ashram, a complaint was written to the Superintendent of Police, Dantewada. There was no reply for months. The matter was then taken to the court as a private complaint. There was a request to shift the case from Konta to the Dantewada sessions court on the 9^th of March, 2009.

Harassment began soon after. SPOs crossed the state border and searched Madvi’s house on the 10^th of April, 2009. And on the 2^nd of December, 2009, Madvi’s father and a boy who shared her husband’s name were apprehended and taken to Chintur Police Station in Andhra Pradesh. There, the father was threatened and the boy was beaten. They were told to bring Madvi to Konta police station. At this point, she had gone into hiding, knowing that her next appearance at court was to be held on the 10^th of December when she had to depose.

The deposition didn’t happen. On the very day of the hearing there was a rally against the Vanvasi Chetna Ashram, who used to support her emotionally and financially. As of January 6^th the Vanvasi Chetna Ashram has ceased to exist, it’s workers arrested, it’s employees threatened, it’s director missing.

The day after, prominent activists Medha Patkar, Sandeep Pandey, D. Gabriele, Kavita Srivastava along with some twenty others were attacked by a mob comprising of members of the Salwa Judum who referred to themselves as ‘Maa Danteswadi Adivasi Swabhimaan Manch’. According to activists, the entire mob was orchestrated by police. And according to local media reports, one of the accused in the Konta Rape case was also part of the mob. 

…..And Justice For Anyone?

A Maoist 'Jan Adalat' statement attempting to justify the execution of an unarmed SPO.

‘Meltha’ means ‘justice’ in Koya language but it means nothing to the tribals of Dantewada and Bijapur District of Chhattisgarh

‘We know what we do here is wrong sometimes, but what am I supposed to do? Bharti ho gayi, aur duty karna parta hai.’ Says Prashant (name-changed) of the Chhattisgarh State Police from Dhamtari district of Chhattisgarh. He has been in Dantewada district for more than 12 months now and like a majority of those he is serving with, he’s from a Scheduled Caste. The exceptions in his platoon belong to Other Backward Castes. The SPOs meanwhile, are mostly Muria tribals.

Prashant’s compatriots from the CGP, like him, have MA degrees or BSC degrees. They could not find any jobs back home and Bharti ho gayi. Now with a pay of Rs.10,000 a month, they’re put into the risk of indiscriminate Maoist IEDs and landmines, – their jan adalats or ‘People’s Courts’, and their ambushes, where the police are fired upon by the weapons of their long-fallen comrades, and bows and arrows.

Official sources state that around 125 security personnel were killed in the year 2009. Adding to it are the figures that 113 Maoists and 124 civilians were also killed. Out of the 125 security personnel killed, one of those killed was SPO Suresh from Dharmapuram village of Basaguda Block in May of 2009 – an event that was not reported in any national daily but was merely destined to be a part of the above-mentioned statistic.

He was abducted by the Maoists from Timapuram village in Basaguda Block during a ‘pudum’ (festival) and kept in detention for a few days. The police frequently combed the area to locate him but to no avail. His body was found a few days later near Basaguda police station. He was in his early 20s and was a father of one year old child.

The Maoists from the Jagargonda Area Committee left a ‘People’s Court’ or ‘Jan Adalat’ statement justifying their execution of SPO Suresh, claiming that he was present during the widespread arson and looting of the villages of Basaguda block, where over 2000 villagers had left their homes in 2006. They also claimed that he was involved in the killing of two villagers from Sarkinguda.

‘Any SPO or undercover officer that conspires against the people shall be given similar punishment.’ The Maoists had written on paper in red and left next to his body.

Of course, as the Maoist ‘judiciary’ and sense of justice is only accountable to itself, in the state of Chhattisgarh, the law is the police.

Kopa Kunjam, human rights activist shall be brought to court on the 20^th of January, 2010. He has barely been a month in jail yet he is already a broken man. He has been allegedly hung upside down and beaten repeatedly in jail, and been openly told that he has been framed.

The very legal system that he tried to upheld has now condemned him – he had helped to file complaint after complaint to the National Human Rights Commission and the High Court, against the alleged atrocities of police and the Salwa Judum and all that he ever got out of it was imprisonment and torture.

It was even reported by the local press that one of the accused in the Konta rape case, was throwing eggs and mud at a visiting Medha Patkar from within a Salwa Judum demonstration allegedly orchestrated by the police, and according to some sources, from Delhi itself. There is a warrant for his arrest yet he’s absconding right in front of the police. The ‘Ruchikas’ of Dantewada, from Samsetti, Arlampalli and Bandarpadar have been cut-off from their lawyers, from activists and the press.

