Midnight in Sarvajan Samaj

Not even a hundred days of BSP raj in UP and a Brahmin party MLA is accused of shielding fellow Brahmins in the murder of a Dalit.

(An edited version of this article by me has appeared in Tehelka.)

“He loved to run,” says Agnisen Gautam of his elder brother Chakrasen, in the Dalit (Chamar) basti of the village of Bhadevera in Pratapgarh, a district in eastern Uttar Pradesh. Chakrasen had returned 30 July from Allahabad University, where he had completed his BA. At 5 am on 1st August, Chakrasen set out for the morning ablutions and a kilometre-long run. The month of Sawan had set in, the month in which life is celebrated, but also Shiva, the god of destruction, worshipped. Chakrasen hadn’t had enough sleep, because Santosh Mishra in the neighbouring Brahmin basti had a loud kirtan going all night. But run Chakrasen must. As he ran from the bridge in front of Santosh Mishra’s general store to the other bridge in the village, Chakrasen’s mind that morning must have been occupied by anxiety about the future.

He had gotten into the prestigious B. Tech course of the Uttar Pradesh Technical University and on 20 August they would allot him a college. Becoming an engineer would get him a lucrative job, but that would be some years away. He had filled countless forms for government jobs and was to go to Dhanbad for railways’ exam on 5 August. “He had bought a new bag for the purpose,” Agnisen says, admiringly showing the bag, “from Big Bazaar, for 250 rupees.” He had studied in a government Hindi-medium school, but made up for the handicap by enrolling at the British School of Languages in Allahabad, whose certificate Agnisen proudly shows.

Chakrasen’s dilemma between a clerical job right away versus getting an engineering degree four years later would have been reinforced by coming home: his father had died while pursuing his BA, when Chakrasen was barely three years old. He and his two brothers had been recieving an education thanks mostly to his father’s father, 75 years old Shivmurti. The family had been doing particularly well for two years now, as they had been allotted a PDS shop by the gram panchayat – that the gram pradhan of the day was dalit helped. Taking up a job now would seem to be a Faustian bargain, but how long could his mother and grandfather support him? He had two brothers – Agnisen, 20, had just joined Allahabad University and Shaktisen, 15, was in high school.

An hour later, somebody else had solved Chakrasen’s dilemma. The newspaper hawker cycled to Chakrasen’s house and told his grandfather that he saw someone like Chakrasen being lynched. “They have bound him up like an animal and are beating him up,” said the hawker. His grandfather and Agnisen rushed outside, finding just outside the basti Chakrasen’s slippers and the bottle he had taken for ablutions. There he was, in the house of one Indrajit Paswan, a Dalit (Pasi), bound on the floor and being kicked all over by a few people, even as many in the crowd around them tried to stop them.

“How did you come here?” a shocked Shivmurti asked his grandson.

“Santosh and Akash,” said Chakrasen. And upon hearing that, Santosh and Akash started kicking him even more, says Shivmurti, who himself was kicked out and the younger Agnisen slapped and threatened. They wanted to similarly lynch Shivmurti and Agnisen, who ran to save their lives. Some time later the police was seen coming from Indrajit Paswan’s house, telling people not to go there as Chakrasen had already died, and the body was being brought to his house.

But why did Santosh Mishra and Akash Dubey do this? “How do we know?” asks Shaktisen’s wailing mother.

Actually, she knows. It has to do with the PDS ration shop. When the shop was alloted to the Gautams by the gram panchayat in May 2004, Santosh Mishra had one condition – he wanted much more ration from that shop than Mishra’s Above Poverty Line ration card entitled him. The Gautams say Mishra’s intention was to sell it at market rates in his kirana shop – the reason why they were also keen on getting the government PDS shop in the first place for themselves. “I said if we give you this much then what will we give to those with below poverty line cards?” says Shivmurti.

