Travails with Chachi

by Louise Fernandes Khurshid

  They first broke his legs below the knee joint. As he struggled to drag himself away by his elbows, they broke his forearms. Then three of the assailants drew out kattas and pumped a round each in his chest. And, in finale, as his moans mingled with the call of the koyal, one person raised a machete high and hacked down at his neck.

  By the time his young nephew could reach the scene, Bhure’s corpse sprawled there in the dust in grotesque abandon, the head connected with the rest of his body by a thin sliver of skin.

  Just as silently the assassins melted into the shadows. And all this in full view of hundreds of pilgrims…

  It has been over a decade since that brutal killing. But each time I get a letter from home telling of another such senseless murder, the ghost of my childhood friend, Hari Kishen Gangwar, Bhure, comes back to haunt me. Whenever we recollect Tau Nakli Singh’s account of the murder, Bablu ki Ma still openly weeps. My own tears still refuse to flow. The wound is still too raw.

  From the way Tau had told it, the assailants could not have received any special pleasure out of such meaningless cruelty. Nor were they personally motivated by a sense of revenge. This was just the most practical method they could think of in the circumstances.

  Break his legs so he won’t run. Break his arms so he won’t fire back. Use a lathi so that no bullet is found. Cut the head off, and if possible throw it some distance away, so that identification of the body either becomes impossible or delayed.

  This, unacceptable as it might seem, is the way of the ‘badlands’.

  Tau wrote further that eyewitness testimony of Bhure’s nephew and several other bathers had narrowed the search down to seven persons. All owed their allegiance to one Mahesh Gangwar − the reasons both political and territorial. In other words, they were both competing to be the undisputed top man of the community from the same area.

  I kept close tabs on the case. But as I followed it, the sense of futility increased. All seven persons, including Mahesh’s own brother, were caught and jailed. However, despite enough evidence against them for the High Court to reject their plea for bail, today they roam free. Rumour has it that the sum of rupees three and a half lacs at the lower court level did the trick!

  Bhure’s murder − despite the fact that he had been the Congress candidate in 1991 from Kaimganj Assembly Constituency in Farrukhabad, the district that neighbours my home in Etawah − is perhaps the most expressive illustration of life and death in these ‘badlands’ of Uttar Pradesh. Farrukhabad, on the banks of the River Ganga downstream from Shahjehanpur, is at the heart of the ‘badlands’, which includes the surrounding districts of Badaun, Etah, Kannauj, Kanshiram Nagar, Hardoi and Mainpuri, with my home district of Etawah not too far away.

  There are those who will argue that, in recent times, the crime belt begins way before one reaches the University town of Aligarh – perhaps as early as Ghaziabad and Bulandshahr. But, by legend and by record, the ‘pride of place’ in this nefarious direction undoubtedly belongs to the land of Chabbiram and Man Singh – with the infamous, but now respectable, Phoolan Devi, having ‘operated’ not much further.

  One of my regular customers, Sudhakar Lahiri − a sociologist who has been doing extensive research on crime patterns in these badlands − tried to explain to me that this was the result of the ‘breakdown of one social system and sluggishness in the take over by another system’.

  ‘All this is very complicated,’ I said to him. ‘Speak in a language I can understand.’ So he tried again. ‘The feudal system,’ he said, ‘is breaking down under the onslaught of changing economic circumstances where the money power that supported that feudal structure is disappearing and new money is coming into hands of lesser people − thereby questioning the feudal structure that provided for security and stability.’

  This still went over my head but perhaps you readers understand better. He continued: ‘The breakdown of the feudal structure has also brought about a breakdown in moral structures with no adequate instruments to provide for the development or maintenance of such structures. Quality education is not available; exposure to opportunities is very limited. And, therefore, inevitably, people drift into some kind of disorganised or unorganised mafia existence. Crime,’ he explained, ‘has got intertwined in a very complicated relationship with politics so that there is now a more and more obvious nexus of politics, the administration, policing and the social structure in rural areas.’

  Bablu’s favourite crime story − one definitely not to be told over dinner − is one told by another of my school friends, Athar Hussain Khan. Khan, whose ancestral guava plantations had dried up in a bad drought year and whose one truck had long since lost its bearings, had been making his living as a road and building contractor. To survive in this competitive market Khan had to undercut some formidable established people. Each contract raised the hackles of the competition further and a year ago Khan got unofficial advance warning of a ‘contract’ out on his head. ‘In this dog-eat-dog situation I really didn’t have any choice,’ Khan said. ‘I knew I had to get the killer before he got me. It was so plain.’ Khan, therefore, countered this by himself entering into a counter ‘contract’ with his friendly local policeman.

  One evening a message came through. The ‘contract killer’ was in police custody. Khan was welcome to ‘encounter’ him. When Khan got to the isolated spot the daroga had already set the scene for the ‘encounter’ − with one additional feature to make things easy. The potential killer’s hands were tried behind his back! In the torture that followed − to secure the name of the person who had hired the killer − injuries were strategically placed so that it would seem they were secured when the police was chasing him. In the end he confessed. And with that he signed his own death warrant.

