A Bihari lesson in identity politics

April 30, Chhapra

"What's your name?" asked Sharad Yadav as soon as we met in his house at Madhepura town. I'd encountered this question before too and as he would demonstrate during the course of the day, the JD(U) president was not really intent on knowing my name. This was an attempt to know what came after my name. There was a time - in Delhi, especially - when I'd happily say "Deepu Sebastian," sometimes to hilarious consequences. "You Srivastava? Me Srivastava! From UP?" said a man grabbing my hand to shake it violently. He was late and had been rushing to catch the opening ceremony of the Delhi Commonwealth Games, but found time to stand outside the stadium and be interviewed for two minutes.

If it was a foreign middle name that made me start using my first name more often, in Jharkhand it almost became a compulsion. My surname, my "title," as they call it there, would be my marker. And I didn't want to give anyone the pleasure of judging me by name.

Bihar, I had come to imagine, would be worse. But then, Sharad Yadav would top worse and then some. I should have known: this was a man who pissed off the upper castes so much, someone has vandalised his Wikipedia page by keying in, "....He also is pro-reservation and supports divisions based on castes in the society instead of promoting meritocracy." So when I told Yadav my first name, he shot back, "Deepu, yes....but what is your caste?" I smiled politely and said that I was from Kerala and didn't know my caste. Yadav looked thoroughly displeased.

Once inside his SUV, Yadav was quite happy to recount his memories of Kerala Socialists. I played along, but wanted to drag him back to caste: it is not everyday that one gets to directly engage with an individual who puts to test all those theories discussed in classrooms and coffee shops. It was time to use my identity as leverage. "I am from a caste that was supposed to catch fish. We are OBCs," I said.

Yadav was positively glowing when I told him that. After all, he had earlier been berating the Hindi news channel reporter ahead of me: "You in the media are all of one caste. How will you understand the problems of the oppressed?" Yadav seemed to enroll me into some private club immediately. "You are a mallaah," he tagged, stamped and sorted me. "We will be going to a mallaah village today. Your people must be going to the sea to catch fish. There's a different caste for that," he mentioned a caste name, but I failed to catch that.

My problem was with the apparent clash of two ideas that the JD(U) was dealing with - vikas, even as it tried to create and nuture caste-based votebanks. There would be no point trying to ask such a question to many politicians in this country: they remain surprisingly coy of describing their votebanks. An exception would be Lalu Prasad, who almost proudly called his votebank the M-Y. The only other time I had probed a politician on the question of identity during this election was when I asked former Jharkhand chief minister Babulal Marandi whether he was a leader of the adivasis, specifically the Santhals - his tribe. This was in Dumka, the heart of the Santhal Pargana, where Babulal was making a move to become precisely that. But his ambition to be chief minister made him tell me that he was a leader of the poor. It took some prodding for him to use the word "adivasi" in a sentence; he said that since adivasis were the poorest, fighting for the poor would made him their representative, too.

There would be no such problems with Sharad Yadav. "No one here votes according to his caste....Everyone is with me here," was his first claim. So I pointed out that the constituency has not sent a non-Yadav to the Lok Sabha since 1957 or so. "Arre, don't you understand your own society? What kind of a journalist are you?" I was learning that Sharad Yadav on the backfoot is a vicious opponent. "I am told the Yadavs are voting for the RJD this time," I said. "You media don't understand the society. People don't look at caste when voting. What happened in 2009 and 2010?" asked Yadav, pointing out that the Yadav candidates of the RJD overwhelmingly lost while the Yadav candidates of his party won in large numbers. "So, you were keeping tabs of the number of Yadavs who won and lost?" I asked. "Of course! Everybody has caste," he said.

I'm sure that at least a part of what Yadav said was right: I had parachuted into Saharsa only the previous night. However, I got the sense that, facing the prospect of coming third this election, Yadav was trying to tell his voters that though caste exists, it should not matter. It remains a fact that what carried Yadav over the line four times in Madhepura was the BJP's votes: he managed to bring in some Yadav and Muslim votes but was always dependent on how the RJD fared. He also broke his own rules. Yadav went to the house of the convicted Bahubali and former MP Anand Mohan, a Rajput, to seek his mother's blessings. The desperation was not lost on anyone. In other places, he presented vikas as something above caste. "Caste will not give you electricity, bridges and this helicopter," he said at Sahugarh, pointing to the Eurocopter EC120 in which we had flown in, the spitoon for his khaini habit on the floor between us.

As we touched down at Manuan in Mahishi block and on the banks of the Kosi, he pointed at the upturned boats kept at the periphery. "Mallaahs!" he said, grinning. I became a campaign prop at the village: "I have brought along a journalist from Kerala today, someone from your Mallaah caste." Yadav later told me he had looked around for me at that moment, but I was thankfully standing by a speaker to listen to the speech and avoided becoming a specimen.

As we got into the chopper at the end of the meeting there, I was on the side where most people were. Yadav slapped me sharply on my arm and ordered, "Wave!" so I raised an awkward right hand. Slap again. "Wave at the people in the back!" I turned around and waved. People waved back. Then, as the rotor's RPM increased, they ran back and disappeared in a cloud of dust.

JD(U) on verge of losing crucial Madhepura

Published here
Saharsa, April 29

From the EC120 Eurocopter, Sharad Yadav pointed to the Kosi and a bridge across it. "I had it built," he said, with the authority of someone who has won four times from Madhepura since 1991.

Later, he spoke of the 3.59 km bridge, connecting Baluha Ghat and Gandual and inaugurated last December, at Amarpura in Kehra block. "Give me your vote based on what we have done," he said, "we" being him and the government led by the Janata Dal (United), of which he is national president. However, Yadav had no answer when a member of the crowd started heckling him over an unbuilt plus-two school. "My job as an MP is to look after the big projects," he told the crowd, as an intended answer. At the end of his speech - a schoolmasterly one - he asked the crowd if all of them would vote for the arrow his party's symbol. Some people merely crossed their arms and smiled sheepishly.

A lot is at stake for Sharad Yadav and his party at Madhepura. With the JD(U) expected to take heavy losses this general elections, there is an urgency to protect the home bases: Nalanda, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's home constituency, and Madhepura. CM Kumar himself came to embody this desperation when he camped at Madhepura town from April 18 to 28, having files sent over from Patna by special messengers and campaigning for his party's president.

However, it does not seem to be adding up for Sharad Yadav. Kumar's vikas, which once lent credibility to the JD(U) claim of jamaat over jaat, has slowed down and threatens to dry up. "He always thought that dealing with day-to-day affairs was always below him. Dealing with big projects works if there are party MLAs doing groundwork. We had only three MLas in the six assembly constituencies of the area; one has left now," said a JD(U) leader. The MLA who left is not quite out of the doorway yet - former Industries Minister Renu Kushwaha has been suspended by the JD(U) for campaigning for Vijay Kumar Singh, who is the BJP's candidate.

Yadav, who built his political career by riding on the mass appeal of others, has only the Mahadalit votebank created by Kumar to fall back on. "He always won by eating a little into the Muslim-Yadav votebank of the RJD and then getting our votes. That's how he famously defeated Lalu [Prasad Yadav] in 1999. Where will he get that now?" asked a former BJP MLA from the area. It was alleged that BJP's Singh, who had never contested elections, was a dummy candidate - a result of Yadav's close association with BJP leaders that also saw him become the NDA Convenor. However, the BJP has fought hard to protect its votebanks and attract youngsters, making Madhepura a triangular contest. "When I was in Patna discussing ticket distribution, we were quite relieved that there was no BJP organisation in Madhepura. I returned to see many people willing to support them," said the JD(U) leader.

In search of a victory, Yadav has been pushed to do things he would not have done otherwise, like going to murder-convict, Rajput Bahubali and former MP Anand Mohan's house to seek his mother's blessings. "Why do you call him Bahubali? Anand Mohan is a goonda. His brother Madan Singh works for our party; that's why I went there," said Yadav when asked. Most of his expletive-laden answer cannot be printed, and his inability to assimilate has become a headache for the Madhya Pradesh-born Yadav's campaign managers: he rarely uses aap, prefers tu and does not speak Maithili.

In contrast is the soft-spoken Rajesh Ranjan, the RJD candidate behind whom the Muslims and Yadavs have lined up once again. Dressed in a full-sleeved pink-and-white striped shirt and white linen trousers, he stood deferentially before the crowd at Banma Itahri block's Gordor village's madrasa, sampling from the many plates of snacks before him. "You have kept so much food before me; it's hard not to eat it all," he said to laughter. At the end of a speech, during which he seemed to be mumbling to himself, he said, "The same thought that inspired Mohammad Saheb drives me. Pappu is the name of the one who will help the last man." Thunderous applause followed.

Pappu is also the man who was convicted of a murder in 2008 before being acquitted last year by the Patna High Court. Even as he faces an appeal in the Supreme Court, Pappu Yadav has 24 cases - including a charge of murder - to keep him company. "Lalu Yadav has given the lantern [RJD's poll symbol] to a bulldozer and asked it to come after me," said Sharad Yadav at Amarpura. His reputation as a Bahubali precedes Pappu. "I have been noticing an anti-Pappu wave in the last two days. People, like the vaishyas, who remember the violence unleashed by his people during Pappu's peak, will hopefully come over to us," said the JD(U) leader.

Pappu, large and towering, also has a proportionally large heart, according to his supporters. "The M-Y equation might work for Lalu, but I am a servant of all people here," said Pappu as his open jeep made the last campaign trip through predominantly Muslim areas of Saharsa on April 28 evening, an hour a supporter described as, "one hour, 5000 votes."

Pappu was not well and everyone seemed to know this. "He has gone to the bathroom," said a middle-aged man at the entrance to Chotta Gordor village. Even as he sipped a chilled ORS solution, Pappu sampled everything kept before him by waiting crowds. In between, he finds time to signal that if elected, the violence might re-start. However, as opposed to the past, when his gangs fought the Rajputs, a new enemy waits Pappu. "I want to end the injustice being perpetrated by the Nitish government. They have placed Mahadalit dalals in each government office. Their people are in control. I want to end that," he said.