The Superintendent of the Police, Amresh Mishra frequently visits Kopa Kunjam in jail, and it has been confirmed that the police met him the day before he was arrested, had ‘requested’ him to leave the VCA, and become a police informer.

‘I have seen with my own eyes, what it is that you do,’ he had allegedly told his tempters. Now his three wives break into tears as they meet him in Dantewada jail. The NGO Vanvasi Chetna Ashram has all but ceased to exist. His NGO director and mentor Himanshu Kumar clandestinely left Dantewada, out of fear of arrest. So the Muria gets beaten in jail, the Brahmin escapes.

Giving him company in Dantewada jail, are numerous adivasis from the interior areas who have no idea of their rights. For instance, there is Lachinder from Gangaloor village of Bijapur District, who has been in Dantewada jail for more than a month and a half, booked under section 436 (arson) of the IPC, and section 25 and 27 of the Arms Act. He’s also thirteen years old. His school card stating his age isn’t indicative enough of his age. A mentally-handicapped mother comes to court and looks at her 13 year old son and says he might be 60 years old, or 30 years old or 13 years old. He stays in jail, and not a juvenile home, a violation of the Juvenile Justice Act.

Meanwhile, a RTI application filed by concerned citizens had uncovered that 14.8 hectares of land from the village of Goomiyapal in Dantewada district is part of a land acquisition proposal with Tata Steel Limited. Six villagers from Goomiyapal were also allegedly gunned down by the police in December as alleged Maoists. No one in the local press reported the encounter even as the village is just four kilometers from the industrial town of Kirandool.

Similarly, Medha Patkar and activists had visited the village of Kuper on the 7^th of January to investigate into the matter of four missing boys. The police had refused to lodge the FIRs and refused to inform the parents of the whereabouts of the missing boys. Disappearances and abductions are widespread in Dantewada, and the rule law continues to be a myth.

(This article has been written for The New Indian Express)

The Case of Sodhi Sambo

This Article has been written for The New Indian Express.

Witness and Supreme Court petitioner Sodhi Sambo at the Vanvasi Chetna Ashram.

The bullet that traveled through Sodhi Sambo’s leg didn’t just shatter her bone. It didn’t just leave her without medical care for twelve days of writhing agony in her village of Goompad, Dantewada District, where nine of her neighbours were killed in an alleged encounter on the 1^st of October. It didn’t just take her to Delhi, to AIMS, to the Supreme Court, away from her four children and her husband. It didn’t just ensure that she’d become an intrinsic character of a drama that is played out between activists, the press, the police and the supreme court.

She was initially detained at Kanker on route to Delhi for treatment, on the 3^rd of January and two days later she was found under guard at Maharani Hospital in Jagdalpur.

‘It is a medico-legal case. We haven’t arrested her, nor have we detained her, we’ve just brought her to collect her testimony on the said incident of Goompad. The police is accused, I understand but the whole police is not accused.’ Said Superintendent of Police Amresh Mishra, who had given journalists the permission to visit Sambo when they were in Dantewada to collect her own version of the story.

But by the time the press got to Maharani Hospital in Jagdalpur, this permission was mysteriously denied. Tehelka journalist Tusha Mittal was literally pushed out of the ward by policewomen. The journalists had gone back to the SP, the DIG, the IG, the Collector, from both Dantewada district and Bastar district yet no one was forthcoming. The plain clothes police personnel would ask for written permission. Every official who was contacted, forwarded responsibility to another. Many didn’t take calls, others mysteriously transformed into some other individual when informed they were speaking to journalists. Many of them refused to meet the press, IG Longkumer of Jagdalpur mysteriously leaves from the back as the press wait for him.

The red tape for the journalists was a gagging order on any testimony of Sodhi Sambo. No one shall be allowed to talk to her and there was never any intention to let anyone talk to her. The Director of the Hospital, Dr.Paikra had given full permission for journalists to talk to Sodhi yet the plain clothes police still refused permission. The head constable at the hospital admitted his fear of his superiors, DIG Sitaram Kalluri and S.P. Mishra, not the law. Advocate Colin Gonzalvez, Sambo’s lawyer, armed with a supreme court order that the State of Chhattisgarh is directed not to prevent or create any obstacles to Sodi
Shambo, was not allowed to meet her either. Chief Secretary Joy Oomen had told lawyer Kavita Shrivastava, ‘I can’t meet you, and I don’t want to meet you.’

