Bihar’s notorious Maoists who surrendered to enter the mainstream, now find it may have been a better idea to stay underground. Rajan Prakash reports
In Bihar’s Darbhanga district, Buchia Devi sits amidst the ruins, her thinking warped with fury and frustration. If she sees an approaching car, which is quite rare in her Shivram village, she takes it as the visible presence of an evil establishment trying to hound her. Not that her paranoia is unjustified.
A mother of four in her late thirties, Devi returned after an 18-month stint inside a dirty rotten prison in 2003 on charges of being a Naxalite. She was never an operational Maoist commander who pulls the trigger, but belonged to a gang of markers whose job was to put together the subterfuge in place: help carry messages, arrange shelter for comrades on the run, organise meals and the like. As successive district administrations in Darbhanga realised, she was quite a handful. Her darting and daring runs had given them enough sleepless nights and when she decided to give herself up under the amnesty offered by the Bihar government between 2002-2008, they were relieved.
When she surrendered, the police recovered Maoist literature and unused explosives from her house. Incredibly, her husband Kamal Manjhi, a daily wager, did not know about his wife’s activities until the police arrived at his tenement.
In the same district, another facet of this charade called the Naxalite rehabilitation programme comes to light. The zonal commander of the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) in charge of operations in north Bihar — Muzaffarpur, Darbhanga, Samastipur and Sitamarhi — is Himanshu Shekhar, known to the police by his nom de guerre, Prakash Malik. An outstanding student, Malik gave up his studies to go underground, marshaling troops and operational commanders against injustices.
As long as Malik was active, his exploits in pursuit of his ‘revolutionary’ activities were regarded legendary. Being a great narrator, visualiser and an activist, he could inspire young men and women to join the cause. Then one fine day, Malik too decided to throw in the towel. Tired of being consistently on the run and a little disillusioned with the cause he represented, he too fell for the general amnesty. All quite innocently. Devi and Malik represent two faces of why despite mouthing clichés, there is little or no attempt to get back those Naxalites aspiring to return to the mainstream. Chief ministers from Naxal-hit states routinely talk of ‘winning the hearts and minds’, but there is very little evidence of that on the ground. There is enough evidence to suggest that those ultras who gave up their arms in an effort to lead a regular life, have been left to fend for themselves — enemy of a society they once hounded, pariah for the police force which left them in the lurch in the name of rehabilitation and a traitor to their political cause.
The story is more or less similar for 351 such people who gave up their arms under the scheme promised by the government. Under this package, those giving up arms would be entitled to a relief of Rs 10,000; Rs one lakh as loan and a Rs 3,000 stipend until such time that the rehabilitation process was complete. Besides, the government promised protection.
In Bihar’s Darbhanga district, Buchia Devi sits amidst the ruins, her thinking warped with fury and frustration. If she sees an approaching car, which is quite rare in her Shivram village, she takes it as the visible presence of an evil establishment trying to hound her. Not that her paranoia is unjustified.
A mother of four in her late thirties, Devi returned after an 18-month stint inside a dirty rotten prison in 2003 on charges of being a Naxalite. She was never an operational Maoist commander who pulls the trigger, but belonged to a gang of markers whose job was to put together the subterfuge in place: help carry messages, arrange shelter for comrades on the run, organise meals and the like. As successive district administrations in Darbhanga realised, she was quite a handful. Her darting and daring runs had given them enough sleepless nights and when she decided to give herself up under the amnesty offered by the Bihar government between 2002-2008, they were relieved.
When she surrendered, the police recovered Maoist literature and unused explosives from her house. Incredibly, her husband Kamal Manjhi, a daily wager, did not know about his wife’s activities until the police arrived at his tenement.
In the same district, another facet of this charade called the Naxalite rehabilitation programme comes to light. The zonal commander of the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) in charge of operations in north Bihar — Muzaffarpur, Darbhanga, Samastipur and Sitamarhi — is Himanshu Shekhar, known to the police by his nom de guerre, Prakash Malik. An outstanding student, Malik gave up his studies to go underground, marshaling troops and operational commanders against injustices.
As long as Malik was active, his exploits in pursuit of his ‘revolutionary’ activities were regarded legendary. Being a great narrator, visualiser and an activist, he could inspire young men and women to join the cause. Then one fine day, Malik too decided to throw in the towel. Tired of being consistently on the run and a little disillusioned with the cause he represented, he too fell for the general amnesty. All quite innocently. Devi and Malik represent two faces of why despite mouthing clichés, there is little or no attempt to get back those Naxalites aspiring to return to the mainstream. Chief ministers from Naxal-hit states routinely talk of ‘winning the hearts and minds’, but there is very little evidence of that on the ground. There is enough evidence to suggest that those ultras who gave up their arms in an effort to lead a regular life, have been left to fend for themselves — enemy of a society they once hounded, pariah for the police force which left them in the lurch in the name of rehabilitation and a traitor to their political cause.
The story is more or less similar for 351 such people who gave up their arms under the scheme promised by the government. Under this package, those giving up arms would be entitled to a relief of Rs 10,000; Rs one lakh as loan and a Rs 3,000 stipend until such time that the rehabilitation process was complete. Besides, the government promised protection.
