A day in North Bastar (Abhujhmarh)

Abujhmarh – the unknown India

Abujhmarh means the unknown or alien place. Some 230 far flung villages spread in hamlets across 4000 square kilometers with a population of nearly 34000 comprising mainly tribal Marias and Gonds is actually ‘unknown’ for government. The place remains as the only patch in the country which has not been surveyed so far.

Surrounded by CRPF camps and inhabited by deadly Maoists (read Naxal) who had mixed up with local people, the life in Abujhmarh is still forty years behind from that of slums of Dharavi or Yamuna Pusta in East Delhi.

No electricity, no potable water, no schools, no health facilities, no roads and even no mobiles (which otherwise have reached everywhere) with dense forest and hilly terrain Abujhmarh is to India what Africa is to world.

Twelve kilometers from district headquarter Narayanpur, carved out recently from Bastar, which has just two blocks, village Kurusnar is the gateway of this unknown territory and the last point where one can see the signs of government presence.

The school building is occupied by CRPF jawans while the school runs in a thatched hut. The new school building is half finished as the Naxals have threatened the contactor with ‘dire consequences’ and took away his tractor.

Magru Ram Nuneti, a former sarpanch of Kanagaon few kilometers from Kurusnar, has left his village to settle in Narayanpur after Naxals asked him to leave. Since his childhood, Magru was picked up by the local Ramkrishna Misson Ashram school which works as an alternative to government.

He passed class tenth from the boarding school to become sarpanch. By becoming sarpanch he wanted to serve his own people but Naxals did not allow him as he did not fit in their plans.

Magru becomes our guide to the unknown territory supported by Abhishek Jha, a technocrat turned journalist of Narayanpur whose father settled here some 40 years back.

Riding pillion of motorcycle drove by Abhishek towards Abujhmarh we cross the road which has been cut horizontally after every 500 meters to block entry of security forces. These cuts also come handy in planting deadly explosives devices to ‘welcome’ the anti-landmine vehicles of police.

We reach Kurusnar and leave our motorcycles on the road to enter the area which security forces call ‘Pakistan’ and local ‘Marh’.

In our second leg of journey our new guide is Santosh Kumar Potai, a jobless class 8^th fail abujhmaria tribal. With his french-cut beard and black boxer shorts with sleeveless shirt, Santosh looks like a rebel but he is not. He is in fact a victim of Naxal-police conflict. He lost his mother Dasari Bai to bullets of CRPF men who tried to brand her as Naxal but her old age prevented them to do so.

Later she was declared to have been killed by Naxals to save the skin of police forces. Santosh’s family, hence, got Rs one lakh compensation. The money got him a motorcycle and a lifestyle which stands him out.

We walk with Santosh for some kilometers and cross a river which has some water left. The river water is the only source of life for the people living around. With scorching sun above our head, as the mercury had previous day touched 46 degree Celsius in Chattisgarh, I am tempted to wash my face and drench my clothes but Abhishek stops me.

He claims that water in Abujhmarh is so lethal that it can cause malaria. He gives examples of security personnel who died of malarial attack. ‘This water has malaria germs though it may sound absurd but I have seen so many cases where people became vicitim just because they drank this water’. He asks us to take this word forward so that some research can be executed to find out the fact even if it sounds very unscientific.

On the bank of river we come across a huge amount of abandoned medicines and condoms of government supply. Abhishek tells us that this is the speaking example of how government schemes functions in Bastar. ‘’Some health worker might have been given a task of distributing medicine and condoms in the villages and he has thrown them here and filled the false records’’, he said.

After walking for another half an hour we reach a small hamlet where children are playing while men are sitting drunk in half naked form which is their traditional attire. The men are in their traditional clothes and have no expressions on their face, they seems aloof of us and does not respond to our questions. According to Magru ‘’ Abujhmaria are light hearted and contended people who live in present and do not care about the past or hope for the future.’’

Santosh says ‘’they do not understand Hindi and are enjoying life in their own way after a good meal’’. We decide to leave them in their state and engage a young man in discussion who is less drunk.