That man in the Dumka photograph

Published here.
Dumka, April 25

There is someone lying bleeding in the seat before him, possibly dead. Then, there is the darkness - of the night, soot from an IED blast, that extends to his bloodied face. Yet, the middle-aged man in the window seat of that bus leans across and holds his stare, pointing his finger, as if to make a poignant point.

Like the moment that made US Marine James Blake Miller the Marlboro Man of his generation, this was Assistant Sub Inspector Hiralal Pal in Dumka, trying to make sense of a world where EVM machines are blown to smithereens.

Through Thursday night, Hiralal was in shock. His family from Bihar's Ara could not reach Dumka's Sadar Hospital, so he was attended to by colleagues in the district police, who managed to get a table fan placed near him. No one bothered to wipe down the soot on him and when Hiralal managed to sit up to drink water once in a while, his eyes bright against the darkness of his face, looked perplexed throughout.

Maybe it had to do with the way in which he escaped a carnage when alleged Maoists selectively went after those in uniform. "I was unconscious after the blast. Some Maoists came near me - they were only shooting at policemen - but someone lying next to me told them I was already dead," he told this reporter at around 12.30 in the night. Unlike Subodh Kumar Mistry, his neighbour at the hospital and a headmaster from Siriyahat  - who told his story to anyone whom leaned across his bed, Hiralal simply did not have the energy to go on. This reporter was at the hospital till 1.10 in the night. Later, at some point in the night, he was referred to Dhanbad's PMCH.

Hiralal was promoted from being a constable ahead of the elections. "Pal is quite fine; his family is on the way to Dhanbad. He is quite senior; must be around 55 years," said a policeman at the Mufassil police station, where he is posted.

"I heard about the incident at 4.40 in the evening. I was on poll duty myself and knew Pal was supposed to be in a booth in the area. I tried calling him to get the news, but calls were not going through," said the policeman.

"He had given me a missed call at around two in the afternoon. When I called back, he said he had merely wanted to talk. So, we talked," said another colleague at the police station.

Pal, a policeman who gives missed calls to people so that he could merely have a conversation, might just be pointing fingers in the photo. At people who thought it was appropriate to send a 55-year-old, less-than-ideally trained policeman to a known Maoist area, knowing fully well that given the option of a bus over walking in the Santhal Pargana summer, he would take it.

SOP lapses at Dumka, district admin under scanner

Published online here and in the newspaper here.
Dumka, April 25

The CPI-Maoist attack in Dumka's Sikaripara on Thursday evening has brought to the fore serious questions about the nature of deployment of central forces while exposing the state police's claim that it is close to self-sufficiency.

Primary analysis has revealed that there were serious lapses in observing the Standard Operating Procedure which began at the level of the Deputy Commissioner and Superintendent of Police. However, concerned officials are in a bind as to what action can be taken against them, as both DC Harsh Mangalam and SP Nirmal Kumar Mishra are perceived to be close to Chief Minister Hemant Soren, also the MLA from Dumka.

The attack came at the end of a relatively peaceful three-phase polling in the state which saw no LWE-related casualties, provoking Director General of Police Rajeev Kumar to say, "We had ensured peaceful elections by keeping strictly to the SOP. We will have to examine what went wrong here." Examining the violations to the SOP would be opening a Pandora's Box: the Tata Magic that was fired upon and the mini bus that the IED tore through on the Sarsajor-Palasi road were not supposed to be there in the first place. The poll officials were to walk back with the EVMs.

Fingers will be pointed at Lambodhar Mahato, the sector magistrate travelling in the Magic who allegedly took the bus to booths 100 and 101, located at Primary School, Jamkandar and Upgraded Middle School, Asma respectively. However, one wonders where he got his orders from. "At the moment, it would be wrong to point fingers at the DC as there is nothing that suggests that he gave the orders for those particular booths. However, we have to find out why officials who walked to the booth took a bus back," said Jharkhand's Chief Electoral Officer P.K. Jajoria, who also said that two sets of EVMs were damaged in the blasts; there would be a re-poll. A source in the state police said that the SOP was violated everywhere. "The DC is new; he does not understand the risks. In order to complete the polls early, he allowed the bus to go in," said a senior officer.

The sector magistrate's mistake could have been corrected by security personnel posted at the booths, who could have insisted that they walk back. Howeer, while CRPF personnel - posted at booth 100 - walked, district police personnel boarded the bus. "The CRPF personnel even asked at least one ASI-ranked officer of the district police to walk, but he did not pay heed," said an officer of the state police.

As a result, no CRPF personnel was killed in the encounter - four personnel of the Dumka district police and one of Garhwa police were killed while three policemen of Dumka and two of Garhwa were injured. An official of the State Bank of India, another of the Dairy Development Board and the cleaner of the mini bus too, died. At least three civilians - a headmaster, an official of the Industries Department and the driver of the mini bus - sustained injuries.

The incident puts paid to the state police's claim that it is ready for a central forces-free existence and that only a slack in recruitment is keeping the CRPF here. There are also questions being raised about force deployment - whether too many CRPF personnel were posted in the urban areas while the poorly trained district personnel had to man some high-risk booths. It is not yet known whether there will be an investigation into wheher the deployment, if faulty, was done maliciously to help anyone. "The CRPF was in majority in Maoist areas too. But despite us telling them repeatedly to be careful, our police officers simply do not listen," said Dumka's Superintendent of Police Nirmal Kumar Mishra.

The incident came a day and five years after the April 23, 2009 attack on a party returning after Lok Sabha polls within Sikaripara's adjacent Kathikund police station limits, when one police personnel died. However, what resonates more is the fact that the attack happened less than a year after the July 2 attack that killed Pakur's Superintendent of Police Amarjit Balihar within Kathikund.

The state police will regret the fact that it has been able to arrest only three individuals whom even they admit are allegedly low-level CPI-Maoist operatives in the Balihar murder case. This is because Thursday evening's attack bears striking similarities to the July 2 incident, suggesting the same individual planned and executed both. Even DGP Kumar admitted on Friday that his officers suspect Santhal Pargana Zonal Commander Praveel's hand; he was named in the Balihar murder too.

With the exception of the use of the IED - an escalation which resulted in the first IED-related casualties in the Santhal Pargana region - almost everything about the two attacks mirror each other. A culvert was chosen as the point of attack - in Thursday's case, one made by farmers by breaking the concrete road to bring water. The Maoists positioned themselves in foilage on the right flank in both cases and targeted the driver as well as tyres of the lead vehicle in the convoy. This slowed down the mini bus on Thursday, and as it negotiated the culvert, the IED was set off.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that the Maoists chased policemen who ran into the field on the left and shot them: a body was recovered about 100 metres away from the point of occurrence. There is also a suggestion that they went after policemen - magistrate Mahato, who raised his arms, was not attacked. The driver of the bus made it to a CRPF camp two kilometres away with minor injuries while the bus' s cleaner died in the blast.

Dumka is Lost

Published online here and in the newspaper here. Report from the field on first day published here.
Dumka, April 25

Two staff nurses tried to be everywhere at once, fix too many broken people, lost count of saline drips running out and had to pacify angry crowds. Two other colleagues on duty had to be in the labour room and operation theatre, where the only duty doctor of the night was stationed.

This was Dumka, the sub-capital of Jharkhand, the assembly constituency of the chief minister, whose people sent his father - a three-time-chief minister - to the Lok Sabha seven times. And there were two nurses with the bare essentials to patch up the 10 injured and send them on their way to hospitals at least five to eight hours away, on a day violence was anticipated. "Today was better; we have four nurses instead of three," said one of the nurses.

When the CPI-Maoist struck at the heart of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha on polling day, attacking two vehicles - killing five policemen and three individuals returning after polling near Sikaripara's Sarsajor village - more politicians turned up at the Sadar Hospital than there were staff nurses tending to the 10 injured. Chief Minister Hemant Soren, former CM Babulal Marandi - also a candidate from Dumka and the BJP's candidate Sunil Soren went to offer commiserations.

They all arrived to boos from an angry crowd and left, but it was an absence that was noticed. "Shibu Soren kaha hai?" asked the crowd that rushed into the hospital at 11.55 PM. They were angry that the saline drip for the driver of the Tata Magic, one of the two vehicles attacked, may not last his five-hour-trip to Dhanbad.

This was the second major attack in the Santhal Pargana - previously considered resistant to the growth of Maoists - in under a year. Dumka, Pakur and Deoghar were added to the MHA's scheme for LWE areas only in April 2012; Sahibganj, Godda and Jamtara, the three other districts that comprise the six-district Santhal Pargana, are the only districts not considered LWE-affected. On July 2 last year, when Pakur's Superintendent of Police Amarjit Balihar was killed en route Pakur in Dumka's Kathikund block - adjacent Sikaripara - the police largely believed it was a one-off incident of a police officer paying the price for letting down his guard: the state police have always thought that the Maoists' conception of the Santhal Pargana as an "Expansion Zone" was a bit far-fetched.

But, as an exasperated villager said outside the Sadar police station on Thursday night, "Dumka is not safe anymore. They seem to be everywhere." Reporters covering LWE incidents frequently hear an anecdote about how the police had surrounded a top Maoist leader and how they had to let him go because someone in the JMM made a call. The story cannot be substantiated - it takes place in a different forest in each retelling - but speaks volumes about the relationship between political parties and the Maoists in the state. Now, the Maoists have dared take on the JMM in their own home.

Chief Minister Hemant Soren and father Shibu Soren were late to the ceremony at the Police Lines to pay respects to the dead on Friday morning. "You must not make dead bodies wait," said a frustrated CRPF officer.

