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Bandits and a Cursed River in Chambal Valley

Title: Did I Really Do All This: Memoirs of a Gentleman Cop Who Dared to be Different

Author: Vijay Raman

Publisher: Rupa Publications

Bandits and a Cursed River

When I began my career in the dacoit-infested region of the Chambal Valley in Madhya Pradesh (MP), I faced different kinds of issues.

I was first posted in Dabra where there are dacoits. In such places certain people come to you offering information that will be useful to us. These are our mukhbir, informers. Some come for the pittance of money that is sanctioned to us as anti-dacoity funds for meeting emergency expenses. But most come with an ulterior motive: they want a kill. ‘We will give you information that you need and will find very hard to get without me. But you have to kill the man,’ they would say.

As ASP Dabra I had 10 police stations under me. One was at Pandokhar, a village between Jhansi and Gwalior, on the (Uttar Pradesh) UP–MP border. A very pleasant-looking chap from there would come to me, always smiling, always making conversation, inquiring about my health, telling me whatever was happening in the village. When I asked for information, he would say, ‘Saheb, sab theek hai, it’s all good, Saheb!’

I would ask if there was any news of the dacoits, and he’d say ‘No Saheb, there is no movement.’

One day he said, ‘Aaj shaam ko jayenge Saheb. We’ll go this evening.’

It was December 1978. I distinctly remember the day: India was playing Pakistan in the Asian Games hockey finals in Bangkok.

One of the problems in that area, particularly for a young newcomer, is this: Whom do you trust? Is the informer trustworthy? Is the subordinate you share the information with trustworthy? I realized that ultimately it had to be your call, based on some homework, your own observations, and your intuition.

One dictum I always followed was to stick to the informer’s plan as much as possible. Anything else would make him suspicious. So I asked him what we should do. He said that this was Devi Singh’s gang, of seven or eight people. They were going from MP to UP to conduct a burglary since it was a full moon night. They would go on bicycles—yes, the dacoits those days went around on bicycles!—and he would be with them. When we arrived at the ambush area, he would ring his bicycle bell and that would be the signal for us to spring into action. All we had to do was surround them, fire two shots into the air, and they would be ours: an easily doable plan which otherwise might be most difficult to execute!

Bidding a mildly regretful goodbye to the hockey commentary on the radio I got into my vehicle and left for Pandokhar, about 60 km from Dabra. I shared my information with the sub-inspectors and inspector in the police station there. Soon the word spread, and from their reaction I could see that this was a very dangerous gang of dacoits. There was consensus that these fellows deserved the ultimate punishment.

We walked to the location, a distance of about 10 km, and took our positions before dark. There was no way I would find out the results of the hockey match there! Sure enough, a group of cyclists arrived. Someone rang a bell. That was our signal, and we surrounded them. And that’s when some of the constables recognized him. ‘Arre! Yeh toh Devi Singh hai! And there’s a big price on his head!’

Dying Declaration

Now the drama begins for a young police officer fresh out of the academy that trains to say no third degree, no this, no that. And with just one year of service, I was still carrying the commitment to uphold the law, protect human rights, behave as the Constitution expects me to. But was it possible when facing a rebellious group of subordinates who want a kill? Before my eyes, some of them were getting ready for violence. When some senior constables and sub-inspectors pacified them they protested, ‘Why should we let them go? They are crooks, they deserve to be killed.’ We tried to convince them that we must arrest them, take them back to the police station, and let the matter be resolved in a courtroom. But that would never work, they argued, because they would bribe the authorities and get away. So they must be killed now!

After a lot of persuasion they relented. They requisitioned a bullock cart from the village, put me in it, tied the hands of the dacoits together, and tied the rope to the bullock cart so that they could not escape. And all along the way they expressed their rage by thrashing Devi Singh, a bald-headed fellow, on the head with his own chappals!

*

My mind was in turmoil. Was I doing the right thing? And why was there so much anger against him from the lower constabulary? I was on the verge of being manhandled by my constables for my stand. Luckily there were sub-inspectors who could restrain them. Was this the sense of discipline we had in the police?

Back in the police station, I phoned my senior officer, a very fine Superintendent of Police (SP) from whom I learnt many practical aspects of policing. It was nearly midnight, so I started by excusing myself for calling at that hour, but I was speaking from Pandokhar and had just returned from an encounter. He must have wondered whether this kid from the south even knew the meaning of ‘encounter’. He disconnected with instructions to see him in the morning.

I had done exactly what my informer had asked me to do—and I had arrested seven members of a gang. We had fired only two rounds of ammunition.

We sent out the required messages to all the police stations in the district, informing them that Devi Singh was in our custody, giving information about the location, number of people arrested, and other details of the encounter. And we were astonished at the large number of requests from all around asking for them to be handed over for trial.

*

The next morning I reported to my headquarters in Gwalior, met my SP, and discussed with him my thoughts and feelings about the encounter. When I told him that we must control the level of indiscipline we have in the force, the seasoned officer counselled me, ‘These are things we have to take in our stride. In the course of time you will also learn how to go about it!’

I was feeling quite pleased with myself for the excellent work done but my SP was more than a little amused. ‘Raman, you fired only two rounds! How can you have an encounter with a dacoit when the police fire only two rounds? I’m sure even the dacoits would have fired more than that. You were just very lucky that you did not get massacred. Firing two rounds is not an encounter Raman! Go and take his dying declaration, and let’s close this matter.’

I was familiar with the belief that a person on the verge of death will not lie. Therefore greater credibility is given to such a statement. Little did I know that soon this episode would come back to haunt me.

The Price of Being Idealistic

Every day we would receive the daily situation report (DSR). It mandates that events such as blind murder, unidentified dead bodies, and other serious offences must be supervised by either the SP or the ASP.

One day I received a report of the discovery of an unidentified dead body. Somehow the name of the place, which fell under the police station of Pandokhar, rang a bell, and I found myself rushing towards it with a growing sense of dread. It was about 100 km from Gwalior and by the time I got there the body, though badly mauled and with limbs dismembered, had been identified. Beside it sat a woman clutching two children tightly to herself and wailing loudly.

