Darkness at noon

 

 

Two years of anguish have gone by since Mase Madkami’s husband, an SGO jawan, lost his life in a landmine blast triggered by Maoists. But life hasn’t returned to normal for the 25-year-old woman. She lives in the southern Orissa village of Udupa, 25 km from the Malkangari district headquarters. Her hut, located in a distant corner of this tribal hamlet, has four rooms. Her husband, Ganga Madkami, was the family’s sole breadwinner. Today, the responsibility of their eight-year-old son and Ganga’s ageing parents is on Mase’s frail shoulders.

We reach her house at dusk. Her son, Sunadhar, is studying in the front room. Mase is busy cleaning a lantern. Udupa does not have electricity. In a while, the lantern will be the only source of light in this benighted home. “I never imagined I’d ever have to see such dark days,” Mase begins to narrate her tale of woes. “Five days after the incident, the chief minister handed out cheques to the families of the martyrs. He also promised each affected family a job, a plot of land and other government benefits. He had tears in his eyes. We had reason to believe that we’d be taken care of by the government.”

But Mase’s hopes were dashed. “For six months I ran from one office to another to get my dues. I finally received Rs 4 lakh as compensation and Rs 10 lakh for his life insurance. But I am still waiting for the promised job and land,” she says.

Her problems have increased manifold with the passage of time. She has to travel to Bhubaneswar every month to collect the family pension. Being a single lady, she is usually accompanied by somebody from the village, which entails additional expenses. At times she has to travel to the state capital more than once for the same purpose. Sometimes the officers concerned are not available. At other times, the processing of her payment is deferred. “We are illiterate poor villagers and don’t know much about government procedures. But running around like this for what was promised to me is actually hurting me more than my husband’s death,” says Mase, tears welling up in her eyes.

Given the constant drain on her limited resources, she is worried whether her son would be able to complete his education. She says: “Including my old father, I have four dependants. Tell me, how will I manage to continue paying for my son’s education?” Despite a government announcement of financial assistance for the education of the children of martyrs, Mase hasn’t received any payment. Sunadhar, on his part, wants to follow in the footsteps of his late father and join the police force. But will a heartless bureaucracy, which operates from the comfort and security of air-conditioned offices, allow this hapless boy to fulfill his dream?

The story of 23-year-old Manini Devta is much the same. She had married SGO jawan Kanhu Charan Devta in 2006. A year later, she gave birth to a baby boy. The family was a picture of happiness. But a landmine blast on July 16, 2008, at MV126 village changed everything. Kanhu died aged 26, leaving behind his young wife, one-year-old son and his old parents.

Her entire life still ahead of her, Manini is struggling to survive. She stays with her in-laws in a small dwelling unit in Malkangiri’s police colony. Kanhu's old parents have been mental wrecks ever since they saw the lifeless body of their son. Manini tells TSI, “I don’t know what to do now. Though we have received an amount as compensation, we are yet to get a piece of land or a job as promised by the government. Whatever we receive as pension is exhausted in running to different offices in the state capital. It is becoming increasingly tough for me to handle the day-to-day household expenses.” Manini is a graduate and she expects to get a job under the government’s rehabilitation scheme. However, it has been two years now and her application, and her hope, are lost somewhere under heaps of files dumped on the desks of the babus. This system reeks of apathy at every level. It is a system that leaves a martyr’s widow at the mercy of callous government officials. Doesn’t the family of a brave young man who died fighting those that are waging war on the state deserve better?

The situation is no better for lady constable Pratima Rout, a survivor of the Nayagarh massacre masterminded by Maoists. She has been been subjected to ill-treatmen, cheating and mental torture by her own department.

Pratima, who lives in a one-room rented house in Khandapada Road in Nayagarh, is only too willing to pour her heart out. Having been treated most shabbily by the police force that she belongs to, she is seeking justice, but nobody has the time or the inclination to give her a hearing. On that dark night two years ago, Pratima was in charge of the magazines house when 300 to 400 Maoists barged into Nayagarh police station firing indiscriminately. She was shot four times before she fell unconscious. She was hospitalised in a critical condition.

Hear her story. “My condition was so bad that the doctors had given up hope. I had lost a lot of blood. While those that had sustained minor wounds were discharged after treatment, I was retained as a vein in my leg was torn. I continued to lose blood. After nearly a month and 18 days, the department informed me that I won’t get any more financial assistance and that I would have pay my medical expenses. I was really taken aback. I was at my wit’s end. I had no idea how I would arrange the money.”

Though her brother went to meet the Cuttack Superintendent of Police and he assured the family that he would intervene on Pratima’s behalf, nothing happened. Pratima and her brother took loans and used up their savings. They then went back to the department seeking help as she had to undergo four different surgeries. When Pratima met the district superintendent of police, he suggested that she should apply for a loan from the Police Welfare Fund (PWF). She applied for Rs 20,000. The money was released promptly. But Pratima soon realised that she had been lured into another trap.

A few days after the surgery, not only did her department pester her to report back to duty, she also received a phone call claiming that she had taken a loan of Rs 40,000 from the PWF and that the amount would be recovered from her. She was totally stunned. Pratima alleges that an additional Rs 20,000 was withdrawn by the SP, Cuttack against her name. Says Pratima: “While the government has promised to bear the complete cost of my medical treatment, it is painful that people from the department are fraudulently withdrawing money in our name and then trying to recover it from us.”

