So what are her options? She’s caught between a rock and a hard place. Should she accept this public reenactment of her rape, her humiliation, her by now immortal walk to the well? Should she leave uncontested the accusation that she did indeed kill twenty-two men? What could she expect in return? A little bit of Liberty? Somewhat shaky, somewhat dangerous, somewhat temporary?
When Bandit Queen is released in India, the people who see it will believe that it is the Truth. It will be seen by people in cities and villages. By lawyers, by judges, by journalists, by Phoolan Devi’s family, by the relatives of the men who were murdered in Behmai. By people whose vision and judgment will directly affect Phoolan Devi’s life.
It will influence Courts of Law. It could provoke retribution from the Thakur community, which has every right to be outraged at the apparent condoning of this massacre. And they, judging by the yardstick of this film, would be entirely justified were they to take the law into their own hands. Perhaps not here, in the suburbs of Delhi. But away from here. Where these things are real and end in death.
Bandit Queen the film seriously jeopardizes Phoolan Devi’s life. It passes judgments that ought to be passed in Courts of Law. Not in Cinema Halls. The threads that connect Truth to Half-Truths to Lies could very quickly tighten into a noose around Phoolan Devi’s neck. Or put a bullet through her head. Or a knife in her back.
While We-the-Audience peep saucer-eyed out of our little lives. Not remotely aware of the fact that our superficial sympathy, our ignorance of the facts, and our intellectual sloth could grease her way to the gallows.
We makes me sick.
First published in Sunday, September 23, 1994.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As much as the fiction I write comes from solitude, this book comes from companionship. From walking, talking, and breaking bread with comrades and friends who are so much a part of my life that thanking them feels as though I am thanking parts of myself.
Still, for the record, and for their friendship, insight, support, and solidarity, I say their names out loud…
Himanshu Thakker, Shripad Dharmadhikary, Nandini Oza, Chittaroopa Palit, Alok Aggarwal, Medha Patkar, Prashant Bhushan, Nikhil De, Jharana Jhaveri, Anurag Singh, S. Anand, Ashwin Desai, G. N. Saibaba, Rona Wislon, Savitri, Ravikumar, Sunil Sardar, Jawed Naqvi, Jitendra Yadav, Rebecca John, Chander Uday Singh, Jawahar Raja, John Berger, Pankaj Mishra, Vinod Mehta, N. Ram, Arjun Raina, Tarun Bhartiya, Eve Ensler, Shohini Ghosh, Parvaiz Bukhari, and Aijaz Hussain.
Pradip Krishen, who always added that perfect final touch.
David Godwin, who is always there. Lisette Verhagen, who I hope always will be.
Maya Palit, who compiled and organized this manuscript.
Mayank Austen Soofi, for the cover photograph.
Antoine Gallimard, Luigi Brioschi, Simon Prosser, Ravi Singh, and Meru Gokhale, who have, over the years, published almost every essay in this book. No writer could ask for better publishers.
And finally, Sanjay Kak and Anthony Arnove, who walked the whole way, who know every sentence, every footnote, every joy and sorrow that went into this twenty-year journey.
GLOSSARY
Adivasis: tribal, literally original inhabitants of India.
L. K. Advani: leader of the BJP and former Indian home minister (and later deputy prime minster) who led the agitation for the demolition of the Babri Masjid.
Mukesh Ambani: CEO of Reliance Industries Ltd. India’s richest industrialist.
B. R. Ambedkar: (1891–1956), an icon of Dalit awakening. He renounced Hinduism and, toward the end of his life embraced Buddhism. He was chairman of the drafting committee for the constitution and India’s first law minister. He is the author of several revolutionary essays, including Annihilation of Caste, Riddles in Hinduism, and The Buddha and His Dhamma.
Azadi: Freedom. A popular slogan of the movement for self-determination in Kashmir.
Babri Masjid: On December 6, 1992, violent mobs of Hindu fundamentalists converged on the town of Ayodhya and demolished the Babri Masjid, an old Muslim mosque. Initiated by the BJP leader L. K. Advani, this was the culmination of a nationwide campaign to “arouse the pride” of Hindus. Plans for replacing the mosque with a huge Hindu temple are under way. See Ram Mandir, below.