Sodhi Sambo stayed in ‘protection’ of the plain-clothed police, who called every visitor ‘a naxalite’ or ‘naxalite sympathizer’. The S.P. Amresh Mishra had also claimed that her parents were with her yet when informed that her parents had passed away, her relatives who were attending to her, had turned into a mysterious ‘maasi’ and ‘maasa’. Yet the other attendants or nurses in the ward have little notice for any such ‘maasi’ or ‘maasa’. Her doctor Sudeep Thakur would only communicate with her, via the translation provided by another patient’s attendant, not any ‘maasi’ or ‘parent’.

Sambo is shy, vulnerable and barely talks to anyone, and the police say she is free to go where she pleases and she did not protest to come with them in the first place. Yet she still has no access to anyone but the police.

She was eventually referred to Medical College Hospital, Raipur for bone-grafting surgery, or limb-lengthening, as Maharani Hospital in Jagdalpur had no such facilities. Yet she stayed in Jagdalpur for three days, uselessly waiting for treatment she could not receive in the hospital. She was only taken to Raipur at Ramakrishna Care hospital where she was again referred to AIMS. At the whole time, neither the press nor her lawyers were allowed access to her. At one point, she was said to be in Delhi by Director General of Police Vishwa Ranjan, when she was actually still in Raipur. As of now, it is confirmed that she is in the private ward of AIMS in Delhi, and has no access to the outside world.

Meanwhile, her husband and one of her children had arrived for the Jan Sunwai on the 6^th of January and had been taken away by the police. More than 25 villagers had arrived for the Jan Sunwai and there is no news of them. According to Supreme Court lawyer Colin Gonzalez, ‘Apparently all the 12 tribal petitioners from the writ petition have been picked up and are in custody of the police, and it is possible that they will be coerced to withdraw from the case.’

Jan Sunwayi at Dantewada: shush now.

This article has been written for The New Indian Express.

Market day at Bijapur: the dichotomies and the many shades of greay.

JAN SUNWAYI AT DANTEWADA

Activists, social workers, ex-justices, ex-bureaucrats, policemen, journalists, intellectuals and citizens from all across India are descending into the jungles of Dantewada, Chhattisgarh for an independent public hearing held on the Salwa Judum, Operation Green Hunt and the Adivasi struggle for justice.

Home Minister Chidambaram had showed initial signs that he may also be present on the 7^th of January public hearing, yet was advised by governor and former Director of the IB, E.S.L. Narsimhan  to reconsider his position. Meanwhile many observers claimed that he probably wouldn’t be expected for the very reasons the Jan Sunwayi was being organized.

For instance, in the summer of 2007, twelve-year-old Hungi Madkam, daughter of Kesha Madkam, disappeared after a workforce of the CRPF and SPOs had raided her village of Kottanendra at Dantewada, Chhattisgarh. The FIR on her disappearance was not registered at the local police station. A complaint was written to the National Human Rights Commission that would forward the complaint dated 22/09/2008, received from her brother Lakhmu Madkam to the Director General, CRPF on 25/10/2008.

The Director General recommends that the local police investigate into the matter. Instead, they threatened and beat up the petitioner Madkam Lakhmu and then claimed that he wasn’t co-operating with them in the investigation.

Case closed. A young girl who disappears ceases to exist.

Two years would pass and as is the story of the adivasis of Bastar, she is not where she belongs – for she is neither with her family, nor in her home, nor on her land. She was neither booked, nor taken to a juvenile home, nor a Salwa Judum camp. She simply vanished.

Her brother Lakhmu Madkam would probably want to have a word with Home Minister Chidambaram in the upcoming Jan Sunwayi.

‘Where is my sister?’ Of course, Mr. Chidambaram wouldn’t know, nor have any power to do anything about it. Nor would he know about Vanjam Deve’s 20 year old daughter Vanjam Jogi of the village of Arlampalli who was allegedly abducted by the Salwa Judum in January 2008. Nor would he even know about the whereabouts of 22 year old Kumari Baiko of the village of Dharmaguda who was abducted by SPOs in the summer of 2008. Nor would he know about the killing of her father Chinna Baiko at Errabore camp. This particular case was eventually taken to the High Court of Chhattisgarh at Bilaspur by activists and family members of the victims.

The court has asked why it took eight months to register the first complaint against the police at the police station. As of now, the original petitioner of the complaint is hiding in fear of police/Salwa Judum reprisal. If he doesn’t resurface, the story would be eventually thrown out of the court.