It was a terrible feeling to know that this was my fault. I was responsible for the death of this informer. I was the person responsible for all those who were killed by Devi Singh after his release, until he was terminated by my junior, SP Asha Gopal. It always remained on my conscience that my actions, though purely to uphold human rights and protect human life, had led to so much violence and misery.

These thoughts often disturb sensitive police officers, making them face a dilemma that nobody else can help them solve. For myself, I had resolved that following the law was not just my duty but also my dharma, righteousness. However, even in my life there would occur situations when, in the heat of the moment, it might become necessary to take decisions not in keeping with strictly legal procedures. But this would NEVER be for personal gain, and only, ONLY for the greater good.

*

People of my generation who grew up in India would have read about the dacoits and what they did. Some might have a sense of the terrain in which the Chambal dacoits lived. But today’s youngsters, especially those unfamiliar with the place and time, would not understand what it was like, or the obstacles and dangers that were involved, in policing back then.

Chambal is a large area with a peculiar topography of dunes and ravines not seen anywhere else in India. These were formed by the force of water cutting through the land. For an outsider, the area was difficult to navigate. There are settlements and villages even in the midst of the ravines, and it was impossible to know whether they were already there when the ravine formed or whether the ravine grew around them. To get from one place to another was extremely difficult for anyone unfamiliar with the area. You could get hopelessly lost, as in a maze. However, once you began to understand the geometrical pattern of the ravines, it became easier to know where to enter. Over time, the surroundings became familiar.

Other than the terrain, the people of this region were also unique. Their culture developed almost in isolation, and while they had a lot in common with people of the neighbouring areas, some of their attributes were distinctive.

They had a strong sense of justice. One that was different from what we were used to. When I studied Law, what fascinated me was understanding the causes that had given rise to a law. One of the sources of a law is the customs of the people. When a custom is predominant, the wisdom of the legislature will formulate the custom into a law that can be implemented. And some of the customs in this region are what have shaped the indigenous laws here.

Thus, people here were deeply conscious of caste; not just in terms of untouchability but also as a pecking order. While Brahmins were at the top, there were various subgroups—Sharmas and Mishras, among others—and these had their own hierarchy. This applied to how they spoke and were spoken to, or where they stood or sat in a public gathering. Indeed every social interaction was strictly dictated by caste, marriage being the most carefully monitored.

Lower castes were also kept firmly in their place. Any breach of these age-old rules was taken extremely seriously and was bound to have consequences, sometimes fatal. If a person felt aggrieved or insulted, they would hit back. But there were exceptions and unexpected alliances emerged. Notorious dacoit Maan Singh, a legend in his lifetime with a temple to his name, was from a higher caste but his gang had many dacoits from lower castes.

Secondly, women were held in the highest esteem and no misbehaviour against a woman was condoned. It may seem strange to hear that a region famous for its law-breaking dacoits could have been so particular about the safety of and respect for women, but it was so. The women were, of course, expected to behave with all propriety in order to deserve this veneration.

Next, the people in this region were very, very possessive about their land. This may well be true of everybody everywhere. But the intensity of this feeling, and the response to any infringement in this, was extreme. Any transgression would immediately be punished, and not with a simple imprisonment, because this was not a minor offence but a serious one that deserved death. And it was the same when the modesty of a woman was outraged.

Linked to all this was the prestige derived from the ownership of a licensed weapon. Whether a 12-bore gun or a weapon of any calibre, displaying it was as much a source of prestige as a row of ribbons and medals might have been to someone from the forces, or a car brand for a city dweller of today.

With this uncompromising, cast-iron value system, life was sometimes quite difficult. Let me tell you about a case that took place during my time in that area. One evening, two brothers returned home after working all day in their fields. They sat in front of their home, smoking hookahs, relaxing, waiting to be served dinner.

One brother said, ‘I’ve been wondering whether I should also buy an animal, maybe a cow or a buffalo.’

‘Oh really?’ the other replied. “And where do you plan to tie it?’

‘Right here,’ said the first brother.

‘Really?’ the second responded. ‘But this is my land! You can’t tie your cow here!’

The first brother jumped up and walked indignantly into the house. He brought out a short wooden post and a hammer, with which he hammered the post into the ground. This was the kind of post used to wind rope around and tie cattle to. With this, the first brother had established his right to tie his cow right there.

Furious, the second brother too jumped up and strode into the house. He went in, brought out his weapon, and simply shot his brother down. Such was the value of land.

In short, legality and morality have their own geographical boundaries!

*

Another incident took place some years later. By then I had some credibility with the local people.

A Dalit boy from Umri village got married. The marriage party had gone to the bride’s village and, after the wedding rituals, were bringing her home in a procession with musicians playing and people dancing. On the way they passed some Thakur homes. Some young men who sat smoking on the veranda watched with contempt and passed snide remarks. As the boy ceremoniously walked with his new bride into the house, a lewd comment was heard by all: ‘These chamars sure know how to pick their beauties!’

Loud, mocking guffaws rang out.

I should mention here that the use of the caste name ‘chamar’, with the intent to insult or humiliate is an offence today, punishable under the provisions of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.

The ceremony of welcoming the bride into her new home continued with all its formality. But as soon as it was over, the groom picked up his gun, loaded it, and walked to the house where the spoilt Thakur brats still sat smoking. Taking aim, he shot and killed the boy who had made the mocking remark. In cold blood, in broad daylight. And in doing this, he was simply following the law dictated by the customs followed in this place.

For us it was a different situation altogether. The Thakurs were up in arms, the Dalit boy was absconding, and the entire chamar community had lined up, ready for a bloodbath. We had to prevent it! I spent a very tense 34 days searching for the boy in the maze-like ravines and meeting the leaders of both the communities to placate them. I was unable to sleep, constantly alert, constantly watching for any sudden movement on either side. Ultimately the boy surrendered and was sentenced.

This was the consequence of a ‘simple’ insulting comment. There is an entire framework that prescribes what the punishment should be, and in a case like this, it is different from our existing laws. Who can we blame? The people with a tradition of a certain law, or the police and the judiciary, with their own fixed sense of justice and punishment?

