20

JESSICATHE STORY WE DID. THE MOVIE THEY MADE P56

LAND SCAM 5.0

Society&
Lifestyle KIRAN RAO: I’ve Had A Non-Relationship With Bollywood P50
FREE.FAIR.FEARLESS VOLUME 8
ISSUE

03
NEW DELHI SATURDAY
22 JANUARY 2011

BENGAL CRISIS

10
FACES
OF A CIVIL
WAR P34
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SCOOP: HINDUTVA TERROR

DID THEPRESIDENT OF INDIAGET SWAMI ASIMANANDA’S LETTER?

ASHISH KHETAN PRODUCES A COPY
THE TRAIL THAT LED THE AGENCIES TO THE
ALSOE MORE NAILING EVIDENCE RSS PRACHARAKS P20

NC MLA and Farooq Abdullah’s brother Mustafa Kamal tells
BABA UMAR the Pandits are unwilling to return to Kashmir
‘New Delhi and
Mufti created
35 militant
outfits in J&K’
On what grounds do you say that the Pandits were forced to
flee Kashmir by none other than New Delhi, the army and the
then home minister Mui Muhammad Sayeed?
It was a conspiracy hatched in New Delhi involving
Sayeed and governor Jagmohan. The popular NC gov-
ernment was illegally brought down in 1984 by Jagmo-
han at the behest of New Delhi. In 1990, going against
the state Cabinet’s recommendation, Jagmohan was
reappointed governor. We couldn’t do anything but
resign in protest. The mass exodus of Kashmiri Pandits
began that day. They were ferried in government buses
PHOTO: ABID BHAT
to Jammu so that Jagmohan could have a free hand in
dealing with Muslims. Within days of his reappoint-
ment, hundreds were killed in Kashmir. New Delhi has
never trusted us. It didn’t trust even Sheikh Abdullah.
Why didn’t the NC try to stop the Pandits’ migration?
We were helpless. The intelligence agencies and Say-
eed created 35 militant outfits, which pointed guns at
us. Many NC workers were killed while the migration
continued. Militancy was just an excuse to frighten the
Pandits, malign Muslims and create tension between
the two communities. A top police officer recently con-
firmed that militant outfits were created by New Delhi.
He told me how the border was deliberately made
porous to allow the passage of militants. Pakistan only
took advantage of the insurgency. That’s why we want a
truth and reconciliation committee to be formed.
If Sayeed, the army and New Delhi were responsible for the
Pandits’ migration, then why did Farooq Abdullah call it an
‘ethnic cleansing’ and apologise to them a few days ago?
He couldn’t take their suffering any more. Even I apol-
ogise to the Pandits for what they have suffered. But it
should be New Delhi, the PDP, Sayeed and Jagmohan
who should be apologising. Even in 1947, the Pandits
were in a minority and Muslims could have killed them.
But Kashmiris are secular and never thought along
those lines. It’s only a small percentage of Pandits who
sold off their properties. Most of them still own proper-
ties here. So they can always come back. On this count,
there is no disagreement among the separatists and NC.
What has the government done to reverse the migration?
The state has done everything to facilitate their return.
We have a scheme offering 7 lakh for every family that
wants to come back. They can rebuild or renovate their
houses or start a business. But only a few have availed
it. There is a ban on buying or selling Pandits’ proper-
ties in Kashmir. Right now, they are holding 22,000
Central government posts in Jammu. They are being
offered free ration and monthly allowance till they re-
establish themselves. Even after this if the Pandits don’t
want to return, how is the government responsible?
Some Pandit groups are demanding a separate homeland.
Along with 200-250 Pandits, 1 lakh Muslims, including
35 NC legislators and three NC ministers, were also
gunned down. The groups demanding a separate
homeland are fooling their poor community members.
You are being seen as someone who has toed the separatist
line by rejecting the delegation of interlocutors.
New Delhi is trying to buy time and wants to see the
Kashmir issue die a quiet death. The interlocutors are
part of the plan. We have seen Indian leaders meet with
their Pakistani counterparts several times in the past —
in Tashkent, Shimla and Agra — to discuss the Kashmir
issue. Were they playing gulli-danda at these meetings?
2 2 J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1 | C U R R E N T A F FA I R S | T E H E L K A 3
 EDITOR Tarun J Tejpal
MANAGING EDITOR Shoma Chaudhury
DEPUTY EDITOR Vijay Simha

thisweek 22.1.2011
EDITOR, SPECIAL REPORTS Raman Kirpal
EDITOR, NEWS VK Shashikumar
EDITOR, INVESTIGATIONS Ashish Khetan
SENIOR EDITOR Ramesh Sharma
ASSOCIATE EDITOR Manjula Lal
WRITER-AT-LARGE Sopan Joshi
ASSISTANT EDITORS Nisha Susan,
Rana Ayyub (MUMBAI)
Kaushik Kashyap
LITERARY EDITOR Gaurav Jain
SPECIAL CORRESPONDENTS
Brijesh Pandey, Pushp Sharma
(INVESTIGATIONS), Rohini Mohan
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Tusha Mittal, Rishi Majumder
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CORRESPONDENTS
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Nishita Jha, Vaibhav Vats, Anil
Mishra (RAIPUR) , Poorva Rajaram
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PHOTOGRAPHERS Vijay Pandey,
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16 WEB EDITORS Sanjana Chappalli,

Aniruddha Shankar, Pragya Tiwari,
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SYSTEMS HEAD Prawal Srivastava
Garos along the Assam-Meghalaya border TEAM SYSTEMS Pankaj Kumar
reek of a deeper political motive Arun Sehrawat, Nihar Ranjan
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E PLEA SE SE N D IN YO U R F E E D BAC K TO LE TTE RS @ TEH ELK A .CO M
A LITTLE
SOUTH OF
SANITY
The culprits behind the blasts stand exposed. But
what about the hatred towards Muslims that has
taken a deep root in the hearts of the Hindus?
Let’s pray for sanity to prevail rather than mas-
sacre of the innocents for the simple reason that
an eye for an eye will make the whole world blind.
IRFAN IQBAL GHETA, ON EMAIL
BRAVE EXPOSÉ
Refer to Ashish Khetan’s ‘In the Words of a
Zealot’, 15 January.
It was excellent journalistic work in excep-
tionally difficult times.
ANAND BALA, ON EMAIL
Great job on the exposé. However, don’t let
your guard down. Watch out for RSS stooges
who may try to infiltrate TEHELKA in an attempt
to destroy it from within.
PRASHANT KADAM, ON EMAIL
The report about Aseemanand’s confession
has come as a big relief to many parents in
Hyderabad whose innocent children were
taken away by the police. I appreciate your
efforts in striving hard to dig up the truth.
SYED IRFAN AHMED, ON SMS
How do you guys do it every time? Way to go.
RENUKA CHOWDHURY, ON SMS
REVIVING FAITH
Refer to Ashish Khetan’s ‘An angry hall of
fall guys. And unfair arrests’, 15 January.
I’m not into SIMI or al Qaeda, but I’m compared
to them and treated badly. Wherever I go I
6 T E H E L K A | C U R R E N T A F FA I R S | 2 2 J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1
find that we are blamed for everything that
we didn’t do. If a blast happens, Muslims are
the first to be blamed. I had lost hope with
the system, police, law and the people. But
whenever I log on to your website, I feel that
some people are still fair and on the side of
justice. Pakistan wants to disturb peace in
India. They sent terrorists to create problems.
But instead of fighting them, Indian Muslims
are blamed. Hats off to your brand of jour-
nalism. Until all Indian media organisations
work like TEHELKA, nothing will change.
SYED K SAMEER, ON EMAIL
YOUR DISHONOUR
Refer to ‘The father, the sons-in-law and
the unholy properties’, by Jeemon Jacob
and VK Shashikumar, 15 January.
Aer having dug out all that you have done,
what makes you hesitate from saying that all
this implies that virtually every ruling given
by KG Balakrishnan must have been not legal-
ly true and surely biased? Why leave it for
people to ‘understand’ this?
CK SHARMA, ON EMAIL
Congratulations for a well-written article.
S SITARAMAN, ON EMAIL
CHANGE AGENT
Refer to Vijay Simha’s ‘The Rediscovery of
Punjab’, 15 January.
Once known as the granary of India, Punjab
is a shattered place nowadays. Drug addic-
tion, alcoholism, poverty and unemployment
are rampant. Youth Congress leader and MP
Ravneet Singh has done a yeoman service by
visiting the remote areas where the root prob-
lems still exist. Hope he collects all the data
and submits the findings in Parliament.
ANIL DUTTA, ON EMAIL
 BOUQUETS &BRICKBATS

FACT & FICTION
Refer to Jeemon Jacob’s ‘The
House that Raja Built’, 1 January.
Vaishnavi Corporate Com-
munications strongly re-
futes the unsubstantiated
claim made in the article.
We categorically deny that
the wife of A Kamaraj was
running the Chennai opera-
tions of Vaishnavi. The lady
concerned has not been as-
sociated with any of the
companies within the
Vaishnavi Group and there-
fore any attempt to relate
her with our firm is un-
founded and baseless. At no
stage did the journalist at-
tempt to contact us or our
employees to verify or take
our point of view. Our refer-
ence in the article is a series
of conjectures and specula-
tion aimed at maligning our
reputation.
SPOKESPERSON, VAISHNAVI
CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS
With reference to a Chen-
nai property that Voltas has
on lease, you write that
Voltas “never pursued the
case” and that “high-level
mediation silenced the
company and prevented it
from actively pursuing legal
proceedings”. The facts of
the case are as follows:
The property referred to
is one for which Voltas had
obtained a ‘lease in perpe-
tuity’ in 1975, with a renew-
al every 30 years. In 2005,
before the lease expiry,
Voltas sought to extend the
lease, which the owners
contested. Voltas then filed
a case for specific perform-
ance for the renewal in the
Madras High Court, and the
suit is still pending. We
don’t know, therefore, what
you are seeking to insinuate
by saying that Voltas never
pursued the case or that
high-level mediation has
prevented it from actively
pursuing legal proceedings.
Voltas’ civil suit is not the
first civil case that has lan-
guished in this land of de-
layed justice.
BN GARUDACHAR, GM CORPORATE
COMMUNICATIONS, VOLTAS
JEEMON JACOB CLARIFIES
1. As stated last week, my
source had informed me
that Kamraj’s wife Jayasud-
ha was working with Vaish-
navi Communications in
Chennai. I cross-checked
the information with two
others who confirmed she
was indeed working for
Niira Radia’s firm. But I
don’t have the documents
to prove it. I admit I should
have sought a response.
2. Regarding the Voltas
property issue, I had stated
the facts. A Malaysian
businessman subsequently
purchased the land. The
case was never heard and
notices were issued to the
respondents.

AN ITALIAN JOB to why the CBI failed in an open-and-shut WRONG YEAR

Refer to Raman Kirpal’s ‘Back in the Line of
Fire’, 15 January.
It is heartening that the Bofors ghost keeps
haunting the culprits whose identity is not
in doubt anymore. The vested interests in the
government, who have buried the case, will
try hard to keep it that way. ‘Q’ is a close
friend of the ‘first family’ and if they have the
will, just a phone call will bring the Italian to
India to pay at least the income tax.
S RAJAGOPALAN, ON EMAIL
MOCKERY OF JUSTICE
Refer to ‘Still No Country for Good Men’,
by Kunal Majumder and Anil Mishra,
15 January.
Dr Binayak Sen’s conviction is unjust and the
life sentence awarded by the trial court is not
only incorrect but has come as a shock to civ-
il rights groups and all right-thinking indi-
viduals. The conviction raises serious ques-
tions about the functioning of democracy.
KR SRINIVASAN, ON EMAIL
HIDDEN HAND
Refer to Brijesh Pandey’s ‘Perfect murder?
Or a perfectly botched probe?’ 15 January.
It is unfortunate to see the CBI seek closure
of the Aarushi Talwar murder case as it has
failed to nail the culprit or culprits due to lack
of evidence. It is beyond comprehension as
case. According to the lawyers of Aarushi’s
parents, there was enough circumstantial ev-
idence to throw light on the case. There is no
dispute that Aarushi and her domestic help
Hemraj were victims of pre-planned murders.
So, how can the CBI seek closure while the
murderer is still at large?
MAHESH KUMAR, ON EMAIL
IMPLODING NEIGHBOUR
Refer to ‘Salmaan Taseer’s death is liberal
Pakistan’s loss’, 15 January.
Salmaan Taseer’s assassination speaks vol-
umes about the level which religious intol-
erance has reached in Pakistan. Recently, re-
ligiously persecuted Hindus in Balochistan
expressed a desire to seek political asylum in
India. Mahatma Gandhi had the vision to in-
sist on India being a secular country even
though 85 percent of the population con-
sisted of Hindus. Mohammad Ali Jinnah was
credited with similar thinking but he didn’t
live long to achieve this and those who fol-
lowed him converted Pakistan into a full-
fledged Islamic state. Today, it is an epitome
of religious intolerance and is riddled with
numerous intra-Islam sectarian conflicts that
not only threaten to disturb internal peace
and security but also pose a threat to peace
in the world at large.
RJ KHURANA, ON EMAIL
In my article (I Remember an Idyll, 15 January),
the Toronto Harborfront Literary Festival,
which was the venue of P Lal’s near-death
experience, was in February 1989, not 1980.
SRIMATI LAL, ON EMAIL
NEW YEAR CHEER
Refer to Pulp & Noir, 8 January.
Your special issue was wonderful. It is rare to
see an entire magazine devoted to quality fic-
tion. One can always trust TEHELKA to come
up with something delightfully unusual.
AMIT MANUVIRAJ, ON EMAIL
Your special issue is worth preserving.
JACOB SAHAYAM, ON EMAIL
GROUND REALITY
Refer to Vijay Simha’s ‘The Poverty of
Plenty’, 2 October 2010.
It was an excellent article on the state of Pun-
jab regarding drugs and alcohol. I had no idea
about the extent of the damage.
MANDIP KAUR SANDHER, ON EMAIL
Thanks for playing a dynamic role in high-
lighting the problems faced by Punjab.
KARAN ARORA, ON EMAIL
It was indeed disturbing and an eye-opener.
IPSHITA PALL, ON EMAIL

2 2 J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1 | C U R R E N T A F FA I R S | T E H E L K A 7
 CURRENTAFFAIRS

Baghuwar, Madhya Pradesh

SURENDRA SINGH, 57
Community Builder

Baghuwar is not a story of individual

triumph; it is the story of what a commu-
nity can achieve. Having won several
awards as a model village, the wide, tree-
lined roads to the schools and toilets in
the village are testament to the success
story of Panchayati Raj. There are no
open drains, all families have indoor toi-
lets, the Dalit basti cannot be told apart
from another locality. Thanks to the three
tanks, the water table in Baghuwar has
risen from 100 to 70 feet. The villagers
credit the community and the village
panchayat for the development, but
those who know the village well, have a
name to offer — Surendra Singh. For 35
years, Singh has worked for Baghuwar as
either its sarpanch or deputy sarpanch.
“We keep track of development funds
under government schemes, and we
claim every paisa we can for the village,”
he says. “The quality of life is better
here,” says RS Narolia, who returned to
Baghuwar aer retiring as deputy direc-
tor of agriculture in 2003. How does the
village panchayat work so well? “We have
a tradition of collectivism here. We have
not had an election. Our panchayat heads
are always nominated,” Narolia explains.
BY SOPAN JOSHI

We claim every paisa

under government
schemes for village
development’

SINGH MAY BE REACHED AT +91 99269 83000

INSPIRATIONS
8 T E H E L K A | C U R R E N T A F FA I R S | 2 2 J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1 PHO TO : MUKUL YADAV
 pros&cons

Are we getting the

math wrong on 2G?

T THE heart of the ANURAG SRIVASTAVA The proposed licensing pol-

A spectrum controver-
sy is a simple ques-
Assistant Editor, FW Tehelka

tion: why was 2G not auctioned? An auc-

tion would have taken care of two interlinked ob-
jectives of the telecom policy: to let as many play-
icy remained operative at
an ‘interim stage’ and grant
of licences was based on that. Yes, revenues were
forgone because there was no auction and the
argument for public interest does not hold be-
ers participate in the telecom market as possible cause price discovery could have happened by
for price discovery, and to let spectrum — a finite competition based on the firms’ assessments even
number of bandwidths — be judiciously allocat- as they paid a higher fee through the auctions.
ed to earn revenue. Sibal’s justification of the DoT’S actions is
Since 2003, there was agreement on a unified flawed because he overlooks 2001 prices charged
access regime that would allow participation in for 2G licence grants in 2008 even as he protests
two phases across two prices for firms to meet using 2010 figures for the same year. An auction
both the objectives. A licence fee would be levied would have led to highest prices while permit-
in the first phase that will allow operations, to be ting best prices to consumers.
followed by an additional fee Let’s do some simple math.
for spectrum use. This was By official records, India
recommended by TRAI and en- has 56.22 crore telephone con-
dorsed by the Cabinet in 2003. nections. Let’s assume that
The Department of each consumer uses the basic
Telecommunications (DoT) services for 10 minutes a day
never implemented this poli- at a cost of 6 (at the least cost
cy and has been granting of 1 paise per second). The to-
licences on a first-come first- tal revenue from this comes to
served basis. TRAI has, in this 337.2 crore a day or approxi-
regard, given contradictory mately 1.25 lakh crore a year.
statements and never played For the operators it means
the role of a regulator. The DoT a windfall over a 10-year peri-
used TRAI recommendation as od. Keep in mind that tele-
a pretext for its actions and density in India is expanding
that is also the key thrust of at an astounding rate, making
Kapil Sibal’s support. revenue shoot up more than
TRAI made a recommenda- the annual figure presented
tion for price revisions but above.
how serious it was remains to DoT overruled the finance Let’s be conservative and
be investigated. As an exam- ministry to arrive at a decision assume that only 16 lakh
ple, it recommended that en- in favour of unified pricing crore worth of business takes
try fee as it existed in 2001 was place over the decade. If half
not a realistic price, yet it did of this is cost, a net of 8 lakh
not favour a change in 2G spectrum pricing even crore still remains and even if we reduce 2 lakh
for new entrants. The DoT did not use its judg- crore of revenue — assuming it was paid in the
ment and TRAI too did not recommend until 2007 auction to the government — the corporate profit
the modalities of unified access. stands at 6 lakh crore or a neat profit of 5,000
However, the DoT did use its judgment to over- crore a month across 10 years. Even the figure
rule the finance ministry in arriving at a decision arrived at here is significantly deflated since
on unified pricing. Since 2003, the ministry had prices should be regressed over population,
been advocating a rational allocation and pric- average usage time and services types.
ing mechanism for 2G and auction to users will- Thus the loss figures of the CAG could actual-
ing to pay the maximum fee. This was overturned ly be less than what was possibly realisable if an
by the DoT, which termed it an internal matter. auction had taken place.

a1nurag@gmail.com

IL LUST R AT IO N: ANAND NAO R E M 2 2 J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1 | C U R R E N T A F FA I R S | T E H E L K A 9

 LAND SCAM 5.0

Gram panchayat
land worth crores.
Rent 1. No records
available. The story
of Uttar Pradesh
Sold for a song The land on Lucknow’s
BY RISHI MAJUMDER outskirts that was alloted to a trust run
by SP leader Ambika Chaudhary’s sister

N
INE BIGHAS of prime land
lies vacant at Deva Road
on the outskirts of Luc-
know. The price of this
land (a bigha is 0.625
acre), now overrun by
wild grass, weed and bushes, is more than
9 crore. Until 2005, this land belonged to
the Nawbastakala gram panchayat. “The
villagers were planning to build a school
there,” says Bansi Dhar Singh, who was
gram pradhan then. Five homeless families
stayed on this land with the gram panchay-
at’s permission. Then the families were
evicted and the land snatched from the
gram panchayat, to be given free to a pri-
vate trust called the Phooleshwari Devi
Shikshan Sansthan.
Gram panchayats in Uttar Pradesh were
appointed custodians of land taken from
zamindars and royalty by the UP Zamin-
dari Abolition and Land Reforms Act, 1950.
They are to maintain the land through land
management committees, and use it for
haats or schools. If a committee so desires,
it can assign a portion of this land to home-
less or landless members of the village.
The allotment of gram panchayat land
in UP is governed by two state government
orders issued on 6 June 1981 and 9 May
1984. According to the 1984 order, “private
persons, enterprises and companies” can
be allotted gram panchayat land only after
they pay “twice its current market value”.
So, why was the Phooleshwari Devi Shik-
shan Sansthan given land for free?
Phooleshwari Devi is the mother of Am-
bika Chaudhary, who was the revenue min-
ister under Mulayam Singh Yadav when
the land was allotted. His sister Saroj man-
ages the trust. The Revenue Department
is the apex body on land allotment. So,
when people found out that the minister
had allotted prime land to a trust managed
by his sister, there was considerable out-
rage. But Chaudhary believes otherwise.
“Is there anything wrong if vacant gram
sabha land is allotted to a private institute
run by my relatives? This is not an isolated
example as thousands of such allotments
have been made in the past,” he says.
Documents with TEHELKA back his
claim. There is proof of 18 private trusts in
Uttar Pradesh that have been allotted gram

10 T E H E L K A | C U R R E N T A F FA I R S | 2 2 J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1
 UTTAR PRADESH

panchayat land for free, or on rent as low

as 1 per annum.
The 1984 order says gram panchayat
IN THE NAME OF TRUST
land can be allotted for free only to the The religious trusts, private educational institutions and sugar mills
state government’s ‘service departments’
that deal with welfare concerns like edu-
who benefited
cation or health. All Central government
departments, and even commercial depart-
ments of the state, such as the UP Power
Corporation Ltd or the Agricultural Pro-
duce Marketing Board (Mandi Parishad), ORGANISATION PURPOSE Establishing a leprosy home
will have to pay the ‘current market value’ E SHRIMATI DRAUPADI DEVI DATE OF ALLOTMENT14 January 1999
to acquire gram panchayat land. DHARMADA TRUST MARKET VALUE THEN 5 LAKH
Politicians head four of the private Rudrapur Khajni, Gorakhpur RENT Not available
trusts that got gram panchayat land. The AUTHORITY ORDERING ALLOTMENT State
Cabinet
parties they belong to were part of the UP FOUNDER CHAIRMAN PC Sharma,
SIGNATORY ON ORDER
government at the time of allotment. So, Sudhakar Prasad Ram Tiwari principal secretary, Revenue Department
besides Chaudhary, there is former BJP MP REGISTRATION NUMBER Not available AREA Not provided
Rajnath Singh Surya, who is the Seva Sam- PURPOSE Establishing Shrimati Draupadi LOCATION Not mentioned
parn Sansthan chairman. This trust was al- Devi Girls Interim College
lotted land for free when the BJP was in DATE OF ALLOTMENT 12 September 1994
MARKET VALUE THEN 1.02 LAKH ORGANISATION
RENT 100 PER ANNUM E SHRIMATI PRAANPATI DEVI
AUTHORITY ORDERING ALLOTMENT State
Cabinet SMAARAK
SIGNATORY ON ORDER Khanjan Lal, secretary, Higher Secondary School,
A 1981 order says Revenue Department
AREA Not provided
Para Phoolwariya, Ahraula, Azamgarh

land will be LOCATION Same as registered address MANAGER Suresh Giri

allotted only after REGISTRATION NUMBER Not available
PURPOSE Establishing a higher
recording every ORGANISATION secondary school
fact. But there E BODHISATTVA DR BR DATE OF ALLOTMENT 27 January 1999
AMBEDKAR SANSKRITIK MARKET VALUE THEN 1.76 LAKH
are no records EVAM SHAIKSHIK SANSTHAN RENT 100 PER ACRE PER ANNUM
Ibrahimpur village, Khurja tehsil, AUTHORITY ORDERING ALLOTMENT State
Cabinet
for many places Bulandshahar district P C Sharma,
SIGNATORY ON ORDER
principal secretary, Revenue Department
CHAIRMAN JS Aditya AREA Not provided
REGISTRATION NUMBER Not available LOCATION Same as registered address
PURPOSE For establishing a trust
power in 1999. Then there is Vishram Singh DATE OF ALLOTMENT 22 May 1995
Yadav, who is the SP MP from Bilgram in MARKET VALUE THEN 18.58 LAKH ORGANISATION
Hardoi district. Katiyari Degree College in RENT 100 PER ANNUM E PARAMSHAKTI PEETH
Hardoi, established by a trust headed by AUTHORITY ORDERING ALLOTMENT State
Cabinet Vatsalya village, Mathura-Vrindavan
Yadav, was allotted land during Mulayam’s SIGNATORY ON ORDER Anees Ansari, secretary, Marg, Vrindavan
reign at a meagre rent of 150 per annum. Revenue Department
AREA Not provided SECRETARY Sanjay Gupta
as shocking as Chaud-
B UT ALMOST
hary’s case is that of Ram Aasre Vish-
wakarma, higher education minister in the
LOCATION Same as registered address REGISTRATION NUMBER Not available
PURPOSE For a religious trust
DATE OF ALLOTMENT 18 May 2001
SP government. As minister, he could have ORGANISATION MARKET VALUE THEN 12.75 LAKH
allotted land for a government university. E SEVA SAMPARN CURRENT MARKET VALUE 20 CRORE
It wouldn’t have been illegal if gram SANSTHAN RENT 1 PER ANNUM
panchayat land had been allotted free for G6, Murli Bhavan, 10A, Ashok Marg, AUTHORITY ORDERING ALLOTMENT State
Cabinet
this purpose. However, he recommended Lucknow Chandrapal,
SIGNATORY ON ORDER
allotment of land to the Rambachan Yadav principal secretary, Revenue Department
Mahavidyalaya, a private institution which CHAIRMAN Rajnath Singh Surya AREA 43 acres
he manages in Azamgarh district. It 2410
REGISTRATION NUMBER LOCATION Same as registered address

