Three months ago, it seemed all roads in Assam led to a small village called Anchali, about 35 km from the district headquarters town of Barpeta. It was on June 24 that Uddhab Das, a gunner in the field regiment of a mountain division who belonged to the village, died fighting in Kargil, and even before his body could arrive here four days later, Anchali had become a place for pilgrimage.Today, Anchali is just another forgotten village and Kargil yet another war for which it sacrificed lives, to no avail. ``Ministers came by the dozen,'' says Bipin Das, who runs a small paan shop in the village chowk, recalling the days following Das's martyrdom. ``Newspaper reporters and television journalists kept coming and going. Several top Army officers too drove down the dusty and bumpy road to reach here. But everything has come to an end.''It takes around two hours to cover the 20-km distance from the National Highway to Anchali, courtesy the state of the road that connects them. Politicians, who descended herein droves during the height of Kargil, have not bothered braving the drive for campaigning. ``They can cover more villages in other areas than taking the trouble to reach here,'' points out a villager.But Anchali is no ordinary village. Almost every high-school boy here practises long-distance running and dreams of joining the defence forces. The village and the rest of the area falling under Abajali sub-division have the highest number of Assamese boys in the Army, and more want to go. Says Jayanta Barua, who retired as a Naik Subedar from the Signal Corps in 1989: ``It is like Punjab. Almost every family has one or two boys in the Army. Two of my sons have already joined. The third, who is in Class VII, is getting impatient.''Barua was among those who thought that after Kargil and Das's martyrdom, Anchali's problems would finally attract the attention of politicians. Local shopkeeper Brajan Barman recalls that Uddhab was a popular youth of the village, and they had hoped his death would matter tosomeone. It hasn't. A disappointed man now, Barua says: ``Instead, the huge number of vehicles which came and went during that month have further spoilt our roads, and there is no sign of repair.''There is no sign either of those politicians, now that elections are here. Pointing this out, schoolteacher Tilak Rajbangshi says: ``They will not come here. They have nothing to promise. The political parties have run out of promises. We have seen so many governments, but none came forward to build the roads or ensure regular power supply.''Naresh Rajbangshi agrees with him. ``We are part of the Jalah development block, which has a rich past. We had two martyrs in the Quit India struggle too. But what has the country given us? Nothing. Simply nothing,'' he says.Even the family of Uddhab Das has given up on Anchali. It has moved out of the village and taken a rented house at Muguriya Chowk on the highway, about 18 km away. A schoolteacher who does not want to be named claims: ``They have become rich, they havegot several lakhs of rupees. But the village does not have a bank.''But Kargil hasn't disappeared. Barua fumes at the fact that the war has now become a political ball to be tossed between BJP and Congress courts. Commenting on what he reads in the two newspapers that reach him from Guwahati only by the afternoon, he says: ``The jawans fought the war, not power-hungry politicians. Why should they ask votes in the name of Kargil?''What Anchali wants are things much more basic. It has three primary schools, one middle school and one high school, but its Primary Health Centre (PHC) has not seen a doctor for more than two years. The centre has now become a BSF camp.While the paddy cultivation is good, it is of no use. ``Bodo militants will begin knocking at your door from the day you begin harvesting. They have killed three persons in the past six months,'' points out Nirmal Roy, a cultivator. The rebels come from the west, from the Kokrajhar district, as well as from Bhutan jungles on the north. EvenUnited Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) militants keep passing through the area on their way to or from Bhutan, which is hardly 7 km from Barpeta.Nobody here will tell you which party they will vote for. ``Some may vote for the BJP, but not all,'' says a farmer, Debeswar Das. ``I have doubts whether the BJP can free Assam of Bangladeshi infiltrators.''There is only one institution they have faith in now, and that's the Army. Despite the ULFA and Bodo terror, not a single youth from here has joined them. ``We would rather go and join the Army and die like heroes. But ULFA? No, never,'' says Bipul, a high school student. He adds: ``Our village has a tradition of serving in the Army and for that, we do not need any assurance from any political party. After all, the Army is the only place where you need not pay bribe to a political leader to get a job.''
