THE MYSTIC: PART I - THE SEEKER (Part 1 - THE SEEKER)

by Arindam Bhattacharjee

  But after a few days the general public seemed to be annoyed by the overdoing of government propaganda to defame the Maoists by the media. Besides, the whole nation was aghast with disbelief that such mutilated bodies could be displayed so brazenly on public television. Many citizens came out openly in the streets of New Delhi criticizing the ghastly action and expressed repulsion. Also citizens questioned the wisdom of using such force against its own people in a rally organized at Jantar Mantar.

  Twitter feeds pointed to some photos of happy politicians and commented

  ‘The happiest faces on the newspapers were the ministers of the state who spared no effort to get the credit for the military operation."

  They said, these nincompoops acclaimed the success of the operations to military but they did not spare a chance to get credit for planning it.

  Finally after some days the government realized its folly and became worried about such negative reactions and the local politicians who intended to exploit the success of the operation through live telecast, got cold feet at such reaction, and ordered the stopping of the telecast. Nevertheless, Captain Chauhan inadvertently faced the ire of the media under these circumstances and his angry outburst against the media added more fuel to the fire.

  The local state run media, however continued showing the images for a few more weeks to scare the remaining Maoists to surrender. After a few days of hue and cry, the CO, summoned Captain Chouhan to his office in the barracks at Chhattisgarh and asked.

  “Do you want to say something about the events in the media?”

  He was holding a newspaper with Captain Chauhan’s photo next to Vidyut.

  Captain Chauhan instinctively replied,

  “The state machinery has been a failure when fighting the Maoists and because of this so many politicians and bureaucrats have been killed or wounded. And now they have my pictures all over the place with the dead Maoists.”

  On hearing this, the CO rose from his desk, and took off his greatcoat. He then moved towards his wardrobe and took out a rusty Rajputana sword and rubbed some fire-ash from his cigarette box. Afterwards he placed the blade between his teeth and moved a few steps towards Captain Chauhan. The ground was cold but seemed colder to Captain as the CO walked towards him. Meanwhile the CO showing the sword to Captain and continued,

  “There is a story behind this sword that I am carrying. The warrior who carried this sword in the famous battle of Ranthambore came back victorious only to see that all the women of his clan had committed suicide.”

  “Actually earlier, the messenger had given them a wrong message of defeat from the field which led all the women to commit suicide. Then the warrior, moved like a phantom through the remains of the dead bodies to look for the queen. Finally he found her body and carried the information back to the king.”

  “When the king heard the news, he cut off his own head with his sword. Later it is said, even the warrior committed suicide after seeing his king’s despair.”

  Again he looked at Captain Chauhan and then towards his sword and continued,

  “As a matter of fact, I do not think this sword actually belongs to that guy but I would like to believe it this way; evidently so many people died because of misinformation that day.”

  Smiling he continued, “Also as per the intelligence reports, lately we have seen an increase in the determination levels of these Maoist forces. They are following the policy of taking one step forward and four steps backward to frustrate the state machinery. Also the extensive forest cover in the region made it easy for them to hide.”

  He pauses looks at Captain Chauhan who looks rather releasing his steam and enjoying the conversation...

  “In desperation, the army was called in to take action against these rebels as the state police was not able to make any headway. Initially, even the army failed to make any major breakthrough because of the support the Maoists got from the local people.”

  Then point at the newspaper, “But with the latest import of technology from the West, the military got the much needed edge to undertake operations of this nature. However on getting the gibberish message from the battlefield, the queen committed suicide as she thought the worst had happened. Now do you know what I mean to say?”

  Captain Chauhan looked puzzled and did not say anything. The Commanding Officer replied,

  “We have sent a wrong message through you to the media. As a result, there will be a reaction, but these days’ people are not that emotional to take such drastic steps like the queen.”

  “There is no such thing as bad publicity. So do not worry about anything happening to you. But the only thing we need to be careful is we cannot send a wrong signal back to the base.”

  On hearing this Captain Chauhan felt a little more relaxed and sat down to hear his boss out. Meanwhile the CO swung the blade and continued,

  “These ministers are sadists and they have behaved in the most horrific manner near the gory sights of death and destruction.”

  He then placed the blade on the newspaper on the table and continued “Look at the filthy expressions of the ministers in the photos with the dead bodies. These just show the lack of sanity in these ministers. These bureaucrats are showing their desperation.”

  “But we are soldiers and we soldiers know what it means to kill and lose friends. This is why we do not show such apathy towards human life. Now I think the act of bringing media personnel to the scene will prove a bad move eventually. But you don’t have to worry, we will protect you.”