When the doctor treating her learnt that the police department wasn’t going to bear her expenses anymore, he stopped taking proper care of her. He discharged her even though she had not recovered fully. She continued to receive notices from her department to join back.

At her tether’s end, Pratima met the then Director General of Orissa Police Gopal Nanda as a last resort. He not only waived off her loan but also ordered that she be assigned an office job. She could now see light at the end of the tunnel. But Pratima is still nursing the wound in her leg. It hasn’t healed because of the unseemly haste with which the doctor discharged her from hospital. We ask her how much she has got by way of compensation. She replies: “What compensation are you talking about? I haven't received a single penny.”

Pratima points out that it has taken the government two years to set up a board to prepare a detailed report on those who were injured in that Maoist strike. She adds: “As for my own case, one of the two board members who examined me was the same doctor who discharged me untreated. I, therefore, don’t have must expectations from this board.” Now meet Jayakrishna Bardhan, a superannuated government employee who resides in the outskirts of Bhubaneswar. Though he retired in 2004 he is still does the rounds of government offices. Sometimes he is in the provident fund section of the police headquarters requesting the dealing assistant to push his file. At others, he is seen in the pension section inquiring about the release of his family pension. It isn’t his own retirement benefits he is chasing. Jayakrishna’s policeman-son was killed in a Maoist attack and all he is asking for is the legitimate compensation for an irreparable loss.

Bardhan and his family reside in a single-storey building in Gadakana area of Bhubaneswar. It has neither a boundary wall nor a proper approach road. The entrance has no door bell. So we knock on the grille. The family’s pet dog Blackie barks in response. Jayakrishna is soon at the door to usher us in.

His elder son, Ajit Bardhan, was an Orissa police sub-inspector posted in the Maoist-infested Sundargarh district. While on patrol duty, Ajit was overpowered by a group of Maoists and abducted. The very next morning – the date was July 16, 2009 – his body was found near Jharbeda. Darkness descended on the slain cop's family. Unable to withstand the shock, Jayakrishna suffered a heart attack. Ajit’s widow, Rosalin, who was expecting her first baby on August 7, experienced acute labour pain even as arrangements were being made to take her husband’s body to Puri.

The Orissa chief minister, Mr. Naveen Patnaik, came down to Ajit’s residence to express his condolences to the bereaved family. When he learnt about the condition of the cop’s father and widow, he immediately instructed senior officers to make all arrangements for them.

But nothing moved after that. Say Jayakrishna, “I am still wandering from one office to another for the release of my son’s provident fund amount and family pension. They haven’t even paid a small amount of Rs.17000, which I spent on my treatment after the heart attack. The CM had declared the government would bear all the expenditure. I have been to the Rourkela SP’s Office and the IG Operation’s office on several occasions but nothing has been done. It is humiliating. It is as if they are going to do us a favour. Did my son lay down his life in vain?” Ajit Bardhan, in a letter to his wife Rosalin, had once written that it would be the happiest moment of his life if he were to die serving the nation. If only he knew what would be in store for his family after his death, he might have changed his view. Rosalin, who recently got a police job under the rehabilitation scheme, is still waiting to get her other dues. She says, “My father-in-law has taken much pain to get my husband’s legitimate dues and I couldn’t help him because of my job and daughter Arushi.” Arushi is only eight months old. The misery of Kannama Bhumiya is no less than that of the Bardhans. She lives in a half-built concrete house covered with tin sheets in Gaudaguda, a small tribal hamlet four km from Malkangiri. The house was being built by Kannama’s husband, Sudarshan Bhumia. The latter was one of the police casualties in the landmine blast at MV126 village. Kanamma is facing the same problem as Mase and Manini. Though she has already got the compensation and insurance, she is still struggling to secure a plot of land and a job.

However, the story of Prabhati Mishra, wife of late Reserve Inspector Sarat Chandra Mishra, is quite different. More than for her own survival, she is struggling to keep her husband’s dream alive. Inspector Mishra had started a free school for tribal students. Prabhati is doing all she can to keep the school going. But government procedures have become a big hurdle. Forget the promises about land or job, she is yet to receive any gratuity or family pension, that too after meeting and requesting the chief minister more than once.

Why are the widows and orphans of slain policemen treated with such insensitivity? Manmohan Praharaj, director-general of Orissa Police, says: “We are providing compensation immediately to the families of the policemen who have lost their lives in Naxal attacks. About land and job, it’s part of a process. But yes we are looking into the matter and trying to find out any lacuna if at all it’s there. However, a few legal issues are also involved in this process. The processes are taken care of quite quickly in those districts which were announced as Naxal-infected, but in the other districts, the work becomes a bit time-consuming. But this is by no means deliberate.”

Try telling that to people like Mase or Manini or Jayakrishna. They will, given half a chance, tell the people who call the shots exactly what is going wrong. But is anybody willing to listen? Insensitivity is the norm and brave young men are used simply as cannon fodder in a war that probably has no victors.

The battles the families of fallen heroes have to wage to get their dues are just as hard as the ones the jawans deployed to protect the country’s internal security are engaged in day in and day out. Given the callous manner in which the government operates, can the widows of the martyrs ever hope for a better deal?

(With iInputs by Ratnakar Dash and Subrat Dash)