Sudeep Chakravarti is the author of 'Red Sun:
Travels in Naxalite Country' and the novels 'Tin Fish', 'The Avenue of
Kings' and 'Once Upon a Time in Aparanta'.
His latest book gives a detail account of the socio-political
complexities and ethnic divisions prevalent in the North East region as
one travels from Numaligarh in Assam to Moreh in Moreh along NH 2
(erstwhile NH 39) .
The book is divided into 31 chapters.
Here are excerpts from the book:
The Day ‘Caman-do' Took Away a Little Girl
Basanta and Ranjeeta are upbeat. It's just after seven in the
morning. The day is sunny and crisp, the damp of monsoons a memory. Even
the battered Bolero off-roader of Human Rights Alert has stopped its
wrenching sighs; the engine growls without missing a beat. To get out of
Imphal is always a pleasure, the relief of breathing clean air,
smelling it the way nature intended.
The valley, so narrow to the north towards Senapati, opens up in
the south after Singjamei as Imphal's encompassing hills fall away. We
pass the landmarks, small towns and smaller towns: Wangoi, Mayang
Imphal, Sekmaijin Bazar. There's paddy everywhere, some green and young,
some ripening with grain. We pass stray huts and picture-postcard lotus
ponds, some tranquil cattle, and villagers engaging with their day. We
pass the posts and patrols of Central Reserve Police Force - the 109th
battalion - and Assam Rifles: there they are, resting along the paddies;
at a roadblock ahead, keeping watch from the sandbagged rooftop of a
commandeered telecommunications outpost, eyries of India in a place
deliberately made alien.
It reminds us why we are on the road. Basanta and Ranjeeta work
with Imphal-based Human Rights Alert. We're all off to see Vidyarani
Chanu: they for their work; me, because it made me both angry and
curious when I heard about her situation.
Vidyarani is 11. She was recently arrested.
We press deeper into Bishnupur district, edging towards its
borders with Thoubal district and beyond. At Sekmaijin Bazar, we turn
right to follow the gently twisting python of a sluggish brown river,
the sun sometimes to our right, sometimes to our left. It is
disorienting, but we do know we are now south of Loktak lake. We push in
five, ten, 15 kilometres, always following the river.
This place is poor. Few houses are of brick. The roofs are
weathered aluminium sheeting, but the walls are little more than mud and
thatch applied to skeletons of latticed bamboo - some walls are so worn
you can see the frame. The signs for NREGS - the grandly named and
corrupted National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme - on walls of
houses and shops gradually lessen.
Some walls have signs that urge differently: ‘Get Out India. Long Live UNLF'.
Rushes of jobakusum - hibiscus in rich red, peach, white - that
adorn the tiny yards or entrances of nearly every home offer bizarre
counterpoint, careless beauty in the face of fear and death.
We are lost in this land of slippage. Basanta and Ranjeeta need
to ask for directions after Phouakchong Bazar. We are past a small
community of Meitei Pangal, and back on Vaishnavite territory. Some
locals have killed a pig, and are cooking it by the river in a pit fired
with straw and bamboo. It's a pre-wedding feast, Basanta explains.
Children walk and skip towards the gathering, some holding large
grapefruit, a few balancing on their heads fruit larger than their
faces.
Everyone has heard of Vidyarani. We get directions, and these
take us past the village of Khordak Ichin and, after more bone-rattling
minutes on a road that has for long deteriorated to an impossible track,
to Nongmaikhong Mayai Leikai, Vidyarani's home village. A resident
tells us her house is across the river. After half-an-hour or so of
shouting to people across, explaining our purpose, a neighbour arrives
with a flimsy boat, just planks nailed together. It can take two at a
time, crouched low. Basanta goes across first; I follow.
But she is not at home, we find. The house is shut; the worn
wooden door is locked. The walls painted a pistachio green show the mud
layer through a peeling of time and weather, the tiny raised porch with a
floor of mud has a rickety bench to the left. A tattered reed mat, what
I know as madur from a childhood in Bengal, lies on the floor. A naked
electric bulb, lit, hangs from a ceiling of wood slats and thatch. I
step past a bush of red hibiscus to the porch to get a better look at a
row of posters placed above head height on three sides of the porch.
They are a quite typical mix of religious and Asian School of
Sugary-cute. A small blond girl wipes her eyes; the message by her side
proclaims: ‘Without you my world is lost'. A buxom southern Indian
shepherdess with goats in the background forms the next exhibit. A large
poster of the goddess Saraswati follows. Then the door, with a ‘YOU ARE
WELCOME' invitation between two painted earthenware lamps, followed by
an ageing poster, again of Saraswati, but this time with her sister
Lakshmi and brother Ganesh. Thus embellished, the tiny house stands mute
to horrors that have visited it.