Bajrang Dal: militant Hindu fundamentalist organization named after the Hindu god Hanuman; allied with the BJP and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), and, with them, instrumental in the destruction of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya in 1992.
Bastar: district in the state of Chhattisgarh, parts of which are a Maoist stronghold.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP): literally, the Indian People’s Party. It espouses a Hindu nationalist ideology, and its support is concentrated mostly in northern India. Since the elections of 2014, it has been the single largest party of the governing coalition.
Bharat Mata ki Jai: Victory to Mother India.
Chhattisgarh: heavily forested state in central India, rich in minerals and a growth area for industry. It has a large Adivasi population.
P. Chidambaram: former Indian finance minister and home minister, as well as member of parliament.
Congress Party: Indian National Congress. The main parliamentary expression of the Indian national independence struggle and the dominant national political party after independence in 1947.
crore: ten million (one hundred lakhs).
Dalit: those who are oppressed or literally “ground down”; the preferred term for those people who used to be called “Untouchables” in India. Gandhi coined the term harijan (children of God) as a euphemism for these castes, but Dalit has a more explicit political meaning and is preferred today.
Dandakaranya: Dandak Forest, in the Bastar district of Chhattisgarh, considered sacred in Hindu mythology.
dargah: Muslim tomb.
dharna: peaceful protest or sit-in.
lakh: one hundred thousand.
Mohandas Gandhi: (1869–1948), a world icon and household name. He was a member of the Congress Party and one of the main leaders of the Indian national independence movement. His practice of satyagraha (see below) and nonviolent civil disobedience has elevated him in the eyes of millions to the status of a saint or a mahatma—a great soul.
Godhra train burning: On February 27, 2002, fifty-nine people died after a fire broke out on the Sabarmati Express train near the Godhra railway station in the Indian state of Gujarat. A number of Muslims belonging to the town of Godhra were arrested for the crime. The incident was followed by the Gujarat pogrom. The actual cause of the fire has never been indisputably established.
Gujarat pogrom: After the Godhra train burning, violent riots took more than two thousand Muslim lives. Narendra Modi was chief minister of Gujarat at the time.
Afzal Guru: (1969–2013) was sentenced to death and hanged over his alleged role in the Indian parliament attack of 2002.
Anna Hazare: Kisan Baburao Hazare, a social activist, known for his hunger strikes against corruption in India.
Hindutva: ideology seeking to strengthen “Hindu identity” and create a Hindu state, advocated by the BJP, Shiv Sena, and other communalist parties.
hydel: hydroelectric power.
ISI: Inter-Services Intelligence, the Pakistani intelligence agency.
khadi: hand-spun cotton cloth popularized by Gandhi during the independence struggle as a defiant statement of self-reliance and a badge of membership in the Congress movement. Khadi is still worn today by many politicians and Gandhian workers.
khichdi: a rice and lentil dish.
LTTE: Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a Sri Lankan Tamil separatist guerrilla group.
Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act: a 2005 act of parliament that aimed to enhance the livelihood of people in rural areas by providing at least one hundred days of paid employment to every rural household.
Mandal Commission: commission constituted by the Janata Party government under the chairmanship of B. P. Mandal in 1977 to look into the
issue of reservations for “backward” castes in government jobs and educational institutions. The report was submitted in 1980, and its recommendations led to a huge backlash from upper castes, with violent protests across the country.
mandir: temple.
Manusmriti: an ancient code of conduct, attributed to Manu, sometimes viewed as a book of Hindu laws.
Maoists: A label applied to a number of political movements and organizations in India that trace their politics in part to the politics of Chairman Mao (1893–1976) in China, particularly insofar as his view of communism diverged from the Soviet model in the mid-1950s and early 1960s to emphasize peasant rebellion and struggles of popular classes in the so-called third world.
masjid: mosque.
Mayawati: Dalit leader of the Bahujan Samaj Party. She has served as chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, the largest state in India, for four terms.
Narendra Modi: Chief Minister of Gujarat; presided over the state government when violent riots took more than two thousand Muslim lives in 2002. He became prime minister in 2014.
Narmada: a river that flows through Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Maharashtra, and a site of major contestations over dam construction.
Narmada Bachao Andolan: Save the Narmada Movement.
Naxalites: label applied to a number of left-wing groups in India that are linked to the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), named after a rebellion that took place in 1967 in the village Naxalbari in West Bengal.