When asked about the entry of Maoists into the region, a JMM leader once told this reporter, "Who are these Maoists? These are our boys. They are JMM workers by day and roam with a gun by night." The arrogance being that every Santhal is a JMM supporter. However, with the increasingly-weakening party turning a blind eye towards agitations against big coal-based projects, even actively promoting them, politically active individuals will increasingly see an alternative in the Maoists. This newspaper wrote recently that Babulal Marandi wants to end the JMM and replace it with his own party. The Maoists might want to have their own say in the matter.

At around 11.30 PM, Rekha Rajak sat inside an ambulance and wailed. "They loaded him on to this vehicle and asked us to go to Ranchi [400 km away]. I have no money for fuel; I am worried the driver will abandon us midway," she said. This newspaper had met her son Shivshankar Rajak earlier at the Sikaripara police station, who said his father Ram Pratap Rajak, an official of the Industries Department, had called his mother's mobile phone at around 6 PM, asking for water. Help came at around 8.30 PM. Ram Pratap told his family he had been shot in the foot when in fact he had taken a bullet to the head, too.

Shoulders slumped at the Sikaripara police station when news came through that Assistant Sub Inspector R.N. Singh's body was spotted at the encounter spot. A young constable kept asking a colleague, who had returned after a search and rescue for the injured, whether a friend had made it. "I don't know, it's too dark, there are bodies all around the place. I counted eight. Their faces had been blackened by the blast," he said, before walking away. When the dead were finally taken away in an effort that lasted through the night, Sikaripara police station realised it had also lost Havildar Mohammad Shahim.

Niranjan Prasad Yadav, who was driving the bus - under which an IED went off, unlike the Tata Magic, which was shot at - escaped without any bullet injuries. "I saw the Magistrate's vehicle [Magic] ahead of me topple over. Next thing I know, the bus was lifted. I lost consciousness when it came down. I woke to the sound of guns going off and ran without looking back. I must have run two kilometres to reach the Rajbandh CRPF camp.

His weak constitution may have saved Hiralal Pal, a constable at the Town police station. "I was unconscious after the blast. Some Maoists came near me - they were only shooting at policemen - but someone lying next to me told them I was already dead," he said.

Subodh Kumar Mistry, headmaster of a middle school in Seraiyahat, said that the Maoists had taken away his money but returned an ATM card: "For a long time after the attack, someone called Amit Kumar was crying for help, saying he was badly injured. He became silent later; I think he died."

A Modi Wave in Jharkhand?

Published here
Sahibganj, April 24

As the three-phased voting in Jharkhand came to a close on Thursday, the BJP - which had won eight seats in 2009 and retains seven now - remains in contention in all 14 seats.

With the possibility of a clean sweep looming - the party won 12 in 1996 as well as '98 - state-based leaders are quick to attribute it to a "Modi Wave." The question assumes significance because of the adivasis in the state, who comprise 26.2 per cent of the population.

ADIVASIS

Have the adivasis voted for Modi? The definitive answer will come only after May 16, but even the state BJP answers in the negative. Khunti, which has the maximum proportion of adivasi population - at 73.3 per cent - might elect BJP's Kariya Munda, but its voters have done so seven times already.

A "wave" can be substantiated if the party wins in areas where it has traditionally found the going tough. In that sense, the Dumka and Rajmahal - the former a JMM stronghold, the latter, a Congress one - in the Santhal Pargana region are critical for the BJP. In both constituencies, the BJP claims "padhe-likhe" [literate, educated] Santhalis will vote for Narendra Modi. A similar claim is made by the JVM(P), which claims the padhe-likhe adivasis will vote for Babulal Marandi. Either way, a new votebank from among the adivasis - identified as the tribal middle class by anthropologists - is emerging and is up for grabs.

However, in Dumka as well as Rajmahal, the BJP depends on extraneous factors for victory. In Dumka, there is the hope that Sunil Soren, who lost to Shibu Soren by only 18,812 votes in 2009, will win when Babulal Marandi splits the JMM's Santhal-Muslim votebank. The BJP hopes to retain the diku [outisder, caste Hindu] votes and that Marandi will not eat into it. At Rajmahal, with significant number of Muslims, the party hopes that the RSS's 20-odd years of work among the Santhals have Sanskritised them enough to split the JMM votebank. Here, Narendra Modi could act as a catalyst in bringing over these Sanskritised Santhals to vote along with dikus, their former exploiters.

DALITS

In Chatra, a district where 32.6 percent of the population is Scheduled Caste, this reporter could not find any dalit at the March 27 Modi rally despite talking to about 20 people. No political party except the CPI-ML considers the dalits, 12.1 per cent of the population, as a votebank. While there seemed to be an upper caste-OBC Modi wave in Chatra, the CPI-ML's strategy seems to have paid off, as it is reportedly giving the BJP sweaty palms in Koderma, where the namesake district has only one per cent of adivasis, 15.2 per cent dalits and where Bihar-like caste politics prevail.

MUSLIMS

One of the best questions to ask voters this election was, "Why will you vote?" At Pakur district's Rahaspur village, Ashraful Haque gave the most complicated answer, "Some Muslims here might have even vote for the BJP, because only local BJP leaders help us when we go to them with our problems. But not this time. We don't want our votes to help Narendra Modi. We are scared," he said.

This fear was used by Congress's Ranchi candidate Subodh Kant Sahay, who called a meeting of Muslim mohalla leaders and managed to get an assurance of votes. The elders reportedly refused to take any gifts in return. This, despite Muslims being angry with Sahay as he did little for the evicted residents of the encroachment called Islam Nagar in Ranchi city.

A mere claim of a Modi Wave was not enough in the third phase, as Bihar-based leader Giriraj Singh's April 18 comments in Deoghar and Bokaro about Modi's opponents having to go to Pakistan was clearly intended to unite the caste Hindus in the Santhal Pargana region, with a significant Muslim population.

WHAT SHOULD A WAVE LOOK LIKE?

Ideally a wave could mean that castes and communities that stayed away in 2009 were now rooting for the BJP. There seemed to be a rural-urban divide to this: significant in Jharkhand as 76 per cent of the population lives in rural areas. In urban Jamshedpur, the trading communities and upper middle class seemed to be shifting allegiance over to the BJP after supporting the JVM's Ajay Kumar in the 2011 by-poll. The poll percentage also shot up from 51-52 in the last two elections to 65 per cent.

Except for the Telis - the caste to which Modi belongs - the BJP was not expecting any new castes from the rural areas in its bouquet. The upper caste-OBC Modi Wave in Chatra may not have been a wave, after all - they have voted for the BJP before, too. In that sense, the Modi Wave in Jharkhand was essentially a re-strengthening of the BJP's core votebanks: polarise along Hindu-Muslim fault lines and then ensure that its votebanks remained un-split and delivering maximum votes.

This fortification of votebanks was visible in Hazaribagh and Palamu, where highly-qualified candidates - Harvard graduate Jayant Sinha and former DGP V.D. Ram - had to resort to praying for a Modi Wave. Their prayers could have been answered in a literal manner, as anecdotal evidence suggests that the Ram Navami celebrations organised by Sangh Parivar organisations could have attracted voters who might have gone elsewhere. The enthusiasm around a Modi Wave visibly activated the cadres too, whose work could explain why Jamshedpur recorded an unexpectedly high turnout.

Babulal wants to knock the JMM off their perch

Published here
Sahibganj, April 22

A senior BJP leader who was out campaigning in Dumka's Santhal villages returned to recount what a villager told him when asked his thoughts on the election: "Baba ka tadi mein kangi phas gaye. [The comb is stuck in the old man's beard.]"

Outgoing Dumka MP and former chief minister Shibu Soren finds himself up against the state's first CM Babulal Marandi, MP from Koderma who decided to return to the site of his electoral debut for an endgame and whose symbol is the comb. Marandi's Jharkhand Vikas Morcha's (Prajatantrik) plans for the region go beyond the immediate concern of winning this election: the comb seems to be firmly stuck to the 70-year-old Soren's beard.

The BJP considers itself in the fight for Dumka, but it is the contest between the state's two major Santhal leaders at the heart of Santhal Pargana that holds everyone in thrall. In fact, it is precisely why the BJP thinks it stands a chance: "Billi ka ladayi mein bandar lejayega," as another BJP leader quipped.

Soren, who has contested nine times from Dumka, winning seven, retains the upper hand on paper. Marandi is no novice - he has contested four times from here, losing to Soren twice but winning twice against Guruji's family: one of his wins was against Soren's wife Rupi Kisku. Marandi made his electoral debut against Soren in 1991 and lost by 1.3 lakh votes. Dumka, though crucial, is relatively neutral territory for this battle: Soren, born in Ramgarh district, came to the Santhal Pargana in the late 1960s to lead the fight against exploitative moneylenders; Marandi, from Giridih, was sent by the RSS to establish and strengthen sakhas in the 1980s.

However, as with all epic scraps, history is for the nerds as the slate is wiped clean when the contenders circle each other. Also, circumstances have changed since Marandi's last win here, in 1999 - he left the BJP to form the JVM(P) in 2006. Now, he wants his party to replace the JMM in its stronghold, the Santhal Pargana. The act mirrors that of the BJP in 2000, when it decided not to be gracious enough to make Shibu Soren - the leader of the statehood movement - the state's first CM, instead choosing to install RSS's man Marandi.

At least etymologically, the JVM's Vikas is the next step to the JMM's Mukti, not least because the latter seems to be clueless when it comes to having a vision for the state it gave blood, sweat and tears to create. However, uprooting the JMM - even if it is on the decline - and then replacing it in the Santhal Pargana is easier said than done. Marandi will need three things - an identity, grassroots network and financial backing.

Marandi's - and by extension, the JVM's - identity is at the core of what the party wants to achieve. JVM's quest in the Santhal Pargana is also a search for its first votebank: it cannot bank anymore on the votes brought along by erstwhile BJP leaders who defected. "Babulal Marandi is not a tribal activist; he is a VHP activist," said BJP leader Saryu Rai, who nevertheless agrees that most Santhal votes will go to Marandi in a post-JMM world.

