BY SWASTIK PAL

What would you do if you see all that you have in life sinking right in front of you? Ghoramara, an island 150 km south of Kolkata, in the sensitive Sunderbans delta complex of the Bay of Bengal, has earned the stark sobriquet of “sinking island”. Once it spanned  20 sq km. Now it is reduced to an area of 5 sq km.

“Over the last two decades I’ve lost three acres of cultivable land to the Muriganga river and had to shift home four times. There has been no resettlement initiative from the government,” says Anwara Bibi, 30, a resident of Nimtala village on the island.

Global warming, high tides and floods play havoc on fragile embankments, displacing hundreds of islanders every year. “Most men have migrated to work in construction sites in southern India,” says Sanjeev Sagar, Panchayat Pradhan of Ghoramara Island.

More than 600 families have been displaced in the last three decades, leaving around 5,000 residents struggling with harsh monsoons every year.

“A large-scale mangrove plantation could prevent tidal erosion. With every high tide a part of the island is getting washed away,” says Sugata Hazra, a professor at the School of Oceanographic Studies, Jadavpur University.

Only those without means to migrate are left. Recent research conducted by the School of Oceanographic Studies has estimated that 15 per cent of Sunderbans would sink by 2020, with the possibility of Ghoramara disappearing from the map altogether.

(Swastik Pal is an independent writer and photgrapher based in Kolkata.)

From the April 2016 issue of Fountain Ink.

BY ARPIT PARASHAR

On March 18, senior leaders of the Jat community met a Haryana delegation led by chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar in Chandigarh on reservations for Jats in state government jobs and institutes of higher education. Intense debates were going on at Jat Bhavan in Rohtak’s Sector-1, 65 kilometres north-west of Delhi, headquarters of the Jat agitation. The meeting was headed by Jat elders, and the terms of the negotiations was being argued. The meeting started early and young men from schools and colleges around the city started congregating at the Bhavan. The elders sat outside the building under a pandal with their hookahs.

“Tham buddheyan ki samajh mein yo ni aave hai ak sarkaar ke khel khelan lag ri hai mhaare saath. Yaahde baith ke batein kareya karo bas idhar udhar ki  (You old men don’t understand the games the [state] government is playing with us [Jats]. You just sit here and talk of irrelevant things [in the name of the movement]),” a middle-aged man, one of the few in trousers and a shirt, starts shouting.

The accusations and counter-accusations fly after a white dhoti-kurta clad, hookah-smoking elder asks him not to interfere when the seniors are talking. Others try to defuse the situation; there has been enough violence in the past weeks. The March meeting was a “symbolic protest”, a way of saying that this time there would be no violence; just the threat of it.

Young men from the adjoining districts of Hisar, Sonepat, Bhiwani and Jhajjar are assembling in trickles of two and three. The armed companies of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) are holding tight on entry points to the city, especially along the Delhi-Rohtak road. This assembly of men with short tempers, is a violation of prohibitory orders that have been imposed under Section 144 of the criminal procedure code. But the administration is overlooking this, on assurances from Yashpal Malik, national chief of the All India Jat Aarakshan Sangharsh Samiti (AIJASS) and Hawa Singh Sangwan, leader of another Jat faction. They have assured the government that no protest would take place outside Jat Bhavan.

Thus a government regulation was ignored because someone gave their word nothing would happen. The word of a man here carries more weight than the law, a hurt ego is a greater crime than almost anything. That’s Haryana, and the Jats—a community up in arms because it feels wronged and humiliated.

It brimmed over when the government kept ignoring their demands, with some ruling party leaders even mocking Jat notions of their own importance. Most of all, the government failed to act even on intelligence reports of trouble. It failed to read the signs right under its nose.

The result: 30 people killed in Jat protests and property worth hundreds of crores destroyed.

***

On February 18, in Rohtak, two groups of lawyers were on dharnas for different causes—one against the “anti-national” statements in JNU, and the other in support of reservations for Jats. This came after 10 days of protests and roadblocks by Jat protestors. In a different corner of the city, meanwhile, traders and businessmen from Punjabi-speaking and other communities had also decided to march to the office of the district magistrate (DM) demanding restoration of supplies and lifting of the de facto curfew which was hurting business. The court and the DM’s office are barely 100 metres apart and any confrontation could have led to chaos. Yet the police did not make any arrangements to stop the march or the dharna.

Among the people leading the traders’ march was Rohtak MLA and BJP leader Manish Grover, whose supporters held posters calling for unity of the 35 other castes in Haryana against the Jats. Sandeep Singh, a lawyer present at the site, said: “The sloganeering was casteist and against the Jats which angered lawyers from the community.”

Fighting started after supporters of Grover started pelting stones and beating lawyers with lathis when they refused to vacate the road, according to more than one eyewitness account given to Fountain Ink. Grover, however, says he was not at the spot and did not lead any protest that day. He also said it was lawyers who started stone-pelting.

The protest was a sit-in, much like the students sitting outside the gate of Maharshi Dayanand University down the road.  Many lawyers were injured in the stone-pelting and ran to safety. Word soon spread that non-Jats led by Punjabis had beat up Jat protestors. Many students from Pandit N. R. Sharma College and MD University descended on the spot, and started fighting on the arterial roads of Rohtak. Both groups torched bikes across the city.

Outside the university and college, students started throwing stones at policemen around the area. As news of the attack on lawyers spread through social media more men from adjoining villages streamed into the city. Superintendent of Police Sourabh Singh led a team to clear the Rohtak-Jind road but his team was overpowered and retreated to the circuit house under a barrage of stones and lathis. From his residence, which is adjacent to the circuit house , IG Srikanth Jadhav was  trying to contact his seniors for help but received no response. Meanwhile, a separate team led by inspector Amit Dahiya went to NRS College, and emptied out the campus, driving students out of the city.

The police, under fire in the city, took it out on the students, severely injuring several. Since only the Jat men tried to escape— students from other communities stayed indoors—they were at the receiving end. Jat leaders allege that the boys were segregated and beaten up by the team to “teach them a lesson”.  However, this claim is improbable as the police team was already under attack in the city, and had no time to segregate Jat students away from the 500 students in the hostel. By late evening, the message had spread that police were specifically targeting Jat boys from the colleges.

This led to swarms of young men gathering inside Rohtak, blocking the roads and encircling the circuit house. By morning, the name of inspector Amit Dahiya, a Jat, had been confused for Dy. SP Amit Bhatia, a Punjabi. The logic was that a Jat officer would not beat up Jat boys. The names of Bhatia and his deputy Manoj Verma were circulated among Jats as officers who had beaten up Jat students.

On the morning of February 19, Bhatia and Verma faced an ordeal they will not forget soon. They were cornered by young Jat men outside MD University, and a mob was waiting with lathis. The young men also started targeting shops of non-Jats specifically, looting and then setting them on fire. Not a single Jat-run business was hit.

Bhatia and Verma managed to flee to the Agro Mall, about 300 metres away and called for help over the wireless. A BSF unit in the city did nothing since it had not received orders. Some officers of BSF later said they felt ashamed at not being able to do anything even though they witnessed the open loot and arson on the streets.

An INOX theatre at Satyam Mall was burned down, a McDonald’s outlet was gutted along with a high-end gym in the same building, apart from several other shops. Any vehicle they came across was torched, including several trucks, buses, cars and innumerable motorbikes. The men who could not enter the city in time for the loot, targeted industrial units on the outskirts.

Police barely managed to save the Asian Paints factory. A fire there could have led to a massive blast. The next-door factory of Hitech Plast Limited, which supplies plastic buckets to the paint unit, was gutted after the two guards there fled. The fire in the plastic material and the machinery raged for two days, with even the walls melting in the heat generated. C. K. Gupta, the plant manager, has been receiving teams from Mumbai that are assessing the damage caused. “We have suffered a loss of Rs 50 crore since nothing in the factory is left usable. Moreover, it will take at least a year to rebuild and get the factory functional again, which again means a loss of many crores,” he said.

McDonalds has decided not to re-open the outlet in the near future.

The Deputy Commissioner of Rohtak, Dusmanta Kumar Behera, fled to a safe house on the outskirts and did not answer the desperate calls by businessmen who could see plumes emerge from their shops. According to some accounts, he did order a team to the Agro Mall to rescue Bhatia and Verma. IG Srikanth Jadhav too ordered a special team to Agro Mall to rescue the two officers. The team was able to extract the officers to safety.

Meanwhile, SP Sourabh Singh and his men were trapped at circuit house but were trying to move into the next-door residence of IG Jadhav. They eventually managed to get out using ladders.  A mob had started making attempts to break the gate at the IG’s residence. Jadhav had fired in the air to disperse the men.

Whether he killed some men is unclear; but local television channels started showing that some men had been killed in the firing. This was amplified over social media platforms. State machinery was in disarray and only rumours seeped out of the city.

By mid-afternoon on February 19, after rumours of deaths at the IG’s residence, Jat men started entering the city armed with pistols, gandasas (long sticks with sickles on top) and lathis. An RTI filed by a local journalist last year says Rohtak has three times more licensed gun holders than the police. The crowd and the police exchanged heavy fire outside the IG’s residence. A section of the mob set Agro Mall on fire. Another group of armed Jats stormed the circuit house which had been vacated by then. They torched everything they found in the premises; all that is left of it now is the brick-and-mortar skeleton.

A separate group entered the house of Haryana finance minister Captain Abhimanyu and burnt his house along with four other houses. These belonged to his brothers and family members. Police sources say the family of the first-time MLA was rescued by neighbours barely minutes before the houses were set on fire.

When Rohtak was caught in this lawless frenzy, the police were invisible. Fountain Ink has ascertained, from multiple interviews with businessmen and residents, that six of the eight police stations around Rohtak city were locked and policemen missing from action on February 19. Eyewitnesses, especially members of the business community, say they rushed from one police station to the other only to find each locked. All six Station House Officers have either been suspended or transferred.

Deepak Tuteja, a local businessman, said, “One of the officers was seen running off on his motorbike by some young men even as Jats were setting shops and cars in the city on fire. We were left to our own fate.”

 ***

Rohtak, known earlier as Rohtasgarh is among the oldest cities settled by Jats, and was the epicentre of the protests. Jat Bhavan here is a symbol of Jat pride and its history of rule in the region. Built about three years ago with funds from the Jat Sabha Rohtak, its architecture is modeled on the palace and haveli built by Jat ruler Suraj Mal in Bharatpur and Deeg in Rajasthan. The canopy designs are based on Mansara Shilpa Shastra, the ancient treatise on design and architecture. On March 18, ITBP has deployed armed men, including some with Light Machine Guns on the outskirts whereas the Rapid Action Force (RAF) companies guard gates of the Maharshi Dayanand University and other colleges and their empty hostels. A caravan of riot-control vehicles and buses full of RAF and reserve police patrols the city every 20-30 minutes.

In the city’s interior, the Baniyas and the Punjabi-speaking people who settled here after Partition are prepared to handle any attack in case there is no breakthrough in the Chandigarh talks and the Jats become violent again.

Enlarge

Manish Grover, the local MLA, has made special arrangements for protection of their properties and has also got prompt help from the administration. While residential areas were not attacked earlier, shops and businesses were specifically targeted. This was done, Jat leaders say, to send a message to chief minister  Khattar, who is a Punjabi and seen as the biggest villain by the Jats.

As the meeting stretches into a post-lunch session, apprehensions over the government’s intentions rise. Security force patrols get more intense and businesses start closing. There is violence in the air. Close to 200 Jat representatives are in Chandigarh and some made calls telling the leaders on the ground that the government is refusing to relent.

Some youngsters at Jat Bhavan start urging the others to protest on the streets, so that television channels can beam live pictures to Chandigarh and put pressure on the government. Harbans Rangi, in his early forties, calms them down with difficulty. He wants to steer away the discussion from an emotional topic: the deaths of the at least 30 men during the pro-reservation agitations since February.

“The more they discuss it and more and more stories of sufferings of the families and the high-handedness of the police are repeated, the [more] aggressive they will get,” he says, adding, “Hot-blooded as they are, just like people my age now were in our time.”

***

Rangi’s time to be hot–headed had come in 1989, when prime minister V. P. Singh accepted the report of the Mandal Commission which advocated reservations for Other Backward Classes (OBCs). The criteria were social and economic backwardness of caste and communities who were not covered under the reservations granted to the Scheduled Castes. It sought to pass the benefits of reservation to intermediate castes, forever changing the country’s political demographic.

Jats were not included in the list of OBCs. Then, Rangi and the Jat leadership rejected the report and opposed its implementation. The opposition was against fragmenting rural societies since the relative backwardness of castes differed from region to region.

“Our leaders then, and even the youth were ideologically opposed to the concept of reservations. We did not see ourselves as less than anyone in our capabilities, educational and social, especially since we were a ruling warrior community till a few decades back,” Rangi says.

Local journalist Virendra Phogat says, “It had become a matter of caste pride— how could we be counted as backward along with SCs and STs? But 25 years since, the community has realised that reservations could have benefited them immensely. And with growing unemployment among youth now, there is no option but to secure reservations for the young and for coming generations. Otherwise the youth from the community will go astray. Resentment among them is already very strong.”

While other castes like the Ahirs (mainly Yadavs), Sainis, Gujjars, Lohars, Sunars, Khatis and Kambojs were included in the list of OBCs of Haryana, the Jats were not in either the central or the state list. Today, the argument from the more educated sections of the community is that reservations should be extended to Jats too since all other farming communities have it.

“Historically, if you read the Bhavishya Puran and the Padam Puran Jats have been referred to as Malechh. Al-Baruni’s accounts of India mention Jats as Sudras,” says Hawa Singh Sangwan, chief of the Akhil Bhartiya Jat Mahasabha.

In 1990, then chief minister Hukam Singh constituted the Gurnam Singh Commission to ascertain the list of castes to be included as OBCs. It recommended Ahir, Gujjar, Jat, Jat Sikh, Bishnoi, Saini, Rohr, Rajput and Tyagi castes. Om Prakash Chautala, as chief minister, implemented the commission’s recommendations the following year and reservations were extended to all these communities.

In 1994, however, chief minister Bhajan Lal from the Bishnoi caste had the names of six communities removed, including Jats and Jat Sikhs. It was a political move to consolidate the non-Jat vote bank, though the government did not give any explanation for the sudden change in policy. Another commission under former MP Ramji Lal recommended in its 1995 report that the community be included in the OBC list, but the government did not budge.

As resentment in the community grew and reservations could not be brought in again, the next CM, Bansi Lal, in 1996 began an era of 18 years under Jat CMs. It was also the beginning of 10 years of widespread corruption and loot of government resources, taken to its zenith in the six-year reign of Chautala, starting 1999. He is now in jail after being convicted of multiple corruption charges.

In this period, though the Jats did not make significant progress educationally, they cornered a sizeable portion of class II and III government jobs, largely because they were favoured by the power circles and could sell some land to pay bribes.

Recent studies by some private organisations and RTI replies have established that in districts with Jat MLAs or MPs, they formed a sizeable workforce in the government—in many cases 60 per cent of all employees. RTIs by Karnal-based NGO Janhit Social Welfare Society showed that by 2012 in Rohtak, Faridabad, and Mahendergarh districts, Jats comprised 61, 34 and 29 per cent of the local police respectively—a remarkably high percentage considering they comprise only 29 per cent of the state’s population. Jats are especially few in Mahendergarh, around 15 per cent, while the Yadavs are in overwhelming majority.

The joy ride ended in 2005 with the Congress coming to power. Bhupinder Singh Hooda, a Jat, was the CM. Community leaders went into a huddle. As the clampdown on corruption began, jobs started drying up, and the Jats realised that with no security through reservations, they would see large-scale unemployment.

This period also coincided with a fall in farm incomes—the mainstay of Jats. The other sector where they look for employment is the armed forces. There too, the numbers that can be inducted are limited.

Tikam Singh, one of the hookah-smoking septuagenarians outside Jat Bhavan, says, “They (politicians) keep saying we are a land-owning community but it is limited and over generations there have been 30-50 divisions of the same land portions since independence.”

Government figures show that in 2001 around 67 per cent of farmers in Haryana owned less than five acres, which has now fragmented further. Latest government figures based on a survey in 2012 show that 87 per cent of Jats in the state are farmers while the rest work in animal husbandry, as traders, and in other professions. This means the community has consistently become more and more dependent on dwindling farm land, even as its population keeps increasing.

Hawa Singh Sangwan, the Jat leader from Bhiwani, claims that 70 per cent of Jats in Haryana own less than five acres. According to the National Sample Survey the average holding of a farmer in India fell around 60 per cent: from 2.63 acres in 1960-61 to 1.06 acres in 2003-2004. In Haryana this transformation has been slower but its effects have begun manifesting themselves in diminishing farm incomes. Moreover, any fluctuation in monsoons and rains puts stress on farmers in the state. The last four years, especially 2014 and 2015, have seen bad monsoons and the distress has multiplied manifold.

“If one member of a family or extended family has a secure job, even if it is a grade II or III job, it helps save for bad years. The families that secured good jobs for their children have moved off the land since it is too labour-intensive and does not assure a good return at the end of the year,” says Phogat.

Satbeer Sarwari, a senior journalist who worked with a leading English daily for 12 years before starting his own newspaper from Rohtak four years ago, says the rise in economic prosperity among Jats in the National Capital Region (NCR) has also led to a rise in material ambitions and expectations among youth.

“Some or other relative has suddenly got a real estate business after selling their land in Gurgaon and Sonepat districts. They drive big cars, wear expensive clothes and carry savvy gadgets. Any young boy or girl growing up in the village would want a shot at such a lifestyle.”

Adds Phogat, “Baat yeh hai ki aaj ka naujawaan pajama pehen ke khet ki mitti mein haath-pair gande nahi karna chahta (Today’s youngster does not want to dirty his hands, feet and clothes working in the fields).”

***

Over the past decade, the issue of Jat alienation, and government indifference to the community had started dominating discussions in khap panchyats across the state. Their grievance intensified after a third commission in 2001 recommended that Jats be included in the OBC list and the government turned it down. Several small protests were held by various khap panchayats over the years and they remained largely peaceful. Frustration over the issue grew every year and the panchayats’ umbrella organisation, the Sarvjaat Khap Samiti became vocal about it. Pronouncements of the Sarvjaat Khap, outrageous or otherwise, are law for the Jats. It is the organisation the police and state administration dread, since displeasing or annoying its leaders can result in Jats crippling the state machinery in a matter of hours.

A senior officer of the Haryana Police, himself a Jat, said, “The Jats are a mix of various warrior sub-clans that are self-sustaining communities. But they will unite and rise like an army when the Sarvjaat Khap calls for protests or agitations. That’s how strong the caste allegiance or ‘brotherhood’ is among the Jats.”

Every sub-caste of Jats has its own khap which identifies itself with a bigger umbrella organisation. There are three main organisations fighting for reservations—Samasth Jat Samaj Sangathan led by Raghuvir Nain, Akhil Bhartiya Jat Aarakshan Sangharsh Samiti led by Hawa Singh Sangwan based in Bhiwani and state agriculture minister Om Prakash Dhankar, and the most influential of them, the All-India Jat Aarakshan Sangharsh Samiti led by Yashpal Malik.

Malik was the leader of the delegation that met the government on March 18.

Leaders from all factions spoke in the Sarvjaat Khap Samiti and detailed discussions were held with community leaders from other states. It culminated in a declaration by the All India Jat Mahasabha at its 2008 convention in Jind, demanding reservations in the state as well as central list of OBCs.

The AIJASS then launched a massive protest in September 2010 under Hawa Singh Sangwan in Mayyar village of Hisar by blocking rail traffic. One person was killed in firing during clashes. After assurances from the Hooda-led Congress government, the agitation was deferred. But it was launched again at the same village next year and protestors uprooted rail tracks.

After this the government ordered the Haryana Backward Classes Commission (HBCC) to prepare a report on reservations for the five communities left out: Jats, Jat Sikhs, Rors, Tyagis and Bishnois. The commission submitted its report in 2011, and the government sat on it until it was forced to approve it “in principle” in December 2012, days before the Sarvjaat Khap Aarakshan Samiti was to launch a state-wide “road block”.

The HBCC recommended reservation of 10 per cent for the five communities including the Jats, under the special backward classes. It also recommended an additional 10 per cent for the economically backward categories, which meant Below Poverty Line (BPL) families from the general category castes. While this declaration did result in the protests being called off, it presented a seemingly impossible legal challenge. The state already had reservations of 20 per cent for SCs and STs, and 27 per cent for OBCs. It had room for three per cent more, in keeping with the Supreme Court ruling that caps reservations at 50 per cent. The Sarvjaat Khap Samiti demanded reservations within the 27 per cent quota for the OBC. This, they said, would make it legally tenable, rather than an attempt to go beyond the quota cap.

 ***

The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, eyeing Jat votes in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, approved the inclusion of Jats in the central list of OBCs during its last cabinet meeting in March 2014. This decision was taken in haste as the National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC) was yet to submit a report. The NCBC, on its part, outsourced the survey of the socio-economic condition of Jats in Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat to the Indian Council for Social Science Research (ICSSR).

The survey’s findings have been questioned by Jat leaders. Legal experts that Fountain Ink spoke to said that the survey took a small sample size of the community, which included the district of Bharatpur in Rajasthan. Jats were the ruling community in Bharatpur, till a few decades back and are better off compared to the other regions. The NCBC, based on the ICSSR survey, recommended that Jats should not be included in the OBC list, but the UPA government had gone ahead with the decision in any case.

This was challenged in the Supreme Court in Ram Singh and Others vs Union of India and heard by a bench of Rohinton Nariman and Ranjan Gogoi. When the recommendations of the Mandal commission were sought to be implemented, the National Backward Classes Commission (NBCC) was created by Parliament following direction of the Supreme Court.  The commission evolved social, educational and economic criteria for inclusion in the OBC list.  The ICSSR based its report to the NBCC on both a 2 percent sample size survey it conducted and a review of the existing literature on the condition of various castes in the states of Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Bihar, Haryana, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh. The literature ICSSR relied on was mainly the reports of the State Backward Classes Commissions which the state governments, excepting Gujarat, relied on to include Jats in their respective OBC lists.

Much of the data from State Backward Classes Commissions showed that the Jats in several states were lagging behind OBC castes like Gujjars and Ahirs in social, educational, employment and economic grounds. In some states they were even behind the Kurumis, on certain parameters. But the SC ruled that even if this data were correct, relative backwardness to other OBC castes, was not sufficient; the Jats had to independently meet the criteria for backwardness laid down by the NBCC under the National Commission for Backward Classes Act (1993). The court also said that the data was not applicable because it was not contemporary ie much of it came from studies conducted in the Nineties and a few in the early Nineties.  There are also doubts about the reliability of the methods employed.

On March 7, 2015, the Court delivered its judgement: “The perception of a self-proclaimed socially backward class of citizens or even the perception of the “advanced classes” (sic) as to the social status of the “less fortunates” (sic) cannot continue to be a constitutionally permissible yardstick for determination of backwardness, both in the context of Articles 15(4) and 16(4) of the Constitution. Neither can any longer backwardness be a matter of determination on the basis of mathematical formulae evolved by taking into account social, economic and educational indicators. Determination of backwardness must also cease to be relative; possible wrong inclusions cannot be the basis for further inclusions but the gates would be opened only to permit entry of the most distressed. Any other inclusion would be a serious abdication of the constitutional duty of the State. Judged by the aforesaid standards we must hold that inclusion of the politically organized classes (such as Jats) in the list of backward classes mainly, if not solely, on the basis that on same parameters other groups who have fared better have been so included cannot be affirmed.”

This means that the Jats cannot be allowed reservations through the relative process of inclusion by comparison to the castes already in the list because they missed the bus earlier.

***

Haryana got a non-Jat chief minister in Manohar Lal Khattar in October 2014. The BJP had promised reservations for Jats in its manifesto and during its campaign rallies, on which it has gone back. Khattar declared in Rohtak during the protests last month that Jats would not be on the list of OBCs that have 27 per cent reservation. “That list will not be disturbed,” he said, instead talking of a Special Backward Class status for the community based on their economic status, which Jat leaders have rejected.

Khattar is seen as an outsider in the Haryana BJP but was propelled to the post of CM owing to his background as a RSS karyakarta. While the party won comfortably, it managed only four of the 14 seats in Jat-dominated Sonepat, Hisar and Rohtak district, which includes the towns of Jhajjar and Jind. While some Jats did vote for the BJP owing largely to the Modi wave six months earlier, most still voted for a Jat leader in Bhupinder Singh Hooda of the Congress. Among the victorious MLAs for BJP was a newcomer, Captain Abhimanyu, a Jat leader.

The state voted for the BJP in the Lok Sabha polls, and Raj Kumar Saini, MP for Kurukshetra, emerged as one of the state’s top leaders.

Saini has become the face of the BJP’s opposition to Jat reservations. In various speeches since the SC verdict last year, he has insisted that Jats do not deserve to be in the OBC list. He has threatened to quit the party along with MLAs supporting him if the government accepts their demand.

“Jaton ke lath-maar tareekon se koi nahi darne wala ab (Jats’ threats of show of numbers to arm-twist the governments in the past is not going to scare us anymore),” he has insisted time and again. “They crippled the state in 1990s agitating against reservations and are now threatening to disrupt peace and harmony for reservations,” he said.

One of his more controversial statements was: “Jaton ka raaj bahut chal liya, ab unhe CM ki spelling tak bhulva denge (Jats have ruled enough (in the state), now we will make them forget how to even spell ‘chief minister’).

Expectedly, the response from Jat leaders was violent, brazenly casteist and expletive laden. In khaps across the states Saini was abused openly and referred to as a “maali” (gardener), because of their status in the caste system. His stance on the issue and defiance of Khattar’s leadership hardened over the past year and he has now become one of the most hated politicians Haryana, within the BJP and outside. One of his most divisive statements was the reference to Jats as the reason for slow development in the state. Referring to the various non-Jat castes in the state in a metaphorical way, he said, “There are 36 castes in the state; if all the others unite we can take care of Jats.”

Saini says that it was one of the Jat leaders who coined the term, alleging, “They are the ones who started saying Jats are equal to all the other 35 castes (non-Jat castes). Such shameful statements have become common for them.”

There is no evidence that someone else coined the phrase, while Saini’s videos are all over YouTube and have been shared on social media. Almost every young Jat has watched them.

The state Congress was caught in the crossfire as its voter bases lie in all communities. Tacitly, however, its leaders like Professor Virender kept egging on protestors to fight for the cause. In a leaked audio tape, Virender is heard asking a party worker to stir up protests in Sirsa district, based on which the state government ordered his arrest after the protests spread. Bhupinder Singh Hooda too was heckled outside his residence in Rohtak by traders and businessmen urging him to put a leash on Jat protestors.

Enlarge

The administration in Rohtak, where the violence first started, paid no heed to police intelligence in the first week of February. The intelligence said resentment and communal sentiment among Jats had strengthened and could result in violent clashes. On February 9, Khattar who was informed about the intelligence inputs and had dismissed them as routine, decided to hold a meeting with Jat leaders including Sangwan. He announced that the government will set up a high level four-member committee to examine the reservation issue and that it will submit its report by March 31. While Sangwan called off the protests, the AIJASS led by Yashpal Malik did not. But Khattar was confident that now that Sangwan had relented, the rest will fall in line. He miscalculated badly.

The AIJASS blocked rail traffic in Mayyar village in Hisar on February 12. The police were ordered not to fire, to avoid a repeat of 2012, when a Jat youth was killed in the violence. On February 14, on the outskirts of Rohtak, protestors blocked the Rohtak-Delhi Road at Sampla village. The police did not intervene and diverted traffic to other routes. The IG of Rohtak range, Srikanth Jadhav had on February 15 informed senior officials that the situation could get uncontrollable. He had asked for more force but his request was denied.

Agriculture Minister O. P Dhankar also rushed to Sampla village and urged Malik to withdraw his men but discussions failed and supplies to the district started dwindling by the day. The protests spread to Jhajjar and Jind towns in Rohtak and Sonepat districts and agitators started blocking other highways across the state, including the Delhi-Chandigarh highway at Murthal in Sonepat. The government then decided to call in three companies of the BSF. FIRs against protestors blocking various highways were also registered and preparations for arrests were made, when on February 18 the clashes turned communal.

 ***

As Rohtak was spinning out of control on February 19, things came to a head in adjoining Jhajjar as well. Young men were congregating in small numbers, and a larger number was assembling in villages outside the town. They too had received messages of attacks on Jats in Rohtak, by Punjabis and other non-Jats on Jats. Jhajjar SP Sumit Khoar, however, had set up check points across the city to keep peace. By the afternoon, he received an urgent message from Rohtak IG Srikanth Jadhav for back-up, Jhadav’s house was under attack and his men had fled the town.

Khoar reached Rohtak to help Jadhav and his team with around 200 men. He managed to disperse the crowd outside the IG’s residence and bring some calm to the town. However, in his and the team’s absence, young Jat men in Jhajjar spilled on to the streets and started gathering in large numbers at the Bagh Juara stadium. Later, the mob assembled around Bhagat Singh Chowk at the centre of the town. Even as the mob started to spill into the main market, SP Khoar reached the spot and his team fired at protestors who were pelting stones. Three men including a Brahmin died in firing by police. Some policemen were also injured. By mid-afternoon the crowd dispersed and a group of 50-70 men gathered at the Jat Dharamshala, where the bodies were kept.

In Rohtak, a BSF company had reached the circuit house by evening. A soldier was injured in firing, after which the BSF opened fire, injuring many people. The state machinery in Chandigarh too had finally woken up and Khattar called the Centre for help. Since the roads were blocked, the army was to be flown in to various cities and towns in 18 helicopters. Jadhav reportedly had a breakdown as he feared he would be attacked because he is a Dalit. He was shifted out of the state the next morning. Senior IAS officer A. K. Singh, and IPS officer B. S. Sandhu were made liaison officers for the army in Rohtak district. It took two days for the government to get a grip on the situation. By then, almost all of Jhajjar and Rohtak districts had been looted.

The Sikh Regiment was landed in Rohtak and brought the situation under control in most parts of the city by February 20. In Jhajjar, the February of 19 and the morning of February 20 saw greater tensions between Jats and non-Jats. In the evening, some Brahmins and other locals went to the Jat Dharamshala to claim the body of the Brahmin boy killed in the firing. They were turned away.

This angered some men who decided to fetch the body the next morning. When they turned up outside the dharamshala the next morning, at least six Jat men, fearing an attack, fled the spot. The others got into a scuffle with the visitors. Soon more Brahmins gathered, outnumbering the Jats, who ran from the dharamshala by jumping over its walls. The men who recovered the body of the Brahmin set the dharamshala on fire. Rumour that non-Jats had burned 15-17 men alive at the dharamshala spread like wildfire. Building on the anti-Punjabi sentiment, a huge mob gathered in Jhajjar the next morning even as the district police was preparing to hand over the reins to the Gorkha regiment called in to guard the city.

The Gorkha soldiers had orders not to fire, unless absolutely necessary, which meant they stood and watched the looting in the city. Chawla Electronics, the biggest in town, was stripped of every item and set ablaze by the mob. The owner has left the city and does not plan to return in the near future.

In the crowd were also Jat shopkeepers who set their own shops ablaze in a bid to get insurance as well as compensation from the government. One of them, R.K Singh, a cloth merchant was not lucky enough. He packed all the clothes and transported them home in an auto rickshaw and then set his shop ablaze. To his misfortune, the CCTV camera in the shop survived the fire and was recovered by the police. The magistrate hearing his compensation claim fined him Rs 9 lakh and he has been sent to jail.

A gang of 30-35 people attacked the State Bank of Patiala branch on the afternoon of February 21. Two guards were on duty on the day but only one of them—Hawa Singh Yadav—turned up and secured the area that housed the lockers. He first fired in the air in warning.

In his home, in Kheri Khumar village, three kilometres from the town, Yadav recalls, “One of the men shouted that I shouldn’t risk my life just to save the bank since they too had guns, to which I said that I had enough bullets for everyone. Another man said there were 25 of them, to which I said then I have 25 bullets.”

Two men barged in and Yadav fired, killing them. The other men threw crude petrol bombs and tried to blow the shutter open, triggering a fire inside. But the bank was not breached. As in Rohtak, no government official was present. The police and district magistrate were reportedly lodged in an open-air arrangement at a banquet hall on the outskirts of the city.

Yadav has not joined work since that day, fearing that someone from the families of the two people he killed will seek revenge.

The brunt of the attack by the Jat mob, however, was borne by the Sainis in the Chhanvni (cantonment) area. There are almost 400 Saini families in the mohalla,  and men shouting Khattar-Saini murdabad, in a reference to Khattar and MP Raj Kumar Saini, stormed the place and attacked people. The first was Krishan, a farmer who ran a flour mill. He was in his shop when the mob stormed it. He was dragged out and axed to death. His body was found with the head split, stomach torn open and intestines splattered on the street.

People of the mohalla ran for their lives while some men who tried to resist were grievously injured. Mainpal Singh Chauhan managed to bolt the door of his house, inside which his parents, wife and three children were holding their breaths. He rushed them to the top floor where the family stores  fodder. “As the mob burnt our car, tractor and my motorbike, we sneaked into the room and hid under the fodder. Thankfully they spared the house, or we might also have died in the fire,” he recalls, sitting outside the house, where the remains of the tractor still lie. He can’t sell the tractor yet since compensation will be approved only after some officials inspect the site and ascertain the “actual reason” for its destruction. Nobody has visited except the local MLA and ex-education minister Geeta Bhukal, who has given nothing but assurances that the perpetrators will be brought to book. “For the loss of Rs 60 lakh, I have received just Rs 2 lakh till now. I am hoping the quota issue is resolved once and for all and we can live in peace.”

But for the army, the Jat mobs could have killed many more people. Even as mayhem continued till February 24, government officials did not visit any of the cities, towns or villages swept by violence. Instead, the bureaucracy and top leaders were busy investigating claims by news channels and the owner of a famous dhaba-cum-restaurant in Sonepat, that Jat men had dragged women out of cars and gang-raped them. None of these allegations proved true.

Rajshree Singh, in charge of the investigations into the allegations of rape of women, said, “No evidence in this regard was found. The case where a woman alleged rape turned out to be a case of harassment by unruly men who wanted them to vacate their car so that they could torch it.” The final report of the police concluded that there was no truth in allegations of rape by Jat protestors. By then seven men had been booked under sections that amount to rape, which Jat leaders have now demanded be taken back.