Yet the pattern of hopelessness and threats to the lives of victims and their family members is widespread in the face of the complete lack of any semblance of a witness protection program.

Take the case of Madkam Madvi (name changed) of Bhandarpadar, Konta block, who was allegedly gang-raped by SPOs at Konta police station in April of 2008. According to her testimony, she claims that she was taken to the police station by the Salwa Judum, robbed of some Rs. 25,000, then kept alone in a room. She was first raped by a SPO in an isolated room in the police station, then blindfolded and gang-raped over two days at the station by three more unidentified persons.

Eventually, she was set free and after further harassment she escaped to Andhra Pradesh. She had hoped to start over and had even married.

At this point, members of the Salwa Judum traced her down in Andhra Pradesh and the harassment continued. According to her husband, they had threatened him saying, ‘we were going to sell this girl and earn some money but now that you married her, we have suffered a loss that you shall now have to payback.’ They then stole Rs.3500, one cow, three goats and two chickens to ‘make up for their loss.’ After further threatening them, they went back to Chhattisgarh, ensuring that Madvi would sleep in a different room in a different village every night, living in constant fear.

Finally, through the Gandhian NGO Vanvasi Chetna Ashram, a complaint was written to the Superintendent of Police, Dantewada. There was no reply for months. The matter was then taken to the court as a private complaint. The case was shifted from Konta to the Dantewada sessions court on the 9^th of March, 2009. Harassment began soon after. SPOs crossed the state border and searched her house on the 10^th of April, 2009. And on the 2^nd of December, 2009, Madvi’s father and a boy who shared her husband’s name were apprehended and taken to Chintur Police Station in Andhra Pradesh. There, the father was threatened and the boy was beaten. They were told to bring Madvi to Konta police station. At this point, she had gone into hiding, knowing that her next appearance at court was to be held on the 10^th of December when she had to depose.

She would probably have a lot to say at the Jan Sunwayi as well, provided someone comes to listen.

And the stories would go on. No one in Dantewada has forgotten Ranibodli where 55 policemen were slaughtered. Those who survived the attack were protected by local tribals. That no one remembered.

No one has forgotten the forceful expulsion of villagers from 644 villages. No one has forgotten the issue of security from Maoist violence. No one has forgotten the attack on Errabore camp that was burnt down by the Maoists and 25 people, including a woman and her baby were killed. The Maoists claim that the majority of those killed were SPOs. And no one has forgotten that quite a few of the SPOs themselves are forced to join the service. The fact is, for the majority of the displaced the only option of employment and sustenance is the SPO service – Rs.2,100 a month. The villagers of Bastar have little choice in the face of the complete destruction of their agrarian way of  life – agriculture has all but stopped in the greater parts of Biajpur and Dantewada district.

Yet, disturbingly, a majority of the villagers were intimidated and threatened to become SPOs. And this continues even now.

Take the instance of Lingaram Kodopi, 24, from the village of Sameli, Kuakonda Block who was arrested on the 31^st of August, 2009 and was being forced to join the SPO service. The rationale behind it is simple. Once Linga Kodopi is shown in close proximity to the police, the Maoists themselves might suspect him of being an ‘informer’, and thus he’d live in further fear of them. Once he’s an SPO, he can supply the security services a wealth of information of the ‘interior’ areas. Therefore he was allegedly kept in a toilet in the police station for over 40 days. First, Superintendent of Police Amresh Mishra denies that he was in their custody, then eventually, they accept that they have an SPO by the name of Lingaram Kodopi.

Through activists, the family filed a Habeas Corpus petition in Bilaspur High Court, asking the police to present Lingaram Kodopi at Court. At Court, Linga told the judge that he did become an SPO but he would like to leave the service. The Court directed the police to release him, and he was released on the 7^th of October, 2009.

On the way back home to his village, the police detained his older brother for petitioning the High Court and released him after two days. They also detained his father Joga Ram and had asked him to revoke the affidavit that was detailing custodial torture. He was released after a week.

Lingaram Kodopi, out of fear of further harassment, doesn’t live in Dantewada anymore.

Similarly, the police had also taken 17 villagers from Goomiyapal, Kutrem, Phirnaar, Hiroli and Darpa from Kuakonda block and kept them in forced confinement over a period of two weeks, forcing them to become SPOs.

Maybe they’d like to have a word with the Home Minister as well.

Witness to ‘fake encounter’ detained by police

This article has been written For The New Indian Express.

Witness and Supreme Court petitioner Sodhi Sambo recieving treatment for malaria at Dantewada hospital. She was apprehended by the police on her way to Delhi on the 3rd of January, 2010.