PH O T O S: GP AWASTHI 2 2 J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1 | C U R R E N T A F FA I R S | T E H E L K A 11
 LAND SCAM 5.0
charges annual fee of 30,359 for B.Ed
courses. Yet it has been allotted an astound-
ing two hectare for only 750 per annum.
So, while Chaudhary has allotted land
to a trust headed by his sister, Vishwakar-
ma unabashedly allotted the same to a trust
he was at the helm of.
This ‘rent per annum’ is for a 99-year
lease. Thus, even if trusts have been
charged token rents, they are as good as
owners of erstwhile gram panchayat land.
This is the case with the Paramshakti
Peeth, which has been allocated 43 acres
worth more than 20 crore for a rent of 1
per annum. The peeth, founded by Sadhvi
Ritambhara (also known as ‘Didi Maa’) is
a well-known religious organisation with
offices in California and London. The land
was allotted when the BJP was in power in
2001. Another religious trust allotted land
during BJP rule was the Jai Gurudeo
Dharam Pracharak Sansthan founded by
Baba Jai Gurudeo. It was allotted land in
2007 at a rent of 150 per annum.
In some cases, the government has
passed special orders exempting private
enterprises from the 1984 order that asks
them to pay twice the market value. In
2003, the SP government moved an energy
policy that specified no premium would be
charged for land used to “promote the gen-
eration and distribution of electricity”. As
a result, Reliance Energy was allocated 300
bighas of gram panchayat land for an
annual rent of only 100 per acre. But the
private bodies listed with TEHELKA (see list)
cannot hide behind such exemptions.
Their being allotted gram panchayat land
is an outright violation of the law.
“It might well be that some of the pri-
vate trusts allotted gram panchayat land
are doing excellent social work,” says RTI
activist Izhar Ahmad Ansari who dug up
the list of violators. “But the law that says
they must be charged twice the market val-
ue of the land.” According to Ansari, side-
stepping this law means giving a free hand
to those who want to use such trusts to
grab land for themselves.
Besides private trusts, the list points to
land allotted for free to private enterprises
like power plants, refineries and sugar
mills. One such firm is the Badhauli Sugar
Distillery Ltd that has been allotted more
than 31 hectare for free. The list has four
such commercial enterprises in it. There
is also a private individual, Tej Pratap
Singh, who was given more than half a
12 T E H E L K A | C U R R E N T A F FA I R S | 2 2 J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1
hectare in Hardoi for the ridiculous sum
of 8,695 in 2004 — to set up a flour mill.
worst is yet to come. These 18
B UT THE
names, exposed by Ansari after four
years of repeatedly filing complaints
RTI
and PILs, are only the tip of the iceberg. To
understand how, follow this sequence of
events:
10 November 2006: The PIO at the UP
Revenue Department receives an RTI ap-
plication from Ansari asking for details of
any gram panchayat land allotment to pri-
vate bodies exceeding 5 bighas, from 1991
onwards.
1 February 2007: After not receiving a
reply, Ansari files a complaint with the
State Information Commission (SIC).
28 March 2007: PIO Ramakant Pandey
responds saying the department “has not
kept the information that has been sought
even though it should have. That is why
‘Is there anything
wrong if vacant
gram sabha land
is allotted to a
private institute
run by my kin?’
asks Chaudhary
N Tough lesson Ambika Chaudhary was the
education minister during Mulayam’s reign
there has been a discussion on this matter
within the department and a decision has
been taken — to prepare a format and pro-
cure this information from the outset (that
would be from 1981) — not just from 1991”.
22 August 2007: The SIC is provided
with only 20 names of private bodies that
have been allotted gram panchayat land,
along with a letter, which says that this in-
formation only consists of allotments made
from 2004 to 2006, and that more “infor-
mation is being procured”.
24 December 2007: The SIC imposes a
fine of 25,000 on PIO Pandey for not pro-
viding the information.
7 January 2008: Ansari files another RTI
application, asking specifically for the de-
tails of gram panchayat land that has been
allocated ‘for free’ to private bodies.
15 August 2008: The SIC receives a letter
from the PIO at the Revenue Department
saying “such records have not been main-
tained in any district in the whole of UP”.
14 November 2008: The Revenue De-
partment writes to district magistrates and
divisional commissioners who are in cha-
rge of land allotments asking them to pro-
vide the information Ansari has asked for.
27 November 2008: The Revenue De-
partment writes to the SIC saying despite
the above-mentioned notice, “no informa-
tion has been received from the districts”.
4 December 2008: The Revenue Depa-
rtment issues another notice to district
magistrates and divisional commissioners
to present themselves in person and give
a reply to Ansari’s query by 30 December.
30 December 2008: The SIC informs
Ansari of the Revenue Department’s efforts
and says the information will take time.
15 January 2009: This time, the Rev-
enue Department presents the SIC with just
10 names of private bodies that have been
allotted gram panchayat land for free. Some
of these names were already there in the
20 names submitted earlier. The depart-
ment says that this is all they can find.
29 January 2009: PIO Pandey now re-
quests the SIC to cancel the fine of 25,000
imposed on him as “the information has
still not been provided to Ansari”, even by
the PIOs who came after him. So why
should he be penalised alone?
3 February 2009: The Revenue Depart-
ment writes Ansari another letter saying
that procuring the information will take
more time. They attach with this letter the
same 10 names they have given before.
 UTTAR PRADESH

22 September 2009: The Revenue De- ORGANISATION LOCATION Same as registered address
partment writes to the SIC saying they can’t E RAMBACHAN YADAV
find any allotment details other than what MAHAVIDYALAYA
they have already provided. “We have pro- Bahauddin Phoolpur, Azamgarh ORGANISATION
vided whatever information we could find. E KATIARI DEGREE COLLEGE
The applicant is continuing to file these MANAGER Ram Aasre Vishwakarma Harpalpur, Hardoi
complaints in order to trouble us,” it says. REGISTRATION NUMBER Not available
Now, let us come to the other order gov- PURPOSE For establishing a varsity MANAGER Vishram Singh Yadav
erning the allotment of gram panchayat DATE OF ALLOTMENT 11 April 2005 REGISTRATION NUMBER Not available
land, passed on 16 June 1981. This stipu- MARKET VALUE THEN 17 LAKH PURPOSE Establishing a degree
lates that such land will be allotted only RENT 750 PER ANNUM college
after the details have been “recorded in a AUTHORITY ORDERING ALLOTMENT State
Cabinet DATE OF ALLOTMENT 2 February 2007
register in a format that incorporates every Anant Kumar Singh,
SIGNATORY ON ORDER MARKET VALUE THEN 4.83 LAKH
detail and signed by the officials involved”. secretary, Revenue Department RENT 150 PER ANNUM
Also, that on 15 January and 15 July of RECOMMENDING AUTHORITY Higher Education AUTHORITY WHO ORDERED ALLOTMENT
every year these records will be forwarded Department State Cabinet
to the Revenue Department. AREA 2 hectares TP Pathak,
SIGNATORY ON ORDER
Yet, as has been stated above by the de- LOCATION Same as registered address secretary, Revenue Department
partment itself, these records have appar- AREA OF LAND Not provided
ently not been kept and the registers are LOCATION Same as registered address
not to be found. Or aren’t they? ORGANISATION
The first list of names was given to E LODI KISAN
Ansari on 22 August 2007. This was more MAHAVIDYALAYA ORGANISATION
than two months after Mayawati was Chitauni Atrauliya, Azamgarh district E JAI GURUDEO DHARAM
sworn in as chief minister on 13 May 2007. PRACHARAK TRUST
A look at the list shows that the allotment MANAGER Ram Sagar Yadav Mathura
details given out by the BSP government in- REGISTRATION NUMBER Not available
dict only SP and BJP politicians. But, like the PURPOSE Establishing a varsity TRUSTEE Dr VH Lulla
SP and the BJP, the BSP has been part of UP DATE OF ALLOTMENT 9 October 2006 REGISTRATION NUMBERNot available
governments too. Can it be that not a single MARKET VALUE THEN 22.05 LAKH PURPOSE Establishing a religious trust
BSP politician is involved in such fraudulent RENT 150 PER ANNUM DATE OF ALLOTMENT 20 February 2007
gram panchayat land allocations? AUTHORITY ORDERING ALLOTMENT State
Cabinet MARKET VALUE THEN Not available
TP Pathak, secretary,
SIGNATORY ON ORDER RENT 150 PER ANNUM
HIS LIST lies in many ways. For one, it
Tmisses some obvious names. Like gram
panchayat land given to a trust named after
Revenue Department
RECOMMENDING AUTHORITY Higher Education
Department
State Cabinet
AUTHORITY ORDERING ALLOTMENT
TP Pathak, secretary,
SIGNATORY ON ORDER
Revenue Department
Sanjay Gandhi in Pilibhit, where Maneka AREA 2 hectares AREA Not provided
Gandhi is the BJP MP. It resulted in a furore, LOCATION Same as registered address LOCATION Same as registered address
which led to a CBI inquiry. Maneka denied
wrongdoing. The Revenue Department
does not seem to have a record. ORGANISATION ORGANISATION
Or like Jaya Jaitly, who was chairperson E PHOOLESHWARI DEVI E PNB KISAN KALYAN TRUST
of the Sahkari Haat Samiti, which was ap- SHIKSHAN SANSTHAN Sirkara village, Jaswantnagar tehsil,
parently allocated gram panchayat land at Fefna village, Ballia district Etawah district
Ganeshpur-Rehmanpur village in Luc-
know district. When Ansari approached DEPUTY MANAGER Saroj Chaudhary REGISTRATION NUMBER :Not available
the district authorities and the State Infor- REGISTRATION NUMBER 16930 PURPOSE For establishing a farmers’
mation Commission to obtain details, he PURPOSE Establishing a training centre
was told that the documents have gone university DATE OF ALLOTMENT 7 April 2004
missing. In a show of sincerity, the district DATE OF ALLOTMENT 14 September 2004 MARKET VALUE THEN Not available
magistrate’s office even lodged an FIR about MARKET VALUE THEN 31 LAKH RENT Not available
file number 121/D LRC going missing. CURRENT MARKET VALUE 17 CRORE AUTHORITY WHO ORDERED ALLOTMENT State Cabinet
The districts are a different story alto- RENT Not available RECOMMENDING AUTHORITY Banking Department
gether. Ansari filed RTIs and asked officials AUTHORITY ORDERING ALLOTMENT AREA 8 acres
in each district whether such allotments State Cabinet LOCATION Same as registered address
had been made. They either didn’t answer TP Pathak, secretary,
SIGNATORY ON ORDER
or replied in the negative. Yet the list with Revenue Department
TEHELKA shows three such allotments in AREA 8 bighas

2 2 J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1 | C U R R E N T A F FA I R S | T E H E L K A 13
 LAND SCAM 5.0

ORGANISATION REGISTRATION NUMBER Not available

E SHRI KASHI YADAV PURPOSE For establishing a sugar mill
ENGINEERING COLLEGE DATE OF ALLOTMENT 28 July 2006
Banhaur, Azamgarh MARKET VALUE THEN Not available
RENT Not available
REGISTRATION NUMBER Not available AUTHORITY ORDERING ALLOTMENT
PURPOSE For establishing a private State Cabinet
engineering college AREA 31.7 hectares
DATE OF ALLOTMENT 17 March 2005 LOCATION Same as registered address
MARKET VALUE THEN Not available
RENT Not available
AUTHORITY ORDERING ALLOTMENT State Cabinet ORGANISATION
AREA 1.8 hectares E BALRAMPUR SUGAR
LOCATION Same as registered address MILL LTD
Gularia village, Gola tehsil,
Lakhimpur district
ORGANISATION
E UP REFINERIES AND REGISTRATION NUMBER Not available
POWER PLANT PURPOSE For establishing a sugar mill
Shivrajpur village, Bara pargana and DATE OF ALLOTMENT 19 September 2006
N Crusader Izhar Ahmad Ansari’s RTI
tehsil, Allahabad district MARKET VALUE THEN Not available
application exposed the UP land scam
RENT Not available
REGISTRATION NUMBER Not available AUTHORITY ORDERING ALLOTMENT State Cabinet
PURPOSE For establishing a township RECOMMENDING AUTHORITY Sugarcane Department
DATE OF ALLOTMENT 20 May 2005
MARKET VALUE THEN Not available
AREA 0.8 hectare
LOCATION Same as registered address
The Mayawati
RENT Not available government is
AUTHORITY ORDERING ALLOTMENT State Cabinet
RECOMMENDING AUTHORITY Serial Development ORGANISATION
offering land
Department E NEW INDIA SUGAR MILL allotment details
AREA 1.7 hectares
LOCATION Same as registered address
Daak Bujurg village, Hata tehsil,
Kushinagar district
only of the SP
and the BJP.
Not available
ORGANISATION
REGISTRATION NUMBER
PURPOSE Establishing a sugar mill What of the BSP?
E LAL BEHARI JAN KALYAN DATE OF ALLOTMENT 7 November 2006
SAMITI MARKET VALUE THEN Not available
Ahirohi village, Gopa Mau pargana, RENT Not available
Hardoi district AUTHORITY ORDERING ALLOTMENT State Cabinet
RECOMMENDING AUTHORITY Sugarcane Department Hardoi. The same is the case with Alla-
REGISTRATION NUMBER Not available AREA 4.6 acres habad. And many more.
PURPOSE For establishing a degree college LOCATION Same as registered address And finally, the money. Going by what
DATE OF ALLOTMENT 5 December 2005 the state Revenue Department says, this
MARKET VALUE THEN Not available isn’t such a big scam after all. The values
RENT Not available PERSON of gram panchayat land that Surya, Yadav
AUTHORITY ORDERING ALLOTMENT E SHRI TEJ PRATAP SINGH and Vishwakarma have been linked to are
State Cabinet Bahar village, Sadar tehsil, Hardoi district pegged at only 5 lakh, 4.83 lakh and 17
RECOMMENDING AUTHORITY Higher lakh respectively. Why should one be
Education Department REGISTRATION NUMBER Not available worried about such paltry sums?
AREA 1.2 hectares PURPOSE For establishing a flour mill If you go by the records, the land
LOCATION Same as registered address DATE OF ALLOTMENT 6 April 2004 Chaudhary has been accused of trying to
MARKET VALUE THEN Not available usurp is valued at just 31 lakh. “But the
AMOUNT PAID 8,695 price of land here today is 1 crore per
ORGANISATION AUTHORITY ORDERING ALLOTMENT StateCabinet bigha,” says former Nawbastakala gram
E BADHAULI SUGAR RECOMMENDING AUTHORITY Industries Department pradhan Bansi Dhar Singh. “So the value
DISTILLERY LTD AREA 0.5 hectare of nine bighas would be 9 crore.”
Gangapur and Bikapur villages, Sadar LOCATION Same as registered address
tehsil, Hardoi district rishi@tehelka.com

14 T E H E L K A | C U R R E N T A F FA I R S | 2 2 J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1
 ETHNIC CLAS HES
The Assam-Meghalaya
border clashes smack
of political motives
BY RATNADIP CHOUDHURY
F
OR TWO decades
Babul Rabha, 48, has
been teaching English
to children from Garo
and Rabha communities in
Darakona, a village on the
Assam-Meghalaya border. But,
things changed drastically
when violent clashes broke out
on 2 January between the two
communities. “We have been
living together for ages, noth-
ing of this sort has happened
before. There has to be an out-
side provocation,” says Rabha
as he helps out at a relief camp
in the remote Kukurkata village
in Assam’s Goalpara district.
The plains of lower Assam
and the Garo Hills of Megha-
16 T E H E L K A | C U R R E N T A F FA I R S | 2 2 J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1
laya have seen the Rabhas and
Garos live together for cen-
turies. But a fortnight of vio-
lence has left the fabric of com-
munal harmony tattered. With
at least 10 deaths, nearly 100
injured, 50,000 displaced and
more than 300 houses gutted,
fear is palpable in the area. The
deployment of army and para-
military forces and the imposi-
tion of curfew with shoot-at-
sight orders have done little to
quell this fear.
The continuing stalemate
points to a design with roots
deeper than a spur-of-the-
moment ethnic clash. “Things
could have been checked by the
Assam government had it been
sensitive because the violence
started in Assam. We asked for
help, but the administration not
only remained a silent specta-
tor but also misguided the
Meghalaya Police,” says Dipali
Rabha from Krishnai, one of
the worst-affected areas of
Goalpara. Her discontentment
is echoed by the Garos, who
have to travel through the
Rabha dominated areas of
lower Assam to go outside the
Northeast.
Therein lies the problem.
Over the years, the callous lack
of development in the area has
left the Rabha community feel-
ing alienated. Where the All
Rabha Students’ Union (ARSU)
S Homeless and hurt
(le to right) Garo families
on the move aer their
houses were torched; A
victim of the ethnic clashes
in a Goalpara hospital
has been demanding Sixth
Schedule status to the Rabha
Hasong Autonomous Council
and elections to the council, it
has been vehemently opposed
by the non-Rabhas living in the
Rabha-Hasong areas. They, in
turn, have been demanding ex-
clusion of some villages from
the council area.
Things took an ugly turn
when a pastor from Tura, trav-
elling with a wedding troupe
through Goalpara, was man-
handled during the 500-hour
economic blockade called by
ARSU from 2 January. The ARSU
resorts to frequent bandh calls
for the fulfilment of its Sixth
Schedule demand. “There is a
PHOTOS: V ISMA TH APA , UB P HOTOS

history of acrimony and skir-
mishes in the region. The Rab-
ha group had called for a bandh
during Christmas and New
Year and consequently the
Garos could not return home in
the festive season,” explains
Minister of State for Rural De-
velopment Agatha Sangma, also
the MP from Tura.
Meghalaya CM Mukul Sang-
ma makes no bones about his
feelings. “I have spoken to the
Assam government several
times, and have stressed on
sharing inputs. I have also been
pushing the Centre for more
forces. Assam has to do more,
there’s still tension in the area,”
he says. A home ministry team
led by Joint Secretary (North-
east) Shambhu Singh that vis-
ited the worst-hit areas felt that
the violence was ‘well planned’
and not ‘spontaneous’.
MHA sources have informed
TEHELKA of reports that suggest
a ‘political design’ behind the
whole episode. The hand of
‘underground groups’ is what
the Central sleuths are now fo-
cussing on. All these revela-
tions put the Tarun Gogoi gov-
IL LUST R AT IO N: SUDEEP CHAUDHURI
VIJAY SIMHA’s
ernment in the dock.
Many blame the Assam
government for delaying a
conclusive and agreeable
decision on the Rabhas’ de-
mand. “Tarun Gogoi has again THINGS
failed to address the issue of
tribal rights. Riots after riots THAT TORMENT UPA2
have taken place in his tenure
and he has always failed to
handle them,” avers human A NEGATIVE TURN
rights activist Suhas Chakma.
This claim is substantiated by
1 It was fine until Barack Obama left. Then, swiftly, the
wheels came off. The Centre is not holding.
Gogoi’s own actions. Instead
of visiting the violence-hit ar- PRICES THAT WON’T SLOW
eas, the Assam CM was busy
staving off allegations against
2 Too many economists spoil the math. Manmohan,
Pranab, Chidambaram, Montek.
his family of possessing huge
properties in the US. All the RASH OF SCAMS
media heard from him were
inane statements like: “Peace
3 Adarsh. CWG 2010. Lavasa. 2G spectrum. Land.
Defence supplies. Palmolein oil and the CVC. Bofors.
is our first priority. We have to
go for restoration of peace REBELLION IN THE RANKS
and normalcy.”
The TEHELKA team, while
4 Jagan Mohan Reddy turns it on in Andhra Pradesh.
A J&K minister says give Kashmir azadi.
camping in the affected areas,
was witness to the inadequate THE BIHAR ROUT
5 They didn’t expect to win but they didn’t plan for
obliteration either. This will take years to undo.
Meghalaya CM FRAGILE ARMED FORCES
Mukul Sangma 6 It’s not about the nukes, as we distressingly know.
China does what it wants and we can’t do a thing.
squarely blames the
Assam government
ABSENCE OF THE LEFT
for the violence 7 Now the Congress realises what a difference it
makes to have the Left. They kept UPA1 on track.
deployment of security forces. AMBIVALENT ALLIES
“The people behind the vio-
lence were all outsiders. I saw
8 Mamata, Lalu, Pawar, Karunanidhi, Farooq
Abdullah, Ram Vilas Paswan. To each his own.
some of them in military fa-
tigues,” says Dipul Rabha of CORPORATE CABALS
Dudhnoi. Intelligence sources
have confirmed that a few
9 Big businesses have enslaved large sections of the
Congress. The Radia tapes are merely one strand.
underground groups were
operating in the area. LETHARGIC MEMBERSHIP
Relations between Assam
and Meghalaya have gone from
10 A self-serving leadership. Foot soldiers in the
barracks. No rousing Congress mass event for years.
bad to worse on the border dis-
pute. Several rounds of official-
level meetings have failed to re-
10 THINGS THAT MAKE IT EASY
solve the issue. The ball is now 1 The Opposition. Dysfunctional. Unattractive 2 Sonia
in the court of the Assam CM. Gandhi, would be mayhem without her 3 Manmohan Singh.
Gogoi needs to act fast before Waning, but still an asset 4 Urban middle-class support
more blood is shed. 5 Hindutva terror, always trips the RSS 6 Pranab Mukherjee,
Mr Congress 7 MGNREGS 8 RTI Act, hugely effective
ratnadip@tehelka.com 9 Apolitical army 10 Professional EC
2 2 J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1 | C U R R E N T A F FA I R S | T E H E L K A 17
 avenues
22 JANUARY 2011, VOL. 8 ISSUE 3
GUIDING RIGHT
Spearheading YMCA for the past 12 years, Air Cmde
LK Sharma talks about what the institution stands for and
how it has become the preferred choice of those keen on
acquiring vocational training
N Executive Director LK Sharma
What is YMCA’s mandate?
The YMCA movement is concerned with
the needs and aspirations of young people
for their spiritual, social, intellectual and
physical development irrespective of
caste, creed or colour. The inverted red
triangle, the universal symbol of YMCA ,
represents the overall development of
body, mind and spirit.
In the 12 years that you have been at the helm
of YMCA, how have you developed new
courses that would be well accepted?
The education division known as HPDP i.e.
Human Potential Development Pro-
gramme keeps a vigilant eye on the pros-
pective and promising sector of develop-
ment of the government, wherein job av-
enues are likely to be available in the fore-
seeable future. Accordingly new courses
are planned and launched dove- tailing the
information received from the industry.
Many new courses have been launched.
When news that the government had ear-
marked 45,000 crores for development
of tourism in the country came out, we ac-
cordingly planned the concerned courses
which are associated with the tourism in-
dustry i.e. aviation and hospitality. The fac-
ulty is from the industry, regular updates
of curriculum are done to ensure that stu-
dents are aware of the requirement of this
18
service industry.
Of late there has been a lot of empha-
sis on health management. Keeping that
in view, a comprehensive course encom-
passing Nutrition, Dietetics and Health
Management has been launched which
has given salutary response. Various al-
lied courses are in the pipeline i.e. Weight
Management and an advance course in
Nutrition.
Similarly, the insurance sector is the
sun-rise Industry of the country. Keeping
that in view we have planned and
launched a course for Insurance Agents
which will provide a lot of job opportu-
nity for the students.
For YMCA, each student
is very important and
it is our endeavour to
create job avenues
for them
Which is the most popular course at YMCA?
Why?
All the programmes being run by YMCA
are very popular as the fee structure is
very reasonable and qualified profession-
als drawn from the relevant industry con-
duct the courses.
The number of students seeking ad-
mission for various courses is very large
but due to administrative constraint it be-
comes difficult to accommodate everyone.
However, there is a constant endeavour to
run extra classes to accommodate as many
students as possible without compromis-
ing the quality of the courses.
What are the benefits a student gains from
studying at YMCA?
There is a lot of competition in the field
of education today. Any new programme
launched is immediately started by other
institutes also. But the quality of training
and fee structure at YMCA makes it unique
and helps it stands out. There is literally a
beeline of students seeking admission in
the programmes announced by YMCA be-
cause of its credibility in the market.
Most of the programmes conducted by
YMCA are very popular because of em-
ployment avenues the courses open up as
well as the methodology of imparting
training. For YMCA , each student is very
important and it is our endeavour to keep
them abreast with the latest development
in the industry pertaining to their course
and future job avenues. Each student
completing a course from YMCA is our
ambassador in the industry and we
expect them to bring laurels to their -
employers whichever field they work in.
Any advice to the students of today?
Students must endeavour to keep them-
selves abreast with the latest develop-
ment pertaining to their job. It is essential
that the students improve their knowl-
edge by doing ‘Add-on’ courses which im-
proves their skills and attributes. In the
present scenario, distance learning has
opened many avenues for students to im-
prove their academic profile. Besides
part-time courses are also available,
which give adequate opportunity to the
students to improve their academic qual-
ification. Shortage of finance is no more a
constrain as Education Loans are easily
available besides the students can ‘Earn
as well as learn’. These opportunities
ought to be seized to improve personal
skills and qualification.
 TEHELKA
SCOOP