Yashpal Malik, chief of the AIJASS, said, “Police have failed to explain the deaths of such a high number of people and instead filed false cases in haste to save face. The government should focus on the real problems in the state.” On the killings by Jat men in Saini mohalla in Jhajjar, Malik says, “Let the government investigate and prove the charges. We know many have broken the law and those who have indulged in killings must be brought to book. But it should not be specific to one community, which is already falling behind on all parameters.”

 ***

At Jat Bhavan in Rohtak, meanwhile, Harbans Rangi pacified the youngsters with much difficulty, selling the idea of a ‘final bill’ by the Khattar government by March 31. “What else do I tell them? We know the government has managed to deflect the introduction of the bill or amendment—whichever it decides on – to the next session of the Assembly. But these men need some hope. Many are taunted by contemporaries from other communities on the reservations bill.”

Rangi runs an institute where he teaches mathematics to students of classes 9-12 and he says that while Jat boys are not less able than children in the general category, they do require special attention. “These are village boys who spend half the day working in the fields. How can one expect them to compete with students who dedicate much more quality time to their studies? Sports have given them some outlets; reservations will further help them embrace the mainstream rather than stay on the fringes and be misunderstood and misjudged most of the time.”

The divide among students of various communities has widened and the venom of caste politics has found footholds in many unexpected corners. Some of his students, mainly from the Punjabi community, have discontinued their tuitions “Every child from a non-Jat community who secures a quota seat after studying under me comes to me in private to share the news or simply does not bother to inform me at all. The division was done many years back. It is time to rectify it or a whole generation of Jats will become rebellious in its outlook.”

(Arpit Parashar is a freelance journalist in Delhi.)

(The cover story of the April 2016 edition of Fountain Ink)

BY ARPIT PARASHAR

The Hindi news channel NDTV India on April 18 ran a long programme on the way two of its journalists had been treated by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in Delhi, criticising it for trying to undermine the freedom of speech of journalists in the capital. One of them, who had been covering a press conference held by Delhi’s minister of transport Gopal Rai, asked the minister some questions, and when denied the opportunity to ask more, chose to write against it in a blog post.

Ravish Ranjan Shukla had insisted that the minister answer why despite the promise of better public transport there was no sign of it during the hotly-debated odd-even scheme. But Nagendra Sharma, media advisor to chief minister and AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal blocked his queries. He then wrote in a blog post without naming anyone that media advisors to the government reacted to the questioning of ministers by “shooting the messenger” and then “awarding them with dirty labels”.

Then Arunoday Prakash, media advisor to deputy CM Manish Sisodia and Amardeep Tiwari, the government’s media advisor, removed two journalists of the channel including Ravish Ranjan from a WhatsApp group of the health and the transport department.

The NDTV India anchor discussed the events in detail with the journalist who had written the blog post but, not surprisingly, no other news organisation reported it. Ranjan went on to tweet about the “fascist” nature of the AAP regime which is not used to being questioned. At least two other journalists, one from ABP News, and another from the Hindi daily Dainik Jagran, also tweeted about the incident, and were rewarded with dismissal from the WhatsApp group.

A year ago, when AAP won the Delhi election, and had the halo of righteousness about it, helped in great measure by Kejriwal’s simplistic, virtuous bombast, the censoring of journalists would have been big news.

That it wasn’t so in this case is the result of a strategy and a cosy understanding the party and its leaders have with the capital’s big media. AAP made honesty in public life its calling card and showered contempt on politicians other than its own, but it is now part of the system it wanted to overthrow. Corruption, an institutional desire to profit at the cost of the citizen, the entitlement of its workers, and an intolerance of dissent—AAP has it all. It’s become all the things it scorned on its way to power.

Interviews with a number of party workers, AAP MLAs, officers of the Delhi government, and men of mystery who “get things done” reveal that corruption prevails under the Kejriwal government, that the party benefits and encourages it, and that syndicates of “transfer-posting” and appointments flourish under the same government that promised to change the way governance worked in the country.

Multiple attempts to contact AAP spokespersons, Nagendra Sharma, media advisor to chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, and leaders like Ashutosh and Ashish Khetan failed. They didn’t respond to calls on their mobile phones. An email questionnaire sent to Khetan went unanswered.

Most of the people spoken to opened up on condition of anonymity; some work for the Delhi government and are rule-bound not to speak, while those in the party fear for their future in it if names are revealed. They chose to speak because many joined the AAP for the ideals it professed, and now feel let down by its practices.

This is in stark contrast to the image of the honest common man that the party has built for itself, even while giving its MLAs hefty pay raises and going back on its opposition to the “lal batti” culture, the VIP culture of entitlement. The Delhi government also had frequent run-ins with the media in its initial days when it blocked the entry of journalists into the secretariat last year, leading to a boycott of its press conferences by the media. But that is also the reason why it has extended off-the-book benefits to many journalists, with reports in the Hindi media also suggesting at times that some of the journalists were on the party payroll. Those who have opposed it, however, have been on the receiving end with even Kejriwal tweeting at times on the need for “objective journalism” from them.

This has also helped the party sweep under the rug much of the criticism against it, apart from using a well-planned strategy to attack the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Prime Minister Narendra Modi when any allegation is levelled against it, say party workers and officer holders. This has helped it consolidate its hold over Delhi’s vast riches that flow in through various avenues, going back on its promise of a corruption-free government. While corruption cases in various departments are on the rise, the brief is to keep it away from the eyes of the common man, in other words, the media.

***

The roots of the Aam Aadmi Party lie in the India Against Corruption (IAC) movement that sprang into the limelight under social activist Anna Hazare in 2011. Kejriwal, an officer of the India Revenue Service, had taken leave from the department in 2000 to start a social welfare organisation, Parivartan. It worked for the urban poor and for their rights, did good work and was often consulted as well as written about by the media. Manish Sisodia, a former journalist, has been his confidant since the days of Parivartan.

In his book The Crown Prince, The Gladiator and The Hope: Battle for Change, former journalist and senior AAP leader Ashutosh mentions Kejriwal’s vulnerability to the media and how he grew close to Kejriwal over time, often advising him on how to handle the media and their tricky questions. Having come to power with an overwhelming victory last year, winning 67 of the 70 seats in Delhi, the first task the government set itself was handling the media.

The Delhi Dialogue Commission, was set up under another former journalist, Ashish Khetan. Its mandate was to be a bridge between the common man and government, with Kejriwal as chairperson and Khetan as vice-chair. Other members include Sisodia, the finance secretary, the chief secretary, secretary to the CM, a member secretary and two people nominated by the CM.

Its aim is to find solutions to a range of civic issues, including women’s safety, sanitation, water management, etc. Ideas like the odd-even scheme for vehicles on road have come out of the commission.

Khetan brought in a deeper understanding of the media, most importantly its dependence on the revenue generation capacity of a reporter or a news item created by her. Many senior journalists were invited to the dialogue commission, which is presently being remodelled, to understand the demands of the editorial teams at media houses.

 (Disclosure: Khetan was a colleague in Tehelka, and later I worked for a few months at Gulail, the investigative news portal he started in 2013)

An editor who works with a Hindi daily, and met Khetan in August last year, says, “The point made was that the party wanted to work closely with journalists and create a so-called ‘open debate’ atmosphere but the questions being asked were suddenly from the government’s side and not ours. They wanted to know how they could help us, as if we do not know our job. They wanted to tell us what we need to do rather than focusing on what they need to do.”

The first step was to facilitate news gathering, and departments were advised to hold frequent press conferences to make sure the media took the government and the party seriously. The more news you make, the more favourable the media becomes towards you over time was the logic, journalists who attended DDC meetings told me.

Apart from providing a steady supply of news, the government decided to award honorary positions to journalists at educational institutions over which it has oversight. This was done under deputy chief minister Sisodia, who also heads the education ministry. The first step was to dissolve the governing bodies of the 28 colleges funded by the government affiliated to the Delhi University. It went through with the plan despite opposition from the university and hundreds of non-permanent teachers.

Since 1993, all governments, Congress or BJP, as well as the Delhi University have nominated senior journalists to the governing bodies of these colleges, which are reconstituted every two years. Five members each are nominated by the Delhi University and Delhi government to these posts. AAP nominated 25 journalists and some former journalists listed as “Educationists” to these bodies, making for more than 20 per cent of all nominations. Most are working journalists, many of whom report and write about AAP. At least four senior journalists in the Bennett Coleman group (which publishes The Times of India, The Economic Times and Navbharat Times)  had accepted the appointment but had to resign as such office goes against group policy.

A senior official of the department of higher education, speaking on condition of anonymity, says, “All were informed beforehand and duly consulted before their names were put on the list. They could have refused if they wished. Some journalists did refuse and they were not nominated.”

A journalist from a Hindi news channel who is on the governing body of one the colleges, says, “Obviously when I help the organisation get both news and ads they would not care about anything else. And this is not even a paid post.”

Harjeet Singh, a party worker who played a big role in rallying the trader community towards AAP before the elections, is a businessman who doesn’t have a background in the education industry. However, he is listed as a social worker along with many other workers of the party, while some others are listed simply as “Professional”.

Kapil Bhardwaj, a senior party worker in charge of preparations for the Punjab assembly elections next year with another party worker Sanjay Singh, has also been listed as “Professional (MBA)”. Many other workers who are not even from Delhi, have been nominated, some listed just as “Researcher”. Bhardwaj could not be contacted despite multiple attempts. One of his two mobile phone numbers was switched off and didn’t take any calls on the other one.

The posts are honorary in nature, members don’t get salaries. But they play a pivotal role in the hiring of ad hoc faculty, librarians, and Class III and IV posts. These appointments are also the ones for which huge bribes are paid since they are mostly secure government jobs and the decision of the governing body is binding. The non-permanent teachers, on the other hand, have been alleging favouritism in appointment of candidates since last year.

A senior member of Delhi University’s executive council, who does not want to be named, said, “More than 2000 non-permanent teachers were to be regularised last year when the AAP government announced that new governing bodies were to be made. Almost half are not even in the fray anymore because their contracts were not renewed even though many of them had been working for 3-4 years and deserved to be inducted permanently. Instead new teachers were hired.”

There are more than 5,000 non-permanent teachers working in Delhi University’s various colleges, including the ones under the Delhi government, and their contracts have to be renewed every four months. Interviews for these appointments are conducted every four months, leaving the door open for money to change hands since competition becomes stiffer by the year as candidates proliferate.

“This has become a routine now and everyone knows that if you can pay some money you could be hired for 3-4 terms in which time you try for a better job elsewhere or hope that you will be regularised and not be working on ad hoc basis anymore. This happens under every government,” says a teacher who is also a member of AAP, when asked how he has kept his job safe since last year and whether this system of corruption was not against the party’s declared ethics.

More importantly, teachers say that when governing bodies comprise members whose selection depends on whether AAP wants them there or not, merit as a criterion falls by the wayside. Anil Solanki, who teaches Hindi at one of the colleges, says, “When the body that holds the interviews is itself intellectually defunct one can imagine how appointments are made. You need a recommendation or to have deposited some chanda (donation) to the party (AAP).”

***

Managing negative news has been a major thrust area of the AAP. It deploys an army of cyber warriors to scrub the internet of any dirt that sticks to the party; negative news is drowned out by positive news.

The main job of the team is search engine optimisation (SEO), which also involves in many cases paying huge amounts of money to companies that handle their “image” on search engines like Google, according to party workers and at least one digital media agency working for it. The aim is to make sure that the readers’ hits on negative news articles are fewer, and that such news is not on the top list of items on Google and platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

Akshat Saini, senior executive at a firm on the list of AAP’s digital marketing consultants, says, “All you have to do is to make sure hits on pages that you want on top of the list are much higher so that the Google algorithm automatically pushes it up the ranks. This is done in many ways, easiest of them being that you viral the links of your websites or the ones you wish to push up the ranks so much that algorithmically they automatically are more relevant for Google or other media platforms.”

Saini says his company has been paid crores by AAP (he refused to quote a figure) and that it is a common practice among political parties now. “Every party wants positive news about itself rather than negative news. They hire full-fledged teams just like AAP has, with qualified engineers and experts.” In the case of AAP its volunteer base is the backbone of this team. They either work of their own accord or with a team of at least 10 people out of the office of the Delhi Dialogue Commission under Khetan.

In many cases, however, AAP also acts according to the mood of the audiences on the web and manufactures or makes news that it then pushes against negative publicity.

An  example of this was during the allegations against  transport minister Gopal Rai. The department was caught renewing licences of autorickshaws for people it favoured .While there were close to 17,000 vehicles on the road only 10,000 were to be allowed back as per the government’s decision. The department had been provided with a list of dealers to be favoured. But the scam was exposed and there were large-scale protests on the city’s roads.

In order to control the surge in negative publicity, Rai immediately suspended three officials based on recommendations from party workers. A senior official of the department says, “They were actually against the directions and had decided to work in a fair manner. They just became scapegoats in a political battle.”

After the news of the suspension was made public, the party’s cyber unit made sure that news of the suspension of officials, something that bolsters their anti-corruption image, found more traction. Within hours news about the suspensions was on top of the Google news. Even now, if one tries to read about the scam she will have to scroll to fifth or sixth search-result page for it.

“For example, you still get news of the BJP protests against the AAP in the corruption cases or demanding resignation of ministers among the top ranked links since they too have firms that handle their digital marketing, just like AAP does. But a workers’ protest or autorickshaw unions’ protest in the news reports will not find place in the higher ranks. That is how they influence the news that majority of online readers get,” Saini says.

A similar strategy has been used by the party when its leaders have been attacked by the Congress or the BJP. After the sting that showed the principal secretary to Kejriwal demanding a bribe on camera the BJP attacked the party and Kejriwal. AAP instructed its party workers to rake up “five issues for every one against” them. As part of this strategy, Kejriwal and other party leaders attack Prime Minister Narendra Modi and raise issues from other parts of the country with which BJP is grappling every time they feel they are copping negative publicity.

An AAP leader who unsuccessfully fought against one of BJP’s young leaders in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, says, “We have countered BJP’s internet strategy. While their followers and members attack negative publicity by swarming cyberspace with counter comments and trolls, we simply give the reader more negative news to read than the one against us. As for paying for removing or promoting content online, every party has learnt to do it now. It is no more a taboo practice.”

***

This cushioning from negative news and its ability to fight off corruption charges has emboldened AAP.

A survey by Swaraj Abhiyan, formed by Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan, former AAP founding members, in February this year saw almost 80 per cent of respondents saying corruption had not gone down under the AAP government. Bhushan and Yadav were expelled for anti-party activities and statements last year after AAP came to power. They claim they were targeted because they openly spoke against corruption in the party as well as its failure to curb it on the ground, the plank on which it won the election.

In one instance, Rs 2 crore was deposited into AAP’s account through four different companies which paid Rs 50 lakh each. The disclosure of these transfers was made by a breakaway faction of the party, AAP Volunteer Action Manch in February last year. The four companies, whose addresses were later found to be fake, existed only on paper and had not made any profit in the recent past as per the details of their accounts, the rebels claimed.

AAP denied the charges since the payments had been made via cheque and challenged finance minister Arun Jaitley to launch a probe. The name of a well-known alleged hawala agent, Hem Prakash Sharma, emerged in the case. Sharma is reportedly on the board of directors of at least 20 companies most of which have turned out to be fake, used allegedly as fronts by other companies. The case is with the Income Tax department and not much action has been taken in the matter.

A senior income tax department official, part of the team investigating the case, said: “My understanding is that the possible perpetrator here, the one who used the front companies to donate money (to AAP) also happens to be a donor for the BJP and that is the reason we have been asked not to go ahead with further investigations.”

The official refused to be named because he is not authorised to speak to the media, and the case has political ramifications.

Another instance is the case of Rosmerta Technologies Limited, the company which supplies High Security Registration Plates (HSRP) for vehicles in Delhi. The company, based in Gurgaon, manufactures and supplies credit cards for many banks, driving licences for many states, property registration cards apart from supplying HSRPs to states like Delhi and Maharashtra.

While other states have taken steps against the company, in Delhi it has been given a free hand. The government awarded the contract for HSRPs to Rosmerta HSRP Ventures Private Limited, which was a special purpose vehicle (SPV) of the parent company Rosmerta Technologies Limited and Utsav Safety Systems Private Limited, which was also the Type Approval Certificate (TAC) holder and so the parent company in the SPV. While the latter was the technical partner in the SPV, the former was only a financial partner.

Soon after the contract had been awarded the government, then under the Congress, started receiving complaints that the number plates being provided were either faulty or fake. In many cases the plates were found too fragile and not up to standard. To look into the matter, the Congress government set up a three-member committee which submitted its report in 2014. It said Rosmerta Technologies Limited had set up various fake offices in the capital from where it was selling substandard plates to consumers at exorbitant prices compared to those set by the government.

Its partner Utsav Safety Systems Private Limited (USSPL) filed complaints against it for providing substandard HSRPs through the SPV. The committee found that while technical approval had been given to the factory owned by USSPL in Bilaspur, Himachal Pradesh which manufactured the HSRPs, the plates were not being supplied from the same place. To cater to the growing demand, Rosmerta started supplying plates from its plant in Assam which did not initially have permission from the government. The committee found the HSRPs substandard and being from an uncertified source posed a security risk since fake plates could easily be bought in the city. Transport department had issued notices to the company after the committee’s report came out but it failed to act on it.

While the then government had ordered that the contract of the company be cancelled, the AAP government after coming to power in January 2015 constituted a new committee to look into the matter. By then even the Supreme Court had pointed out in its judgment on a contempt petition that the company was supplying plates from the uncertified plant despite its directions.

Moreover, the plates being sold at exorbitant prices were causing the exchequer and the public huge losses. For example, the committee found in its report that instead of the stipulated one-month period after which the plates were to be issued, it was offering them in a matter of hours. As per government stipulations the plate for a two-wheeler costs Rs 69 whereas they were being sold for close to Rs 500 in the open market. Similarly, private and commercial four-wheel  plates cost Rs 1200 and Rs 1500 in the open market whereas the government rates are Rs 214 and Rs 220 respectively. Considering that a minimum of 5,000 private four-wheeler vehicles are sold in Delhi every day, the company was making a profit of close to Rs 50 lakh per day. This margin is much higher for commercial vehicles.

The committee set up by AAP also recommended that the contract with the company be cancelled. A few months before this the Madhya Pradesh government had cancelled the contract of its supplier for similar reasons, while Sikkim rejected the Rosmerta bid a few months later on the recommendations of the Delhi committee.

The company, however, approached the AAP government and got a favourable response immediately. The transport department accepted Rosmerta’s demand for arbitration and appointed Justice (retired) A Alam as arbitrator.

Senior officials in the transport department claim the “deal” was in return for handsome donations. “Some officials opposed the move and insisted that the contract be terminated but they were told the government was mulling suspending a whole set of them for corruption earlier but had chosen not to. They were asked to their faces whether they would prefer to leave things as they were or face suspension and action,” an official in the department says.

This attitude  stems from Kejriwal’s own understanding of the system as an insider. On April 20 addressing civil servants in Delhi he warned them against “netagiri” and said they should support the government, which officials say was another indirect threat.

AAP workers, however, have been enriched by the company on a regular basis through its several HSRP centres across the capital. An AAP MLA who raised his voice against Rosmerta on some platforms within the party, says he was approached by people from the company offering money for public works in his area. The company representatives, the MLA said, told him Rosemerta was quietly supporting AAP and its honest workers and leaders through such donations. “The money is already being paid to higher-ups through the workers on the ground, who report only to them and keep floating across constituencies handling their money as per instructions. Anyone seen going out of line is approached and things are quietly kept running the way they want. That is the reason DDC now stands for Delhi Dalaal Commission.”

***

The other important source of off-the-books cash has been the “transfer-posting” industry. Officials are either transferred to a particular post because of their ability to generate cash through various means, or because the officer coughs up enough money for party funds for a transfer to a particular department or for a promotion.

All this money is paid in cash or to a trusted “agent” of the party. Raju (name changed) is a property dealer in Badarpur close to one such agent-cum-worker of AAP and so makes quick money by getting people the posts they desire. The system works in a phased manner. Once an officer approaches him, his query is discussed with the boss, a party worker who is almost a floating presence in the party circles. “Voh aise log hain ki kahin bhi takra jaenge aapko. Kabhi aapki gali mein hi ghoomte mil jaenge aur kabhi maheeno tak dikhai nahi denge (You could run into these people anywhere. Sometimes you could meet them in your own street whereas sometimes they would not even be in Delhi for months).” There are dedicated groups of such men who deal with the money.

Once the query is recorded as legitimate, the officer is asked an approximate amount he can pay in cash and kind. In rare cases, officers want a transfer for personal reasons and are either directly referred through a call of approval to the official authority to send the papers further or given considerable concessions depending on the reasons for demanding a transfer.

“If we get too lenient everybody will come up with some excuse. I discourage such people from approaching me in the first place.” Raju asks them to directly approach their senior officers.

A mid-level officer in one of the many departments of the Delhi government recently approached Raju through a friend in his office who earlier used Raju’s services.

“He (the friend) says he paid close to Rs 20 lakh to get a promotion towards the end of last year,” the officer says. But he has a different request—he needs a transfer to a different district within Delhi since his current superior has taken a dislike to him because of his no-nonsense approach to work. “He interferes quite often and dictates terms. I will not be able to rise through my work as long as he is there since he expects us all to make money for him,” the officer told Fountain Ink. The officer was ready to pay up to Rs 15 lakh but Raju has made him wait for almost three months now. “There cannot be too frequent transfers. The timing has to be right. Sometimes it is good to show it as a punishment transfer even when it is not,” Raju says.

On the day Raju is to meet the officer he calls him to the Badarpur metro station where two of Raju’s men stand guard at a distance, keeping an eye on possible busts. “Kejriwal ji ne chilla chilla ke recording sikha di hai poori dilli ko (Kejriwal has taught whole of Delhi to record videos),” he says referring to calls by the CM to record bribes being paid to agents or government officials to expose them.

Normally dressed in a white kurta-pyjama, Raju sticks to blue jeans and shirt to not stand out in the crowd this time. The officer reaches the station and gives him a call. During the meeting, Raju tells him that he will have to pay Rs 12 lakh for the transfer to be done within three months. The officer agrees, but asks for an assurance that orders will come within  three months. Raju says: “BJP ya Congress ki sarkaar nahi hai ki paisa leke guarantee se kaam kar de. Bol diya ho jaega toh ab bas umeed rakhiye. Koshish yahi rahegi nirash na hi ho aap (It is not the Congress or the BJP government where you would be assured that your work will be done once you pay up. Keep the hopes up. I’ll try my best not to disappoint).”

The officer insists that the amount is big and that he has never paid such a huge sum as a bribe ever. “I am an honest guy who makes money just because everyone else does, too. I just get my share. You would have done enough research yourself to know this about me I suppose,” he tells Raju.

“No government has won with such a margin in Delhi either. There is no opposition at all. This is how this government is going to work. I myself don’t know if my share from this will reach me, how do I assure you saab?” Raju says.

On the day the money is to be delivered, Raju again calls the officer to the metro station, but this time it is his aide Ashok (name changed) who makes first contact. Ashok takes the officer to a small restaurant—the owner is a friend of his—on the Badarpur-Mehrauli road, and checks the bag in which the amount is kept—24 bundles of Rs 50,000 each, with each bundle consisting of 100 notes of Rs 500 denomination. Every bundle, Singh had been told, was to have a different sequence of numbers. Ashok checks and is satisfied.

Sitting in his car, parked across the road from where the restaurant is, Raju says, “Voh log toh har gaddi khol ke alag alag set se note milate hain (The ones who collect the money mix notes from all bundles from different sets randomly).” This is to make sure the money leaves no trail. Fresh bundles are prepared after such random mixing and they are all then sent to the so-called company owners who do the work of depositing this money. But this money is not necessarily going into an account; it might be carried to the ground-level party workers as per instructions from above.

When Raju gets the money, he makes sure he delivers it to his “agent” at the earliest. “People tend to get too conscious and nervous when they have finally paid the money. Ekdum se unki imandaari bhi jag jaati hai kabhi kabhi (The honest person in them too can wake up at times). So it is good to get rid of this quickly.”

He makes the cash delivery at the Statesman building in Connaught Place, the centre of Lutyens’ Delhi, right across the road from the busy Barakhamba Road metro station. The money is packed like a parcel and the spot is chosen randomly, though he says the present one is much preferred since it is right in the centre of the city where nobody would think of black deals being made. His “agent” disappears into a green DTC bus immediately after collecting the package. Raju and his agent do not switch on their phones for 24 hours after that to avoid being detected or tracked.

***

Since last year, almost all the cash collected by the AAP has been making its way to the cadres rather than the accounts of the party. Funds raised through donations online are accounted for. The reason for amassing cash is to shore up the war chest for the Punjab assembly polls due next year. According to party members Punjab will be the second state with an AAP government.

It was the only state where the party registered substantial voter enthusiasm and victories in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. All four of its MPs are from the state. Two have since been suspended from the party for “anti-party” activities. In Delhi, too, to keep a check on the activities of MLAs the party considers too outspoken the cadres keep an eye. Anyone seen as speaking against Kejriwal or the party is quickly put on the watch list.

An AAP MLA who claims to be on the list says, “It is almost like a parallel setup being run by the party cadre in my own constituency. Such is the insecurity of the man (Kejriwal) that he cannot even tolerate a voice questioning him or his close aides in the party. I have spoken out quite often in meetings about some of the party’s policies and so have been targeted. People in my own constituency are confused about my role.”

The MLA refused to be named because he has been trying to get into the good books of Kejriwal. As he sees it, this is the only way to a future in AAP.

In October last year the party directed its MLAs in Delhi to contribute Rs 1 lakh each per month to fund its Punjab campaign. The news soon came out in the media and there were questions over how the MLAs would arrange the money through donations every month. The party declared then that the plan had been shelved. Barely six months later, however, it has quietly passed on instructions to MLAs to deposit Rs 1.5 lakh every month towards the Punjab elections, according to several party workers and MLAs interviewed for this story.

An MLA opposed to the move says, “Even if I want to remain honest I have no option but to get into the muck and arrange this money somehow every month. How many Punjabi-speaking people or businessmen can one find in the constituency on a monthly basis to keep on donating money?”

(Arpit Parashar is a freelance journalist based in Delhi.)

(Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

(From the May 2016 issue of Fountain Ink)

BY HARSHA VADLAMANI

Mangaluru, a port city by the Arabian Sea in southern Karnataka, is home to about six lakh people. It has three malls, two parks and two beaches where the young and not-so-rich can hang out—but they can’t escape the gaze of vigilante groups that impose their moral code.

Suresh Bhat Bakrabail, 70, an activist with the Karnataka Forum for Communal Harmony, compiles a list of moral policing incidents reported in the local newspapers. Last year he says 139 incidents were reported from Mangaluru and neighbourhood. The majority, 129, were attributed to Hindu right-wing groups and six to the Muslim right-wing Popular Front of India. Everything is grist to their mill, a group of Hindu and Muslim girls and boys travelling for a sports event, a Muslim man dropping off his female Hindu employee at home, a Hindu girl and a Muslim boy’s friendship in college.

The Bajrang Dal, militant youth wing of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, is the strongest Hindu outfit. According to Sharan Pumpwell, its Mangaluru-based convener for Karnataka, the organisation has 80 units in the city,  about 3,000 active members and 10,000 supporters. The Sri Ram Sene, of Amnesia Pub 2009 notoriety and Hindu Jagarana Vedike, whose activists assaulted men and women celebrating a birthday at Morning Mist Homestay in 2012, are technically different, but “we’re all the same, we work together”.

The Dal motto is Seva (service), Suraksha (security), Sanskar (culture). It draws most of its cadres from the Billava and Mogaveera communities, traditionally farmers and fishermen respectively. There is no single point of entry. Some might have attended RSS shakhas as children and moved to the Dal as adults. Others might enter via the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad in college or through friends already part of Bajrang Dal.

The Dal provides a sense of purpose to these young, working class men who do not have much to occupy themselves with after work. While few understand the organisation’s larger ideology, they believe they are doing something to protect their country and religion. They give their best to the cause, even if it means breaking the law or a few bones.

Bajrangis, as they like to call themselves, regularly participate in activities such as blood donation and ensuring the delivery of government schemes. But their focus is the Sangh Parivar’s favourite bogey, “Love Jihad”, and cattle vigilantism. It helps that college students, who are often victims of “action” against “Love Jihad” or moral policing do not speak out or even file police complaints due to fear and parental pressure. But the cattle transporters and sellers for whom this is a livelihood hit back occasionally.

On October 9, 2015, flower seller Prashanth Poojary, 29, was hacked to death by six men as his father watched in front of their shop in Moodabidiri, 34 km from Mangalore. He was involved in raids against illegal cattle transport and even led an attack on alleged cattle smugglers about 45 days before his murder, his father said. Sharan Pumpwell held the Popular Front of India responsible for the murder.

(Harsha Vadlamani is a photographer based in Hyderabad.)

(On the cover of May 2016 issue of Fountain Ink

BY ALIA ALLANA

Areeb Majeed and three other young men from Doodh Naka in Kalyan at the north-eastern edge of  Mumbai, the nowhere land that is part of the extended suburb of the metropolis but far from its imagination, left for Iraq on the night of May 25, 2014.

They left ostensibly for pilgrimage in the war-ravaged country. The plan, however, was to join the Islamic State (IS or ISIS) in Iraq and Syria, a decision that involved months of interaction with the online handlers, financiers and recruiters of the terrorist organisation. Areeb was particularly taken up with a “recruiter” who went by the name Tahira Bhatt on Facebook. He fell in love with her, she spurred him to IS, they even married online, and he dreamt of the glorious fidayeen way with a loving wife to mourn him.

Three months later, Areeb’s father heard the news of his death in an airstrike from Saheem Tanki’s uncle. There was seldom any news of Saheem, Aman Tandel, or Fahad Shaikh, the three other young men from Kalyan who went with Areeb, though unconfirmed reports said Tanki was killed in a separate operation while Fahad sporadically tweeted using the @magnetgas handle.

Tandel, however, was last seen in an IS propaganda video released on May 20.

News of Areeb’s death, widely reported at the time and believed by his family to be true, turned out to be false. He had been injured and presumed dead in an operation, but survived.

What followed was an extraordinary turn of events: Areeb took part in another failed operation, eventually tired of IS and his own failures wanted to return home, somehow convinced IS to allow an exit, crossed over to Turkey, from where Indian security agencies brought him home.

Since his return to India on November 27, 2014, Areeb’s case is being overseen by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) who are charging him under section 125 of the Indian Penal Code among others laws for waging war against an Asiatic Power in Alliance with the government of India.

Areeb has been in Mumbai’s Arthur Road jail since December 17, 2014.

The NIA have interrogated Areeb for hundreds of hours, have a dossier containing transcripts, records of interviews, excerpts from his Facebook messages, and the findings of their investigations.

Fountain Ink has learned from top NIA sources what Areeb told them, which includes details of his journey in Iraq, his life as a foreign IS fighter and his training programmes.

Fountain Ink independently confirmed and corroborated significant parts of the details Areeb gave to NIA through interviews with former ISIS fighters, Kurdish military commanders active in sectors where Areeb was deployed, from the United States Central Command (USCENTCOM) responsible for operations in the Middle East, the governor of Nineveh Province who lived in Mosul at the time it was overrun by IS, and other sources in Iraq and Syria.

What emerges is an insight into life under IS, its war strategy, training modules and the existence of a bureaucracy and record-keeping, a story that echoes the notorious Stasi, erstwhile East Germany’s secret police.

Areeb’s account shines light on IS’s military strength and training, and its administrative nous. It isn’t as good as the myth—there are botched operations aplenty, fighters are poorly trained, and the command structure isn’t too strong despite appearances. What it has is an army of motivated young men ready to kill themselves for a cause. No military strategy can counter that. A tribal leader battling ISIS for 20 months called its soldiers “fucking crazy”, and always “ready to blow themselves up”.

As a fighter Areeb got $50 per month, lived in a shared apartment, had Coca-Cola on tap, and had the option of “sex slaves” after a successful operation by filling in a “female request” form.

Areeb’s time in Iraq and Syria coincided with IS’s most important period of conquest.  He was there when Mosul was captured, when Raqqa transformed itself not just into ISIS’s capital but also the beachhead from where it would expand into Iraq.

This is the war Areeb Majeed witnessed.

 ***

Twenty-two years after he was born in Doodh Naka, Kalyan, Areeb Majeed was reincarnated in the deserts of northern Iraq as Abu Ali al-Hindi.

Seventeen days after his arrival in Iraq, in a small Bedouin settlement deep in the northern Iraqi desert, a man in ISIS uniform took Majeed’s baya’a, his oath pledging allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Caliph of Islamic State. Majeed didn’t even know the real name (Ibrahim Awad Ibrahim al-Badri) of the man to whose cause he pledged to devote his life. Inside a desert mud hut on a summer’s day it didn’t matter. His oath-taker told him that from now on the past was “forgotten”.

Majeed was now the jihadi Abu Ali al-Hindi, a man in search of the eternal bliss that martyrdom promised.

Areeb entered IS’s war on June 7, 2014, by reaching Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city in the Ninveh Province. He had broken away from his party of pilgrims to fulfill his life’s calling. Tahira Bhatt, his Facebook lover and online “handler”, as the NIA calls her, had guided him. She had sent him to the house of Abu Muhammad, an IS sympathiser in Mosul, where despite the American invasion in 2003, al-Qaeda roamed freely.

Abu Muhammad directed Areeb and his three companions from Kalyan to the Sabunji Mosque. He was three hours late picking them up, during which the four had been taken away by police for interrogation. Indians were not uncommon in Mosul, so after some questions the police released them. Abu Muhammad finally showed up in a battered white sedan and escorted them to his house in silence. Later he was merciless, taunting them, testing them.

“Return to India,” he often said. But after observing them he agreed to offer a recommendation, a tazkiya, a letter fighters wanting to the join IS require.

Later Abu Muhammad shifted them to the house of a friend, another Mosul resident and ISIS sympathiser. They were told to not go out. From inside, they heard the sounds of a city collapse around them.

 ***

By the time Areeb arrived in Mosul, Etheel al-Nujaifi, the governor of Nineveh had begun to lose sleep. Unlike most of the world that woke up to the news of IS’s stunning assault on Mosul, Nujaifi had watched the militant organisation gradually take over his city. Trouble started at the end of 2013 in the desert, about 150 km from Mosul in the largely unpopulated expanse known as al-Jazeera where nomadic Bedouins had returned to find their mud huts occupied by ISIS fighters. When they staked ownership, ISIS threatened a blood bath so the Bedouins fled with bad news. The governor was quick to alert the Nineveh Operations Command who owed allegiance not to the largely Sunni province but to the Shia-dominated central government in Baghdad led by Nouri al-Maliki.