Sodhi Sambo (age 28) of the village of Goompad of Dantewada district is a witness and a victim of the October 1^st killings in the village of Goompad, where nine people, including an eight-year old girl were killed, allegedly by security forces. Eighteen-month old Madvi Mukesh (name changed) lost three of his fingers on the same day, along with his mother and his maternal grand parents.

According to her testimony, she was apprehended by security forces on the 1^st of October, 2009 and taken to the house of Soyam Sensa, where Soyam Sensa’s wife Soyam Bali was, with her infant baby. Allegedly, the security forces had raised their rifles to shoot her but were prevented from doing so by other security forces.

She was not so lucky, as she was lined up against the house and shot in her leg. Seeing this, her two children Sodi Raju (age 3) and Sodi Nago (age 5) had thrown themselves on her and began to cry. Other security forces then prevented the shooter from carrying out his act and left them.

As of the 2^nd of January, she was at Dantewada town, convalescing and waiting for her operation dates for her leg injury. Police had regularly inquired into her presence at Dantewada Hospital where she was receiving treatment for malaria when it was decided by social activists that she should be taken out of Dantewada for her safety. On the way to Raipur, she was forcibly picked up at Kanker district by the police without a warrant and without any charges against her.

Meanwhile, the matter of the unlawful killings on the village of Goompad was taken to the Supreme Court, against the State Of Chhattisgarh, Respondent no.1, Central Bureau of Investigation, Respondent no.2 and the Union of India, Respondent no.3 via social activist Himanshu Kumar of Vanvasi Chetna Ashram and the victims of violence of another village of Gachanpalli. Sodhi Sambo is petioner no.13 of the said Writ Petition (Criminal) No.103 of 2009.

An earlier magisterial inquiry was ordered into the killings of Singaram where 19 tribals were allegedly shot dead by the police, by the Chhattisgarh government and was carried out by the Sub-Divisional Magistrate Ankit Anand, who had arrived to collect the testimonies of the victims and witnesses along with the accused SPOs and police personnel. Allegedly, statements were recorded incorrectly, no real investigation was done, no chargesheet was prepared.

The current forced detainment of Sodhi Sambo has been ordered by the Superintendent of Police Amresh Mishra under the pretext of collecting her testimony.

Lest We Forget: Nehru’s Panchsheel

Into the Heart of Light: Beyond the Indravati.

Nehru’s Panchsheel for Tribal Development is well-known yet it risks falling down the abyss of the Orwellian memory hole. There isn’t anything ambiguous about it, and it stands in complete contrast to Mr. Chidambaram’s idea of industrial development – Vedanta and its desire to eat the bauxite from the Dongria Kondh’s Sacred Mountain.

‘We can respect the fact that they worship the Niyamgirhi hill, but will that put shoes on their feet or their children in school?’ He told  Tehelka a while back, yet I wonder if he ever asked the adivasis if they wanted shoes, and am I wrong or isn’t education meant to be free?

I am reminded of a man I met in just-another-village-that-was-burnt down, who told me what he wanted from the government:

‘We’re fine, we need nothing, just give us a road so we can travel to the market and electricity. The rest we can get by ourselves.’

And a long time ago, in 1955, Nehru had addressed an All India Conference of Tribes in Jagdalpur, Bastar District of Chhattisgarh (Then Madhya Pradesh) and had said: ‘Wherever you live, you should live in your own way. This is what I want you to decide yourselves. How would you like to live? Your old customs and habits are good. We want that they should survive but at the same time we want that you should be educated and should do your part in the welfare of the country.’

And now, here are his five fundamental principles for tribal development -

1. People should develop along the line of their own genius and we should avoid imposing anything on them. We should try to encourage in every way their own traditional arts and culture.
2. Tribal rights to land and forest should be respected.
3. We should try to train and build up a team of their own people to do the work of administration and development. Some technical personnel from outside will no doubt, be needed, especially in the beginning. But we should avoid introducing too many outsiders into tribal territory.
4. We should not over administer these areas or overwhelm them with a multiplicity of schemes. We should rather works through, and not in rivalry to, their own social and cultural institutions.
5. We should judge results, not by statistics or the amount of money spent, but by the quality of human character that is evolved.

I’d like to especially stress on the last part, ‘but by the quality of human character that is evolved.’  I’d like to simply avoid unnecessary rhetoric and say, sorry, there’s not much human character in the ‘consumer’ class and its lust for unbridled greed.

