People's Democracy

BIHAR

You Demand Flood Relief & Get Bullets

Awadhesh Kumar

AT least 19 districts of Bihar are currently facing the flood fury, with Madhubani having suffered the worst of losses. However, what to talk of rushing relief to the affected people, the administration displayed utmost degree of callousness. On August 3 evening, those demanding relief in the Chakdah village were subjected to firing. This claimed the life of a young man called

Darshananad Thakur on the spot while two others --- Shiv Kumar Chaudhari and Dhanik Lal --- were seriously injured and for long battled for life in the Sadar Hospital, Madhubani.

Soon after the firing, a delegation of the CPI(M) went to the area and assessed the situation in detail. Led by the party’s state secretary Vijay Kant Thakur and comprising Awadhesh Kumar and Lalan Chaudhari, the team met the family members of the deceased, those injured and the common people of Chakdah, to find out the facts.

CALCULATED REPRESSION

The team came to know that the village Chakdah, adjoining Madhubani city, was surrounded by water from as early as August 1, following heavy rains and flood. Water had entered most of the houses in the village. On the other hand, people in the city were also in trouble because of the heavy flooding, wishing that the water could flow out as soon as possible. For this purpose, they sought to bring pressure upon the administration and it was heard that a senior BJP minister had instructed the district magistrate (DM) to take immediate action for it. The district administration moved into action and began to pump out water through a culvert near Chakdah village. This frightened the residents of Chakdah and other nearby villages, and they gathered at the spot, protesting that this forcible pumping-out of water would destroy their own houses and fields.

A notable fact in this regard is that the land mafia has already occupied the Watson Canal, which was the designated outlet for flood water, and houses have been built in this area, so much so that even the BJP has constructed an office building on a plot of the canal land. It is because of this encroachment that the outflow of water from the city has become a problem. The common people have been saying for long that the water outlet problem in Madhubani city could be easily solved if the Watson Canal were freed of encroachments and the water channel cleaned. However, instead of taking action against the land mafia that enjoys political patronage, the administration decided to divert the flood fury towards hapless villagers.

This generated a deep sense of resentment among the people, more so because the administration did not come forward to find a peaceful, negotiated solution to the problem. Instead, it chose to rely of brutal force and, at about 3.30 p m on August 3, a police force led by the SDO mercilessly beat the villagers in Chakdah, injuring a large number of people. This only enraged the people. Though the SDO and the police force had to beat a retreat in face of the mass fury, the district administration made it a prestige issue instead of sensibly behaving. Led by the DM and SP, SHOs of several police stations and a large posse of the police moved to the village and began to mercilessly attack the villagers.

The villagers resisted the attack heroically, and women came out in a large number in the streets. The angry resistance of the people forced the police force to beat a retreat. It was during this whole melee that a hawaldar entered the house of Darshananad Thakur, a young medical representative, and gunned him down, when he was sitting in his house with his wife and 5 years old son. Two young passers-by were badly injured by police bullets. They were harmless persons, dragging their life with wage labour and occasional driving jobs.

In order to cover its own culpability, the administration tried to cook up a story and lodged three FIRs in the Madhubani kotwali. CPI(M) district secretariat members Vishwanath Yadav and Phuldev Yadav were nominated in these FIRs along with several dozen party supporters and innocent people, Phuldev Yadav was not even present in the town on the day. On that day, he was in Patna where his wife was to appear in an exam.

The police chose to target the CPI(M) because the party, which has an office in Chakdah, keeps intervening in the burning, day-to-day problems facing the people.

URGENT DEMANDS

On the basis of the facts that came to light, the CPI(M) team came to the conclusion that the police firing in the village was unprovoked. It also found that the district administration and state government had failed to provide relief to the flood affected people. The firing it resorted to, in place of the relief operations, was a telltale proof of their insensitivity and criminal character.
Condemning the firing during a press conference in the CPI(M) office in Madhubani, the delegation’s leader Vijaykant Thakur held the district administration squarely responsible for it. He put before the state government the following urgent demands:

• There must be a judicial enquiry into the police firing.

• The DM and SP must be suspended, and a case of murder registered against them.

• Police officials responsible for the murder must be immediately arrested and put behind bars.

• False cases against the innocent people must be withdrawn.

• The family of the deceased must be given a compensation of Rs 10 lakh, and his wife a government job.

• The government must bear the cost of treatment of those injured and each of them given a compensation of Rs 2 lakh.

• Watson Canal must be freed of all encroachment.

Next day, on August 4, the CPI(M) and various mass organisations took out in the city a huge procession in protest and thousands of people joined it. Traversing the streets in virtually whole of the city, the procession reached the Station Chowk where the people burnt an effigy of the chief minister to express their anger.

There was a huge dharna in front of the DM’s office on August 7, led by Gita Devi of the Janwadi Mahila Samiti. Leaders of the CPI(M), RJD and mass organisations addressed the mass meeting held here. A charter of demands was given to the DM.

On the same day, state units of the Kisan Sabha and Agricultural Workers Union organised block level demonstrations all over the state in protest against the Madhubani firing, to demand flood relief and on some other issues.

On August 8, CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Brinda Karat and Central Secretariat member Hannan Mollah visited Madhubani to assess the situation. Vijaykant Thakur as well s CPI(M) state secretariat members Sarvodaya Sharma, Awadhesh Kumar and Rampari accompanied then during the visit.

Though the people came to know about the visit only a few hours before it actually took place, about two thousand people from Chakdah and nearby areas came to join the mass meeting held on August 8. The women’s participation was enthusing.

PRESSURE OF THE MOVEMENT

Condemning the Madhubani firing as a testimony of the administration’s callousness to the flood fury, Brinda Karat described the floods as a national calamity, requiring efforts above party politics. She said such natural calamities should not only be treated as national issues; there must also be effective steps to evolve a more or less durable solution to them. The relief being provided in Bihar at that time, they said, was totally inadequate in view of the severity if the flood crisis that was the UN has described as “unprecedented” in India’s history.

The CPI(M) leaders assured the people that they would take up the issue with the state and central governments.

The CPI(M) leaders also met the wife and other family members of the deceased, and later went to the civil hospital to meet the injured persons and take note of the treatment they were getting.

Brinda Karat and Hannan Mollah later met the Bihar chief minister, Nitish Kumar, to place before him the CPI(M)’s charter of demands. The chief minister assured them that no action would be taken against the persons mentioned in the FIRs and that the cases against them would be withdrawn. He also assured that the government would bear the cost of treatment of the injured.

In the meantime, the mass movement forced the chief minister to send the home secretary to Madhubani to investigate the firing. After visiting the district, the home secretary accepted that there was a lapse on part of the district administration. He admitted that if a policeman shot dead a person some 300 metres away from the spot of agitation, it could not be a case of the police resorting to firing in self-defence.

The pressure of the mass movement compelled the home secretary to announce the suspension of the guilty police hawaldar, Aditya Narayan Singh, and that a case of murder would be instituted against him. He also gave a cheque of Rs one lakh to the wife of the deceased.

The police and administration officials tried their best to convert the home secretary’s visit into a guided tour, so that he could talk to only selected leaders and then go back to Patna. But the pressure of the mass movement foiled this game. The home secretary had had to go to the spot of firing and talk to the flood affected people.