There is a feeling that his Sangh training has shorn Marandi of his Santhali identity. "Babulal is more diku than tribe," said Sanjay Basu Mallick, forest rights campaigner, referring to a term the Santhalis use to refer to the outsider. However, Mallick said that based on his interactions with Marandi, "He believes he is a true Santhal and that if elected from the Santhal Pargana, he will be the Santhal leader of Jharkhand.... At the same time, he remains reliant on the dikus [for financial backing]."

Mallick believes that Marandi's opportunity stems from a "very big tribal crisis," where there are hardly any adivasi leaders on the horizon. It also helps Marandi that unlike most other adivasi leaders of the state, he has no beginnings in the JMM. All this injects a sense of urgency in his attempt to defeat the ageing Soren: with Guruji's retirement from electoral politics a matter of constant speculation, there may not be another chance to defeat the king.

Thanks to Marandi's RSS days and BJP background, the JVM too had mostly "dikus" to begin with. So much so, anti-displacement activists of the region did not trust him completely till last year, suspecting he was a Trojan Horse for diku interests. "He made a significant move by agitating against the Panem Coal Mines in 2012. It did not make much difference to those affected by Panem, but it was symbolically loaded - as opposed to the JMM, which averted its eyes. Babulal is the first politician here to suggest land-for-land for large projects, indicating he has a vision," said an individual associated with an NGO working in the region. An unsaid promise which seems to be drawing educated youth is the implementation of a pro-tribal domicile policy, which ended Marandi's CM tenure in 2003.

Soren's once-trusted colleague Stephen Marandi, who won the seat six consecutive times before being forced out to make way for Hemant Soren's debut in 2005, has now joined Marandi after a brief exile. "Educated tribals are joining us in large numbers. Babulalji wants to nuture young leaders," said Paritosh Soren, Marandi's poll agent this time. Paritosh is one to watch out for: he gave five-time-MLA Nalin Soren a scare in JMM's stronghold Sikaripara in the 2009 assembly polls; losing by 1052 votes.

Marandi himself is not forthcoming about the identity he wants to project. "I want to be the leader of the poor," he said in an interview given in an antetoom of his Dumka campaign office. When prodded, he opened up further. "The tribals are the most poor; 20 to 25 lakhs have been displaced. So, the fight for the poor essentially becomes a fight for tribals," he said. Then, he said something that revealed the scale of his ambitions, "Nobody has dared to make a clear stand on displacement. Make me Prime Minister; I will show you how to compensate with land for land." Behind him, a campaign poster featured a man in a topi: Marandi refuses to discuss his RSS days and talks as if 2006 was a clean break, since when he has made significant efforts to reach out to the Muslims.

All over the Santhal Pargana, there is an eye out for early 2010, when the state will vote to elect members to its assembly. Getting the adivasi group that constitutes more than a third of all adivasis in the state on his side is critical to Babulal Marandi's efforts to becoming the Chief Minister again. He certainly cannot replicate the near-spiritual connection that the Santhals have with Shibu Soren; Marandi needs to find a language to get through to his own people.

How the JMM lost it

Published here
Dumka, April 21

Solomon David, a Jesuit priest who works among the adivasis of the Santhal Pargana, recounts an incident that happened around 2008. "We were at a meeting in a village," he said, sitting in the office of JOHAR, of which he is Director. "Midway through the meeting, an old man - possibly inebriated - stood up and shouted in Santhali, "Hatao bon, hatao bon! Jharkhand bon hatao!"

"We will take back, we will take back! We will take back Jharkhand!" goes the translation of the cry, which dates back to the Jharkhand movement. Like the the lighthouse keeper who flew the Union Jack long after 1947, Jharkhand's creation in 2000 had passed by that old villager.

That moment signified the failure of a political party that came to embody the demand for Jharkhand. The Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, which once stood for an ideal, has shrunk to stand firmly in the corner of its leader's family. Tainted, and shorn of ideas and leaders, it now faces an old challenger in its bastion, someone who knows that defeating its leader can effectively end the JMM.

"Let them talk. People will always talk. Who can stop them?" said the 70-year-old Shibu Soren before going back to doodling on his campaign material. That was the only time Guruji - Dishom Guru to the Santhal Pargana - talked during the 10-minute-interview at his Dumka house: mostly because JMM general secretary Binod Pandey, talking on his behalf throughout, was attending a call on his mobile phone and this reporter used the opportunity to ask a direct question.

Soren was referring to the throwing down of the gauntlet in Dumka by fellow Santhal and former chief minister Babulal Marandi, who now heads the Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik). Though Marandi himself would not admit to it, his supporters say he wants his party to replace the JMM. It makes sense that both cannot survive a scrap: they are after the same votes in the region, after all - that of the Muslims and the Santhals, the largest tribal group that constitute more than 34 per cent of all adivasis, who themselves constitute 26.2 per cent of the state's population.

This is the fourth time the two men - both outgoing MPs, Soren from Dumka and Marandi from Koderma - will go up against each other. Having won in 1991and 1996, Soren lost to then-BJP member Marandi in 1998. Marandi evened his score against the Soren family in 1999, when he defeated Soren's wife Rupi Kisku. However, JMM will feel inadequate going into this fight. It has lost its tallest leaders in the Santhal Paragana to its fiercest rivals: Stephen Marandi, one of Soren's trusted colleagues who won the Dumka seat six times, back with Marandi after a brief exile; former MP and four-time MLA Hemlal Murmu has joined the BJP and is contesting against the JMM's Rajmahal candidate; minister in the Hemant Soren government Simon Marandi is not campaigning for Soren after his son was denied the Rajmahal ticket.

The common denominator in all this is a man who would be held responsible for whatever happens to the JMM from now on: Hemant Soren. Stephen was replaced to let Hemant contest in 2005; the CM brought in the son of a former Congress MP as the Rajmahal candidate, in one stroke isolating Hemlal as well as Simon. Sikaripara MLA Nalin Soren is probably the only senior leader from the Jharkhand movement days. Another survivor is Borio MLA Lobin Hembram.

"JMM as an idea went to the coffin a long time ago. It is a party of opportunists now," said Sanjay Basu Mallick, forest rights campaigner who has worked with the leaders of the Jharkhand movement. The perception that JMM is a party of the Santhals shattered in Dumka, the party's stronghold. The JMM will struggle to point out district-based adivasi leaders: its district president is a man named Subash Singh, the driving force of the district unit and Soren's poll agent is Vijay Singh. The only adivasi leader of note is Shiba Baskey, constituency representative of Dumka MLA and chief minister Hemant Soren.

"There is now a strong contractor lobby within the JMM. They come from all sections of the society, but have come to be a class of their own. This lobby is the reason why the party cannot lend support to people's movements against displacements in the area," said an individual who has been involved with a major NGO in the region. In a lot of ways, the JMM, which established itself in the region by fighting the exploitative moneylenders, now finds itself working hand-in-hand with a similar group.

Mallick calls it the capture of the party by the tribal middle class. "His sidekicks talk more than Shibu; they have captured the JMM. They need Shibu and Hemant only to pull tribal votes," he said. For the same reason, Mallick also believes the JMM will survive if Soren is not active in politics anymore. "It will be a difficult existence for the party, but this middle class will continue to speak to Hemant," he said, adding that Hemant does not have a, "tribal flavour in him.... JMM has had splits before too, but they survived it because of Shibu's charisma."

This time, the party looks weak across the board. Its best Mahato leaders are dead. In places like Jamshedpur, the Muslims voted strategically to attempt to defeat the BJP. The Majhi (Santhal) vote will also go to Marandi as well as the BJP, which is actively wooing Sanskritised adivasis. The three Ms of the party - often replaced with the "Mukti" in the JMM - are not a guarantee anymore. This votebank-reliance has been the party's failure. "What has the JMM done to create a Jharkhandi identity?.... It has not transcended the diverse groups in the state," said the individual with the NGO. The party, whose troubles incidentally mirror those of the DMK, now faces a problem that the Indian National Congress did post-Independence. "There is no vision. The party has failed to take the [Jharkhand statehood] struggle forward," said the individual.

The party would have you believe that all is well and rumours of its demise are greatly exaggerated. "It all starts here; it ends here. It does not matter if others leave," said general secretary Pandey, touching his leader with his right hand, without explaining what happens when such a reservoir bursts. A party member who is part of both senior and junior Sorens' inner circles agreed that it was a time of transition, with Hemant seeking to remould the JMM in his own image. "It may seem chaotic from the outside, but Hemant is very much in control now. Vijay Hansdak's selection as Rajmahal candidate will later be lauded after the elections," said the leader.

A senior BJP leader who has worked closely with Soren believes he will have to make a comeback: "Hemant will prove to be incapable soon. Guruji wanted to be CM when they pulled down the Munda government last year; he will have to take charge again to energise the party."

The question of JMM with Shibu Soren receding into the background may be an irrelevant one. "Shibu has not been in control for the last 10 years. First, Durga [eldest son, now deceased] ran the party. Now, Hemant," said the NGO member. The fall that began with the creation of Jharkhand continues to haunt the state's greatest leader. That great betrayal - when the BJP chose RSS man Babulal Marandi over Soren - continues to define JMM's politics. "Shibu Soren has given his life for this struggle. As the leader of a movement, he will live on in our hearts. His career as a party leader, as a chief minister, is a different story," said the NGO member.

FIR against Giriraj

Dumka, April 20

An FIR was lodged on Sunday against Bihar-based BJP leader Giriraj Singh at Jharkhand's Deoghar district for his April 18 remarks where he said that “those who want to stop” the BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi will soon have “no place in India… because their place will be in Pakistan”.