  He looked at Captain Chauhan who was somewhat relieved and continued,

  “You take leave for some days. I will recommend and forward your application. Stay low for some time and do not talk to media. Also do not go close to your family; the rebels will be tracking you there.”

  Finally the CO took another swing of his blade and put the sword back in the wardrobe. Afterwards without looking at the Captain he said,

  “Now you can go.”

  Captain Chauhan got up from his chair, and left the room without saluting his officer. The conversation indicated his fall from grace. The CO did not look back either.

  There was huge hue and cry against such operations in the major newspapers. Many senior journalists debated using such techniques against its own civilians, which led to the formation of different pressure groups to put demands on the government. Many citizens also used online media to speak against use of such techniques for dealing with counterinsurgency. Even the President of India condemned the assaults against Indian nationals.

  As a result the Special Task Force’s representative, in a press conference, under pressure from different elements of media announced that they were officially discarding the technology. But unofficially they still continued to use these methods to bring down the rebels.

  After a month’s time the events were mostly forgotten by the people and with Captain Chauhan out of sight for so long, the media got disinterested in talking about him. On a Sunday morning, about a month later, the commanding officer decided to call up Captain Chauhan who had gone to a secret location and inform him of the latest development. He said

  “The state government of Chhattisgarh has provided medals and citations to all the STF personnel involved in the action. For this they organized a grand ceremony to facilitate all the politicians and the commandos. You were missed. ”

  There was a brief pause. Then Captain Chauhan laughed and asked “Ha, So what did they do?”

  The CO replied,

  “In a speech, the chief minister emphasized that such actions have broken the spine of the Naxal movement in the state. In addition, he also gave the message to the other leaders that they should come out of hiding and surrender to the state government.”

  “He also promised that the state government would see to it that justice is done and that these people are rehabilitated. And finally they also offered unconditional peace if they agreed to the state’s demand.”

  Captain Chauhan asked,
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  “And do you believe them?”

  “In the end the chief minister went against the President’s directive and challenged the use of these tactics in the future to flush the rebels out.”

  “So what does this mean?”

  “That we have more tasks at hand and all the operations will now be undertaken in complete secrecy.”

  Captain Chauhan asked,

  “Does this mean we do not have to meet the politicians?”

  “Yes, but for now there are price tags against the head of all STF commandos involved in the operation and no price for guessing who has the highest tags.”

  Captain Chauhan gave a brief laugh again. The CO continued,

  “Now the older Maoists leaders will think that it's better to negotiate only to provide us intelligence about further attacks. Slowly, slowly the Maoists operational capability will be reduced to nothing with most of their infrastructure destroyed.”

  “Eventually the moderates will fight against the extremists and then attacks on the Maoist sympathizers will increase and many negotiations will just turn up as a blood baths. And finally, the government will get enough reason to curb the free movement of the press and the army would be given complete operational superiority over the regions. Then it will soon be your time to come back and join the operations.”

  “Looking forward to some actions then. Over and Out.”

  The offer of unconditional peace proved to be a dud as predicted by the CO. The Chief Minister ignored the President's directive and vowed to find out other rebels who had gone underground and threatened to wipe them out. In addition, the State government persistently appealed to the centre to organize another assault in secrecy to inflict maximum damage. The centre, too, provided them complete support to carry out the operations.

  1.5: The Diplomatic Blockade

  The news about the use of the HAWK assault for counterinsurgency operations angered NATO and it objected to the use of these methods for internal security. Also in the United Nations, delegates from China raised the issue of supply of such lethal weapons to India. They argued that the presence of these types of munitions would give rise to an arms race in the Asia Pacific region.

  In addition to this the USA also asked India to confer with the rules of engagement while dealing with such lethal machines. Furthermore, on request from the United States a team of delegates from different countries and the NATO visited the area where the attack took place. United Nations also sent its own team to supervise the mission.

  The international delegation went to the forests of Chhattisgarh to access the damage caused by the HAWK assault technique on the insurgents. It was early morning and they could see the eagles hovering over the building still anticipating more blood from the new odd looking humans that had just arrived. They saw a dozen of the eagles when they squinted their eyes towards the Sun and the troublemakers looked like stains on the shiny, golden sovereign Sun.

  Immediately one of the eagles did something similar to barrel roll and flew towards the building only to abandon midway as if it just saw a ghost of the dead crawling from the damaged building. Then another one using the Sun as a shield approached for a silent attack like determined enemy, but again midway the move was abandoned as if it was scared of something in the building.