“The Nineveh Operations Command said they didn’t have aircraft or machinery to wipe out the camp. Can you believe that?” he said over the phone from Amman, Jordan. A couple of months passed. The governor survived an assassination attempt in February 2014 as “IS-allied local armed militias” targeted his motorcade with an Improvised Explosive Device (IED). After the incident, Nujaifi was restless, paralysed by the recurring nightmare of losing Iraq’s second largest city.

“I made several calls when ISIS arrived in the city on June 4,” said Nujaifi, but the Nineveh Operations Force which was supposed to have 60,000 men had only 20,000. He knew more would be required, and asked for assistance. On June 6, 2014, he was on the phone to Baghdad pleading for reinforcements, but none came. On June 7, when ISIS was charging towards the city the Nineveh Operations Command made a line of defence halfway inside the city. That’s when Nujaifi lost his cool.

He yelled, “You have given away half the city to Daesh (ISIS).”

On June 9 the force caved in. Some guards stripped off their uniforms while others fled leaving millions of dollars worth of American weapons in ISIS hands. Nujaifi pleaded with them to stay.

“They promised they would return in an hour but they were gone,” he says. Local police fought “valiantly and courageously”. The governor tried one last time on June 10, “begging” Baghdad for help. ISIS was pretty much in control but Baghdad, 418 km away remained unaffected. That morning, around 9 a.m., the governor fled to Erbil. Around the same time Areeb was being taken across the desert of al-Jazeera to the camp Nujaifi had warned the Iraqi government about.

 ***

The Abu Al Ansari Takah Training Camp was until recently a Bedouin settlement of about 12 mud huts. It is focused on physical training. “There is light weapons training as well,” said  the governor. In the first week of June 2014, there were about 30 trainee fighters in the camp. According to IS training manuals, among other things, they had to do 50 push-ups at one go. It was in this barren desert that Areeb fired his first shot, took photos with other fighters and spoke to an Englishman whose job was to film life in camp and upload it on Facebook, according to his statement to NIA.

Despite the excitement, he messaged Tahira whenever he could. She promised, as she had done before, that they would meet in Raqqa. With the fall of villages and towns along the Syria-Iraq border Areeb was edging towards her.

On June 18, Abu Muhammad ran his Toyota HiLux through the desert. There were seven men in the back of the truck. Three IS fighters with their faces covered carried AK47s and walkie-talkies. The pick-up cut across Nineveh and for hours there was nothing but the desert and the sound of silence occasionally shattered by a fighter jet.

Enlarge

These deserts were home to nomadic Bedouin who escape the heat of June for cooler pastures but each hill, each valley had a man who would stake tribal claim to the land. In June 2014, as ISIS overran settlements, took over villages, towns and cities it wiped away old histories as well as a line drawn in the sand, the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916. Northern Iraq and northern Syria would be united as the Islamic State just 20 days later.

The desert gave way to the fertile plains of Deir Ezzor, which prior to the war was the centre of cotton cultivation in Syria. The HiLux skirted towns and villages on the banks of the Euphrates. Many had been abandoned. Seven hours later, Areeb read the graffiti on a road sign: Wilayatal Raqqa. He was in the heart of ISIS-controlled territory, a provincial city that would become the capital of the Caliphate.

Someone broke into a nasheed, poetry glorifying the Islamic State:

“The Islamic State has arisen by the blood of the righteous,

The Islamic State has arisen by the jihad of the pious.”

Areeb knew this song well. The truck pulled over opposite a three-storey building, a former school with two floors of basement. It currently houses one of ISIS’s main bureaucracies, the “Hudood Centre” according to Areeb’s account to NIA. The existence of a foreigner registration centre has been independently verified by Fountain Ink through interviews with former fighters, activists in Raqqa,and a reporter in Baghdad, though the name “Hudood Centre” isn’t used. This is where foreign fighter registration and job allocations take place. There were over a couple of hundred people there and the sheer number of languages being spoken boggled Areeb, he told his interrogators.

At first, Areeb relied on Google Translate to communicate but soon an English speaker came over to assist. An interview followed and Areeb was asked several questions. Among the ones he recounted to the investigating officers was,“What do you want to do for the Islamic State?”

“I’ve come here to die for ISIS,” Areeb said but that wasn’t the only reason. Majeed had also come to the Caliphate because that’s where Tahira had promised they would meet.

 ***

The man opposite Areeb demanded his passport and put it in a drawer. Then he spoke to him in Arabic so fast that Areeb couldn’t keep up in Google Translate. “Name,” that’s all he understood. Soon after, a man of about 30 appeared. He said his name was Abu Rami, and Areeb remembered speaking to an Abu Rami introduced by Tahira. It was the same person. He proceeded to ask from a list of 23 questions that ISIS requires all new recruits to answer. The answers go to the “Mujahid Data Form,” also known as the “Hudood Form” processed by the General Border Administration of Islamic State. The questions include “name,” nickname (“kunya”), “the personal connection” that introduced the mujahid to Islamic State as well as a “letter of recommendation.” Areeb had a tazkiya from Abu Mohammed in Mosul. Other questions are: “Level of listening and obedience”, “knowledge of shariah: basic or high,” previous work experience and whether the new recruit has “participated in jihad, if yes, where?”, whether the mujahid is a “fighter (muqatil), or martyr (istishhadi) or a member of ISIS’s shock troops (inghimasi)” and finally, “date of killing and place”.

The architect of the blueprint for a paranoid intelligence state that IS was striving to create was a colonel in the intelligence services of Saddam Hussein’s air defence force. So elusive was Samir Abd Muhammad al-Khlifawi that even his best known alias—Haji Bakr—was largely unknown. He was known as the “Lord of the Shadows.” Few knew Haji Bakr had pulled ISIS strings for the past few years. In 2010 it was he and a group of former Iraqi intelligence officers who appointed Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi the “Caliph” of the Islamic State. After his death, 31 pages of notes were unearthed, consisting not just of battle plans that could be put into place in the anarchic rebel held territories of Syria, but could also serve as an elaborate manual for the invasion of Iraq.

His hand-written notes contained a precise plan for the creation of IS and his actions were driven solely by this goal. Christopher Reuter in Spiegel writes, “There is a simple reason why there is no mention in Bakr’s writing of prophecies relating to the establishment of an Islamic State allegedly ordained by God: He believed that fanatical religious convictions alone were not enough to achieve victory.”

By the time Areeb arrived in Raqqa, IS was taking over buildings that once housed ministries in this former provincial capital. The Mayer building became the main headquarters. The Equestrian Building was a homeland security building, al-Tabqa airbase was used for training purposes and the national hospital treated injured militants.

The Governorate building was the IS command post, the Raqqa Armenian Catholic Church the police HQ, the municipality building a detention facility, the horsemanship building a training centre and the vanguards camp the ammunition warehouse. The 93rd brigade was a training station and a warehouse for weapons and ammunitions. ISIS set up an Islamic courts system; there was a consumer protection office. Not only did it flog and behead people, ISIS also enlisted jihadists to fix potholes.

Raqqa was no longer just a Syrian town and the Syrian Uprising to unseat the government of Bashar al-Assad was no longer the motivating cause. The war for ISIS had moved from Syria into Iraq.

 ***

Abu Rami banged on the door twice. It was nearing dawn and the boys rose to pray. They were given fruits, a packet of juice, and rushed downstairs. Two buses awaited them. About 60 men filed into the bus which took them on a 15-minute ride to a building with a large backyard. Areeb spoke to a few of the gathered men. He was told the largest number of recruits in the foreigner camp came from Tunisia, followed by Egypt. There were a few Europeans, too. Areeb was relieved to speak a few words of English with them.

That was Camp Farouk, one of the many sharia camps (Areeb refers to these as “Sharia Moaskar” during his interrogations) that had opened around Raqqa. There was a mosque abutting the compound where the men were required to pray. Two former IS fighters who had served time in a sharia camp, and whom I interviewed, said in these camps IS offered its perspective of jihad and outlined the basics of the Islamic faith.

“They kept telling us that Islam had been tarnished by Muslims and religious leaders across the world. They were so convincing that we couldn’t help but believe them,” one of them said.

Camp Farouk was a place for an intellectual rebirth into the IS way of thinking for fighters. One book was mandatory reading: each mujahid has to read a second grade textbook, Al Tawhid, which details the duties every Muslim must know. Despite the sanctity of sharia (Islamic law), fatwas were issued to back claims that suited the war.

The modules in each class were based on a strict reading of Takfiri ideology—which al-Qaeda is well known for—that viewed any other interpretation of Islam as apostasy. ISIS teachers relied heavily on the word of Ibn-i-Tamiyyah, a 13th century scholar who was one of the founders of the ultra-orthodox Salafist school that proposes a return to the original ways of Islam. Literature by Muhammad-ibn-Abd-al-Wahhab, the 18th century Salafist scholar, the Saudi founder of Wahhabism, featured prominently and his Book of the Unity and Unique Oneness of Allah is an essential text for jihadis worldwide.

Trainers kept tabs on recruits’ understanding of the philosophy of Islamic State and presented them with an IS manifesto titled “The Management of Savagery/Chaos” by Abu Bakr Naji written a decade ago for the Mesopotamian wing of al-Qaeda that would become IS. Classes on contemporary politics offer comparisons and lessons from Chechnya and Afghanistan. The sharia camps are even stocked with English encyclopedias of jihad that the mujahids of Aghanistan have prepared, such as the journal al-Battar. Present in the camp are writings from Salafi jihadist military thinkers such as Abu Ubayd al-Quraishi.

Interactive classes on Islamic creed (aqida), rules of interpretation (usul at tafsir) and jurisprudence (fiqh) are held in the afternoon and books published by an IS ministry in Raqqa serve to explain the imperative obligations upon Muslims and fighters.

Areeb recalled the lecturers being charismatic. He was convinced by their rhetoric. There must have been a couple of hundred people at different stages of training, Areeb told the NIA. “Different people used to give different lectures on different topics of sharia,” and the day before Camp Farouk concluded there was an exam. Areeb passed despite most of the lectures being in Arabic, he told the NIA.

 ***

At the end of the day, on June 2, 2014 the group was moved to Camp Fallujah, 15  minutes away (he told the officers it was called “Moaskar Fallujah”). The days were spent in relative peace. There were programmes where religion was discussed and the camp lay near the Euphrates so fighters were free to swim in the day. This was ideal since water supply was limited and the mujahid were allowed to shower only on Friday prior to prayers.

Soon after the last prayer of the day, in the dead of night, out came the guns. Camp Fallujah, the second stage in the making of an IS fighter, was a place for military training (tadrib askari). Areeb learned how to handle an AK-47 and was given machine gun training. The recruits were taught about vantage positions and other war exercises. This is the combat, engagement, movement, camouflage and military plans phase.

The physical training would start at 10 p.m. and conclude at 3 a.m. In between classes there were small breaks for fruit and juice. This ended on July 15-16.

Areeb was then taken to the third place, another 15 minutes away, Abd Azzam Camp in Tabqa on July 16. Sources in the Syrian Ministry of Interior told Fountain Ink that about 25 miles from Raqqa, near Tabqa Dam is a “foreigners’ camp”. Recruits are separated according to language and different sheikhs (leaders) take turns to speak to the fighters. According to Areeb’s account people from the US, Tunisia, Europe, and Chechnya are among those present.

“It is easy to know who is European and who is Syrian even if the faces are covered and they don’t utter a word. The foreigners get the best deal,” says a former ISIS fighter. The battle-hardened Chechens and Kazaks form the elite special force leading regular cadres into battle. “They are seen as the real mujahid and command respect,” said the former fighter.

At Azzam Camp, Areeb was taught about land mines, IEDs, handling of snipers and close combat. His instructor was a masked man. Areeb once saw him without the mask: a slight man with a small beard and no moustache, no taller than 5’6”, Areeb told investigators. Most of the trainers came from Syria, Egypt, Tunisia and Jordan.

On the last day of training Areeb wore blue jeans and a black scarf and was given his own AK-47 and 30 rounds. He was also given a walkie-talkie that he was required to carry at all times. There was a lot of excitement as recruits awaited the arrival of Abu Nasir, the emir of the training camp. He gave a concluding speech and held closed-door meetings with the trainers to decipher which of the new recruits was suitable for war and who would be a part of civilian arm of the Islamic State. Fahad, Saheem and Areeb initially decided to be martyrs (fidayeen) but Fahad got cold feet and backed out. Saheem, who didn’t know how to drive, wasn’t a part of the fidayeen who are required at times to drive explosive-laden cars. Areeb was the only fidayeen.

 ***

He was as ready as ISIS could make him, a graduate from a crash training course from the Islamic State School of War. When he reported to the Hudood Centre on July 29 he spent four days living in the old school until he was assigned living quarters. Life in the Islamic State was mundane. He continued to Skype call Tahira, and when she didn’t respond he messaged her on Facebook frequently. He had been moved to an apartment block which he shared with four other people. Upon graduation each fighter gets a walkie-talkie that he can use to call for whatever he needs. The kitchen and fridge were almost always stocked and Coca Cola was on tap. It could be delivered at any hour.

He was assigned to assist an American who had a plan to make Raqqa a free WiFi city.  Saheem was sent to Rabi’a, on the Syria-Iraq border for guard duty and walkie-talkie repair, Fahad went to Tabqa in northern Syria to work in a garage as a mechanical engineer, and Aman remained in Raqqa working in the electrical department. The plan for a free WiFi city was abandoned as it made little sense to take away one of the last sources of income for the people of Raqqa. “There were Internet cafes every few metres,” according to Areeb’s account to the investigators.

All this while, he sent Tahira regular messages. Just a month earlier, they would talk for hours on end, the messages so frequent that he struggled to understand her disappearance. Days went by without a word and when it finally came it was short: Tahira said she was going to Palestine on a suicide mission. He heard nothing from her after this. Areeb began to worry that she had died. He messaged her saying he was ready to die, too, but Romeo and Juliet in the Islamic State isn’t quite as poetic; even the ultimate sacrifice had to wait. There was a long list of people ahead of him who wanted to die.

***

Islamic State has a “martyrdom operation” form issued by the mujahideen affairs department. It includes the date of the operation, and reason for the attack at that particular place. There is a section dedicated to the person’s will. Another form includes the distribution of gain, booty from the battle, with information on the mujahid’s mission in “the invasion” and the place of battle. For the mujahid there is even a sex slave application the fighter is entitled to after an operation. For this he must submit a “female request” form. He has to specify the number of women he wants and it must be signed off by the battalion Emir, according to a source in the Syrian Ministry of Interior.

Areeb occasionally spoke to his family in India. “They regularly pleaded with him to return home,” says a family friend. His sister would soon be married, his father said. The constant barrage of reporters had tarnished the family’s reputation in Doodh Naka, they said. But Areeb remained steadfast, desperate to die for the cause.

There was a long list of istishhadi (suicide bombers) ahead of him. To blow oneself up in the name of Allah in Syria was of greater value than to die elsewhere, Areeb told his interrogators, but the waiting list meant he would have to live for months. An alternative had opened up, though. As Syria became a war of attrition with ISIS, rebels and Bashar al-Assad, a new front had opened. Iraq was heating up and so he chose to be a martyr in Iraq largely because the line to heaven there was shorter.

***

“Be ready after Fajr (dawn prayer),” was all the Emir of his battalion ordered the night before. On the night of August 3, 2014, Areeb packed a small bag. In the morning he sat in the back of a bus with six Iraqi fighters. That’s when he learnt they were returning to Iraq, back to where it had all started for Areeb.

Since his departure, ISIS had gone from victory to victory. It was the most violent demise of the Sykes-Picot line. For ISIS, control over Nineveh province as well as northern Syria was crucial in order to legitimise its claim as a state with territory. It did not matter that large parts of Nineveh were uninhabited.

In June 2014, ISIS’ propaganda and media arm went into overdrive, posting videos of fighters clad in black racing across the desert unhindered, taking control of village after village on the border. Videos circulated of fighters burning passports, reducing nationalities to ashes. But guarding parts of the border were men and women from the Kurdish Army. The storied fighters of the Peshmerga had been agitating for a state of their own for decades. They put up a fight ISIS never expected. Soon they were all over the news, their successes televised on al-Jazeera and their online campaign #TwitterKurd trending for weeks. Little did Areeb know he would face them in battle.

The bus came to a halt at a sparsely populated town. Once he’d been taken to a safe house he learnt its name, Ba’aj, the ideal base as it lay on a transit point between Mosul and Raqqa. Right on the border with a population of no more than 5,000, it was small enough to be monitored. There are reports that Baghdadi used this as his primary hideout and was even injured in a raid there.

In the evening, after the men had dinner at the safe house and readied to sleep, it was hit in an airstrike.  Areeb was hurt in the leg but it was just a flesh wound. A few hours later, he and the other fighters were on a bus to Mosul.

Two months after he had first arrived, Areeb returned to a different Mosul on August 4. There were check points every few metres and the black and white ISIS banner hung on the facades of damaged buildings. Posters prescribed proper attire for women, and women on the streets were covered from head to toe. Areeb learnt that the popular Friday market had been moved to Thursday and schools were shut. Areeb and the others were taken to a temporary residence for fidayeen near Mosul University. It was then he learnt of the long queue to die, even in Iraq. On August 8 a sense of doom prevailed in the fidayeen barracks: the Americans had entered the war.

This changed things. People started accusing each other of being a spy, and on one occasion even Areeb was asked if he was gathering intelligence to sell. The emir started acting erratically. On August 14, Areeb was moved to another location, a villa in the city. Mosul reeled under ISIS paranoia as universities remained shut. A new curriculum without history and arts was in place. Thousands of people dashed out of the city to the relative security of Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan.

ISIS carried out a bloodbath in Mosul. People were indiscriminately rounded up and shot. ISIS ruled through fear and terror. Any association with the government in Baghdad brought a person automatically into the crosshairs. Mingling with the opposite sex was no longer an option. Men and women caught together were flogged. Often Areeb thought of Tahira and he continued to try to contact her while waiting for his suicide mission.

***

His turn came on August 22, 2014, just two days after ISIS was kicked out of Mosul Dam by an offensive launched by the Peshmerga, Iraqi forces and the US Air Force. Areeb’s emir rushed to him twice that night and was very excited, Areeb recalled to his interrogators. They stayed up late and the emir briefed him about the plan three times. “Recapturing Mosul Dam was the main topic of conversation in the barracks,” recalls a former ISIS fighter interviewed for this story.

Areeb’s mission as an istishhadi (suicide bomber) was to drive an explosive-laden car close to the Peshmerga who guarded the entrance to the dam and blow himself up. He spent a large part of the night thinking about the drive and planning his route. There was no space for failure, no option to make a mockery of his uniform. He would drive 45 minutes from where the car stood to the guards at the dam.

That night as he dozed off Areeb heard the sound of jets. In the morning he heard an important news: The car he was to drive to his death had been “destroyed in an American airstrike,” Areeb told his interrogators.

The Americans were watching as vigilantly as possible, as they had done in the past. Years of engagement in Iraq had given them a better understanding of the enemy and the importance of a tight network of informers.

“If the American generals saw weapons being loaded, if they had a locator on the car bomb factories where explosives are packed into cars, they would attack. This can be as small as a garage but these sorts of locations are high on the list of intelligence targets so it is highly possible they see a vehicle emerge from one of them,” says Peter Mansoor who served as the executive officer to General David Petraeus during the Iraq war, particularly during the troop surge of 2007.

Based on the information Fountain Ink received from CentComm, in charge of Operation Inherent Resolve, there was activity on August 22-23. On both days the US military conducted airstrikes around Mosul Dam with the support of “Iraqi Security Force operations, using fighter and attack aircraft,” according to a CentComm spokesperson.

On August 22, “The strikes destroyed two ISIL armed vehicles and a machine gun emplacement firing on Iraqi forces. All aircraft exited the strike area safely. And on August 23, the US military carried out one strike. It destroyed an ISIL vehicle and all aircraft exited safely, ” the spokesperson said in an email reply.

It is not possible to verify if one of the “ISIL vehicles” hit by the US airstrikes was Areeb’s car.

Life in the barracks had toughened Areeb and there was no time to spare. So his emir decided to send him to Tal Afar, an Iraqi town on the road to Raqqa, on August 23 to train as inghimasi, (the elite special forces/suicide squad).

***

On the third day of fighting in Anbar province in August 2014, Abu Muhammad, a fighter from the storied Jughayfa tribe, thought he was losing his mind. Running towards him were five fighters, dressed in black kurta-pyjama, a style known as the Kandahar look, like “ninjas on steroids”. They wore balaclavas and a cloth around the head with the Islamic State slogan. All carried automatic weapons, a number of magazines, hand grenades and wore an explosive belt. That was the first time he saw the dreaded inghimasi IS shock troop suicide bombers.

“Those fuckers aren’t afraid to blow themselves up when surrounded or captured,” he said. That was the first he contemplated throwing his weapons and running away. He saw them twice after. The aim of the inghimasi is simple: inflict the largest number of losses and not fall prisoner.

Abu Muhammed said:“The inghimasi, they give me the creeps,” on a WhatsApp call from Hadita, Iraq. He saw the war morph over two years of fighting and just when he thought he had “seen it all, gut eating and beheadings”, the inghimasi appeared. His first encounter was in the second half of 2014.

We spoke late one night after he had returned from a three-day fight against IS. “Some say they’re courageous, the bravest men ISIS has but I think they’re foolish,” he said. The more he spoke about them, the angrier he got, accusing them of violating the most basic practices in battles.

“They fight without tactics, without a care in the world,” he said. The inghimasi are armed with as many weapons as they can carry and just “shoot, shoot, shoot, they don’t even look to see where they aim,” he said.

Their role is to create a bridge head within enemy territory and then to storm the fortified positions. The inghimasi usually operate in a group accepting death as a possibility and the truly motivated “perform a martyrdom operation”, during the course of the raid. Unlike the istishhadi, who are suicide bombers, the inghimasi are highly trained in the use of weapons or are more capable behind the wheels than “F1 drivers”, he said.

Unlike Abu Muhammad, Lt. General Jabar Yawar, secretary-general in the Ministry of the Peshmerga felt the same about the inghimasi as he did about pests. He had studied their strategy: “Inghimasi come first as a diversion and then the main ISIS forces come in.”

The inghimasi were increasing in number. More and more suicide shock troops appeared on the scene. In the conversations Yawar, who spoke to me on the phone from Erbil, was keen to point out that despite ISIS’ lazy tactics, progress in the field had been made. The Peshmerga had managed to repel them. They had strengthened their battle lines with long-range anti-tank guided missiles. They dug trenches, used night vision binoculars and trained snipers, gathered accurate intelligence and were able to thwart the inghimasi.

When Areeb finally faced the Peshmerga on August 26, he carried “AK47, 300 rounds of ammunition, PKC machine gun, RPG, 1,000 rounds of PKC ammunition, Glock 19 (pistol), 50 cartridges of 9 mm and a knife”, according to an officer at the NIA.  He was part of a group of 11 who charged upon Mosul Dam. He was shot in the battle and fell unconscious, according to his statement to NIA. When I asked about fighting between Peshmerga and ISIS on the day of Areeb’s injury, Yawar said they did face foreign fighters near Mosul Dam. “Peshmerga faced foreigner militias and fighters but since they didn’t have IDs we couldn’t check who we were fighting. But it was obvious they were from different countries,” he said.

Foreign fighters and native recruits, then, receive different assignments. According to senior officials engaged in battle with IS in northern Syria who spoke on condition that they not be named, “Foreigners are seen fighting during the first wave of attacks. They are of less value militarily. Local Arab forces, meanwhile, are used to shore up defensive positions. Pushing them out to die isn’t a wise strategy as it alienates the locals.”

A general in the Iraqi Army said something similar of fighting in Nineveh province. “We often see foreign fighters in the first wave. Arab fighters come in after an area is cleared.” Suicide bombers play a “critical role” in IS attacks and are “dominated by foreign fighters.”

Areeb’s memory of the fight is hazy. He doesn’t remember when he got shot but he recalls he’d been fighting for a while. “Some brothers” picked him up and carried him to a hospital in Tal Afar. When they left his body, they thought he was dead. When they reconnected with the other three Indians the fighters told them Areeb was gone.

News of his death travelled fast and wide. Banners online celebrated him as a martyr; ISIS fanboys called him a “brother from India,” while his family broke down in Kalyan. “What is left to say?” his father once asked me in his clinic in Doodh Naka.

Just a few hours after the news, Tahira Bhatt reappeared in the guise of a widow. “My husband, Abu Ali al Hindi, is shaheed,” she stated on her Facebook. She wasn’t dead after all.

***

Tahira, however, wasn’t sure of her widowhood. She messaged Areeb on September 2, 2014:  “Are you in the heart of the green bird or in Mosul camp?” The green bird reference is romanticism of martyrdom. A hadith (a saying attributed to Prophet Mohammad) goes: “The souls of the martyrs live in the bodies of green birds who have their nests in chandeliers hung from the throne of the Almighty. They eat the fruits of Paradise from wherever they like and then nestle in these chandeliers.”

Tahira wanted to know if her “love” was dead or alive. That was her last message to him.

Areeb lay unconscious in Tal Afar Hospital and woke to chaos around him. In those days it was operating at maximum capacity and the head doctor had declared a state of emergency as the Peshmerga, assisted by US airstrikes, took territory back from ISIS. All hospital staff were ordered to report for duty everyday as the injured kept mounting and the morgue had no more space for the dead, according to local sources in Tal Afar. Areeb remained at the hospital for eight days. For one month he was inactive, recuperating.

That month saw ISIS lose large chunks of territory and crucial supply routes closed down. ISIS had gained control over Rabi’a, on the Iraq-Syria border,in May 2014 and used the highway between Rabi’a and Mosul, 70 km away, to transport fighters, weapons and supplies between the two countries.

ISIS control over Rabi’a was threatened, and as soon as Areeb was fit to fight he was ordered to drive a car laden with explosives to Rabi’a on 23 September and kill some of the Kurdish forces. As he neared them, the Kurds realised he was a fidayeen and started firing. So relentless was the stream of bullets that Areeb was injured in the upper arm and his car battered. Yet he kept driving, away from the Kurds and towards an ISIS check point. They gave him basic treatment and moved him to Tal al-Hawa, a hamlet along the border to which ISIS had retreated, on October 3, 2014.

When he returned to his base beating himself up about the failure, his emir said,  “There is no point in detonating the bomb unless he (Areeb) is sufficiently close to the target,” he told his interrogators.

***

At Tal al-Hawa, ISIS continued to hold considerable presence. It was quiet, nondescript and had only become relevant because of the fighting around it. As ISIS retreated, it clung desperately to what it could. Areeb received treatment in the hospital in Tal al-Hawa and upon his release was put under the command of Abu Sadiq, a local warlord. On October 9, several days after his arm had healed the Kurds launched a surprise attack. Abu Sadiq fled leaving 13 fighters. They kept firing until they ran out of the ammunition and were then just waiting to die.

“That was a turning point for Areeb,” says one of his principal interrogators. He felt deserted. The fighters waited for help, but got a message from Abu Sadiq on the walkie-talkie, ordering them to retreat for there was no winning this fight.

Areeb was taken to a small clinic on the road to Mosul, and finally admitted to Mosul General Hospital on October 10, 2014 to treat a wound that had festered. He was there seven days. Once he had recovered the emir ordered him back to the fighters’ accommodation near the university.

By now life was getting desperate in Mosul. There were severe shortages of food and water, and the local economy had collapsed. The private sector had all but stopped and government-funded projects were on hold, reported the Guardian in October 2014. Just four months had passed since Areeb had signed the “hudood form” but the price of kerosene had trebled.

The loss of the border crossing at Rabi’a to the Kurds, in several battles—in which Areeb had been injured—meant a crucial supply route was gone. “When ISIS was in charge of Rabi’a the price of a kilo of tomato was 250 dinar. Two weeks on, the price had increased to 1,500 dinar,” the Guardian reported. There was just two hours of electricity every four days. For the first time since Saddam Hussein had introduced government rations of sugar, rice, cooking oil and flour, the people of Mosul were without.

Christians and other minorities had fled the city. It was when Areeb heard about the mass rape of Yazidi women that he first felt hatred towards ISIS. There were public beheadings and shootings and imams were forced to pledge allegiance to Baghdadi. All the while ISIS was attacked by US planes and over the summer Iraqi jets bombed its military positions. Fighters sought refuge in residential areas such as the Bab Nargal neighbourhood where it had a compound near Mosul University.

That’s where Areeb started asking his commanders to make arrangements for him to travel back to Raqqa. But they were too preoccupied with the war. He told them he would make his own way and boarded a civilian truck to Raqqa. Upon arrival, he registered at the Hudood Centre and went to work for the “Tasniya”, the Ministry of Defence and Development.

Other foreign fighter testimonies echo similar dissatisfaction as desertion became more common. With losses mounting, foreign fighters were getting disillusioned. Abu Musab al-Tunisi followed a path similar to Areeb’s. “I joined the leader of the border region so they could see my ‘recommendation’ tazkiya… When I arrived they took my personal details and asked, do you want to register as a fighter, inghimasi or suicide bomber?” He chose to be a fighter but was appalled at ISIS’ mismanagement. They didn’t tell him who he was fighting or where, and when a squadron was formed, only half the men were given weapons.

In the end it was the infighting and ISIS’ desire to be above all other fighters that led him to desert. “We went to the rooftop and started firing not knowing what’s going on. If I knew this was Nusra, (one of the main rebel groups fighting the Syrian government) I would not have fought. We are fighting our brothers and many of the brothers in ISIS are good but deceived by their leaders. Some of them want to tarnish the image of jihad,” he said.

***

Back in Raqqa, Areeb tried to settle into life in the Caliphate. He had work in the tasniya (ministry) but the leadership suspected everyone. People were being picked up on suspicion of spying. Even Areeb was accused. He was also devastated at being unable to die. When he finally ran into Saheem and Fahad, they were shocked to see him alive. He called his parents and they begged him to return. That night Areeb performed an istikhara, and in that period of intense devotion and prayer, he sought guidance from Allah on one question. Should he go or should he stay?

The following morning, he had made his mind up. He would return to India.

Areeb asked for a “dismissal”. His emir agreed and gave him an exit letter. His total pay as a fighter for ISIS from June-November, including “injury compensation” and an Eid bonus was $2,000. He stuffed the money and his belongings in a backpack and on November 25, 2014 turned his back on the Islamic State.

He took one of the main smuggling routes from Syria to Turkey with two other fighters: to Jarabulus and onwards into Gaziantep from where he took a bus to Istanbul. The Indian consulate waited for his arrival, his father had already told the Maharasthra ATS that his son was on his way back. The consulate issued an emergency travel certificate, and minutes after he landed at Chatrapati Shivaji Airport, he was picked up by ATS who handed him over to NIA that very night.

“ISIS just let you go?” the authorities asked. This was their first question and they couldn’t get their head around it. But Areeb had returned to be de-martyred.

***

“Kaun aa ra hai? (Who is coming?)” asked the constable on duty at the sessions court on Novemeber 29. Broadcast vans had lined around Oval Maidan in Mumbai and journalists waited outside to get a glimpse of Areeb Majeed. His arrival was unceremonious. The elevator went up to the seventh floor and Areeb emerged in the “Kandahar look”.  A black veil covered his face. When it was removed in front of a room full of hungry reporters, Areeb looked like any other boy. Even after he put on his black beanie, like ISIS fighters wear, he betrayed no sign of trying to kill people just a few months ago. “He is thinner now and darker,” his uncle said.

By the time of his second visit, the crowd of reporters had thinned out and Areeb looked more withdrawn. He had a lawyer with experience representing terror suspects and the lawyer pronounced Areeb “not guilty” before the magistrate. When Areeb spoke in the courtroom, his voice was just above a whisper: “Please take me out of solitary confinement,” he said.

At the end of the hearing, the lawyer sought the judge’s permission for Areeb to meet his family. The judge agreed. Areeb’s mother, sister and father were sitting on the bench in the back of the room. Areeb shook his father’s hand and then they embraced. He then moved to his mother. She stood up, and as she looked at her son she cried. “Kis mein phas gaya tu? (What have you got yourself into?),” she asked.

(The cover story of June 2016 edition of Fountain Ink)

BY SUBRATA BISWAS

For a bureaucrat sitting in Delhi, Purulia, located in the eastern part of Chotanagpur plateau is yet another backward place. The region, which was earlier known as Junglemahal district owing to its vast forest cover, saw a new district, Manbhum, carved out in 1833. In 1956 Manbhum district was partitioned between Bihar and West Bengal. According to the 2011 census, Purulia has a population of 29.3 lakh out of which 87.26 per cent are in rural areas. Purulia has a sex ratio of 957, and a literacy rate of 64.48 per cent. Almost 40 per cent of the population is considered socially excluded. About 21 per cent of them are scheduled castes and 24 per cent are scheduled tribes.

Purulia suffers from poverty, lack of safe drinking water, health centres, connectivity in interior areas, sanitary latrines, and has poor educational standards for children.

Growing up in the idyllic countryside of Bengal, I have often found myself caught in unease while inhabiting urban cityscapes. The city engulfed the large canvas of boundless sky, silent moments of my home, noisy wings of the pigeons, my innocence and dreamy nights. During my several visits to Purulia, I became overwhelmed by the diversity in its landscape, people, and their rich  culture. But for the average resident of Purulia, the sufferings in daily life are plenty. Earning a livelihood is a distant dream for many. The pebbly nature of the soil, and lack of abundant rainfall makes it a single-crop territory. Migration rates from the district are high.

(Subrata Biswas is a painter and photographer based in Kolkata)

(From the June 2016 edition of Fountain Ink)

BY ARPIT PARASHAR

Suman Lata and Sonia are in their mid-twenties and their parents are worried for their future in their chosen sport, kabaddi. Their anxieties revolve around marriage proposals, which have been fewer in the past year. This is Nada village near Narnaund town in Haryana’s Hisar district, where sport is not just about the playing field, but also the means to a government job. But the competition has seen a steady increase over the past decade, when the state government almost doubled the funding in sports, recognising it as a cultural lifeline.

Kabaddi, a sport with a dedicated following in the Indian countryside, spread like wild fire as every budding player who did well at the local level aimed for a government job by either cracking the national team or winning medals for the state at national events. Suman and Sonia are part of the same culture of rural Haryana, hoping for Class III or Class IV government jobs.