The FIR was lodged at the Mohanpur police station on the orders of Deputy Commissioner Ameet Kumar. "I have examined the video footage of his speech and found that its content was of communal and anti-national in nature," said DC Ameet Kumar. The footage was captured by videographers hired by the district administration; the DC said his attention was drawn to the incident after "the media highlighted the issue."

Singh - the BJP's candidate from Bihar's Nawada - made the comments at a pre-election rally in Monhanpur on Friday afternoon for BJP's Godda candidate and outgoing MP Nishikant Dubey, who was present onstage along with former BJP President Nitin Gadkari.

“Woh log Narendra Modi ko rokna chahate hain, woh Pakistan dekh rahe hain. Aane wale dino mein aise logon ke liye jagah Hindustan mein nahi, Jharkhand mein nahi, parantu Pakistan mein hoga, Pakistan mein hoga (Those who want to stop Narendra Modi are looking to Pakistan for support. In the coming days,there won’t be place for such peoplein India, in Jharkhand because their place will be in Pakistan, Pakistan),” Singh had said in his closing remarks. A video clip of about 43 seconds was uploaded on the NDTV's website.

Giriraj Singh says Modi opponents will have to go to Pakistan

Published here
Dumka, April 19

In a brazen attempt to polarise voters in Jharkhand's Godda Lok Sabha constituency, BJP's Nawada candidate Giriraj Singh said on Friday that those attempting to stop Narendra Modi will have no place in India and will have to go to Pakistan.

In a short video clip uploaded on the NDTV's website, the Bihar-based Giriraj Singh - with former BJP President Nitin Gadkari by his side - is seen saying at a pre-election rally to applause, "Woh log Narendra Modi ko rokna chahate hain, woh Pakistan dekh rahe hain. Aane walo din mein aise logon ke liye jagah Hindustan mein nahi, Jharkhand mein nahi. Parantu Pakistan mein hoga, Pakistan mein hoga." [Those who want to stop Narendra Modi are looking up to Pakistan for support. In the coming days, there won't be a place for such people in India, in Jharkhand. Because their place will be in Pakistan, in Pakistan.]

BJP's outgoing Godda MP Nishikant Dubey is facing a triangular contest, with Congress' Fukran Ansari and JVM(P)'s Pradeep Yadav determined not to let him win a second time. In 2009, Dubey won by a majority of 6407 in the constituency with significant Muslim votes: he got 23.76 percent of votes, while 2004-winner Ansari had 22.96 and Yadav, 22.18 percent. The BJP is clearly hoping caste Hindu voters will rally around its candidate this time.

By around 4 PM on Saturday, Giriraj Singh tweeted from his @girirajsinghbjp account: "I maintain"many Pakistani pro are constantly opposing namo.this nation belongs to Indian at heart else Pakistan always welcome anti India " (sic.)."

This is not the first time Singh is using the Pakistan bogey. On April 9, he tweeted, "Those chanting secular,secular should open an NGO in Pakistan and Bangladesh and should work for minority betterment."

In March, Singh - a Bhumihar Brahmin - had made his displeasure known after the party allotted him the Nawada seat instead of his preferred Begusarai. He went on to hint that fellow party leader Sushil Modi was responsible for the slighting before falling in line and accepting the BJP's decision.

Saranda Votes Again

Published here

Digha, April 17

Laxmi Lomga* stood in front of the EVM on Thursday morning and stared as if it was an animal snarling at her. She started towards it twice, withdrew and scratched her head. Only when a poll official approached her and explained the symbols did he smile and press the button of her choice.

Outside the polling booth at Digha village in West Singhbhum's Manoharpur block, Laxmi explained her predicament, husband by her side. "I last voted when they had paper ballots. All you had to do was to fold that piece of paper, drop it into the box and go home. That must have been 15 years back," she said.

Laxmi lives in Tirilposi, the village around which the CPI-Maoist came to establish its Eastern Regional Bureau's headquarters. From around late 2000 to September 2011, the village and the 850 sq km forest that housed it were out of bounds for the State.

Thursday was the first time Tirilposi voted since Anaconda-I, the operation by security forces to reclaim the area. The operation was followed by the Rs. 250 crore Saranda Development Plan. In all, 12,431 voters across 19 polling booths were eligible to vote in Saranda and adjoining areas.

There were fears that Tirilposi's 242 voters may not turn up - their booth had been moved out of the village to Digha, 12 km away, citing security concerns, after all. However, it helped that Thursday is when the region's weekly market convenes across the border in Orissa's Bhalulata and it served as an incentive. By 9 AM, the first voters turned up. Soon, there was a queue.

However, most people from Tirilposi insisted that they cannot be inked. "We had a meeting in the village last morning and decided to vote only if they won't put ink on our fingers," said a village elder. The villagers signed in by using a thumb impression made from a stamp pad. "The ink from the stamp pad can be washed off immediately. However, if the Maoists come to the village in a day or two to check if anyone voted, we would be in trouble," he said.

The people of Tirilposi were not the only ones trying to out-think the Maoists. CRPF personnel at Digha wore white ribbons as shoulders loops. "We were worried that the Maoists would wear uniforms similar to us to trick us," said an officer. The Maoists were not able to hold even meetings calling for poll boycott inside Saranda, according to villagers.

Thanks to the administration shifting polling booths to a central area for security forces to create a secure perimeter, voters had to travel up to 60 km from their homes. The people of Nayagaon were the worst-hit. "We have to walk 17 km to catch a bus to Rourkela. From there, there's another bus to Bhalulata. The polling station is another seven kilometer walk from Bhalulata," said Naresh Khalkho, a polling agent at Digha who started from his village on Wednesday. Khalkho is also a ward member. He won unopposed in 2010 after the Nayagaon booth was located at Manoharpur, a further 25 km from Bhalulata. At Digha, only the Congress had booth agents.

Pradhan Gudiya (19) was angry. "I've made the effort of coming all the way here. Now, the government should give me a job," he said. Physically challenged on all limbs, he took the Saranda passenger from Manoharpur at 7 AM, got off at Bhalulata and cycled to the polling station, reaching by 11 AM.

Mandru Honaga, afflicted with polio, said that the supporter of a political party took him on his cycle to the polling booth at Chotanagara. "It took us two hours to get here. He left after I voted. There's only one Tata Magic arranged by some political leaders ferrying people. There are too many of us; we could be stuck here overnight," he said, as he waited along with Lodro Vahanda, the 74-year-old Munda of Marang Ponga.

When the results came in at the three polling stations in Digha, Saranda seemed to have passed its first test: Digha (71.7) and Tirilposi (66.9) did well, while the Bitkilsoi booth, which included Nayagaon, registered 28.8 per cent of votes. In all, the Singhbhum constituency registered 62 per cent, up from 60.77 in 2009.

All is not well, though - the 55-odd Jharkhandi villages where an estimated 5000 people reside are still disenfranchised. It is difficult to ascertain whether this year is an improvement - in 2009 too, polling percentages were high in polling booths across the region: Serengda (70), Chotanagara West (65) and Kumdi (54), though figures for Digha and Tirilposi were not available. "The officers in the booths punched in the votes on their own in 2009," alleged the Congress' district secretary Sushil Barla, an information that could not be independently verified.

*Names have been changed to respect the privacy of people from Tirilposi.

Shifting balance between Maoists and splinter groups

Published here
Manoharpur, April 17

The ongoing general elections may be the first time that what was showing up as an LWE statistic is being played out on the ground: while the CPI-Maoist retains unparalleled reach, the splinter groups to which it has ceded ground are flexing their muscle.

Despite recording the highest number of left wing extremism-related incidents (383) as well as deaths (150) in 2013, Jharkhand has remained relatively peaceful during the ongoing general elections.

This, even as fellow LWE-affected states Chhattisgarh as well as Bihar have witnessed attacks resulting in fatalities. As the second of three phases of polling ends in the state on April 17, all the eight most vulnerable Category A districts of Jharkhand have voted without any deaths in LWE-related incidents. The most serious incident came on Thursday morning, when four CRPF personnel and a driver were injured in two attacks in Bokaro's Jhumra hills.

An oft-overlooked LWE statistic gives an indication about how influential LWE organisations could have been this election: that 120 of the 150 killed in 2013 were civilians. This means that 80 per cent of the time, it is a civilian who dies due to LWE conflict; the figure was 65.16 per cent across the country excluding Jharkhand.

The spotlight remains on the CPI-Maoist, but the 20-odd splinter groups that claim to have left-leaning ideologies accounted for over 60 per cent of these incidents. As of 2013, almost all of them actively shied away from engaging security forces and are responsible for most of the 120 civilian deaths mostly because of their intimate involvement in the day-to-day running of the villages they are entrenched in. In 2014, the People’s Liberation Front of India overtook the CPI-Maoist in the incidents pie - the former accounts for around 36 per cent on its own, while the Maoists are responsible for around 34 percent.

This shift in the balance of power was evident on the ground this election. Though the Maoists made a lot of noise about poll boycott, the PLFI was probably the most influential LWE organisation in terms of actively having a say on election results.

The Maoists certainly had the most widespread influence - security personnel were mobilised to counter them, after all. The CPI-Maoist were successful in holding village-level meetings and putting up posters calling for a poll boycott in almost each of the Category A districts. At Khunti's Arki block, for example, campaigning for all parties was negligible. However, there were no reports of Maoist presence within the Saranda forest, the organisation's Eastern Regional Bureau headquarters till 2011. In the adjoining Porahat forest division, the Maoists managed to hold one boycott meeting within Gudri block and stuck posters.

It is difficult to estimate how effective the poll boycott call was - polling percentages have gone up across board, after all. The Maoists - rather, one of their senior leaders - came out in active support of one individual. Regional Committee member Nakul Yadav's support to JVM(P)'s Chatra candidate Nilam Devi was reportedly because of familial ties and not of ideological ones. Devi, even otherwise putting up strong fight, eventually came to be known as a "Maoist" candidate in the adivasi villages of Latehar district, within Chatra constituency.