The Muria, on the other hand, who I have spent my time with, possess qualities of a long lost humanity that didn’t drown in the nihilistic dirge of mass-produced pop-crap-cultural bankruptcy. The other day I read the old reports that were written by administrators such as B.D Sharma and Noronha and on some of the work that was done by anthropologist Verrier Elwin. They had noted that the Muria who were isolated from the mainstream were far more independent and free-spirited than the ones who were in regular contact with the mainstream populace. It is easy to understand why.

We’re corrupting them with our own weaknesses.

The Muria have survived centuries of violence – they had rebelled against them in 1842, all the way to 1863. They had rebelled against the British and their timber contractors in 1859, to protect their Sal trees. And of course, there was the Bhumkal Rebellion in 1910, a culmination of all oppression, a desire to reassert their rights over their jungle.

Operation Tribal Hunt, like all counter-insurgencies aim to destroy the spirit and the will of the people.

These, are not people who can be broken so easily. And that, is human character.

Diary: The Arrest of Kopa Kunjam

Kopa Kunjam, wrongfully imprisoned for the murder of a man whose life he tried to save.

When I got news that Kopa Kunjam was beaten in police custody, I was angry, I was furious. In fact, this was only the second time this whole year that I felt such a potent rage – that wasn’t self-created.

Rage is in fact a mere trifling emotion, it lasts a few cringing seconds; what I actually felt was a million little emotions….a sensation of defeat, a vulnerability, a fragility of everything that we are, and what we’re up against. Of course, none of this is new, I was aware of what I was doing when I got into this. Or so I believe.

People asked me throughout the months of June-October, when I’m going to go back to Dantewada, and I realized, I never really left it.  The people, the place, the mahua, the Muria

the memory

the blood

the horror

the wonder

the joy the beauty

the fight

the humour

the dark humour

the broken homes the endless burnt villages

the women and their babies

the madvis

the madkams

the jogas

the jogis

the jungle fatigues

the faraway realities of murder

rape

and the spirit of simplicity trying to remain.

I’d walk through the veins of the city of lost plastic hopes: bombay; and accidentally catch a mirage of carbon-copies of my VCA friends on the street, or someone who looked like the muria father of a boy who was killed, or the muria wife of a man who disappeared; or a man in a red-and-white striped shirt: Kopa.

They never left me.

Every day, I’d wake up to work to go back there, safely, quietly, productively: as Shubhranshu would say: ‘it’s a marathon, not a 100 metre sprint.’ You’re useless if you’re dead. You’re useless if you’re merely a cautionary tale.

Everyday, I dreamt of being back in the jungle, fighting, quietly with a pen, a notebook and a camera, for justice and the people who I admire for their fight is my fight: it is only right that a man who goes into self-imposed exile, can identify with those who’re losing their homes, it is only right that a man who suppresses violence in his soul, fights to end it in the world around him.

I said NO to injustice. I was reborn. I had to start somewhere.

Yet the face of anxiety and loss confronts me, it is an empty face: you can’t stare into it, you can’t bear knowing that the people around you shall die.

‘Human rights activist Kopa Kunjam along with Advocate Alban Toppo were picked up by Bijapur Police from our NGO office yesterday in the name of interrogation. Advocate Alban is released, badly beaten up. Kopa too beaten up, unable to breathe properly, still in police custody.’ – The SMS from Himanshu Kumar that I read as I was walking past the Koraput police station after talking to another activist.

I am 25 years old and the one thing I am certain about is that as long as you keep your heart, you’re always going to feel that you’ve lost.

* * *

I was on the train, general class, driving through the Oriya countryside, the stench of smoke and the ice-cold wind in my face; I was hungry, tired, yet I couldn’t sleep – I kept going through the whole damn thing in my head – Dantewada, Narayanpatna, state violence, individual terror, repression, oppression, death, murder and the whole cheery lot.

It had occurred to me that I never lost a friend.

I may have lost quite a few to betrayal

To time and growing up

To my ego

To my need for selfish abandonment

To anger

To my reckless desire for solitude

Yet I never lost a friend to Death.

I seem to be a little sheltered; I believe this is youth; to grow up you’re not just aware of death but you experience it in the gut of your soul.

When Balagopal passed away, something went off in my head. I barely knew him yet I knew what he meant to those around him. At his funeral I watched them weep – those people who I admired, who I worked with, who knew that the world lost something when it needed it the most. That was the greatest loss; that was the beauty of the man. He was irreplaceable.

yet mortality,

you bastard, death,

you liberator, come, let us go, you and I, where the evening is a bedspread.

