As I drove through the wilderness circumscribed by Mahua and Palash trees, weeds and overgrown bushes, I was also fighting myself back. My ride was a 135cc motorcycle and if I’d ever get somewhere, it would be Palamu. I say that because I never knew if I’d ever get there. Bypassing trouble I mean. My apprehensions, I must say, should have found a way out into my brains had I been new to the region. Sadly, that wasn’t the case. I knew Palamu for the last 24 years. I was born in a small missionary hospital in Palamu and had witnessed my childhood and adolescence in a small borough in the region. I knew its places, its languages, its people, the weather, you name it and I could show you all its elements at any given time. But as my bike slithered on NH-75 which connects Ranchi, the Capital of Jharkhand, to Palamu, my being, I was afraid, was about to be questioned. The day was observed as a total Economic Bandh. Bandhs, which are more of a customary tradition of contemporary Jharkhand, are total suspensions of all economic, political and social activities, called upon by armed outfits, and extremist insurgents who aim at nothing more than meeting their own vested interests. Consequently, NH-75 was lifeless. There were no vehicles commuting. All traffic was suspended. I was the lone rider as I had to, by any means; reach Palamu for an indispensable assignment. And as the engine of my bike murdered the prevalent silence ensconced upon the notorious Patki jungle, my mind rode a different tide. I couldn’t refrain from thinking about the sorry state of affairs that had crippled the region which had given me some of the best moments of my life. It was incontrovertible that Palamu was sick and all of it because we did not care anymore.
Palamu is a once-famous-now-infamous district of the state of Jharkhand which owes its contemporary infamy to the various banned militant outfits that are active in the region. That however is just one side of the story. Each and every one of us who has been associated with Palamu is responsible for the disheartening plight of its misery. Palamu was a beautiful plain situated in the midst of the chotanagpur plateau. Palamu, per se, encapsulated the three most prized possessions the region once boasted off. Palash which yields excellent colors, Lah or Lac which is an expert fire resistant material and Mahua the fruits of which create the local intoxicant handiya. The district is bounded north by the river Son which separates it from the districts of Rohtas, and Aurangabad (Bihar), on the east by the districts of Chatra and Hazaribagh, on the south by the district Latehar and on the west by the district Garhwa and Chhatisgarh state. The region was rich in almost everything one could think of. It once had rich reserves of coal, bauxite and other commercially important minerals under its womb. It had great prospects for the tourism industry to thrive which could have effortlessly generated enough revenues to support its drooping economy. The forests of Palamu were once considered among the best in the country in terms of Wildlife dwellings. There are still around 40 species of mammals that coexist in the wild. Also, there are a whopping 170 species of birds that one could find in the greens of the district. Palamu was also declared a Tiger Reserve; after various studies projected it as the best region in India to protect tigers when the number of tigers in India reached all time lows. All the above facts should have easily put any region at an enviable platform. But unfortunately, with Palamu, that was not to be.
I meanwhile, was maneuvering my bike at a fairly decent speed when I crossed a small village which straddled NH-75. I was fortunate to have come that far on a Bandh. I encountered a couple of occasional police vehicles patrolling to make sure nothing went wrong. At least that’s what I think they hoped for, since the policemen were also flesh and blood like me, but unlike me, they were preferred targets for the militants who regularly ambushed them for looting their arms and ammunition. And these poor policemen, who seldom have enough ammunition to check insurgency, end up losing their dear lives. While I passed by this small hamlet, I saw an old woman blowing hard inside her choolha, (an earthen furnace) to reignite whatever little coal was left over in it. She probably couldn’t buy herself coal that day, since the Bandh call had been successful and all haulage on NH-75 had been whipped. A large chunk of Palamu’s population was still dependant on coal for their daily chores. Even when the world outside played Show-and-Tell with the latest technology in their kitchens, Liquefied Petroleum Gas and everything that was new and easy, this part of the world, like the old woman, was still blowing hard on the choolhas. That was primarily because the rich coal and mineral reserves of Palamu had become the new commodities on which, the self styled coal mafias, propped by some dodgy authorities, extorted control and manipulated its mining, transportation and distribution to fuel their personal ambitions and interests. The rulers of the region were only more than happy to get their shares out of these lucrative deals and forgot to spare a thought about the region that had made them all rich overnight. The people of Palamu, who deserved a much better treatment than what was meted out to them, continued living in abject poverty. Their repeated cries fell on deaf ears and their agonies never found a voice. And we, the so called ‘middle class’, who sometimes even do not want to be labeled from Palamu, were too busy with our own petty grievances, and ambitions to care about the old woman who asked nothing more than a thread to hang on to life.