‘The Muslim boy

Kaleem pierced
my conscience.
I understood that
love between two
human beings is
more powerful
than the hatred
between two
communities’
Swami Asimananda did
not just confess his terror
conspiracy before a
magistrate. He wrote to the
President of India and the
President of Pakistan,
admitting his crimes and
seeking penance.
ASHISH KHETAN scoops the
W Surprise reform
astonishing documents Copies of the two letters
Asimananda wrote to the
President of India and
the President of Pakistan

20 T E H E L K A | C U R R E N T A F FA I R S | 2 2 J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1 PHOTO: INDIAN EXPRESS ARCHIVES


O
N 16 DECEMBER, when Swami
Asimananda first appeared before a Delhi
Metropolitan Magistrate at Tis Hazari with
a request to record his confession, the mag-
istrate was a bit incredulous. He asked the Swami if the
CBI was threatening or coercing him into giving a con-
fession. The Swami smiled back and replied, “You re-
ally think these cops could force me into doing some-
thing I don’t want to do? When even Atal and Advani
could never dare to put pressure on me, then what
chance in the world do these poor fellows have.”
‘Who are Atal and Advani?’ asked the magistrate. For a
moment, he was disoriented by the names uttered with such
easy, almost scornful, familiarity by this elderly, shabbily
dressed man produced before him as a terror suspect.
“The former prime minister and deputy prime minister,”
the Swami replied in the same measured tone.
This conversation, which TEHELKA has learned from high-
ly placed sources, provides a rare insight into the man who
was once a formidable and doctrinaire ideologue of the
Rashtriya Swyamsevak Sangh and inspired both fear and awe
even among senior BJP functionaries.
In 2006, when the Swa-
mi organised the Shabri
Kumbh Mela at his ashram
in Dangs, Gujarat, the who’s ‘Before the
who of the BJP and the RSS criminal legal
congregated to mark their system hangs me,
presence. Gujarat Chief
Minister Narendra Modi,
I want an
Madhya Pradesh Chief opportunity to
Minister Shivraj Singh transform Hafiz
Chauhan and then RSS chief Saeed, Mullah
KS Sudarshan were part of Omar and other
the jamboree. jihadi terrorists,’
The Swami had devoted
wrote Asimananda
his life to the cause of ‘Hin-
dutva.’ After setting up the
Shabri Dham Ashram in
1997, he worked zealously at
reconverting tribal Christians into Hinduism. He regularly
mobilised violent mobs, attacked Christian missionaries and
captured their churches. According to reports, Asimananda
had forcibly occupied over two dozen churches in Dangs. At
one point he had even refused to listen to the pleas of former
prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee who had reportedly asked
him to refrain from violence and coercion while carrying out
the anti-conversion work.
But in a curious twist of fate — and in a development that
no investigative agency could ever have anticipated or imag-
ined — this intractable zealot was profoundly transformed by
a chance encounter in prison with a courteous young Muslim
man, wrongly arrested and tortured for the Mecca Masjid blast
— a blast, which in truth, the Swami and his co-conspirators
had committed. (See TEHELKA story In the Words of a Zealot,
15 January).
Intensely moved and gripped by a desire for penance,
Swami Asimananda apparently requested a confession before
HINDUTVA TERROR
To
THE PRESIDENT,
Rashtrapati Bhavan,
New Delhi – 110001,
Dec 20, 2010
Madam President,
1. I am Swami Asimananda. I am the one who had
organised and motivated persons to blast Samjhauta
Express and other places because I was angry about
jihadi attacks on Hindu temples.
2. After my arrest, when I was in jail, one Muslim boy
Kaleem was very kind to me in Hyderabad. After some
time, I asked him why he was inside here in jail, and he
told me that he was earlier wrongly arrested and tortured
by Hyderabad Police in connection with Mecca Masjid
bomb blast. This pierced my conscience. It transformed
me. The man who had every reason to hate me, showed me
love. After all, he had been made to suffer for my wrong
work. I understood that love between two human beings
is more powerful than the hatred between two communi-
ties. I decided on prayaschith, and told this to CBI, when
they took me in their custody. They told me that we
cannot do anything about prayaschith, only court can,
and so I told them to take me to the court in that case.
After that, I told the judge the truth.
3. I have also addressed a letter to the Pakistan President
telling him about myself and requested him to grant
me an opportunity to transform or reform jihadi terrorist
leaders and other jihadi footsoldiers in Pakistan (copy
enclosed).
4. I request you to use your good office to help me to go
there and meet these jihadi leaders and transform them
or you can ask the Pakistan President to send them to
me in jail.
Thank You.
Yours truly
Swami Asimananda
Chanchalaguda Central Jail
Hyderabad
2 2 J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1 | C U R R E N T A F FA I R S | T E H E L K A 21
 TEHELKA
SCOOP
The President,
Islamabad,
Pakistan
Dec 20, 2010
SUB Request for chance to reform Hafiz Saeed and
other terrorists in Pakistan -- re,
Dear Sir,
1. I am Swami Asimananda. I am the one who had
organised and motivated persons to blast
Samjhauta Express and other places because I was
angry about jihadi attacks on Hindu temples.
2. After my arrest, when I was in jail, one Muslim
boy Kaleem was very kind to me in Hyderabad.
After some time, I asked him why he was inside
jail, and he told me that he was earlier wrongly
arrested and tortured by Hyderabad Police in
connection with Mecca Masjid Bomb blast. This
pierced my conscience. It transformed me. The
man who has very reason to hate me, showed me
love. After all, he had been made to suffer for my
work. I understood that love between two human
beings is more powerful than the hatred between
two communities. I decided on prayaschith and
told this to the CBI when they took me in their
custody. They told me that we cannot do anything
about prayaschith, only court can. So, I told them
to take me to the court in that case. After that, I
told the judge the truth.
3. Before the criminal legal system hangs me, I
want an opportunity to transform/reform Hafiz
Saeed, Mullah Omar and other jihadi terrorist
leaders and jihadi terrorist in Pakistan. Either
you can send them to me, or you can ask the
Indian government to send me to you.
Yours truly
Swami Asimananda
C h an ch alag ud a J a i l
Hy d e rabad
22 T E H E L K A | C U R R E N T A F FA I R S | 2 2 J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1
a magistrate. “I know I may be served a death sentence for this,
but I still want to confess,” he told the magistrate. Published
by TEHELKA last week, this confession, which is the first legal
evidence to show the involvement of RSS pracharaks in the
Malegaon 2006 and Samjhauta Express blasts, has had wide-
ranging political and diplomatic impact. But this was not all.
IN AN astonishing gesture, apart from his confession before the
magistrate, Swami Asimananda also wrote to the President of
India and the President of Pakistan, admitting to his crimes
and detailing the encounter with the Muslim boy that changed
his heart. “Abdul Kaleem pierced my conscience,” he wrote.
“After all, he had been made to suffer for my wrong work. I
understood that love between two human beings is more
powerful than the hatred between two communities.”
In these two letters, written in his own handwriting —
copies of which are in exclusive possession of TEHELKA — the
Swami then goes on to express a desire to meet Lashkar-e-
Toiba chief Hafiz Saeed and Taliban leader Mullah Omar and
other jihadi terrorists and urges the two presidents to help
him get an “opportunity” to transform the jihadis as he him-
self has been transformed.
The Swami says he had
taken to terrorism in retal-
In a development iation to Islamist terror
no investigative attacks on temples, but
agency could ever having realised the futility
have anticipated, of mindless violence, he
would now like to persuade
this intractable
terrorists like Hafiz Saeed
zealot was to renounce this path as
transformed by an well. He requests “the good
encounter with a office” of the President of
courteous Muslim India to help him go to
man in prison Pakistan to do this.
After TEHELKA published
Asimananda’s confession
last week, several Hindutva
apologists asserted the confession was coerced out of him. His
counsel also belatedly asserted — 20 days after the event had
taken place — that the confession was false and would be
retracted. But the letters to the Presidents of India and
Pakistan give the lie to all that. Swami Asimananda wrote them
two days after he made the confession under Section 164 of
CRPC. He had given these letters on a jail visit to his brother to
post. TEHELKA procured them from him. The tone and tenor
of these letters exactly match his confession. However, his
lawyer did not mention them last week as part of the CBI’s al-
leged coercion.
These letters present a fresh challenge to those who would
deny all that Swami Asimananda has confessed to. TEHELKA
wrote to the office of the President of India seeking a confir-
mation that they had received the letter. At the time of going
to press, the President’s office had yet not responded.
Terror, it seems, has finally fallen prey to something might-
ier than it: the power of human conscience.
ashish.khetan@tehelka.com
 HINDUTVA TERROR

HE CONFESSION of

T
Swami Asimananda has
drawn sharp and
diverse reactions from
SIM CARD different quarters. The
families of the nine
CAST-IRON SHELLS
Two from a Malegaon Muslims
series of 11 SIM implicated in the 2006
Cast-iron shells used cards were used Malegaon blasts, which claimed 31 inno-
in the IEDs planted at MOBILE PHONE in Mecca Masjid cent lives, have termed it the clinching
the Mecca Masjid bombs
The Nokia cell phone proof of their innocence. Not unexpected-
used as the trigger ly, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the
device in Mecca Masjid Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh have
alleged that Asimananda’s confession was
made under coercion and thus rubbished
NOT JUST A the ongoing probe into Hindutva terror.
But the fact remains that Asimananda
had made the confession in the closed
CONFESSION. chamber of a Delhi Metropolitan Magis-
trate with no one else being around and
after spending two days in judicial custody

FORENSIC POWER CIRCUIT

A 6.53 volt battery was

part of the power
contemplating possible repercussions.
Again, what is being completely overlooked
in this politically charged debate is a whole
body of evidence — both material and

EVIDENCE circuits used in the

Mecca Masjid blast
circumstantial — which has been pieced
together by different agencies over the past
four years. Asimananda’s confession only
confirms and adds to the existing pool of

PILES UP evidence.
Over the past three years the evidence
gathered by the agencies against a team of
RSS pracharaks and lunatic Hindutva

AGAINST groups like Abhinav Bharat and Jai Vande

Matram is compelling.
Since the arrests of a motley group of
Hindu radicals — Sadhvi Pragya Singh,

HINDUTVA CONTAINERS

One of the two iron

boxes that contained
Lt Col Shrikant Purohit, Dayanand Pandey
and eight other residents of Maharashtra
and Madhya Pradesh in 2008 — every new
arrest, a witness testimony and recovery

TERROR the Mecca Masjid bombs

of new material has further corroborated
and augmented the existing case against
Hindu extremists.
As the missing pieces of the Hindutava
BY ASHISH KHETAN
terror puzzle are falling into place, new
faces at the heart of the terror conspiracy
The motorcycle used to like RSS central committee member Indresh
conceal the bomb in Kumar have also been exposed.
Malegaon in 2008
The protracted investigation, which is
COMMON MODUS OPERANDI
now in its fourth year, began on 9 June
BRIEFCASE BOMB 2007 with the CBI taking over the Mecca
Masjid blast probe from the Hyderabad
One of the three IEDs
Police.
that failed to go off in
The 17 May 2007 Mecca Masjid terror
the Samjhauta Express
In Modasa too the strike, which killed nine Muslims and in-
bomb was planted on a jured over 50 others, also left behind a
motorcycle small but crucial scientific clue — a Nokia

2 2 J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1 | C U R R E N T A F FA I R S | T E H E L K A 23
 TEHELKA
SCOOP

An unexploded IED
found at the Mecca
Masjid blast site was
the starting point
for the investigation

cell phone and inside the phone a Voda-

fone SIM card.
The cell phone was part of an impro-
vised explosive device (IED) that had failed E RSS poster boy
to go off and thus comprised the only clue CM Narendra Modi in
and in many ways the starting point for the attendance at
investigation. Asimananda’s ashram
As the CBI sleuths took over the Mecca
Masjid blast probe they discovered that
there were a couple of striking similarities
in the Mecca Masjid blast and the
Samjhauta Express terror attack.
Sixty-eight people were killed when
three successive powerful explosions
turned two compartments of the Samjhau-
ta Express into an inferno on 19 February
2007. The explosions had occurred at
around midnight as the bi-weekly train on
its way to Atari was crossing the Diwana
railway station, 80 km from New Delhi.
While at Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad E Terror linkages
one bomb had malfunctioned and thus Indresh Kumar
failed to explode, three unexploded IEDs speaking at Shabri
were found on the Samjhauta Express. Kumbh in 2006
Curiously, the 6.53 volt battery found in
the unexploded IED at Mecca Masjid was
exactly the same as the batteries used to vestigation it had emerged that the Hindu and thus hinted towards the involvement
power the IEDs planted on the Samjhauta extremists had exploded similar shell of one terror group behind all these cases.
Express. Besides, the metallic shells used bombs outside a few mosques in Jalna and Interestingly, between 2005 and 2008,
to stuff explosives in the Mecca Masjid Parbhani in 2003 and 2004. in the terror strikes targeted at Hindu
bombs were similar to the iron shells Also in December 2002, more than half- neighbourhoods and temples — like the
which were part of the IEDs planted on the a-dozen live pipe or shell bombs were re- 2005 Delhi Diwali blasts, 2006 Sankat-
Samjhauta Express. covered from an ijtema, a large religious mochan Mandir blasts and 2007 Hyder-
Similar shells were recovered from the gathering of Muslims, held near the Bhopal abad twin blasts — the design of bombs was
house of a Hindu radical in Nanded, Ma- railway station. strikingly different from these bombs
harashtra, in April 2006 when an RSS mem- The design of the shells used in bombs which were aimed at Muslims.
ber and a Bajrang Dal activist had died in Nanded, Jalna, Parbhani, Bhopal, However, the counter-terrorism agen-
while assembling a bomb. During the in- Samjhauta and Mecca Masjid was similar cies in India remained divided over the

THE RADICAL BUNCH INDRESH KUMAR, an RSS central
committee member, accused of
The men who played crucial roles in Hindutva terror mentoring and financing the RSS
pracharaks behind Malegaon,
Samjhauta, Ajmer and Mecca
Masjid terror strikes.
SWAMI ASIMANANDA, the
head of the Shabri Dham in
Dangs, Gujarat. He allegedly
selected Malgeaon, Ajmer Sharif
and Hyderabad as terror targets.

24 T E H E L K A | C U R R E N T A F FA I R S | 2 2 J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1
 HINDUTVA TERROR

possibility of Hindu radicals being involved
in these Muslim targeted terror strikes —
the 2006 Malegaon serial blasts, the
Samjhauta Express blasts and the Mecca
Masjid attack.
As opaque and extrapolated intelligence
inputs — Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) being
behind the Samjhauta blasts and the
Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI) behind
the Mecca Masjid attack — continued to
pour in, the CBI investigation pursued the
forensic trail.
Masjid consisted of two
T HE MECCA IED
pairs of metallic shells with their ends
sealed, save for a small hole at one end to
stuff the explosives. In the case of Mecca
Masjid the explosive used was a lethal mix
of high-intensity RDX and Trinitrotoluene
(TNT ) — both these explosives are only
available with the army and paramilitary
forces. Electrical detonators connected a
6.53 volt battery to the explosives through
the hole at an end of each pair of the cast
iron shells. The battery in turn was con-
nected to an electrical circuit which in turn
was connected to a Nokia 6030 cell phone
with a SIM card. An alarm for 1.22 pm was
set on the phone. Thus the cell phone
served both as a timer and also the power
source to trigger the circuit that would
then result in the explosion of the IED. Each
IED was neatly placed in a black iron box
which in turn was placed in a rexine bag.
The International Mobile Equipment
Identifier — IMEI is a unique 15-digit in-
ternational number given to a cellphone
by its manufacturer — of the Nokia 6030
phone revealed that the handset had been
sold by a vendor in Faridabad. When the
CBI sleuths questioned the shopkeeper they
found that the buyer had purchased two
similar Nokia 6030 phones.
The Vodafone SIM card found inside the
handset was traced to a shop named
Sargam Audio Vision in the town of Chit-
taranjan in Bardhaman district, West Ben-
gal. The records maintained at the shop
and also that by Vodafone showed that the
SIM card was sold to a person named Babu
Lal Yadav in June 2006.
But on verification the police discov-
ered that the address proof document sub-
mitted while obtaining the SIM card was
actually forged and Babu Lal Yadav was a
fictitious person.
The analysis of calls made and received
on this SIM card further revealed that there
were no incoming calls or outgoing calls to
any individual.
The CBI then wrote to all cellular serv-
ice providers to find out if there were more
such SIM cards which were purchased in
the name of Babu Lal Yadav. It emerged
that there were in all 11 SIM cards which
Dayanand Pandey’s
laptop led to the
recovery of evidence in
the shape of 37 audio
and three video clips
were bought either by using the same name
or by using the same photograph and fake
address and identity proof.
These SIM cards were purchased dur-
ing the period of seven months between
June and December 2006 from as many as
seven shops — three shops in Bardhaman
district, West Bengal, and four in Jamtara,
Jharkhand.
On further investigation, it was revealed
that all these 11 SIM cards had been used in
as many as nine mobile handsets. The CBI
tracked down all the shops from where
these handsets were purchased. It emerged
that two handsets were purchased from
Faridabad (as mentioned above), three
from Bardhaman, three from Jamtara and
one from Gaffar Market in Delhi.
Statements of all the shopkeepers from
whom these SIM cards and cell phones
were purchased were recorded by the CBI.
But the trail soon went cold as the identi-
ty of those who had bought these phones
and SIM cards remained a mystery.
As the Mecca Masjid probe appeared to
hit a dead end, on 11 October 2007, during
the month of Ramzan, a powerful bomb
went off at Ajmer Sharif dargah, killing
three people and injuring over a dozen.
As luck would have it, like in the case of
Mecca Masjid, one IED malfunctioned and
did not explode. This IED was an exact
replica of the Mecca Masjid device.
On investigation, the Rajasthan ATS on
investigation found that the SIM card and
the cell phone of the unexploded device
were from the same series of SIM cards and
cell phones that the CBI had compiled in
the course of their investigation.
It was now clear that the Mecca Masjid
and Ajmer Sharif blasts were parts of the
same terror conspiracy. So, the Rajasthan
ATS and the CBI began working in close co-
ordination. A hunt was launched to find
the remaining five cell phones from the se-
ries (four had already been used in the
Mecca Masjid and Ajmer IEDs).
AS THE two agencies groped in the dark,
on 29 September 2008, a bomb concealed
in a motorcycle exploded at Bhikku
Chowk, a Muslim neighbourhood in Male-
gaon. Simultaneously, a bomb went off in
a small Gujarat town named Modassa. Like
in Malegaon, the bomb was concealed in a
motorbike and the blast took place in a
Muslim locality when special Ramzan
prayers were being offered.
The Maharashtra ATS under its then
chief Hemant Karkare carried out an ex-
cellent forensic investigation and retrieved
the chassis number of the motorcycle used
in the Malegaon blast. The motorcycle be-
longed to self-styled Hindu leader Sadhvi

SUNIL JOSHI, a former RSS
pracharak of Mhow district.
Along with Hindu radicals from
Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and,
Rajasthan, he formed an
inter-state terror infrastructure.
SANDEEP DANGE, a senior RSS
pracharak from Shajapur district
near Indore. Along with Joshi
and Ramchandra Kalsangra, he
was a key figure in the Hindutva
terror conspiracy.
RAM CHANDRA KALSANGRA
ALIAS RAMJI, an RSS pracharak
from Madhya Pradesh. He
carried out a series of terror
strikes between
December 2002 and 2008.
SHIVAM DHAKHAD, an RSS E
activist. He allegedly took train-
ing in bomb-making in 2005. He
also did a reconnaissance of
Aligarh Muslim University and
residence of Justice UC Banerjee.

2 2 J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1 | C U R R E N T A F FA I R S | T E H E L K A 25
 TEHELKA
SCOOP

Pragya Singh Thakur. Her arrest led to a
series of other arrests including serving
Lt Col Purohit and a Hindu religious leader
Dayanand Pandey.
Pandey’s laptop led to the recovery of
crucial evidence in the shape of 37 audio
and three video clips. These audio and
video files were recordings of terror con-
spiracy meetings which Pandey, Purohit
and others had held, which Pandey had se-
cretly filmed using the web camera and au-
dio recording facility inbuilt in his laptop.
Dange — were also key conspirators. While
Joshi had already been murdered under
mysterious circumstances in December
2007, Kalsangra and Dange went under-
ground before the ATS could arrest them.
2009, the Rajasthan detect-
Ihadedbeen
N JULY ATS
that four of the five cellphones they
looking for were being used by a
group of RSS workers in two villages —
Chapri and Khardaun Kala — of Kalapipal
Tehsil in Shajapur district, Madhya
which now were clinching scientific evi-
dence against this team of RSS pracharaks.
The interrogation of Leve and the Pati-
dars led to the arrest of Devendra Gupta in
April 2010. Gupta was originally from
Ajmer but had served the RSS in different
capacities in Madhya Pradesh and Jhark-
hand. Gupta gave a detailed account of the
visits made by Joshi, Kalsangra and Dan-
ge to Jamtada’s RSS office between 2005
and 2007 when Gupta was posted as RSS
Jila pracharak in the district.

The recordings comprised a solid evidence
of a wider Hindutva terror conspiracy. In
one of the files the accused could also be
heard talking about Swami Asimananda in
glowing terms, which showed that he was
known to the accused.
Upon hearing the news of Sadhvi
Pragya’s arrest, Asimananda absconded.
Pragya also revealed that three RSS
pracharaks from Madhya Pradesh — Sunil
Joshi, Ramchandra Kalsangra and Sandeep
All the SIM cards
had been procured
from the border
towns of Mhijham
and Chittaranjan
Pradesh. The ATS discovered these phones
with the help of their IEMI numbers.
The RSS workers in question were Chan-
drashekhar Leve, Vishnu Patidar, Ravin-
dra Patidar and Santosh Patidar.
The investigation revealed that the ab-
sconding accused, Dange, was a close
friend of Leve. While Dange was the RSS
jila pracharak of Shajapur district between
2000 and 2005, Leve was RSS jila sampark
pramukh of the same district.
The Rajasthan ATS recorded the state-
ments of more than half-a-dozen RSS work-
ers who stated that, before running off,
Dange had handed over all the four phone
sets to Leve. While Leve had thrown away
one phone after it stopped functioning, he
and his associates continued to use the oth-
er three phones.
The ATS seized all the three phones,
Gupta revealed that it was during these
visits that he helped them in procuring fake
identity and address proofs and SIM cards.
All SIM cards were procured (as explained
above) from two border towns —
Chittaranjan (Bardhman district, West
Bengal) and Mhijham (Jamtada district,
Jharkhand).
Several people who had witnessed
Joshi, Kalsangra and Dange visiting Gup-
ta in Jamtada were examined and their
statements were recorded. It was all adding
up. Along with Joshi, one more Hindu rad-
ical named Bharat Riteshwar from Valsad
(Gujarat) had visited the Jamtada office
while the logistics for the blasts were be-
ing put together.
The ATS tracked down Riteshwar, who
gave a detailed eyewitness account before
a magistrate, corroborating facts already

LT COL SHRIKANT PUROHIT, a
founding member of terror outfit
Abhinav Bharat. He is accused of
supplying RDX for the 2008
Malegaon blasts.
DEVENDRA GUPTA, the RSS
vibhag pracharak of Muzaffarna-
gar, Bihar. He provided logistics
and safe havens to Joshi, Kalsan-
gra and Dange for terror strikes.
LOKESH SHARMA, an RSS
worker and associate of Joshi,
Dange and Kalsangra. He bought
the two Nokia handsets used in
the bombs at Mecca Masjid and
Ajmer.
BHARAT RATESWAR , a Hindu
radical from Valsad in Gujarat. He
participated in terror meetings
held in Gujarat. He also travelled
to Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh
providing logistics for the blasts.