Jawaharlal Nehru: (1889–1964), one of the most important leaders of the Indian national independence movement. He became the first prime minister after independence.
Shankar Guha Niyogi: trade union leader of the Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha, killed in September 1991 by hired assassins.
Parliament attack: On December 13, 2001, gunmen attacked the Parliament House in Delhi. The attackers, one civilian, and six military personnel were killed in the attack.
Parsis: A small community of Persian descent who practice the Zoroastrian faith.
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel: (1875–1950), prominent leader of the Indian National Congress party who served as India’s first deputy prime minister after independence.
Prasad: sacred food, shared by devotees in an act of seeking benediction.
PWG: Peoples’ War Group, an extreme left-wing armed group, present in many states in India.
Ram Mandir: a temple to the Hindu god Ram. See Babri Masjid, above.
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS): literally, the National Self-Help Group; a right-wing militaristic organization founded in 1925, with a clearly articulated anti-Muslim stand and a nationalistic notion of Hindutva. The RSS is the ideological backbone of the BJP.
Rath Yatra: literally, the Chariots’ Journey, a long road rally led by a campaign bus dressed up as a chariot, undertaken first in 1990 by L. K. Advani to “mobilize Hindu sentiment” for the building of the Ram Mandir at Ayodhya. It culminated in widespread violence in many parts of northern India. Two years after the Rath Yatra, a Hindu vigilante mob demolished the Babri Masjid.
Reliance Industries Ltd.: India’s richest corporation—led by Mukesh Ambani— dominant in energy, petrochemicals, textiles, and telecommunications, among other industries.
Sangh Parivar: literally, family group, an undefined group of closely linked right-wing Hindu fundamentalist organizations in India that includes the Bajrang Dal, BJP, RSS, and VHP.
Saraswati shishu mandirs: literally, temples for children, schools run by the RSS and named after Saraswati, the Hindu goddess of learning.
Satyagraha: literally “life force,” Gandhi’s term for civil disobedience. The term is now commonly applied to any movement that confronts its foe—typically, the state—nonviolently.
Savarna Hinduism: that part of caste Hindu society that excludes Dalits and so-called backward castes.
Amit Shah: the current president of the BJP.
shakha: an RSS branch (literally) or center. RSS shakhas are training camps or cells.
Shiv Sena: a right-wing regional Hindu chauvinist party in the state of Maharashtra.
shloka: stanzas, or verse in general, that are prayers to the deities.
Manmohan Singh: Indian prime minister from 2004 to 2014 and finance minister from 1991 to 1996 as a member of the Congress Party.
stupa: a Buddhist religious monument.
swadeshi: nationalist.
Tata Group: One of India’s largest conglomerates, dominant in chemicals, energy, consumer goods, steel, and engineering, among other industries.
Atal Bihari Vajpayee: (1924–2018), served three times as prime minister of India as a member of the BJP.
Vedanta: a Hindu philosophical tradition rooted in the ancient Sanskrit texts known as the Upanishads. Also the name of a major mining company.
VHP: Vishwa Hindu Parishad, literally the World Hindu Council, self-appointed leaders of the Hindu community and part of the “Sangh” family of Hindu nationalist organizations to which the BJP also belongs. The VHP was in the forefront of the move to destroy the Babri Masjid and build a temple to Lord Ram at Ayodhya.
Yatra: literally, pilgrimage; can be translated as any journey “with purpose.”
NOTES
FOREWORD
1.https://www.livemint.com/Companies/z9KNZfDJBIFtkYn2o7pRVN/Sardar-Patels-Statue-of-Unity-inauguration-today-Worlds-t.html.
THE GREATER COMMON GOOD
1.Jawaharlal Nehru, Modern Temples of India: Selected Speeches of Jawaharlal Nehru at Irrigation and Power Projects, ed. C. V. J. Sharma (Delhi: Central Board of Irrigation and Power, 1989), 40–49.
2.Patrick McCully, Silenced Rivers: The Ecology and Politics of Large Dams (Hyderabad: Orient Longman, 1998), 80.
3.From (uncut) film footage of Bargi Dam oustees, Anurag Singh and Jharana Jhaveri, Jan Madhyam, New Delhi, 1995.