Gassuram, 26, is a young man with three kids none of them go to school. He says ‘’our pigs, hens, lentils grown here with rice from Ramkrishna Mission shop is all we need and we have all these’’.

He walks for over 14 kilometres every week to fetch the rice from PDS shop in Narayanpur where he gets 35 kilograms of rice. Earlier he used to get rice from nearby Kurusnar but recently the government has shifted all ration shops to Narayanpur headquarter after reports of Naxals taking away all rice from shops.

During his visit Gassuram takes some forest produce to sell it in market and earns Rs 60-70 a week. Out of the money he buys rice which comes for Rs one per kilo under government’s antyodaya scheme.

Except for rice and clothes everything of need is available for the family of Gassuram in the jungles. The country liquor called sulfi brewed from date palm tree is available in plenty and form an essential drink for all.

The villages does not have the government’s NREGS but people have their own. Entire village of Abujhmarias work in a group to prepare field or house of any individual. Once the task is over the family whose house has been built will organize a mass-meal called ‘leor-java’ for the whole village, which will continue for two-three days. We spend some time in this leor-java.

During these days liquor flows freely with pork and meat prepared in huge tumblers. Children plays all day while women sit and sings with young girl and boys moving to isolated places.

Tribal here were in their own world without any sign of modernity in their lives and government’s interference so we decided to move on to a village Kanagaon – the ancestral village of Magru.

After walking for several kilometers towards south we come across several hamlets on slopes of hill with house neatly made with bamboos. All these hamlets have a stream nearby but the summer has reduced them to ponds. The houses have thatched roof with a huge courtyard with a nice bamboo fencing . Tribal here never repair their house instead they build new one when they move to new place of agriculture.

Since cultivation is of shifting type called ‘penda’ tribal keep changing their villages. While I walk ahead looking at the beautiful landscape Magru and Santosh talk to some tribal sitting under a mahua tree.

After exchanging notes they decide not to go to Kanagaon. I understand from their gestures that something is wrong. Magru asks me if I had got enough idea of Abujhmarh in last 6-7 hours.

While coming back we take a different route to reach Jamgaon in Kandadi panchayat. Here we meet a couple Gasru and Budni who are busy making bamboo material. The two earns 60-100 rupees every week when they go down to Narayanpur some 19 kilometres away.

Gasru says the money is enough for them to buy rice and salt. They rear pigs and hens for meat and have cows to get oxen for cultivation. Interestingly tribal do not milch cow as they believe that milk is for calf not human beings. They catch red-ants to make a chutni and fish from nearby Kukur river for their daily needs.

I show a five hundred rupee note to Gasru and ask if he an recognize it. Gasru looks at it with disbelief and says if it is a real note. He has not seen a Rs 500 note yet. After spending an hour at his hut Gasru expresses his pain unlike his fellow men whom we met earlier.

He says ‘’dada log (naxal) take away a portion from the rice which we buy from Narayanpur while security forces threaten us with guns if they know that Naxals have come to our house’’. Naxals collect rice from whole village.

Gasru does not have any dream his only ambition in life is to have clothes and enough rice to feed his family. He has never ventured out of Narayanur in his life. Once he had gone to Jagdalpur, 80 kms away, when Gasia -- brother of his wife Budni was sent to jail on charges of supporting Naxal.

However he does not want to remember that that visit as his wife has to sell off silver necklace to pay for the fee of advocate.

Family of Shivram is drying mahua to keep it safe in a special container for coming monsoon season when they can eat it when there will be nothing. His life is also like Gasru and Gassuram. Shivram is however little extra enterprising. He sell neem datuns every week on market day at Naryanpur to earn those extra bucks which take his income to Rs 150 every week but then he has a family of 13 members to feed.

The region untouched by modernity, where outsiders were not unless allowed by the district magistrate now does not have any intervention of state. Instead Naxals run their own government their called ‘janatana sarkar’. With the battlefield against Naxalism mainly concentrated in Dantewada in South Bastar the Abujhmarh in north remains the stronghold of Maoists where all three co-exists happily – the people, the Naxal and the security forces.

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Deepak Tiwari/Abujhmarh

June 1, 2010