26 T E H E L K A | C U R R E N T A F FA I R S | 2 2 J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1 PHOTOS: (L TO R): AP, SH AILE NDRA PANDEY, AFP

 HINDUTVA TERROR

known to the ATS. Gupta’s interrogation
also revealed the role of another RSS activist
from Indore, Lokesh Sharma. According
to the ATS, Sharma confessed to having
played a key role in the terror conspiracy.
Both Riteshwar and Gupta for the first
time revealed to the police that RSS central
committee member Indresh Kumar was a
mentor and financer of Sunil Joshi — the
man at the core of the conspiracy.
Riteshwar also told the police that
Joshi’s terror activities had the sanction of
other religious organisations and carry on
with your work.”
2010, the recorded the
Itivist
N SEPTEMBER CBI
statement of Rajesh Mishra, an ac-
RSS
from Mhow, Madhya Pradesh, who
owned a foundry in Pithampura and was a
close associate of Joshi. He stated before
the investigating team that he had provid-
ed Joshi 15 customised iron pipes with
grooves on the inside. A few of these pipes
were used in the failed terror strike aimed
terror conspiracy in which he had also
played a critical part.
Asimananda asserted that it was not
Muslims, but a team of RSS pracharaks who
were behind the 2006 Malegaon blasts, the
Samjhauta Express strike, the Mecca
Masjid and Ajmer Sharif bomb blasts.
Asimananda confessed that he himself
had picked Malegaon, Hyderabad and
Ajmer Sharif dargah as potential targets,
while Sunil Joshi had taken the responsi-
bility of striking the Samjhauta Express.

W Blast aer blast In a series of terror strikes

over a period of two years starting with
Malegaon in September 2006, Muslim
neighbouhoods and mosques were targeted.
Pakistan nationals were also attacked when
three blasts on the Samjhauta Express in
February 2007 turned several coaches of the
running train into an inferno

Indresh. Sharma went further and told the
police that Indresh regularly funded Joshi
for the terror activities.
In September 2010, the Madhya
Pradesh Police arrested a RSS activist
named Shivam Dhakhad who was involved
in a murder case. In police custody, he re-
vealed that he too was part of the Sunil
Joshi-led terror module.
Most importantly, he talked about a ter-
ror meeting held on 26 October 2005 in a
guest house named Gujarati Samaj Atithi-
grah in Jaipur, in which Indresh Kumar
was also present. According to Dhakhad,
Sadhvi Pragya, Kalsangra, Dange and Joshi
were also present during the meeting.
If Dhakhad is to be believed, Indresh
told all those who had assembled, “The RSS
does not support your ideology or actions.
So you all can get associated with some
RSS activist Dhakhad
revealed in custody
that he too was part
of the terror module
headed by Sunil Joshi
at the Bhopal ijtema.
Mishra’s statement further confirmed
that the modus operandi adopted by the
Hindu extremists involved using iron pipes
as an important component in the IEDs they
assembled.
On 19 November 2010, Swami Asi-
mananda was arrested from his hideout in
Haridwar. Exactly a month after his arrest,
Asimananda confessed before a Delhi Met-
ropolitan Magistrate, laying bare the broad
Asimananda also reproduced the con-
versations that he had with Indresh Ku-
mar while hatching the terror plot. Ac-
cording to Asimananda, Indresh had
picked up Joshi and a few other members
of the RSS to carry out the blasts and had
partly financed the execution.
Till date, the ATS of Maharashtra and
Rajasthan have filed chargesheets in the
2008 Malegaon and 2007 Ajmer Sharif
blasts respectively. However, the CBI and
National Investigating Agency (NIA) probe
into the Mecca Masjid and Samjhauta Ex-
press blasts is still an ongoing one.
Though the cases built by the agencies
have to still stand the scrutiny of law, due
to the sheer volume of evidence, the odds
are stacked against the accused.
ashish.khetan@tehelka.com

YOGI ADITYANATH, BJP MP from
Gorakhpur. He was contacted by
Asimananda to provide funds for
terrorist activities. Joshi held a
hush-hush meeting with him at
his residence.
DR ASHOK VARSHNAY, RSS
prant pracharak of Kanpur. He
sheltered key terror accused and
RSS pracharak Devendra Gupta at
Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram in
Sitapur, Uttar Pradesh.
RAJESH MISHRA, an RSS activist
and owner of a foundry in
Pithampura, near Mhow. He
gave 15 cast iron shells in 2001 to
Joshi, who used them for blasts.
SUDHAKAR DHAR DWIVEDI
ALIAS DAYANAND PANDEY, he
ran an ashram in Jammu. He
played the role of an ideologue
to those involved in the 2008
Malegaon blasts.

PH O T O S: R E UTE R S 2 2 J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1 | C U R R E N T A F FA I R S | T E H E L K A 27
 avenues NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY
22 JANUARY 2011, VOL. 8 ISSUE 3

LEGALLY SOUND
Set up with the mandate to improve the quality of professional
legal education, National Law University is growing fast to fulfill it,
says VC Professor (Dr) Ranbir Singh
N VC (Dr) Ranbir Singh

When was the National Law University set

up?
The Government of National Capital
Territory of Delhi and Delhi High Court
took the initiative to establish the Nation-
al Law University in Delhi in 2008. This
was in keeping with the recommendations
of the committee appointed by the Chief
Justices Conference on Legal Education
and Training (1993) which recommended
the establishment of an institution along
the lines National Law School of India,
Bangalore, in each state.

What are the tie-ups and partnerships that

have been put in place over the years of its
existence?
The University has already signed MOUs
with over 20 Universities/Institutions all
over the world, and many more are in the
pipeline. These include The Law School,
King’s College, London, UK; Maastricht
University, Maastricht, The Netherlands;
The George Washington University Law
School, Washington D.C. and Lewis & Within a short span of provides both these databases together)
Clark Law School, Portland, Oregon in three years our institu- HeinOnline, JSTOR, E-Hart Books Online,
USA; South China University of Technol- tion has grown in every SCC Online, AIR InfoTech (Indian Supreme
ogy, China and many others. aspect — infrastructure, Court Cases) etc.

How have the first three years been?
Within a short span of three years our
institution has grown in every aspect —
infrastructure, academic achievements,
and governing activities.
The first batch of students for B.A.,
LL.B.(Hons,) five years programme was
admitted in 2008-09. Currently, the Uni-
versity offers a five year B.A. LL.B. (Hons.)
Degree course and a PG Diploma in Judg-
ing and Court Management. We propose
to start the Ph.D. and LL. M. programmes
this year as well as offer PG specializations
in IPR, Real Estate Law, Competition Law,
and a Vocational Diploma in Para-legal.
Our students are competing with
teams from established National Law
Schools in India.
academic achievements,
and governing activities
It is not just in academics that our
students have excelled, even in extracur-
ricular activities and sports, our students
are earning laurels for us at national and
international meets.
We try and create an environment con-
ducive to overall growth. Our library
subscribes to 60 International Legal Jour-
nals and 20 National Legal Journals and
houses a unique collection of 22,000
documents. The students can also access
various online commercial legal databases
including Westlaw International, Lexis-
Nexis (no other law schools in India
Is there any path-breaking work that has
been done by NLU?
NLU Delhi is a partner institution of Legal
Information Institute of India (LII India)
set up in association with the Australian
Legal Information Institute (Aus LII).
With access to LII India’s 50 databases,
legal research in the NLU library would
greatly enhanced.
Besides this NLU organized first
Judicial Training for the Controllers of
Patents aimed at upgrading their skills as
well as a Rural Peacemakers Workshop in
Rajasthan in order to empower the
villagers to resolve their conflicts on their
own. Besides NLU has undertaken a Pre-
Appointment Training for the Officers of
Assam Judicial Services.

28
The NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY, DELHI established in 2008 by
Act 1 of 2008 is premier Law University established in the capital city
of India. The Vision of the University is to make legal education an
instrument of social, political and economic change. The University
is committed to preparing lawyers who will not only be profession-
ally competent, technically sound and socially relevant, to enter the
bar and the bench but also be equipped with addressing the impera-
tives of the new world and uphold the rule of law. The endeavor of
the University will be to impart knowledge in various aspects of law
and to introduce the young generation of lawyers to a wide range of
opportunities in legal profession. The University has state of the art
infrastructure and facilities for learning and research at its campus at
Sector 14, Dwarka, New Delhi.
The University invites applications for a Five year integrated B.A.,
LL.B. (Hons.) degree programme for the academic year 2011-2012
commencing from August, 2011.
Admission will be strictly on merit through All India Law Entrance
Test (AILET) to be conducted at Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chandi-
garh, Chennai, Cochin, Delhi, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Jaipur,
Jammu, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai and Patna on May 1, 2011.
Interested candidates may apply along with a Demand Draft of
Rs.2,500/- (Rupees Two Thousand Five Hundred Only) for General
Candidates, Rs.1,000/- (Rupees One thousand only) in case of SC, ST
and Person with Disability (PD) drawn in favour of “REGISTRAR,
NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY, DELHI”, payable at Delhi along-
with copies of requisite Caste/PD Certificate. There is no applica-
tion fee for Below Poverty Line (BPL) applicants of SC/ST category
(copy of BPL certificate from competent authority to be enclosed
with application). All details including Application Form & Eligibil-
ity Criteria are available on the University website:
http://nludelhi.ac.in.
Applications complete in all respects must reach in person or by
post, to the REGISTRAR, NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY,
DELHI, Sector - 14, Dwarka, New Delhi - 110078, on or before
April 11, 2011. Applications received after the last date shall not
be entertained. The University will not be responsible for any
postal/courier delay.
Timing of AILET
3.00 pm to 4.30 pm on May 1, 2011.
Pattern of the AILET
Total Marks : 150
Total number of questions : 150
Duration of the Examination : 1 hour 30 minutes
Subject areas and marks distribution
 English : 35Marks
 General Knowledge : 35Marks
(Current Affairs, General Science,
History, Geography, Economics, Civics)
 Legal Aptitude : 35 Marks
 Reasoning : 35Marks
 Elementary Mathematics (Numerical Ability) : 10Marks
Note:
(i) The candidate shall secure minimum of 40% (30% for SC and
ST candidates) of the total marks in the AILET to become eligible
for the admission. The University reserves the right to keep the
seats vacant if there are no candidates who secured minimum cut
off marks.
(ii) If two or more candidates secure the same percentage of marks in
the AILET, their merit will be determined in the following manner
and order; (1) On the basis of Percentage of marks in the Senior Sec-
ondary School Examination (10+2 System) / Higher Secondary
School or its equivalent recognized by the University (2) The per-
centage of marks in 10th standard. (3) Elder in age will be preferred
(4) Draw of Lots.
(iii) At least 30% of the total seats shall be filled by eligible horizontal
reservation for women candidates including those selected in
reserved and foreign national categories.
REGISTRAR
 TELANGANA

What the Srikrishna

report missed on S Old grouse Our

Telangana resources are not in our

hands, say residents
of Dipaiguda village

 Young blood Students

have been the visible face
BY ROHINI MOHAN & SAMRAT CHAKRABARTI of protests but the fury is
alive in villages as well

I
N LATE 2009, a question was asked,
with fire and blood, across Andhra
Pradesh’s northwestern Telangana
region. One year later, it seems a
whole other question has been answered.
When the Srikrishna Commission (SKC)
was set up last February, its mandate was
to identify the root causes that fuelled the
60-year-old movement for a separate
state of Telangana, and recommend ways
to address these issues. While the report,
submitted on the last day of 2010, makes
six recommendations, it has only
scratched the surface of why 10 districts
in the fourth largest state in the country
have been screaming to break away.
In Telangana’s Adilabad district, 350
km from Hyderabad, residents of Anand-
pur village gather under a banyan tree. In
the keen silence that descends, cotton far-
mer Raja Reddy, 52, speaks, “Imagine you
have three sons who fight each other all
day, every day. As a father, your first re-
sponse is to pacify and make them under-
stand. But after the fifth, when the
fighting doesn’t stop, the sensible choice
left is to divide your estate into three and
let them go their separate ways.”
However, Raja has never felt like he
was part of the AP family. The conversa-
tion under the banyan tree keeps return-
ing to how the people of Telangana have
nothing in common with coastal Andhra
and Rayalseema, the other two regions of
the state. When the Telangana movement
was reignited through student agitations
in December 2009, it defined itself as an
identity movement, a call for “self-re-
spect”. The movement has waxed and
waned since before the 1956 merger of
Telangana with AP, but never died down.
Alongside it, influenced by it, evolved a

30 T E H E L K A | C U R R E N T A F FA I R S | 2 2 J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1 PHOTOS: B H ASH ME RAJE NDE R, AFP


political culture in Telangana. So much so
that today, to sever the three elements of
the movement — identity, economy and
politics — is to glean a half-truth. But this
is exactly what the report has done.
The report presents 461 pages of
largely economic arguments disproving
Telangana’s claim of backwardness. Of-
ten, it says, “There are a few crucial indi-
cators on which Telangana is lagging
behind.” But the statehood demand is
deeply political, wound in narratives of
“perceived injustice”, as the SKC itself
calls it, and an unshakeable anger against
discrimination from other regions. By
stating Telangana has been the fastest
growing region and Rayalseema is worse
off than Telangana, the report pain-stak-
ingly debunks the claim of poverty in
Telangana, but it doesn’t devote the same
thoroughness to the identity question. In
doing so, the report presents an economic
solution to a political problem.
In Dipaiguda, Bheema Reddy, 49, a
cotton farmer and mandal Congress pres-
ident, offers an instance of the politicisa-
tion. “Since all the power is with the
Andhra lobby, nothing gets done here.
Take the Penganga inter-state irrigation
project, which could have changed our
lives. MLAs, including the present one,
have been trying for the past 20 years to
get it going, but nothing has moved be-
cause he doesn’t have enough clout.”
It’s not just the lack of projects but
also the differential response to needs
that irks them. “In Andhra, if a coconut
tree falls, they get 4,000 as crop insur-
ance. Here, we get 300,” says Perkugu-
dda resident M Linganna. When the state
lost last year’s harvest to floods, the gov-
ernment reacted swiftly in Andhra. “The
interest on their loans was waived and
they got reasonable crop loss coverage.
Here, we are yet to see a paisa,” he says.
The crowds that gather to discuss
Telangana respond to an often repeated
statement in the SKC report: the move-
The report debunks
the claim of poverty
in Telangana, but it
does not devote the
same thoroughness to
the identity question
ment is primarily the doing of frustrated
youth and poor Dalits whose disaffection
at unemployment and backwardness re-
spectively has been cynically exploited by
an opportunistic political class to fuel a
divide between Telangana and the rest of
AP. “But the discrimination is real for us!”
says Ravinder Reddy, 40. “Name one hero
from Telangana in Telugu movies. It’s al-
ways the buffoons and villains who are
from Telangana.” Raja adds, “Inter-mar-
2 2 J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1 | C U R R E N T A F FA I R S | T E H E L K A
STAT EHOOD
riages are very rare. Andhraites settled
here prefer going 1,500 km back to Nel-
lore to find a match. We only make good
neighbours it seems, not good in-laws.”
ask these questions when
D ID THE SKC
they visited Adilabad? “They were
here for an hour. They conducted meet-
ings at the Collector’s office and went to a
single village 3 km away,” says Ravinder.
The mobilisation, albeit political, has
reached wide and deep, and its arguments
of injustice are today part of the Telan-
gana people’s idea of who they are. This
unquantifiable but crucial element of the
movement finds no place in the report.
But their economics might not be fully
sound either. The SKC report doesn’t in-
clude any data from a 163-page report on
the power sector in Telangana. K Raghu,
executive engineer at AP Transmission
Corporation, says that apart from factual
errors about the location and establish-
ment dates of hydel and thermal plants,
the SKC report has “conveniently left out
facts and documents we submitted to
their technical expert VB Gupta”.
The electricity report shows that the
state government incurs an annual loss of
1,100 crore in transporting coal from
Telangana to power stations in other re-
gions, when economic logic points at
building projects close to the fuel source.
Out of 19 power projects coming up in the
state, only three are in Telangana.
Villagers describe a process of migra-
tion that finds no mention in the report.
“Over the past 20 years, Andhraites have
been migrating to Telangana, leasing and
buying land,” says Ravinder. “Because of
irrigation costs, agricultural land in And-
hra is expensive. One acre would cost up-
wards of 1 crore. The best land in
Adilabad costs 5 lakh. With more wealth
and political connections, they are start-
ing petrol pumps, real estate firms and
cornering all infrastructure contracts.”
If the report had focussed as much on
the social mechanisms and politics un-
derpinning the fight for resources as it
did on the resources itself, it might have
asked pertinent questions that would
have gone a long way in understanding
the aspirations of people on both sides of
the divide. Instead, it remains a document
about a region, not its people.
rohini@tehelka.com, samrat@tehelka.com
31
 FOOD SECURIT Y
WHEN CHILDREN
SUFFER, IT’S A
CRYING SHAME
Hunger and malnutrition stalk every street in every city even
as civil society tries to fill in the gaps in welfare schemes
T
WO-AND-half-year-old Surja
Basfore lives with his five-
year-old sister on platform
No. 4 of the Kalyani railway
station in Kolkata. They beg
for a living, earning about 20-25 a day.
Their father, a leprosy patient, also sur-
vives on alms. Their breakfast is about half
a puri. Lunch is two handfuls of dal and
rice, and dinner is a repeat of lunch or
maybe a chapati. Their total calorific intake
is about 1,000, which is 700 calories and
many vital nutrients short of the recom-
mended intake. In other words, both are
facing chronic starvation.
In Khar, Mumbai, the tarpaulin shacks
where the garland makers live are
squashed on the side of a busy thorough-
fare. This is where Vishal, 6, starts his day
with half a cup of tea and two biscuits.
Breakfast is one samosa-pav. Lunch is
khichdi from a local charity, half of which
he saves to eat later. By night, he’s hungry
again, so he buys a packet of Kurkure with
32 T E H E L K A | C U R R E N T A F FA I R S | 2 2 J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1
W Food for thought
42 percent of the
world’s hungry
children live in India
5 — the only amount his mother is able to
spare. His calorific intake is 856, about half
the recommended intake of 1,715. Yuvraj,
2, also starts his day with half a cup of tea
and biscuits. Later, he’s fed the khichdi his
mother gets from the local charity. His
calorie intake stands at 613, against the rec-
ommended daily intake of 1,230.
According to a Supreme Court ruling,
every habitation with more than 300 peo-
ple is entitled to an anganwadi. But even
with 3.22 lakh people, Khar does not have
a quality anganwadi.
In Jharkhand’s Godda district, the
Pahariya tribals live in a forest that has not
seen rains in the past four years. Food is
scarce. Malaria and kala-azar are still
dreaded threats. What compounds the sit-
uation is the poor diet of most of the trib-
als. Dharma Pahariya, 6, and Sani Paharin
from Maligod village in Boyarizore have
been eating only rice and salt, twice a day.
Their total calorie intake is approximate-
ly 440 or about one-fourth of the 1,715 calo-
ries they should be getting.
At a local nutrition rehabilitation cen-
tre in Majhgaon, Madhya Pradesh, one-
year-old Roshni is constantly hungry as her
mother’s milk has dried up, due to the fam-
ily’s ‘diet’ of dried rotis and watery potato
curry. The National Nutrition Council runs
a 15-day ‘course’ to bring near-death cas-
es of malnourishment back from the brink
with two weeks of freedom from hunger.
The centre provides food only to infants
and not the rest of the family, making the
entire effort rather pointless.
“The condition is so bad that the food
distributed by the anganwadi is brought
home by the children and shared with the
entire family,” says Sasmita Jena from CRY.
Priya, 6, ‘lives’ outside an electronics
store in Chennai’s Panagal Park. She used
to live in a low-lying area in Avadi, but
since the rains began, her family moved to
the pavement outside the shop. Diet-wise,
Priya is relatively better off. In the morn-
ing, she has two dosas and watery milk; in
the afternoon, sambar or rasam and rice;
tea in the evenings and dinner consists of
curd rice with onions. This totals 1,410
calories per day, ‘only’ 300 calories short
of her recommended daily intake.
What can be done to counter the star-
vation faced by 42 percent of the world’s
hungry children who live in India? It needs
holistic treatment. Schemes such as the In-
tegrated Child Development Services (ICDS)
and the Public Distribution System can be
easily re-harnessed to reduce malnour-
ishment among children and mothers.
A working ICDS scheme is required —
one that focusses on improving maternal
nutrition during pregnancy and lactation,
promotes sound breastfeeding and com-
plementary feeding practices, provides
essential micronutrients and adopts salt
iodisation, while also ensuring appropri-
ate immunisation.
CRY is India’s leading advocate
for child rights. For more information
visit www.cry.org
 COVERSTORY

THE RET
CULTURE CLASHES
WATER SHORTAGE
LAND REFORM TANGLE EDUCATION WOES FOOTBALL RIVALRY

OF A RE
The CPM has spared nothing in its desperate bid to cling on to power after a
34-year reign in West Bengal. Netai village in volatile Lalgarh is the latest
flashpoint of the deadly civil war simmering in the state. TUSHA MITTAL
chronicles how political parties are shedding blood ahead of Assembly polls

EVERYWHERE THERE cause they supported a political party. some disturbance and stopped. His fami-
are flags dug in, and To understand the pattern of death, ly believes the police fired the bullet that
flags ripped out. The zoom into one subdivision. In the 2009 killed him. Rabin Addok was coming back
battle for West Bengal General Election, the TMC won all the par- from the local wine shop when masked
has entered its final, liamentary seats in Hooghly, except Aram- men strangled him to death. When a mob
and perhaps most bar- bagh subdivision. Anil Basu was the lone couldn’t find Dasrat Das’s son, they mur-
baric phase. There is CPM MP to retain his seat. But the margin of dered him instead.
no accurate count of victory had plummeted from nearly 6 lakh Arambagh is symptomatic of the civil
how many have died so far. Some killings votes in 2004 to about 50,000 in 2009. The war-like situation across West Bengal. In
have been targeted. Some have been col- TMC had wrested Hooghly. the past month, TEHELKA has travelled to
lateral damage. Some of the dead aligned Arambagh, the CPM’s last hold in Hoogh- five districts mapping the ground realities.
with the Trinamool Congress, some with ly, saw its first murder immediately after While there are smatterings of conflict in
the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the 2009 verdict. Yudhishtir Doloi, a TMC almost all 18 districts, the most volatile
some with the Indian National Congress. worker, was cut up into pieces (see case zones are those where TMC has made sub-
For some, their political affiliations were studies). Ten more have died since. stantial dents in the past two years — East
unclear at the time of death. Some sup- Anant Duloi was tilling his fields when Midnapore, North 24 Parganas, South 24
ported a political party only to save them- he suddenly collapsed, dead. Uttam Doloi Parganas, Hooghly and pockets of Burd-
selves. Some could not save themselves be- was driving his bullock cart when he saw wan, an otherwise red bastion. These are