In Chatra, the Tritiya Sammelan Prastuti Committee did not name a favourite. This was unlike the 2010 Assembly elections, when Ganesh Ganjhu, brother of TSPC's supreme commander Brajesh Ganjhu, contested as a JMM candidate. Lawalong, the centre of TSPC's activities, had the presence of all party offices this time as opposed to 2010, when only the JMM flag flew. With Ganesh apparently favouring the BJP this time - he denied this in a conversation with this newspaper, his supporters worked for the party. However, the TSPC did not seem like it had a horse in the Chatra race. On the other hand, in the Palamu constituency, the TSPC reportedly supported an individual who was instrumental in the organisation's formation.

The PLFI, a ruthless and ambitious organisation that left behind the ideological guise long back, took a major decision when it attacked the police for the first time on March 25 in Khunti. They have been brazen during the election, reportedly campaigning for Jharkhand Party candidate and former state minister Anosh Ekka. Driving through Murhu town - a PLFI stronghold - on the morning of elections, only Ekka's flags and campaign office was visible. The PLFI has threatened Aam Aadmi Party's candidate Dayamani Barla's supporters twice, using Ekka's name during the second incident and demanding that they campaign for him. There are worries that the organisation will attack Barla's supporters post-elections.

Why Silli won't be looking elsewhere this time

Published here
Silli, April 15

Travelling from Ranchi, there is an area 6-7 km ahead of Silli town called Chordera - the place where thieves live, literally. However, on the many buildings that have come up in the area since 2010 - a Guest House and a Multimedia theatre of the Forest Department, the area is called Ramdera - where Ram lives. In land records, the area continues to be Chordera, but if you are from Silli - and especially if you are a supporter of local MLA Sudesh Kumar Mahto - the area is now fit for the gods.

AJSU Party, of which Mahto (40) is President, is quite literally promising the biblical for Jharkhand. "I want our land to have an abundance of milk, honey, flowers and fruits," begins the party's manifesto, under the title My Dream. To prove that they walk the talk, AJSU Party points to Silli.

That the fight for Ranchi Lok Sabha constituency - which votes on April 17 - would be a messy affair was a foregone conclusion. While former Union Minister Subodh Kant Sahai is trying to complete a hat-trick of consecutive wins with the Congress, the BJP brought back old warhorse and four-time consecutive MP Ram Tahal Choudhary. The influential President of the Jharkhand State Cricket Association and former ADG of Police Amitabh Choudhary - a bald man - is the candidate of Babulal Marandi's JVM(P), whose electoral symbol is the comb. Mandar MLA and former state minister Bandhu Tirkey, who merged his party into the TMC, is another candidate.

However, all of them had to rework their caste, tribal and religious vote bank calculations as soon as Mahto threw his hat into the ring. "Everybody could forget getting votes from Silli - and maybe even Ichagarh - assembly constituencies for starters," said a Congress leader. The BJP seemed to be the worst-hit from Sudesh's decision - Choudhary is a Kurmi, the same caste which forms Mahto's base in Silli. The BJP was quick to point fingers at the Congress, alleging that Mahto was a dummy candidate. If he ever was one, Mahto gave sweaty palms even to the Congress as campaigns ended on the evening of April 15, with little to choose between the BJP, Congress and AJSU Party.

This newspaper met Mahto, wearing shorts and sitting cross-legged on the floor, in his camp office in Silli on the morning of the last day of campaigning. Yet, he was preparing to address a rally elsewhere. "We do work throughout the year. I am here all the time. I do not need to make last-minute runs through Silli," he said. Silli is that rare place in Jharkhand where one would hear the words, "We do not lack anything here," even if it was spoken by a supporter, as Wushu coach Wahid Ali would. "Silli ko Dilli banaye," says Pavitr Mitra, a supporter, and Mahto repeats it softly. "We want to offer Silli as a model to the people of Jharkhand and ask them to give us a chance to replicate it," said Mahto, who constantly refers to Kerala as a reference point.

His political opponents say Mahto, who hails from Lagam village within the Silli police station limits, spares no effort to win elections; the splurge is probably one reason why youngsters are attracted to the party. However, such a simplistic version risks overlooking the trapeze acts that took a 25-year-old who went to the Bihar Assembly as a United Goans' Democratic Party candidate in 2000 to being Deputy Chief Minister in December 2010.

Sudesh Mahto has been a minister in five of Jharkhand's nine governments. He has been a part of every NDA government here and astutely sat in the Opposition during the Madhu Koda regime even as his party's MLA Chandra Prakash Chaudhary was a minister. A deputy chief minister under Shibu Soren as well as Arjun Munda, he has handled almost every significant portfolio except Finance over the years. In between, he appropriated the All Jharkhand Students' Union, a statehood movement in which he was a fringe player, by registering a political outfit that calls itself the AJSU ("aaj-su") Party.

"We did not like Arjun Munda, but one of the most important reasons for bringing down this government is Sudesh. The AJSU is becoming too ambitious; keeping it away from power is akin to denying life support," said a JMM leader in confidence as Hemant Soren worked behind the scenes to bring down the Arjun Munda government in late 2012. There was cause for worry. When he was Road Construction minister, Mahto got Silli roads - 200 km of PWD and 600 km of village roads, he said. As minister for water resources, he brought check dams. As Forest minister, he got the luxurious Guest House, an Audio-Video Centre and a Deer Park approved. "When I asked for a portfolio like panchayati raj, fellow politicians were amused. I showed them what I could do with it," said Mahto.

The story of how the Rural Development and Self Employment Training Institute (RUDSET) in Silli, which won the award for being the second-best RUDSET in the country in 2012-'13, is illustrative of Mahto works. "He was the Deputy CM as well as the Rural Development minister when the institute was proposed. There was even land acquired for it in Ranchi. However, the minister lobbied hard for it to be moved to Silli by December 2011," said Director Ramchandra. Most of the legislator's activities are monitored by an NGO named Gunj Pariwar that he started. "Under our Jeevan Mitra programme, 16 ambulances are stationed at a centre each within the constituency. Anybody can use a toll-free number to call for one. They only have to pay for fuel charges," said Bharat Singh, Gunj's coordinator. "Our next programme is an adult education mission to achieve complete literacy," said Singh.

Apart from its Kurmi votebank, the AJSU Party has cultivated the youth and women as a support base over the years. As sports minister, he got Silli an artificial turf stadium. Over the years, he has given off the impression that he is one of M.S. Dhoni's closest friends. Even as he was Home Minister, Mahto made a bid to be the state cricket association president, losing to Amitabh Choudhary - which makes their electoral fight even more interesting. The Silli Sports Academy, of which Mahto is Chief Patron, trains children in archery, wushu and football. "Our residential facility currently houses 28 children. Minister saheb provides us with whatever we need, including kits. We have produced 250 medals, 12 national champions and two international players in the last four years," said Prakash Ram, chief coach at the archery academy.

The massive presence of women in rallies organised by the AJSU Party rarely fails to make news. Mahto's efforts mirror the Kudumbashree mission in Kerala, which empowered women politically, too. "We have formed over 900 Self Help Groups, bringing together 11,000 women in Silli block alone. Personally, I am impressed by the way the AJSU is making an effort to promote women leaders. I have a chance to develop here," said Shraddha Mahto, block coordinator of the Jharkhand State Livelihood Project.

Currently out of power and left to wither - AJSU supporters allege that the A-V centre is not being inaugurated because of hurdles placed before it by the current government - Mahto has found a new cause. His main poll plank is the Special Status for Jharkhand and blames the central government for the poor development in the state: Mahto deflects questions about how he has become a rebel despite being probably the individual who has remained in power the longest. Here begins another act on the trapeze.

What Saranda means for the Congress

Published here
Manoharpur, April 9

Moransingh Bodra (25) smiled from ear to ear when asked whether he would vote this election. "Abhi toh bindaas hai," said the youngster, returning on his bicycle from the Thursday market in Bhalulata, on the Orissa side of the state's border with Jharkhand. His two other friends disappeared into the background without a word when they saw a stranger.

That moment encapsulated the mood within the 850 sq km Saranda forest in Jharkhand's West Singhbhum:an exuberance for newly-acquired freedoms mixed with a distrust of what the future brings. Moransingh is from Tirilposi, a village within Digha panchayat of Manoharpur block, once the site of permanent structures that constituted the Eastern Regional Bureau headquarters of the CPI-Maoist.

The Congress is hoping that the people of the Singhbhum Lok Sabha constituency will reward it on April 17 for the Saranda Development Plan, inaugurated on December 2, 2011. The Rs. 250 crore SDP came after a massive operation by security forces which sanitised the area. A total of 36,215 people would benefit from the plan, for 56 villages in six panchayats of Manoharpur block.

In a lot of ways, this election is a landmark one for Saranda: villages like Tirilposi were forced to boycott elections during the 10-odd years that the Maoists made the Sal forest their home. Voters' identity cards have reportedly been issued even in some of the previously-unrecognised Jharkhandi villages, about 110 in number. En route Digha village, this reporter came across Birendra Kumar, the Block Development Officer, returning after a visit in a car, with no security - a far cry from late 2011, when a Deputy Commissioner reached Tirilposi for the first time in 15 years.

However, thanks to strife within the local unit of the Congress, the party may not be able to scoop up the benefit of the SDP.

On April 5, Union Minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh, who has been the driving force behind the SDP, visited Manoharpur for the first time as a Congress leader. "During his multiple visits here, Jairam Ramesh never did a single meeting under the Congress' banner within Saranda. He wanted people to see the development first. But now, whatever he says, the people will be willing to do," said Sushil Barla, general secretary of the district unit of the Congress on the eve of Jairam's visit.