Don’t take anymore.

Now anxiety follows me through to what used to be Srikakulam. Here, a long time ago, people fought and people died and all I could think about was Dantewada and what they are attempting to do to my friends. They want to break our spirits. They want to shatter us.

And as long as they keep us all apart it is only a matter of time till we bend and break and give up.

So much for my reckless desire for solitude.

* * *

I remember I had this extremely intense conversation with Kopa at Bairamgarh in April. Kopa is, of course, half a clown. If he isn’t mumbling and grumbling about something you’re saying, he’s having a laughing fit or indulging in obvious slapstick humour.

For instance, he’s pretending to sleep on the backseat of the VCA bus with his shirt-off. The bus hits a bump, he leaps into the air and goes crash bang and bursts into loud spontaneous laughter.

Yet on that day on Bairamgarh, Kopa was frustrated, angry and furious about it all – the fate of the Adivasi.

Four of us – Bela and myself, with Sukhdev and Kopa were supposed to go to a village that was burnt down but the weather and the security risk seriously hindered us. Kopa questioned my enthusiasm: ‘you want to die no?’

‘Of course not, I want to work, I want to do whatever I can.’

‘No, you want to die.’

And somewhere in the middle of that he finally told me: ‘How many complaints we have lodged, how many times we go to court and how many times we go to burnt villages and what happens? Nothing! Nothing ever happens.’

‘So what? Would you rather do nothing?’

He kept quiet.

‘What else is there really?’ I said, ‘You’ve done this for so long, and yes, we’re fighting a losing game, of course I know that, maybe something good will happen, maybe it won’t. But what else is there?’ Then, I went on, like an idiot, knowing Kopa knew all of it, “Someone once told me, ‘What is there in riches? What is there in a safe life? In comfort? What is there in fame? In power? In prestige? What is there in love? What is there in anything but truth? What is truth then? The truth is, if you didn’t do what you thought was true, you’d just die. You just won’t be able to live with yourself. It just doesn’t matter what it shall bring you, victory or loss, it’s the call of conscience.’ And who told me this? Some rickshawalla in Bombay! And I believe in it…… to fight for the truth, knowing that if you didn’t, you’d just die.”

How silly do I feel now.

A night before he was arrested, Kopa Kunjam was asked by the Superintendent of Police to take Rs.25,000 to stop working for the Vanvasi Chetna Ashram. He, obviously, did not.

* * *

The following article should appear in The New Indian Express this  Saturday.

HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISTS BEATEN IN POLICE CUSTODY

Kopa Kunjam, an activist and Alban Toppo, an advocate with the Human Rights Law Network were called on by the Bairamgargh police on the 10^th of December, Human Rights Day, for ‘interrogation’ and were eventually kept in the police station overnight. By morning, a severely-beaten Alban Toppo was released and Kopa Kunjam was booked for murder of a man whose life he had tried to save.

Kopa Kunjam himself was mercilessly beaten and ‘requested’ to leave the Gandhian-NGO Vanvasi Chetna Ashram that has been working in Dantewada and Bijapur District for over seventeen years on healthcare, education and watershed development. Recently, the VCA has been active in exposing state brutalities and the violations of the human rights of the people of Bastar. By the ruling of the Supreme Court, they have also undertaken the rehabilitation of the villagers who had been displaced by the Salwa Judum-Maoist civil war.

Kopa Kunjam worked for the Vanvasi Chetna Ashram for over thirteen years and was involved in the Right To Food and the anti-liquor campaign. He had helped to organize over 750 rural health workers called Mitanins who form the backbone of the rural healthcare infrastructure of Bastar.

Since the inception of the Salwa Judum, Kopa Kunjam has worked for the procurement of the basic rights of the Adivasis. He had worked to collect evidence and testimonies during the Singaram encounter that left fifteen tribals dead on the 8^th of January of 2009, and on the Matwada Salwa Judum camp case, where three tribals were killed right in front of the police station on the 18^th of June, 2008. At Matwada, the police claimed the tribals were killed by the Maoists and their bodies were left in front of the police station. Witnesses and family members claimed they were murdered in cold-blood by the police themselves.

Kopa Kujam was instrumental in motivating the widows of the deceased to lodge complaints in the respective police stations. None of the complaints were lodged as FIRs.