34 T E H E L K A | C U R R E N T A F FA I R S | 2 2 J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1

TREAT
TRADE UNION WARS
POLICE HARASSMENT
EGIME
places where the TMC can now look the CPM
in the eye, and where the CPM is vying to
recapture, or to retain. (And then there is
West Midnapore, where the electoral bat-
tle is complicated by the presence of both
Maoists and security forces. The TMC ac-
cuses the CPM of using the CRPF; the CPM ac-
cuses the TMC of siding with the Maoists.)
HE FIRST signs of this near civil war
T came in East Midnapore, when 14 vil-
lagers died in police firing in 2007. What
began as a conflict over land spiralled into
an ugly political war. Men on motorcades
trooped in waving flags, brandishing arms,
pitting neighbouring villages against each
other. While the TMC shoved the CPM out
of Nandigram, the red brigade swarmed
into nearby Khejuri. Three years later, the
war in Khejuri continues.
But the Nandigram-Khejuri flashpoint
was not only about visible violence. It also
brought to the fore another kind of insid-
ious violence that has now reached a peak.
Post-Nandigram, several artists found
themselves in a dilemma. In the past 34
years, through its trade unions, mass or-
ganisations and cultural guilds, the CPM has
made inroads into almost every aspect of
BUSINESS DISPUTES
civil and daily life — education, local foot-
ball, art galleries, the municipality. For a
large section of the middle class, CPM pa-
tronage has been essential to survival. Sud-
denly, theatre directors who spoke out
against the CPM after Nandigram found
their shows being cancelled. Those who
continued to speak out found they had to
align with the TMC.
In this manner has Bengal’s political
war shrunk the space for the neutral citi-
zen. The fight of local residents over a
water body, the Tata factory in Singur,
university education, the civil rights move-
ment — suddenly everything in West
Bengal is coloured red or green. Writers,
economists, athletes, musicians, bureau-
crats, and even policemen — suddenly
everybody has to choose. And then, the
colour must be conformed to.
In many ways, West Bengal has been
flung into the space between shifting
regimes, one intoxicated on power and the
other still unsure of the kind of power it
wants to be. What is happening in Bengal
is a kind of upheaval that comes with tec-
tonic change, with the uprooting of 34
years of entrenched, nearly unopposed
rule. It is a blurring of the collective and
2 2 J A N UA R Y 2 0 1 1 | CO V E R STO RY | T E H E L K A
WEST BENGAL
HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS
RELIGIOUS CLASHES
individual, a state of war where it is
becoming impossible to distinguish
between the political and the private.
Perhaps that is why the bodies of
Amrito and Tapas Saha are being paraded
in TMC rallies across Kolkata. It is not clear
whether the brothers were TMC members
in life, but they have certainly been
declared ardent supporters in death.
TEHELKA visited their village Ketugram the
day after their murder. Green flags outside
their home had been positioned the same
morning to prepare for the visit of TMC stal-
warts. The Saha family echoed the TMC line
that the brothers had been murdered by
their neighbour Kailash, a CPM supporter,
because of their political affiliation. The
Congress claimed the brothers as their
supporters. Meena Parveen, a village res-
ident, told TEHELKA that she heard Kailash
threaten the brothers over a personal land
dispute, a day before the murder.
On the morning of 7 January in Lal-
garh’s Netai village, eight unarmed vil-
lagers were shot dead by men firing from
the rooftop of a two-storey building. The
building is the home of CPM zonal leader
Ratin Dandapat who fled the village six
months ago. Last month, locals say, it was
35
 COVERSTORY
turned into a CPM camp housing 30 armed
cadres, known as the Harmad Vahini.
For the past month, life has changed in
Netai village. “The Harmad threaten us to
attend CPM rallies at gunpoint, force us to
cook food, and make us do night patrols to
guard the camp from the Maoists,” say the
locals. “A list with villagers’ names and as-
signed duties is maintained.”
UT A week ago, the cadres announced
B a new demand — every house must
send its men for arms training. “We will
not always be here to save you. You have to
defend yourselves from the Maoists. We
are preparing you to protect your village,”
the cadres declared. On 6 January, the vil-
lagers were told to gather at a football field
at 3 pm. Of the 500 who assembled, 62
were picked based on their physical fitness.
“They told us to sit down and hop on
the ground with lathis in our hands,” says
Subroto Pal, one of the chosen men. “I had
just eaten lunch and couldn’t do it. Then
they beat us with the lathis. ‘If you don’t
do this, we’ll shoot all of you and load you
into a 10-wheel truck’,” they told us.
On the morning of 7 January, two men
with rifles arrived outside Ranjit Patro’s
hut. His son Aroop Patro had not attend-
ed the mandatory training session the pre-
vious day. “If you don’t send your sons for
arms training at 3 pm today, we will set all
the houses on fire,” they warned. That
morning, all the villagers decided to unite
in protest. More than 1,000 gathered out-
side the CPM camp.
Local leader Abani Singh emerged and
asked five people to come in for a dialogue.
Village elder Krishnagopal Rai was one of
them. “We said we are ordinary villagers
who don’t want to pick up arms. We want
to live in peace,” says Rai. Singh signalled
to other cadres on the rooftop and told Rai
he’d discuss the matter with his leaders.
Suddenly he saw another band of CPM
men marching towards the village, firing
in the air. “They were reinforcements from
nearby Harmad camps,” he says. “The fir-
ing from rooftop began as soon as they ar-
rived.” Rai’s testimony counters the police
claim that it could have been retaliatory
fire from the Maoists. It shows that firing
from both directions came from the CPM.
“Suddenly the woman next to me died
on the spot,” says Kolami Pal. “We all ran.”
Phulkumari Maiti went to save her 12-year-
son Krishna. She was holding his hand
36 T E H E L K A | CO V E R STO RY | 2 2 J A N UA R Y 2 0 1 1
when she caught two bullets and died.
Dhiren Sen tried to flee as bullets rained
down. His sister-in-law Latika Sen pushed
him into the house. “He was dragged out
of the house and shot,” she says.
When TEHELKA reached Netai about 20
hours after the killings, bloodstains and
bullet holes were still visible. There were
a few pieces of flesh, a lock of hair stuck to
a wall on which Saraswati Ghorai’s head
had burst open, and something that vil-
lagers pointed to as a piece of brain. Noth-
ing had been sealed or cordoned off. A few
hours later, when TMC chief Mamata
Banerjee arrived to address Netai, villagers
thronged around her, unwittingly tram-
pled on evidence and sat on the drying
blood of their own people.
Statistics compiled by
retired IAS officer
D Bandyopadhyay
show that there have
been 55,408 political
killings between 1977
and 2010 in Bengal
In her speech, Mamata evoked com-
parisons to Nandigram — where 14 vil-
lagers had been killed in police firing in
May 2007. “This was also part of a calcu-
lated strategy. That is why despite your re-
peated calls, the police never came,” she
said. “We are the shanti vahani (peace-
keeping forces). We are taking care of the
injured. We are preparing for the crema-
tion of the dead,” she said. The villagers
expressed fear of another attack. “If they
do rallies, you do counter rallies. If you al-
low yourselves to get scared, the Harmad
would have won. The sacrifices of your
people will be in vain. You must stay unit-
ed,” she said. “We are with you.”
Netai is only the latest flashpoint. It is
the tipping over of the desperation of a
regime at the tail end of power, of an es-
tablishment that has lost control and
turned into its own worst enemy.
Most significantly, the Netai killings are
proof that the CPM has armed its cadres,
that Harmad camps do exist, and that a
Salwa Judum-style force is being readied
in West Bengal. The Judum, which the
government claims was a spontaneous,
peaceful upsurge against the Maoists, is
widely acknowledged as a State-sponsored
militia responsible for the forced dis-
placement of 60,000 people and the burn-
ing of 644 villages in Chhattisgarh.
In August 2010, TEHELKA first reported
on the build-up of Harmad camps in West
Midnapore. IB documents exclusively ac-
cessed by TEHELKA showed a list of CPM
camps — schools, party offices, and pan-
chayats stacked with AK-47’s and grenades.
“The public is fed up with the Maoists.
They are with us. We have decided that this
has to be fought two ways — ideologically
and by mass mobilisation,” a CPM source
had then told TEHELKA . “If we go to the
people and campaign against the Maoists,
the people will raise their voice. We are
mobilising people through daily rallies
across villages.” But this “mobilisation”
was, and still is, happening at gunpoint.
TEHELKA revealed how the CPM was re-
capturing villages, forcing hundreds to de-
clare loyalty to them. “Surrender or face
the consequences,” they had been told. It
was the first sign that a Salwa Judum mod-
el may be replicated in West Midnapore,
creating hostages and refugees, taking West
Bengal toward a possible civil war.
After TEHELKA’s story, Mamata raised
the issue in Parliament. Home Minister P
Chidambaram dashed off his first letter on
the subject to the West Bengal chief min-
ister. The CPM denied all such allegations.
By September, it became clear the CPM
camps had expanded across the state.
TEHELKA reported on 25 political murders
in one week and the imminent recapture
of Lalgarh by the CPM. Days later, the CPM
returned to Lalgarh, and it seemed like
many more recaptures were close at hand.
It is now January 2011. There are many
more ghost-villages, refugees living in poul-
try farms, and mothers singing elegies for
dead sons. Huddled around a lantern in
Burdwan district, the family of a dead man
whispers: “We cannot escape from Ra-
jneeti.” (See case studies: Dilip Ghosh.) It
is as if the civil war has arrived.
“Yes, there are conflict areas,” admits
CPM Central and State Committee member
Mohammed Salim. “But the frequency has
reduced. More murders happened after the
2008 panchayat polls and the 2009
General Election.”

He places the blame squarely on the
TMC. “People must say ‘If you kill, I will not
support you’. That is what we have been
campaigning for in the past three years but
for that we need a democratic environment
of dialogue and debate. But the TMC has
created an environment where they do not
talk to us and do not even share public
space. This attitude creates an environ-
ment of intolerance and violence.”
CCORDING TO calculations made by
A D Bandyopadhyay, former West Ben-
gal Land Reforms Commissioner and for-
mer Secretary to the GOI, there have been
55,408 political killings in West Bengal be-
tween 1977 and 2010.
According to Sujato Bhadro of the As-
PARTHA DASGUPTA & TUSHA MITTAL
traverse the killing fields of West
Bengal for over a month to record the
political mayhem
PHOTOGRAPHS BY PINTU PRADHAN
ANDHYA MONDAL’s husband was
S killed in 2007. The unlettered
30-year-old and her two sons
sought shelter with her mother Laxmi
and have stayed there ever since. Every
night, she stays awake to fend off
drunken cadres.
In the same village, Khamar Naobad,
notorious for sheltering the Harmad,
lives Shabana Khatun. She is just 16 and
passed her school-leaving examination
in 2010. Her father Mohammed Noor Ali,
a Congress worker, was murdered when
she was a child. Her elder brother, Mo-
sociation for the Protection of Civil Rights,
at least 10,000 opposition members have
been killed by CPM while it has lost about
2,500 of its own cadres. Civil rights group
Bandhi Mukti Morcha (Committee for the
Release of Political Prisoners) says there
are at least 2,500 political prisoners in West
Bengal at present.
Abraham Lincoln described the Amer-
ican Civil War as a situation in which
“murders for old grudges and murders for
pelf proceed under any cloak that will best
cover for the occasion.” Anthropologist
Stanley Aschenbrenner describes the
Greek Civil War, in a Greek village, as “a
sequence of action and reaction that politi-
cisation of private life ultimately leads to
the privatisation of politics.” Both could be
S 01 FORCED TO FLEE
‘I am only
16, please
don’t ruin
me,’ I cried
Shabana Khatun, 16
Student
KHAMAR NAOBAD
hammed Sadek Ali, is a Trinamool Con-
gress (TMC) supporter and “can lose his
life any moment”, says Shabana.
A few days after Eid, Shabana was
alone at home when seven or eight
armed cadres broke into her room. They
were looking for her brother Sadek.
When Shabana expressed ignorance
2 2 J A N UA R Y 2 0 1 1 | CO V E R STO RY | T E H E L K A
WEST BENGAL
describing the reality of West Bengal.
“Until a year ago, we did not know what
theft is,” says Deepak Rai of Pappatpur vil-
lage near Lalgarh. “Now, every night there
is a theft in our village. Men with masks
and rifles barge into huts, break open almi-
rahs, and take whatever they want.” A stu-
dent of hotel management, Rai returned to
his village after he couldn’t find a job.
“I never wanted to be in politics. But
here, even to file an FIR you have to name
a CPM leader. Somehow, fighting the CPM, I
found myself in politics. God won’t be able
to save us. So I joined TMC,” says Rai.
Red or green, it as if you have to have a
flag outside.
tusha@tehelka.com
about his whereabouts, they tied up her
legs, threw her on to the bed and began
molesting her.
Shabana shrieked in fear and cried for
help. She pleaded, “I am only 16. I have
my whole life ahead of me. Please do not
ruin me.” But her cries for mercy did not
have the slightest effect. “Haven’t you
heard of Tapasi Malik of Singur? Don’t
you know what happened to her?” asked
one of the cadres, whom she could iden-
tify as one of her brother’s friends. “We
will rape you and then kill you. Your
grave is being dug outside,” he said.
37
 COVERSTORY
S 02 DISABLED FOR LIFE
The group then went out and sat
down for a drink, preparing for “an en-
tire night of revelry”. An hour later, one
of them, whom she knew from child-
‘I was victimised for
hood, came in quietly, set her free and
asked her to flee. She climbed through
the kitchen window and ran for her life.
being an active
Welcome to Sasan, home of the CPM
don Majid Master, who has ruled over
40,000 bigha (3 bigha = 1 acre) of fishing
ponds for the last three decades. These
Congress worker’
ponds are leased out for around 10,000
per bigha. Majid, a teacher in a govern-
ment school, has built nine party offices
in the Sasan area, has his own private
army and has successfully terrorised the
entire Sasan panchayat that comprises
12 villages. Harmad camps, which are so
much in the news now, have been func-
tioning in this area for decades.
After the 2009 poll debacle, Majid left
his home in Sasan and is rumoured to
live in Barasat and Madhyamgram.
However, his wife has taken up the
mantle and was in the forefront when
the Harmad opened fire during elections
to the Dugdia Faltadanga High School
committee a few months ago.

TEHATA VILLAGE has been a traditional

Congress stronghold and as such, the
worst affected during the Left regime.
Most menfolk fled the village when the
Left Front came to power in 1977, only to
return after TMC swept the North 24-Par-
ganas district in the 2009 general
elections. “My son died for want of treat- Susanta Mondal, 41 gress worker was an eyesore
ment while I was in exile. I could not for the CPM mandarins who
even come back to see my dead son, as I Agricultural worker controlled and terrorised the
could have been killed,” sobs Iman Ali TEGHARIA large areas of Sasan and
Mollah, 52, who returned to this village Barasat dotted with water
after 22 years. Md Babur Ali and his wife bodies. He was, therefore,
Safina Bibi have returned after 24 years ‘found’ to be carrying 3 gm
and reclaimed their house. But their sons brown sugar while working in
have refused to return. Sahidul Haq Mol- USANTA MONDAL, 41, of a paddy field and was picked
lah, who fled from Tehata 23 years ago, is
now 55, and has vowed to take revenge.
They have driven out Safikul, Majid’s
S Tegharia village was a
Congress worker in the
1990s. The six-footer belongs
by the police in 2000.
For three days, nobody
knew of his whereabouts.
son-in-law, and Motalef, two of the most to the Bagdi warrior caste, “They did not put me in the
notorious CPM men in Tehata. often dubbed a criminal tribe. lock-up. I was hidden in some
Every evening, the entire village is on Mondal is a landless peasant house and tortured,” says
armed patrol. Even a 12-year-old boy has who used to make ends meet Mondal. “They gave me elec-
learnt to use firearms. The official name by tilling others’ land and tric shocks and beat me up
given by all political parties to this prepa- occasionally working in the with a hot iron rod. I had blis-
ration is ‘a spontaneous and democratic N Waylaid Susanta large fishing ponds in the ters all over my body and a
people’s resistance’. In reality, it is a Mondal cannot walk Sasan area, some 30 km broken hand,” Mondal re-
shadow war that promises to break into a properly or work aer north-east of Kolkata. members with horror. “Un-
real war anytime. torture by the police But an active, daring Con- conscious, I lay half-dead.”

38 T E H E L K A | CO V E R STO RY | 2 2 J A N UA R Y 2 0 1 1
 If it was his political affilia-
tion that precipitated these
S 03 VILLAGE UNDER SIEGE
events, it was political con-
nections that saved his life.
“Jyotipriya Mullick (now the
TMC MLA from Gaighata)
pulled some strings and saw
to it that I did not die,” he re-
‘They sliced his hands,
calls. But he was convicted for
drug trafficking and had to
serve his time.
cut his private parts’
MAMONI, SUSANTA’s mother,
wailed inconsolably when
asked about the plight of the
family during the years Yudhistir Doloi, 45 Yudhistir Doloi, then TMC block presi-
Susanta was in jail. A few dent, screamed at the cadres. He was
months after Susanta’s arrest, TMC block president gheraoed and assaulted while his family
his father was murdered. JANGRI VILLAGE watched helplessly.
Susanta’s mother, wife and “They sliced his hands, legs, jabbed
daughter shifted to the house him in the neck and cut his private
of Susanta’s sister, Lakshmi. parts,” recalls his brother Tapan. When
Laxmi’s kitchen was the Yudhistir’s 70-year-old mother tried to
address of these three women T 14, Asim Doloi has a clear politi- save him, she was flung on the ground.
for 10 years.
“We do not believe anyone
any more,” says his wife
A cal goal. “When I grow up, I want
to wipe out the CPM from this
country,” he says, fighting back tears. He
She wails piteously now, “Oh my son,
where have you gone, my son?”
One member of Yudhistir’s family has
Rekha, who made her dis- has watched armed CPM cadres cut up his now been allotted a railway job by the
pleasure quite apparent at the father into pieces. TMC. Thirty-six people were named in
sight of her husband being It was a month after CPM’s unprece- the FIR by the family. Police arrested sev-
interviewed. The ghosts of dented defeat in the 2009 general elec- en and released them on bail three
the last 10 years are haunting tions. The Doloi family was sleeping months later. “The
her. “I worked as a domestic inside a two-room mud and brick hut in Khanagul police tell  Victims of politics
help in Madhyamgram, Birati Jangri village when about 100 CPM cadres us we’ll catch them Doloi’s wife and son
and Salt Lake. It was a life poured kerosene on their home and after the government Asim, who witnessed
shorn of all dignity. But I had burnt it. “Is this what you call politics?” changes,” Tapan says. his horrific end
no choice. My daughter is
young and she needs to live,”
says Rekha. Their 16-year-old
daughter, clinging to her,
refused to divulge her name
but volunteered, “I dropped
out of school and worked as a
domestic help too.”
Mondal, now out of prison,
lives in constant fear of being
hounded by CPM goons and
police a second time. The
robust-looking man cannot do
any physical work, let alone
walk properly. “We know how
he was victimised as also the
condition his family is in. We
will try and do something for
him,” says Mullick. This
promise holds out the only
hope for Susanta and his
beleaguered family.

2 2 J A N UA R Y 2 0 1 1 | CO V E R STO RY | T E H E L K A 39
 COVERSTORY
S 04 BLOODY STUDENT POLITICS
A decade ago, Yudhistir was a CPM work-
er. He switched his allegiance the year
TMC was formed, as did so many others.
His house was first ransacked before the
‘They flung him
2001 Assembly polls. “None of us were
allowed to vote, so naturally the CPM
won,” recalls Tapan.
from the terrace. He
An active TMC worker by then, Yudhi-
stir had to flee in 2001. He stayed away
for six years before mustering courage to
return to his native village in 2006. He
lay there senseless’
was to live with his family for only three
years before being hacked to death.
A few days after Yudhistir’s murder in Swapan Kole, 21
2009, villagers say a Harmad camp was
set up at the local primary school, a kilo- Student leader
metre from the police post. Three HOWRAH DISRICT
months after the murder, 20 homes were
looted in Jangri village. Last week, more
homes were broken and ransacked and
any remaining TMC flags torn up. “The
police were waiting and watching from
the other side of the river,” Tapan says.
“If you touch the CPM flag, we’ll burn
down all the houses,” the CPM cadres
warned Tapan three days into 2011.

YUDHISTIR’S WAS the first of many more

deaths to come in Hooghly district’s
Arambagh subdivision. Since then, the
TMC says at least 11 others have been
killed in political violence. Like Noor
Mohammed, killed on 4 December 2010.
A resident of nearby Gholdigiri
village, Mohammed worked at a biscuit
factory. So far an apolitical person, he
had just begun attending TMC rallies and
meetings a month ago. It was around the
same time that CPM cadres began flag
marches in the village. At around 2 pm
on 4 December, he was walking up the
narrow lanes to his hut when he heard
his name being called out. “They fired at
him point blank. He got a bullet in his
chest,” says his wife Begum. Since then, 21-YEAR-old student in West Bengal’s Howrah
Begum has barely been able to eat. Her
elder son works in a zari shop and her
younger son in a book binding shop.
A district, Swapan Kole’s first brush with politics
came a year before politics killed him. On the
afternoon of 16 December 2010, after filing his nomi-
They have never had much to do with nation papers for student union elections, Kole was
politics but face a dilemma: should they leaving college when he found a mob waiting outside:
join the TMC? Support it? Or do nothing? about 30 men in black masks, with tilaks on their fore-
Meanwhile, the CPM cadres continue heads. Five policemen posted inside the college to
to march through the village, at times maintain decorum during elections were of no use to
vandalising homes and shops or burning him when he was attacked.
paddy. At night, Begun can hear random N Snuffed out Kole was alone at the time. The group attacked him,
firing in the air. “I can’t sleep,” she says. Srikanto Kole holds a smashing his head with iron rods. He managed to flee.
“What if they come back to burn the photo of his son, A chase began. Kole hid on the terrace of a nearby
house down?” killed by TMC goons house. The attackers followed and hunted him out.

40 T E H E L K A | CO V E R STO RY | 2 2 J A N UA R Y 2 0 1 1
They flung him from the terrace, looked down, as-
sumed he was dead and vanished. Kole lay senseless
on the ground in a pool of blood. He was still alive
when two friends rushed to the spot.
By then some policemen, who had been watching
the drama unfold, also reached Kole. They put him in a
rickshaw and began proceeding towards the local
hospital. Suddenly, the mob reappeared from behind.
Two men had swords that they pointed at the police
while others once again smashed Kole’s head with a
rod. They picked up the bleeding student and flung
him down a bridge into a canal. When Kole was taken
to the nearest hospital, his lungs were still working.
He was then transferred to a hospital in Kolkata. But
the efforts to save him despite three attacks in quick
succession failed. He died the same day.
“I can name some of the people in the mob,” says
Rajdeep Chakrabarty, Howrah district SFI secretariat
member and Kole’s friend at the spot. “They are
students from the same college and members of the
Trinamool Chhatra Parishad (TMC students’ wing).
Some of them had TMC flags. Others were people I
S 05 PITCHED BATTLE WITH POLICE
have never seen before.” Howrah police have so far ar-
rested two TMCP members for Kole’s killing.

THE SON of a paan-shop owner in West Bengal’s

Howrah district, Sapan Kole grew up dreaming of
being an artist. Behind his now garlanded photo in
‘My cousin was
his room is a copy of Tagore’s Gitanjali, a clay model
of ‘I love India’ and his drawing book with half-done
sketches. Outside, his mother stands in silence
shot dead by
refusing to say a word and his grandfather cries in
disbelief. He cannot understand how he has outlived
his grandson.
After graduating from a local district school, when
uniformed men’
Kole wasn’t able to get admission into a B.Com college,
he found himself at the doors of the CPM’s student
union. “It is impossible to get a college seat without Kajal Mollah, 28 N Terror at noon
sources,” says his father Srikanto Kole. “He ap- Mollah was hit by a
proached senior political leaders in SFI (Student Feder- Farmer police bullet while
ation of India). They helped him get admission. Since BURDWAN DISTRICT delivering lunch
then, he felt indebted to the SFI.”
Six months into college, Kole became a part of the
CPM’s student wing. Within a year, he became an active
member. He began to wake up early to deliver newspa-
pers and give tuitions to middle school students before URDWAN, THE strongest otsadi village, some 130 km
college hours. “You won’t understand. I need the mon-
ey,” he told his family.
It was at a late night dinner a few months ago that
B Left bastion in West
Bengal, showed signs
of crumbling in the last pan-
from Kolkata, for some time.
On the morning of 1 Decem-
ber, two TMC supporters were
he revealed more. “He suddenly declared that he will chayat polls with the TMC dragged out of a bus in Raina
be contesting the student union elections,” says his wresting a few seats from the and beaten up by CPM cadres.
brother Tapas Kole, who works in a sari shop. “We all CPM. Hordes of Left support- In revenge, a large contingent
tried to dissuade him.  It is okay to support a party ers switched over to the TMC of TMC activists descended on
from the periphery but I warned him not to get too under the leadership of Bam- the houses of CPM supporters
close, too deep.” But Kole was determined. “He always deb Mondal, a CPM strongman with firearms and bombs. A
had a spirit of service.  He was never a political person thrown out of the party, and a pitched battle followed.
but he got influenced in college,” Tapas says. “I guess bloody turf war ensued. Around noon, a team of 22
he did not think that politics can kill.” Trouble was brewing in Jy- policemen, who were return-

2 2 J A N UA R Y 2 0 1 1 | CO V E R STO RY | T E H E L K A 47
41
 COVERSTORY
S 06 SCORCHED EARTH POLICY
ing from Bontir after conduct-
ing an inquiry into an incident
of arson, arrived at Jyotsadi.
The team was led by Sadhan
Bandyopadhyay, officer in
charge (OC) of Raina Police
Station. They were enquiring
about one Samad, a CPM cadre
allegedly driven out by TMC
men. “The TMC supporters
vented their ire on the team,
accusing them of being hand-
in-glove with the CPM, and
hurled bombs at them. Madan
Mukhopadhyay, a constable,
was seriously injured,” claims
Rajaram Rajsekharan, the SP
of Burdwan. “The outnum-
bered policemen fired teargas
shells and 10 rounds of bullets
in a bid to disperse the mob.”

