Divided villages due to Maoist violence need help to come together!

I knew Bir Singh from around the last 10 years since he was forced to leave his village and was living in a temporary shelter in Narayanpur town in Chhattisgarh. He had told me that Maoists had called a Jan Adalat and had killed two of his friends Ramlal and Mantar Salam. They had spared him with a warning not to go out anywhere from the village again and after a surety from the fellow villagers. People from 5 villages were there in the Jan Adalat.

He had told me “then the police came to our village after a week around 1 am in the night and woke me up. They asked me to show the house of Ramder from our village who was part of the killing party from the Maoists, which I did.Then I requested the police to take me with them and put me in jail. I knew Maoists would surely kill me after this incident. The police party brought me to Narayanpur and the Govt gave me Rs 30,000 to restart my life.”

There are around 1000 such displaced families who live in Narayanpur, the district headquarter from last more than 10 years. Bir Singh slowly became a leader of the displaced and was part of many rallies and padyatras demanding peace and justice for not only the displaced but for the whole region. He recently called me to say, “Now Maoists are gone and I thought our bad days are over but we need more help. Now we want to go back to our village but fellow villagers are not allowing us to go back”.

He gave me the number of Mantar Salam whose wife Manita is the elected Sarpanch of Chhinari village. Mantar Salam told me, ‘My wife is only an elected Sarpanch. You know in our villages in remote areas only the writ of our traditional leaders like Gayta, Gunia and Patel runs. They have decided that the displaced will not be allowed to return so we can not do much”. He confirmed that all the 9 families who want to return have land deeds for their land in the village and it’s illegal to stop them from returning but showed his helplessness.

I continued the conversation with SP ( Sarpanch Pati as they are locally called) Mr Salam to understand the village dynamics and what has gone on in the village in the last few decades.”Ours was a Maoist village and we did whatever they asked us to do. There was no choice. They had asked us not to go out of the village and had threatened earlier Sarpanch Jairam Yadav to kill because he did not obey. He was the first from our village to escape”.

Before it they had killed our Patel for the same reason. That was the first killing in our village. I don’t remember the exact year but it was before 2004. I was small at that time. Then Maoists killed one more person after around 2 years again with accusation of being an informer. Then police came to our village in 2008 and killed 6 people. We were very frightened and ran away after seeing the police. One of them, Rajnu Salam was only 12-13 years old. Yes we all worked for the party but we were not part of the party”.

Then Maoists again killed Balliram Yadav in 2010 accusing him of being an informer and most of the families who want to return now left in fear. Then in 2014 when Bir Sai Potai left with Police Maoists killed his younger brother who was a class 9 student in Dhaudai school nearby. Though there is some confusion with that killing if Maoists killed him. We had broken the school building as advised by Maoists and he was going to Dhaudai for education which Maoists did not like as they suspected he must be passing on information on the way”.

“8 people joined the Maoist party from our village. 6 of them got killed in the last 2 years in various encounters including Ramder whose house Bir Singh had shown to police. 2 surviving ones have now surrendered including one Ramesh Yadav from the same families who want to come back. The surrendered ones also want to come back to the village but the Gram Sabha is also opposing their return. Yes, some villagers have been using their vacant lands all these years”.

“The main accusation of the villagers is that these displaced people informed police about active Maoists and after that police arrested 10 of them though all of them are now back home” he said. Bir Sai protests and says, “the whole village worked for Maoists, I also worked for Maoists, there was no other way, we did whatever they asked so where is the question of giving 10 names? We thought now the Maoists are gone so our “achchhe din”(good days) are back but the local administration is not helping so we are looking for help from all of you guys”.

“This is not the story of only Chhinari,” says “SP” Mantar Salam. Nearby villages of Bagjar, Bailapad, Chhote Farasgaon, Aatpal and Kalibata are also not allowing displaced people to return. I hear it is also happening deep inside Abujhmad but I don’t know much. Our village has 130 families, we now have a new school and road to the village. We also have electricity. We lost 20 people to violence in the last few decades. It was a nightmare. I hope we will be able to resolve this issue soon and we will all be a happy village once again”.

END OF ARTICLE