*

People ascribe the nature of the people and their customs to the water of the Chambal River. And having lived there I can speak for the water. It was so pure and wholesome that food got digested easily. The pulses and grains grown in the region were of the best quality. The soil was very productive, and I believe the per-acre yield was comparable to Punjab. This milieu formed the background of our police system.

Now, don’t forget that our police system was also manned mostly by people of the same area, with the same mentality and the same sense of revenge. It was a caste-based way of life. Such incidents were absolutely ‘normal’. Yet, as I soon found out, there was a great respect for authority. I was a South Indian officer without much knowledge of the place, hardly even able to speak their language. There was a lot of curiosity on both sides, but there was also respect.

Revenge on the Dead

A month or two later we received information about an encounter by a local DSP, about 30 km away from Bhind, on the bank of Sindh River. Seven dacoits were killed; no names were given; it was not one of the regular gangs.

I went to the site. As the SP, whenever I travelled I had a driver, a gunman, and sometimes also my PA. In case I remembered, or noticed, something my PA would record it. We arrived at the spot. The police were standing there. There were dead bodies on the ground. We stood a little away from them, discussing how it had happened, who did what, and had the dacoits been recognized.

Suddenly there was a burst of fire from an automatic weapon. All of us took position in a reflex action arising from our training. We looked up, to see someone standing with his rifle over the dead body of one of the dacoits. He had emptied all the bullets in his gun into the corpse!

The DSP and inspector chorused, ‘Sir! He is your gunman.’

I realized that this was my replacement gunman; my regular gunman was on leave.

Now this was my responsibility to go and disarm him!

I walked up to him. He was standing there, stunned at what he had done. As I came closer, he dropped his weapon and fell at my feet, sobbing. Lifting him up I asked, ‘What happened? Why did you do that?’

‘Sir, it is this fellow…’ he said, and a frenzy of abusive words started pouring out of him. Words that my men would never ordinarily use in front of me. ‘This is the guy who raped my sister!’

The point is, even after the man was dead, the atrocity he committed was not forgotten. Revenge must be taken, even on a dead body.

(Sourced and edited by Ratnottama Sengupta with permission from the family of the late author.)

 About the Book

When he heard Mr Patel say, ‘These medals are to be earned, not to be purchased,’ Vijay was secretly filled with the determination to earn his own medal.

In the course of time, Vijay Raman not only earned the President’s Police Medal for Gallantry, but also went on to create history in each of his postings all over India. 

He was a simple and straightforward cop, one who was extraordinarily courageous. His untimely demise in 2023 was preceded by many near-death situations—described in this book—which he was miraculously lucky to survive. 

This is a real-life hero’s first-hand account of Paan Singh Tomar and his dacoit gang being decimated in a 14-hour dusk-to-dawn encounter; the surrenders of Daku Malkan Singh and Phoolan Devi; leading from the front and putting an end to the notorious terrorist Ghazi Baba; investigating the infamous Vyapam scam; dealing with the horror of the gas tragedy in Bhopal; guarding the life of four Indian prime ministers as one of the handpicked officers of the Special Protection Group; and beating the Guinness World Record for circumnavigating the globe. 

The chronicles of Vijay Raman form a book of adventure, of remarkable events—giving readers precious insights into the making of a legend. As he reviewed the book’s final chapters, he asked his wife Veena incredulously, ‘Did I Really Do All This?’

About the Author

Vijay Raman, an IPS1 officer of the Madhya Pradesh cadre, was a legendary figure in Indian policing, celebrated for spearheading the elimination of dacoit Paan Singh Tomar and his gang in Chambal, and later leading the operations that liquidated the dreaded terrorist Ghazi Baba.

Growing up in Kerala and later a gold medallist in law at M.S. University Vadodara, his career achievements were spread across India. He also broke the Guinness World Record for circumnavigating the globe! 

Vijay Raman’s bravery, intellect and striving for adventure were always secondary to his integrity; he was committed to upholding the law in even the most complex situations. He passed away in 2023.

Click here to read more about the book and the writer.

  1. Indian Police Service ↩︎

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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

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Interview Review

The Gendered Body

In conversation with Meenakshi Malhotra and a brief introduction to The Gendered Body: Negotiation, Resistance, Struggle (Scopus Index), edited by Meenakshi Malhotra, Krishna Menon and Rachana Johri, published by Routledge

Dr Meenakshi Malhotra

Why would one half of the world population be seen as evolved from the rib of the first man, soulless or as merely subservient to fulfil the needs of the other half? This is a question that has throbbed for centuries in the hearts of that half that suffers indignities to this date, women. While feminism became a formalised idea only in the 18th-19th century and things started improving for certain groups of women around the world, in some regions, like Afghanistan, the situation has deteriorated in recent years. Their government, recognised by world leadership, has ensured that women do not have schooling, cannot work in senior positions, have to be accompanied by men if they go out and remain covered as the feminine body could tempt bringing shame, strangely, to the female but not to the man who has the right to be tempted and hence to violence and violate her body and her mind.

Given this ambience, any literature voicing protest for patriarchal mindsets that accept situations like in current day Afghanistan passively, should be celebrated as an attempt to shard the silence of suffering by one half of the world population. The Gendered Body: Negotiation, Resistance, Struggle, edited by three academics, Meenakshi Malhotra, Krishna Menon and Rachana Johri, does just that. At the start, we are told: “This book situates the discourse on the gendered body within the rapidly transitioning South Asian socio-economic and cultural landscape.  It critically analyzes gender politics from different disciplinary perspectives…”

Featuring 22 writers, the narratives take up a range of issues faced by women in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Srilanka. The Pakistani implementation of Islamic law, under the Hudood ordinances, has been addressed in a powerful essay by Aysha Baqir, subsequently by Anu Aneja, in her discourse on Urdu poetry. It was interesting to read how the ghazal form started as a male-only art form where women were depicted as mysterious houris or pining with sadness. Birangona — a phrase that was given to rape victims of the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War — has been explored by Sohana Manzoor through a classic, Rizia Rahman’s novel, Rokter Okshor[1](1978), written about such women driven to prostitution. Women’s voices in the Sri Lankan LTTE have been explored by Simran Chaddha. Nayema Nasir has taken up decadent customs in the progressive Bohra community in Mumbai and shown how things are moving towards a change. Colonial and Dalit voices have found a hearing in Malhotra’s essay on Mahasweta Devi’s short story, ‘Draupadi’, set against the Naxalite movement of 1970s.