BUT REZAUL Mollah says the

police fired to kill. “All the
bullet injuries were in the
chest, hands or head. My
brother Hasmat Ali took the
‘His disfigured body
shot in his chest,” said a sob-
bing Mollah. Azizul Ahmed
alleges that most of the vil-
was found the next day’
lagers were returning from
the fields for lunch when they
were caught in the firing. “Ka-
jal was carrying lunch for me
when he was shot by uni- Dilip Ghosh, 40 On the afternoon of 5 January,
formed men who had their villagers of Brahmapur in Burdwan
faces wrapped in black cloth. Sweet shop worker district noticed a group of 150 armed
Some of them were wearing BRAHMAPUR VILLAGE men collecting across the river. Locals
slippers” says SK Alauddin, say they were armed cadres of the CPM
cousin of Kajal Mollah. heading towards the village.
Local TMC supporters al- Local TMC leaders were alerted. They
lege that CPM cadres in police put up a united front to prevent the CPM
uniform opened fire at them. F THE disfigured body of Dilip Ghosh, from entering. “We fought them with
In retaliation, on 3 December,
TMC supporters ransacked
many houses belonging to
I a sweet shop worker, had been the
handiwork of the banned organisa-
tion CPI(Maoist), it would have outraged
lathis. But they numbered 150, we were
only 16. Many of them were drunk.
Eventually, we had to run for cover,” says
CPM supporters, including the the nation for days. On the morning of TMC supporter Rabi Ghosh.
CPM’s Krishak Sabha office at 6 January, villagers found his body by a Dilip Ghosh wasn’t able to run fast
Belsar More in Raina and pond, hands and legs chopped, eyes enough because of a foot injury. “The
torched a motorbike. gouged out, tongue sliced, neck slashed, CPM men chased him, caught hold of him
Taking a cue from Jan- and genitals cut off. and took him away. His disfigured body
galmahal, all approach roads But the death of Dilip Ghosh was the was found the next day,” says his brother
to Belsar were blocked by outcome of a confrontation between Anandogopal. “The CPM knows it is time
felling trees on the main road. constitutional political parties. for them to go, so
By the time police re- Trinamool Congress carried his body in a they are killing N Living in the dark
moved the ‘barriers’ and en- glass  coffin in political rallies across ruthlessly. It’s like: Family members
tered Belsar, TMC supporters Kolkata. Perhaps that is why it did not I have to die any- mourn the death
had already fled the scene. outrage the nation. how, so let me kill of Dilip Ghosh

42 T E H E L K A | CO V E R STO RY | 2 2 J A N UA R Y 2 0 1 1
everybody else on the way.”
CPM Burdwan secretary Amar Haldar
rubbishes the allegations. “Our men who
S 07 SHIFTING LOYALTIES
had fled the village were trying to return.
Then Dilip Ghosh and other TMC anti-so-
cial elements attacked them. There was a
clash. That’s how Dilip Ghosh died. Any-
one could have mutilated his body after
his death,” says Haldar.
‘I’d rather die than
Ghosh was a TMC supporter for the
past 10 years. His daughter Mahamoni
was a candidate for the TMC panchayat
be feasted upon by
elections and his son-in-law Bishwajeet
is a block committee member, who earli-
er led the protest against the CPM. the Harmad cadres’
AFTER A major flood hit the region, the
flood relief money was being distributed
only to CPM favourites. Biswajeet raised Shaibalini Das, 35 UNIA CHAR and eight adjoining
his voice against this but no one paid
heed. He then initiated a village commit-
tee: Uttar Brahmapur Maan Manusho
Housewife
SUNIA CHAR VILLAGE
S villages were traditional CPM
strongholds until the TMC won the
panchayat elections in 2008. From early
Sangho. Ghosh supported him. Soon August, armed CPM cadres started gath-
Biswajeet, Ghosh and several others who ering as the police clamped Section 144
were part of the village committee joined in the whole area, allegedly to keep out
the TMC. the media.
“To live, to survive, you have to join a On 22 August last year, around 95 men
political party,” says Bimal Ghosh. The from Sunia Char were reportedly driven
village became ‘pro-TMC’ post Lok Sabha out at gunpoint by the Harmad. One of
elections in May 2009. them was Nirmal Jana, who ran a small
In June 2009, a local CPM leader paan and grocer’s shop in Sunia and
Falguni Mukherjee was murdered about S Endangered life stayed in a small house with his wife and
5 km from Ghosh’s village. Burdwan Shaibalini’s mobility daughter.
district has seen an escalation of violence has been curtailed The cadres, who used to buy from his
since the incident. due to a polio attack shop on credit, demolished the shop and
While the CPM blamed the TMC and
Biswajeet as the main accused, the TMC
says Mukherjee’s murder was a result of
factional wars within the CPM.
Immediately after Mukherjee’s death,
Brahmapur and surrounding villagers
were attacked. Nearly 20 houses were set
on fire, including Biswajeet’s. He had to
flee the village with his family. He re-
mained in hiding for six months.
In early December, after TMC activist
Purnima Majhi was murdered in
Brahmapur, it was the CPM’s turn to flee.
Biswajeet and his family were then able
to return. The latest clash, locals say, was
CPM’s attempt to ‘recapture’ the village.
“I joined politics to improve local is-
sues,” says Mahamoni, 26. “I wanted to
improve the roads. But now, my father
has died and we are in a situation where
we have to continue politics to save
ourselves. There’s no way out. We can’t
leave the party. Who will speak for us?”

2 2 J A N UA R Y 2 0 1 1 | CO V E R STO RY | T E H E L K A 43
 COVERSTORY
S 08 UNHOLY WAR OF ATTRITION
drove him away when he demanded his
dues. He fled and is now languishing in a
relief camp in Kamarda.
“I have not spoken to my family since
‘CPM cadres fired
and have no idea how they are doing,” he
says, visibly distraught.
Laxmikanta Maity, who led the TMC in
seven rounds to
Sunia, was woken up at night and asked
to leave right away if he valued his life.
“I had no choice but to flee. I have an
ailing mother who needs treatment and
celebrate his death’
teenage daughters, besides my wife. In
the past four months, I have been able to
speak to them only twice. They are mis- Balai Mandal, 45 hut, Basanti can see the home
erable. Every other night, drunk cadres of those accused in the FIR of
keep hounding my wife and daughters. Fish trader killing her husband. It stands
They stay awake all night, with utensils KULIPARA VILLAGE out, a blue three-storey ce-
as their only weapons in case of a ment construction amid
Harmad break-in,” says Maity, now the marshy land and tin roofs. It
caretaker of the relief camp that runs in belongs to local CPM leaders
Kamarda and houses 146 people — men, Prafulla Mandal and Ranjan
women and children. HEN NEWS reached Mandal, who have been miss-

PRADIP DAS also had to flee Sunia on

that dreaded night with his son and
W Kulipara last Octo-
ber that Balai Man-
dal had died in hospital, gun-
ing since the killing. She is
dizzy with the fear that they
will come back for her sons.
daughter, leaving behind Shaibalini, his fire was heard from a CPM Already, the threats have
35-year-old wife, whose right leg is camp across the river. “They begun. Of the 10 people
polio-stricken, and who ‘walks’ on all fired seven rounds,” says his named in the FIR, two have
fours. Shaibalini was alone and son Samir. “They wanted to been arrested. Others roam
extremely vulnerable. celebrate his death.” Mandal, free. “We’ve killed your fa-
A couple of weeks later, a group of who transported fish and ther. We’ll kill the rest of you
cadres accosted her and expressed their S Resident evils?
worked on farms for a living, as well,” they warn Samir.
desire to spend the night with her. As The house of CPM had started attending TMC Ever since, he has stopped
night fell, Shaibalini dragged herself out, leaders Prafulla meetings after the 2009 polls. walking alone after dusk.
crawled through paddy fields and bushes and Ranjan Mandal From a window inside her With an income of about
for a good 3 km, rolled down the bank of
Rasulpur, plunged into the water and
waded to the other bank. Her wet clothes
dried on her body through the night she
spent under a tree.
Shaibalini picked herself up in the
morning, found out where the relief
camp was and crawled up to her family.
Pradip could not believe his eyes. “I
knew I could be killed at any point in
time, but I refused to be raped,” says
Shaibalini. “I’d rather die than be feasted
upon by the Harmad. Don’t ask me how I
made it here. It was some spirit that
drove me along,” says the courageous
woman.
In 2008, Subrata Das had three fin-
gers of his left hand chopped off during
the panchayat polls for opposing the CPM.
This time around, it could have been his
head, had he not fled for dear life.
This is the fate of a village that dared
to vote for the TMC instead of the CPM.

44 T E H E L K A | CO V E R STO RY | 2 2 J A N UA R Y 2 0 1 1
 3,000 a month, the Mandal
family lives in a neighbour-
S 09 RAMPAGING CADRES
hood about 10 km from
Kolkata’s swish Salt Lake sub-
urb. One right turn off a
smooth highway leads to the
village of Kulipara that saw its
first killing a few months ago.
‘We hid our daughter
It was around 7 am in Oc-
tober. TMC supporter Amol
Mandal was playing cards
beneath the bed’
when he suddenly saw leaves
fall. It seemed like a bullet
had hit the tree. When he
turned around, he saw armed
CPM cadres headed his way.

THE NIGHT before, the village

had seen a scuffle. CPM men
had invited their TMC coun-
terparts to join in the immer-
sion of idols. “Since they
called, two of us went,” Amol
says. “But they began to beat
us for supporting the TMC.”
When Amol returned, he col-
lected other TMC supporters.
They decided to spend the
night near Balai’s home for
fear of another attack.
Their fears weren’t mis-
placed. The next morning,
armed CPM men marched to-
wards Balai’s house, firing
bullets in the air. People be-
gan scurrying in all direc-
tions, running for cover. Balai
noticed his two grandsons Shaktipada Laya, 38 our teenage daughter Ganga beneath the
playing in the yard, unaware. bed, huddled in a corner of the hut and
He rushed out to save them
Tea shop owner prayed,” says Sandhya. “It was war. We
but caught a bullet instead. KAMARDA VILLAGE have never seen so many people firing at
The nearest police outpost random. Out hearts were in our mouths
is 200 metres away, yet the for a good two hours,” says the tribal who
police arrived on the spot is now “resigned to destiny”.
more than an hour after the At 5.20 am, two 10-wheeler trucks and
incident. They asked the lo- HAKTIPADA AND Sandhya Laya run a few pickup vans carrying around 300
cals to pick up a bleeding Bal-
ai and wash the blood away.
“Why should we destroy the
S a small tea shop on the outskirts of
Kamarda village in Khejuri block.
On the morning of 24 November 2010,
armed cadres of the CPM arrived at Heria
crossing, the entry point of Kamarda, the
worst-hit village of Khejuri since the
evidence?” some women the poor couple woke up to prolonged Nandigram clashes in 2007. They were
asked. The police beat them gunfire around their mud house. Peeping led by the CPM Khejuri zonal secretary
with lathis. out of the window, Shaktipada saw a Himangshu Das. Other leaders who or-
It took two hours after that swarm of gun-toting youth running hel- chestrated this ‘homecoming’ of CPM
to find an ambulance. The ter-skelter, trampling on the paddy fields cadres ‘driven out’ by
nearest hospital was 15 km behind their shack, and rushing towards TMC after their elec- N Living in fear
away. Balai died a few min- the Rasulpur river that flows between toral success in 2009 Shaktipada and
utes before the vehicle en- Khejuri and Sunia, hotbeds of Bengal’s were Rabiul Islam, Bi- Sandhya hear bomb
tered the hospital gates. turf war for the last three years. “We hid jan Ray, Nirapada Das, blasts every night

2 2 J A N UA R Y 2 0 1 1 | CO V E R STO RY | T E H E L K A 45
 COVERSTORY
S 10 CAMPUS CLASH
Prasanta Maity, Nazrul Khan, Mustafa
Khan and Joydeb Das (Babu). CPM cadres
in yellow caps took control of the Kamar-
da marketplace and laid siege on nearby
‘My son lost his eye.
villages like Amjadnagar, Jaminimore,
Sarbeswarchawk. They pulled out
villagers and made them walk in ‘victory’
What can I say?’
processions along with them. The TMC
office in Kamarda was ransacked. It was
literally ‘picnic time’ for the CPM as they
took control of the local high school and
started preparing for a ‘feast’, employing
their own ‘cook’ Prajapati Mondal.

BUT THE revelry was short-lived. As the

news of the ‘recapture’ spread, TMC MP
Subhendu Adhikari led a troop of around
1,000 supporters and attacked the CPM
cadres. It was now the TMC’s turn to ran-
sack the CPM party office in Kamarda
which had been locked since the 2009
general elections. These men also put on
fire a club run by Himangshu Das. (Ironi-
cally, Kamarda was locally known as
‘Lenin Nagar’, such was the dominance
of the CPM there). They now headed to-
wards the high school and caught the
CPM cadres off guard as they were
Souvik Hazra, 20  Blind fury
preparing to have lunch. The cadres im- SFI activist Souvik
mediately fled the scene exchanging Student Hazra was a student
bombs and bullets with the decidedly KOLKATA
of Asutosh College
heavier TMC artillery.
They ran through the Birbandar and
Kanthibari villages, crossed the Rasulpur
river and took shelter in the harmad OUVIK HAZRA is a second-year lost vision in his left eye by then.
camp at Sunia. Many of them left their
arms and ammunition behind, which the
police later retrieved. The ‘November
S student of English in Kolkata’s
Asutosh College. On 16 De-
cember, the day that witnessed the
As a last-ditch effort, he was oper-
ated upon that night itself by Dr
Suman Mukherjee of Kolkata’s Re-
revolution’ of the CPM was scotched. death of Swapan Koley in Howrah, gional Opthalmological Institute, but
“We ensured that the cadres could Souvik, an SFI supporter, lost his left this was of no avail. Most parts of his
flee to Sunia and be safe. If we wished, eye in a clash with TMC supporters. left eye were damaged. This was
we could have slaughtered them,” says a Trouble started brewing on 9 De- confirmed by Dr Gautam Bhaduri,
member of the TMC local committee on cember when the principal was director of the institute.
condition of anonymity. He goes on to gheraoed by TMC’s Chhatra Parishad. Souvik was shifted to Hyderbad’s
justify the party’s magnanimity. “Half the The SFI organised a protest meet in LV Prasad Eye Institute. However,
intruders were ‘outsiders’ but the other front of the college. The TMCP, too, his left eye is gone for good.
half comprised people from our own vil- organised a protest close by. There A resident of Banerjeepara of
lage — everyone was someone’s relative. were provocative speeches from Behala in south Kolkata, Souvik is
We couldn’t have possibly harmed both sides, which soon added fuel to the only child of Chameli and Bidyut
them,” says the young TMC turk. the simmering fire. All hell broke Hazra, a state government employee.
The battle continues between Kamar- loose, with both sides armed with “I have no clue how this happened to
da and Sunia. Every night, Shaktipada bricks, iron rods and glass bottles. Souvik. He was never into active
and Sandhya hear bombs and see the sky TMCP supporters chased Souvik. As politics. Now that my son has lost an
light up. Every evening, they hear he ran into the college for shelter, a eye. I have nothing else to say,” says
gunshots whiz past their mud hovel. But brick hit him on the left eye. the hapless father.
they have nowhere to go. The poor Souvik, bleeding profusely, was
family lives on the razor’s edge, hoping rushed to SSKM Hospital and then to tusha@tehelka.com,
that no stray bullet hits them. Calcutta Medical College. He had partha@tehelka.com

46 T E H E L K A | CO V E R STO RY | 2 2 J A N UA R Y 2 0 1 1
 FASHION

Haute and Happening

They have helped Indians remain smart and stylish so
far. And now with its wide range of innerwears, Oscar
Garments promises to keep you cosy

the official sponsor of the IIFA Awards

and the IIFA Foundation Challenge Cup.
Oscar is all set to create a splash
in the Indian market with its top-of-
the-line manufacturing and marketing
capability. With a focus on its People,
Processes and Progress, Oscar aims at
being a generic name for inners and
casuals across the globe.

PLACES IN INDIA
YOU SHOULD VISIT BEFORE YOU DIE

SOUL-SOOTHING: ARAKU &

ANANTAGIRI, ANDHRA PRADESH

ONE OF THE most

important tourist destina-
tions in Andhra Pradesh is the
Araku Valley.
A sojourn to Araku
Valley on the Eastern Ghats,
enriches the soul with
DISTANCE: Araku is 112 Km from

B
EING STYLE partners to films
like Anjaana Anjaani and Gol-
maal 3 has helped catapult
brand Oscar into the big league.
Oscar Garments also introduced inner-
wear in India recently. With Dino Morea
flaunting his six packs in their vests
leading to their tag ‘Unleash Your
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To attract more consumers, they
have introduced age-wise sizes for
kids, trendy-looking garments for
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comfort all of which has already re-
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the domestic market. The company
promises a slew of innovative products
in the coming seasons.
Not just films, Oscar has also been
nature’s bounty.
The journey by train itself
is equally exhilarating as the
train winds its way through
46 tunnels and forests, and
touches Asia’s highest rail-
head on the broad guage at
Shimliguda before reaching
Araku.
Anantagiri hill station,
located en route, is endowed
with rich natural beauty.
Blessed with a wide variety of
flora, Anantagiri is home to
many rare medicinal plants
and herbs, making it a health
resort as well. A luxurious hill
resort of Andhra Pradesh
Tourism adds to the charm.
Vishakhapatnam.
GETTING THERE: By Bus: Regular services from
Vishakhapatnam; By Train: On the Kottalavasa-
Kirandul line, a passenger train leaves Vizag
every morning and returns every evening.
TOURIST SITES: Araku Tribal Museum; Ananta-
giri Hills & Plantations; Borra Caves; Gali Kon-
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Chaaparai; Tyda Jungle Camp
NEAREST AIRPORT: Vishakhapatnam
ACCOMMODATION: Hotels in Araku include two
from APTDC – Haritha Valley Resort (Yatri Niwas)
and Mayuri Hill Resort – besides a few others
ANDHRA PRADESH TOURISM
For detail information visit: http://www.aptourism.in
Vishakhapatnam – CRO – 0891-2788820, 098488 13584
Araku - Yatri Nivas – 08936 – 249201 / 02 / 03
Mayuri – 08936 – 249204
Ananthagiri – 08936 – 231870
 avenues JAIPURIA INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT
22 JANUARY 2011, VOL. 8 ISSUE 3

Developing new
thought leaders
Jaipuria Institute of Management has become
a force to be reckoned with in business studies
N Chairman Sharad Jaipuria

J
AIPURIA INSTITUTE of Manage-
ment is led by doyens of exceptional
vision who have always remained
concerned about developing thought
leaders of the new generation. Beginning
with Seth Anandram Jaipuria’s pioneer-
ing initiative to set up the Jaipuria Col-
lege in Calcutta as far as back in 1945, the
commitment of the House of Jaipurias to

48

avenues 22 JANUARY 2011, VOL. 8 ISSUE 3
providing quality education has only
deepened and grown since then.
Today, the name ‘Jaipuria’ is synony-
mous with excellence in management
education. Driven by the vision to
empower aspiring young minds, the
Jaipuria Group has set up futuristic
knowledge hubs in four strategic loca-
tions of the country — Lucknow, Noida,
Jaipur and Indore. Jaipuria is committed
to provide quality education and develop
students into successful and responsible
business leaders. The Jaipuria Institute of
Management offers AICTE-approved pro-
grammes, both full-time and part-time,
for students and working executives.
At Jaipuria, we are committed to “add
value” to each passing day. The pedagogy,
the standard of evaluation and curricu-
lum are uniquely tailored to meet chang-
ing corporate needs. The institutes have a
pool of more than 95 well-qualified and
experienced full-time faculty who are
sound academics and industry specialists.
The guest faculty is drawn from the most
powerful corporate corridors.
Being an industry-sponsored manage-
ment institute, Jaipuria has effectively
developed strategic networks both with
the industry and the academia, nationally
JAIPURIA INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT
and globally. Jaipuria endeavours to bring
the best in academia, industry interface
and infrastructure to build a truly world-
class facility in order to unleash the
potential of young minds to excel in their
life pursuits after education. It brings to-
gether educators, CEOs and senior corpo-
Transforming
you from ‘what
you are’ to ‘what
you can be’
rate professionals from around the world
to expose students to global best practices
in management education. Jaipuria
offered over 150 MDPs for top- and mid-
dle-level managers, thus enhancing pro-
ductivity, competitiveness, growth and
sustained profitability of the economy.
Among its initiatives to nurture global
business managers focussed on creating
globally competitive individuals and
entrepreneurs, Jaipuria has collabora-
tions with some of the prestigious institu-
tions in the US, Finland, Switzerland,
Taiwan and Thailand. These linkages pro-
vide for exchange of students and faculty,
joint research, publications and teaching
programmes. This exchange programme
of students promotes Jaipuria Institute of
Management as a centre of international-
level business studies. Beyond global
exposure, exchange programmes nurture
the right mindset for operating success-
fully in real business world.
The campuses of Jaipuria Institute of
Management are conceptualised and de-
signed to blend aesthetics with advanced
academic facilities. The sprawling air-
conditioned complex offers state-of-the-
art equipment, spacious lecture halls,
auditoriums and computer labs enabling
all-round development of its students.
The green and beautifully landscaped
grounds make the learning environs con-
ducive for a free flow of ideas.
Jaipuria Institute of Management is
proud of its impressive track record of
students placement with leading MNCs and
more than 200 blue-chip companies.
Today, more than 2,200 alumni of Jaipuria
are making their mark in leading MNCs, pri-
vate-sector organisations, banks and PSUs.
W (From top le) JIM
campuses at Lucknow,
Noida, Jaipur and Indore
49
 SOCIETY&LIFESTYLE

What’s it like to be a cinema geek when the

world expects you to be just an arm candy to
Bollywood’s most bankable star?
NISHA SUSAN finds out

‘DEAR MR SUBHASH GHAI,

MY NAME IS
KIRAN
RAO’
Kiran Rao, 36, is a week away
from the release of her first
film Dhobi Ghat. The Mumbai
office she shares with husband
Aamir Khan is in a state of
silent, controlled mania build-
ing towards the promotion of
the film. Rao enters the room, a
slight, composed person and
almost immediately leaps upon
a side-table to adjust the blinds
of the window. Having fixed
the light to her satisfaction,
she descends on the sofa. She
speaks and listens with poise
and fierce concentration.
Edited excerpts:
Who’s your ancestor in cinema?
I’d love to say Sergei Para-
janov because I love his films.
And Ritwik Ghatak. I don’t
imagine what I’ve made is
anything like them but that’s
the lineage I’d love to imagine
is mine. I’ve seen my bit of
films in the past 10 years.
However, I’m still much more
influenced by music than
films actually. I played the pi-
ano for 20 years and stopped.
Your idiom isn’t Bollywood but
here you are, making your first
film in the heart of Bollywood.
What constraints do you feel
Bollywood faces?
I’ve had a non-relationship
with Bollywood. I was mar- overthought.
ginally snobbish about it. I It felt more el-
watched all kinds of other ementary. Then I
cinema, but not Bollywood. wrote papers on
Whatever I saw didn’t really Govinda’s
interest me — until I had to do Gambler. I be-
a paper on Rangeela at Jamia gan to see the
(film school). It was funny differences be-
and engaging and in a strange tween different
way naïve. I had to come kinds of Bollywood films. I
down a level to appreciate think that’s one of the diffi-
very simple things about it. culties that Bollywood faces.
Little funny things that some- Not just of being taken seri-
one said, or a moment… not ously, but also of being seen as