“It makes sure that apart from farming they move up in life and achieve something for their state or country as well as become the financial pillars of their families,” says Guru Ram, who coached the two in school.

Suman participated in the Kabaddi World Cup held in Punjab in 2011 and 2013, while Sonia was part of the Indian women’s team in 2012. It makes them eligible for Class III jobs. But they have been denied, the reason cited being that the league, or the Kabaddi World Cup as it was called then, was no longer recognised by the International Kabaddi Federation (IKF).

The young women have approached the Punjab and Haryana high court for help. They feel they will get their jobs, but government policy has changed since.

A senior state sports ministry official, who didn’t want to be named, said, “The numbers of sportspersons are so many now that the government is out of options even in terms of posts it can create to accommodate them in the system. That is the reason we have rejected several applications in the past few years.”

Suman and Sonia expect the court to come to their rescue. Their real reason for hope, however, is the drastic change in the fortunes of men’s kabaddi ever since the Pro Kabaddi League (PKL) came into existence in 2014.

“The coaches and even the men who have participated say the league for women is not far away and that the success of this year’s (third after 2014 and 2015) edition (held in February-March) has sparked talk of a women’s league too since female audiences have also increased regularly,” says Suman Lata.

As per the broadcasters Star Sports, around 435 million viewers watched the PKL in its first edition in 2014. They claim that almost half were women. That’s more than 215 million, a figure even popular television soaps would find hard to better.

The two are also enthused by an announcement from the league’s organisers—sports management company Mashal Sports and broadcaster Star Sports—that women would be encouraged to be a part of the fourth season. The league has started training camps across the country, encouraging young women from poor and rural backgrounds to take up the sport.

The organisers have decided to hold the league twice annually from this year. The fourth season started within four months of the third winding up, on June 25.

Even though women’s kabaddi at the international level started only in 2010, Suman and Sonia say they are physically and technically ready to show the professionalism men display in the game since the launch of PKL. This optimism epitomises the leaps that kabaddi has taken in just a few years.

PKL has surpassed the revenues generated by Hockey India League (HIL) and football’s Indian Super League (ISL), organisers say, while the critics have had to eat their words on its future when it started in 2014.

***

Mashal Sports is run by commentator Charu Sharma, the brain behind the idea of a kabaddi league. His company first approached broadcaster Star Sports, after which proposals went out to probable investors a few years before the league was to become a reality. Star had previous experience in league formation, having launched HIL and ISL in collaboration with government run sporting bodies.

In case of kabaddi, too, the International Kabaddi Federation (IKF)and the Asian Kabaddi Federation as well as the Amateur Kabaddi Federation of India came on board.

“The structure for players already existed and at local levels the game had immense following because of which everyone was eager to come on board,” says Janardan Singh Gehlot, president of the IKF.

Apart from the state federations and national teams there is a deep reach of the game at the amateur level. Villages and towns have their own clubs which participate in local competitions.

Star Sports, a part of 20th Century Fox network, has a 76 per cent ownership in PKL, and broadcasts the games to more than 100 countries, while the involvement of the International Kabaddi Federation encouraged other countries to allow their players to participate in the league.

“All players come through amateur federations in the beginning. Those who graduate to the state and national levels then move to the greener pastures of national competitions while others stay at the amateur level,” says Rakesh Kumar, former captain of the Indian kabaddi team and the highest paid player in the first edition of the PKL in 2014.

There is no real money at the amateur level; it is the passion for the sport that drives the men. This ready pool of players is what the organisers tapped into when PKL started. Based on recommendations of coaches and local performances amateur players were called for auctions along with those affiliated to KFI or state federations. After that, it is the experience that a team brings into its ranks in the form of coaches and support staff that helps it bid for and buy players.

For this, teams send their support staff and experts to scout talent in the amateur competitions in various states. For example, local administration in every district in Uttar Pradesh organises a kabaddi competition annually in the rural areas where the best players take part.

Mohit Chaudhary, a young player who joined PKL last year is a product of such competitions in Bijnor, also the home town of star player Rahul Chaudhary.

Since the league began, even local competitions have picked up and sponsors in the form of businessmen and industrialists have started coming forward. Attendance has grown manifold and players compete hard as a good performance gives them a chance to enter PKL.

From the present season, for example, all eight PKL teams have been allowed to pick and train three upcoming players in the age group 18-22 alongside their squads under a contract for two years. As a result of these initiatives the total pool of players up for auction for the fourth season rose to 198, of whom 96 players were finally selected.

As the PKL has gained popularity pay for players has gone up many-fold. A well-known player normally got Rs 1-2 lakh in top national or regional competitions. This season, Mohit Chhillar, the highest paid player in India was auctioned at Rs 53 lakh. Senior players like Jagmer Singh Gulia and Jeeva Kumar were bought by their teams for Rs 35.5 lakh and Rs 40 lakh respectively, while youngster Sandeep Narwal, who played a major role in the Patna Pirates becoming champion in the third season, was bought by Telugu Titans for Rs 45.5 lakh.

Player lifestyles have been transformed since the money came in.

Manpreet Singh, the victorious Patna Pirates captain, put himself through a rigorous aerobics programme and diet schedule to shed excess weight. “The league treats us differently and we are paid well apart from becoming known around the country. I come from a farming family and with the money from the league I aim to have my 10-year-old son educated well and take care of my family’s future.”

This increase in bidding for players has happened as a result of growing incomes for the teams, made possible by widespread viewership. From 435 million in 2014, viewership increased 20 per cent in the next season. It increased by a further 35 per cent in the third season according to the broadcaster Star Sports. In the fourth it is expected to grow further.

The total money bid in the fourth season by teams was Rs 12.8 crore and is expected to almost double in the new season, now underway. Sponsorships have also increased four-fold since the first season, as per the ESP Properties-SportzPower report on sports sponsorships in India, released earlier this year.

***

India claims that kabaddi was developed and mastered by the people of the  subcontinent—a combination of team athletics and techniques derived from wrestling which were both relevant in ancient times and helped prepare rural folk for warfare. The seven-member structure of the teams is supposed to have been derived from the battle formation in Mahabharata known as the chakravyuh, in which the Kauravas formed a seven-structured attack to entrap and kill Abhimanyu.

Iran, however, claims the sport as its own, and contends that Persian traders were the ones who spread it to the subcontinent. If competitions over the past decade are to be taken into account, Iran surely has given India a run for its money in three successive Asian games from 2006 to 2014 where title matches have been closely fought between the two nations, India barely managing to win on all the occasions. This was a deviation from the four earlier one when the team sailed through to the gold medals.

Pakistan has been the next most successful team, beating India in the final of Asian Kabaddi Championship earlier this year to take the title for the second time.

Ever since it was introduced in the Asian Games in 1990, where India won gold, countries like Japan and Korea along with other subcontinent nations like Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have risen in stature and are now considered worthy opponents. England, with a large Indian diaspora, Spain, Argentina, many African countries and America have taken up kabaddi.

***

The growing popularity of the sport across the world prompted the Punjab government’s sports department under the patronage of Sukhbir Singh Badal to fund, invite sponsors and run the Kabaddi World Cup on a grand scale in 2010. Actors like Shahrukh Khan, Katrina Kaif and others performed at the opening ceremonies. But the tournament was not held last year, due to what many in the fraternity say was lack of political patronage from the Badals.

The tournament also suffered a huge setback after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) began a probe into the multiple scam-tainted Pearl Group which sponsored four editions of the competition from 2011-2014 and paid Rs 14 crore to the Punjab government as sponsorship fees. While the government claims the money paid was as part of a legal contract, CBI is also investigating whether a sum of close to Rs 6 crore was paid as bribes by the group to officials.

Another factor that was against the self-proclaimed World Cup was that the competition was held in the old style played in circular fields, where both sides have semi-circular halves, and that most of the players were either wrestlers or overweight athletes who play kabaddi on the side.

While it kindled public interest and sustained itself for the first few years, the long and boring format, where wrestling skills mattered more than athleticism, eventually told against it. When the competition was called off in August last year some players too got disillusioned.

***

Patna Pirates’ Manpreet Singh was a regular at the “World Cup” till last year. He was to participate in the fourth edition of the tournament which did not take place. It was then that he says he decided to shift to PKL.

The wrestle-mania format of the previous competition took its toll on him. He weighed 130 kg in August whereas the limit for PKL is 85 kg. In the six months he had before the season three, he reduced his weight to 84 kg—some 46 kg lighter.

“I used to weigh around 100-105 kg and gained weight only for the kabaddi competitions and some local wrestling matches,” he says at a hotel in Delhi where his team recently toured for practice sessions. Being overweight helps deter throw-downs or pushovers in wrestling and kabaddi and so it helped. He was a member of the team that won the Asian Kabaddi Championship in 2000 but was dropped in 2012 when performance started to dip.

When Patna Pirates approached him, he started training at the Sonepat Sports Hostel for at least six hours every day to reduce weight. “More players are now reducing weight and getting fit. The professionalism PKL has brought in has worked like a magnet for many retired players as well as budding players,” he says.

There is a darker side to the story that few players talk about: many have found jobs as sports coaches or martial artists and left the game while others have also taken to drugs and are either dead or have disappeared from the scene.

“I have heard a lot about players who suddenly disappeared from the domestic circuit. But since I am from Punjab I can say that it is not confined to kabaddi. Every sport has its share of people losing their grip on life and making wrong choices. At least now every player has a future since PKL gives them a competitive platform to try their luck and skills.”

The Indian team under coaches like Honnappa C Gowda, who was also the coach of Delhi Dabang in PKL, kept winning tournaments and medals including at the Commonwealth Games. Countries like Canada and UK also sent competitive teams, comprised mostly of South Asian expatriates.

“We have never had a dearth of talent in the country. State governments as well as central government departments and the security forces have nurtured players for a long time now. Our success has meant that more players have started taking the sport seriously,” he says.

The shorter courts, 13X10 metres, and focus on players who are fit while having trained in kabaddi and wrestling techniques has also helped the newer format pick up popularity over the last decade. “Players are now fitter and there is a bar on their weight (85 kg) which means the days when flabby wrestlers could also compete are gone.”

***

The growing popularity of the game in its mud court avatar in the hinterland as well as on the mat in the indoor format prompted the owners of Mashal Sports to think of a league on the lines of the IPL. It was an instant hit—among the owners of the eight teams in the league are Bollywood personalities like Abhishek Bachchan and Ronnie Screwvala. For the urbanites it was a way of connecting back to the game.

“The most important reason is that it is a contact sport which requires both power and tactics. So a person with either one will not succeed but a person with a balance of both will be successful. This attracts children and adults alike. One cannot physically hurt the other person so even a weak guy can earn a point. It is a more balanced sport than any,” says Gowda. What has also made it popular in schools is that it does not require any equipment, and is easy to understand.

The sport also has a quality to produce heroes, an essential trait for selling it to the masses. Sangam Kumar, a former coach of Haryana who now teaches students in Sonepat, says, “You feel like it is a battlefield, and that is how it was designed in the first place. One man enters the arena of the other alone and his team starts moving and thinking like him, pushing him on. It is that effect which keeps everyone hooked. This is why villages organise competitions among each other.”

In Haryana, often small fights between communities and villages are resolved with the panchayats holding kabaddi matches at times to declare who holds the upper hand—a show of strength, he says. After the match a community meal is organised and issues are amicably resolved by the elders.  All grudges are buried in the mud pit of the kabaddi arena.

The signature style of a winner when he gets a point, which the organisers have given the name “thigh-five”, is a way of expressing that aggression and victory with a taunt—the player slaps his thigh and raises the other hand up pointing at the other team to signal stealing/scoring one or more points.

On most occasions, especially in Haryana, Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Punjab the shake of the head along with a grunting sound accompanies the thigh-five as well.

The organisers of PKL set out to give the sport a new look with fancy haircuts for players, jazzy merchandise and a revived focus on the physical abilities of the players, with videos of them working out on modern exercise machinery shown across various television channels. The teams also have mascots and technology has been used to create many more visual effects that help keep the television audience in the game and the younger audiences hooked.

Rakesh Kumar, among the highest paid players in PKL, says, “One has to accept that today’s sports channels are far better and their coverage and showcasing of the game is way ahead of others (like Doordarshan, the national broadcaster). Earlier, 90 per cent of the audience did not understand the rules but now kids even remember the names of the moves we make and have favourites. This has been possible because the game is taken to the people in a technically friendly manner where you can watch the game very closely and listen to commentary that is so fast that one is reminded of the radio commentaries on hockey that were so popular till some years back.”

Indeed, the hockey commentary on radio covering ball-by-ball movement had been a craze and is now a dying art. PKL has second-by-second commentary which enthralls the listener as well as the viewer, apart from the several cameras that are placed around the court to give the viewer a multidimensional look at the game in progress.

***

This combination of technology and popular appeal has produced stars who are often mobbed by fans. Being on one’s toes and scoring for the team was a trait that could not provide enough popularity to the players in the 80 years since the sport was first unveiled in front of the world in 1936 at the Berlin Olympics.

A small team of players and experts from the Hanuman Vyayam Prasarak Mandal based in Amravati, Maharashtra, demonstrated the sport back then and the All India Kabaddi Federation came into existence in 1950 as a result. Even though the sport was introduced in the Asian Games in 1990, its popularity was visible only when they played Pakistan, or in one of the finals of the tournaments they have so convincingly and so frequently won.

Out of the mat, nobody recognised the players.

“After the 2014 PKL season I was roaming around in a mall in Delhi and two kids came running to me for an autograph and their grandfather walked right after them,” says Rakesh Kumar who hails from Haryana.

“They asked for my autograph and said they watched all my matches together with family at home. Following them a lot of other people also mobbed me and started asking for ‘selfies’. I could not believe it at first and was joking with my friend whether they had mistaken me for someone else.”

Rahul Chaudhary, from Bijnor town in UP, says women often seek him out for autographs and selfies these days. He has been a star player for the Telugu Titans, and with his good looks and tall and hefty frame is marketed as one of the poster boys of PKL.

“We never go out alone now. Last year in winters I was mobbed at a mall in Ghaziabad and forced to literally flee the place since people started pulling and shoving around,” he says over the phone.

During a tour across Delhi ahead of season four, players of the Dabang Delhi team led by the Dabang Delhi Kabaddi Club (DDKC) were mobbed by fans across the city. While many were school students, others were local leaders and budding players who all wanted to be on the Kabaddi bandwagon for different reasons.

Rinku Singh, a 19-year-old from the Dyal Singh College in Delhi, says, “I played Kabaddi as a kid in my village while growing up but once I got into college it did not appeal to me anymore. It has a reputation of being a gaon walon ka khel (villagers’ sport) where you get your clothes dirtied in the mud. People in the city look down upon it but the mat game, especially after the PKL, has started becoming popular.”

Rinku now practises at his college with a group that also has what he calls “city boys”. Rinku and his friends visit the DDKC often to practice and consult coaches.

Sagar Bandekar, the  coach of Dabang Delhi, says, “The response from the public has been so enthusiastic that PKL organisers have almost been forced to make the league a twice-a-year thing. Kabaddi has always been the most popular sport in rural India but it has now become the second most popular after cricket.”

The DDKC now also travels across many cities and towns in Punjab, Haryana and UP scouting for talent. Bandekar says so many young boys are competing for places that in time to come many more teams might be added to the list  in the PKL.

That PKL has created wealth for players has been its big calling card. The highest paid player in the present season is Mohit Chhillar of Delhi, a clerk in North-Western Railway. He has seen an almost nine-fold increase in his earnings over 2014. He was picked up by Bengaluru Bulls for Rs 53 lakh, becoming the most expensive player in the league till date. The highest in the first season was Rs 21 lakh for Rakesh Kumar, captain of the Indian team then. At this rate there will be players getting a crore or more in coming seasons as the franchises also start earning more on a regular basis, says Bandekar.

This change in fortunes has also triggered an attitudinal change in the hinterland. At his village Malikpura in Sonepat, Sangam Kumar has been training close to 20 boys for local competitions, which are now played as per PKL rules, and every one of his wards is a winner, he claims. The boys chat away during a break while he is overhearing a conversation between them, sipping tea during a break. The court’s lines on the mud field are being redrawn by the younger players.

Some of them fight over who gets to draw the lines, hoping to impress the coach and the other boys with their work. After the conversation with me over tea, Kumar calls a player, a teenager, bare-footed and wearing only mud-soiled pajamas and asks him, “Kay bhanje thha re chhoreyan sammi? (What were you boasting in front of the other boys?)”

“You think you are going to be like Mohit Chhillar? You don’t even know how to grip a raider’s leg while pulling him back and you think you’ll be the top defender in the country!” he says, his eyes squinted in derision.

“You see, all these boys have started dreaming big without undergoing the rigours. It is important to keep them grounded lest they forget you have to be the best to get into PKL. And then getting jobs before sporting glory is important as these boys come from farming families and almost all are from poor backgrounds,” he tells me later later.

But the point Kumar seems to miss is that these boys now have heroes they look up to and expect that their coaches will put them through enough training to help them become like their idols. The main aim of all the clubs run by PKL team owners is not to only introduce the sport in various places, but to also produce young talent ready for the big stage. That is the way most players from other countries have benefitted in the PKL, especially those from Iran. Fazel Atrachali, auctioned for Rs 38 lakh, became the highest paid foreign player in the fourth season. His country mate Hadi Oshtorak was their highest export to the PKL in the third season’s auction, selling for over Rs 21 lakh.

Most of these players have jobs or run small businesses in their countries but have found place in the PKL due to their performances in various kabaddi competitions across the world. They take breaks from their regular jobs and come to India to earn decent money that the league has started offering.

Mohit Chhillar says, “I have a stable government job but take leave without pay when I make myself available for PKL. Similar arrangements can be made by employers in the private sector too. I am sure that with growing popularity more professionals will find space in PKL who could even have IT jobs or be scientists or businessmen,” he says speaking over the phone from Vishakhapatnam, where Bengaluru Bulls was practising ahead of the league.

In the near future, however, kabaddi is set to remain a rural Indian sport finding a foothold in the urban areas and in the sphere of professional sport. At least 15 of the players in the current season are from the Services, which comprises players from the army and the paramilitary forces, while a majority of the others have represented their respective states and hold secure government jobs as a result.

The ambition of these players still remains to represent their states and get jobs before they start looking for professional and personal glory in the PKL. Chhillar, whose village Nizampur is in Haryana, 30 km from Delhi, says while he was good at the sport from a young age, his parents saw it as his ticket to a job rather than sporting glory.

“If someone ends up playing for the country it is an achievement for the village as a whole but otherwise one is just a player who found his job through the sports quota and that will remain the main aim of young boys and girls in rural areas.”

***

Sangam Kumar sees this attitude every day in the parents of his wards. Parents of girls from his village have started approaching him demanding that he also start training their children from the village so that the talented among them can also aspire for a future with a secure job. “Most girls look at PKL and say they too want to play so their parents are taking interest. Others have a family tradition of sport. The PKL has given them dreams of becoming stars but reality on the ground is still the same,” he says.

In Nadia village in Hisar, Suman Lata and Sonia’s parents too are hoping for a favourable decision from the high court later this month when their case comes up for hearing. The girls, however, plan to travel to Delhi to support Delhi Dabang in the PKL.

“I am most excited about seeing women also become part of the tournament so that people like us can also compete and have decent incomes. Even if I get married later and do not have a stable job at least I will be augmenting my income every year by playing in the league or competing for the state or PKL team positions,” says Suman Lata, her voice full of hope and excitement about her future prospects in kabaddi.

They are also disappointed that there is only one team from North India apart from Bihar, represented by Patna Pirates, which is Delhi Dabang. “There should also be a team from Haryana and even from Punjab and UP where so much kabaddi is played,” says Sonia.

With a number of players from these states representing various teams in the PKL, this could soon become reality, increasing their chances of playing in one of the teams if, and when, a PKL for women also comes into existence. For now, they’ll enjoy watching PKL, the Indian sport set to go global.

(Arpit Parashar is a freelance journalist based in Delhi.)

(Cover story of  the July 2016 issue of Fountain Ink)

BY SAUMYA KHANDELWAL

A truck perched on a terrace, a Maruti 800 sitting on top of a Tata Sumo; terrace after terrace covered with vehicle doors and bonnets, roads and invisible pavements encroached with greasy machine parts, and a public park devoid of grass or people and occupied with machines and scrap instead. The constant murmur of machines never stops. The hammering that is the sound of vehicle being dismantled, the movement of metal tyres on stone laden passages, the groaning of the earth mover which moves around the engines, and the clunk of the parts when they are thrown at each other one after the other. These are the sensual identifications of a vehicular scrap market.

Mayapuri junk market is India’s largest. Vehicles bought in retail or from auctions travel to Mayapuri to be dismantled in its muddy lanes. A truck can be dismantled in an hour and a half; a car will take less. The parts to be re-sold are extracted and moved to second hand shops, and the rest is left for metal scrap dealers. They collect the metal from the remains. The seats, rubber and plastics are gathered by yet smaller scrap dealers. And the last bit of scavenging is done by women and children who use magnets to gather the little metal that falls down on the roads and burn the plastic and wires that are collected at the market for their metal contents.

The scrap is then pressed into bales which travel to other parts of the country like Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal and Haryana for further processing in furnaces. Furnaces melt the scrap at temperatures around 1650 degrees Celsius and convert them into pig iron. Pig iron then can take any shape.  The cycle has now been completed. A truck or a vehicle is now recycled and has acquired a new form.

India recycles 20-25 per cent of its metal waste which is way too insufficient for its requirements. An unorganised industry, it runs in the hands of private players with little intervention or help from the government.

In pursuing this project, undertaken as part of Neel Dongre Photography Grant 2015, I have spent days in Mayapuri to understand and document the processes and the market. The documentation became complete at a furnace in Baddi, Himachal Pradesh where the scrap was processed into pig iron.

(Saumya Khandelwal is a photojournalist based in Delhi.)

(Published in the July 2016 issue of Fountain Ink)

BY ALIA ALLANA

Mecca is a promise, a metaphysical destination etched into the consciousness of all Muslims; home to the Kaaba, the direction in which every Muslim prays. It is also a city, a constantly evolving place troubled with worldly concerns. Mecca’s heart is the haram (the sanctuary), the greatest and holiest mosque in the world. Its soul, the Kaaba, is a cuboid structure with a black rock said to have fallen from heaven as a guide for Adam and Eve to build an altar and became the first temple on earth.

Gone are the mountains that towered above the Kaaba. In their place are skyscrapers, ivory towers that pierce the Arabian sky. The tallest of them is Abraj al-Bait, the Clock Tower Hotel, a government-owned complex with luxury hotels, shopping malls and massive prayer rooms with the aim to “modernise” the city. It is the tallest building in Saudi Arabia and the fourth tallest in the world.

The Clock Tower is an ever-present reminder not just of the importance of Mecca to Saudi Arabia but also of the state’s aspirations which tower above everything else. But some mountains remain, where people live in shanties, their sole purpose to serve the industry around the haram. These are hilltop favellas with five, six people crammed in rundown homes. From the top of one such mountain, the “mother of all settlements”—one of the Quranic names for Mecca—looks like a model town, a make-believe bin Laden-land born of the plans of the monarchy and the imagination of building tycoons like the bin Ladens.

Most of the residents atop this mountain are Urdu-speaking Rohingya who have migrated here. Their forefathers came with dreams; the later migrants fled nightmares and torture in Myanmar. I meet a young boy who works at the Noor Hotel and he guides me further up, past crammed homes and piles of rubbish and skinny cats. We reach the top where a humble green and white mosque stands, its crescent rising in the sky. Up here the crescent of the small mosque just about eclipses the spire of the Clock Tower, a building that has monopolised Mecca’s horizons.

“Soon this mountain will go,” he says and the tower is a constant reminder of impending doom, destruction imminent as the haram grows to accommodate millions of pilgrims who visit Mecca annually.

“There are two Meccas,” he says as the warm wind blows. “A Mecca of piety and another of politics and money.”

***

The crowd moves you towards the door past the Rolex showroom to the Kentucky Fried Chicken and around the fountain. Bodies press upon each other, nudging pilgrims towards the Great Mosque of Mecca. Everybody wants to be at the centre where a bricked cuboid structure draped in black silk rises above the white marble. This is the Kaaba, the “House of Allah”.

The men—pilgrims in two unstitched pieces of white cloth, others in majestic golden thob and chequered longhi—and the women, covered in multi-hued scarves and Batman-style abaya, shuffle together, almost always a wrong turn away from a stampede. A policeman in a baseball cap stands on top of a box outside the haram with a microphone.

He yells, “Pilgrim, keep moving, keep moving.”

There is no alternative but to surrender to the crowd and hope that somehow you will end up at one of the many 20-feet high golden doors of the haram. There is no guarantee you will be allowed entry, just a possibility. Standing between the pilgrims and “House of God in heavens”—which the Kaaba symbolises—on this hot Friday in Ramzaan is a dapper police officer wearing aviators.

The electronic sign above his head reads “No Entry” despite the gates to the Holy Mosque never closing, but during the holy month, as millions descend upon Mecca to perform the umrah (lesser pilgrimage) green plastic barricades are pulled out to manage the unpredictable crowd. When the haram is full, clusters of police officers prevent pilgrims from entering.

“No space,” says the officer in Arabic, Indonesian, Urdu, and English.

In this mad dog heat tempers soar, transforming peaceful pilgrims into a manic mob.  “Will you hit me, will you hit me?” asks a heavy-set woman in Urdu. She’s about three times the size of the young officer, who tries to ignore her but she lunges forward, shoving at the barricade. Tense vibes take over outside Gate 88. The Pakistani woman is relentless and soon the young officer’s beret is pushed to the back of his head. He restrains her by clutching her blue and white tie-dyed salwar but she’s still at it. Another guard waves her off.

“Hut, hut,” he says until a middle-aged army officer walks her away.

“At least we are inside,” says a Palestinian woman as she leaves the 52 degree summer heat behind and walks into a mosque where it always feels like spring.

There is no space and women are squatting on the stairs a few steps away from the barricade. Some are asleep on the carpet, others recite the Quran while a group of women chatter.

“If this were al-Aqsa,” says another Palestinian woman who has crossed from Israel over the Allenby Bridge into Jordan for a long drive to Saudi Arabia. Just the mention of al-Aqsa in Jerusalem, the third holiest mosque in Islam, is an invitation to a bigger conversation, one that others in the crowd can’t help but join. The female Saudi guard whose face has been hidden yet lit up by a mobile under a black veil enquires: “Are you not allowed in?”

The Palestinian leans against the grey and white marble wall and closes her eyes and reopens them slowly. “What can I tell you,” she sighs. On the good days, women and men over the age of 45 will be allowed into the mosque. Even then, they have to carry Israeli  permits to attend prayers. On the bad days, thousands of Palestinians will be prevented from crossing over and will pray at Israeli military check points where security forces in bullet proof vests and machine guns stand guard.

“At least everyone comes in here,” says one.

“At least there are no guns,” says another.

By now a sizeable number of people are listening to the conversation, and a Bangladeshi, a nurse living in Saudi for 17 years, adds, “Verily, this is Allah’s house.”

There is a crackle from the loudspeakers and the sermon begins. The imam at the haram is a celebrity. So elevated is his status that he was voted Islamic Personality of the Year in 2005. His voice is as recognisable as that of a pop star and he speaks in the sort of classical Arabic that would be lost on most fluent speakers. There are some things everyone understands, though.

“Allahuma inni as-aluka al-jannata wa a’udhubika min an-nar,” he pleads.(“O Allah, I ask you to grant me paradise and I take refuge in you from the fire.”)

“Aameen,” the gathered roar, the sound rising up to the high ceilings off which golden chandeliers hang.

A woman on a wheelchair who has been asleep with her two-month-old daughter in her arms is stirred by the fervour of the pious. “Protect the mujahideen,” (those who fight for the religion)  the Imam asks Allah and she is incensed. This is a good moment to wake. Imam Sudais has never shied from taking a political stand and he prays for the ummah, for the Muslims in forsaken lands, in Syria, in Palestine, in Iraq, in Yemen. Soon his voice collapses into a full sob at the devastation across Muslims lands. The women to my left and the women to my right follow. On this Friday, in this cool mosque, together we weep.

***

The fragrance of oud, blended with the freshness of rose itar and combined in perspiration give the haram its unique scent. Marble pillars, one after the other, rise to the high ceiling. There are intricate plaster of Paris arches illuminated by golden chandeliers with LED lights. With the mosque undergoing its most ambitious expansion, parts of it look like a construction site. Drills are at work hidden by a partition, AC ducts and vents poke out. Signs point to the “Mataf Piazza,” which is where the Kaaba stands. There is the slow murmuring of quiet prayer in all corners of the mosque but in spite of the presence of thousands of pilgrims, there is always a curious silence, a calm interrupted only by a loud invocation to pray, the azaan.

“Hayya’alas-Salāh, Hayya’alal-falāh”

“Hasten to prayer, Hasten to success.”

No two imams are the same, and the various men who lead the prayer in the sanctuary differ in style and delivery. Some cajole the pilgrims through their azaan, gently inviting them to prayer while others are authoritarian, demanding attendance.

In a place where people from all over the world congregate, a beard can tell a thousand tales. An unkempt long beard often indicates orthodoxy; Nigerians and Algerians are more often than not clean shaven, and Turkish beards are most groomed. Unlike the popular image of women in black, the haram bursts with colours: a woman in a pastel linen abaya is from Jordan, the woman with the pointed abaya in bold colours is North African, and the woman with kohl in her eyes is Bedouin.  It is at once staggering how so many people from so many countries manage to survive the Haj Virus that debilitates thousands of pilgrims each year, and resist the urge to shout and shove each other.

Instead they walk united by their faith across gold and blue carpets, on marble floors cooled by water flowing underneath, through replicas of Ottoman arches, and escalators. In front of them stands the Kaaba rising 43 feet high. There are thousands of people performing the tawaf (circumambulating the Kaaba seven times) and towering above them is the Clock Tower Hotel at 1,972 feet, the centrepiece of which is a clock whose hands don’t stop, much like the pilgrims who go round and round the cube day and night.

The Clock Tower hotel and shopping complex is built on the site of an 18th century Ottoman citadel: it epitomises over-the-top Saudi opulence characterised by a penchant for all things gold as well as the absolute disdain with which the monarchy has erased the rich history of Mecca.

***

The House of Saud with their horror of history, and their pursuit of uncompromising Wahhabism began washing Mecca clean of its past in June 1973. Historic districts were razed and sites of significance to Islamic tradition no longer stood lest they became places for worship. They undid the history of a valley mentioned in the writing of Diodorus Siculus, the ancient Greek historian who wrote that “a temple has been set up there, which is very holy and exceedingly revered by all Arabians”, in the first century BCE.

Today, the Great Mosque is undergoing its largest expansion ever and around the haram and its environs cranes rise above the minarets. Seen from above the haram looks like a football stadium where religion is the sport and the pilgrims are players. But one thing will remain: in a city where buildings have begun to touch the sky is an awkward yellow house, small in size, gigantic in stature. It is apparently the site where the Prophet Muhammad lived. The house is now a library with large signs on its façade that reads: “xxx.”

This is in keeping with the Wahhabi ideology where paying homage to saints and venerating anyone but Allah is sacrilegious.

Some history has been dealt with diplomatically: Prophet Muhammad’s first wife, Bibi Khadija’s house has been pulled down and a small geometrical mosque stands next to a three-star hotel. Abu Bakr, the Prophet’s closest companion and the first Caliph’s house near the haram has been pulled down to make way for the Mecca Hilton.

Despite this erasure of history, $10,000 rooms in fancy hotels continue to be booked and women in Cartier preside over opulent buffets where the fortunate few feast on lobster with a bird’s eye view of the Great Mosque. It is in these ivory towers where prestige, the label on your abaya and who you are matter as women size each other up in lavish prayer rooms so close to the haram that the sound from the mosque can never be switched off. Instead it booms out of Bose speakers almost hidden in a room that looks like an Arabised version of the Palace of Versailles.

But the Kaaba remains humble, unchanging. In its long history, the Kaaba has been remade several times, most recently in 1979 when the silver door was replaced by a 300 kg gold door. Manning the Kaaba and the door on the eastern side of the cube is a young police officer in his mid-20s. He has his arms slung through a black rope that ensures he doesn’t nose dive into the crowd below him that tug at the kiswa (black silk cloth) in various states of rapture.

Ya Allah, Ya Allah, they say.

They rub their hands on the cube, faces covered in tears, arms raised to the sky. They beg. They plead. They pray. Just below him a group of people have begun to shove closer to the al-hajar al-aswad (the black stone) which Muslims believe fell from heaven and has been venerated at the Kaaba since pre-Islamic times. It was set intact into the Kaaba by the Prophet and the faithful believe that kissing it will wash their sins away. So they smother it.

“Pilgrim,” shouts the young officer, “keep moving,” his face shaded by a white umbrella as deadpan as the guards at Buckingham Palace. Desperation to get close to the Kaaba can make a squatter of the most reasonable of people. Desirous of praying near it, they pray in haphazard locations, at times on top of each other with complete disregard for safety. Some faint in the heat, others are taken over by hysteria. As sunset approaches people distribute laban (a cool yoghurt drink), dates, nuts and water to break the fast.

One evening I found myself walking about the Kaaba and as soon as the azaan sounded, everybody and everything stopped. I sat on the spot where I had stood, less than eight rows from the Kaaba. When we all stood so close to this ancient cube, men next to women, in a religion which has been so tainted because of women’s apparent inferiority to men, I felt empowered as an equal, for I am an equal. It was magical.

Other times were less magical. One evening, as we neared the time of breaking fast I found myself with a group of women who had camped on the main thoroughfare to the Kaaba. It seemed like an unreasonable spot but the Egyptian woman next to me was convinced otherwise. When a group of police officers came with unequivocal instructions to get up, she issued me a set of alternate instructions.

“Don’t look at them. Pretend they don’t exist,” she said.

Despite the officers’ pleas and their consequent banging on the barricades, we continued to talk about the rising cost of living and the “insane people” of Egypt who had overthrown the government of Hosni Mubarak. Other women carried on much the same, refusing to acknowledge the police officer. Reinforcements were called and despite the escalation the sit-in remained. A woman from Sudan in bright pink fainted, a little girl got lost, and finally a sheikh, in agal and ghutra and golden and brown bisht (the traditional attire of a cleric) came and ordered the women to move. In the haram, order was best imposed by a man of God.

