Walls are for climbing

Incidents like this had happened earlier in Colombia in 2000 and closer home, in Nepal in 2005, but Jehanabad surpassed them all. When the National Liberation Army and People?s Liberation Army broke open a jail in Cucuta in Colombia on April 3, 2000, detonating walls and setting free 70 imprisoned rebels, it had triggered off waves of political shock. In Nepal, Maoist guerrillas broke open the jail gate, killed five policemen to liberate 100 prisoners in Dhangad, 660 kilometres west of Kathmandu, on February 10 this year.

Last Sunday, Maoists killed 12 and set free over 340 during a raid on Jehanabad jail. This incident, which put all previous instances of jailbreak to shame, jolted the state and the country out of their complacence. True, Jehanabad has a bloody history of caste violence and massacre, but most believed that the district was limping back to normal.

The administration had almost written off the possibility of a red rising. Jehanabad had fallen off Bihar?s terror map following a lull in caste and class conflicts since 2000. But Sunday night?s jail siege by an army of nearly 1,000 Naxalites, and the abduction and massacre of eight Ranbir Sena undertrials train the spotlight back on the killing fields of central Bihar.

The caste cauldron is simmering once again, and the timing of the raid could not have been more significant. The state is in the throes of yet another election, and the Maoist strike adds a new twist to the turbulent politics of coalition ? riven with sharp caste polarization.

But above all, Jehanabad is back in the news. Created as a separate police district (for better law and order maintenance) two years after the 1984 Arwal massacre, Jehanabad showcases Bihar?s transition from self-suffciency to total anarchy. During the pre-independence days, it was an idyllic weavers? colony exporting textiles to clothe the middle-class in Lahore. But systematic de-industrialization by the British took its toll on this backwater district. The weavers suddenly found themselves at the mercy of white traders and middlemen. A saga of oppression unfolded. The out-of-job workforce ?comprising mostly backward classes, Dalits and Muslims ? fell back on the only other source of sustenance, farming.

Jehanabad always had a problem of plenty. Dubbed the state?s rice bowl because of its fertile plains flanked by the Kosi and the Punpun ? farming has mostly been feudal in nature. There was widespread exploitation and abuse. The marginal farmhands got a raw deal, as labour was dirt cheap and readily available.

Resentment brewed. By the late Fifties, the stage was set for a change. Cashing in on popular discontent and the deep caste schisms, the communists began to make inroads. This was fertile ground for a Naxalbari-type revolution. The statistics were overwhelmingly in favour of one. By the Sixties and the Seventies, there were more than 500,000 landless farmers, with not an inch of surplus land in sight. Semi-bonded labour, untouchability, a dismal wage structure, and caste-based gender discrimination fanned hatred, resulting in sporadic clashes.

Till the Seventies, confrontations in Jehanabad were few and far-between. But forays by the radical insurrectionists towards the Eighties changed all that. The grassroots suddenly found themselves empowered. The bloodshed began with Pipra, followed by Arwal, Parasbigha, Nonhi, Belchi, Nagwar and so on.

The landlords, caught on the backfoot, retaliated with the Ranbir Sena ? a motley crew of army veterans and landlords? henchmen. The upper-caste militia put its bloody signature on Laxmanpur Bathe, Bathani Tola and Mianpur ? all Dalit strongholds. The Jehanabad blocks ? Mukdumpur, Kurtha, Karpi, Arwal, Kaho and Kosi ? sizzled with caste animosity.

The district jail in Jehanabad, crowded with undertrials, crackled with tension, as Ranbir Sena and People?s War undertrials broke into clashes. Given the slow pace of judicial trials in this part of the country, the massacre-accused continued to languish in the jail indefinitely. Four Naxalites accused in the Bara Massacre of 1992 were ordered to be hanged nine years after the incident. Naxalite leaders have long been campaigning for reforms in the country?s prisons and the judicial system, claiming that the system was an instrument against the poor.

Political polarization helped. While Ranbir Sena drew its strength from the right-wingers, the Mandal forces tried not to meddle with the ultra-left. But the arrest of the Ranbir Sena chief, Barmeshwar Chowdhury, in 2001 took the wind out of the outfit?s sails. A string of operations led to the arrest of several Sena leaders. The Naxals, on their part, shifted their attention to the newly-created state of Jharkhand ? a veritable goldmine in terms of resources, funds and easy access to the red bastions in neighbouring states.

The Bihar adminsitration was lulled into thinking that the worst had blown over and the terror armies were under control. Several arrests added to the belief, despite steady intelligence inputs to the contrary. The merger of the People?s War ? the outfit born in the killing fields of Jehanabad ? and the Maoist Communist Centre last year should have put the administration on alert. But it continued to doze.

The Naxalites were discreetly regrouping and this time, the threat perception was greater. Over with its primary stage of guerilla activities ?stable armed units, local squads which operated in a circle of 15-20 villages demarcated as a zone ? the cadre were being trained for the second stage of its armed struggle which was to focus on attacks on government establishments. A jail-siege served the purposes of both propaganda and release of leaders.

The Confederation of the Maoist Groups of South Asia and Pacific Region ? a global solidarity of sorts established in 2000 ? was at hand, along with the Nepal Maoists. The Bihar administration, as usual, chose to ignore the writing on the wall.

The message in Jehanabad was chilling ? it proclaimed to the world that the reds were capable of striking with precision at any place and at any time. The strike pattern too had changed. From hit-and-run raids on police outposts, choosing upper-caste villagers as soft targets to village massacres, they had moved on to aim at key government installations.

The Ranbir Sena, too, seems to have risen from the dead. Hundreds of Sena activists protesting outside Jehanabad jail against the Naxal raid cried revenge. The Sena is all set to collect sympathies and stage a come back.

The question now is: does the state of Bihar exist at all as an administrative unit? Or is the siege another political ploy to open up the caste fissures to keep the poll machines humming for the parties to reap bloody mileage. Only time can tell. But for now, Naxalism and caste violence are back with a bang in the badlands of central Bihar. The red armies are leaner, meaner and powered by more vicious forces. And they are marching on ?intoxicated with liberty and enlightenment?, as in the words of the French sociologist, Francois Mignat, in search of new Bastilles.