50 TEHELKA | SOCIETY&LIFESTYLE | 22 JANUARY 2011 PHOTO : MS GOPAL


 Ready for kick-off creating something fresh.
Kiran Rao in front of a
poster for Dhobi Ghat So the viewer’s expectation is
at her Mumbai office
one of no change rather than
innovation?
Exactly. That’s the constraint
that Bollywood faces. The
people in the film industry
aren’t all the same, so why do
they make the same kind of
films? I think it’s a sort of re-
sponsibility that Bollywood
carries to entertain such a
large mass of people. In Tamil
cinema, there are new things
happening every year: new
actors, directors, producers.
There’s a lot of energy. Stories
are very good. Even if it’s
about the same old subjects.
I’ve not seen anything quiet
and moody (there) —
everything has a violent
edge and there are
some strange tropes
about women. But
it feels like some-
thing’s happening
there that’s not happening
in Hindi cinema.
There are many fac-
tors. Tamil cinema enter-
tains one or two states. It’s
reliant on people who
speak that language. People
don’t watch it subtitled. You
don’t rent Tamil DVDs. Also,
there’s a strong cinema-go-
ing culture and films have
a chance to run and recov-
er in the long run — so
Subramaniapuram, which
I was marginally
snobbish about
Bollywood. It
didn’t interest
me till I had to
do a paper on
Rangeela at
film school’
22 JANUARY 2011 | SOCIETY&LIFESTYLE | TEHELKA
CINEMA
has new actors, still runs.
(And) they have more single-
screens than multiplexes,
which is a big factor in the
kind of films made. Running
in a multiplex costs 10,000
per show. To make that you
need to have at least half-full
house. My kind of films might
only get 100 people, not 300.
When it’s a single screen, you
rent the cinema. I can risk
renting a cinema for four or
eight weeks, knowing that
through word of mouth, even
in the third or fourth week,
people might come.
It’s something about the
whole system. When I look
around at colleagues, they’re
very individualistic and intel-
ligent. But it hasn’t translated
into the idea that Bollywood
is fresh. We keep seeing blips
in the graph and we say, ‘Oh,
it’s a good year for independ-
ent films.’ It’s also about how
much time, money and impor-
tance we give to writers.
In Bollywood, it becomes
very generic. The curve is
flattened. The culture and the
language become flattened.
(But) that’s what’s now giving
rise to so many different kinds
of films. It’s really exciting.
Apparently, there are people
making films in Mythili, films
made in 50,000 and DVDs go
to video parlours and recover
the money. That’s how it has
to be. We’re too diverse a peo-
ple to expect one-size-fits-all.
Hollywood has done it but the
culture of the West is fairly
flattened out. But here, each
language has its culture.
I’m excited not about
independent cinema but
about individual cultures
coming out in films. We’ve so
much going on but the fact
that Bollywood has had to
make films for everyone has
made it even out-large
swathes of experience. Con-
tent becomes about broad
strokes, not the particular.
51
 CINEMA
Life just gallops.
You get greedy.
Work comes
along. I was
living the good
life. Slowly,
writing just took
a backseat’
What about the writing?
I feel we should perhaps have
more writers’ labs. It’s very
difficult for filmmakers and
production houses. We get
tonnes of stuff to wade
through, and there’s no con-
stant. That’s the other thing
about Tamil films. There’s a
culture of doing your time as
an assistant. In Hindi films,
it’s too easy — you became an
assistant in no time. I became
a first AD after one film. Dur-
ing my first film, they were
making me do first AD’s work.
If you’re smart and can pick
up filmmaking techniques,
you can go straightaway and
make a film.
When I came to Bombay
from Jamia, the only director
I knew in Bombay was Sub-
hash Ghai. I’d never seen a
film of his. So I wrote to him.
He might have a letter from 15
years ago: Dear Mr Ghai, My
name is Kiran Rao and I
would love to work for you. I
faxed it to him! I didn’t even
go to his office. Of course, I
never heard from him.
I was super confident, and
within two weeks I had a job
because I’d to pay my rent. I
was too impatient. When I fi-
nally started working on a
film, I was like, hold on,
you’ve to learn all this stuff.
And living in Bombay is very
hard. In the first seven years
here, I dabbled and wrote but
52 TEHELKA | SOCIETY&LIFESTYLE | 22 JANUARY 2011
the pressure was far more
than I realised. I was doing
advertising so I thought I’ll
have time to do this. It doesn’t
happen. Life just gallops
along. And you get more
greedy. Work comes along. I
was a pretty good AD. I was
living the good life. Was living
alone, car, amenities. I had
what I wanted to be happy.
Slowly, writing just took a
backseat.
Also, I didn’t think I had a
good idea. What I was writing
wasn’t good enough. Finally,
when I started working on
this film I started feeling
there’s something here that’s
engaging me. I had an idea
that was worth it. It took me
a while.
What surprised you when you
entered Bollywood?
I’d worked with film people
so it wasn’t that new. But I’d
grown up in an English-
speaking world so there was
the particular language and
culture of Hindi-speaking
people, the “ji-ji” of the film
world. Very formal. I’ve al-
ways used first names, even
for directors. So I’d to get
used to it. I told myself if I
was part of a particular cul-
ture, if I laughed at it, I was
being a snob. It used to seem
like lip service but now I see it
more objectively.
N Savant heir Kiran Rao on the sets of Dhobi Ghat, which uses several
There must have been many
non-actors, including Rao’s maid. Both lead actors are also new
stereotypes about your position
as Aamir’s Wife. Capital A. Capi-
tal W. What helped you transition
from being a private person with
so much confidence? eclipsed. You were meant to value system, and we didn’t
When I first told my parents do so many things, be an have much money growing
that I was seeing Aamir, their artist. You’re going to be in up. My dad worked for a steel
fears were much more than the shadow of this huge per- company in Calcutta, my
the fears that should’ve been sona. When my parents said mom was a teacher. We were
mine — if I hadn’t been so in that, it made me realise what lucky because Calcutta is a
love and happy to be with they’d done for me over the place where money isn’t
him. They believed I was years. Let me fly. It was about everything. You could have
someone who wanted to do so much confidence in me. access to a lot of things — a
things and be independent — They grounded in me the club, piano and tennis lessons,
their fear was that you’ll be important things — trust, a great schools — without being

super-wealthy. We never had
new clothes all the time or
jewellery. What my parents
brought into the house were
books and music. They made
me — someone not so enam-
oured by status.
When I first started seeing
Aamir, I was thoroughly
amused. I thought, “I’m see-
ing a film star. Me. It’s hilari-
ous.” My friends laughed. I
never felt woah, so cool.
When I used to read about
myself, I used to laugh. Such a
bad picture. Or they would
ask me, “Why do you wear
glasses all the time?” There
was a story quoting a by-
stander at the Goa film festi-
val, saying, “Oh look, that’s
Kiran Rao. She wears glasses,
so she must be intelligent.”
It’s fodder for great fun.
How did you deal with the expec-
tations of people in the industry?
I’ve never given a hang about
what everybody wants me to
do. I refuse to wear a gown
or carry a designer bag. I
think when I finally decided
for establishing as Aamir’s
wife, I was still quite confi-
dent that I would retain my
own personality.
Has there been any moment
when you did feel eclipsed?
When we go to high-level or
even general gatherings, it’s
fairly natural that everyone is
only interested in what Aamir
has to say, which, in the be-
ginning, used to annoy me.
Because I didn’t agree with a
lot of things a lot of people
were saying. But no one was
interested in my point of view
(laughs). So I had to clench
my teeth and make notes.
Actually, you’re expected
to look pretty. That’s all
you’re expected to do.
You’re expected to go to
social functions looking
decent so that he has
someone on his arm
PH O T O : MS G O PAL
who is well-put together. Not
a role I’m excited to play.
First, they weren’t interested
in talking to me. Second, they
wanted me to be one nice set-
piece. That eclipsing both-
ered me. It took a while be-
fore I realised, “Listen, I’m
not sure if I want to share my
opinions with these people in
any case.” I wasn’t sure if they
were worth my time. So I
used to go along and be ha-ha.
Usually I’d find other people
who are also left out, who are
much more interesting than
the famous people.
And in the beginning, I
was just a girlfriend. Girl-
friend — the status is pretty
grey. They are not sure
whether they are supposed to
respect you. Because you
might be dumped. In a short
while. That little grey area
was also a little tough for
me to navigate. You don’t
feel like you’re actually
running the house though you
are. It is something women
who are not married must go
through everywhere. Men
never feel it. If you are a man
with a girlfriend, automatical-
ly you are entitled. But if you
are a woman, unless you are
married, there is a certain
lack of legal status. It’s
bizarre.
We didn’t want to get mar-
ried until we wanted to. I did-
n’t want to do it for the status,
for the tag. I didn’t want the
respect that status would con-
fer on me. That was not what
I was here for. Aamir is com-
pletely respectful. He treated
me like his partner.
Where did he learn his attitudes
to women?
I don’t know! He didn’t even
finish college and he is not
highly educated. I think it’s
entirely self-taught. His par-
ents are polite, elegant, lovely
people. He didn’t come from a
At gatherings,
it’s natural that
everyone is only
interested in
what Aamir has
to say. I’m only
expected to
look pretty’
CINEMA
super-liberal family but they
were liberal enough. He has
close cousins. But I think
much of it came from reading.
From when he was little.
Even now you can’t get his
head out of a book. It’s also
growing among a lot of
women. Two sisters and his
cousin Nuzhat. He is very
close to her. Nuzhat and Man-
soor (Khan) are very strong
personalities; both his sisters
are very lovely. The family is
lovely. His mother he com-
pletely adores. There is a gen-
uine love for women. There is
no special treatment. No
doors will be opened. If you
are not handicapped, you can
open your own door.
In 2009, you went through a mis-
carriage. How did it change you?
It was very hard. And I don’t
know, I still feel like I haven’t
fully come to understand the
loss. It was a long-drawn out
process. It didn’t come on
suddenly. Physically, it was
hard. Sometimes I’m almost
surprised that I could get over
it. I’m really grateful we have
the bounce-back quality, that
we can get over it. Grow new
memories, heal. If one
couldn’t get past it, it would
be like death. Living death.
The fact that I could within a
day or two be comfortable
and talk about it to people,
being relaxed about it. Grief
would always be there obvi-
ously, but you can also put it
in a context of life, you feel
like there is more.
nishasusan@tehelka.com
53
 CRICKET
Sledging
with the
Hammer
Cricket is no longer about sentiment, nostalgia or heroes.
Make way for the clinical business of IPL auctions and
frenzied live reportage, warns SURESH MENON
CAN WE PLEASE not have live coverage of
the Indian Premier League (IPL) auction
henceforth? All the cattle jokes have been
used up, and onion jokes don’t have the
same zing. We know what rhymes with
‘botox’ and fake accents. And, somehow,
watching the scions of business families
strut on stage is not same as watching
a Tendulkar or a Dravid bat. And middle India has been
educated on the number of zeroes in a crore after a crash
course following the Commonwealth Games and 2G scam.
And watching sidekicks who depend on Mrs Ambani for
their livelihood shake her hand after yet another expensive
buy somehow lacks entertainment value. Unless, like King
Canute, she takes her courtiers to the sea shore and orders
the tide to roll back. Now that would be good television.
Worst of all, the live coverage fools the daily newspapers
into thinking the auction is important news, which means
banner headlines follow. There is something obscene about
an auction like this ( just as there is something obscene about
a 27-storey private residence). If the money hurts the players’
pride, they are happy to swallow it anyway. But we who are
so keen to hide from public view the depths of depletion and
destitution (for example, the treatment of slums during the
Commonwealth Games), must learn to push offstage and
away from live television the spectacles of excess.
The IPL auction is to sport what the moon landing was to
the tea industry. It is about businessmen introducing their
successors to a captive audience. It is about movie stars shed-
ding fake tears through their fake eyelashes and onto their
fake bosoms. It is about foreign coaches helping men from
54 TEHELKA | SOCIETY&LIFESTYLE | 22 JANUARY 2011
their region make some easy money. It is a platform for
insulting former greats. It is about former greats not reading
the tea leaves right and offering themselves up to be insulted.
It is about jumping onto the gravy train from different direc-
tions. It is about pitting billionaires against one another and
letting their egos speak.
It is — and that is saying a lot — worse than the IPL itself.
At least there you get to see the players doing what they
are best at.
So why are we given two full days of expert commentary
on our leading news channels, as if the world has come to a
standstill? From a screeching Navjot Sidhu (who once again
got himself all tangled up in his ‘monkey’ joke) to a sober
Sanjay Manjrekar, everybody was plugging the event as if in
preparation for the six weeks when they are allowed to speak
only in superlatives. Yuvraj Singh (or whoever hits the most
sixes) will be honoured alongside the commentator who uses
the most superlatives.
The media has focussed on the wrong story. The IPL
auction was not about who made what or how many young
people became millionaires overnight. The real story centred
on how one man, N Srinivasan, continues to run Indian
cricket like his personal fiefdom. Unembarrassed by sugges-
tions of impropriety and clash of interests, this secretary of
the cricket board (and its president-elect), governing council
member and owner of the Chennai franchise might be less
flamboyant than Lalit Modi but he has the IPL by the vitals.
And he is loth to let go.
Much was made of city loyalty and icon players in the first
auction three years ago. According to this theory, Dravid
would inspire Bengaluru to support Royal Challengers, VVS

Laxman would do likewise to the Hyder-
abadis and so on. After two days of auction,
local stars hardly mattered. Chennai alone
have three local stars — Murali Vijay, Badri-
nath and Ashwin. Hyderabad have Pragyan
Ojha, Kolkata Manoj Tewary, Mumbai
Tendulkar and Rohit Sharma, Delhi Virender
Sehwag (retained), Rajasthan Pankaj Singh,
Bengaluru Abhimanyu Mithun and new team
Kochi have Sreesanth.
The uncapped players will have to provide
the balance in more senses than one. In terms of team
composition, money spent, local presence and cricketing
common sense. And there will not be too many zeroes in
their cheques.
“I will support Rajasthan Royals,” a Bengaluru fan of
IL LUST R AT IO N: ANAND NAO R E M
The auction wasn’t about
who made what. The real
story centred on how
N Srinivasan continues
to run Indian cricket like
his personal fiefdom
live coverage of the bids politicians like Karnataka chief min-
ister BS Yeddyurappa and others make to retain or buy legis-
lators and keep their ministry alive. Now that would be fun.
talmenon@yahoo.com
22 JANUARY 2011 | SOCIETY&LIFESTYLE | TEHELKA
CRICKET
Dravid’s has said. He will not
be alone.
This is the divide between the
teams and their supporters. For
business houses, the exercise is
about the bottom line, victory and
public relations. For the fan it is
about supporting the team that
contains his favourite player. If the
two are different, he is willing to
give up the team in favour of
the player. This is not unusual
anywhere.
SPORT OUGHT not to be clinical and
business-like. It must have place
for sentiment, for nostalgia, for
connecting with heroes. Despite
what his more voluble fans think,
Kolkata letting go of Sourav
Ganguly is probably a sound
cricketing decision, but he should
not have left it to market forces.
While foreign players might come
detached from sentiment (al-
though Shane Warne might be an
exception in Rajasthan), Indian
players, especially the big stars,
come with such baggage.
Dravid and Laxman might have
teetered on the edge; both had to
make do with less than the four
crores and more they were paid
the last time. But a couple of
crores for six weeks’ work at this
stage of their careers is not to be
sneezed at. Anil Kumble probably
read the signs right. At 40, he is
older than the other two, and
anyway he has his hands full as
president of the Karnataka State
Cricket Association, vice-chair-
man of Karnataka Wildlife Board
and chairman of the National
Cricket Academy.
Cricketing millionaires are
getting younger, the IPL is a career
even for those who have no Test
experience, and Indian players are
benefiting. Which is all to the
good. But can we not have live
coverage of the auction please?
Alternatively, let us also have
55
 JESSICA LALL

THE
INVESTIGATION
WE DID.
AND THE MOVIE
THEY MADE
No One Killed Jessica is
an opportunity to revisit
one of TEHELKA’s most
important investigations,
says NISHA SUSAN

when faith in the Indian

AT A MOMENT media is at a spectacular
low tide, Rajkumar Gupta’s film No One Killed Jessica cele-
brates an episode of great public interest journalism. The
film attributes the TEHELKA investigation that convicted
Manu Sharma to an imaginary television journalist. Cinema,
of course, has its own imperatives but before history is en-
tirely rewritten TEHELKA would like to take a moment to re-
member its three-month long undercover investigation
without which Jessica Lall’s murderer may still be free.
On 29 April 1999, Sharma had shot Lall in front of 200
witnesses at a Delhi restaurant, Tamarind Court. In Febru-
ary 2006, witness after witness went back on their original
testimonies in court and Manu Sharma was acquitted. In-
dia, high on the fervour of Rang De Basanti, longed to ‘do
something’. No One Killed Jessica has a thoughtful young

56 TEHELKA | SOCIETY&LIFESTYLE | 22 JANUARY 2011


woman (moved by Rang De Basanti), triggering off a huge
protest. Few people know the protest was galvanised
by TEHELKA. Editor-in-chief Tarun Tejpal drafted the
simply worded SMS that went viral, announcing a candle-
light vigil for Jessica at India Gate. Having picked the time
and date, he and the other editors Harinder Baweja, Sankar-
shan Thakur and Shoma Chaudhury agreed the message
should be anonymous to avoid competition between
media houses. They sent it out to everyone they knew.
Would people come?
They did. In droves. On 4 March 2006, almost 2,500 peo-
ple came to India Gate. Public outcry forced authorities to
reopen the case and TEHELKA quietly began what would
turn out to be among its biggest investigations yet. It was
Tamarind Court owner Bina Ramani (very unlike the corre-
JESSICA LALL
sponding character Mallika Sehgal in
No One Killed Jessica who merely eats
cake) who began the process. She was
facing tremendous flak for not being
convincing in court while identifying
Manu Sharma. Conversations with her
got TEHELKA thinking about the role of
Venod Sharma, Manu’s father, in the
turning of witnesses. Sharma was a
Congress MP and later a minister for
power in the Haryana Cabinet.
TEHELKA had the previous year proved
that Zaheera Sheikh, prime witness in
the Best Bakery case had flip-flopped
on her testimony because she’d been
both threatened and hugely bribed.
The witnesses who had turned hostile
in the Jessica case cut across class
from Shayan Munshi, an actor, to Shiv
Das, an electrician. What would elicit
the truth from each of them?
ARINDER BAWEJA, who was the
H Investigations Editor at the time,
went to meet George Mailhot,
Ramani’s husband. Mailhot led her to
Jitendra Raj, the Tamarind Court
manager whose uncle had been a key
witness. At the TEHELKA office, Jiten-
dra admitted his uncle Karan Rajput
had been chronically drunk and broke.
On the night of the murder, Rajput
had arrived at Tamarind Court hoping
to mooch money off his nephew. Ra-
jput had a vantage position — he was
sitting on a chair facing the bar where
the celebrity bartenders Shayan Mun-
shi and Jessica were mixing drinks. At
first, Rajput had identified Manu
Sharma as the murderer, signed a
statement in the police station as well
as a photograph of Manu. He changed
his testimony later. At the time of the
investigation, though, Rajput was dead from liver damage.
Before the murder, he had had a small job in a bread factory.
After the murder, Rajput never worked again but somehow
always had money — for rent, bills, alcohol and gambling.
He died in one of the city’s most expensive hospitals.
Public outcry forced authorities
to reopen the case and TEHELKA
began what turned out to be
among its biggest investigations
22 JANUARY 2011 | SOCIETY&LIFESTYLE | TEHELKA 57
 JESSICA LALL
TEHELKA obtained the hospital bills and found that someone
had cleared the 80,000 dues. Jitendra said the Sharmas
had paid the bills and he knew how to get proof. He could
arrange for TEHELKA to meet his uncle’s friends who had ac-
companied him on the money-minting trips to the Sharmas.
Jitendra introduced TEHELKA reporter Vineet Khare to
his uncle’s friend Surinder. Posing as Jitendra’s close friend,
Khare got Surinder to talk about what he had witnessed —
Rajput receiving hush money from the Sharmas’ associates.
With Jitendra’s help, Khare was able to record these con-
versations on his spycam. Young Khare was excited about
the confessions he was getting on the spycam embedded in
an innocuous-looking diary or button. Every evening, he
would race to Harinder Baweja’s home, where he’d first try
to coax her into making paranthas for him. Then they’d re-
view the footage, panicking occasionally when the gadget
showed temperament.
HE CONFESSION the team still wanted was one from the
T deceased Rajput’s landlord and drinking buddy Rajbir
Singh. Jitendra was well-placed to introduce Khare to Ra-
jbir but suddenly he balked. He would not help the investi-
gation anymore unless TEHELKA bought him a spycam of his
own. Having witnessed the operation, he had begun to
imagine a 80,000 spycam would hold him in good stead.
The investigators balked and the operation came to an un-
easy halt. Over the next fortnight, the team tried of ways to
insinuate themselves into the life of Rajbir Singh. Help
came from a very unlikely source.
A socialite-turned-politician friend of Bina Ramani’s
decided to get into the act. She knew the sulking Jitendra
and somehow hoped to get him to talk on spycam about his
uncle. She invited Jitendra to her home. This slightly hair-
brained scheme backfired when Jitendra spotted that cov-
eted spycam diary unsuccessfully hidden under her
handbag. “You are spying on me!” he exclaimed. But it was
now when the game was up that the socialite showed her
true mettle. To hell with it, she said and called Khare,
popped into her car and drove to Rajbir Singh’s home.
Singh, overawed at the sudden arrival of this glamorous
personage, sang like a canary. On Khare’s camera, he
admitted to accompanying the deceased Rajput over the
years as he went back again and again to the well — the
Sharmas. He said they had gone to the Sharmas’ office in
Piccadilly House in Delhi’s Okhla area and to Chandigarh to
the Sharmas’ Piccadilly Hotel. They had even stayed there
as they negotiated payments, he said. At first, it was any-
thing they asked for — 20,000, 50,000 — but later it
became fixed at 50, 000.
Not all of the investigation involved cloak-and-dagger
tactics, though. When Baweja spoke to Sabrina Lall, Jes-
sica’s sister, she recalled details right from the night of the
murder, the rapport she developed in the early years with
the investigating officer and of a bizarre incident involving
Manu Sharma’s parents. It had convinced her the Sharmas
were keeping a close eye on her house and she had never
talked about it before. On a day when Sabrina was out of
Delhi, Venod Sharma and his wife came to the Lalls’ home,
58 TEHELKA | SOCIETY&LIFESTYLE | 22 JANUARY 2011
bearing a bouquet of flowers. Sabrina’s baffled father, Ajit
Lall, could think of doing nothing other than letting them
in. The Sharmas placed a bouquet in front of a photograph
of Jessica’s. The Lalls offered them tea. As the movie shows
in a riveting scene, it was an act of ingrained politeness by
the Lalls that shocked Sabrina when she found out later.
Sabrina also told Baweja about the deceased Karan
Rajput. He had told Sabrina that he was taking money from
the Sharmas but in court, he would tell the truth. He had
‘borrowed’ 50,000 from Sabrina at one point. When he
changed his testimony in court, he defended himself to a
shocked Sabrina by saying the Sharmas had kidnapped
his mother as insurance. TEHELKA found no evidence to
confirm or deny this.
Speaking to Shiv Das, the former Tamarind Court elec-
trician and another key witness, was also a tricky proposi-
tion for TEHELKA. In the trial he said that no, he had not
been a witness and had been on the terrace at the time of
the murder. Far from wanting to confess, he was terrified of
being drawn back into the case.
Harinder Baweja called him posing as an anguished
Sabrina Lall. Over and over again, directly and indirectly
E The revelations (From le) Shayan
Munshi, Jitendra Raj and Karan Rajput
during Tehelka’s three-month long
investigation
she drew him back to the night of the murder. In a brief
moment, he admitted that the first testimony he gave to the
police was the right one. But for most part, he said he
wanted no part of the money he was aware was available
from the Sharmas. Almost exasperated, he asked ‘Sabrina’
how can she not know what would happen to his entire
family in Uttar Pradesh if he got involved in the case? Don’t
you know the situation in Uttar Pradesh, he asked again and
again. In Shiv Das’ case, it seemed that intimidation, not
money, had worked. When Vineet Khare went to him with
his spycam hoping to get his confession on video to back the
telephone recording, Shiv Das was deeply suspicious.
When Khare began talking to him about the murder,
Shiv Das immediately suspected a trap and asked whether
he was being recorded.
The investigation was drawing to a close but Shayan Mun-
shi’s confession would be the icing on the cake, TEHELKA
knew. Shayan had been a celebrity bartender for the night
alongside Jessica and had identified Manu Sharma as the
killer. Years later in the trial, Munshi denied the veracity of
the FIR he had signed by claiming that he did not speak, read

or understand Hindi. How could he have known what he was
signing, he asked. Instead of stopping at mere ignorance, he
also introduced the two-gunmen theory into the case.
And Uday Shankar, the then CEO of Star News, agreed
about how important Munshi was to the story. Baweja
called Uday, asking to meet him about airing a very impor-
tant sting. Uday met her and Mintty Tejpal at the Taj Mans-
ingh café. They spoke in whispers and chits of paper. A
terribly excited Uday left to begin planning but not without
tearing up the notes.
But how would they get model and actor Shayan Mun-
shi? Designing a sting can sometimes be an exercise in wit.
‘Everyone knows who did it, so
why are they beating around the
bush… They (the Sharmas) are
powerful people,’ said Munshi
TEHELKA’s iconic Operation Westend was one such exercise
with its audaciously fake names. Only greed could have
blinded the suspects. Munshi too needed an imaginative
trap. After days of strategising in Delhi, they hit upon a
plausible plan. Mintty Tejpal found a recent event that
Munshi had attended in Delhi and checked the guestlist. He
called up Munshi, pretending to be a production guy Mun-
shi had met at the party. Mintty pretended to be the Indian
agent for an Indo-Australian bilingual production, which
had a great part for Munshi. It was the age of crossover
films and for a plausible finishing touch, Mintty demanded
a broker’s fee.
Munshi swallowed the bait. A meeting with the ‘produc-
ers’ was set up. Harinder Baweja, Vineet Khare and another
TEHELKA reporter Jane Rankin-Reid, an Australian national
who was to pose as Olivia, the producer, left for Mumbai.
As soon as they landed in Mumbai, Baweja and Khare
went to the Sun n Sand (the Juhu hotel where they were to
meet Munshi) for a recce. They picked the table and de-
cided where they should be seated for maximum effect.
Finally, they decided Jane would sit across the table from
JESSICA LALL
Shayan and Harinder besides him. Jane rehearsed the pitch
and plot they had recreated for the fake film.
HAYAN MUNSHI, eager beaver, walked in 10 minutes
S early. After the brief pleasantries, Jane began the con-
versation. The events that then ensued were dramatic
enough for the No One Killed Jessica script to have used
whole sections from the sting transcript. ‘Olivia’ asking
Munshi to speak Hindi so that she can hear ‘the shape of his
voice’, Munshi speaking the fluent, even flowery Hindi he
had first learnt in school. Going the extra mile by giving
‘Olivia’ short lectures on different dialects of Hindi and the
finer points of Hindi and Bangla grammar. It works well on
screen. So imagine the delight of the reporters back in 2006.
Here at last was proof of Munshi’s bare-faced lies. Khare
who had walked in pretending to be Baweja’s flunkie, had
whispered in her ear and sat down across from Munshi.
The team had been extra-cautious. Two spycams, a button
and a diary, had both been recording busily as Munshi con-
tinued in Hindi.
On the pretext of worrying whether Munshi would have
visa issues, Baweja began probing Munshi about his involve-
ment in the Lall case. Munshi was cagey and bitter in turns,
“Everyone knows who did it, so why are they beating around
the bush… They (the Sharmas) are very powerful people.”
Conversation wound down and Munshi left.
The team could not bear to wait to go back to the guest-
house to check whether they had got Munshi’s face on
camera and voice on record. Khare ran to the nearest loo.
These were the tensest moments of the investigation — wait-
ing for proof that Shayan Munshi — People Like Us — had
lied in court. There is no going back to re-do a sting. But
soon Khare emerged from the loo beaming. Baweja sent a
three word SMS to Tarun Tejpal back in Delhi, pacing his liv-
ing room furiously — yes, yes, yes. Having locked the record-
ings safely in the guesthouse, the team went to celebrate.
Khare, new to Mumbai, went to the beach and amused the
others by taking off his shirt to get into the water.
Meanwhile, Star News’ Uday Shankar was still excited
and near-paranoid. He didn’t want the footage in Star office.
He told his senior editors to work all weekend and, more
scandalously, moved the mammoth editing machines to the
Star guesthouse. For the next two days, both teams worked
round the clock to prepare the footage for television.
On 9 September 2006, the sting footage went public.
The fervour with which the year had begun was revived.
TEHELKA and Star received thousands of messages and
e-mails from across the country. In October, Venod
Sharma was forced to resign from the Haryana Cabinet.
On 15 December 2006, Manu Sharma was convicted and
sentenced to life imprisonment. The other accused, Vikas
Yadav and Amardeep Singh Gill, were awarded four years
of imprisonment for destroying evidence. Thirty-two
witnesses who turned hostile have been asked to appear
before the court to explain why they should not be tried
for perjury.
nishasusan@tehelka.com
22 JANUARY 2011 | SOCIETY&LIFESTYLE | TEHELKA 59
 BOOKS