***

Soon after sunset, moments after the prayer had concluded as hundreds of people made their way out of the haram, a group of men in grey overalls and white skullcaps made their way inside. They emerged from behind the pillars, like Santa’s little elves and pulled a rope securing the area around the Kaaba. The area was cordoned off, buckets of water were splashed and pilgrims slipped and skid across the marble floor. The men in the overalls glided with their brooms cleaning up the mess thousands of hungry people had left behind. A giant grey dryer followed them and in a matter of minutes the place was spotless and the army of grey cleaners, predominantly from South Asia, were out of sight once again.

During the month of Ramzaan and in the summer, Mecca awakens in the evening when the stifling heat makes way for a mild breeze. Days are for rest and contemplative prayer while nights are spent in leisure. Food is on everyone’s mind. There is a queue of about 70 at the Donut Store at the Zam Zam Mall, the line for Burger King goes around the block but the most popular of them all is al-Baik, whose mouth watering chicken sandwiches and fruit cocktails are the talk of the town. Jewellery shops sell antique Ottoman currency, gold medallions, toy shops sell toy laptops and flapping fish that recite a prayer typically associated with Mecca, invoked during times of pilgrimage.

Labbayka Allāhumma Labbayk. Labbayk Lā Sharīka Laka Labbayk.

(“Here I am at Thy service O Lord, here I am.”)

A vibrant market place around the sanctuary in Mecca has always existed. My paternal grandmother and great aunt whose houses used to stand within the confines of the Great Mosque recall a time when people used to shop as they performed the sa’ee, a mandatory component of pilgrimage. The distance between the hills of Safa Marwa—a tribute to the journey of Hagar who ran from one rock to the other looking for water for her son—were lined with stores that sold items such as rose essence from Damascus, prayer beads from Baghdad and honey from Yemen, she says.

It is impossible to disassociate Mecca from the region. In fact, each corner of the Kaaba pays homage to the great countries that lie away from it. The Northern corner is known as Ruknu Iraqi (the Iraqi corner), the western as Ruknu sh-Shami (the Levantine corner) and the southern is Ruknu Yamani (Yemeni corner) and the four corners of the Kaaba point towards the four cardinal directions of the compass.

Sitting on the eastern edge of the Kaaba under the AC is a woman I see night after night. I wonder if she ever leaves. One night she calls me over and places a fistful of Yemeni raisins in my hand. “This is the Yemeni quarter,” she says and it is her home for the month. She fled her country with her two daughters, five grandchildren and husband a month ago when the war had become bloodier. They found a small apartment in Jeddah but the cost of living was too high. They decided to journey to Mecca and remain in the haram. “It is a sanctuary after all,” she says, where despite the orders to move, nobody will be thrown out.

One evening she explains the lie of the land. The South Asians are on the first floor, the Egyptians are to the far right corner of the ground floor, and the women from the Gulf are in the small section abutting the Kaaba.

“Draw a line from here to the north, south, east and west. You’ll see fractures everywhere,” she says.

The azaan (call to prayer) had sounded and people scurried to their positions. They formed rows, their shoulders grazing each others, to ensure that the devil couldn’t pass between them. Mothers struggled to position their babies on the floor opposite them and occasionally a frustrated child would distract everyone from worship. Despite the distraction, the thought of missing a prayer in the haram was unthinkable but the unthinkable had started to occur.

A group of about 15 men in kandoora that ended above their ankles, attire that indicates orthodoxy, walked in and sat behind one of the many tall pillars in the haram. Despite the call to prayer they remained seated. This act of defiance didn’t go unnoticed. As soon as the imam of the Great Mosque concluded his prayer, the small congregation stood up and were led in prayer by another man.

“We came to the Kaaba not on a Saudi religion package,” a young man with a bushy beard told me.

Wahhabism, the ideology to which the Saudi state adheres to and actively promotes has irked other Muslims who have different views and practices in worship. The man with the beard recounted an incident where a muttawa, a religious police officer, ordered him not to raise his hands in prayer at the shrine of the Prophet in Medina. Such rifts have created divisions in the haram and small groups of people began bringing their own religious leaders and guides (peer) who endorsed alternative ideologies and views.

“It is not their religion,” he said of the Saudi government which sidelined all interpretations of Islam other than the Salafist brand of Saudi Islam.

***

Saudi Arabia is the custodian of the two Holy Mosques. Its Ministry of Haj and Umrah issues visas and allocates each country a quota on the number of visitors per year. It is here politics meets religion and allows Saudi Arabia to use Mecca and Medina, Haj and Umrah, as a political tool to reward or punish countries’ behaviour. Access to Mecca is subject to a strict visa application process.

There are no Iranians at the haram this year apparently because of a spat between the governments of Saudi Arabia and Iran. The abysmally small number of Syrian pilgrims who used once to be the largest contingent has become a talking point.

A Qatari woman sitting on a black chair, erect in posture, leafs through the Quran. As she turns page after page, her diamond, as big as her finger shines. She maintains an air of nobility about her and standing behind her are three Filipino women who attend to her.

“I’ve seen the Syrian children, so white with blue eyes. They are begging outside the Clock Tower and in the Zam Zam Mall,” she says with a deep sigh.

The Saudi government was quick to back the Syrian opposition in the five-year civil war that has gripped the country.  The foreign ministry of Saudi Arabia does not recognise the government of Bashar al-Assad. The ministry that issues visas only does so through the opposition, a body that is constantly changing with ministries that don’t work formally and with no fixed address or leader. A Syrian woman with whom who I broke my fast one evening told me how hard it was to obtain a visa. It took her months to reach the right person. She handed me dates that had been sweetened in sugar syrup and leaned in close.

“Even the sanctuary has been tainted by politics,” she said.

(Published in the August 2016 issue of Fountain Ink)

BY AMIRTHARAJ STEPHEN

The Fukushima-Daiichi plant on Japan’s main island of Honshu went into meltdown in 2011 after the devastating Tohoku earthquake and the resulting tsunami that flattened it and killed over 20,000 people. Vital cooling systems failed, and nuclear radiation leaked into the surroundings. The food was no longer safe, and water undrinkable.

The hitherto flourishing towns of Fukushima Prefecture now lie in disarray and abandon. Contaminated soil is stored in thousands of plastic bags in the exclusion zone. The landscape makes for an eerie and fearful sight.

People in the radioactive zone lost their homes and virtually all possessions. They were ordered to move out and given meagre compensation and temporary housing in return. Many live in the hope that one day they will go home. Others seem to have given up.

“I thought after Chernobyl there would be more safety and learning in handling accidents. But nothing has changed,” said Shizue Sakuma, a 45-year-old homemaker. Sakuma is part of Nariwai Sosho, a lawsuit of 4,000 plaintiffs seeking consolation money and the restoration of lives lost to the nuclear accident.

“Today pregnant women and young mothers don’t want to live here,” explains Miyuki Owada, a 47-year-old nurse who still resides in Minamisoma. Their fears are justified by the long-standing effect of the calamity. Radioactive Cesium will continue to reside in the environment for centuries. Once a large amount of radioactive cesium enters an ecosystem, it becomes ubiquitous. It has been detected in Japanese spinach, tea, milk, beef, and freshwater fish up to 200 miles from Fukushima.

The lives of the residents now revolve around evacuations, health and emotional trauma. After the disaster, the thyroids of thousands of children and teens were examined for signs of radiation-related cancers. A large number of the kids showed abnormalities and are now under constant observation. Such developments have given momentum to the anti-nuclear movement of Fukushima. The same people who once welcomed nuclear technology are increasingly involved in the “zero nuclear restarts” campaigns. Slogans like “Saikado Hantai!” and “Gempazu Zero!” are sbecoming the voices of the movement.

Despite the passage of time, the human cost of Fukushima cannot be quantified. A lot of questions linger unanswered in the deafening silence. Will the residents ever return? Will their voices be heard?

(Amirtharaj Stephen is a documentary photographer based in Bemgaluru. He is currently documenting the anti-nuclear protests around his native village in Tamil Nadu.)

(Published in the August 2016 edition of Fountain Ink.)

BY VISHANK SINGH

Vikas Kumar (32), a supervisor in Tegh Knitting Private Limited in Sonepat, migrated from Kanpur 15 years ago. Unable to afford higher education himself, he wanted to provide the best education possible for his daughter, Divyanshi. He earns around Rs. 15,000 a month from his 12-hour shift, but Vikas’ dream is now under threat. The factory recently issued a closure notice. It will shut down in two months because of a sharp decline in demand for its products.

Rakesh (48), has four children and a mentally challenged wife. An agrarian crisis made him move from his village in Sultanpur to Delhi in 1998. As a machine operator he earns Rs. 12,000 a month.
“Nothing much is left in the village and the cost of living here is high. Without a decent job our existence is at risk,” he said.

Devender Singh “Bullu” (29) is a machine operator. “I’ve been working here 11 years, and knitting is the only skill I possess. I miss my wife and son who are alone in the village in Bihar, all dependent on me. After the shutdown, I’ll be doing odd jobs.”

Joginder Singh Bagga (78), a retired army officer from Punjab, lost his only son 17 years ago in a road accident. Since then, he’s worked as a factory guard to deal with his grief. “I don’t need a job to support me and my wife. But I can’t see myself being away from this factory because the moment I’m jobless memories of my son will return.”

Tegh Knitting is one of the biggest Raschel knit producers. Once it closes, it’s possible that other businesses too will exit. Machine operators are skilled workers but closure will render their specialisation useless.

(Vishank Singh is a Delhi based photojournalist and writer.)

Published in the September 2016 issue of Fountain Ink.

BY PRIYANKA PULLA
PHOTOGRAPHS BY PRABHAT SINGH

Each year as monsoon-bearing clouds arrive over eastern Uttar Pradesh, so does a pestilence. Hundreds, mostly children, fall ill with fever, convulsions, and disorientation. So familiar are people with these symptoms that at the first signs they rush their children to Baba Raghav Das Medical College Hospital, Gorakhpur. Few other hospitals in the eastern Uttar Pradesh region either have the doctors or the equipment to handle this affliction. And so, the journey of children from nearly 15 districts around Gorakhpur ends at the biggest hospital in these parts.

For the hospital, it is an annual, inevitable, slow descent into chaos.

By September, around 50 patients arrive every day, and the medical college’s infrastructure stretches to breaking point. There aren’t enough beds: unconscious children, sometimes two or three, lie on a single bed. There aren’t enough doctors, so diploma students in child health from around Gorakhpur are drafted in. There aren’t enough mechanical ventilators, even though patients with severe encephalitis often need them.

“It is very difficult for us to manage these patients,” says Anita Mehta, one of the six paediatricians at Baba Raghav Das hospital.

The biggest problem here, however, isn’t lack of beds, doctors or ventilators. It is the lack of diagnosis. Nobody at the hospital knows what causes the outbreak year after year.

The illness is called Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES), but the term is merely a convenient label for symptoms of an inflammatory brain disease. AES can be caused by any of several viruses, bacteria and fungi. The culprit is never identified in most of the children who come for treatment.

But there are several hypotheses. A favourite among the doctors at Baba Raghav Das, and the Uttar Pradesh government, is enteroviruses, a genus of viruses that includes polio, and which spread through nasal, oral and faecal routes. A handful of studies in the last decade have found evidence of enterovirus infections in Gorakhpur’s AES patients, giving credence to the hypothesis. But other studies have not. Yet many of the state government’s actions to fight AES are geared towards enteroviruses—replacing vulnerable hand pumps to prevent drinking water contamination from faecal matter, for example. The measures haven’t worked and the AES burden remains heavy.

There are two explanations for this failure: That AES isn’t caused by an enterovirus. Or the precautions against enteroviral infections were not properly implemented. Several doctors in Gorakhpur subscribe to the second explanation. Dr. R. N. Singh, who taught at Baba Raghav Das Medical College in the Seventies and began running a campaign for encephalitis eradication after he retired, says the government installed a minuscule 3,000 hand pumps across Gorakhpur, while more than double the number would have been needed to minimise water contamination. “Yeh oonth ke mooh mein jeera bhi nahin hai,” he says, using a Hindi idiom for something so small, that it doesn’t even compare with a cumin seed in a camel’s mouth.

The other explanation for why anti-enterovirus measures aren’t working is that the Gorakhpur illness is caused by scrub typhus, a disease endemic to Uttar Pradesh. Scrub typhus is caused by a bacterium transmitted by a microscopic mite that lives in scrub vegetation. Children walking in bushes without proper clothing are especially at risk, as are woodmen or forest foragers, both common professions in the region.

The evidence for this hypothesis—starting with an August 2014 study by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) that found scrub typhus antibodies in over 60 per cent of the sick children in Baba Raghav Das—is rapidly growing. But doctors at Baba Raghav Das are sceptical. One reason is that scrub typhus is not known to cause encephalitis outbreaks, triggering a long-drawn fever instead. Encephalitis as a complication occurs in a few untreated sufferers of scrub typhus, rather than among hundreds, as is the case in Gorakhpur, says Komal Kushwaha, a paediatrician who worked at Baba Raghav Das for almost 30 years before retiring in 2015.

“Scrub typhus cannot be the reason for almost all unconscious febrile children coming for treatment. When cases come, they are sporadic and we see 3-4 per cent every year. But they cannot cause an outbreak-like situation,” he argues.

Kushwaha, who is firmly in the enterovirus camp, dismisses the typhus hypothesis as a “gimmick” which the government wants to push because they cannot tackle the deep-rooted causes of enteroviral encephalitis.

The scrub typhus camp has a different explanation, though. Arun Kumar, a virologist at Manipal University, who headed the ICMR study, suggests that the so-called outbreak of scrub typhus encephalitis could merely be due to a bias in the way data is collected. Because no data exists on scrub typhus patients who don’t develop encephalitis, and because the most severe cases of encephalitis in eastern Uttar Pradesh are rushed to Baba Raghav Das, the illness looks like an encephalitis outbreak.

“These patients are only the top of the pyramid,” says Kumar. “The bottom of the pyramid is patients with fever, for whom you don’t have any data. If you plot back each patient’s address into a map, you will see only one encephalitis case from a village.”

As the disagreement on the causes of the outbreak continues, the deaths mount at Baba Raghav Das hospital. Last year, around 500 of the 2,894 people with AES died in Uttar Pradesh. This year, over 500 cases have already been recorded at the hospital. For most of these patients, the cause of the illness remained unknown. “For around 80 per cent of the patients who come here, we can’t give a proper diagnosis,” says Mahima Mittal, head of the department of paediatrics at the Baba Raghav Das Hospital.

The Gorakhpur syndrome remains a mystery.

***

If there is one disease that has consistently been tagged “mystery illness” across India, it is encephalitis, specifically Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES). It is a sudden, rapidly worsening version of encephalitis that brings on high fever, coma, and in many cases, death. There are four major encephalitis pockets in India today: Uttar Pradesh, Assam, West Bengal and Bihar.

In each of these states, the cause of illness is unknown in up to 70 per cent of the patients. Indian journals, especially paediatric periodicals, routinely carry editorials lamenting this mystery illness, issuing calls to arms, and hypothesising about the causes. But the burden has only increased over the years. Between 2008 and 2015, the number of people afflicted with AES across India more than doubled from 3,855 to 8,941. Mortality remained at around 15 per cent throughout. In all states, except Assam, the majority of those who fall ill and die are very young children, because encephalitis wreaks havoc with their underdeveloped immunity.

Enlarge

One major problem is that AES isn’t a single illness, but a broad label coined by the World Health Organization (WHO) about ten years ago, for a clutch of illnesses difficult to differentiate from each other in the chaotic environment of an outbreak. Around 100 pathogens are known to trigger acute encephalitis, with the list narrowing down to around three dozen in India.

The commonest of these pathogens is the Japanese Encephalitis virus. But it accounts for less than a quarter of all cases in India. In the rest, the only information we have to work with is a long list of suspects. The West Nile virus, dengue virus, Chandipura virus and chikungunya virus have been shown to cause AES. Among bacteria, Streptococcus pneumoniae, Orientia tsutsugamushi, and Haemophilus influenzae, to name a few, can trigger encephalitis. Even fungi like Candida albicans have sometimes been implicated in the disease.

These pathogens cause symptoms that look the same at first blush. They inflame brain tissue, causing the patient to behave abnormally, become forgetful, act confused, get drowsy, etc.—a set of behaviours doctors refer to as “altered mental status”. Meanwhile, fever breaks out, and spikes of activity in the brain result in seizures. This triad of symptoms—fever, altered mental status, and seizures—are together labelled Acute Encephalitis Syndrome.

This symptomatic overlap among so many different illnesses means that even in the best hospitals of the world, the causes of encephalitis are found only half the time. Yet there are distinct patterns everywhere.

Asian countries have traditionally seen a high burden of Japanese encephalitis; Australia has seen a re-emergence of Murray Valley encephalitis in this decade; while some of the leading causes in the United States have been the herpes simplex family and West Nile viruses. Among Asian countries, the endemic regions are India, Nepal and Bangladesh in the subcontinent, and Cambodia, Vietnam and Timor Leste, among others, in Southeast Asia. Several mystery encephalitis pockets exist in these countries too.

India, for its sheer size alone, has one of the largest populations at risk, 375 million, in the encephalitis belt, especially Uttar Pradesh. But India also has other disadvantages: poverty and a crumbling health infrastructure increase both the risk of illness and the probability that it won’t be diagnosed correctly.

The direct link between poverty and AES can be seen in the demographics of encephalitis patients. The overwhelming majority of patients are poor. All the accompaniments of poverty, from poor hygiene and lack of proper clothing to poor nutrition, increase vulnerability to encephalitis pathogens. And when people do get sick, they only have access to public health facilities, most of which can neither diagnose nor treat the affliction as quickly as it should be treated.

In 2013, following the recommendations of an expert group on encephalitis, Uttar Pradesh set up 104 treatment centres to bolster healthcare facilities. The idea was to offer high-end treatment such as ventilators, and trained doctors, so that patients could be stabilised near their homes instead of having to be rushed to Baba Raghav Das.

Potharaju Nagabhushana Rao, a paediatrician from Hyderabad and lead author of the expert group’s report, had recommended this move because the journey to large hospitals such as Baba Raghav Das was killing more patients than the illness.

With no attempts to feed or oxygenate critically ill patients as they were moved from village to hospital, their sugar levels dropped and the brain was starved of oxygen.

“By the time the patient is taken to hospital, the brain is damaged beyond repair,” says Potharaju. This was the problem treatment centres were meant to fix, by providing small but high-tech hospitals closer to the affected villages.

“When a hut catches fire in a by-lane, what will a fire engine do there?” says Potharaju, “When a problem is in a village, you can’t start a tertiary care hospital 600 kilometres away.”

The centres haven’t worked as planned. Patients from across UP continue to flock to Baba Raghav Das, doctors there say, because they believe that it is the only hospital that can provide care. It is, partly, because not all the encephalitis treatment centres are functional. Some are missing doctors, while others are missing critical drugs, says Kushwaha. As a result, mortality continues to be high while diagnosis remains elusive.

R. N. Singh calculates that Baba Raghav Das hospital has an average of over 200 deaths per bed since the outbreaks began in 1977. “Gorakhpur is the capital of the world for encephalitis. There is nowhere else in the world which would have witnessed more than 200 deaths per bed. It is a very sorry figure,” he says.

***

About 2,000 kilometres south of Gorakhpur, in Bengaluru, are the verdurous grounds of the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS). Karnataka sees far fewer cases of encephalitis than Uttar Pradesh or Assam, but it is here that the wheels are being set in motion for an ambitious project to find the causes of AES in the encephalitis belt. It’s a project that aims to use hard evidence, collected over several years and locations, to find the pathogens and alter treatment protocols. It’s going to be a long journey.

Sixty-one-year-old Ravi Vasanthapuram, a neurovirologist at NIMHANS, has been researching AES for over three decades now. With salt and pepper hair and the mien of a professor, he speaks softly most of the time, but breaks into a sardonic chuckle when he talks of the inexplicable neglect AES has encountered from the government. For example, he says, the systems for collecting samples from swine flu patients are far better maintained than for collecting blood and cerebrospinal fluid samples from AES patients, though it is a dangerous illness of the brain.

“You get all the information about someone who sneezes with a fever…But when it comes to AES, the cerebrospinal fluid from patients still comes at room temperature, and it doesn’t come in a screw-top vial. These are the realities. The nose gets more importance than the brain.”

Vasanthapuram believes he might be able to change this. In 2014, he received a $4.8 million grant, spread over three years, from the Centers for Disease Control, the United States’ leading public health institute, to study the causes of AES.

With these funds, he upgraded a network of diagnostic laboratories across the encephalitis belt, so that they could now test for 10 different pathogens in every patient sample, including for scrub typhus. In the first year of the project, nine laboratories from Assam, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Karnataka were roped into the network. Karnataka was chosen as a control location, for comparison with the data collected from high-burden regions.

Testing for encephalitis causing agents in India has so far focused on Japanese encephalitis. This is partly because Japanese encephalitis has traditionally made up a large number of cases. Over the years, though, the epidemiology of AES has changed. The proportion of Japanese encephalitis cases has dropped steeply, though the number of AES cases has remained the same.

Despite this, the National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme continues to test only for Japanese encephalitis. When that is ruled out, the illness is labelled AES. This means any of the three dozen agents that cause encephalitis could be hiding in the basket labelled AES. Vasanthapuram calls AES a “dustbin diagnosis”, a label under which you file every encephalitis case for which you cannot find a cause.

It is this “dustbin” Vasanthapuram’s group will sift through over the next three years. By testing for 10 agents the laboratories will give names to some of the illnesses. These agents include the scrub typhus bacterium, the herpes virus, three bacteria that cause meningitis, and the chikungunya virus. Each is capable of triggering an illness that is either encephalitis or looks deceptively like it.

In October 2015, Vasanthapuram’s group shared the findings in an abstract during the ID Week conference of infectious disease specialists in San Diego, US.

In their first study of 1,253 patients in 2014, they found the pathogen in nearly 40 per cent of the cases. As expected, Japanese encephalitis was the commonest cause of AES in the four states, at 21 per cent. Among the non-JE cases, the biggest cause was an agent suspected in outbreaks such as the one in Gorakhpur, but not taken seriously: scrub typhus. Other significant causes were herpes simplex and the meningitis-causing Streptococcus pneumoniae.

Meanwhile enteroviruses, a favourite hypothesis in Gorakhpur, turned up only around 0.2 per cent of the time in the four states, including Uttar Pradesh. “We are calling the bluff on enteroviruses,” says Vasanthapuram.

***

The story of AES in India begins in 1956 in North Arcot district (now Tiruvannamalai and Vellore) of the Madras Presidency. In that year, two separate groups reported cases of Japanese encephalitis in the region. One reported clinical symptoms of Japanese encephalitis among children, while the other found Japanese encephalitis antibodies in six patients. Once the virus was isolated in southern India, it began showing up across the country—an outbreak in West Bengal’s Burdwan and Bankura districts in 1973 killed 300 people. Then, between 1977 and 1979, outbreaks occurred in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka in the south, and West Bengal, Assam, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh in the north. Since then, Japanese encephalitis has become endemic to many of these states.

In 2005, the threat of Japanese encephalitis hit home. India’s biggest epidemic raged across Uttar Pradesh, killing 1,344 out of the 5,737 affected children. It forced India to begin importing a vaccine from China and to kick-start a massive vaccination campaign in 2007. Within five years, 15 states had been covered, and the Japanese encephalitis vaccine became a part of their universal immunisation programme. This was a point of inflection for encephalitis in India, because it sharply reduced the incidence of Japanese encephalitis without touching the other causes of AES lurking in its shadows.

According to WHO, a patient suffering from fever, altered mental status with or without seizures should first be tested for Japanese encephalitis. If the results are negative, it would be an AES case and tested for similar illnesses such as bacterial meningitis and herpes simplex encephalitis. In essence, AES was defined as any illness that looked like Japanese encephalitis but couldn’t be confirmed as such.

India adopted WHO guidelines, but went after Japanese encephalitis more than other causes of AES. Funded by the National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme, hospitals in endemic areas received Japanese encephalitis test kits. But once the results turned out negative, most hospitals could not test for other bacteria and viruses recommended by WHO, and recorded them as AES of unknown cause.

The result of this focus is that the incidence of Japanese encephalitis has fallen while AES from an unknown cause has remained the same.

What are some of the illnesses hiding in the “AES of unknown cause” diagnosis? Sporadic studies from outbreak regions throw up some clues. A study from the Regional Medical Research Centre in Dibrugarh, Assam, for example, found antibodies to the bacterium leptospira in 8 of 197 patients of AES. Leptospira are spiral wormlike bacteria transmitted to humans from infected rodent urine. While the illness mostly manifests as a fever and body ache, the 2012 study showed that it also causes altered mental status, thus being labelled AES. The West Nile virus, first isolated in West Nile district of Uganda in the 1930s, has shown up in Assam. A 2003 epidemic in Andhra Pradesh was attributed to a newly emerging virus named the Chandipura virus. In other outbreaks, researchers also saw the dengue virus, the malaria protozoa and the chikungunya virus causing encephalitis symptoms.

A complete picture of the prevalence of each of these agents doesn’t exist, because the government continues to collect data only for Japanese encephalitis. As a result, “AES of unknown cause” has become the dominant diagnosis in most encephalitis pockets in India.

***

As encephalitis cases swell in Gorakhpur in July, the outbreak season is fading in Assam. The illness seems to track the path of the monsoon, hitting Assam first, then West Bengal, and finally Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. This is to be expected, says Ravi Vasanthapuram. “Globally, most infections occur after the monsoon because there is better transmission. If the pathogen is waterborne, monsoon leads to contamination. Vector density also goes up after monsoon.”

An extremely common vector for encephalitis-causing diseases is the mosquito, which carries the virus for Japanese encephalitis, West Nile, Chikungunya and dengue, among others. Each monsoon marks the start of a new breeding season for mosquitoes.

Assam carries a huge burden of encephalitis: last year, over 2,000 people were affected, while close to 400 died of it. Even though the monsoon arrives only in June, it rains almost through the year in districts such as Jorhat. Located in the flood plain of the Brahmaputra, Jorhat has numerous ponds and lakes dotting its brilliant green landscape. In Jorhat city, the ponds are replaced by open drains clogged with plastic, a perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes. Pigs live by the roadside; piggeries are big business in Assam because pork is a big part of the local diet. But pigs are also amplifying hosts to the Japanese encephalitis virus. The virus multiplies in their bodies and is transmitted to humans by mosquitoes that bite the pigs.

Located in the centre of this bustling, frequently water-logged city is the seven-year old Jorhat Medical College, a spanking new institution compared to Gorakhpur’s 45-year-old Baba Raghav Das Medical College. But like Baba Raghav Das, Jorhat Medical College is also an epicentre for encephalitis treatment in upper Assam, where patients come from all nearby districts, as well as from neighbouring Nagaland.

The outpatient department of Jorhat Medical College is crowded. The heat and extraordinary humidity—around 80 per cent in July—means a miasma of sweat, sickness and disinfectant hangs in the corridors.

In this environment, the air-conditioned paediatric intensive care unit, which houses four encephalitis patients, offers relief. Despite this, a woman is fanning her child who lies rigid and staring on one of the beds in the ICU. The girl, referred to as “bed number 7” by the doctors and interns, has Japanese encephalitis, and is running a high fever. Next to her, on bed number six, lies 12-year-old Madhusmita Phukan, who doesn’t have the benefit of a diagnosis. She has been in Jorhat three days, and samples of her blood and cerebrospinal fluid have been sent to the microbiology department. They will be tested for malaria, Japanese encephalitis and dengue. But the department will not be able to test for herpes simplex, a fairly common cause of AES in upper Assam, because it doesn’t have the kit.

As they await the results, doctors at Jorhat Medical College are treating Phukan for everything that could possibly cause her illness. The antiviral Acylovir is given in case she has herpes simplex, mannitol to control the raised intracranial pressure that kills Japanese encephalitis patients, and antibiotics in case of bacterial encephalitis and to ward off infections from the catheter and naso-gastric tube that invade her body. Through it all Madhusmita lies unconscious, her small body shrouded in a web of medical apparatus.

Such an aggressive, blunderbuss approach works for most patients, says Pranabjit Bishwanath, the head of department of paediatrics at Jorhat Medical College, because viruses such as West Nile and chikungunya do not have specific treatments anyway. So knowing the causative agent doesn’t make a difference in most cases, because the illness is managed according to symptoms alone.

But one illness for which a diagnostic test would really make a difference is herpes simplex, he says. This is because the drug used—Acyclovir—is far too expensive to give to all AES patients, who typically come from extremely poor families. “If we can diagnose herpes early, it will be much better for us,” Bishwanath says. Then the drug can be acquired with the confidence that it will work.

After waiting a day, Madhusmita’s parents decide to move their daughter to a bigger hospital in Guwahati, the capital, in the hope that she can get better treatment as she continues to remain unconscious. She is shifted with no diagnosis other than the mysterious AES, because the results of the Japanese encephalitis test are yet to come. A month later, paediatricians at Jorhat Medical College have lost track of her status and moved on to new patients who continue to arrive as the season progresses.

***

If things go as Vasanthapuram hopes, every major district hospital in the encephalitis belt, including Jorhat Medical College, will either have a laboratory or quick access to a laboratory that can test for multiple agents, including herpes simplex.

“What I would love to do is to equip the labs, train them, and place a field coordinator in each district at a salary of something like Rs. 20,000, considering the seriousness of AES. I’m hoping the government will take on this established system and run it like the polio system,” he says.

In the second year of his project Vasanthapuram’s team tested 2,262 patients in four states, bringing the total sample of his study to a significant 3,300. The trends were similar in 2015 as in 2014. Scrub typhus constituted the second largest number of cases among non-JE causes, especially in eastern Uttar Pradesh districts around Gorakhpur. Meanwhile, Assam continued to have a high percentage of Japanese encephalitis because vaccination campaigns haven’t been as widespread as in Uttar Pradesh. But the team is still stuck at a 40 per cent rate of diagnosis.

To get around this, Vasanthapuram will turn to technology. Next year his team will begin using a method called next-generation sequencing to identify the bugs causing encephalitis. Nucleic acids, such as DNA and RNA, in all patient samples will be sequenced and matched with the genomes of known viruses. This technology is more sensitive than the methods used by Vasanthapuram’s group so far, and is expected to pick up the causes in another 20 per cent of encephalitis cases.

One of the things that could happen, Vasanthapuram says, is that more Japanese encephalitis, dengue and scrub typhus cases will show up, simply because the current diagnostic methods are not sensitive enough to identify them. I ask if he expects to find some unknown virus, that hasn’t been known to cause encephalitis in India. “I don’t know,” he says, “Next Generation Sequencing is something very new, and the whole world is experimenting with it. But I believe that from the existing 40 per cent diagnostic rate, we may move another 10 or 20 per cent.” The remainder, he accepts, will always be a challenge—a challenge even the best healthcare systems in the world haven’t overcome.

But some experts ask if high-tech diagnostic tests alone are enough to uncover the aetiologies in mystery outbreaks, if there aren’t enough expert clinicians—doctors on the ground who observe the symptoms of patients—to provide early clues on what to test for.

One such expert is T. Jacob John, an infectious diseases specialist credited with uncovering the aetiology in at least two AES pockets in India, Bihar’s Muzaffarpur and Uttar Pradesh’s Saharanpur. Both investigations highlight how critical a clinician’s perspective is to an AES investigation.

***

MMuzaffarpur is a district in Bihar with a two-decade-long history of recurring AES outbreaks, like neighbouring Uttar Pradesh’s Gorakhpur. The dog days of summer see hundreds of young children fall ill in this town suddenly and seriously. The illness hits in the wee hours after the child has been asleep for some time. Parents often wake up to a sharp cry from their child, to discover the child is convulsing and losing consciousness. They rush the child to the hospital, but the illness progresses to a coma. Within 48 hours, over half of the children are dead, an extraordinarily high fatality rate even for AES.

Since the outbreak was first reported in 1995, it was thought to be and treated as Japanese encephalitis, a practice that did not change even when clues began to emerge that it was neither Japanese encephalitis, nor even encephalitis. In 2013, frustrated by the large number of deaths each year, Muzaffarpur-based paediatrician Arun Shah invited John to help investigate the illness.

John, who refers to himself as a freelance medical investigator since he retired from the Christian Medical College in Vellore in 1995, agreed to do so. When he arrived in Muzaffarpur in May 2013, he began exploring the town, interviewing parents of affected children, taking in the surroundings. Next, as the season began, he scoured the hospital records. Something significant struck him.

“I was horrified to discover that none of the children showed any evidence of encephalitis,” he says.

Over the years, John has published several articles emphasising the need to differentiate encephalitis from encephalopathy. Both illnesses look alike and affect the mental status of patients, but careful clinicians can distinguish between them through symptoms and basic laboratory investigations. In encephalitis, which is primarily an illness of the brain, for example, the patient shows focal neurological signs, or evidence that a particular region of the brain is affected. This manifests in symptoms such as an unsteady gait, which points to an impaired frontal lobe. In encephalopathy, where the brain is a secondary victim of the illness, patients often don’t show these symptoms.

Despite the differences between encephalitis and encephalopathy, researchers have, time and again, conflated both during epidemics, to the detriment of diagnosis. Knowing whether an illness is an encephalopathy or encephalitis can be a valuable first clue in finding the cause, because one can trace it to a virus or a bacterium known to produce this symptom. For example, if it is an encephalopathy, doctors can usually rule out Japanese encephalitis and West Nile, because these viruses are neurotropic, meaning they hit the brain first.

The confusion between encephalopathy and encephalitis has a long history in India. An outbreak in Nagpur during the 1950s was thought to be encephalitis until a team from ICMR, and another of which John was part of, clarified that it was an encephalopathy. Then in the early 2000s John, along with a team of doctors including paediatrician Vipin M Vashishtha from Bijnor district of Uttar Pradesh, set about investigating recurring encephalitis outbreaks in Saharanpur, a district about 100 kilometres from Bijnor. This Saharanpur disease, unlike other AES epidemics across India that occur during monsoon, was a winter illness, with fatality as high as 70 per cent.

Again, John and Vashishtha found after an examination of patients that the disease was an encephalopathy, even though previous investigators, including the ICMR, had labelled it encephalitis. But John and Vashishtha found signs that ruled out encephalitis: the children did not have raised levels of cells in cerebrospinal fluid, there was no evidence of inflammation in the brain, and they tended to contract the illness suddenly, with no warning. Encephalitis patients usually experience prodromal symptoms, or early symptoms of malaise, before the illness worsens.