By the time the minister arrived the next morning to campaign for his party's candidate Chitrasen Sinku, less than 10 people from Digha panchayat - at the heart of the SDP - had made it to the meeting. Jairam addressed a motley crowd which mostly comprised the residents of Manoharpur town. Local Congress leaders blame poor communication; villagers point out infighting within the party meant that no transportation was arranged for the people of the area, who live more than 50 km from Manoharpur.

Another issue that could cripple the Congress in the region is the rumour that the party has decided to extend tacit support to Geeta Kora, wife of former chief minister Madhu. That the Congress has a lot of work to do is obvious from the results of the 2009 polls - its candidate came third with 95,604 votes; Madhu Kora won by polling 2.47 lakhs. During conversations with villagers, this reporter noticed a number of them did not know when the elections would be and those who did knew only the name of Madhu Kora, who is from Jagannathpur, adjacent the SDP area: the Congress faces the onerous task of educating this new electorate about its candidate. At least four polling booths were shifted within Saranda for security reasons. This means, for example, that the people of Kumdi will now have to travel 28 km to vote in Chotanagara.

Of course, a number of villages - most notably populated by adivasi Christians, like Digha - have always voted for the Congress. "We will vote for the Congress this time, too. But we expect more from the party," said an angry Niyaran Topno, the Munda of Digha. He was angry because the CRPF was offering only Rs. 120 to labourers who helped clear the area around a helipad for the movement of poll officials. "Even the MNREGA offers Rs. 138 a day. This is the same attitude adopted by contractors, who are also offering Rs. 120 for SDP work," he said.

Incomplete work could actually end up backfiring on the Congress. "None of the Additional Rozgar Sewaks - a man and a woman - appointed in each village have received their Rs. 3,000 pay in the last 14 months," said Jablun Dodray, who holds the position for Digha. He plans to vote for the Congress. Ten Integrated Development Centres, where multiple government offices would be located, were planned; only the one at Digha has been completed and no other is in the works, even. "I will be the first to accept that work has been slow: only five of 11 roads have been built. However, the work must go on, we cannot let it pause," said minister Ramesh at Manoharpur.

There is also a fear of what lies ahead. "Nineteen mining MoUs were signed within Saranda; they are in various stages of clearances. People have always worried whether the SDP will clear the way for mining here," said a political leader. Madhu Kora, for one, is in support of mining: "The constituency is spread over 6000-7000 sq kms and is a tough challenge for a legislator. However, if mining were to start here, it would help the people with jobs," he said. Rayal Nag, one of the 200 selected from Saranda as part of the SDP under a SAIL-sponsored for an ITI course in Orissa's Rourkela too, wants a job. "If mines open, I might get a job with the degree I am earning," said Nag, who hails from Digha.

In adjacent Porahat, they look at Saranda and hope development will reach at some point. In some ways, Porahat is worse off than Saranda - for instance, Maoists forced to leave the latter took refuge in the former. A police station, block office, residential girls' school and community health centre have been approved in unelectrified Gudri block, but Maoist presence means nothing has comee up. "My people have done their bit. I donated five acres for the block office, others gave land for the rest. It's a two-day ordeal to go to the Sonua block, which still functions as our block office," said Paulus Barjo, Gudri's Munda.

Four of the six panchayat mukhiyas in Gudri now live away from their homes after the Maoists murdered Bimal Lomga, mukhiya of Tomdela in 2011 for being a Congress supporter. "We are like frogs in a well. We usually vote for the Congress but considered considered boycotting elections this time. Then we decided otherwise - it would have made the politicians avoid us more," said Niral Barjo.

More than the Lok Sabha, the Congress will look to the SDP model to give them victories in the assembly election, scheduled to be held either in late 2014 or early 2015. However, the proof of Saranda goes beyond mere winning.

BJP banking on an urban Modi wave in Jamshedpur

Published here
Jamshedpur, April 15

Having borrowed a former JMM MLA with rural appeal to be its candidate in Jamshedpur, the BJP is counting on a Narendra Modi wave in the urban area to win in its most prestigious of fights in the state.

The BJP, which has the opportunity to win up to 13 of the 14 seats in the state, could assess the effort as a failure if it cannot win Jamshedpur, home to some of its tallest state-based leaders. That the party managed to lose the seat that it had won in 2009 - with a state-high majority of 1.2 lakh - in a 2011 bye-election by 1.56 lakh votes makes it a revenge mission too.

What made it more humiliating for the BJP in 2011 was that the bye-poll was necessitated by the resignation of Arjun Munda, who did so to become chief minister: the then-President of the party's state unit contested and lost to the party formed by Babulal Marandi, a former BJP CM himself.

BJP leaders are at pains to point out that the science of a bye-poll is different from that of a general election. "For a bye-poll, it is about the candidate - in 2011, it was about the [JVM(P)'s] Ajay Kumar and how the city felt grateful for his contributions as a Superintendent of Police. Now, it is about forming a stable government in Delhi," said Arjun Munda. Caste equations went out the window to help Mangalore-born Ajay Kumar in 2011: he received 37.4 per cent of the votes while the BJP, which came second, got only 16.3 per cent as its candidate forfeited his deposit.

When it was first reported that Munda was weaning Bahragodda's first-time JMM MLA Bidyut Baran Mahto to the BJP as a possible candidate, most assumed it was only because the former wanted to weaken Shibu Soren's party. However, party leaders say otherwise. "Bidyut is actually an RSS candidate - the Sangh put its foot down and used its veto for him," said Saryu Roy, party leader and former MLA from Jamshedpur West. Rai was one of the leaders in the anti-Munda camp who advocated that the former CM himself contest against Ajay Kumar, but Munda chose to stay back and concentrate on becoming CM again.

The party's cadre has come together to support Mahto, whom they perceive as a strong candidate in rural areas. His image as someone from humble beginnings not withstanding, the BJP hopes that Mahto will bring it the two-lakh-odd Kurmi votes of the constituency's 15.81 electors. The constituency has the presence of Santhals too - which along with the Kurmis and Muslims, make up the three Ms [Majhi, Mahato, Muslim] that make up the JMM vote bank. The BJP hopes that the JMM's Niroop Mahanty will split the Muslim vote that would otherwise have gone to the JVM.

"Bidyut is the perfect candidate. He takes care of the rural votes. We have to now concentrate on the urban areas and take the polling per cent to 60. The NaMo effect will do the rest," said Abhay Singh, state executive member of the BJP. It is crucial for the BJP that the urban voter turns up on April 17: polling per cent in the two completely urban assembly constituencies - Jamshedpur East and West - were 44 and 39 per cent respectively in 2011. It was remarkably similar in 2009, at 44 and 38 per cent respectively. However, raising the polling percentage is a dangerous game for the BJP - in Jamshedpur West, for instance, where Muslim voters are one-third of the electorate, this might bite the party back.

Winning the upper hand is crucial also because the BJP in Jamshedpur is predominantly an urban party - while Arjun Munda has grown from his Jamshedpur base to become a largely pan-Jharkhand leader, Saryu Roy and current Jamshedpur East legislator Raghubar Das have strong urban roots. "It is mere coincidence that all of us have come to be in Jamshedpur," insists Saryu Roy, who was sent to the city by the party to contest in 2005 and "came here with a small bag." "Raghubar Das is from here and has been active since winning in 1995," pointed out Roy. Munda was recruited in 1999 after the party felt that it was light on adivasi leaders in soon-to-be -formed Jharkhand.

At the end of the day, apart from the Narendra Modi-messsge, the BJP is having to generate a lot of anti-Ajay Kumar sentiment to stand a chance. "The reason we are targeting him and not the JMM is because he is a real threat," said Raghubar Das, who has prepared a pamphlet that counters each of the 10 points in Kumar's 2011 election manifesto.

The party's attempt to effect a massive pro-Modi wave with a rally on April 10 did not achieve optimum results. Of course, in a sign that it may not be a cakewalk for Kumar this time, members of the upper middle class turned up for the rally: the BJP had distributed a lot of "VVIP" passes to accommodate them in an enclosure along with the Press. "Modiji was not really happy with the arrangements. He pointed out that the podium was too low for the people to see him. He scolded some of the organisers because the stage was too big and lavish - all this will go towards the candidate's expenditure now," said a city-based leader who interacted with the party's Prime Ministerial candidate.

PLFI likes Anosh Ekka, threatens Dayamani Barla

Khunti, April 14

Instead of corruption, the Aam Aadmi Party in Jharkhand has found itself tackling a new enemy while attempting to mount an electoral challenge in the Khunti Lok Sabha constituency: the most dangerous left wing extremist organisation in the state.

AAP's Khunti candidate Dayamani Barla has registered two FIRs and written to the Election Commission after alleged cadres of the People's Liberation Front of India threatened and attacked her supporters. Barla's complaint alleges that the PLFI men asked her cadre to campaign for former state minister Anosh Ekka instead.

The PLFI, which has its origins in Khunti district's Torpa block, is now the most dangerous LWE organisation in the state in terms of incidents: they account for around 36 per cent of them. In comparison, the CPI-Maoist causes only about 34 per cent. With presence mostly in Khunti, Gumla and Simdega districts, the PLFI is considered the major reason why 120 of 150 LWE-related deaths in Jharkhand in 2013 - both national highs - were of civilians.

Barla said that the two attacks were on April 6 and 9 respectively. "At about 4 PM on April 9, six of my supporters and a driver were campaigning at Biguadag village within Karra block. Six armed people reached there in two motorcycles and beat the driver with the butt of a rifle. Meanwhile, everyone's mobile phones were taken away. One of the attackers had snatched away their mobile phones by then," she said. Barla, an adivasi land rights' activist, is up against seven-time BJP MP Kariya Munda apart from the Jharkhand Party's Ekka.

The AAP candidate said that her supporters were asked to campaign for Anosh Ekka, a minister in the Madhu Koda cabinet who faces - among others - cases on disproportionate assets. "One of the men claimed that he was a Zonal Commander of the PLFI. My supporters were made to hold their ears [as if in apology] and say that they would stop campaigning for me and do so only for Ekka. After that, they were told to leave the village, leaving one of the two women in the group back," said Barla.