  Afterwards the rest of the gang glided towards the team and the cannibal eyes of the hunters looked possessed, searching for a weakness among the diplomats to exploit. Within no time they came very close seemingly satisfied that the visitors were indeed victims and swooped towards them like an avenging angel of death. It had scared the living hell out of the visiting team; but on the final approach they abandoned the mission and flew away.

  Somehow the team could gather enough strength to enter the building. The government had by then cleaned up the building of all blood and body parts, but the destruction caused to the building could not be hidden. After the initial assessment the international delegation was also taken to the nearby tribal areas in the Maoist belt to take note of the development in the region.

  In their reports, they also expressed shock at the state of penury in the villages and the absence of any development which was the cause of the rebellion. The delegation also submitted a white paper on the Maoist movement and the inability of the government to give basic rights to the people. They also condemned the passing of an ordinance without the parliament's consensus and criticized it as unconstitutional and undemocratic.

  The report was also discussed in the international press with press conferences organized outside UN Security Council in New York and Geneva. The NATO moved a proposal to impose sanctions on India for use of advanced machinery against its mandate and USA and allied countries imposed a trade embargo for supplying of any defense goods.

  During the entire episode Israel stayed neutral on this whole issue and very few countries supported India’s stand on taking on the insurgents. The diplomatic boycott continued for three months, after which India signed a treaty with NATO on not using the technology against its own civilians. However, this was going to be a blatant lie in the course of time to follow. But no one from the delegation wrote anything about the dance of death performed by the eagles.

  Chapter 2:

  The Repercussions

  2.1: Simon’s Blog on The history of religious fundamentalism in India

  The concept of Indian Nationalism began with the introduction of modern industries and modern education system in India. These changes, mostly introduced by the British in India, resulted in the rise of new social classes like businessmen–industrialists, educated middle class and working class. The people from these classes felt the need for finding an outlet for their own political expressions and formed the Indian National Congress.

  With the formation of a political outfit which looked into the interests of the new rising classes, the old and declining classes of landlords, kings and the associated clergies of both religions, the Hindus and the Muslims prevalent at that time, came together to form the United India Patriotic Association (UIPA), which pledged its loyalty to the British rule. They opposed the formation of Congress on the grounds that their respective religion teaches them to be loyal to the king (queen in this case) and the action of the Congress was disloyal to the British.

  From this period, communal violence started in India and the foundations of communal politics were laid. UIPA later gave birth to religion based communal streams – The Muslim League, The Punjab Hindu Sabha and The Hindu Mahasabha. From the new trends the RSS emerged from the Brahmins. People like Bhagat Singh (Hindustan Socialist Republican Association), Dr. BR Ambedkar (Republican Party of India), and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Mahatma Gandhi, Annie Besant and others (Indian National Congress) strove for democratic and socialist nationalism. They participated in the freedom of the country in their own ways.

  On the other hand, people like Muhammad Ali Jinnah (Muslim League) Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (Hindu Mahasabha) and RSS (Hindu Rashtra) talked of the old glories of their religions and opposed the movement for secular Indian nationalism. Savarkar was an anti British revolutionary till 1906. But after getting himself released from Andamans, he never participated in the anti British movement. Jinnah initially joined Congress but later, when Gandhi gave the call for non-cooperation movement, he distanced himself from the Congress and much later joined and led Muslim League.

  People like Bhagat Singh, Gandhi and Ambedkar saw India as a nation in the making, while Muslim league argued that Muslims were a separate nation since the time Muhammad bin Kasim attacked and ruled Sindh from the 8th Century. Savarkar argued that Hindus are a nation from the time immemorial and RSS later went on to say that Muslims have to live here as a subordinates. Here the concept of two nation theories arose and British supported it as per its policy of divide and rule.

  During the World War II and with the rise of Soviet Union, the West thought that formation of Pakistan would help them maintain control over the region. This was evident when the British
and the USA support were given to Pakistan during the 1948, 1965 and 1971 wars. But the truth was that only an insignificant section of Muslims supported the Muslim league and miniscule section of Hindus supported the Hindu Mahasabha. The partition tragedy took place and communal hatred intensified; many died during the whole process.

  The Muslim communalists propagated that Hindus were cowards. They ridiculed them, and called them by derogatory names like kafirs. The Hindu fundamentalists picked up from British historiography incidents and highlighted stories about Muslim kings destroying Hindu temples, the spreading of Islam by sword and other means of violence and coercion. These myths about each other triggered communal violence over the years.

  The social and political atmosphere started getting vitiated and the people polarized. This mutual propagation totally ignored the plural and diverse nature of Indian society bypassing the synergetic values – bhakti-Sufi way of Indian tradition; it only harped on the differences among the elite.