Vidyarani's grandfather Salam Ningthemba Singh arrives after ten
minutes or so to inform us the girl is at school. It's on the opposite
bank, the one we had only just left. People were reluctant to tell us
where she was, he apologises by way of an explanation, until they had
vetted our purpose. There's a larger boat half a kilometre from the
house, he offers, and we can all return together. We do, crouched low as
before, but without the imminent fear of toppling into water, as Salam
expertly pulls us along a cable with rings on it. That is how we finally
arrive at Immanuel Grace Academy.
Its exterior has the same rundown feel of the neighbourhood,
simple dignity hobnobbing with poverty. Like the houses around, the
school is straw, thatch, mud, and tin roofing. The mud walls have
posters advertising telecom services from Airtel, the movie Titanic, the
heavy metal band Scorpions, the Orchid Textile Centre in Yangon,
Myanmar. The rusted gate is welcoming with a slightly relaxed variation
of a saying from the Bible, the Book of John, 6:37: ‘The one who comes
to me, I will never drive away.' And so, Immanuel Grace Academy in all
takes 30 boarders and 300 students from nearby areas.
We are welcomed by Ningthoujam Ongbi Memcha, who describes
herself as the wife of the founder of the school; he isn't around. Her
description doesn't sound self-important, merely matter-of-fact. We are
shown to a room at the northern end of the courtyard, around which are
classrooms. The blackboards must have at one time been black, the
benches and tables new. A wing houses a decrepit two-storey hostel, with
separate dormitory rooms for boys and girls. The room we enter boasts a
worn sofa, where we sit. In front is a chipped table of plain wood, on
the other side a bed with faded covers. To the right, there's a clutch
of oversized, ancient microphones. We're all quiet as Vidyarani is
escorted in by a young lady staffer at the school.
Vidyarani's head is lowered. The straight, lustrous black hair
typical of her people covers her face. She sits on the bed. She wrings
her hands. When she doesn't do that, the hands cover her face. As a
comfort, her grandfather strokes her hair. But Vidyarani's hands never
stop moving.
As Basanta prepares to question her, for a few seconds I'm
overcome with emotion before I regain control. Watching Vidyarani is a
wrenching experience. She is the same age as my daughter. She is of the
same height. She attends the same class, 6. But my daughter has thus far
not been abducted by police and detained illegally because the state is
upset with her parents.
The document Basanta pulls from his backpack is a template from
South Asia Forum for Human Rights, a Kathmandu-based organisation not -
unsurprisingly - on the list of favourites of the region's powers that
are. ‘Understanding Impunity,' goes the long-winded title, ‘Failures and
Possibilities of Rights to Truth, Justice and Reparation.' Highlighted
by the peculiarly detached yet verbose manner in which such documents
are described is the chilling and necessary purpose of it: ‘A unified
database design to capture human rights abuses committed by State and
non-state actors and failures of guaranteed rights and the justice
system contributing to impunity.'
The sections are straightforward. The first is to explain the
principle of ‘Informed Consent', all too often missing in India's due
process across governance and business alike. The next records
‘Respondent Information'. Another queries the details of ‘Searchand
Seizure'. Things begin to warm up, as it were, from here.
Was search and seizure carried out with or without a warrant?
Were witnesses present? Which agency in a bewildering array carried it
out: the Army? Border Security Force? CRPF? SOG (Special Operations
Group)? Assam Rifles? State police? UnifiedCommand/Joint Operation? Or,
‘Others (Please Specify)'? The following section pertains to ‘Arrest and
Detention'. And the next, ‘Investigation', has a sequence that queries
26 separate kinds of torture, including choking; electric shocks; forced
disrobing; forced ingestion of non-edible substances - not excluding
faeces; forced to assault and/or sexually abuse members of the family,
friends or associates; leg stretching; mock execution; pulling off nails
or hair; sexual assault; the relatively moderate slapping, kicking, or
punching; stubbing lit cigarette butts on the body; suspension by rope
or cord; and the ever flexible category of ‘Others (Please Specify)'.
And, of course, there is Section IX, which deals with the
chilling holy grail of human rights nightmares: ‘Enforced
Disappearanceand Fake Encounters'.
As Basanta explains what his organisation does, what the document
is meant for, Vidyarani hunches, draws in her knees, and assumes as
foetal a position as possible for a seated person. I can't any longer
see the message on her faded pink T-shirt - ‘Don't believe the type' -
or the crucifix around her neck. The toes of her bare feet are tightly
curled. The trembling of her crushed cotton capris suggests acute fear.