During an investigation that lasted between 2003 and 2005, both researchers also examined tissue samples from 55 of the children in Saharanpur. They found that the encephalopathy was triggered by damage to the liver and muscle tissue, probably due to a toxin. Instances of liver damage due to the consumption of certain toxic plants had previously been reported from various parts of the world. For example, a European mushroom species, commonly referred to as Death Cap, was known to trigger the kind of liver damage John and Vashishtha observed in their patients.

Next, John’s team interviewed families of the sick children, to find that these children sometimes ate a bean growing on a local plant called Cassia occidentalis and known in Hindi as pamaad. Analysis of the plant revealed a potent toxin which could cause the liver damage and encephalopathy found in the children.

When they shared their findings with the Saharanpur administration, it organised large scale awareness campaigns and drives to uproot the plant. Over the years, the illness disappeared from Saharanpur.

Having been through this experience, the Muzaffarpur illness was déjà vu to John. Once again, the illness was an encephalopathy, although the main co-symptom here was hypoglycaemia or low blood sugar, rather than liver damage. John noted that previous studies, which had ruled out Japanese encephalitis and other viruses as possible causes, had found the illness was strongly associated with the lychee season. A similar illness occurred around the same time in northern Vietnam and Bangladesh, both lychee-producing countries. So, researchers there were investigating viruses in bat excrement that sometimes fell on lychees, as well as pesticides used on lychee fruits, as possible triggers for the illness.

As far as John could see, however, all symptoms were pointing to a plant toxin. His own research into plant toxins during the Saharanpur case had introduced him to a Jamaican fruit called Ackee which, consumed in large amounts, caused an illness called the Jamaican Vomiting Sickness. Now, he recalled that the Muzaffarpur encephalopathy looked a lot like Jamaican Vomiting Sickness, down to the hypoglycaemia and encephalopathy. The question now was: were Muzaffarpur and Jamaica connected in some way? A study of published journal papers threw up the answer.

“Do you know what I found just through an armchair literature survey?” John says with a chuckle. “Ackee and lychee belong to the same family. Nobody had looked for this association earlier.”

Like the seeds of the Ackee fruit, lychee seeds also contained a toxin which had been shown to kill rats by triggering encephalopathy. So John began testing if the treatment for Jamaican Vomiting Sickness—an injection of the sugar dextrose—would work in the Muzaffarpur patients. It did, as he reported in a correspondence published in 2014 in the Indian journal Current Science.

A year later, John’s hypothesis found further support. The Centers for Disease Control, collaborating on an investigation in Muzaffarpur with Delhi’s National Centre for Disease Control, also implicated the lychee toxin after two consecutive studies in 2013 and 2014. John has pursued the hypothesis further and tested the flesh of lychee fruits for the toxin, because it was unclear how children could ingest the toxin if it was only present in the seeds. As he expected, the translucent flesh of the lychee fruit did contain traces of the toxin.

Both the Muzaffarpur and Saharanpur investigations show the importance of studying patient symptoms, or framing a “case-definition”, rather than merely relying on lab diagnostic tests, says John. “The problem with looking for aetiology without a case (definition) is the same problem that was seen in Muzaffarpur and Saharanpur. For 20 years, ICMR, NIV and NIDC (now called National Centre for Disease Control) kept coming, collecting samples and looking for causes in them.” Each of these institutions assumed the illness was viral encephalitis, and kept looking for the purported virus. But a quick look at symptoms would have revealed that illness was neither encephalitis, nor viral.

John and several other researchers, including Vashishtha, have been calling for a change in the definition of Acute Encephalitis Syndrome. AES is too broad a label, they say, because any illness meeting the criteria of fever, altered mental status and seizures is classified as AES. This means many encephalopathies caused by non-viral agents are also classified as AES by inexperienced doctors who don’t focus on case-definitions. This is harmful, John argues.

The term Acute Encephalitis Syndrome was never meant to be a diagnosis. It was merely a surveillance tool created by WHO so that it would not fail to count cases that could be Japanese encephalitis, but couldn’t be confirmed because of a lack of access to lab testing kits.

“In other words, AES means that Japanese encephalitis is most likely. It is purely a surveillance terminology. It has crept into clinical diagnosis, unfortunately, and now people are using it as a diagnostic category,” he says.

When I ask John about the scrub typhus controversy in Gorakhpur, he says he finds it shocking that scrub typhus would be confused with AES. Again, he suspects, the doctors who studied the patients before Kumar’s study did not focus on a case definition. If they had, they would have pieced together the symptomatic history of patients, and discovered that they had suffered a long drawn fever, had characteristic rash, liver and spleen enlargement, and other symptoms of scrub typhus.

“If you knew the antecedents of that problem: fever and rash, you wouldn’t call it Acute Encephalitis Syndrome. You would call it scrub typhus, a disease known all over India. It tells me that the whole thing is a wild goose chase, and nobody knows what the goose looks like,” says John.

Vasanthapuram agrees that good clinicians are key to any disease investigation. However, he argues, such exceptional clinicians cannot be present everywhere. “The best way (to diagnose) is to collect specimens. If it is negative for Japanese encephalitis, put it to other tests. The ultimate evidence is a laboratory confirmation,” he says.

Nevertheless, his project isn’t neglecting case definitions. Starting in 2016, his team will collect granular data on the symptoms of patients, along with lab diagnosis, at two of the sites in his network—Dibrugarh in Assam and Deoriya in Uttar Pradesh. Over time, this surveillance will be extended to other sites as well.

Currently, the symptom data collected from all AES patients in India is entered by doctors into a one-page form designed by the National Vector Borne Disease Control Program. The form has a binary format for most questions. Doctors must record whether fever is present, whether vomiting is present, whether seizures are present, whether the patient is vaccinated against Japanese encephalitis, etc. If fever is present, details such as the severity and length of the fever are not noted, even though this data is crucial to a case-definition.

“The form cannot tell you much. It is basically a ticking form,” says Vasanthapuram. His team’s surveillance in Deoriya and Dibrugarh will capture much more: the type of fever, length of fever, the results of other biochemistry tests and the results of computed tomography (CT) scans, for example. This data could some day supply the missing case-definitions, at least for some regions in India.

“This is hard data,” he says, “and people will be convinced only when they see hard data. Without hard data, there will only be stories going around.”

***

In Gorakhpur, the confusion over the causes of AES continues.

On the one hand, evidence for the scrub typhus hypothesis is growing. After the ICMR study in 2014, Vasanthapuram’s group also reported evidence of scrub typhus in districts surrounding Gorakhpur from their studies. John, who visited Gorakhpur recently with ICMR, believes the hypothesis to be plausible too.

Enlarge

On the other hand, the accepted treatment for scrub typhus—intravenous azithromycin—doesn’t seem to be working for the patients in Baba Raghav Das Hospital.

But the ICMR believes this doesn’t disprove the hypothesis. One reason that azithromycin isn’t triggering a dramatic recovery in AES patients could be that these patients come to the hospital too late to respond to treatment, says a scientist who does not wish to be named from the ICMR’s National Institute of Epidemiology. Another could be that Baba Raghav Das hospital hasn’t systematically studied the effect of azithromycin in patients, and is missing the improvement in patients who do respond. In either case, more evidence stacks up in favour of the hypothesis than against it, he says.

This is why ICMR continues to bet on scrub typhus. The body has already recommended that Uttar Pradesh’s primary health care centres store doxycycline, an inexpensive antibiotic that can cure scrub typhus quickly, just like azithromycin. The idea is that encephalitis of the severity seen at Baba Raghav Das hospital may be too intractable for azithromycin or doxycycline. Instead, patients must be treated early, while they have nothing more than a fever, so that the illness doesn’t progress to encephalitis. But in the absence of a consensus on scrub typhus, the UP government hasn’t implemented the recommendation yet.

Mahima Mittal, the head of the department of paediatrics at Gorakhpur, doesn’t know what to believe right now. “It is for the researchers to comment on the cause. They give us a diagnosis and we believe it. Maybe now, they will give us a different diagnosis,” she says.

For now, she will treat her patients for symptoms, as she has been doing for years.

(Priyanka Pulla is a freelance journalist based in Bengaluru. Her work has been published in Mint and The Caravan, among others.)

(Prabhat Singh is a photojournalist and an editor with Amar Ujala in Delhi.)

The cover story of the September 2016 issue of Fountain Ink.

BY MAHESH SHANTARAM

In early February, I woke up to news of a mob attack on a Tanzanian student in Bengaluru. It wasn’t the first case of violence against Africans in India, but this particular incident made me curious about Africans in India, and through them, the truth about racism in our country.

Since that day, I’ve been travelling (Bengaluru, Manipal, Hyderabad, Jaipur, and Jalandhar) to meet African students and learn more about their experiences. As I make friends, I make portraits to preserve that encounter in a way I know best, that speaks to others. A portrait can have the power to make one stop and stare (which anyway is a national pastime) and evoke the viewer’s curiosity about the life and condition of the subject.

As a community, I have discovered that foreign students are among the most vulnerable. They are part of a loosely regulated industry which brings with it certain insecurities and puts them at the mercy of  the system. These students, leaders of tomorrow’s Africa, look at India as a Mecca for higher education. College years are typically the best of our lives—full of innocence, adventure, experimentation. But because of their skin colour and our legendary prejudice, the African student’s life in India resembles a prison sentence. Soon, they take on additional roles: victim, survivor, activist, revolutionary.

When I started this project, it was a simple matter of meeting Africans. Over the months, conversations with Africans have broadened and deepened my perspective. Through this project—portraits and accompanying stories—I want to raise awareness of how racism and xenophobia are a waste of human potential. I hope to draw national attention to the urgent matter of racial discrimination in India

Africans are accustomed to meeting Indians in hostile spaces—police stations, TV studios, and hospitals—whenever there is an “incident”. As this work travels across India, it will bring Indians and Africans together for a conversation.

(Mahesh Shantaram is a photographer based in Bengaluru. “The African Portraits” will be shown by Tasveer Gallery in five cities across India.)

The photo story of the October 2016 issue of Fountain Ink.

BY GOVIND KRISHNAN V
PHOTOGRAPHS BY HARSHA VADLAMANI

A kilometre to the northwest of Hyderabad’s iconic Golconda Fort, which once held the Kohinoor and Hope diamonds, is a vast necropolis few tourists to the fort have heard of. A blue arch over a gateway proclaims “Qutb Shahi Tombs”. When Yoshowant Purohit arrived four years ago, there was no sign to tell visitors that the entire dynasty of Hyderabad’s founding kings rested in the 108-acre complex. Purohit, a conservation architect, came from Delhi as part of an ambitious project to restore the Qutb Shahi tomb complex and make it worthy of World Heritage Site listing. On his first day driving to work, Purohit had trouble locating the tombs. Local people hadn’t even heard of the Qutb Shahis; the monuments were known simply as the “saat maqbare”—the seven tombs.

These seven tombs belong to the seven kings who ruled Golconda before the Nizams of the erstwhile Hyderabad state. The last of the seven emerges first. The two-storeyed tomb of Abdullah Qutb Shah (1626-72), which rises 137 feet, has a massive dome guarded by minarets and 28 open arches at its entrance.

Almost tucked away on one side the tomb of Abu Hasan Tana Shah, the last Qutb Shahi (they ruled for 171 years) remains unfinished—a testament to the march of time that brings to naught the plans of monarchs and men. Unplastered red bricks grown black over three centuries enclose two basalt graves and rise 27 feet where, instead of an ornate dome, a cavernous mouth opens to the skies. Graffiti and love messages are scratched into the decaying plaster of the inner walls. The birds taking wing over the open roof and the foliage growing out of the wall give the place an air of doom. The last of the Qutb Shahis died in exile, as a prisoner in Daulatabad. Tana Shah’s fate was sealed when the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb marched south in 1687, laying waste to Hyderabad after a bloody siege of eight months. It was a turning point in the history of the Deccan. The commander of the attacking army was the father of Nizam-ul-Mulk, who became Viceroy of the Deccan and eventually independent ruler of Golconda when the Mughal Empire disintegrated.

The saat maqbare Purohit saw in 2012 was in neglect. In many monuments the edges had broken off, seeping water had ruined structures, and most of the decoration and ornamentation was damaged. Algae and rain had blackened the facades. In 2013, the wall of a large stepwell (Bade Baoli) collapsed in heavy rain. Investigations revealed that most of the stucco work and ornamentation on the monuments had been added in the 19th century when a renovation was carried out under Salar Jung I, prime minister of Hyderabad. Worse, concrete had been used extensively in the 20th century, damaging the buildings made with lime mortar.

The Qutb Shahi restoration is the most ambitious heritage conservation project undertaken in India. The sheer size of the necropolis is staggering—it has 72 historical structures, 40 tombs, 23 mosques, several stepwells and a hamaam (bathhouse). A public-private partnership between the department of Archaeology and Museums of Andhra Pradesh (now Telangana), and the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, the project is slated for completion in 2023.

“The trust worked on Humayun’s tomb in Delhi and was looking to undertake a major conservation project in south India. We considered several sites, but the Qutb Shahi tomb complex is unique, probably the only necropolis in the world with an entire dynasty buried within it. We approached the state government and after an architectural documentation and topographical assessment of the site, we signed an MoU in 2013,” says Ratish Nanda, India CEO of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture.

The MoU tasked the Aga Khan Trust with the work, under the department of archaeology’s supervision. Besides preservation and structural restoration, it aims to restore the monuments where feasible to the way they were constructed in the 16th and 17th centuries. This means not only figuring out form and architectural details, but also using material originally used in the construction. The landscape around the tombs would also be restored. The total cost was estimated at Rs 100 crore.

Enlarge

Nanda assembled a multi-disciplinary team to draw up a conservation plan—specialist architects, civil engineers, archaeologists and historians. The first step was extensive documentation of the existing tombs and mosques. Before any restoration could begin, all architectural details of the monuments as they existed had to be recorded. By the end of the year, the team had made over 200 architectural drawings, which along with photographical documentation filled five thick volumes. The team also carried out a condition assessment, recording deterioration and damage to various structures, and setting priorities for preservation work. While damage that threatened the buildings could be rectified, restoration was a different ball game. The challenge was to uncover, as best as could be done, how the monuments had looked originally.

“None of the original patterns could be seen. They were covered under layers of cement or lime plaster. The patterns that were visible, we had no way of discovering whether they were added by the Nizams or whether they were part of the original 16th and 17th century architecture,” says Purohit. There was little information on the monuments. The restoration team had to start from scratch. They started talking to local historians for clues. To help with archaeological investigations, the team invited K. K. Mohammed, a former archaeologist with the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), to join them.

Enlarge

After Tana Shah surrendered, Aurangzeb’s army laid waste to Hyderabad. The city went through a period of great decline, fully reviving only a century later. Legend (history has little to say) has Tana Shah facing his captors with equanimity, inviting the Mughal captain to breakfast with him. As he is being taken away from his capital as a prisoner, he gives his last silver coin to a water carrier who offers him water.

Sultan Tana Shah’s detachment has an almost spiritual quality. There are several stories where he appears in connection with the mystical, perhaps because he was the disciple of a Sufi saint whose tomb he built in another part of Hyderabad on a scale larger than that of any that inter his ancestors. During his reign, he imprisoned Kancherla Gopanna, a famous Carnatic music composer who preceded Tyagaraja and a tahasildar in Bhadrachalam province. Popularly known as Bhakta Ramadasu, Gopanna had appropriated government revenue to renovate a Ram temple. An angry Sultan had him carted off to prison. Telugu legend has Rama and Lakshmana appearing in Tana Shah’s bed chamber one night to pay the gold Ramadasu owed. The Sultan, who immediately recognised the spiritual meaning behind the incident, set Ramadasu free. He also began an annual tradition of sending pearls to the Ram temple. Ramadasu was heartbroken that in spite of a lifetime’s devotion to Ram, it was the Sultan who had been granted a vision of the deity. It was revealed to him that Tana Shah was a devotee of Ram in his previous birth, but gave up his austerities before he reached the goal.

“The enduring legacy of the Qutb Shahis is the syncretic culture and religion of the Deccan that they inherited and which they perpetuated. It is reflected in everything they did, including architecture which combined local traditions with the Mughal style. Unlike north India, where the first encounters with Islam were violent, in the south it happened through trade. This allowed for mutual understanding and sympathy and the evolution of a distinctive culture of religious syncretism, which the Qutb Shahis patronised when they came to power (in 1518),” says Sajjad Shahid, one of the historians consulted for the project.

Ironically, the kingdom’s syncretism was the political excuse Aurangzeb used to justify Mughal imperialism. As Shias the Qutb Shahis proclaimed loyalty to the Iranian Safavid empire rather than the Turkish Caliphate. They tolerated not only Sunnis, but also Hindus, who were allowed to rise through the administration. In Tana Shah’s Golconda, all administrative and military power was concentrated in the hands of two Hindu brothers. All this served Aurangzeb, who accused Tana Shah of being an infidel Shia who consorted with idolaters and portrayed his military campaign as a crusade.

***

In 2012, Purohit and a few members of the Aga Khan team started searching various archives for photographs of the Qutb Shahi tombs. Purohit’s first port of call was the internal archive of the department of archaeology and museums, which had a huge collection of photographs dating from the merger of Hyderabad with India. The department had not kept detailed records of its conservation interventions over the decades. The photographs helped plot rough time periods of these interventions. But a couple of his colleagues struck gold while going through the collection of the Alkazi Foundation for the Arts and the collection of the British Library, UK. This consisted of photographs from the 1860s taken a few years before major alterations and rebuilding by Salar Jung. Colonel Horatio Biden and Captain Allan Newton Scott, both of the Madras Artillery, photographed several tombs and other monuments. These photographs gave valuable information that was unknown, showing details of ornamentation and stucco work covered over with lime plaster or cement, additional constructions and so on. But the picture was far from complete. Photographs from this period were not available for all monuments. The kind of detail available depended on the angle of the photograph and the resolution. There were also no photographs of the interiors. The research extended to paintings, lithographs, descriptions given in Persian and Urdu manuscripts and published books.

On the basis of all this, Nanda and his team evolved a conservation plan. The work started towards the end of 2013 and Purohit took charge as the site manager.

***

Heritage monuments in India are protected by the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act (1958). The ASI implements the Act and is responsible for conservation of protected monuments. The ASI lists 3,682 monuments as protected monuments of national importance. Uttar Pradesh has the highest number, while Karnataka has 506 and Tamil Nadu 413. There are 3,334 monuments under the state protected monuments list. (This excludes Uttar Pradesh for which the figures are not available).

“Apart from the national and state protected list, maybe over 7,000 monuments are legally protected. All together, that is just 15,000. In the United Kingdom alone, there are 600,000 protected monuments and there are 29,000 in New York City,” says Nanda. (The 600,000 monuments are “listed buildings” in the UK, which are also protected, though not to the same extent as “scheduled buildings”. Unlike scheduled buildings, listed buildings can be lived in. The number of buildings designated by the New York City Landmark Preservation Commission as landmark properties has been updated this year, and is currently 35,000. This means that no alterations can be made to the building without permission.)

The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) submitted a scathing audit of ASI in 2013. The report said ASI had made no efforts to conduct a comprehensive survey or review of sites to be included in the “centrally protected list”.

“The ASI did not have a reliable database of the exact number of protected monuments under its jurisdiction. During joint physical inspections we found that out of the sample of 1,655 centrally protected monuments selected by us, 92 monuments (6 per cent) were not traceable,” the CAG report said. The audit report stated that the ASI had no approved conservation policy and no prescribed criteria on the basis of which to prioritise conservation work. “As a result, monuments were selected arbitrarily for carrying out conservation works. Further, many monuments were never considered for any kind of structural conservation despite need for the same. Inspection notes on the condition of monuments were not being prepared by the ASI officials. There was poor documentation of the conservation works. Even basic records such as measurement books, log books and site registers were not being maintained properly,” the report said.

The protected list is rarely updated. “Especially with the state lists, there are almost no additions. Additions happen only in instances where there is huge pressure. The ASI also has a severe lack of manpower,” says Sharat Chandra, a conservation architect based in Bengaluru. Tamil Nadu for instance has only 86 state protected monuments, while Karnataka has 747 and Kerala, with 26 national monuments, protects 102 under the state list.

“Heritage conservation in India is 50 years behind Europe, where it began seriously after the Second World War. We are far behind in various aspects. But we can pick up. Our idea of conservation is always dependent on the perspective of tourism. It is not heritage that is addressed and authenticity gets compromised. Above all we follow British legislation where one is legally bound to conserve and protect monuments. This is a very limited approach. We need to create incentives for conservation and create the financial support and people skill needed,” says Chandra.

Conservation architects interviewed for this story said the number of heritage monuments in India that the ASI protects is only a fraction of the total. The Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural heritage (INTACH), a private conservation society, has conducted a study that tries to estimate the number of heritage monuments. The study, expected to be published in November, makes projections for the number and different kinds of heritage monuments.

Malvika Bajaj Saini, who led the study, says: “The report estimates that there are 11 lakh heritage monuments in India. This means that protected monuments are only 0.7 per cent of the existing heritage monuments. We also created an index of degradation of the monuments. The national average is 21.85 per cent degradation. Punjab ranks highest with 72 per cent degradation while Jammu and Kashmir comes second with 62 per cent. Rajasthan scores 41 per cent while Kerala scores 40. In terms of good preservation, Goa, Andhra and Bihar have done the best at 61 per cent, 57 per cent and 48 per cent respectively.” The study did not have data for the Union Territories and Delhi.

***

The style of the Qutb Shahi tombs is a blend of Persian, Pathan and Hindu conventions. The large squat tombs of the kings sit on raised platforms, with the basalt gravestones of wives, sons and other close relatives resting beside the mausoleum. Favourite courtiers found place, sometimes meriting their own mausoleums. Two domed tombs contain the graves of Taramati and Premamati, Hindu courtesans who were favourites of the sixth king Abdullah Qutb Shah. Prominent women of the royalty, generals and other important personages have tombs of varying sizes, from spartan mausoleums to domed structures of imposing size and grandeur. Apart from the many mosques, there are half a dozen stepwells. One supplied water to a large mortuary bath, which historians believe was used to wash the bodies before burial. The team now believes that the structure is actually a hamaam, an Iranian style bathhouse.

The conservation plan has divided the complex into three phases and restoration will proceed chronologically. The first phase contains the tombs of the first five kings and Purohit hopes this will be done by 2017. In the beginning of 2015, work started on the main tombs; first in line was Sultan Qutb-ul-Mulk, the founder of the dynasty.

“We expected Sultan’s tomb to be the easiest, because the architecture and ornamentation looked simple. But as we explored, it turned up quite a few surprises. It has been one of the most challenging parts of the project,” says Nitya Khendil, an architect associated with the project.  Sultan’s tomb is among the smaller of the grand tombs, at 12 by 12 metres, with a height of 21 metres. A pear-shaped dome with a diameter of 8 metres, adorned with a ribbon of petals at its base, rises above twelve minarets standing between four columns of decorated merlons.

Enlarge

The dome and walls of Sultan’s tomb were blackened by decades of algae and damp. The lime plaster was cracked and peeling. The walls were pockmarked with graffiti. Before starting restoration, Purohit and his colleagues used laser scanners to map the tomb with greater precision. The data can be used to create a 3D map of how the tomb originally looked. When the team compared archival photographs from the 1860s with the present structure, they spotted that the petals on the dome had intricate patterns that had disappeared.

The photographs also showed details on the minarets which had been plastered over. However, they were too grainy to pick out the exact details. They started removing the plaster (added during the Nizam period) layer by chipping it away. Beneath the plaster, impressions left by the 16th century etchings emerged. But most were too faint to trace details. Of the 42 petals, craftsmen recovered patterns in nine and restored them. Dismantling the plaster on the minarets revealed details that were invisible before. Here the conservationists had to tread carefully.

“The first goal of our philosophy is long-term preservation. But where possible, the principle is to leave things in their original state. If some detail is missing and we cannot establish it with evidence, we leave it as it is. Where the patterns are intact and in reasonably good state, we don’t intervene. Where the state is bad, the craftsmen repair it.  And where it is completely gone and we have exact knowledge of what the detail is, we restore it,” said Purohit.

Enlarge

While many of the patterns were repeated (for example, the minarets at the four corners are identical), there was significant variation between individual minarets. Here, the archival photographs came in handy. Collaborating evidence from physical investigation and photographs, the team repaired and rebuilt the patterns on all the minarets. The recovered and restored patterns are some of the most ornate in the complex.

***

Near the Bade Baoli, whose collapsed wall has been rebuilt, a yellow painted machine on two wheels stands near open concrete tanks, its green hosing rolled up idly. The work has stopped temporarily and a few labourers walk around the place. Nitya Khendil, a tall young woman in T-shirt and jeans and wearing a pair of sneakers with pink laces, points to the bluish liquid that fills the tanks. “This is where we produce our lime mortar—powdered lime is left to slake in the water for two days. It’s a chemical reaction that produces a lot of heat. You could burn your hand if you touch the calcium hydroxide formed,” she says.

Khendil is a year out of architecture school and joined the Qutb Shahi project in 2015. She explains how sand is mixed with slaked lime and then ground to form the concrete. “Bel (wood apple) fruit pulp.”  She removes the lid on a plastic barrel to uncover a brown, sickly sweet smelling liquid. “We sent the material from the tombs to a laboratory to analyse its contents. Other than lime, the mortar contains bel fruit pulp, gum and molasses. The results also broke down the percentage of the components so that we can mix them in the right proportion,” she says.

Enlarge

The project gathered traditional limestone workers from Telangana, and Rajasthan, who know how to use lime mortar. The technique survives in pockets despite lime construction becoming extinct. To restore the stucco work and ornamentation, the project employs craftsmen skilled in carving lime plaster. “From the 1970s onwards all around the world, there was a realisation that cement concrete in heritage buildings, tended to damage them. A consensus emerged that all conservation work should use lime mortar and ingredients that were used in the original construction,” Nanda says.

Before cement changed the face of construction in India in the 20th century, all buildings were constructed with lime mortar. It takes as long as two months to set, unlike cement which dries instantly, making it the preferred medium for rapid urbanisation. But the buildings last much longer, as evidenced by ancient monuments. The reason is that lime buildings “breathe.” They continuously take in air and exhale water.  Limestone is calcium carbonate and when slaked in water, it reacts chemically to form calcium hydroxide. It is mixed with sand to form lime mortar, which is then used in construction. As time goes by, the lime starts turning back to stone. The calcium hydroxide absorbs carbon dioxide from the air to form calcium carbonate and releases water as a by-product.

When concrete is used on ancient buildings, the impermeable cement suffocates the lime and stops the absorption of carbon dioxide. The older the building, the stronger it gets.

***

The most unexpected discovery was the result of the investigations by K. K. Mohammad, the chief archaeologist. Excavation around the tomb uncovered the remains of a wall which had enclosed a garden around the tomb when the complex was still in use. Historians had believed up to now that unlike the Mughals in the north, the gardens that surrounded Islamic architecture in the Deccan were not enclosed by walls. The granite wall has now been restored. In the final phase of the project, a garden will be recreated around the tombs.

Mohammad made yet another finding that excited the conservation team—a passageway linking the tomb complex to Golconda Fort where the Qutb Shahi royalty and nobles resided.

“We do not yet know what the passageway was used for. But it’s possible that body for burial was brought from the Golconda Fort through the passageway,” Purohit says.

***

Towards the end of the 16th century, Golconda Fort was becoming uninhabitable because of overcrowding and pestilence. The nobles started to move and build palaces surrounded by gardens and orchards, stretching from the fort to the banks of the Musi River. A bridge was built over the Musi (now called the Purana Pul) and this allowed people to settle on its southern bank. These were the beginnings of the city of Hyderabad.

In 1580, Mohammad Quli Qutb Shah, fifth of the Qutb Shahis, ascended the throne.  He established Hyderabad as the centre of his administration in 1591 and thus commenced a period of rapid, planned construction. He built the iconic Charminar and the Makkah Masjid, which served as the centre of the new city. Roads, Gardens, rest houses, office buildings and hospitals followed.

The Nizams who came to power in 1724, after the collapse of the Qutb Shahis made Hyderabad their capital. Though not many Qutb Shahi buildings survive in today’s Hyderabad, their influence is present in many Nizam period buildings. When Salar Jung started his project of renovating the Qutb Shahi tombs in the 1860s, it was a turning point for Hyderabad’s identity. Though independent, the Nizams ruled in the name of the Mughal emperor. After the 1857 revolt, Hyderabad felt the need to evolve its own identity apart from the Mughal one, including in architecture. Heavily influenced by British colonial architecture, the Nizams also wanted to establish their link with the regional.

What came about was the unique style of Hyderabad—visible in buildings such as the Arts College building in Osmania University—a blend of Mughal, colonial and Qutb Shahi styles. The lasting reminder of the Qutb Shahi legacy in Hyderabad is the annual Muharram procession to the Maula Ali dargah. It was built on top of a hillock by Ibrahim Quli Qutb Shah in 1578, inspired by a court eunuch who had a vision of Ali Ibn Talib, son-in-law of Prophet Mohammed, on the hill. Ali is the first emir of the Shias, and Ibrahim instituted a pilgrimage from Golconda Fort to Maula Ali. Though the Mughals stopped the practice, it was continued by the Nizams who were Sunnis. During their rule, it became one of the most important religious occasions, drawing not only Shias, but Sunnis, Sufis and Hindus.

***

At the office of the Aga Khan trust inside the tomb complex, Prashant Banerjee sits in front of his computer, a black and white printout of the site’s map on the desk. The screen displays a larger map in colour. Using a blue pen, he sketches additions to the map on the table.  He is studying a stepwell to the north of the mortuary bath. In the 17th century, water went from the stepwell to the bathhouse. The bodies of the kings and the nobility were, it was believed, washed there before being taken to the tombs prepared for them. Exploring the mortuary bath, the team found the terracotta pipes which had brought the water up from the stepwell to the bath. What interests Banerjee at the moment is something visible in the photograph that does not exist at the baoli today—a large ramp at the top. Water must have been drawn from the ramp using buffaloes and then fed into the pipes.

The question before Purohit now was whether the ramp that existed in Qutb Shahi times should be restored. The photographs gave a detailed picture and digging at the baoli had given evidence of its structure and location. Purohit asked Banerjee to figure out the geometric design of the structure. Last year, Purohit had used a drone to take aerial pictures of the site. Putting the archival photos and the aerial photos side by side, Banerjee reconstructed how the ramp would look on the altered baoli. The result is the pen sketch of a ramp to the map of the baoli. This is the first step. Banerjee is creating a detailed image of the structure on the computer, trying to work out the proportions and location of the ramp. Purohit has already decided that what they have is promising enough to start working on a restoration proposal.

There are two main principles in the conservation philosophy that guides the team. The first is to document in minute detail interventions they make in the monuments. Every repair, alteration and restoration has to be photographed. In nearly three years of work on the tombs, the project has accumulated over one lakh photographs. The idea is to create a historical record of the monument at every stage of the conservation process. Any future conservationist accessing the architectural drawings would know exactly what was changed and how. They would also be able to know why. That is the second principle.

Every change goes through a decision-making process that spells out the reason for the intervention.  Every week the architectural team meets to discuss the various proposals and Purohit takes a final call. The more important changes go through a quarterly review committee which includes Nanda and officials from the archaeological department. At the final stage, an annual peer group comprising independent experts from India and abroad reviews the work. They also clear major proposals slated for the coming year. The proposal to reconstruct an entire ramp is a major civil engineering intervention and will go up before the next peer review, says Purohit. “The most exciting thing about working on the Qutb Shahi project has been how much we have learned from the site. The previous peer review had an expert on Persian architecture from Iran, who on seeing the mortuary bath recognised it as a hamaam. He said the bathhouse is too large and complex in its design to have been a mortuary bath. It has to be a public bathing house,” Purohit says.

The discovery raises more questions. What is a hamaam doing in a necropolis? “This is unique. You will not find a hamaam in a necropolis anywhere else. We have archaeological evidence of habitation at the site. We found remains of a mosque and of a sarai (rest house). The habitation could have predated the necropolis. But if it is at the same time, it could give us an answer to the use of the hamaam. The next season of archaeological work should help us uncover more,” he says.

Harsha Vadlamani is a freelance photographer based in Hyderabad. 

The cover story of the October 2016 issue of Fountain Ink.

BY SUBRATA BISWAS

Rampant deforestation and loss of habitat in Odisha and Jharkhand forced elephants to migrate to the forests of Chhattisgarh in the 1980s. In Raigarh, Korba, Jashpur and Surguja districts, where a lot of forest land is being diverted for coal mining, foraging elephants often enter villages, attracted by the crops in the fields. Official records say the resulting human-elephant conflict has caused 8,657 incidents of property damage and 99,152 incidents of crop damage between 2005 and 2014. Chhattisgarh has also recorded more than 200 deaths caused by the conflict.

A densely forested state with more than 40 tribal communities, the state is has an estimated 50 billion tonnes of coal reserves, among the largest in India. As mining companies increasingly go for open-cast mining for economic benefit, villagers are the worst hit as they lose land and mining companies often don’t honour their promises of rehabilitation and compensation. The natural landscape of Korba has changed rapidly every year after the first open-cast mine began operating.

In 2005, hoping to minimise human-elephant conflict, the Chhattisgarh assembly passed a resolution seeking central approval for two elephant reserves. One of them was the 450 sq. km Lemru reserve in Korba district, which received a clearance from the Ministry of Environment and Forests in 2007, but was shelved by the state government in 2008 to facilitate coal mining in virgin forest.

(Subrata Biswas is a painter and photographer based in Kolkata.)

The photo story of the November 2016 issue of Fountain Ink.

BY ALIA ALLANA

On May 10, a Libya-bound ship with 26 million pills of Tramadol, an opioid painkiller presented in doses of 225 mg, way higher than standard prescriptions, and hidden among towels and tablecloths, was apprehended by the Greek authorities in the port of Piraeus. The illegal consignment, worth $13million, was headed for markets across the Middle East.

The ship had started its journey in Jawaharlal Nehru Port in Navi Mumbai, more popularly called Nhava Sheva. The Tramadol was made in Amritsar by Royal International, a pharmaceutical company licensed to export and manufacture drugs. Royal International, by all accounts, broke no law in manufacturing the drug in a dose that has little medicinal value. Royal is just one of many manufacturers that regularly export Tramadol to Libya—exports that meet all Indian regulatory requirements, which are silent and lax about some crucial things.

The drug is legal, the export is legal, the importer is legal—on paper at least—and the shipping is legal.

Yet Tramadol is the curse of the Middle East, the drug of the “Arab Spring”, the cash cow of Islamist outfits and militias, and an opiate for everyone in these cruel times. In Egypt, you can tip with it, and settle the cab fare. In Gaza, Tramadol addiction is the only possibility of escape from oppression.