HE GRAPHIC novel is

AMBEDKAR T inherently an inter-

pretative form and
relies much on swift
audacities. In India, where

IN STILL LIFE BHIMAYANA

graphic novels still have the
shine of a young cult, we tend
to ignore this and rely instead
on other novelties — such as
the surprise of deploying
Art: Durgabai &
Subhash Vyam indigenous art for this
Why do Indian graphic novels keep offering us stunning modern form, as with archi-
Story: Srividya
art and sluggish stories, asks GAURAV JAIN tect Gautam Bhatia’s recent
Natarajan &
S Anand collaboration with Mughal
Navayana miniature painters. Now, we
106 pp; 395 have two Gond tribal artists
from Bhopal who’ve pro-
duced a graphic novel that
narrates a few episodes from
the life of BR Ambedkar. As
with Vishwajyoti Ghosh’s
meticulous Delhi Calm or
George Mathen’s muscularly
silent Moonward, Bhimayana
is more art, less novel.
Divided into sections of
Water, Shelter and Travel, the
book presents Ambedkar’s les-
sons in untouchability as a kid
and as a young man — denials
of thirst, roof and transport.
This historic struggle to realise
Dalit selfhood is juxtaposed
with news items of caste atroc-
ities in contemporary India.
Madhya Pradesh’s Gond
art, which transitioned from
village walls to ‘fine art’ on
paper about 30 years ago,
presents clean-bordered
figures filled with intricate
patterns of dots or lines. The
style derives mostly from
traditional murals and tattoos
with pastoral motifs like
ubiquitous fishes and swaying
trees. The artists Durgabai
and Subhash Vyam have
innovated mural patterns as
page-dividers rather than
right-angled boxed images,
with the result that the story
literally flows along the
pages. The Vyams use earth
W Confluence The colours, animistic speech
Mahad satyagraha as bubbles and keep their lines
depicted in Bhimayana lyrical rather than geometri-
cal. Some tricks nestle partic-

60 TEHELKA | SOCIETY&LIFESTYLE | 22 JANUARY 2011


ularly well in bookmaking,
like depicting forms within
forms (eyes protruding from
an eye) and forms without
forms (hands gesturing with-
out arms). Without the
Western technique of boxed
framing, these off-scale and
often immense figures open
up the book’s pages even as
their dizzying intricate
patterning is set against
gratifying amounts of white
space, so that Bhimayana
doesn’t feel like a rectangular
book anymore but rather a
slide wavering in your hands.
Purists often crack the
chestnut that graphic novels
A slow train’s
wheels are snails.
A thirsty
Ambedkar is
drawn with a fish
inside him. His
Mahad speech
emerges from the
loudspeakers as a
water sprinkle
need to be reread, not read,
and Gond art’s thick symbol-
ism helps them plenty here: a
slow train’s wheels are snails,
a thirsty Ambedkar is drawn
with a fish inside him, his
famous Mahad speech
emerges from loudspeakers
as a water sprinkle that stuns
his audience. However, the
piquantly androgynous
figures (women without
busts, men with rotund, tense
bottoms) and their perma-
nently impassive faces do
tend to produce a sluggish
mood, and the violence and
action seem to happen in
dreamy slow motion.
But perhaps we shouldn’t
blame the artists here, for the
PH O T O : SH AI LE NDR A PANDEY
main problem with Bhi-
mayana is once again what
ails most Indian graphic
novels — a listless text. The
NGO -brochure story lulls you
with its sweetness, then tries
slipping in some harder pel-
lets of lessons in suffering.
You feel a sober fury at read-
ing the inserted news items —
like the 2007 report of two
women who died after child-
birth, when they were thrown
out of hospital for not paying
a bribe — Ambedkar’s story, in
contrast, is too fragmented to
accumulate any power. The
narrative progresses in a
childish singsong (“Here
comes our station. Let’s get
off quick”, “I’m so hungry and
thirsty”, “My friends, thank
you for your hospitality”);
people speak in a bewildering
jumble of jolly Americanisms
(“my grub”), unctuous
Britishisms (“Now sod off”)
and hearty patois (“Because
you’re untouchable, boy”).
These staccato effects make a
dandy rhythm, but finally this
is a book written for begin-
ners — children or foreigners.
Ambedkar’s chronicle here
is simple, simplistic, simplified
— where are his political
dilemmas? Did Ambedkar
appreciate British attempts to
uplift Dalits? How did
Gandhi’s humanism end up
patronising Dalits? Did the
half million Dalits actually
benefit from following Ambed-
kar into Buddhism? This book
is an excellently whimsical
spectacle, powered by an alert
imagination, but its bold inno-
vations with the form only
serve a tepid story. Bhimayana
is a book that moves so much,
and yet doesn’t.
gaurav.jain@tehelka.com
BOOKS
A self-confessed UP bhaiya, Aniruddha
Bahal set his historical novel in the cut-
throat world of chariot-racing in ancient
Greece, all the while continuing as his
television alter ego Tony B on Channel [V].
Bahal, 44, who enterprisingly went all the
way to London to collect his Bad Sex
Award in 2003 for his previous novel
Bunker 13, is best known for the cricket THE EMISSARY
and defence sting operations he broke Aniruddha Bahal
during his stint with TEHELKA. Here he HarperCollins
offers characteristically laconic thoughts 444 pp; 699
about his new book and Indian publish-
ing’s pretensions. Edited excerpts:
Why would you write a novel set in ancient Greece?
VS Naipaul advised me to read more history, so I did and found
an intriguing period. The story is driven by Seleucus and
moves between the cracks of historical events and characters
— battles with the Persian kings, Alexander coming to power,
massacres.
Did this subject have an element of pleasant escapism?
Not quite escapism, but it fascinated me and once you’re into
the period, you live those impulses and it becomes easier to
write. During this period, ancient Greek religion disappeared
and Christianity appeared. That drew me inside.
What did you learn from
writing The Emissary?
Journalist and novelist That I shouldn’t be writ-
Aniruddha Bahal speaks ing such big books. It
to POORVA RAJARAM about increases the book’s
cost. And takes longer
his historical novel
to edit. The publishing
mood has changed and
they don’t take too
‘I SHOULDN’T kindly to long books. I
think it’s a subconscious
BE WRITING thing about word pro-
cessing and technologi-
cal advancement that
SUCH BIG gives you the time and
space to write a lot.
BOOKS’ Though you had thick
novels even earlier.
What contemporary
Indian writing excites
you?
More non-fiction is being published. This used to hap-
pen very rarely earlier. For the longest time, the Indian
writing scene was too obsessed with being literary,
without an eye on the plot or research. And because
the simple act of writing flowery language was
popular. That used to piss me off.
poorva@tehelka.com
22 JANUARY 2011 | SOCIETY&LIFESTYLE | TEHELKA 61
master takes C O M P I L E D BY NABILAH IBRAHIM

MANISH INDIRA SUDEEP RUPIN

NAI SINGARI CHAKRAVARTI DANG
ON ON ON ON

art food books film

An Indian artist I deeply admire is
Sudhir Patwardhan. Personally, I
feel his works on canvases
portray an interesting picture of
urban development as well as
Mumbai’s daily life. The colours
he uses in his oil paintings and
the way he deals with human
forms wandering in the cityscape
make him a fascinating artist to
follow. I also like Ratheesh T. He
mixes classical and modern
influences in his works and that
precisely makes his technique
really special. The way he deals
with nature in his subjects,
especially his representations
of the rich Kerala-like vegetation
in his oils paintings, is worthy of
appreciation.
Nai is an artist based in Mumbai
When I lived in Hyderabad, I
would go to Kamat Hotel
quite frequently with my family
on special occasions. It is
located right next to the
famous Birla Mandir. Their
stuffed kulchas and malai
koas are simply delicious. They
make it rich and creamy with
ingredients that are fresh and
appropriately seasoned with
herbs. I still remember their
taste fondly. My all-time
favourite Indian dish is amma
mudda (meaning divine morsel
in Telugu). It is rice and dal
mixed with some ghee and
shaped like a laddu.
Singari is the Texas-based
creator of the Indian food blog
‘Mahanandi’
I recently read Kabul Disco by
French illustrator Nicolas Wild.
This graphic novel is about the
author’s new life in Afghanistan
as a worker for a development
agency. He brilliantly portrays
his discovery of the Afghan
culture. The book is clever,
informative and deconstruction-
ist. I found Cold Skin by Catalan
author Albert Sánchez Piñol
very interesting. The story is
about a European weather offi-
cial taking up a job in an island
of the Antarctic. As time passes
by, he discovers strange things
happening there. Cold Skin is
stylish, honest and a brutal meal
of fantasy and morality play
stood on its head.
Chakravarti is a Goa-based writer
A series that still works perfectly
for me is the Pink Panther
films by Blake Edwards. This
brilliant series of comedy films
has British actor Peter Sellers
as the French detective Inspec-
tor Jacques Clouseau. Never
has anyone been able to repli-
cate the uniquely moronic
humour, which is strangely
intelligent and incisive. Peter
Sellers is my all-time favourite
actor. He was mostly politically
incorrect and gave intensely
humorous comic contributions
to the Pink Panther series.
Sellers also had a fantastic
ability to imitate the French
accent.
Dang is the Delhi-based managing
director of Wilderness Films India

‘The book is stylish and

a brutal meal of fantasy
and morality play’
N Cityscape An artwork by Sudhir Patwardhan SUDEEP CHAKRAVARTI N French connection A still from The Pink Panther

62 TEHELKA | SOCIETY&LIFESTYLE | 22 JANUARY 2011


SAMEER
SINGH
ON
music
I am mostly a listener of techno
and house music. One of my
favourite artists is Boris Brejcha.
He is from Germany and I think
he is quite underrated. His
sound is different and includes
interesting dark groove tones,
mixed with electronic and
nice beats. I also enjoy the
electronic collective Order of
the Essence. The two DJs, Nasha
and Udyan, are strong
technically. They use breakbeat
influences, but are not restricted
to only one kind of music.
I find them hugely innovative.
Singh is a DJ based
in Chandigarh
W Mix ‘n’ match
German DJ
Boris Brejcha
TRISHA GUPTA
not quite the
THE TAKE
belly of delhi
T
HERE’S A MOMENT in No One Killed Jessica when a girl —
someone we’ve never seen — watches the candlelight vigil
scene in Rang De Basanti, comes out of the cinema and sends
out an SMS calling for a similar vigil for ‘Justice for Jessica’. The
scene is spot-on. Without saying a word, it shows you how the news
media, cinema and mobile phone technology came together to
create a new kind of middle-class activist public, the outrage of its
thousands of SMSes amplified by the power of television, leading to
the eventual reopening of the Jessica Lall murder case.
Unfortunately, the film doesn’t often manage such verbal
economy. It opens with a scene we know well from newspaper ac-
counts: the late-night party at which the feisty young bartender, Jes-
sica, is shot by a loutish customer who
doesn’t like the idea of a do take ki model
having the gall to refuse him a drink. But
the quiet tension of this sequence —
displaying some of the taut pacing of
director Rajkumar Gupta’s controversial
previous film, Aamir — swiftly disinte-
grates as Gupta decides to milk the idea of
the decadence (and hypocrisy) of Delhi’s
Page Three elite for all its worth, teeter-
ing dangerously over Madhur Bhandarkar
territory and finally falling into a morass
of easy lecturebaazi (“Sabrinaji, yeh kaise
FILM » NO ONE KILLED JESSICA logon ke saath uthti-baithti hain aap?”).
DIRECTOR » RAJKUMAR GUPTA
NOKJ also fails miserably as a Delhi
film. Every film set in Delhi doesn’t have
STARRING » RANI MUKHERJEE, VIDYA BALAN,
to devote itself to the city. But we’re told
MYRA KARN
constantly this is a story about Delhi.
RATING » Sadly, it never goes beyond the clichés —
Mumbai = paisa, Delhi = power; “Every-
body is a somebody here” — and even
GUPTA EXPLORES these are lamely served up in a voiceover.
THE DECADENCE OF There is the intermittent well-done
DELHI’S PAGE THREE cameo — example Bubbles Sabharwal as
the socialite restaurant-owner swinging
ELITE BUT FALLS between self-absorption and hand-wring-
INTO A MORASS OF ing helplessness. But Mumbai high society
EASY LECTUREBAAZI cannot pass off as Delhi’s: clothes, accents
and intonations betray most characters.
Worse still, none of the three principals —
newcomer Myra as pretty Delhi girl Jessica who doesn’t take shit
from men, Vidya Balan as her supposedly dowdy, stoic sister Sabrina,
or Rani Mukherjee as hard-boiled star reporter Meera — look or
sound like Delhi women. Balan puts in an admirable performance
(largely wordless, thus easier in the context of this film) while
Mukherjee struggles to give her shrieky, sloppily-written character
something like a graph. The only thing Delhi about this film is Amit
Trivedi’s zippy Dilli anthem.
22 JANUARY 2011 | SOCIETY&LIFESTYLE | TEHELKA 63
 C O M P I L E D BY NISHA SUSAN

if at first
After discovering the tornado that is Priyanka
Chopra, we’ve learnt never to dismiss supermodels
in Bollywood. Perhaps there will be a day when we
know what Sarah Jane Dias looks like (as opposed
to 20,000 lookalikes). Perhaps the moment will
come sooner than we like given that she is in the
next Farhan Akhtar-Ritesh Sidwani production
Game. Despite the ensemble cast, promos are
pitching her as the female lead. Then again, perhaps
not. We have come to the sad conclusion that we
like Excel Entertainment only for allowing us to
fantasise about Farhan playing yet another neurotic.
Sarah Jane Dias, perhaps a leading lady

HIGH NOON FEAST/FAMINE

Rohan Sippy’s new In Delhi, we have a special

film Dum Maro Dum is
out in April. Unlike
the gentle zaniness of
his previous films, this
one is going to be a thriller. Abhishek
Bachchan plays a cop trying to crack a
drug cartel in Goa. One hears good
manner of complaint. It
freezes, it simmers. And the
climactic extremes continue
into its cultural life. Either it is a
desert or we are swimming in the
stuff. Aer suffering months of noth-
ingness, January is looking like terrify-

pali wedding things about the Sridhar Raghavan

AND THEY ARE OFF!
So young Imran Khan and long-term
girlfriend Avantika Malik were
finally wed last week. Happy happy
joy joy for the young twosome. Karan
Johar designed his clothes and
Manish Malhotra hers. We think
Avantika’s clothes could have been
more adventurous but that’s just our
busybody opinion. And certainly
compared to Imran’s black bandgala,
anything she wore would look outra-
geously outré. It’s great that Karan
added his faux comic narrative of
‘always a wedding planner, never a
bride’ to the event but what else can
you add to a black bandgala?
script, but the making of Dum sounds
like a film in itself. At one point, all the
ing excess. Apart from everything else,
there is the impending exodus of all
things print to the Jaipur Lit Fest. And
assistant directors were fired. At whose bright idea was it to make the
another point, the very genteel editor ginormous India Art Summit coincide
of the film was told politely to depart. with the Lit Fest? Who’d blame those
Her services were not required and no complaining bitterly about having to
explanations forthcoming. Perhaps choose between these offerings?
we should have stopped at saying
Bipasha Basu plays a Goan girl.
I have upset d one person
responsible 4 intrducing
me 2 dis twitterworld’
HRITHIK ROSHAN
(Apologising to sis-in-law for who knows what)

64 TEHELKA | SOCIETY&LIFESTYLE | 22 JANUARY 2011

 ‘Indians like sex a lot but
don’t want to talk about it’
YANA GUPTA, Model
PSYCHOLOGIES
How was your life in the Czech Republic?
After my parents were divorced, it was just I,
my mother and sister living together. We were
never scared of the fact that there was no man
around, but it influenced my behaviour towards
men and relationships later. I had no father
figure to compare men I was in a relationship
with because I had no father prototype.
Did you ever get a sense that people In India were
treating you differently because you were white?
Initially, I got a lot of attention because I was
white. It’s lesser now because I’ve become so
Indianised. When Babuji Zara Dheere Chalo...
became a hit, people talked about how much I
had exposed. It was strange because I didn’t
FOR FULL INTERVIEW, LOG ON TO WWW.TEHELKA.COM
think I’d worn anything extraordinarily skimpy.
Oversexed item songs are the rage in Bollywood. Yet,
something as inadvertent as a wardrobe malfunction
kept you in the news for weeks.
I knew it would be all over the news for a few
weeks, but I also knew soon no one would re-
member it. It is not as if Indian people don’t like
sex. They like it a lot (laughs) but think it’s bad
to talk about it openly. When the Shahid-
Kareena kissing pictures were plas-
tered all over the news and they
kept denying it was them, I could
not understand why. I thought
they looked nice, it seemed like
a good kiss!
When one falls in love with
someone from a different
nationality, how does one bridge
the cultural gap?
Satyakam, my ex-hus-
band, was different
from most Indians. He
was in Osho’s Ashram
for 18 years when I
met him, so there
were a lot of things
we felt the same way
about. But yes, if I
had to marry an In-
dian-Indian there
might be a lot of
things to work
around. But love
makes everything
easier, no?
NISHITA JHA
FIRST
LOOK WORKS I N TH E M AKI NG
Olfactory ballet. Choreographer Davide Bombana
presents IPNOS, a ballet performed by students from
the Ballet School Accademia Teatro alla Scala. The music
by Riccardo Nova mixes electronic sounds with Sufi
voices and percussion. Catch the show on 24 January
at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in
Mumbai and on 28 January at the Italian Cultural Centre
in New Delhi.
The pill factor. Latitude 28 is holding a
group exhibition called The Pill by
artists from various backgrounds.
Sexuality, health, women’s identity
and the body itself are some of the
issues analysed through the social
impact of the pill and its representa-
tions in popular culture. The show is
on from 1 to 20 February at Latitude 28, F-208, Lado
Sarai, New Delhi.
La vie en bronze. Sculptures by two
masters of Indian contemporary
sculpture, Sarbari Roy Chowdhury
and his son Saurav, are displayed for
the exhibition titled Strikes 12. On
till 7 February at Jamaat Art Gallery in
Colaba, Mumbai.
MYFAVORITEALBUMART.TUMBLR.COM
Stupid sleeves. Now, you can discover
the pitiful side of the music industry. My
Favorite Album Artwork has brought
together the most hopeless ‘artists’ ever
seen, displaying their ridiculous — and
sometimes creepy — album covers. If you
want to enjoy their ‘terrific’ music, you can
buy the titles, thanks to a link given below
each cover on the website.
22 JANUARY 2011 | SOCIETY&LIFESTYLE | TEHELKA 65
 A SERIES ON TRUE EXPERIENCES
IMPRESSIONS
‘The Statue of Liberty
reminded me of the
standard I’d set for myself’
ADITYA KUMAR
is 29. He is a computer programmer
based in Bengaluru
IT WAS ALMOST 10 YEARS ago on a starry night in Pune
that a friend and I had enjoyed coffee at our usual joint
and discussed the benchmarks to measure success in
life. Though we differed on a set scale, our lowest com-
mon denominator seemed to be a position in life where
we could “choose” to go to America. It was just two col-
lege grads ranting and dreaming, conveniently oblivi-
ous to the harsh realities of life that lay ahead.
At the beginning of 2010, a trip to America started to
seem like a real possibility. I had long forgotten about
that talk in Pune. Instead, in the few months before the
trip, I had begun to imagine how would it be to see
America for the first time from a few thousand feet up
in the air. I had replayed the whole sequence in my
66 TEHELKA | SOCIETY&LIFESTYLE | 22 JANUARY 2011
mind invariably with the same result because it seemed
to revolve around gazing at the Statue of Liberty below.
I made it close, touching down at Newark. I do not
know if my plane hovered above the Statue of Liberty
because, despite my best efforts, when the moment
came, I found myself perched on the aisle seat.
I had gone to America on a six-month deputation.
In those six months, I aimed to build a perspective of
the country that Hollywood could never help me with,
that would be balanced in nature just as I wanted it to
be: free from prejudice. I have always believed very
strongly in what Bono has to say about America — “It’s
like hey, look there’s the moon up there, let’s take a
walk on it, bring back a piece of it. That’s the kind of
America that I’m a fan of.” My fascination about the
US was centred on this quote.
My first glimpse of America turned out to be the
view from the immigration queue. It was Newark Bay,
as I later realised, and the tall red cranes of the port
standing in sequence, almost guardian-like, to the zip-
ping cars on the highway below made a sight to behold.
Almost a month later, I made it to New York City,
which was only an hour away by train. Entering
through the suburbs of the city, it looked much like
Mumbai (minus the slums) and had its own distinct
smell. A few moments after I came out of the New York
Penn Station, I saw the Empire State Building. I knew
back in my mind that there’s a memory being formed
right now. I was in such an awe of the place that later
that misty evening, I spent two hours sitting on a bench
below the Empire State, writing postcards to my
friends and family back home. I went to Times Square,
watched people, listened to U2’s New York and clicked
pictures while sipping Starbucks.
In the months that followed, I kept coming back to
New York City, visited Central Park and took photos of
the Empire State Building in various shades, one of
them when the building was bathed in saffron, white
and green, on 15 August. The New Yorkers thought it
had something to do with Ireland.
My ultimate realisation and my ‘moment’ happened
a few months later, on an NYC boat ride that took
us from below the Brooklyn Bridge to the Statue of
Liberty. During that sunset, it dawned upon me that I
had subconsciously fulfilled a promise I had made to
myself 10 years ago on that night in Pune. By those
standards, I had arrived somewhere in life.
A few months after that moment, I was on a plane
headed back to India. I had cut short my trip and
chosen, happily and unregretfully, returning back to my
country. Could I have imagined this that night in Pune?
Maybe in our rush, my friend and I had discounted the
possibility of a finale like this. How would the idea of
“choosing” to leave America — at our own will — fare in
our benchmarks? I didn’t know the answer and maybe
at that moment I didn’t care but I kept my gaze at New
York’s tallest building, a faint shade of grey with a hint
of silver — far away, until I could.
ILLUSTRATIO N: SAMIA SINGH
JANUARY 16-22, 2011 RNI. NO. - DELENG - 2004/12605, Regd. No. - DL(S)-01/3053/2010-2012

Regd. No. KA/BGGPO/2508/2010-2012