Dotted with women’s responses to a variety of current issues, including the Anti-CAA-NRC uprisings (Tamanna Basu), Shaheen Bagh (Meenakshi Gopinath, Krishna Menon, Rukmini Sen and Niharika Banerjea), and the pandemic (Krishna Menon, Deepti Sachdev and Rukmini Sen), there is even a case study by Shalini Masih dealing with psychiatric trauma where both the psychiatrist and the patient, who might have evolved into a stalker or a rapist without the therapy, heal. A certain sense of hope echoes through some of these narratives, a hope to heal from wounds that have sweltered over eons.

The flow of words is smooth and the ideas should be able to rise against the tide of erudition to touch our lives with lived realities. There are responses that transcend the heaviness of academic writing for instance the impassioned start made by Giti Chandra in her narrative: “A woman’s body is a story that men tell each other. When it is full-hipped, it is a tale of their healthy children; when it is fair, it speaks of their wealth; when it is narrow, it proclaims their access to gyms; and when it is tanned, it flaunts their ability to vacation on sunny isles. If its feet are not small enough to convey a leisure that does not require walking, they are bound and made smaller and more childishly submissive; if its legs are not long enough befitting its trophy status, bone-crippling heels are added to them. When it is raped it is an assertion of power, a chest-thumping; when it is raped it is an aggression over its owner; when it is raped its womb is stolen from the enemy…” Chandra points out some things that make one think, like quoting Rahila Gupta, she suggests victims is not the word we should use for women, but we should refer to the sufferers as survivors.

This collection of essays questions social norms and niceties to realise what early woman’s rights activist, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, drafted, that “all men and women [had been] created equal” in July 1848. While the struggle continues through centuries and the discourse of these narratives, the last essay by a man, Brijesh Rana, attempts to give a broader and more inclusive outlook to the whole human body. The book comes across as a tryst — of academic and feminist voices — to speak up for mankind to equalise.

To further understand the intent and scope of this book, we have in conversation one of the editors— Meenakshi Malhotra, who teaches gender studies and literature, has to her credit two Charles Wallace fellowships and a number of books. She reflects on the bridge that is being attempted between scholarship and activism.

How and when did you conceive this book? Tell us a bit about your journey from the conception to the publication of the book.

This book was originally conceived due to the positive response my co-editors and I received after presenting a panel at an American Association of Asian studies (AAS) conference back in 2017. We were approached by an international publisher who encouraged us to take forward the work with a focus on South Asia. We were unable to take it forward at that time, however we revived the project a few months into the lockdown in late 2020 when we felt we had a little more time. Also, along the way, we were able to reach out to fellow travellers, working in and on Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

Three of you have collaborated to compile and edit this book. Collaborations to bring out books are not easy. Tell us about this collaboration.

As we three had presented on the same panel, the collaboration was a natural corollary since we had a sense of being fellow travellers and sister academics/scholars. That worked well for us because each of us were engaged in research and research guidance and wanted to showcase the recent work in this area. Both the co-editors, Krishna working on gender and its intersections with politics and Rachna on gender and psychology are very well-established scholars in the field of gender. I work on gender and literature, had my own network and I must mention that in the course of writing for Borderless Journal, I was able to access the work of others on that platform.

Explain to us the significance of the title of your book.

I think we arrived at the title through two processes-one was the immediate situation of Covid which left us in a state of precarity. However, we felt that even within the context of the contagion, women — and other genders — were endangered in specific ways. Second is the understanding that the body is always already produced by multiple matrices of gender, race, caste etc. The human body is also always a gendered body.

We had initially suggested that we call it ‘The Gendered Body and its Fragments’ to connote the bundling of several discursive strands on gendered bodies, but the idea was vetoed (by the initial reviewer) since “fragments” had   resonances and nuances which we did not have space (or expertise) to go into, at that point.

You have a variety of contributors, some of who are non- academic. What did you look for when you chose your content?

Variety as you point out, is the key term. We were looking for something new, something interesting, flagging the variegated cultures of South Asian societies. The book comprises a mix of experienced researchers and some researchers whose essays are their preliminary forays into publishing.

Your book is divided into different sections ‘Negotiation’, ‘Struggle’, ‘Resistance’, ‘Protest’, ‘Critique’, ‘Representations and New Directions’. Can you tell us the need to compartmentalise the essays into this structural frame?

Just to give it a structure, organisation and coherence. Having said that, there are also frequent overlaps.

Would you call this book feminist? Feminism is as such a human construct. Why would this construct be essential for treating people equally? What is the need for feminism?

It is feminist in its orientation to the research areas as well as its methodologies. The key concept here is collaboration and therefore we have two conversation as an expression of feminist epistemology or knowledge-making.

Feminism, like other modes of affirmative action — like reservations, quotas — are an attempt to create a level playing field for historically disprivileged groups  and oppressed minorities.

Having said that, I/we would like to point out that feminism has become inclusive and an umbrella term that also includes the work on masculinities and trans-identities since the 1990s.

Isn’t feminism the forte of only women?

Not at all and that is why we have the term feminisms. We hope to do more work subsequently on masculinities, on trans bodies in the future.

You have 21 women writers who write of women’s issues. Yet the last is an essay by a man — not on feminist issues— but more to create a sense of inclusivity, if I am not wrong. Why did you feel the need for this essay?

It is not so much about women’s issues as much as about gendered bodies in contemporary South Asia, about identities, subjectivities, bodies in motion gearing up for political action(the conversation and the essay on campus movements are instances).

Also, the last essay which articulates a post-humanist perspective, I felt, would take us beyond the materialities of gendered bodies and flag the way recent research/scholarship has looked at the Anthropocene. It was attempting to give a meta perspective, to bring in a way of seeing, which probably will have an impact on how we understand and conceptualise human bodies.

Your book blurb says: “Topical and comprehensive, this book will be useful for scholars and researchers of gender studies, sociology, political sociology, social anthropology, cultural studies, post-colonial studies and South Asian studies.” Why would you limit the scope of your book when you have some essays that should be read by many and are like eye openers, like the ones on Hudood, Birangonas, Bohras, even your own on ‘Draupadi’ and more?

