The outsider

Reporting directly to the dreaded central committee of the organisation, as zonal commander of the MCC in this region until his arrest in October 2001, he had more than 5,000 armed men under his command. There were more than a dozen cases against him, including charges of murder, but he has not been convicted in a single case and it was only after the court’s intervention that he was given permission to contest.

His decision became a rallying point for a large number of former Naxalites and left the MCC itself a divided house. The local Naxal cadre from Jharkhand fully backed his decision even as its senior leaders from Bihar have opposed it. The battle of the insider versus the outsider that is central to Jharkhand politics entered the MCC.

Officially he continues to be in judicial custody and we are not supposed to have met him in jail. It is not very difficult. More than 90 per cent of the inmates here are captured MCC cadre, and as one of them jokes, in effect he is the jailor. He does not answer questions easily but admits that his decision is contrary to MCC policies but now ‘‘they have their own principles, and I have my own.’’

Standing besides him in jail are men such as Mukesh. Mukeshji is how everyone refers to him. He is barely 20, in jail for the past year, and a Naxal since he was eight. When he was arrested he commanded a 100 SLRs. Here the number of the guns is what counts.

There are others who are now out on bail, who worked for the campaign. One such is Bhaskarji, a former sub-zonal commander, just one rung below Vir Bhagat. We are not supposed to reveal where we met him.

There are four aspects to any movement he tell us—political, economic, military and cultural. For example, economics dictates that the party needs funds to sustain it, and so people who can do so are asked to help out, this cannot be termed extortion. He was also trained in the military aspects, how a weapon is fired, how it is be used depending on the circumstances—the camp lasted a month. The political aspects were not forgotten, from repeated question answer sessions to political manuals they were made to read, and yes the belief in constitutional methods to achieve their aims was not part of their training.

Vir Bhagat’s campaign was taken to villages which were inaccessible to other candidates because of the MCC’s presence. But all of them say that it is only because of Vir Bhagat that the Naxalites from Jharkhand are rallying around him. They say they have realized that they were the foot soldiers of a movement being run by Bihari outsiders who did not even allow someone like Vir Bhagat to rise to a more senior position.

The MCC can only wait and watch for the outcome of the polls. Their future strategy is dependant on the outcome and they decided not to risk taking on their own cadre.

But there were others who were part of this unique campaign, with reasons of their own, to help Vir Bhagat. Among them a landlord—he does not want his name mentioned—who was chased out of his village by Vir Bhagat nearly a decade ago.

Over a 100 acre of his land is now being farmed by Bhagat’s fellow tribals. Now he believes an electoral victory for Bhagat could curb the MCC menace once and for all. It may also help him get his land back.

The police also see this as a positive sign with DGP Rajiv Ranjan Prasad saying he welcomes any signs that the Naxalites may adopt constitutional means. He also admits that the MCC is split over Bhagat’s decision, adding that the split is between Bhagat’s fellow Ganju tribals and the Yadavs from Bihar who dominate the organisation.

Reactions of the local residents, vary. In Bhagat’s village young men say that the ‘party’s’ poll boycott call is indeed far more muted than it ever has been. Some also say that it is good that a man who went astray has returned to the right path. But not all of them quite believe the campaign slogan—Vir Bhagat vikas ki ek andhi hai; Jharkhand ka pehla aur Hindustan ka doosra Gandhi hai.