The woman who was left back could have been killed if it were not for the police, according to Barla. "The held a revolver close to her and asked her to go around the village, touching the feet of people and asking for votes for Anosh Ekka. The police got there by the time she was doing it a third time," she said.

The first threat was on April 6 in Arki block's Birbanki, though AAP activists were not sure whether it was the PLFI. Around three in the afternoon, seven AAP activists were stopped by armed men on motorbikes, who took away their car keys, telling them they would be back within half an hour. When no on returned till seven in the evening, the men split up and escaped on foot, reaching safety by walking all night. Barla says the first signs of trouble came on the day she submitted her nomination papers, when some people tried to stop her supporters from reaching the district headquarters. "Someone also threatened that Jabda village in Karra would be set on fire because my supporters are from there," said Barla.

The AAP activists have not taken the threats lying down, though. "Some of our activists dared to go into Lepa, [PLFI's Supreme Commander] Dinesh Gope's village in Torpa and handed his chachi a pamphlet. We also went into Rania [where the PLFI is known to have held training camps] and nailed pamphlets to walls," said Vinay Bhat, a 30-year-old who has taken a three-month sabbatical from his job as a management consultant in the US to assist Barla's campaign.

The police offered Barla a security cover, which she turned down. "The PLFI men clicked my supporters' pictures on their mobile phones, so we are really worried about what happens when the elections are done," said Barla.

Barla, a former journalist with the Prabhat Khabar newspaper, still operates a tea shop on Ranchi city's Club Road. Two of her most biggest agitations were located within Khunti's Torpa block - the one against the Koel-Karo dam during which eight adivasis were shot dead on February 2, 2001 and against an ArcelorMittal steel plant that would have displaced people in 40 villages. "Back then too, there were threats. However, we did not really know whether it was the politicians of the area who wanted these projects or the extremists who were responsible," she said.

Anis Gupta, Khunti's Superintendent of Police said that the FIRs were being investigated. "There are no names in the April 6 case but we are trying to identify the six men responsible for the April 9 attack," he said.

Khunti has a significant adivasi Christian population, but they broadly fall into two denominations - the Gossner Evangelical Lutheran and Roman Catholic. Anosh Ekka hopes that the two will come together to help him make a stand against the BJP candidate. However, there is a feeling that some of the Catholic votes could go Barla's way.

BJP banking on Ram Navami history for Hazaribagh win

The float by Panch Mandir Committee
that had an electoral subtext

Published here
Hazaribagh, April 10

Mounted on the back of the truck were three male plaster of Paris figures. Sitting in the middle, one resembling Narendra Modi. To his right sat a silver-haired man and pinned on to the left breast pocket of his jacket, a metal lotus - the election symbol of the BJP. To Modi's left sat a younger man clutching a file titled, "Hazaribagh ka vikas." The song from an accompanying second truck metions defeating Pakistan. This is followed by the sound of automatic gunfire and shouts of "Jai Shri Ram!"

On the night of April 9, as Hazaribagh wound itself like a coil to celebrate the second of its three-night Ram Navami celebrations - bigger than Ayodhya's even, as the mahant of the city's most important akhara told me - the Sangh Parivar was hoping that the renewed spirit of Hindu unity would carry the BJP's candidate over the line.

The BJP candidate in Hazaribagh is Jayant Sinha, son of the constituency's outgoing MP and former Union Minister Yashwant Sinha. Even Jayant would admit that his campaign was off to a less-than-ideal start. "It was not a lack of momentum; more like an adjustment. It took us about a week to reassure workers that I was selected on my own merits and not because of my father," he said, insisting that his campaign will be a successful one and that there is no connection between it and the Ram Navami.

Not everyone agrees. "Politics and this festival have always had a relationship. It will continue to be so," said Tunu Gope, district President of the BJP. Gope's proposal to have a Narendra Modi rally on April 10, when the Ram Navami procession is at its peak and communal tension runs high, was the biggest giveaway that the BJP intended to use the festival as a battlecry to unite Hindus. It was scrapped, the ostensible reason being that a block of Hazaribagh district votes with Koderma on April 10. Hazaribagh constituency was supposed to vote on April 10 as per the initial schedule, but it was postponed to April 17 after reminders about the Ram Navami festival.

This youngster was selling pamphlets for the "NaMo number."
The BJP was the only visible political party at the procession.

 "I faxed Rajnathji and Modiji saying it would be a bad idea to have the rally on the 10th. People would be busy with the procession; no one would go for the rally. Tunu Gope said he planned to have Modiji attend the procession and perform with the lathi, but it would have been too chaotic," said Mahant Vijay Anand Das of the Bada Akhara, also a member of the VHP's state Margdarshak Mandal.

The Ram Navami alone should do the trick. "Yashwant Sinha and his son have no connect with the people. Our vote is for Narendra Modi.... How can devotees who come to the procession and take Shri Ram into their hearts not vote for the BJP?" asked Ganshyam Gope, former district president of the VHP, also father of BJP president Tunu. He should know: Ganshyam Gope's father Panchu Gope was one of the individuals who took the lead in celebrating the Ram Navami in a big way since 1925.

As the procession builds, even children come out
with bamboo lathis to show off their skills

Three generations of the Gope family's involvement in the Ram Navami is good illustration of how the festival became communalised over the years. "He was not a member of any organisation. Many political parties invited him, but he never went," said Ganshyam Gope of his father. In fact, Panchu Gope apparently died in the shock of being misunderstood for being communal. "He used to involve the Muslims in the celebration, too. However, in 1973, the police detained him as a precautionary measure after fights broke out. After release, he was never the same again and died in July the same year," said Ganshyam Gope.

That it should be during Ghanshyam Gope's - president of the 200-odd member Shanti Samiti, which meets to keep peace ahead of each festival - watch that 1989 happened is an irony.

The riot of April 16, 1989 officially claimed 19 lives. There have been no further riots, but it seems to have changed the political terrain of Hazaribagh - and even adjoining areas - forever. The BJP, which had garnered only 7.08 per cent of votes in the 1984 general election, won in the elections of November 1989 by collecting 43.98 per cent. It has never fallen below the second position in the constituency since, winning four of six times.

The year was a turning point for the BJP across the country: marked by the Ram Shila Puja and the communal riots connected to it, it has been estimated that 47 of the 88 seats that the party won in 1989 had experienced riots.

It gets interesting as the procession reaches the entrance to the Masjid Road,
off the Main Road.  Floats pause briefly before the barricades, with
people - poorly trained  and overly enthusiastic - perform with lathis and "swords."

Ganshyam Gope laid the blame at the door of the district administration. The riot happened over the dispute as to whether the procession should pass through Jama Masjid road, a narrow 200 metre stretch off the Main Road. "The previous year, someone had thrown a glass tumbler at Goddess Durga's idol as it passed through the Masjid Road, so the administration suggested that we move it to Malviya Marg. There was no need to do that. It was peaceful already. Later, when there was no problem, we moved it back to the Masjid road," recalled Ganshyam Gope, who blames "goonda" elements on both sides for the communal tension.

On the Masjid Road, they remember 1989 differently. "After 1987, it was decided that the procession would take the parallel, broader Malviya Road. After all, there were only four Hindu houses on this street, after all. We also agreed to move the Muharram procession route from Panchmandir road to Jama Masjid Road," said Ghulam Moinuddin Ahmad, Secretary of the Jama Masjid, also a member of the Shanti Samiti.

According to Ghulam Ahmad, the Hindus did not take out the 1988 Ram Navami procession in protest of this decision. He blames the riot on the man who won the 1989 elections. "Yadunath Pandey came from Ranchi in 1989. He really stoked tensions," he said. A few days before the Ram Navami, the permission to pass through Masjid Road was given.

The procession passed through peacefully at about two in the afternoon on the third day. "Soon after, police were called away elsewhere for an emergency," said Ahmad. In an interview, Lalu Prasad had blamed Rajiv Gandhi for this, pointing out that Rajiv and Sonia Gandhi had gone to the Vaishali festival from Patna, with the former driving. Police personnel were rushed to provide security along the route.

By about 4 PM that evening, a bomb went off in Hazaribagh. No security personnel were around to control the people. "Kani Bazaar was finished," recalled Ahmad. Why hasn't another riot happened since? "The police went into the Muslim areas and acted with a firm hand. The goondas among them understood they will be punished if they repeat it," said Ganshyam Gope.

One of the many Rapid Action Force personnel on the Masjid Road.
Left background, the mosque.

The result of the riot was that the procession, taken out by 135 akharas of the district, got even larger. "It was decided that the procession would not enter the Masjid Road on the second night, so we came to be celebrating for a third day," said Mahant Vijay Das. The procession reaches the barricaded entrance to the Masjid Road in the wee hours of the third day. "I give the district administration the Azan and Namaz schedules for the day. Accordingly, the barricades are opened and closed five times through the day to let the procession through," said Ahmad. The charged mass of people take at least 12 hours to pass through the 200 metre lane.

The narrative of 1989 and its aftermath is important: it repeated in a chilling manner on April 8 in Giridih district's Tetaria Selaidih village within Birni police station limits. "The Ram Navami procession there does not pass through the Jama Masjid Road, but this time people insisted on taking it. We held some 10-12 Peace Committee meetings, at the end of which, permission was denied. However, as the procession passed through, some people tried to break through the barricades and go into the Masjid Road," said Kranti Kumar Garhdeshi, Giridih's Superintendent of Police. Police were forced to fire into the air in the ensuing melee and seven policemen and 5-6 villagers received minor injuries.

Former Hazaribagh MP Yadunath Pandey was one of the BJP leaders who tried to reach the area. "Some outsiders came here today, but we denied them permission as the Model Code of Conduct is on," said SP Garhdeshi.