I think Routledge as an academic publisher, probably does this routinely, to highlight the academic terrain any new book covers.

Having said that, we would definitely want the book to be of general interest. Some of the essays discussed issues which were possibly eye-openers for us as well.

What is the difference between academic writing and non-academic writing? You do both, I know.

Academic writing has often a thesis and an argument underpinning it, which is not to say that non-academic writing — especially the essay — cannot have them.

Also, many of the essays were based on student papers/MPhil and even PhD dissertations. The panel we were a part of was an academic conference on South Asian studies.

Would this book be classified as women’s writing as majority of the writers are women and have written on women’s issues… and yet there is a man? Is it necessary to have such classifications? Would it rule out male readers?

Not at all to every question. It just happens that many of our contributors are women, but I would like to dispel the idea that “gender” is about women only. It is about boxes, stereotypes and role-based expectations, which are to be questioned. 

Thanks for giving us a powerful book and your time.

[1] Words of Blood

(The online interview has been conducted through emails and the review written by Mitali Chakravarty.)

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL. 

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

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Categories
Essay

Potable Water Crisis & the Sunderbans

By Camellia Biswas

Many projected climate change impacts, including sea-level rise, temperature increase, heavy rainfall, drought and cyclone intensity, is increasing yearly flooding, riverbank erosion, salinity intrusion, etc. These pose severe impediments to the socio-economic development of India, especially the coastal areas. The coastal area of India, especially the Bay of Bengal, is located at the tip of the northern Indian Ocean. It is frequently hit by severe cyclonic storms, generating long tidal waves aggravated by the shallow bay.

At least one major tropical cyclone strikes the Eastern/south-eastern coast each year with powerful tidal surges. The Chakraborty et al (2016, 13-19) report states almost 2.3 million people were affected by Cyclone Aila more than a decade ago in May 2009. Many people were stranded in flooded villages. The tidal surge was about 10-13metres in height. It washed away enormous number of households, lives, livestock, crops and all other resources of the affected region. Aila was not a powerful storm, but its heavy incessant rains and storm surges were enough to swamp the mouths of the Ganges in both Bangladesh and India (Biswas 2017).

Cyclone Alia
Submerged villages
Submerged tubewell
Courtesy: Creative Commons

Some islands in the Bay of Bengal and the mangrove forests of the Sundarbans region were wholly submerged underwater. This catastrophe happened within a brief period, which resulted in people becoming homeless, leaving their assets in the households. A tiny percentage of the affected people could take shelter in the nearby cyclone shelter or schools during the cyclonic event. However, in several discussions, the affected people criticised that most cyclone shelters were built post-Aila and schools had only ground floors, which was anyways inundated. Most people thus took refuge on elevated roads. The extreme flooding also resulted in thousands of people losing access to safe drinking water and exposure to floodwaters containing untreated wastewater, dead animals and fish.

Impacts on water systems and water quality are often not visualised as chronic damage to property or the landscape. And thus, most treatments to these problems are temporary and short-lived. Potable water scarcity is a cumulative problem in the coastal region of India, especially Sundarbans, as it is revolving saline water slowly. Climate-induced disasters like rainfall, cyclone and storm surge, flood etc., are making the situation worse. Coastal people gradually depend on groundwater due to surface water salinity. As a result, groundwater extraction is increasing day by day. For that reason, the shallow aquifer has also been contaminated by salinity intrusion.

I have witnessed the horrific situation of women and children wailing for drinking water and waiting for relief distribution while spending my summer holidays at my native house in Sundarbans. The 14-year-old me then was horrified by the helpless situation of my own people, my kin and kept wondering whether disaster management conditions would be better or worse in due course of time especially when it concerns marginal communities of Dalits and Adivasis.

The memories of Aila keep flashing back to these Sundarban islanders every time they are hit by a cyclone or post-cyclone flood. Some of the stories they shared with me during my doctoral fieldwork made me revisit my Aila memories. As a native researcher, it gave a new stance towards the importance of water beyond its economic value and enhancing communities’ socio-cultural ties. Water, which has often served as an agency to conflict and dispute, during Aila it stimulated the sense of brotherhood and togetherness among the Samsernagar village residents.

Flood Friendship Between India-Bangladesh

Samsernagar is the last village in West Bengal’s Sundarban, bordering Bangladesh by river Kalindi. During Aila, the embankments of Samsernagar broke, resulting in the inundation of the village with the high tide influx from Kalindi. It led to total ruination of the settlement in just a couple of minutes. Samsernagar was submerged in the water, and so were the tube-wells and ponds, which were the only source of drinking water. It is where the villagers from Bangladesh came as harbingers of help.

In the political map, Bangladesh and India are demarcated as two separate nations. However, for people in Samsernagar, their neighboring village will still be the Village Koikhali of Bangladesh. To better understand, I phoned one of my respondent’s relatives who lived on the other side and asked about their experience during Aila regarding the help they provided to the Samsernagar residents. Koikhali residents came to Samsernagar rowing on their boat with barrels of potable water and other essential aids like food, clothes and mats. From several discussion and information interaction, it can be inferred that Samsernagar still recognises their international neighbour’s gesture which didn’t let them die of drinking polluted water. This act showed how, on the one hand, the water acted as a demon to the villagers through flooding and on the other, the barrels of drinking water brought by the neighbouring villages of Bangladesh became a sign of camaraderie and community interest. It went beyond just a mere necessity to live. It showed us how two villages come together, ignoring the human-made international boundary.

The Dilemma of Drinking water Crisis

That this acute drinking water problem can turn into a chronic issue in events like Aila and similar flooding situations is given credence by the fact that underground water also becomes saline due to leaching and seepage. Even after the floodwater recedes, the tube well water remains undrinkable. Sittler (2017), in her study on ‘Floodwater and stormwater can contaminate your water well’ argues that regardless of where storm-water runoff occurs, like floods, it can carry harmful contaminants such as soil, animal waste, salt, pesticides, and oil, potentially impacting drinking water wells and water quality. When discussed these challenges with groundwater experts at Sundarbans, they pointed out that in the Hingalganj Block, where Samsernagar village is situated, many deep tube well weren’t rightly maintained. Excessive contaminant-laden run-off infiltrated these drinking water wells through and assessed that the well casings or caps may not have been completely watertight. Moreover, any potential contaminants into the well can pose at least a short-term risk to water quality and human health.