  ‘I handed over the agreed sum of Rs. 50,000 to the daroga who, in turn, gave me his rifle and told me to shoot. I looked at the man, already broken in spirit, and felt bad. I had his hands untied and told him to run − to give him a fair chance of escape. But, unfortunately, the man thought he had it figured out. He obviously realized that his running would lend more credibility to any story of an “encounter”. Can you imagine, Bhai,’ Khan said in a tone of injured merit, ‘the harami looked me in the eye and said: “I know I’ve come to the end of the race. I won’t run. You shoot me if you have the guts.” What could I do?’ he asked. ‘If I had let the man live I would continue to be marked for death. Even more marked because the otherwise uninvolved killer would now have a revenge motive. It was a matter of survival.

  ‘I took the only option left to me,’ he continued. ‘I closed my eyes and pulled the trigger. When I opened my eyes again he was doubled up in pain, clutching the spilling contents of his stomach.’ If that wasn’t enough, his story ended with the clincher, ‘I could have left him to suffer. But I had compassion. I carefully aimed the next bullet through his head and put him out of his agony.’

  I remember once discussing these crime figures with Thakur Lambemoochwala’s son-in-law − that senior UP police office. (I had specially invited him over to help Lahiri with his research.) He did not exactly deny such complicity between criminals and persons in authority. But he did insist that the ‘real killer was the resource crunch’, which meant that policing continued to be severely limited. Therefore, there was very little that police could do in terms of crime prevention. In terms of investigation and imposing sanctions for crime, police find themselves inadequately prepared and inadequately supported by political structures. Therefore, in an increasing number of cases, police succumb to the temptation to use crime to add to their almost untrammeled power. This works in an ad hoc manner, he explained − sometimes towards a sort of rough justice and at other times as blatant examples of injustice.

  Lahiri impatiently broke into the conversation here. ‘The essential problem about crime here,’ he said, ‘is that it is increasingly being used as a substitute for legitimate endeavour in life, which somehow has not been made available. An alternative for
nothing else to do. No entertainment, no social mobility, no movement beyond the confines of the area in which one has been born, no great interaction with people from different walks of life − basically remaining confined in straits which are disappearing. In the confused existence that remains, the only thing that gives a sense of meaning to life is the feeling of power. The power to kill, the power to hound people, the power to loot with impunity − basically the power to be a law unto oneself.’

  Perhaps as a dubious legacy of the Chabbiram days, he explained, young men of this area had started to discover that the cheapest implement of power is the gun. You can get it for a few thousand rupees whereas anything else which is seen as an implement of power and standing − a house, a vehicle, a bank account, a profession or a business − all cost more than that. It is also the most lethal instrument of power − and hence the most feared.

  An essential ingredient of this form of power is that, in order for the power to be maintained, the fear element must also be maintained. In an increasing number of cases − both of inter-gang rivalry or intra-gang rivalry or in order for the terror element among the targeted villages to be maintained − certain acts of cruelty and terrorism become a matter of ‘mooch’, a matter of maintaining face. But, increasingly, the perpetrator is not always a badmash or a dacoit. He is quite often just your average young lad from the mohalla or village with his brains in his stomach and his guts in his gun.

  How true, how true, I thought. These educated fellows certainly know how to express my own sentiments with great style and substance.

  I remember so clearly the case of Rajesh Kumar. During the 1984 Parliamentary polls, while he acted as unofficial ‘shedow’ for one of the independent candidates, Rajesh drew up a bill of Rs. 26.50 at a wayside dhaba. To add insult to injury the dhaba wallah started harassing him for the money. ‘It was not that I didn’t have the money or that I didn’t want to pay,’ I overheard him telling his lawyer when Chachi was hired to travel to Kanpur to get the lad bail. ‘The real insult was that he said it in front of at least 25 people − many of them people who feared me because of my prowess with the gun and my ability to down a man with my bare fists. What irked me even further was that he would never have said this to me had my candidate won. In fact, he probably would have asked me to get a gas connection and telephone for his dhaba from the man.’

  The complicating factor, of course, was the crowd at the dhaba. What, in normal human situations, should have been an inhibiting factor for crime − the presence of so many eye-witnesses − in this case turned out to be the ultimate provocation for what was to follow. The first time the dhaba owner demanded his dues, Rajesh pretended not to hear. But when he repeated the demand, this time louder, the boy said, ‘Say that again and I will kill you.’

  ‘When he spat on the ground and said it again I had no option,’ Rajesh told his lawyer (who also happens to be a client of mine.) ‘What option did I have? Of those 25 people present at least 20 knew my reputation and feared me. I would have lost too much face had I not killed .…’

  The incredible thing is that, having shot the man, Rajesh Kumar walked to the nearest police station and gave himself up. He sat in jail for six months. (‘More as a safety valve for myself in case the dhaba owner’s sons tried to take revenge,’ he explained painstakingly.) Then he walked free. How? Because nobody was willing to testify against a man who could kill so cold bloodedly.

  This is the way of the badlands.