Denied the excess ration, Mishra had harbourerd a grudge against the family. Ten months ago, Mishra told Shivmurti: “Ladkay ko bhalay hi tumnay bahut padha likha liya ho, par tumharay kam nahi aayega. Your grandson Chakrasen has gotten a lot of education, but it won’t be of use to you.” The hint was that Chakrasen would be murdered. Shivmurti thus complained to the DM, the SP and the local police station. The police was taking Santosh Mishra away when Thakurs from the village pleaded to Shivmurti: “Apnay gaon ka mamla hain, jaaney do. It’s an internal matter of the village, let it be.” Santosh pleaded for forgiveness and Shivmurti withdrew his complaint. But then, Santosh would threaten again, and would intimidate Chakrasen every time he would come home from Allahabad. “Tumko barbad kar diye, chorey nahin. I’ll ruin you, I won’t forgive you,” is what Shivmurti says Santosh Mishra used to say.

“On Monday 30 July Chakrasen arrived from Allahabad, on Tuesday night Santosh organised his weekly kirtan, and on Wednesday morning he put his words into action,” says Chakrasen’s mother.

Santosh Mishra and co-accused Akash Dubey, both Brahmins, are absconding, while the police have arrested Indrajit Paswan and his two brothers. Another accused is a also Pasi but who, locals say, died four years ago. The Gautams did not want to name the Paswans in the FIR but the CO, they say, forcibly made them do so. “Santosh and Akash had stripped Chakrasen naked who ran into Indrajit’s home to save his life,” say neighbours, “so the two Brahmins shouted ‘Chor! Chor!’ and the Pasis therefore attacked Chakrasen unknowingly.”

Chakrasen’s family and neigbours allege that Santosh Mishra has visited the village often in the nights but the reason why the two Brahmin accused are still absconding is pressure from the local BSP MLA, Ram Shiromani Shukla, also a Brahmin, who was allegedly a close associate of Santosh Mishra. “This is false propaganda being spread by the Samajwadi Party people,” Shukla told Tehelka, claiming that he was the one who got a second FIR lodged at the police station under the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, and that he also gave Rs 3,000 towards the expenses of Chakrasen’s last rites. “On the contrary,” says Chakrasen’s brother Agnisen, “Shukla offered us Rs 5 lakhs to drop charges against Santosh Mishra and Akash Dubey.” The Gautam family also wanted to take the body in a car and drive right up to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati’s residence. “But,” says Agnisen, “MLA Shukla and the police forced drivers of the two cars we had hired to go away.” Agnisen also accuses that Shukla told the Patti police station’s circle officer Martendu Prakash Singh to let off the Mishra and Dubey: “Woh kahen ki woh Pandit hain, unhay chor do, tumhay ashirwad denge. He said that they are Pandits, and they would bless you if you let them go.”

Agnisen also says that the secretary of the BSP’s Pratapgarh unit, RD Gautam, a dalit, had visited the family and promised justice, upon which the family told him that the BSP MLA was using his position to save the accused. In response to that, Agnisen says, Gautam said about his party colleague: “Unhonay kaha ki woh Pandit hain, apna jatigat kartavya nibha rahan hain. Lekin main tumko muabja dilwaonga aur un dono ko jail main dalwaonga. He is a Pandit, he is merely fulfilling his caste obligation. But I will get you compensation and make sure that the two are arrested.”

While the copy of the FIR given to the family is too faint to be readable – deliberately, says the family – the post-mortem report says the cause of death was “asphyxia as a result of acute mortem strangulation”. The family also says that the police did not conduct a panchnama on the spot. Agnisen says that Patti kotwal Babu Chand deliberately falsified Santosh Mishra’s father’s name in the FIR so that there would be ambiguity in who to arrest, and he would be given the benefit of doubt. Babu Chand has since been transferred to Allahabad. Pratapgarh SP Brij Raj Meena told Tehelka: “The panchnama had been done and the charges of political pressure are false. We have obtained non-bailable warrants against Mishra and Dubey and will soon attach their property if the remain absconding. The modalities for compensation under the Atrocities Act are also being worked out.”

“The SP has been saying this since 1 August,” says Agnisen, “the whole idea is to keep delaying until everyone forgets the matter.”

Regardless of whether Santosh Mishra and Akash Dubey are convicted, the Pratapgarh unit of the BSP’s local ‘Brahmin bhaichara committee’ will need a lot of moral courage now to walk around the Chamar basti of Bhadevera and chant the slogan, ‘Brahmin shank bajayega, haathi dilli jayega. The Brahmin wil blow the conch shell, and take the BSP to Delhi’.