When were you born? Basanta asks her in Meeteilon.
"Ninety-eight." Her voice is barely above a whisper.
Class?
"Six."
Basanta fills the rest with the help of her grandfather, turns
some pages, a skip-to-next-question-if-these-don't-apply sort of thing.
He is practised at it. He tries to coax replies from Vidyarani, but she
freezes.
What community are you? He asks after a while.
"Meitei."
For five minutes or so she replies to pro-forma questions, gently
urged by Ranjeeta and the calm presence of her grandfather. But then
she stops, spent, replying nothing at all to Basanta's stream of
conversation and query in soft tones, an attempt to soothe her nerves as
he traverses the geography of human rights fact-finding. Vidyarani
looks now and again at him, then at me. She is terrified, and neither
her grandfather's hand, which she clutches, nor the stroking of her hair
by Memcha help.
Attempting another approach, Basanta decides to reintroduce
himself, and tells her what he is doing and why he is here. He tells her
that I am writing a book, and I am not a policeman; don't mind the
close-cropped head of hair or Indian face. It helps. She resumes
talking; her replies, though still halting, come more clearly. She still
keeps her eyes lowered.
The "caman-do" took her away, she says.
What do you study in Class 6? Manipuri?
"Mmm."
History?
"Mmm."
Geography?
"Mmm."
Basanta turns to me after ten minutes or so of taking her through
the section titled ‘Arrest and Detention'. Her grandfather and Memcha
having done most of the talking. Do you have any particular questions,
he asks me.
Yes, I say, many. But first will you please tell her that I have a
daughter who is as old as her. Grandfather Ningthemba and Memcha nod
acknowledgement. When I go back home, I will tell my daughter about this
day, about meeting Vidyarani.
And I want to ask her: when she was in custody, what was she
doing, what was she thinking. Did she pray to God? Did she pray for her
parents? What did she tell herself to keep her strength going?
"I wanted to see my parents," Vidyarani whispers. Her composure, such as it is, begins to crack.
"Tell, nothing will happen," Memcha gently urges.
"I was very scared." Pause. "I sometimes thought that the police
will go to my house when I am not there. I thought if my parents got
arrested they would be tortured. I was afraid for my two younger
brothers. I was scared the police would arrest them."
How old are her brothers? I ask, hating myself for taking
Vidyarani back to the place she looks unlikely to escape from for years,
perhaps never, a dark place where her mind now lives.
"One is in class 4," she says, "the other in class 1."
Do you remember where you were kept? Did it look like a jail, with bars, or was it just a room?
"A room."
Were you alone?
Basanta now explains: her two grandmothers were with her. They
came to ask for her release, but when that didn't work, they asked to
remain with Vidyarani.
I resume: Did the police tell her anything when they took her - when was it? Day or night?
In the morning, Basanta now takes over. Vidyarani has stopped speaking.
Did the police…
She was preparing to cook, Basanta says while consulting his
notes, when she heard police commandos arriving. She was very scared.
One of the commandos pointed his automatic rifle at her and at the
grandmother. Since they could not find her parents, suspected of
associating with the People's Liberation Army, they took Vidyarani.
Vidyarani is crying silent tears. Grandfather Ningthemba gently
wipes her eyes with a hand, then gives her a large light-blue
handkerchief he has kept in the other hand all the while, as if knowing
she would need it sometime during the interaction. The little girl
clutches the piece of cloth.
She suddenly gets up and rushes out of the hut. The young lady
who brought her in rushes after her. Memcha rattles off in Meeteilon,
and Basanta translates, his matter-of-fact tone almost formal. "She
feels like vomiting."
Memcha talks some more. "She worries that if she speaks the truth
something bad will happen to her parents. They are still in custody. So
she is afraid to speak."
"I understand," I say; and it's partly a lie. I can understand
why Vidyarani is afraid to speak, but I can never understand the degree
of her trauma. We remain silent for a while. A young lady brings us
small glasses of warm milk.
When did this happen? I ask. What was the date?
14 August 2009. A day before India's independence day. The school
was on holiday from the twelfth, so Vidyarani had gone home to her
parents. When the staff of the school heard Vidyarani had been arrested,
they rushed to her home. Why had she been arrested, they asked. Memcha
takes the story from here. She says that when they saw Vidyarani, she
was unconscious. They were told she had fainted. Memcha wanted her taken
to hospital. The police declined - "denied that," Basanta adds. They
then insisted "women police" arrive and, sensing the mood of the people,
the raiding party decided to acquiesce. When the police finally tried
to take Vidyarani, the people insisted they would first have to issue an
"arrest memo". Memcha says she told them not to take the "baby" because
they could not find her "mama" and "papi". The police then told her
that Vidyarani's parents should surrender. Memcha and others still held
on, asking the police if there was any law by which they could arrest a
child.
