Terror Tourism 2

Terror Tourism 1 in short: Jacob Martin Pathros is a retired school teacher in Kerala. He has visited most countries and is now fascinated by an ad which promises terror tourism: meet the terrorists of Dantewada. Below is the second and last part of the story.

Celina went mad on hearing her husband’s latest tour decision. “Meet terrorists? Touch them? Feel them?” She fretted and fumed. When did you touch me last? She wanted to scream. Feel me, man, she wanted to plead. But her pride didn’t permit her. She was not a feminist or anything of the sort, but she had the pride of having been a teacher in an aided school for 30-odd years and was now drawing a pension which funded a part of their foreign trips.

“I’m not coming with you on this trip,” Celina said vehemently. “You go and touch the terrorists and feel them yourself.”

Celina was genuinely concerned about her husband’s security. Why did he want to go to such inhuman people as terrorists?

Atlas Tours, the agency which brought Terror Tourism to people, gave all the necessary instructions to Jacob Martin Pathros. He was to reach the Ma Danteshwari Mandir in Dantewada on his own. “You will find a person wearing a saffron kurta and white pyjamas, sporting a conspicuous vermilion tika on the forehead, and holding a banana in hand. He will take care of the rest.”

The person turned out to be a boy at the peak of his adolescence. “Where’s the banana?” Jacob asked.

“I ate it,” he said matter-of-factly. “I was hungry.”

The boy took Jacob to a man sitting on a bike. The boy sat behind the rider and Jacob was asked to sit behind the boy. The bike ran for over two hours on the highway until there were only forests on either side of the road. The Dandakaranya.

The bike stopped. “Get down,” the boy said.

Jacob Martin Pathros followed the boy as he entered the forest. They walked on and on. It was trek indeed. Jacob found it quite arduous. But his desire to meet terrorists and touch them and feel them kept him going. After nearly three hours of trekking, they reached what looked like a village in the middle of the forest.

There was a school building too in the village. “No teachers,” one of the tribal men said. “They get their salary in their bank accounts. Why should they bother to come here?” Jacob felt proud of himself because he did go to school every day until his retirement. He was not a shirker.

There were a few rifles and AK-47s in the hut where Jacob was supposed to meet the terrorists. The arms didn’t seem to be in use. The men looked too exhausted to be terrorists.

“Who wants to be a terrorist?” One man asked. “Terrorists are a creation of the government.” 

The tribal people’s lands were taken and given to such corporate entities as Essar and Tata for mining various ores. “Where were we expected to go?” Jacob had no answer to such questions. “They took our lands, killed our men, and raped our women. For years. And then we decided to protect ourselves. Is that terrorism? Tell me, who are the real terrorists here: we or the government?”

“The police refer to this village of ours as Pakistan, enemy territory. How did certain citizens become the government’s enemies?” The man whose name was mentioned as Venu went on.

“We are mere puppets in the hands of those in power,” Masa Karma said. His name was changed to Mahendra Karma by the Ramakrishna Mission monks who converted them all from their tribal religion to Hinduism. “They promised to convert us into Brahmins,” Masa said. “But we have remained worse than untouchables. Those of us who refused to be converted were called Katwas, untouchables.”

Government or religion, both are mere exploiters, Jacob understood.

“Then there are the forest officials,” Venu went on. “They bring in elephants to overrun our cultivated fields. They scatter babool seeds to destroy the soil quality. They arrest our men and rape our women.”

“Look at that woman over there. She’s Chamri. Her son was shot dead by the police. His body was then tied to a bamboo pole and carried to the town, like an animal. They needed his body as proof for the killing of a terrorist which carried a reward. Chamri went after them to bring her son’s body back. She wanted to give him a decent burial. Our lives are made filthy by your government and its agencies. Can’t we be given a decent burial at least? No, they refused to give the body to Chamri. Throw a fistful of soil, if you wish, on your son’s grave, that’s what they told her.”

“Even now, we are exploited and oppressed by the forest officials. They take a lion’s share of what we bring from the forests saying that entering the forest is illegal. The forest is our home. How can entering our own home become illegal? Who decides such things? Who decides that our women are meant for the sexual gratification of some people who claim to be the guardians of the forest? Does Ma Danteshwari need these guardians.”

So many questions without answers. Jacob Martin Pathros remained silent all through. Terrorism was not as romantic as he had imagined. He could sense something melting within him. He longed to hold Venu and Masa in a tight embrace.