Indian exports and smuggled shipments—of Tramadol in particular—to the Middle East are responsible for mass drug abuse in the region, a Fountain Ink investigation has revealed. At this point, the Middle East has by far the highest number of displaced and traumatised people in the world. Doctors, activists, NGOs and government officers in Libya and Gaza as well as officials at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in Vienna told Fountain Ink that prescription drug abuse is at an all-time high, substantially made up of medicines manufactured in India.

The rise of India as a major drug exporter to the Middle East coincides with a period where it has also emerged as a hub for the smuggling of precursor chemicals such as ephedrine (used for making methamphetamine) to Africa.

The Smack Track, a new route for chemicls to the West, starts in South Asia. Precursors from India go to Africa’s east coast, where the drug is manufactured, and then pushed across the developed world. The chain is part of an American Drug Enforcement Authority (DEA) investigation, whose wiretap transcripts and other documents have been accessed by Fountain Ink.

Vicky Goswami, who used to push drugs to the high and mighty in Nineties Mumbai, is the lynchpin of the trade in precursors from India, according to various Indian, Kenyan, and American investigative agencies. He is described as an integral part of the Akhasa Organisation, a crime syndicate run out of Kenya by two brothers. Akhasa is involved in a major play to become the big supplier in America and Europe after the clampdown on Mexican cartels by US agencies.

Goswami handles the procurement and shipment of chemicals, many of which are smuggled out of ports in Gujarat, Indian investigators said.

India is now a major point of origin and transit, both on its northeastern borders and the west coast. Drugs like Tramadol go to the Middle East, ostensibly legally, but mostly they fall in the nowhere zone, that special place created by bureaucracy where everything is okay as long as forms are filed in triplicate.

Almost every government official spoken to said the export of Tramadol 225, an unheard dosage, was not a problem as long as it was not sold in India, and the company could show a purchase order from the importing country. Libya, in this case, is war-torn, has two governments, and many armed groups vying for control.

The smuggling of precursors is a straightforward crime, though the scale is not fully known. The only reasonable indication is a bust earlier this year of 20 tonnes of ephedrine from a pharma factory in Solapur that was declared closed by the owners earlier. This is one intercepted order; police don’t how much more is being cooked.

Officers of Thane’s Anti-Narcotic Bureau, the people behind the Solapur bust, said the trade in precursors could be mind-boggling. They have the unenviable task of imaging an elephant from a glimpse of its tail.

***

For seven months in 2014, they met in palatial mansions and high-rise apartments across Kenya planning the sale of hundreds of kilograms of “carat diamond” heroin. They discussed trafficking tonnes of precursor chemicals from India into Kenya with the ultimate goal of producing methamphetamine in super labs in east and west Africa for the United States, Europe and South Africa.

The plans involved members of Akhasa, a Kenyan crime syndicate headed by the two sons (Ibrahim and Bakhtash Akhasa) of a slain drug lord; Gulam Hussein, a Pakistani heroin smuggler known as the “Old Man” who operated a shipping business; and Vijay “Vicky” Goswami, an Indian underworld don who had landed up heading Akhasa’s drug business.

In the background, members of the Kenyan government, police force and coast guard turned a blind eye to happenings in the port city of Mombasa. It has emerged as a major point along the Smack Track.

The stakes were high. Millions in shipments, according to a source in the Kenyan Ministry of Interior, of heroin and amphetamines were on the table as the Akhasas decided to carry on the legacy of a man who was murdered in a gangland battle on Blood Street in Amsterdam.

Vicky is an integral figure in the Akhasas’ drug business, with access to airstrips in neighbouring countries and associates across their underworld. If the plan had run smoothly, Akhasa would have made millions of dollars that would line not just their pockets but also enrich politicians in Kenya and politically-connected people in India, sources in Kenya and the DEA told Fountain Ink.

But Akhasa did not know that members of the Colombian organisation they were plotting with were “confidential sources” of DEA, working under their supervision. They were recording—with audio and video—many of the meetings, some accessed by Fountain Ink.

One afternoon in November 2014 in Nyali, a luxurious beach suburb in Mombasa, Kenyan officers from the anti-narcotics unit and six officers from the US made their way to the high-walled Akhasa mansion. At about 4 p.m. they raided the house and arrested the brothers, the Old Man, and Vicky for possession of 98 kg of “one hundred per cent white crystal” heroin.

Enlarge

The arrests made waves across Kenyan society which was slowly edging towards narco-state status, where drug barons had their henchmen in all parts of government. The four have been indicted by the US and are to be tried in a New York courtroom. But four months after the arrest, Baktash Akhasa and Vicky Goswami were out of prison after paying bail set at $325,000.

The arrests created ripples in India, too, because of the involvement of Goswami’s love interest, a faded Bollywood starlet, Mamta Kulkarni, who was present in the mansion at the time of the sting. Kulkarni captured the attention of Goswami (then associated with the Dawood gang) who would lavish her with gifts.

She eventually forsook Bollywood and fronted his hotel business in Dubai after he was awarded a life sentence in a Dubai jail for manufacturing Mandrax. To general surprise he got a royal pardon 16 years later. After that, the couple moved to Kenya and settled in Nyali, Mombasa.

“What sort of courtroom lets out men arrested with hundreds of kilograms of heroin,” asked a member of the US Department of Justice (DoJ) while taking a sip of red wine on the top floor of a Mumbai hotel.

Another senior source at Thane Crime Branch revealed that soon after the sting in 2014, the US informed Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) officials that “tons” of precursor needed to manufacture methamphetamine, namely ephedrine, would leave India. Methamphetamine is a powerful stimulant that makes the heart work harder, the mind sharper, and ensures alertness even in small doses.

India is the third largest manufacturer of pharmaceuticals, yet suffers from inefficiencies in regulating the industry.

“To say the NCB was slow to act would be an understatement,” the DoJ official said. The NCB was in disarray during this period. For a long time there was no one responsible, said the DoJ official, and when someone expressed interest he was more of a paper appointment, leading a small narcotics team who could not monitor the massive quantities of chemicals produced across India.

Akhasa put the plan into action, despite arrest and indictment, shipping precursors from India to Africa, until an unexpected development threw a monkey wrench into the works. Inspector Nagarkar arrested a Nigerian on the streets of Kalyan, a satellite town serving Mumbai, with bags of white powder on April 10.

***

Less than a month later, on May 2, Islamic Jihad’s al-Quds Brigade in Gaza released a video on their website. It shows a man in a black and white jumper and jeans shovelling sand with a spade. His face is blurred. As the music reaches a crescendo, another man in a checked T-shirt walks over with a shovel to assist. The soldiers of al-Quds are digging in Rafah, southern Gaza. They yank out a blue plastic bag that has been buried, after being smuggled through the underground tunnels that run between Egypt and Gaza. The camera zooms in on the blue bag and further into the green and white boxes. The writing on the box reads “Tramadol 225” and in the corner of the box is a red circle, the logo of Amritsar-based Royal International. They keep digging and pile box after box of India-manufactured Tramadol on a purple blanket. Al-Quds Brigade claims they seized 175,000 tablets of Tramadol 225 mg in just one day.

Tramadol is a painkiller administered to women in labour; it is also prescribed as a painkiller for cancer patients. Like opiates, such as codeine and morphine, it targets pain by binding to the same receptors in the brain. Though morphine is the strongest of the three, Tramadol beats other painkillers by twin tactics: it reduces pain by releasing chemicals such as serotonin, and works in a manner similar to most modern anti-depressants. Doctors do not prescribe more than 50 mg; a higher dosage isn’t medically sound, is likely to be addictive and can get you very high.

In 2014, when heads of the national drug law enforcement agencies met in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to discuss the scale of the problem, Tramadol seizures were mostly in dosages of 100, 120, 125, 200, 225 or 250 mg.

A large number of shipments originated in India. According to data provided by a number of Indian ports and airports, there were 157 shipments of unauthorised Tramadol to West Africa in 2012. Royal International refused to respond to Fountain Ink despite multiple efforts.

Several factors make the region prone to illicit trade: corruption, weaknesses in the social and criminal justice system and the perennial revolutions of Africa.

The “Arab Spring” provided ample opportunity for organised crime syndicates to exploit the chaos in the region. The fall of Muammar Gaddafi was the signal for the self-destruction of the fragile Libyan state into mutually warring tribal and regional factions.

That enabled an unholy cabal of politicians and thugs to plunder the country and exploit the lawlessness and thus fuel a Tramadol addiction that eventually crossed the borders to Egypt and into an even more dysfunctional Palestine.

***

“Meow, Meow?” Inspector Nagarkar asked Okaya Sipren Chinnasa, a Nigerian. It was a busy evening as people shuttled in and out of Kalyan railway station. Nagarkar dragged the Nigerian who was twice his size to the corner. The streets of Kalyan had been terrorised by mephedrone (a synthetic stimulant) and Nagarkar knew the drug, but this looked different. It was
whiter. The man played dumb until the inspector threatened to rough him up.

“It’s a little of everything,” the man said.

On a hunch, Nagarkar sent the white powder to the lab for a test.

“Amphetamine and ephedrine,” the lab technician replied. Nagarkar had not heard of these chemicals before.

“Are they drugs?” he asked.

“Ephedrine is a precursor. It is used to make methamphetamine, a synthetic drug that can get you very high,” the technician said.

Chinnasa confessed, hoping to get off lightly. Some dealers had set up small labs in their kitchens and were cooking methamphetamine. They always bulked up the quantity of cocaine, meow meow and MDMA by lacing mixes with baking soda, rat poison, laxatives, but tossing in methamphetamine and ephedrine created a new, more potent, cocktail of designer drugs. Nigerians were running this racket across Thane and Mumbai. Armed with this information and with Chinnasa in tow, Nagarkar made his way to Thane Crime Branch and recounted the incident to Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Bharat Krishna Shelke.

“If the Nigerians are selling something, there is a big demand for it, they always know the market first,” he said and called upon the 15-member Narcotics Cell, housed in two small rooms in a building abutting the Crime Branch.

“Kaun la raha hai, aur bech kaun raha hai? (Who’s bringing it, and who’s selling it?) I want to know everything,” said Shelke and appointed Inspector Amol Sadashiv Walzade, the most efficient member of the team, to the case. Walzade had a large network of informants made up of former addicts and dealers. His towering physique was an added bonus: “One look can make grown men cry and confess,” a constable said.

Walzade asked his informants: “Anything new on the streets?”

A gangly ex-peddler was first to respond on a WhatsApp call because they are harder to monitor.

“It’s being sold by the kilo,” he said.

“2 kg, safed maal lao (Get the white stuff),” Walzade told him.

***

There is a steady stream of Tramadol into Libya. On May 10, 11, and 17, Royal International shipped 7,000 boxes of Tramadol 225 to Libya. Each box was valued at Rs 429.65. The value per box declared was Rs 45,500 freight on board port. The consignment left Nava Sheva for Misurata via Malaysia through Hahn Logistics SDN BHD, a Malaysian shipping company.

On March 5, 7, 8 and 10, PRG Pharma Pvt Ltd exported Tamol X 225 manufactured by Royal International to Daam Libya Company in Misurata. Millions of pills reach Libya each month, when its population is just 6.2 million.

Jalal Othman, director of communications and media administration for the Government of National Accord in Tripoli, said Libya allows the import of 50 mg Tramadol but pills containing 225 mg were not listed as permissible. Yet there are frequent reports of illegal trafficking into Libya. A popular route is transport through Dubai. He added that 225 mg pills could not be procured yet pharmacists were getting them illegally.

Indian regulations require the exporter to obtain a “No Objection Certificate” from the relevant authorities in the country of import. When I mentioned this letter to Othman, he asked for a copy and added “Maybe it’s a fake”.

In its Monthly Commercial Report for October 2015, the Indian embassy in Tripoli was stern in its warning: “Libya is passing through a very fragile security situation with armed conflicts and a political stalemate with two governments—one legitimate elected House of Representatives (moved away to east of Libya around 1200 km from the capital).

“Militias have taken control of Tripoli with all the central ministries and departments with de-facto control since July 2014. Prominent businessmen, expatriate community including diplomatic corps have shifted to neighbouring countries. Tripoli airport has been completely destroyed. The civil unrest, which is a significant deterrent to international trade and investments, also impacted on our own exports.”

The report also said the balance of trade with Libya had turned unfavourable. Due to the fighting, crude exports to India had fallen. Drugs and pharmaceuticals, silk yarn, fabrics, machinery, granite, and Hyundai cars are among India’s main exports to Libya.

***

On the day of the sting, Inspector Walzade paced nervously. Though the details were meticulously planned, there was no guarantee the dealers would arrive with two kilos of ephedrine. Cold feet at the last minute, whispers in the underworld, or even a traffic jam could do it. Walzade, Nagarkar, four others from the narcotics team and the informant waited outside Hiranandani Meadows in Vartak Nagar, Thane.

About half an hour passed before a white Swift Dzire pulled up at Kashinath Ghanikar Hall. Amol knew the peddlers had arrived because the Swift Dzire, with its big boot, was the car of choice for drug dealers. When the two men stepped out, he was taken aback.

“They didn’t look like drug dealers,” Amol recalls thinking.

Sagar Khode and Suresh Sukhdara looked like “office-going” people in trousers and formal shirts. They were technicians, who had faked their degrees and worked at Cipla. They moonlighted as prescription drug dealers peddling Viagra and ephedrine on the streets and to pharmacies. They were the living proof of what UNODC has been saying for years: there is a move from natural highs to synthetic highs, a fall in cocaine and heroin consumption has been accompanied by a surge in ATS (Amphetamine-Type Stimulants) consumption. The new drug dealer is the chemist, the pharmacist.

When they saw a group of people huddled together, they knew it was a set-up. They handed over the bag with 2 kg of ephedrine. The narcotics wing travels with a testing kit. Amol dropped the mixture on to the kit and it changed colour. Though there is no kit for ephedrine or methamphetamine, the colour purple indicates a controlled substance and so the officers had a reason to arrest the mules.

ACP Shelke arrived at the Wartagar police station next to Cadbury junction where the two men were being held. A soft-faced man with a round belly, he is the sort of policeman that can morph from good cop to bad cop in a flash.

“Cover kar liya unko,” he recalled. He had extracted a confession.

***

In the early days of the “Arab Spring” when it was viewed with romanticism and memes poked fun at the uprising, one was particularly popular in Libya. It was the #LibyaMilitiaStarterPack and its contents were a wife-beater shirt, Tramadol, AC Milan flip-flops and army pants. So common was Tramadol that it was shared on the streets by fighters who claimed it lessened the pain of being a militant. As early as February 22, 2011, Gaddafi warned in his hysterical rambling speech:

“They are a group that are sick, taking hallucinatory drugs. They were given drugs, like in Tunisia, are just imitating. We won’t lose victory from these greasy rats and cats. They should be given a lesson and stop taking drugs. They’re not good for you, for your heart. Don’t destroy the country. Shame on you, you gangsters. Surrender, give up all weapons, or they’ll have massacres, drugged kids with machine guns… tonight and tomorrow, youth, all of you, not those who are rats on drugs—form committees for security.”

And while he desperately clung on as fighting raged, he spoke about drugs once again. “Their ages are 17. They give them pills at night. They put hallucinatory pills in their drinks, their milk, their Nescafe. You people… stop your children, take their weapons, bring them away from bin Laden, the pills will kill them.”

Everyone knew he was talking about Tramadol.

It had hit the market in a big way, and soon after the no-fly zone was established even more pills entered the market. The most popular was the 225 mg variant. This one came from India as did a shipment in March 2011. When the Libyan narcotics wing intercepted that consignment with 37 million units of Tramadol, they traced it to a Libyan dealer with “links to al-Qaeda”. India and Tramadol kept coming up again and again.

On February 28, 2016, the Tobruk Security Department seized 45 million Tramadol pills inside three containers from India aboard a trade ship. A source in the ministry of interior in Tobruk (the East Government) claims the drugs, hidden inside perfume containers, were worth 90 million Libyan dinars and that about 130 million Tramadol pills were seized in 2015, with the largest number from India.

“Libya has emerged as a significant hub for Tramadol trafficking in North Africa,” Derek Odney, the DEA country attaché in New Delhi, told me. “Since December 2015, law enforcement officials in Dubai, Egypt, Malta, Singapore, and Spain have seized nearly 500 million Tramadol tablets intended for delivery to Tobruk. The vast majority of these shipments originated from India via commercial shipping containers.

“India’s lack of a regulatory framework allows large-scale diversion of Tramadol from legitimate manufacturers to the illicit market. In Egypt and other countries in the Middle East and West Africa, Tramadol consumption is a primary drug threat and its widespread use is due to Tramadol being inexpensive, potent, and widely available.”

***

The two technicians from Cipla began to sing: this isn’t just for Thane, it goes beyond Mumbai, out of Maharashtra, to Gujarat. It’s in other metros too, especially in Bengaluru, but most importantly, it goes out of India. Hours into the interrogation, they were talking nervously, repeatedly about a pharmaceutical company called Avon Life Sciences in Solapur and a chemist called Dhaneshwar Swamy who had given them the chemicals.

Enlarge

The white jeep hurtled down NH48 towards Solapur where Avon Life Sciences had their plant. They reached in time to nab Swamy from the bus stop near the factory, identifying him by a large red backpack.

“Who are you? What do you want?” Swamy demanded as plainclothes policemen frisked him.

They found 5.5 kg of ephedrine in his bag. Swamy assumed the role of a reluctant tour guide and walked them over to Avon Life Sciences. The 32-acre factory was a ghost—there were a few lights at the entrance but the vast complex was unlit, scattered boxes lay everywhere, and a foul stench came from the canteen.

Trouble for Avon started when pharmaceutical giant Ranbaxy, who ran a dual operation at the plant, shut shop overnight after a pill they manufactured was banned by the US FDA. They left behind a huge centrifugal machine, a gigantic boiler, a fermentation unit and massive financial woes for Manoj Jain, owner of Arch Companies.

Swamy, like the others, hadn’t been paid his Rs 40,000 salary for a few months. Instead, he had been told of “great success very soon”. Swamy stayed back and his bosses remained true to their word. The top management dictated a new direction from Mumbai and Avon Life Sciences became a smaller operation, a mom and pop shop of eight people called New Lab that operated from a corner of the factory.

The space was kitted out with home-style ovens bought in the local market for baking ephedrine. Swamy would work on 25 kilos at a time. The first step was washing the chemicals, then bleaching them till they were whiter. He would then place the ephedrine in baking dishes and into the oven.

Swamy was working his way through 380 bags of ephedrine; each batch took about 45 days to process. The valuable product, L-ephedrine, would be kept aside while the waste, known as D-ephedrine, collected in a small mound in the corner. When a batch was processed, a car would ferry it to an undisclosed location but word was that it was being taken to Gujarat from where it would be shipped out of India.

Swamy didn’t ask too many questions; his wages were being paid and a sense of optimism prevailed. He was addicted to “Breaking Bad”, the award-winning American television drama depicting the life of a chemistry teacher with a terminal disease and his drug-peddling student who turned their lives around by making methamphetamine.

Nobody came knocking on the doors of Avon. So lax was the monitoring of the plant that months went by and none of the three departments, the NCB, FDA or Customs and Excise, paid a visit. As bulk quantities were routed elsewhere, Swamy started taking his own share. A mixture of ambition, greed and desperation, led him to leak the drug into the local market for a bit of money on the side.

***

The illicit trade in drugs has lined the pockets of jihadis. Just as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) smuggled cocaine from Latin America to fund its operations, ISIS has used synthetic drugs to finance terror and to fuel itself.

“Both Captagon (an amphetamine) and Tramadol are used by Daesh and other militias to boost the performance of individual fighters and increase their propensity for violence,” according to a 2016 European Union Institute for Security Studies report.

Unlike al-Qaeda which smuggled drugs to European markets, ISIS deals in Arab markets, transporting Tramadol from the lawlessness of Libya across the 1,115-km desert frontier it shares with Egypt. On one day in 2012, Egyptian border guards confiscated four million Tramadol tablets.

But the trip is no longer the same as states have imposed bans. Egypt put Tramadol under national control in 2013 as did Libya, pushing its price up from the Arab Spring days. In 2011, it cost LE1 ($0.14) per 225 mg pill but now it retails at LE15 ($2.14) per pill.

The smuggling continues in spite of attempts to put a stop to it. On March 10, 2015, Interpol issued a purple notice after the Investigation, Surveillance and Arrest Unit, Tripoli Investigations Office, Anti-Narcotics General Administration (ANGA), received intelligence that large burlap sacks of “hallucinogenic tablets (Tramadol)” were being transported in a taxi from Sabha city in southern Libya. The intention was to distribute them in Tripoli. On March 12 the authorities laid an ambush and confiscated 6,000 tablets.

Every single one was of Indian origin, according to a source in the Ministry of Health in Tripoli.

***

“Don’t go there, there are snakes there,” pleaded the production manager at Avon. Walzade walked towards the shed at the edge of the compound. It was unlit and damp. He switched on the torch on his mobile and hit the jackpot: 20 tonnes of ephedrine sacks were piled on top of each other. This was the biggest drug bust in Indian history. The street value of the haul was Rs 2,000 crore. Along with the ephedrine the team also recovered 3 tonnes of acetic anhydride, the precursor to heroin.

Swamy was firm; he was just the chemical man. All the big money decisions were being made by Rajendra Dimri, the production manager who dictated targets after consulting with the owner in Mumbai.

“Dimri ko position mein liya (We got hold of Dimri),” recalls Shilke.

They asked him for Avon’s files but he claimed there were none, nor were any books maintained. When the FDA, NCB and Customs and Excise were roped in, they found no record of operations for almost two years, nor any mention of customers for the ephedrine or details of shipping. But they did find 7.5 kg of ephedrine under Dimri’s desk and a name: Puneet Shringi. It was he who made all the operational decisions and organised cars to ferry bulk quantities of ephedrine.

“Shringi speaks to Jain, the owner. He’s your man,” said Dimri.

As they were leaving, a watchman with a grudge walked on over: a big dispatch had left for Gujarat just a few days ago. Soon the Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime), Parag Manere was on the phone to the ATS chief in Ahmedabad. “At senior levels, there is a lot of communication and information-sharing,” Manare said. A few days later another 1,300 kilos of ephedrine was seized from a factory in Kanbha, Gujarat. This batch was to be shipped to a “party in Africa.”

***

Our tastes are changing, claims the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB). While cannabis retains its top position, cocaine and heroin are down globally on the list of most abused and trafficked drugs. At number two are prescription drugs, as demand for painkillers, sedatives, stimulants and tranquilisers rises rapidly. Users across the world lean towards self-medicating on opioids, depressants and stimulants according to the UNODC.

Coinciding with this development is the emergence of India as one of the largest manufacturers of pharmaceutical products in the world. Annual production exceeds Rs 2 lakh crore, of which 55 per cent is exported to 200 countries. It is not surprising therefore that India is emerging as a point of origin for drugs abused in the Middle East and Africa.

But there are stringent laws in the Drugs and Cosmetics Act 1940, which provides the framework for ensuring quality, and safety of medical products. The sector thrives by capitalising on export opportunities in regulated and semi-regulated markets. Exports are set to cross $55 billion by 2020 versus current exports of $18 billion. The need to spur trade has led to a reduction in red tape with the health ministry scrapping the “No Objection Certificate” previously required for export to developed regions such as the US and EU. The aim is growth: by 2020, the industry is expected to become the sixth largest globally. India ranks third in production volume with 10 per cent share, and 14th by value with 1.4 per cent market share worldwide.

The onus of monitoring this trade falls upon the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) that regulates the import and export of drugs through 11 port offices. The body is responsible for the manufacture, sale, import, export and clinical research of drugs in India.

The Drugs and Cosmetics Act states: “Each consignment of export shall be accompanied with requisite import licence from the importing country;

“The applicant shall obtain a no-objection certificate from the Drugs Controller, India, for manufacture of such formulations to be exported with code number against each export order along with certificate from the regulatory authority of the importing country controlling Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances that they do not have any objection for the import of the drug with code number;

“The State Licensing Authority shall issue the manufacturing licence for these formulations on each export order on the basis of a No Objection Certificate from Drugs Controller, India;

“A no-objection certificate shall be obtained from the drugs Controller, India for export of each consignment; and

“A no-objection certificate shall be obtained from the Narcotic Commissioner of India, Gwalior for export of each consignment of the drug.”

Huge quantities of Tramadol exported are expected to meet these regulations.

***

By now the story of the Solapur bust was everywhere. Newspapers gave it display on the front pages, TV anchors talked about it wildly, Solapur became a hub for reporters, and Avon Life Sciences and ephedrine trended on Twitter.

The onslaught of information caught the attention of Derek Odney, the DEA agent stationed in Delhi. The photo of officers gathered behind packets of ephedrine stacked on a table nudged him to board a flight to Mumbai. Odney had a series of highly publicised meetings, something which was uncommon in the US, where the DEA agent is a mysterious figure. After the fanfare, he congratulated the team for “good old school detective work” and extended his cooperation in nailing Goswami.

“The DEA is working with the Thane Police and the NCB on investigating the links between the Goswami network and the 20-tonne ephedrine seizure in India earlier this year,” he told me.

“With the information they brought to the table, we knew we could go after the others,” said Shelke.

Also watching the big coverage were Shringi and Jain, who had gone underground. Their mobiles were switched off even as officers across Mumbai and Thane were on a manhunt. Through a network of informants on Mira Road, where Shringi had a flat, it was learnt he was hiding out in Andheri.

Years of police work had taught Shelke to never leave any personal detail of the accused untouched, and to never turn his back on a stakeout. Two officers waited for over eight hours outside Shringi’s house until there was a lead: he was planning an escape and needed papers for his new car, a Swift Dzire. The dealer had arrived with papers at his apartment but Shringi wasn’t there. Soon the dealer received a message of a change in location. Later that evening, the police caught Shringi outside McDonald’s in Andheri with 10 kg of ephedrine in the boot.

When he saw the police walking to him, he kept repeating one name, “Manoj Jain, Manoj Jain,” like a prayer.

At the Narcotics Cell, Shringi narrated the saga: Manoj Jain was a shrewd businessman admired by many in Andheri. A man of humble beginnings, he owned 11 companies (including Avon) but had fallen upon bad times. It was then that he met an acquaintance, Jay Mukhi, at Ladies Bar in the suburbs where he drank his woes away. Mukhi, a broker and supplier of chemicals, was a man with a dubious reputation, not the least because he was always in bars but because of the company he kept. Jain had seen him jumping in and out of SUVs with Kishore Rathod, the son of a former MLA, Bhavsingh Rathod. Kishore had served time for a fake currency racket. He too was of an entrepreneurial spirit, and when he heard of a company with a licence to manufacture ephedrine, he promised Jain a business deal that would build an empire.

Soon Rathod was on the phone to a childhood friend from a village called Paldi in Gujarat. That friend was Vicky Goswami.

What Shringi didn’t confess, his WhatsApp chat history revealed. There were hundreds of undeleted messages. A gold mine had been uncovered. On January 7-8, 2016, Jain, Shringi and Goswami spoke about the delivery of 50 kg of ephedrine that had been dispatched from Mumbai and the method of payment. They talked about transferring Rs 90 lakh from Nairobi in Kenya to Gujarat and another Rs 1.5 crore from Mombasa to Malad and Bhuleshwar through the “hawala” networks.

With new information that directly indicted Jain, the police began tailing him. Jain lived his life online so they went through his mails, his chat history, scanned his call logs, got proof that he had been issued a visa for Kenya, and a stamp on his passport showed that he travelled to the country. They tapped his phone. They recovered a WhatsApp message detailing a deal for 100 kg of ephedrine that would be dropped off in a black car next to a dargah on the busy Mohammad Ali Road. They nabbed Jain early one morning near Mahim.

Mukhi’s confession brought the picture together; the Mohammad Ali Road deal was the beginning of the smuggling racket, he said. Three bags of ephedrine, weighing 70 kg, were flown from Mumbai to Nairobi for Goswami’s approval. When the don was satisfied with the purity, he asked for the note number in the hawala system so that he could pay for the powder. This deal put into practice Goswami’s most ambitious caper: importing precursors from India’s pharmaceutical industry to manufacture meth in Africa’s lawless countries.

***

Doctor Sabeh has been yelling down the phone. “225 mg,” he keeps shouting. “Tell me which doctor in your country prescribes this?” Sabeh works at the Government Hospital in Gaza and has treated over 3,000 cases of Tramadol addiction. The number of people addicted to the drug is on the rise as the Ministry of Interior in conjunction with WHO conducts a detailed study on Tramadol addiction. “How does your country legally produce this, how does your country legally send this to us?” he asks.

Drug traffickers are looking at the sea as an alternative route. A 2011 UNODC report said: “Traffickers’ use of maritime transportation and seaports has been identified as a key emerging threat. In 2009, more than 420 million containers were shipped worldwide, yet only 2 per cent of these were inspected.”

Not too long ago, the waters of the Indian Ocean were a playground for pirates. With lawlessness in Somalia, an inefficient state in Sudan and weak rule of law in Kenya, the coast of Africa was terrorised by Somali pirates. The international community responded with the Combined Task Force 150, a multinational coalition naval taskforce tasked with anti-piracy operations in the Horn of Africa. India is a member of this taskforce that has had remarkable success as piracy in the Indian Ocean has dropped.

With piracy on the decline, another challenge arose.

In an incident that attracted a lot of attention, a vessel belonging to Hoeigh Autoliners set sail from Mumbai to Mombasa in September 2015. It traversed 2,850 miles and docked at the port. Late in the night, on a tip-off from the DEA, several elite Kenyan police units raided the vessel. The found a massive consignment of guns in a UN jeep and bags of “white powder”. The presence of weapons had not been mentioned in the ship’s manifest filed in India. The Kenyan authorities ordered the port shut and Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta publicly debated whether he ought to blow the ship up at sea. The UN intervened, claiming that the weapons were for peacekeepers in Congo and chalked down the incident to a “clerical error in Bombay”.

But nobody took responsibility for the drugs aboard the ship. A DEA agent told The Star newspaper in Kenya: “FBI intelligence reports indicate the drugs were stuffed into the ship in Mumbai and were destined for Mombasa.” Shamus Mangan from the UNODC, who was investigating the presence of drugs, was found dead, in a hotel room.

“Mombasa port is like a tunnel. All illicit business happens here and is controlled by traders supported by customs personnel and powerful people in government. Whoever controls the port controls the illicit trade in Kenya,” says journalist Njuguna Mutonya.

Incidents involving India are on the rise: in April 2014, the Australian Coalition Maritime Forces picked up a Gujarat-registered boat off the coast of Kenya with heroin worth Rs 2 crore. In June 2015, Bangladeshi police seized Asia’s largest known shipment of liquid cocaine in Chittagong, and the destination, according to a Bangladeshi police official, was “any port in India”.

An Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) report notes: “The marsh lands and creeks of Gujarat are increasingly used to smuggle heroin from Afghanistan-Pakistan region.”

***

From selfies in Nairobi hotels to group photos under palm trees in Mombasa, Shringi and Jain documented their Kenya trip on Facebook for all to see. Avon Life Sciences would ship 10 tonnes of ephedrine to Mombasa every month from Mumbai while Narendra Kacha, a chemist and an associate of Rathod, would purify ephedrine in Gujarat. The bulk of the material would leave from Gujarat’s Kandla Port. In order to not arouse any suspicion, the ephedrine would be stuffed in sacks of rice or sugar with the help of two port employees.

From Mombasa the ephedrine would be routed to Dr Abdallah, a scientist and member of the east African drug mafia, who would set up a lab in Tanzania where Goswami had access to airstrips. The bulk of the ephedrine would be delivered to Abdallah, with which he would make meth that would be sent to South Africa via a white courier because he would be less likely to be stopped. From there the meth would journey to the streets of the United States and Europe after keeping some for the South African market.

The cost per kg would be Rs 50,000. From the first batch of 210 kg, the syndicate aimed to earn Rs 60 crore.

In a handwritten note, the partnership plan was drawn up:

Vicky and Abdallah: 33 per cent

Jay Mukhi and Rathod: 33 per cent

Manoj Jain: 25 per cent

Shringi: 8 per cent

Mamta Kulkarni was present at many meetings. Vicky had decided that she would front Avon Life Sciences. She would legally buy more than 50 per cent of the shares, then valued at Rs45 in the market, at a substantially reduced rate, and start trading with a company called Saburi Pharma owned by Abdallah, who would open an office in Mombasa.

As they put this plan into action, shipping container after container, they could not know that minuscule amounts were landing in the hands of the Nigerians in Mumbai, and that this small slip would shine a light on India’s participation in the Smack Track.

(The cover story of the November 2016 edition of Fountain Ink.)

BY NANDINI KRISHNAN

The term love failure has a tragicomic resonance unmatched by any other phrase bequeathed by cinema to language. Growing up in Madras in the Nineties and watching whatever Doordarshan provided, I came to associate it with T. Rajender contorting his hirsute face into a tortured expression, with Charlie Chaplin’s tramp until he caught a break in City Lights, with Tom’s desperate overtures to Toodles Galore, with Popeye and Bluto vying for Olive Oyl, and eventually with one of my puppies making aching noises as he stared across the road at a streetie sunning herself. But take away the quirky and we’re left with violence, destruction, death.

When IT professional Swathi S., 24, was murdered in the presence of witnesses at Chennai’s Nungambakkam railway station on June 24, it shook the city. Her killer Ramkumar had stalked her for months. In a confession leaked to the media, he is reported to have said, “I spent a lot of time on Facebook. That was how I met Swathi. Then I got in touch with her on WhatsApp. I used to text her often, and she would reply. After this, I wanted to meet her and that was why I went to Chennai. I stayed in a Choolaimedu mansion near her house. I would follow her on her way to work. I introduced myself. As I was a Facebook friend, she was amicable.

“After a few days, when I told her I was in love with her, she walked away silently. She had many friends. She would talk to them often. I did not like this. I told her she must only talk to me. She told me off. As I pestered her constantly, she would ask her father to accompany her to the railway station. Twice, I waited at the railway station to talk to her. Once, she told me I looked like a thevangu (slender loris) and asked me not to talk to her again. At the time, I wanted to tear her lips. But because of my love for Swathi, I walked away. On 24th [June], I begged her to reciprocate my love. She refused. Then I attacked her with the sickle.”

The raw statistics of stalking are frightening enough. An acid attack occurs once every 16 hours in India. Every 24 hours, the police register 17 cases of stalking and two of voyeurism. Studies estimate the percentage of reported crimes against women to be between 8 and 14 of actual crimes committed. By the time you read the last sentence of this article, six women could have been harassed by a stalker.

