Dhanu Khilo surveys the night sky. His aged eyes glaze over the full silver moon drawing no solace from its cool gaze. His son hasn’t been home in the last fourteen days. Though this is not the first time the boy has been away from home, still….. Things are different this time. He can feel it in his old bones. Dhanu Khilo is very worried. He does not much care for the crowd his son is mixed up with. But things have changed. Who bothers any longer about what an old man feels? In his time his father’s word was law and Dhanu Khilo had spent his first fifty years living in his father’s shadow. Now it looked he would be spending the rest in his son’s.
His son didn’t wish to till the fields as Dhanu Khilo had done. He had done school with other kids but hung in there longer than the rest dropping out only in the ninth class. That made him the second most educated person in the village after Phulchand Dera, who had cleared his matriculation on the fourth attempt thirteen years back. That Phulchand was gainfully employed in the capital word came back, though he never did. There was nothing to come back for except poverty and deprivation. There were no jobs, no roads, no schools, no hospitals, no doctors and sometimes no food.
So Dhanu Khilo’s son had turned away from the fields into the jungles. The deeper the better. He had friends there, people he had met over the last few months, friends who had money and all that money could buy. Friends who made fiery speeches about changing the state of affairs and affairs of the state. It was just the kind of sound he wanted to hear. They understood him and his needs better than anybody, even his father, ever had. They gave him food, clothes, gadgets and entry into a new world. His world, where there were many others like him, educated , unemployed, abandoned and forgotten. But no longer. They had finally found their niche in life. They would change the world for the better. And no price was too high for this lofty goal, no method too wrong, no path too dark.
Finding no sign of his son, Dhanu Khilo turns to the house, going meticulously over its meager possessions, even the loft. The only complicated piece of machinery he had ever seen in his life had been the Sahukar’s motorcycle. Yet he more than made up for the lapse in education and outlook with experience. And his hair hadn’t turned snow white over nothing. With a sense of hopelessness and deep sorrow he recognizes the grey polished surface of his finding, his fingers gingerly touching the cold metal. A killing machine. Life was indeed going to change and he knew he could do nothing to prevent the catastrophe waiting to happen. The time had come.
**** **** ******
On Feb 15 2008 over three hundred Naxals attack four police stations in Nayagarh town of Orissa killing thirteen policemen and one civilian. The state Govt. launches a joint counter-offensive with additional forces called in from the center. A state peacefully sleeping over similar security breaches in the past suddenly seemed to have woken up. Why? For one, Nayagarh is only 80 kilometers from the State Capital and an attack on the former meant that that the insurgents were literally in our backyard. Does this also mean that only Bhubaneswar is worthy of saving while Koraput and Kandhamal may be allowed to self-destruct? This is probably what Dhanu Kilo’s son is asking us.
Anyway now that the State had woken up, it decided to stay awake for some time atleast. Fear suddenly looms too large and real for anything else. The powers that be, from the cool comfort of their homes decide to send in troops - the police, the Special Operations Group and the CRPF onto the hostile terrain of Ground Zero. The men jump into action unquestioningly but how well prepared were they? And what was the State’s level of information, planning and strategy on the prevailing warlike situation. Or is the State unaware that it is in deed a warlike situation? So we send some victims over to be shot like sitting ducks. To buy time until the Naxal attack moves on from page one to four of the local dailies.
Interestingly, the first line of counter attack went on 100 cc bikes from Bhubaneswar, the men unfit and untrained in tactical warfare, our information and communications system dismal. Air attack, marine attack or even nuclear attack, but pray, what’s a bike attack? What does it mean to launch an operation under such circumstances? To fight a pre-planned offensive especially when we are clueless about the Naxal’s level of training, their quality of weaponry, their level of dedication and knowledge of topography of their land? An attempt at suicide? If history and media reports are any indication then Naxals have an edge over even the amry considering their links with LTTE and the Nepalese Maoists, may be even the Chinese or ISI. Who knows? Especially when the Govt. is still in denial.
They had the advantage of picking the time and place and struck when they were confident of their victory and our complacency. And we send in our untrained troops as if war is child’s play. You killed fourteen people, now let’s see what you do with some more. In the mean time, the Govt. comes up with a line which would have been funny had it not been real- ‘ We have killed 25 naxals’ That there is no evidence of this is another issue and even if it were true, is it cause for celebration? Does it justify the sacrifice of dedicated officers?
This is only possible in Orissa and because Oriyas are a sleepy lot, who ask no questions, demand no answers and have no public opinion, just living their life, waiting for time to go by. They are like pebbles on a river bed. A lot happens around them, sometimes they are pushed about, dragged along, scraped and polished, slotted into a corner, but hope to survive it all with minimum effort, maybe even live to tell the tale.
And how many more of such officers would be sacrificed before all the naxals of the State are rounded up? How many naxals are there? Do we have an account of some sort? Why do people turn to Naxalism? Have we given them an alternative? And who is a naxal? A naxal is just a human being who has never been asked what he wants, someone with unanswered questions, someone neglected. He could be a father ignored by his children, a wife forgotten by her husband or an employee bypassed by his company. We all need love and attention. There is a Dhanu Khilo’s son sleeping within each one of us. Whose responsibility would it be to see that he remains forever sleeping?
Having said all this, I am yet left with a feeling of somehow having overrated the naxals. Why else would they have attacked Nayagarh when Bhubaneswar is sitting here just as lame a duck as the former yet much more effective as a target? Perhaps the Naxals themselves have overrated the security of the capital? Guys! Why settle for bread when you can have cake?
***** ******* ******
It’s a new moon. Dhanu Khilo tirelessly watches out, his days blending seamlessly into nights. He has been hearing things, things his child was never capable of. But times change ------ and so do people. The police have been around, rounding up the villagers ever so often for interrogation. He wonders if his little one will ever come back. There is no hope in his eyes, only some in his heart.
© Lekha Shree., all rights reserved.
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