In 2009, many families in Sundarbans, out of desperation, consumed pond water undergoing some basic filtration, knowing that the pond water stank from carcasses of dead animals. As farmlands remain filled with saline water, paddy yield became meagre the same and following year. Affected people when interviewed spoke of the mismanagement of the state’s relief supply and its lack of providing safe water, on how the local administrations would run some basic filtration like boiling the contaminated water and distributing it. As a result, hundreds of villagers suffered from diarrhea two weeks after drinking contaminated water. According to UNICEF, 28 diarrheal deaths were registered, and over 85,000 cases were reported from the Aila-hit districts of West Bengal.

Water can be considered a symbolic element, a resource, a commercial product, or a service. The interconnections established and the value attributed to water usage serves to build norms and references that influence the decision-making process from individuals to higher levels of social organisation. When considering it a resource for life, its interests and values vary and change across cultures, communities, states, space and time. One may raise an inquiry that spaces like Sundarbans is surrounded by rivers and seas, and that’s presumably the reason why Sundarban locals might not feel impacted by the presence of noble metals in the water.

However, as Sundarban landscape has a mangrove ecosystem, the water quality in and around the area has been found to be of inferior quality (CGWB report, 2014-15). If also, post-Aila most deep wells that were reconstructed at the height of 8-10ft above flood level so that the runoff was less likely to introduce contaminants into these wells, slight amount of saline water still managed to seep into the groundwater. However, it is the persistent presences of high iron and arsenic in the wells within that should raise alarm. So, even though the region is surrounded by water, most of it is toxic. Thus, for the Sundarban islanders, continuous access to safe and potable water is an aspiration that continues a dream for the whole community.

REFERENCES:

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Camellia Biswas is a doctoral candidate at the discipline of Humanities & Social science, IIT Gandhinagar. She is an Inlaks-RS conservation grantee for the year 2021-22. Her research specialises in Environmental anthropology, focusing on human- Nature Interaction in Indian Sundarban under the larger discourse of Climate disaster.

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Categories
Editorial

Towards a Brave New World

Painting by Sohana Manzoor

With Christmas at our heels and the world waking up slowly from a pandemic that will hopefully become an endemic as the Omicron seems to fizzle towards a common cold, we look forward to a new year and a new world. Perhaps, our society will evolve to become one where differences are accepted as variety just as we are fine with the fact that December can be warm or cold depending on the geography of the place. People will be welcomed even if of different colours and creed. The commonality of belonging to the same species will override all other disparities…

While we have had exciting developments this year and civilians have moved beyond the Earth — we do have a piece on that by Candice Louisa Daquin — within the planet, we have become more aware of the inequalities that exist. We are aware of the politics that seems to surround even a simple thing like a vaccine for the pandemic. However, these two years dominated by the virus has shown us one thing — if we do not rise above petty greed and create a world where healthcare and basic needs are met for all, we will suffer. As my nearly eighty-year-old aunt confided, even if one person has Covid in a remote corner of the world, it will spread to all of us. The virus sees no boundaries. This pandemic was just a start. There might be more outbreaks like this in the future as the rapacious continue to exploit deeper into the wilderness to accommodate our growing greed, not need. With the onset of warmer climates — global warming and climate change are realities — what can we look forward to as our future?

Que sera sera — what will be, will be. Though a bit of that attitude is necessary, we have become more aware and connected. We can at least visualise changes towards a more egalitarian and just world, to prevent what happened in the past. It would be wonderful if we could act based on the truth learnt from history rather than to overlook or rewrite it from the perspective of the victor and use that experience to benefit our homes, planet and all living things, great and small.  In tune with our quest towards a better world, we have an interview with an academic, Sanjay Kumar, founder of a group called Pandies, who use theatre to connect the world of haves with have-nots. What impressed me most was that they have actually put refugees and migrant workers on stage with their stories. They even managed to land in Kashmir and work with children from war-torn zones. They have travelled and travelled into different dimensions in quest of a better world. Travelling is what our other interviewee did too — with a cat who holds three passports. CJ Fentiman, author of The Cat with Three Passports, has been interviewed by Keith Lyons, who has reviewed her book too.

This time we have the eminent Aruna Chakravarti review Devika Khanna Narula’s Beyond the Veils, a retelling of the author’s family history. Perhaps, history has been the common thread in our reviews this time. Rakhi Dalal has reviewed Anirudh Kala’s Two and a Half Rivers, a fiction that focusses on the Sikh issues in 1980s India from a Dalit perspective. It brought to my mind a family saga I had been recently re-reading, Alex Haley’s Roots, which showcased the whole American Revolution from the perspective of slaves brought over from Africa. Did the new laws change the fates of the slaves or Dalits? To an extent, it did but the rest as fact and fiction showcase were in the hands that belonged to the newly freed people. To enable people to step out of the cycle of poverty, the right attitudes towards growth and the ability to accept the subsequent changes is a felt need. That is perhaps where organisations like Pandies step in.  Another non-fiction which highlights history around the same period and place as Kala’s novel is BP Pande’s In the Service of Free India –Memoirs of a Civil Servant. Reviewed by Bhaskar Parichha, the book explores the darker nuances of human history filled with violence and intolerance.

That violence is intricately linked to power politics has been showcased often. But, what would be really amazing to see would be how we could get out of the cycle as a society. With gun violence being an accepted norm in one of the largest democracies of the world, perhaps we need to listen to the voice of wisdom found in the fiction by Steve Davidson who meets perhaps a ghost in Hong Kong. Musing over the ghost’s words, the past catches up in Sunil Sharma’s story, ‘Walls’. Sharma has also given us a slice from his life in Canada with its colours, vibrancy and photographs of the fall. As he emigrated to Canada, we read of immigrants in Marzia Rahman’s touching narrative. She has opted to go with the less privileged just as Lakshmi Kannan has opted to go with the privileged in her story.