My mind, as I continued my journey, wandered into unfathomable territories that day. I had spared a thought for Palamu after 24 years that I had lived under its sun. May be, even that day, I did it because I had nothing better to do, except driving on that endless road. As I moved forward, with prayers that I found no extremists waiting in anticipation of somebody who had breached the bandh, I forced my mind to get back to me so that I could concentrate on my driving. Suddenly I realized I was into the most beautiful part of the drive. The road was straddled with sal trees and the air which was warm so far suddenly got cooler. I felt relaxed and wanted to get off my bike for a while to enjoy the freshness that reigned the area. Unfortunately, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do it because the area was infected with people who operated under the veils of extremism. Naxalites, as they are characterized, are a dread in the area and were declared a banned outfit long back because they often adopted violent means to make themselves heard. The people of small rural areas like Palamu were soft targets for such extremists due to severe ignorance and illiteracy that is prevalent in these areas. The ignorant and unemployed local youth is misled by such extremist organizations and are trained covertly in guerilla warfare. The locals are then used to attack public installations, wreak havoc and create a state of anarchy in the entire region. The self styled commanders of these extremist outfits sit back and exploit the illiterate local people of such regions and more often than not, these exploitations end up in filling up their own pots. This dirty game then got filthier, with some knave politicians metamorphosing into benefactors of such organizations to grab political ascendancy. The beautiful valleys of Palamu were now home to dreaded militants and the once famous tourist attractions became avenues of unprecedented holocausts. Even the National Park at Betla, which had been commissioned as a Tiger Reserve for their conservation, and which once witnessed flocks of tourists all round the year, lost its charisma, thanks to the ever increasing militancy and the numb authorities, who turned out to be nothing more than mute spectators. Consequently, the tourist potentials of this region took a severe blow and Palamu repeatedly made it to the headlines, but for all the wrong reasons.
Thankfully, my journey had been uninterrupted so far, and I had almost covered three quarters of the distance to Daltonganj, the administrative headquarters of Palamu. Daltonganj, a small town of Palamu situated on the banks of river Koel. I remember playing cricket on Koel’s banks with my friends. I know that sounds weird, but we did play cricket on the sands of koel. A sudden wave of nostalgia brushed me, as I drove through the silence that was settled on every village, every hamlet I crossed. For the first part of my formal education, I went to Sacred Heart High, a reputed missionary school in Daltonganj. I was among the privileged lot to have studied in an English Medium School, which in itself was a matter of pride in the area. While I went to a missionary school which was the best in Palamu, children in various parts of the region worked as daily wage workers, orderlies, housekeepers and minions to make both ends meet. A large percentage of children in the region never went to schools, never looked beyond their grease smeared hands and sweaty eyebrows. Palamu still manages to keep the overall literacy rate well below 50% (45.67% to quote the government website for the region). While the male literacy rates plot a rising graph (59.76%, kudos to some genuine NGOs who made it possible), the Female literacy rates are still nowhere near to what can be called figures. A mere 30% of the female population ever visited school, but how many of them actually finished school? Well, that’s another question to be answered. I still remember Sameena, the daughter of our school bus driver, who was forced out of school by her father after the fifth grade. When I came across her father years after I passed out of Sacred Heart, I couldn’t help asking him about sameena. It was only then that I learnt that she had been married to a man from the nearby village, two years after she dropped school. We were still in the seventh grade then. Even today, when female empowerment makes it to the headlines so often, females in Palamu continue living under a rigid, orthodox social structure that can put the very word “female empowerment” to shame.
I knew I was about to reach Daltonganj in another five minutes when I realized I just passed by my School. It was after quite a long time that I had come back to where I belonged. After I finished high school, I had a four-year stint in South India, where I graduated in electrical engineering. Today with an engineering degree, I had a decent job with a global software giant. And somehow, all this, I owed to Palamu, my parents, my school, everyone who let me do whatever I wanted to. In a few months time I’d probably even leave India for foreign shores to live up to the commitments I had made to my employers. Good enough may be, but what after all of that is done? I wondered what my duties were. I wondered if I’d ever return any of the selfless favors that Palamu had bestowed upon me. After so much that I had absorbed from it, wasn’t it my turn now? Suddenly, I wanted to concentrate on my driving.
I reached Daltonganj. The effects of the Bandh were discernible. Almost all collapsible shutters were down and there were only a few vehicles moving. I was tired after the four hour journey, but was happy to finally be home. I entered the gates looking around for changes that had taken place while I was gone. I saw Ma waiting for me relieved, that I reached home safe. And me, well, I was home and had nothing to worry about. Not anymore.