How dare you talk like this, Memcha says she was asked. Who are you?
I'm the wife of the founder of the school where the girl studies,
she replied. If you are taking her, she insisted, you should take at
least one member of her family, the grandfather or grandmother. She said
again that they would all try to arrange for the surrender of the
parents, but they should leave the child alone. That didn't work.
How many police were there? I ask.
"It was a combined force of Assam Rifles and Manipur Police commandos. They came in Gypsies."
Vidyarani was released on the evening of 18 August. She first
went home. She reached Immanuel Grace Academy a day later. Before her
release, the police had already picked up her parents - which was why
she was released. They came out of hiding to surrender, driven to panic
with what might happen to their child.
What was she like when she arrived at school, I ask Memcha. Would she talk? Would she keep to herself? Avoid other children too?
When she reached home, Grandfather Ningthemba says, now wiping some tears of his own, she got off the vehicle and fainted.
"I've seen a lot of change in her," Memcha says. "When we ask her
to do something, even the simplest thing like cutting vegetables, she
does not pay attention to that work."
On 20 August they took her to RIMS in Imphal.
What was she like before her arrest? Was she a smiling, happy child? Was she playful?
"She was so active." Memcha smiles in recollection. "She loved to be with her friends. She had a good presence of mind."
How do you see her now, after all this?
"She doesn't like to talk. She doesn't want to talk. She is afraid of other people."
What are you trying to do to help her come back to normal?
"We keep telling her to not worry, that her mother and father will be released from custody some time."
Does she ask often about her parents?
"She keeps asking if she can go to meet her parents." The mother
is in the central jail in Imphal, Basanta offers; just behind the main
police station. The father is in Sajiwa jail to the northeast of the
Valley, on the route to Ukhrul.
The two younger brothers, one four, the other nine, also have
changed since their parents were taken away, Memcha tells us. They
preferred in the beginning to stay at home; but now they stay at school
as boarders. The school is now both family and sanctuary for the three
children. The grandmothers visit as often as they can.
The boys arrive then. First into the room is little Sanamatum, the youngest. How old are you? Basanta teases him.
"I don't know how old I am," he smartly replies. Everyone bursts out laughing, and the boy laughs with us.
Which class? Basanta persists, ruffling his hair.
"B."
Nursery-B? KG-B?
"B."
Sanamatum rescues us from gloom; we laugh and cry as our hearts
simultaneously warm and break. I turn to look for the other brother,
Malamnganba.
"He is afraid of us," Ranjeeta explains. The boy waits outside,
reluctant at the calls to enter the room. It's okay, I say, don't force
him.
He comes in anyway after a few moments. "Class 4," Malamnganba timidly announces by way of introduction. "I am nine years old."
Does Vidyarani talk to you both?
"Sometimes she cannot talk," he says.
Do you try to get her to spend more time with you?
"Mmm," he says, and stops. He lowers his head. "I see a lot of
change in my sister. She used to play with us. Study with us. Now she
always speaks of our parents."
Then he starts to cry.
Ranjeeta takes the boys out to the yard. As Basanta and I leave
after a few minutes, we see them seated on some steps by the entrance.
She hugs both the boys, all the while speaking softly to them.
I ruffle the younger brother's head, and for it I get a smile
which lights up the day. I accord more dignity to the older boy and
shake his hand. His grip is firm.
"Good luck," I manage.
"Thank you." He smiles. His eyes look directly, even defiantly,
into mine. There's a sign by him, in the charming grammar of Immanuel
Grace Academy. It's another saying from the Book of John, this time
10:11: ‘The good shepherd give his life for the sheep.'
Extracted from Highway 39: Journeys through a Fractured Land, 4th Estate, Harper Collins, Rs 450
Photos: RK Suresh
Manipur quietly waits for a crisis to unfold
yet again with the 3.5 lakh strong Kuki community demanding a separate
Kuki state, a Kukiland, to be curved out of Manipur. The demand is being
vehemently opposed by other ethnic groups, making space for another
conflict in a state known for its fragile ethnic divide.
Ever since Manipur
faced an economic blockade last year in demand of a separate district in
the Kuki heartland of Sadar Hills, the chasm between the hill and the
valley has widened further on lines of ethnicity. The blockade lasted
more than hundred days, with the Central and state governments doing
almost nothing to end the standoff.