Sharma observes, while we find the opulence of nature thrive in places people inhabit in  Canada, it is not so in Asia. I wonder why? Why are Asian cities crowded and polluted? There was a time when Los Angeles and London suffered smogs. Has that shifted now as factories relocated to Asia, generating wealth in currency but taking away from nature’s opulence of fresh, clean air as more flock into crowded cities looking for sustenance?

Humour is introduced into the short story section with Sohana Manzoor’s hilarious rendering of her driving lessons in America, lessons given to foreigners by migrants. Rhys Hughes makes for  more humour with a really hilarious rendition of men in tea cosies missing their…I  think ‘Trouser Hermit’ will tell you the rest. He has perhaps more sober poetry which though imaginative does not make you laugh as much as his prose. Michael Burch has shared some beautiful poetry perpetuating the calmer nuances of a deeply felt love and affection. George Freek, Anasuya Bhar, Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Dibyajyoti Sarma have all given us wonderful poetry along with many others. One could write an essay on each poem – but as we are short shrift for time, we move on to travel sagas from hiking in Australia and hobnobbing with kangaroos to renovated palaces in Bengal.

We have also travelled with our book excerpts this time. Suzanne Kamata’s The Baseball Widow shuttles between US and Japan and Somdatta Mandal’s translation of  A Bengali lady in England by Krishnabhabi Das, actually has the lady relocate to nineteenth century England and assume the dress and mannerisms of the West to write an eye-opener for her compatriots about the customs of the colonials in their own country.

While mostly we hear of sad stories related to marriages, we have a sunny one in which Alpana finds much in a marriage that runs well with wisdom learnt from Kung Fu Panda.  Devraj Singh Kalsi has given us a philosophical piece with his characteristic touch of irony laced with humour on statues. If you are wondering what he could have to say, have a read.

In Nature’s Musings, Penny Wilkes has offered us prose and wonderful photographs of the last vestiges of autumn. As the season hovers between summer and winter, geographical boundaries too can get blurred at times. A nostalgic recap given by Ratnottama Sengupta along the borders of Bengal, which though still crossed by elephants freely in jungles (wild elephants do not need visas, I guess), gained an independence from the harshness of cultural hegemony on December 16th, 1971. Candice Louisa Daquin has also looked at grey zones that lie between sanity and insanity in her column. An essay which links East and West has been given to us by Rakibul Hasan about a poet who mingles the two in his poetry. A Bengali song by Tagore, Purano shei diner kotha,  that is almost a perfect trans creation of Robert Burn’s Scottish Auld Lang Syne in the spirit of welcoming the New Year, has been transcreated to English. The similarity in the content of the two greats’ lyrics showcase the commonalities of love, friendship and warmth that unite all cultures into one humanity.

Our first translation from Uzbekistan – a story by Sherzod Artikov, translated from Uzbeki by Nigora Mukhammad — gives a glimpse of a culture that might be new to many of us. Akbar Barakzai’s shorter poems, translated by Fazal Baloch from Balochi and Ratnottama Sengupta’s transcreation of a Tagore song, Rangiye Die Jao, have added richness to our oeuvre along with  one from Korean by Ihlwha Choi. Professor Fakrul Alam, who is well-known for his translation of poetry by Jibonanda Das, has started sharing his work on the Bengali poet with us. Pause by and take a look.

There is much more than what I can put down here as we have a bumper end of the year issue this December. There is a bit of something for all times, tastes and seasons.

I would like to thank my wonderful team for helping put together this issue. Sohana Manzoor and Sybil Pretious need double thanks for their lovely artwork that is showcased in our magazine. We are privileged to have committed readers, some of who have started contributing to our content too. A huge thanks to all our contributors and readers for being with us through our journey.

I wish you a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful transition into the New Year! May we open up to a fantastic brave, new world!

Mitali Chakravarty

Borderless Journal

Categories
Review

A Sagacious Tale of Oppression & Turmoil

Book Review by Rakhi Dalal

Title: Two and a Half Rivers

Author: Anirudh Kala

Publisher: Niyogi Books, 2021

How do we understand a land and its people? How do we look at its history, at a phase of turbulence which once ravaged the lives of its people? At the social structures rarely talked about? And how do we make sense of it? Can the perception be whole if only selective truths are voiced?

The Partition of India in 1947 had left Punjab with only two and a half rivers out of a total of five. From the early 1980s onwards, a state which had witnessed much violence and bloodshed at the time of Partition, began to be devastated by the spread of militancy again. This period of unrest spanning almost a decade was the time when common people, who had yet not recovered from the trauma of partition, faced the torment of not only terrorism but also counter insurgency. And though there are numerous reports on the violation of Human rights during counter insurgency in Punjab, both the Central and the State Governments have continually refuted such reports.

Two and a Half Rivers is a fictionalised account of those troubled years of Punjab through the lives of three main characters — a clinically depressed doctor, trying to take on life one day at a time, and Shamsie and Bheem, both Dalits, struggling to make their dreams a reality. Writing with keen perception, the author, Anirudh Kala, not only offers a striking account of the many ordeals that people went through that period and the solidarity which helped them keep afloat but also of the less addressed issue of oppression of lower castes and their sufferings.  

Kala is a psychiatrist by profession. His aim is to educate people about mental health and mental illness, focusing on eradicating stigma, labels, and prejudice. His debut fiction The Unsafe Asylum: Stories of Partition and Madness was published in 2018. Two and a Half Rivers published by Niyogi Books is his second work of fiction.

In this novel, he juxtaposes the situation of state with that of the mental illness of the doctor who is also the narrator. As the fog of depression descends on his mind, the state is also veiled by the layers of sorrows and anxieties from which no escape seems visible. With the increase in terrorists activities, the rivers start filling with the dead again as if to devour those who had somehow survived the Partition. An increase in extortion, abduction and killing by the terrorists leads to the nabbing of common people on doubt by police. The custody, seldom resulting in the release of those apprehended. Jails become torture centres and those captured subjects of experiments for effective torturing. The unrest that follows compels Shamsie and Bheem to shift to Bombay in search of a peaceful life only to return back few years later in the aftermath of a crackdown on Dance bars.