4.J. Nehru, Modern Temples, 52–56. In a speech given before the Twenty-Ninth Annual Meeting of the Central Board of Irrigation and Power (November 17, 1958) Nehru said, “For some time past, however, I have been beginning to think that we are suffering from what we may call ‘the disease of gigantism.’ We want to show that we can build big dams and do big things. This is a dangerous outlook developing in India … the idea of big—having big undertakings and doing big things for the sake of showing that we can do big things—is not a good outlook at all.” And “it is … the small irrigation projects, the small industries and the small plants for electric power, which will change the face of the country far more than half a dozen big projects in half a dozen places.”
5.Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), Dying Wisdom: Rise, Fall, and Potential of India’s Traditional Water Harvesting Systems (New Delhi: CSE, 1997), 399; Madhav Gadgil and Ramachandra Guha, Ecology and Equity (New Delhi: Penguin India, 1995), 39.
6.Indian Water Resources Society, Five Decades of Water, Resources Development in India (1998), 7.
7.World Resource Institute, World Resources 1998–99 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 251.
8.McCully, Silenced Rivers, 26–29. See also The Ecologist Asia 6, no. 5 (September—October 1998): 50–51, for excerpts of speech by Bruce Babbitt, US interior secretary, in August 1998.
9.Besides McCully, Silenced Rivers, see the CSE’s State of India’s Environment, 1999, 1985, and 1982; Nicholas Hildyard and Edward Goldsmith, The Social and Environmental Impacts of Large Dams (Cornwall, UK: Wadebridge Ecological Centre, 1984); Satyajit Singh, Taming the Waters: The Political Economy of Large Dams (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997); World Bank, India: Irrigation Sector Review (1991); and Anthony H. J. Dorcey, ed., Large Dams: Learning from the Past, Looking to the Future (1997).
10.Mihir Shah, Debashis Banerji, P. S. Vijayshankar, and Pramathesh Ambasta, India’s Drylands: Tribal Societies and Development through Environmental Regeneration (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998), 51–103.
11.Ann Danaiya Usher, Dams as Aid: A Political Anatomy of Nordic Development Thinking (London: Routledge, 1997).
12.$1 US = Rs 43.35. A crore is 10 million. Equal to Rs 2,200,000 crore, at constant 1996–97 prices.
13.D. K. Mishra and R. Rangachari, The Embankment Trap and Some Disturbing Questions, Seminar 478 (June 1999), 46–48 and 62–63, respectively; CSE, Floods, Floodplains and Environmental Myths.
14.Shah et al., India’s Drylands, 51–103.
15.Singh, Taming the Waters, 188–90; also, government of India (GOI) figures for actual displacement.
16.At a January 21, 1999, meeting in New Delhi organized by the Union Ministry of Rural Areas and Employment, for discussions on the draft National Resettlement and Rehabilitation Policy and the amendment to the draft Land Acquisition Act.
17.Bradford Morse and Thomas Berger, Sardar Sarovar: The Report of the Independent Review (Ottawa: Resource Futures International [RFI], 1992), 62.
18.GOI, 28th and 29th Report of the Commissioner for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (New Delhi, 1988–89).
19.Indian Express (New Delhi), April 10, 1999, front page.
20.GOI, Ninth Five Year Plan, 1997–2002 (1999), 2:437.
21.Siddharth Dube, Words like Freedom (New Delhi: Harper Collins, 1998); Centre for Monitoring the Indian Economy, 1996. See also World Bank Poverty Update, quoted in Business Line, June 4, 1999.
22.National Human Rights Commission, Report of the Visit of the Official Team of the NHRC to the Scarcity Affected Areas of Orissa, December 1996.
23.GOI, Award of the Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal, 1978–79.
24.GOI, Report of the FMG-2 on SSP (1995); also see various affidavits of the government of India and government of Madhya Pradesh before the Supreme Court of India, 1994–98.
25.Central Water Commission, Monthly Observed Flows of the Narmada at Garudeshwar (New Delhi: Hydrology Studies Organisation, Central Water Commission, 1992).
26.Written Submission on Behalf of Union of India, February 1999, p. 7, clause 1.7.
27.Tigerlink News 5, no. 2 (June 1999): 28.
28.World Bank Annual Reports, 1993–98.
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