Sunday, March 12, 2006
A visit to true India
After a long long time I am here. So much happened during the intervening period. I will need lot of space to describe all the happenings. Let me start with the latest.
This morning, I came back from the heartland of naxalite hot belt, Bastar area of Chhattisgarh. This area is in news recently as the area is fully infested by the Maoists. Each day there is at least one incident of blowing up of train, or bus or truck or killing of some people. As a matter of fact I have not gone there for any political or journalistic purposes, I was there only on professional purpose, but found the visit worth mentioning. Incidentally, I have visited almost every part of India during last 30 odd years. I always found the tribals of this part of the country like part of Orissa, Jharkhand, South Bihar, Bastar area of Chhattisgarh, Northern part of Andhra Pradesh, as easy going fun loving people. Most of the males are good for nothing, lazy people. They normally work to earn a few bucks so that they can have a square meal and their daily quota of country liquor. They only lived for today. They never bothered for tomorrow. Whereas the females are really hardworking. And in most of the houses they are the bread earners.
But my last close interaction with them must have been more than 15 years back, except for a few one-day stop over visits on some social service activities. Hence this visit was quite educative type.
The road to Jagdalpur, the headquarter of Bastar from Hyderabad travels through deep jungles from Bhadrachalam, Konta, Sukhna. There is stretch of road through jungle for around 147 kms. This whole stretch is infested by Maoist Guerrillas. I was traveling by bus. The bus left Bhadrachalam town by around 1 A.M. And the journey became nightmare. The bus was checked by anti-guerrilla squad of the administration for almost intervals of 2-3 kms. This squad is drawn by the police from the tribals who are against the Maoists. They were carrying bows, arrows, swords etc. But it really wrenched my heart by the sight of these boys, they are hardly out of their teens. They were searching each and every person. There was a false bravado in their faces. They are intoxicated by the support they receive from the administration. I don’t know how the administration got them in this mess. But the fact is, police is fighting their war keeping their guns on these unfortunate boys’ shoulders. I came to know that the administration is encouraging building up resistance forces to counter the activities of naxalites.I had a really sleepless night. Next morning we read in paper that the naxalites has blown up a truck full of these anti-terror squad killing 15 of them. It gave me real shiver through my spine as the incident happened on the same route I traveled only a few hours before.
This morning, I came back from the heartland of naxalite hot belt, Bastar area of Chhattisgarh. This area is in news recently as the area is fully infested by the Maoists. Each day there is at least one incident of blowing up of train, or bus or truck or killing of some people. As a matter of fact I have not gone there for any political or journalistic purposes, I was there only on professional purpose, but found the visit worth mentioning. Incidentally, I have visited almost every part of India during last 30 odd years. I always found the tribals of this part of the country like part of Orissa, Jharkhand, South Bihar, Bastar area of Chhattisgarh, Northern part of Andhra Pradesh, as easy going fun loving people. Most of the males are good for nothing, lazy people. They normally work to earn a few bucks so that they can have a square meal and their daily quota of country liquor. They only lived for today. They never bothered for tomorrow. Whereas the females are really hardworking. And in most of the houses they are the bread earners.
But my last close interaction with them must have been more than 15 years back, except for a few one-day stop over visits on some social service activities. Hence this visit was quite educative type.
The road to Jagdalpur, the headquarter of Bastar from Hyderabad travels through deep jungles from Bhadrachalam, Konta, Sukhna. There is stretch of road through jungle for around 147 kms. This whole stretch is infested by Maoist Guerrillas. I was traveling by bus. The bus left Bhadrachalam town by around 1 A.M. And the journey became nightmare. The bus was checked by anti-guerrilla squad of the administration for almost intervals of 2-3 kms. This squad is drawn by the police from the tribals who are against the Maoists. They were carrying bows, arrows, swords etc. But it really wrenched my heart by the sight of these boys, they are hardly out of their teens. They were searching each and every person. There was a false bravado in their faces. They are intoxicated by the support they receive from the administration. I don’t know how the administration got them in this mess. But the fact is, police is fighting their war keeping their guns on these unfortunate boys’ shoulders. I came to know that the administration is encouraging building up resistance forces to counter the activities of naxalites.I had a really sleepless night. Next morning we read in paper that the naxalites has blown up a truck full of these anti-terror squad killing 15 of them. It gave me real shiver through my spine as the incident happened on the same route I traveled only a few hours before.
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