Following the timeline of those difficult years, the author looks at the tragic events which made the ‘Punjab problem’ worse in succeeding years. He takes into account Operation Bluestar, the assassination of the Prime Minister (who he names as Durga), the pogrom of November 1984 and counter insurgency. The novel offers a commentary upon the inept tackling of the situation by the state including ruling dispensation and police. The narrator minces no words while observing that the State and Army had conveniently forgotten that there were to be a large number of pilgrims in the Golden Temple at the time of that operation as it was the celebration of the martyrdom day of a Sikh guru or that more common people began disappearing after the police chief announced incentives and rewards to curtail terrorism.

While the narrator narrowly escapes the custodial torture after being picked for alleged connection with militants, Bheem isn’t that lucky. His identity becomes the final noose around his neck. Shamsie suffers assault too, a punishment for escaping advances of an upper caste boy in her teenage. Whilst common people die and more disappear, Punjab is steeped in sorrow of losing loved ones from which only the tears of grief bring some respite. We are told that more than eight thousand young people have not come home, and never will.

With the poignant telling of this tale, the author also prompts the reader to ask why the lives of those from lower castes are far more easily dispensable, why are they inconsequential, why this malaise is so deeply ingrained in the minds of upper caste and why is it a normal way of life. In a religion which believes “Awwal allah noor upaya qudrat keh sab banday, aik noor toh sab jag upjaiya kaun bhale ko mande” (All humanity was born from a single divine light, and everybody is born equal. All are the children of nature, and no one is good or bad), how can there really be a discrimination based upon caste?

Sensitive is one word that can be best used to describe Kala’s writing. He writes not only from a place of awareness but perhaps also pain and anguish. His description of the distressed years of Punjab carries a rare sensitivity which warrants a deeper understanding of the place as well as its people. That he chooses to tell it through the lives of two Dalit characters, also bring forward his focus on the otherwise lesser talked about issue of caste discrimination in Punjab. The narrative voice is subtle and sometimes seems distant, which works well for the reason that it gives the narrative a sagacious tenor, making it compelling and very moving.

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Rakhi Dalal is an educator by profession. When not working, she can usually be found reading books or writing about reading them. She writes at https://rakhidalal.blogspot.com/ .

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Categories
Review

Turmeric Nation: A Passage Through India’s Tastes

Book Review by Meenakshi Malhotra

Title: Turmeric Nation: A Passage Through India’s Tastes

Author: Shylashri Shankar

Publisher: Speaking Tiger Books

Shyalashri Shankar is an academic whose third non-fiction, Turmeric Nation: A Passage through India’s Taste, won a woman author’s award in India called the AutHer Award (2021). This book is a detailed and rich journey through India’s multiple cuisines and culinary cultures divulging interesting facts like Aurangzeb was a vegetarian.

In the literature of food writing, we have both advocates of diversity, food fusionists as well as food fashionistas. Shankar’s approach is fairly eclectic and informed, drawing on the anthropology and sociology of both food and the cultures they originate from. Professing to write a “food biography” of India, she also realises that such a task is both “challenging and daunting”, given the magnitude and diversity of the task involved. She describes Indian cuisine as layered and pluralistic, where there is no one cuisine which can be described as ‘Indian’. Her book proceeds to map these regional diversities not only in food and food cultures, but also cooking styles.

Giving veritable gastronomic glimpses into the fascinating world of the great Indian kitchen, Shankar explores food histories of ancient India dating back to Harappans, while keeping a keen eye for networks of customs, habits and styles of living. From time to time, the cuisine has absorbed new methods of food processing and cooking and been hospitable to new and foreign influences. At the same time, it has at times exerted injustices since the sociology of food is shown to be intricately linked to the that of the caste as shown in the section on Dalit foods. Shankar rightly refuses to mythify or romanticise food, instead she refers to social anthropologist James Laidlaw’s notion that nowhere in the world are food transactions socially or morally neutral, and that the politics of and around food are probably the sharpest in South Asia.

She draws from the theories of ethnologist Claude Levi-Strauss, who, she argues, analysed different cooking techniques to put forward an influential structuralist idea of the raw and the cooked. Food, according to this theory, is a medium between nature and culture. The activity of cooking performs a process of civilising nature.

Shankar asks more fundamental questions: Did our ancestors determine the way we eat? What is the DNA of food preferences? Which is a better diet — vegetarian, non-vegetarian or paleo (what Is paleo)? Does food have a religion? What food creates ardour and desire? What are the transgressions and taboos on certain kinds of foods? What is the purpose and function of certain rituals around food — for instance, the logic of feasting and fasting? As Shankar takes us on this fascinating journey of culinary exploration, we see the emergence of a rich map of cultural anthropology.

Turmeric Nation is an ambitious and insightful project which answers these questions, and then quite a few more. Through a series of fascinating essays—delving into geography, history, myth, sociology, film, literature and personal experience—Shylashri Shankar traces the myriad patterns that have formed Indian food cultures, taste preferences and cooking traditions. From Dalit ‘haldiya dal’ to the last meal of the Buddha; from aphrodisiacs listed in the Kamasutra to sacred foods offered to gods and prophets; from the use of food as a means of state control in contemporary India to the role of lemonade in stoking rebellion in 19th-century Bengal; from the connection between death and feasting and between fasting and pleasure, this book offers a layered and revealing portrait of India, as a society and a nation, through food. It takes us on a fascinating culinary journey through the length and breadth of the subcontinent.

The proof of the pudding, many might feel, is in the eating. Why such a learned dissertation on food, gastronomy and culinary traditions? Is it ultimately to map unity, diversity, and work towards an idea of syncretism? Either ways, the book is worth keeping on our shelves and stocking in libraries, swelling the corpus on food studies which is now studied as an important part of Cultural Studies in many universities. The book ultimately gives us much food for thought as it theorises the practices of cooking and eating across Indian cultures.

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  Dr Meenakshi Malhotra is Associate Professor of English Literature at Hansraj College, University of Delhi, and has been involved in teaching and curriculum development in several universities. She has edited two books on Women and Lifewriting, Representing the Self and Claiming the I, in addition  to numerous published articles on gender, literature and feminist theory.       

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