Kopa Kunjam was also instrumental in the rehabilitation of the IDPs of the village of Lingagiri and Basaguda. He acted as a human shield volunteer for the returning villagers who were at risk from both warring parties – the Salwa Judum and the Maoists. He helped to act as the civil administration when there wasn’t any – considering he’d often take the complaints of the villagers to the respective departments – we need ration, we need bus services, we need our handpump repaired. Both Basaguda and Lingagiri are on the frontlines. On one end, there’s a police camp, on another end, there’s the alleged ‘liberated zone.’ There hasn’t been a single casualty amongst the villagers of Basaguda and Lingagri. They are relatively, free from violence.

Yet with the initiation of Operation ‘Tribal’ Hunt, the violence augments elsewhere and Kopa Kunjam would again be involved in bringing the victims of violence into the legal and constitutional fold. The Vanvasi Chetna Ashram has already filed more than 600 complaints regarding arson, theft, rape and murder. The Supreme Court has accepted the Writ Petition of the recent victims of violence from the villages of Goompad and Gachanpalli and have issued a notice to the Chhattisgarh government. Advocate Alban Toppo was also involved in providing legal help to the Adivasis of Bastar.

‘How many complaints we have lodged, how many times we go to court and how many times we go to burnt villages and what happens? Nothing! Nothing ever happens.’ Said Kopa Kunjam, during a visit to a village that was attacked in April of 2009.

‘No one is above the law.’ – is what  the Director General Of Police Vishwaranjan had to say, regarding the arrest of Kopa Kunjam on Human Rights Day.

Kopa Kunjam was arrested for the murder of Punem Honga of Hirapur who was abducted by the Maoists on the 2^nd of June, and subsequently killed. Kopa Kunjam was nowhere near the site of the abduction but was with another man Nagesh Jadi of Hirapur who was abducted on the same day as he was traveling with Kopa Kunjam.

While Nagesh Jadi was eventually released unharmed, Punem Honga who was involved with the Salwa Judum was killed. Kopa Kunjam himself was almost killed by the Salwa Judum at that time for they thought he was involved in the abduction. In fact, Kopa Kunjam was the first to lodge a complaint with the police about the abduction and along with the director of the NGO, Himanshu Kumar, had gone into the jungle to make their own inquiries about the abductions of the two men. Yet their frantic inquiries led them nowhere.

And as they were in the jungle, certain SPOs and members of the Salwa Judum announced that they would be killed if the Maoists do not release the two men. Unknowingly, both members of the VCA would be vetted out punishment for the crimes committed by the Maoists. However, the police of the adjoining camp had warned them about the intentions of the Salwa Judum and both Kopa Kunjam and Himanshu Kumar manage to escape into Andhra Pradesh, while other VCA volunteers were beaten.

Kopa would however have one more confrontation with the police. On the 3^rd of August, on the way to his home at Aalnar, he was questioned and beaten up by a contingent of police on a combing operation. His mother who had run out to protect him, was also manhandled.

‘The arrest and harassment of the only people working for peace in the area is a clear cut message by the state that it doesn’t want peace.’ Says Vanvasi Chetna Ashram director, Himanshu Kumar, whose own life is said to be in danger.

Meanwhile, the Salwa Judum has also taken out a rally on Human Rights Day against the Vanvasi Chetna Ashram, where the following slogans were heard: ‘Himanshu ko maro’, ‘Himanshu bhagao, Bastar bachao’, ‘VCA ke karyakarta bhagao, Dantewada Bachao’ and ‘maro salon ko.’

On the very same day, six gangrape victims were meant to depose before a judge at Dantewada district court, where Salwa Judum leaders and SPOs stand accused. The victims were not able to make it to the court.

The Salwa Judum also held a press conference where they had called for the Vanvasi Chetna Ashram to be shut down for they believe they are Maoist sympathizers.

‘What Maoist sympathizer? I’m a tribal sympathizer and sympathizer is a weak expression!’ responds Himanshu Kumar, who is busy trying to organize a Padyatra that is meant to be held on the 14^th of December. At the same time, a group of 39 activists who were meant to join him at the Padyatra were repeatedly stopped by the police at Kanker district from proceeding towards Dantewada. At first they were told there was a problem with the documents of their private vehicles and could not be allowed to go any further. And when the activists got onto buses, the buses were stopped. They were eventually detained, allegedly for their own safety by the police and only released once they decided to return to Raipur.

Meanwhile, the Vanvasi Chetna Ashram will also organize a public hearing on the 6^th of January, 2010 in Dantewada, where Home Minister Chidambaram is expected.

(Post-script for my readers – yes, if you’re here reading, we’re all tribal sympathizers, and sympathize is not a strong enough word.)