  GLOSSARY OF TERMS

  Aam: common; also mango

  Aarti: to worship

  Aashirvad: blessings

  Adda: to congregate at one place

  Alu: potato

  Amrud: guava

  Angrezi: the English language

  Asli: pure/real

  Atmahatya: suicide

  Baap: father

  Bachcha: child

  badey chashma/chashme wali: the one wearing large spectacles

  Badmash: rogue

  Bahu: daughter-in-law

  Baigan ka bartha: a dish made of aubergines

  Banian: vest

  Baraat: wedding procession

  Barra: senior in position

  Batti: light

  Beimani: treachery

  Bel/Bael pathar: wood apple

  Beta: son

  Bhai: brother

  Bhashan: speech

  Bicholia: middleman

  Bijli: electricity

  Billies: kittens

  Bimari: illness

  Biradari: clan

  Bund: a shutdown

  Chalu: fast (as in a person; used to indicate that the person in question is way too forward)

  Chamcha: sycophant; also spoon

  Chamchagiri: sycophancy

  Chappal: slippers

  Cheez: thing

  Chhuri: knife

  Chullah: a stove made of mud

  Chumma: kiss

  Chupke: quietly; surreptitiously

  Churi: a process of tightening the lid on a can or bottle

  Dai: midwife

  Dalali: to pimp

  Damaad: son-in-law

  Dangal: altercation

  Daroga: police constable

  Dawat: feast

  Desi: local

  Dhaan: crop

  Dhaba: a roadside eatery

  Dharna: sit-in protest

  Do bigha zameen: two-thirds of an acre of land

  Do din ka kaam: to get minimum employment

  Do gaz: two yards of land

  Do nivala roti: just enough roti to sustain oneself

  Dost: friend

  Fauj: armed forces

  Gajar: carrot

  Gali: lane

  Garam: hot, as in temperature

  Ghar: home/hall

  Goonda: lumpen element

  Goonda-gardi: to create trouble

  Goras: the Whites

  Haddi: bone

  Halwa: a sweet dish made with semolina and ghee

  Halwai: owner of a sweetmeat shop

  Hari/a: green

  Hawa: air

  Hawalat: prison

  Hungama: ruckus

  Ishara: to give a sign

  Izzat: respect

  Janam patri: a date-chart prepared at one’s birth

  Janta: a common thing or person

  Jungli: wild

  Kaand: an unfortunate incident; mostly illegal

  Kachoris: a deep fried savoury stuffed with spices and sometimes with lentils.

  Kadak: crisp

  Katta: homemade pistol

  Khajur: dates

  Khandaan: family

  Khasta: crisp

  Khatarnak: dangerous

  Khushboo: aroma

  Kismet: fate

  Koyla: coal

  Kutta: dog

  Laal: red

  Laal dora: a marked out area of land/a red-coloured thread that Hindus tie around their wrists or on trees to make a wish

  Ladki wallah: relatives from the bride’s side

  Ladla: dear

  Lathi: a wooden stick

  Lekhak: writer

  Log: people

  Maalik: owner

  Maha: huge

  Mahila: woman

  Mamooli: ordinary

  Mandi: wholesale market

  Mard: man

  Masiha: saviour

  Matlabi: selfish

  Mela: a fair

  Methi: fenugreek

  Mithai: sweetmeats

  Mohalla: locality

  Mujra: a form of dance originated by the courtesans during the Mughal era

  Mullah: Muslim priest

  Munda: boy

  Murti: idol

  Padyatra: a pilgrimage by foot

  Pahadi: belonging to the mountains

  Pani: water

  Papita: papaya

  Pareyshan: to trouble someone or be troubled

  Patli: thin; narrow

  Pathshala: school

  Patrakar: journalist

  Phool gobi: c
auliflower

  Pradhan: head of a village

  Pradhani: to administrate a village

  Pucca: firm

  Puja: to offer prayers to the gods

  Pujari: priest

  Purnima: full-moon night

  Pyar: love

  Rasoi: kitchen

  Rishta: relationship

  Saaley: brother-in-law; also an abuse

  Saas: mother-in-law

  Sabzi: vegetable

  Safa: turban

  Samaj: community

  Sant: mendicant

  Sanyas: to renounce the world

  Sapna: dream

  Sarkari: to do with the government

  Sarkari babu: government official

  Savari: passenger

  Seedha: naïve; straight

  Seva: voluntary work

  Shaadi ka pandal: makeshift arrangements for a wedding; usually in a tent

  Sharaab: alcohol

  Sifarish: recommendations

  Sindoor: vermilion mark worn by Hindu married women in the parting of their hair

  Swatantra senani: freedom fighter

  Taat: coir

  Talaab: lake

  Tamasha: a grand show or performance, especially one involving dance

  Tambacu: the colloquial term for tobacco

  Tera: your/s

  Tezab: acid

  Thaila: shoulder bag

  Tharra: local brew

  Tilak: vermilion mark on the forehead

  Tiranga jhanda: the tricolour

  Topi: cap

  Vilayat: abroad/overseas

  Zid: to insist