The anecdotal evidence is even more disturbing.

As news channels across the country followed the Swathi murder investigation, stalking, which had not been front page news since the murder of Priyadarshini Mattoo in 1996, was stirring conversations. Over the next few weeks, a spate of murders and attacks by stalkers made headlines.

In Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry, there were two murders and two murder attempts between August 30 and 31. Sonali, a 20-year-old college student in Karur, was killed inside her classroom with a wooden club by her senior, Udayakumar.

Francina, a 24-year-old schoolteacher, was the victim of a murder-suicide in a church days before her wedding. Her attacker Keegan had been pursuing her for two years.

Monica from Tiruchirapalli was stabbed by a man whose proposal she had rejected. Hanodonis from Pondicherry had her wrists slashed by a stalker.

A few weeks earlier, a 17-year-old schoolgirl in Vizhupuram had been killed by 32-year-old Senthil, who broke into her home, set himself on fire, and then hugged her.

On September 14, Dhanya of Coimbatore was killed by Zahir, who attacked her with a knife when she was home alone.

Enlarge

On September 20, 28-year-old Laxmi was chased and stabbed in Inderpuri, Delhi, by her stalker Kumar, who killed himself after. In north Delhi, 22-year-old schoolteacher Karuna was stabbed nearly 30 times by a man on a bike. He turned out to be her neighbour Surender Singh, who had been harassing her for months. Both Laxmi and Karuna had filed police complaints. No action was taken in Laxmi’s case; questioned about Karuna, police told media the families had “reached a compromise” and the stalker had backed off—until the day he killed her.

Was stalking becoming a sudden problem, or was it being highlighted suddenly? The laws are in place. The Criminal Law (Amendment) Act of 2013, popularly called the “Nirbhaya Law” for the victim of the 2012 Delhi bus rape, had strengthened Section 354 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), making stalking and voyeurism crimes in themselves. Why were women being attacked? Why were the police not able to stop their stalkers before they turned murderers? What makes someone with no criminal record attack a woman he purportedly loves, so brutally that she dies? What does someone who has been repeatedly rejected expect to hear when he confronts a woman with a weapon?

***

In their paper An exploration of predatory behaviour in cyberspace: Towards a typology of cyberstalkers, Leroy McFarlane and Paul Bocij classified cyberstalkers into four types—vindictive, the most ferocious kind, who would not only bombard their victims with messages, multimedia images, and threats, but hack into their computers and usually expand their pursuit offline; composed, whose aim was not to establish a relationship, but merely to cause annoyance, irritation, and distress; intimate, keen to make their targets fall in love with them or to “win” back exes; and collective, which describes group stalking—in other words, trolling—of a person who has the gall to have an opinion at variance with the collective’s. There have been various classifications of stalkers in physical space.

While theory may divide stalkers into online and offline, neither police nor criminologists believe they are quite so distinct. Professor K Jaishankar, president, South Asian Society of Criminology and Victimology, put forward what he calls “Space transition theory”—he believes the laxity of laws governing cyberspace and the anonymity it provides allow people with a propensity for stalking to “export their repressed behaviour” from offline to online arenas.

“Cyberspace,” he told me, “is a transient space. People go there, but it’s not a dwelling place. The moment you switch off your computer, you come back to reality. But what you do there affects you in a physical way where the pain is real. When you lose money from your bank account through phishing, your loss is real. When we do something online, people may think it is happening in an unreal situation, but cyberspace is only a medium between two people interacting; and they don’t understand that this is happening in physical space.”

The transition from cyberstalking to physical stalking is only natural and exacerbated by the fact that people are inclined to be less cautious in cyberspace, unconsciously encouraging a prospective stalker’s dreams of reciprocity.

Jaishankar says, “We live in flats where we don’t know the neighbour’s name, where he’s working. But in a train we try to become friends with the neighbour. How are we able to develop that relationship? The environment is not constrained. It is a light environment. So people tend to reveal more of their interests. The same thing happens in cyberspace. As in the train, we don’t know if this person is good or bad. Just because they are travelling with us, we try to accommodate that person.” Facebook, he said, gives people the same illusion of safety. People welcome others into their lives, and virtually take them into their homes, offices, and circles of friends and acquaintances.

The victims to whom I spoke were pursued by men whose relationships and intentions varied—some were ex-boyfriends; some strangers whose identities they never discovered; some were haters who only sought to destroy and instil fear. But they had some things in common—stalking spilled across modes of communication; in many cases, the stalker had female accomplices; they did not go to the police.

Every woman to whom I spoke asked me the same question: “You’ve been stalked, too, right?”, or said matter-of-factly, “Obviously we’ve all been stalked at some point.”

***

“My stalker was an ex-boyfriend who turned sour when I called our relationship off,” said Deepa Prasad*, a mother of two in the National Capital Region, “We dated for eight months, and after we broke up, I decided on an arranged marriage. I think that was the trigger—he felt I had dropped him and chosen someone else, though that’s absolutely no justification.”

The stalking began in March 2009, when she got engaged, and continued past the new year. “He would be lurking everywhere. On our Thalai Deepavali (the first as a married couple, when the groom visits his in-laws), he smashed my husband’s car. Only I knew who was behind it. I was afraid telling my husband would shake the boat, so I let him think it was some rowdy. The next morning, we went to my in-laws’ place and I found the guy standing outside. I freaked out. I was shaking, I had no clue how he was there. He started texting me, saying things like, ‘How can you be happy?’

“It was scary that he knew where my in-laws lived. He claimed he was coincidentally visiting a friend in the same complex, but I’m sure he followed us. I was sitting with my in-laws, terrified he would land up and do something nasty. It was psychotic.”

“For the longest time I was scared to go out,” she said, “What if I saw him and he saw me happy? We lived in Bengaluru then. I hated coming to Chennai because of the fear.”

She could not bring herself to involve her family. Her husband only knows fragments of the story, but they have not had a conversation about it. “My husband saw me getting out of the car, saw how I froze and just stood there.” He knew something was wrong, but did not ask, perhaps sensing that she was not ready to tell him.

The obsessive pursuit waned only when her ex’s parents insisted that he get married.

“So he’s married now?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said, “He is father to a girl as well. How do I know? He texts once in a while. He has apologised for all that happened as well. Do I forgive? I’m not sure.”

***

Another woman who did not want any details revealed told me she had quit social media, changed her phone number numerous times, changed jobs, and moved cities. She even insisted to her boyfriend that they move abroad after marriage because she was sure she could not live in peace in India.

“It’s not that I don’t want to be on Facebook,” she told me, “I used to be crazy about social networking. I’d go on vacation, come back to office and upload directly from my camera to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, you name it. That bastard changed my life. I got so paranoid. Not a single photo of my wedding is up online. I told my fiancé not to upload them either. This asshole went to my parents and told them I was dating a womaniser and that they should get me married to him. He just landed up at our house. Can you believe it?”

Her parents went to meet the stalker’s parents to persuade him to stop. “His mother actually said he’s depressed because of her, why can’t she talk to him. That was their reaction,” she said.

Why did she not go to the police? Why do women hesitate to file a report? The popular theory is that a police case could lead to societal stigma. The victims have a more pragmatic reason—fear of retaliation.

On November 14, 2012, 23-year-old Vinodhini was doused with nitric acid in Karaikkal by Suresh Kumar. He had been stalking her, and her family had filed a police complaint. Enraged, he decided to kill her. Vinodhini was in hospital for nearly three months in Chennai; she died on February 12, 2013.

On July 16, 2015, Meenakshi was stabbed multiple times by Jai Prakash, his brother, and mother, in Anand Parbat area of New Delhi. She had complained of his advances to police in 2013. As a result, he and his mother had been taken into preventive custody. Her family told the media Jai Prakash’s family had been pressuring them to withdraw the complaint. She eventually died of her wounds.

Ramkumar, on the other hand, decided Swathi—who once threatened to complain to the police—must be in love with him if she had not registered a case.

What, then, must women do?

***

A senior police officer involved in the Swathi investigation said, “If there is danger, please report. Nowadays we are very strict about it. We will take action. If you keep quiet, the other person gets emboldened. But once he knows he is in the police radar, he will restrain himself. After all, these people are not hardened criminals.”

“Police are corrupt. And they are insensitive to the new laws,” said advocate B. S. Ajeetha, “It is hard enough to file an FIR. When the person is politically influential—he need not be a minister’s son, he could be the driver—forget about it. If the victim wields power, their efforts will be different. When it comes to Dalits, tribal communities, the poorest of the poor, we know what happens.”

I asked a sub-inspector in Chennai how the police usually deal with complaints of stalking.

“We try to nip it in the bud. Our aim is to make it stop.  You know who comes and complains boldly to us? Women from places like Vyasarpadi, MKB Nagar, Puduvannarapettai (localities in north Chennai considered hotbeds of crime). The trials are ongoing. We follow up. There is no retaliation. The best way to ensure that someone is put away is to see it through.

“But we do have women asking us to be discreet. And we understand. We also have families. People are okay with a man filing a complaint, or if he has a girlfriend, but when a woman files a complaint, they view her with suspicion even if she has had nothing to do with the guy. And if the stalker is a former boyfriend, the family simply wants it to stop. We can’t insist that the law is set in stone. Does the law give space for anbu (affection), for gauravam (honour), for nambikkai (trust)?”

Enlarge

Prasanna Gettu, founder and CEO of the International Foundation for Crime Prevention and Victim Care (PCVC), Chennai, weighed her answer when I asked about the police attitude.  “I think they get no training on stalking. We did a study 3-4 years back with college students. During focus group discussions, almost 90 per cent of girls from colleges in Chennai said they’d been stalked and sexually harassed—the person got on the bus at their stop, got off at the college, and it was torture.

“When we told them there are women police at the bus stops, they said a constable replied, ‘Pasanga-naa appadi dhaan ma iruppaanga. Neenga dhaan adjust panni ponum. (Boys will be boys. You must learn to adjust.) That is college life.’ That’s what they call it, college life.”

Some students reported that when they insisted on filing complaints, the first question was how they responded. Had they smiled or giggled? Had they encouraged the alleged stalker in any way?

“A girl may giggle at unwanted attention because she is not sure how to respond,” Prasanna said.

PCVC has been liaising with the police for 15 years. Prasanna wishes they would not think for the victim. “Say a woman comes straight from ICU. She could have stitches, but if it’s the husband who’s beaten her up, they still try to patch things up. With stalking, they recommend that you leave it to them to warn or threaten the offender. An FIR is never filed unless you insist.”

The cynical might attribute the reluctance to file an FIR to the police avoiding a heavier workload. Prasanna does not believe that. They may have good intentions but it does not necessarily work out for the petitioner.

“With every crime against women, I think if the police go by the book, it would be more effective. If the person gets off with a warning, it is not a deterrent. Police personnel themselves say things like, ‘We can file a case, madam, but look at it from their perspective. Tomorrow, if her marriage is fixed, her groom will ask who this boy was, he will suspect she had an affair’. Just go by the book, saying my role is to look at the complaint and act on it.”

Many victims of stalking, especially in college, don’t report it not from mistrust of police, but fear of their families’ reaction.

***

That was why Laxmi, now a model, television personality, activist and entrepreneur, chose silence in 2005. “I was scared. But I did not tell people at home. I was 15. He was 32. It was his word against mine. Even if they believed me, I was afraid they would stop my education.”

He was Naeem Khan alias Guddu, who worked in her New Delhi neighbourhood. He got to know her family well. “I used to call him bhaiyya. I had no idea he had started falling in love with me.” He proposed marriage in 2004. She turned him down. He threatened her every day for ten months. Then, on April 22, 2005, as Laxmi was walking through Hanuman Road to Khan Market, a motorcycle stopped and the pillion rider, a woman, threw acid on her. Laxmi was rushed to hospital with 25 per cent burns on face, arms and chest. Investigations revealed that her attackers were Khan and his friend Rakhi. He was convicted and sentenced to 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment; Rakhi to seven.

Since her attack, Laxmi has successfully campaigned for regulation of the sale of acid, and for acid attacks to be recognised as a separate crime in the IPC. She has won international recognition and awards, meeting several heads of state including the Obamas. She has also found love—with activist Alok Dixit; they have a daughter, Pihu.

Laxmi and Alok run the NGO Stop Acid Attacks, and Laxmi started Chhanv Foundation to help victims of acid attacks. Three years ago, they founded Sheroes Hangout, a chain of cafés employing acid attack survivors. Medical treatment wipes out the savings of most families of survivors. And then, Laxmi said, no one will give victims a job, “Kyun ki hamara chehra kharaab hai (because our faces are ruined).” The first outlet of Sheroes Hangout was inaugurated in Agra. They now have cafés in Lucknow and Udaipur. Their flagship store brings in about 500 customers a day.

“People need to know what happens after an acid attack. So we talk to customers about our lives. They will know what problems we face, and maybe offer other survivors jobs,” Laxmi said, “Society treats you so horribly. People don’t want you in their sight. They used to pass such ugly comments. Like, ‘aage se dekho, kitni buri lagti hai; peeche se dekho, kitni achhi lagti hai. (How awful she looks from the front, how lovely from behind.)’ They would ask me to cover my face. Am I the criminal here? As for him, the first thing he did after getting bail was to marry. I would wonder who’d give their daughter to a man like this, a man who’s ruined the face, the life of another girl. Didn’t this woman feel any fear living with someone who committed such a heinous crime? But, when I used to go to court for hearings, his wife would accompany him, and she’d look at me as if I had committed a crime against her husband. This is the mentality of society.”

Official statistics on acid attacks were not available until 2013. Statistics compiled by several NGOs, including Acid Survivors Foundation India, Stop Acid Attacks, and Campaign and Struggle Against Acid Attacks on Women show that the prime motivations for acid violence are rejections of proposals, dowry demands, and suspicion of infidelity.

***

Professor Mangai Natarajan, a gender crime specialist who teaches at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, has done extensive research on street sexual harassment and is currently researching acid attacks. She told me acid violence was most common in South Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.

Enlarge

“Stalking does happen across the world” she said, “But families refuse to go to the police in India. The girl is alone, traumatised, distressed. Most women in the west are empowered to report, and when they do, police can enforce the law. There are places in India where if somebody rapes a girl, the elders try to get him married to her to protect her chastity and the family’s reputation. The same thing goes for acid attacks—there are cases where women have married people who threatened them with acid violence unless they accepted their proposal. What sort of life will she have? We need to empower women not to be fearful of reporting threats. But we don’t know how to.”

Jaishankar feels the patriarchal structures in the value system of certain countries allow stalkers to rationalise their actions. “Even if the west is patriarchal, it is not in the same sense. Here, there is a preconceived notion that women are inferior,” he said. “That is fostered from childhood. If the boy in the house wants a sweet, his mother and grandmother make it right away. He is prioritised over his sister, because she will go off to another house, whereas he is the one who will transmit the genes to the next generation. So when he likes a girl, he thinks of her as the sweet—and when she rejects him, his ego cannot handle it. He wants to destroy her by taking her beauty with acid, or her life.”

In 2002, Bangladesh had the highest rate of acid violence against women. The same year, the Acid Control Act was passed, regulating its sale and increasing jail terms for acid possession as well as violence. The number of attacks fell from 494 in 2002 to 36 in 2016 (Acid Survivors Foundation).

India, too, has put laws in place.

The Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013, in addition to strengthening Section 354, inserted two sections under 326 (Voluntarily causing grievous hurt by dangerous weapons or means), which made attacking someone with acid (326A) and attempting to do so (326B) cognisable offences.

***

Supreme Court advocate Karuna Nundy was among those who represented human rights and women’s groups before the government while drafting the Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill 2013. She pointed out three loopholes in Section 354(D)—(a) ease in getting bail; (b) the ineffectiveness of witness protection programmes; (c) the gender specificity of the law.

“The problem with 354(D) is that it is bailable till the first conviction. This is exceedingly silly,” she told me, “Stalking in any case is repeated following. And it’s repeated following with expression of disinterest (on the woman’s part); then, it has the potential to become dangerous. If there is an explicit threat, it is criminal intimidation. As we all know, there can be all sorts of veiled threats—somebody standing outside your house saying, ‘I love you, I can’t live without you. I will kill myself.’ It should be a non-bailable offence. And when we were working with the government, we said it should be non-bailable in the first instance. That does not mean you don’t get bail, but it’s at the discretion of the judge. The judge can look at the circumstances, the level of threat and then decide.”

When the case is being heard, witnesses often either back away or change their stories. Nundy said most states don’t have the resources to protect witnesses. When even victims are worried about retaliation, few witnesses would choose justice for another over personal safety.

Where the LGBTQ community is concerned, there are vast lacunae. Nundy said the only recourse gay men and transpeople have even to file a complaint of rape is Section 377, which does not differentiate between consent and non-consent.

“A lot of transgender people are raped or assaulted. You also have men who are raped and assaulted. So how can you not have a remedy for that? It’s crazy. The agreement was that the victim must be gender neutral, phrased as ‘person’ and not ‘woman’. I don’t think it was mala fide on the part of the government, more a misunderstanding; and it was not phrased that way.”

***

Nirangal, a Chennai-based non-profit organisation for advancing rights and justice for people with alternate gender and sexual identities, is involved in crisis intervention and providing legal aid. I spoke to team members Siva Kumar and Delfina about whether the provisions under 354(D) have actually helped—or can help—the LGBTQ community.

The Supreme Court’s judgment in the National Legal Services Authority vs Union of India case reads: “Transgender persons’ right to decide their self-identified gender is also upheld and the Centre and State Governments are directed to grant legal recognition of their gender identity such as male, female or as third gender.” Technically, transwomen who are stalked can file a case under Section 354(D). However, this does not happen. For one, though the judgment was delivered on April 15, 2014, it has not been implemented.

Delfina said, “I think for transwomen being stalked has become the norm. It is obvious injustice, but they have gone through so much injustice that they have either become desensitised or feel that it’s not feasible to take up every single fight.”

The case of gay men is complicated by the fact that they are stalked less by strangers than by exes or acquaintances. In some cases, they may have had a sexual encounter with someone they met on dating apps like Grindr, only to be blackmailed or threatened. Most gay men who approach Nirangal are closeted. They don’t want to involve police even if there’s a case for criminal intimidation, because they are worried that their sexual orientation may be made public.

An activist to whom I spoke, whose identity is being protected, told me about an extortion ring. Often, members of gangs pose as homosexual on dating websites. They fix a meeting point and by persuasion or deception record photographic or videographic evidence of their victim’s sexual orientation. They then extort them for money, jewellery, and so forth. In one case, a man was forced to order an air-conditioner on his credit card and have it delivered and installed at the home of his blackmailer.

Siva Kumar said it was impossible for gay men to register most complaints. “Going to the police is very difficult because legal action will incriminate him under Section 377. We usually advise counselling for the victim. Then, our only option is negotiation.”

When I asked a senior police officer about the law for men who are being stalked, he was discomfited. “I don’t think I can say anything about that. Stalking is mainly on women, right? Normally laws are for the majority of cases. Exceptions may not be covered.”

When the laws don’t make allowance for a crime, it cannot be considered a crime. Delfina said, “By and large, we haven’t seen a specific homophobic bias in the police. But there is lack of understanding, lack of sensitivity. There are misunderstandings about Section 377.” Transwomen may be benefited by the National Legal Services Authority vs Union of India verdict, but only after the rights conferred by the judgment are actualised by the government.

***

Ajeetha sees problems in the framing of laws, as well as their implementation.

“Take the Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Harassment of Women Act—it does not cover ‘stalking’ or ‘following’. Somebody silently coming behind you would in a strict sense not come under the purview of that Act. Then there is burden of proof; someone who is not a relative should say yes, he stalked her. While the case is on, they can always offer you something to withdraw it. If you do not listen, they will send it to remediation. Or it can come to High Court for quashing of the case because certain cases are not compoundable.”

In Tamil Nadu, the Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Harassment of Women Act, 1998 is preferred to Section 354(D), especially when the stalking has resulted in a more severe crime, such as physical assault or molestation. This law, which was enacted after the death of Sarika Shah (who was killed in an accident while trying to escape two men who were sexually harassing her), carries a maximum term of 10 years and a fine of Rs. 25,000, as opposed to Section 354(D), which carries a 3-5 year jail term and a fine of Rs. 10,000.

Enlarge

Ria Sharma, founder of Make Love Not Scars, which provides medical aid, legal resources and counselling to victims, said, “Acid violence is an easy crime to commit because it is so readily available, at 30 rupees a litre. It’s much harder to procure a gun, harder to shoot someone, because there’s bloodshed, there’s chaos. With acid, it’s like throwing water on someone. And when you see that the penalty is only a few years in jail whereas the woman spends the rest of her life as a living corpse, it encourages the perpetrator.”

A Supreme Court order in 2013 on a petition filed by Laxmi banned over-the-counter sale of acid without photocopying a government-issued photo identity card and recording the purpose of the purchase.

It also banned the sale of acid to minors, and said undeclared stocks of acid would be confiscated and the seller fined up to Rs. 50,000. In the same order, compensation for victims was raised to Rs. 3 lakh—the state was required to deposit Rs. 1 lakh within 15 days of the attack, and the remainder within two months.

Stop Acid Attacks is conducting a campaign, #ShootAcid. Its volunteers were in Kanpur, where four acid attacks had been carried out in September.

“We’re sending people to shops to buy acid, and we’re shooting it. Shops are not following the order. I myself bought acid. Hum log bas ye hi bolte ki tezaab de deejiye. De dete hain, aaram se (We just say ‘Give us acid’. They hand it over). They don’t have licences to sell acid. But not a single shopkeeper said ‘We don’t have it’ or ‘We can’t sell it’. So I asked them why they stock it. All of them said the wholesale dealers bring it. I asked if they were aware of the Supreme Court order. They said they were, and then they said, ‘Go ask that guy, he’s also selling it.’ Finally, we managed to persuade all of them to stop stocking acid without licences. And they also gave us the number of the person who comes to sell acid. We have filed an RTI.”

I spoke to Laxmi the day after a special court in Mumbai sentenced the accused in the Preeti Rathi acid attack case to death. She was upset the case had dragged on for three years. It took police two years to find the culprit. Rathi’s father has been making repeated trips to Mumbai from Delhi for the hearings.

Ujjwal Nikam, the public prosecutor handling the case, confirmed that the convict—Ankur Panwar—had taunted Preeti Rathi’s family in court, provoking a fistfight. Panwar was also photographed showing the victory sign to cameras. Nikam said Panwar purchased 2.5 litres of sulphuric acid from a shop in Delhi, after Preeti repeatedly rejected his proposals. She was selected as a lieutenant in the Indian Navy Nursing Hospital in Mumbai. She took the train from Delhi to Mumbai with her father and uncle on May 1, 2013.

“The accused was secretly following her in the same train,” Nikam said, “When Preeti and her family got down at Bandra station on May 2, about 8.15 a.m., Ankur also alighted and threw sulphuric acid on her face. Her lungs were damaged, vision was lost. Her windpipe and food pipe were also damaged. Blood was oozing from the intestine. And she died in agony on June 2, 2013.”

He added, “He will definitely appeal. Let us pray this verdict is upheld in the High Court and the Supreme Court.”

***

If physical stalking is hard to curtail, cyberstalking is worse. In June, 21-year-old Vinupriya lodged a complaint after morphed photographs of her were put up on Facebook. They were still up when she committed suicide, six days later. She wrote in a note that she had not sent nude photographs to anyone and begged her parents to believe her.

The laws governing abuse on social media are usually American. A police officer at the cyber crime cell told me that court orders might be needed for the internet service provider (ISP) to intervene.

Even if police do genuinely want to help a victim, the laws can be a hindrance. A senior police officer based in Hyderabad told me one often has to find ways of working around the law.

“Recently, we were approached by a single mother—a widow—who is crying and crying. She said ‘One boy is there from my daughter’s college, continuously troubling her to have relationship with him for last four years.’ She is having some shop. The boy is coming to buy small items and smiling at the daughter. This lady told the boy to stop coming, and he said ‘What is your problem, I am just buying a notebook’ and such things. Then she mentioned her daughter and the boy said ‘I love her, you’re having doubts about me because I don’t have a job. I will get a job and come back.’ Then silence for one and a half years. Suddenly, one day, he has come back to the shop and said, ‘I have a job, I know your daughter is working in such-and-such company in such-and-such city. I came for your blessings to marry her.’ In such a case, what are we to do? What provisions are there in the law to deal with him? The media is reporting, we are filing false cases or we are letting off with a warning. I can only say we do what we can to ensure the crime stops.”

Looking through case judgments across the country, it appears 354(D) is usually used in concert with other offences to build a stronger case and enhance punishment. In the rare cases where it was the only section under which the accused is tried, they were acquitted.

Even if a man is convicted, he will be out in three years. Laxmi’s attacker Naeem Khan will be released this year. Ten years seems a long time, until the ten years are up.

***

Several initiatives have been taken by the Tamil Nadu police, such as the citizen’s portal and mobile app to file online complaints.

Superintendent of Police for Tirunelveli, V. Vikraman, introduced a service, “Hello Police”, for people to send complaints anonymously through text messaging, WhatsApp, or phone to the number +919952740740. The dedicated control room would be next to his chamber and he guaranteed immediate action. From images of suspects to bike registration numbers, reports flooded in. The service was activated on March 21, 2015. From that date to October 13, 2016, 3,217 complaints had been received and 513 FIRs registered, with 1,151 accused. But it did not have much effect in deterring crime against women, especially stalking.

“When you grow up in a city, it’s hard to grasp the mentality of people in a place like this,” Vikraman said. “You have husbands running away with other women, and when the wives come to us, they’re not looking to register cases. They simply want us to get their jewellery back. A lot of girls are afraid to tell their parents they’re being followed. They will either stop their education or get them married off because that’s their idea of a solution for stalking.”

Vikraman had self-addressed postcards distributed in schools and colleges. Girls as young as ninth and tenth standard students began sending in complaints. “One girl drew a map to the place where her harasser worked,” Vikraman said, “We’ve had complaints about lab assistants, teachers, about other people who follow them.”

***

A self-confessed stalker volunteered to talk to me. Komal Som* had stalked the wife of a colleague with whom she was having an affair. Her story changed slightly every time I spoke to her. Sometimes, she was defensive, at other times she spoke about her actions as if they were those of someone else, with extreme distaste.

“My shrink says one of the steps is admission,” she told me, “That’s why I’m admitting it. I’m a stalker.”

She hacked into his email, “temporarily stole” his phone and checked text messages, read his exchanges with his wife, and even tried to hack into her email.

“I was seeing a man from my office. He was married. But his marriage was on rocks, okay?” she said [sic.], “He wanted to leave her, but she threatened suicide. That’s why I decided to take matters into my own hands. If she found out about the affair maybe she would break up of her own accord and things could be worked out.”

The affair began when they were on the same shift—Komal would “bitch about [her] ex-husband”, and he would speak about problems with his wife.

“We made out in his house, we had sex on his bed, and he would say I should have his child. He wanted children, she did not. He gave me his email password and said I could check their conversations. But that night, he changed his password.”

In one of our earlier conversations, Komal had hacked into his email after observing him type his password. But she logged in from her own computer, and he must have received an alert, she said. In subsequent conversations, he had given her the first password.

Stalking his wife began online. “It started with checking his Facebook. She would comment on his posts and he would ‘like’ those, and she would randomly tag him in things. She was posting all these pictures, and he had to ‘like’ them. And when a couple is giving like full-on PDA, you know something is wrong, na? I even confronted him, and he was like she’ll make me log in and ‘like’ this. And I was like how controlling can this bitch be? I’d be looking through her comments on friends’ posts, what she ‘liked’ etc. She would keep using Foursquare and Check-In, so I was often tempted to go to those places. Sometimes, she would check him in with her, and I wanted to see how they behaved as a couple.”

Eventually, she noticed that the wife had joined a gym. She decided to meet her there. In one version of events, she said she didn’t know why it was important to meet her. Then, she came up with reasons—“I just wanted to see her as a person”; “I wanted to establish that I knew him and maybe put a seed of suspicion in her head”; “I wanted to make friends with her and see if she bitched about him. Then I could say he’s an asshole, leave him.”

The first few days, they did not meet. “So I took leave for a week, and went to the gym. Once I spent four hours working out. Finally, one day I saw her. I found out approximately when she comes there. I adjusted my shift and used to go every day around that time. Eventually we got talking. It was the usual conversation, where do you work etc. etc. She told me her husband worked there, and I asked for his name. She told me. I said, ‘Oh, I didn’t know he was married; I thought he’s dating someone in our office.’ She looked startled. Then I panicked, and said which branch, and pretended I was in a different one. She seemed immediately relieved.”

Eventually, Komal followed her to malls and meetings with friends. She staked out the house on weekends. She did “observe them as a couple” and is confident there were problems. It became an obsession. Every waking moment she was not in office, she would be in pursuit. She would will the wife dead, she said, though she did not “actively” do anything to ensure it.

“It was raining really hard in Delhi one day; you know, one of those rains where the whole city is paralysed. And I was driving from Gurgaon to this gym in Saket, and I’m crying and sitting in the car and thought how pathetic am I that I am going all this way to just see this woman and her husband doesn’t even care enough to commit to me. So I called him from the car itself and told him you have to tell her or I will tell her.” They had a fight, at the end of which she called the wife (whose number she had saved when she had “temporarily stolen” his phone).

The wife and he are now separated, Komal said. But he is not with Komal either. Once she told me she had got so angry she had stopped taking his calls; another time, she said it was he who had cut off contact.

***

What drives someone to stalking, to learn another’s routines, to harass or threaten them? It is commonly believed they have some form of mental illness. In the case of Ramkumar, three police officers who interacted with him said he “seemed off”. Dr. S. Mohan Raj, consultant psychiatrist in Chennai, says the problem is not psychiatric; it is behavioural. There is not enough information to comment on the Ramkumar case, he said, but most cases of stalking originate from personality traits.

Some people, he said, simply cannot take no for an answer. The reasons vary. The question of mental illness arises only when the stalker is delusional. “We call this de Clérambault’s syndrome. The most common cases were of people convinced someone was in love with them. Invariably, in all well-known cases both here and abroad, it is a celebrity. It could be an actor, a sportsman, and these people go on following them. They have this fixed delusion that this person is in love with me, but not able to make it public because of social position. So they will gatecrash and then wonder why they are being thrown out. They misinterpret a photograph or video saying, ‘Oh, that hand movement was for me’.”

Even in such cases, the person cannot avoid responsibility for the crime he committed. Laws, in India at least, make little allowance for it.

It is hard to pinpoint a motive for behavioural stalking, Mohan Raj said. The stalker may do it from purported love, or envy. In the former case, they try to hound the target into reciprocation; in the latter case, the intention is to intimidate and harass. They could impersonate the person to defame him or her. In the case of unrequited love, they could turn angry at the rejection and avenge themselves.

Can behavioural stalking be treated? Mohan Raj says a stalker is unlikely to seek help. The first step is to accept that there is something wrong with his or her behaviour; in most cases, the stalker will not.

There are several petitions, online as well as in the courts, at the moment to ban positive reinforcement of stalking in movies.

It has not been proved that movies encourage stalking, but Mohan Raj said constant normalisation of what would legally be classified as eve teasing or sexual harassment or stalking could instil the idea that persistence would be rewarded.

Jaishankar has an even scarier theory: “In the movies, as long as he is pursuing the woman, she is independent and he’s crazy about her. But the moment his pursuit is over, he goes back to work and she becomes the housewife, even if she’s a very rich man’s daughter. His role becomes active in the main story, hers becomes dormant. So the movie shows this is only a small part in his life.” On the one hand, it is frustrating that this “small part” is taking up so much time and energy; worse, it may not strike him that disposing of this “small part”—attacking her or killing her—has actual legal and social consequences.

“Every hero can be put behind bars under stalking section of IPC in letter and spirit,” Ajeetha said. But is the converse true—can someone argue that a crime was heroic?

There is a case of an Indian security guard in Australia avoiding conviction for stalking by blaming the movies. Sandesh Baliga, 32, was accused of texting, calling, and following two women in 2012 and 2013. His lawyer argued it was “quite normal behaviour” for Indian men to chase women who showed no interest in their overtures and produced Baliga’s favourite movies as evidence. The magistrate adjourned the complaint for five years on condition of good behaviour.

Seema Agrawal, ADGP in charge of the State Crime Records Bureau in Tamil Nadu, showed me the statistics for violence against women. Most such crimes were committed by rejected suitors. “We advise our girls to be careful,” she said, “But do we advise our boys to be respectful? How can you transgress into the criminal realm when you claim to be in love with someone? It is this misplaced notion of manliness. Love is respect for the other person’s sentiments—not causing a nuisance, pursuing, stalking.”

***

Stalking is not always a reaction to “love failure”. It could be the result of unadulterated hate. Amala Sathish* told me her story of nine years of harassment by a college classmate.

It began in 2005. Amala had been accepted into a course and found that she was not particularly popular in class. She believes it was because English was her first language, and for her caste.

“After the first semester, things started getting weird with this one chap, who made it like his personal vendetta. He would show up in the first row when I was making presentations and stare at me, making filthy gestures. I took it up with a teacher. She was sympathetic. She sat him down and said ‘This is not done; you can’t be doing this outside university, forget within. Do you have a problem? Let’s sit down and discuss it.’ He said she’s crossing her limits, a Brahmin woman crossing her limits, so the teacher said she’s not harming you, why don’t we just live and let live, and he sort of figured out the right way to quell her fears about it. She was convinced he had changed his stand. For about a week, he didn’t give me any trouble.”

She was stopped by a group of women from her college as she was about to head home one day. “One girl punches me in the stomach and I go flying. I’m winded and I ram my back against the wall. Then, [another girl] reached out and pulled my braces out, with her bare hands, and the entire lip was cut. She punched me on the nose, the break you can still see here”—she pointed—“I believe she punched me on the nose, although the guy who stalked me claims he punched my nose. I blanked out after a point, so I don’t know.”

Amala told her parents and they tried to approach the dean. But no witness was willing to testify to the attack. Then, she said, he began to follow her around campus with a cigarette lighter. First, he would burn holes in her dupatta.

“Once I turned round and asked him what his problem was and he said next time, you’ll be burnt and dead. So I confronted him, very foolishly so, and asked why he was doing this to me. He threw himself on me—there were only men around; the women walked away, they probably did not want to see, I don’t know—and he starts groping me all over. Nobody comes to my rescue.

“In the end, they’re all giving him high-fives as though he’d accomplished something. I found myself shaking, not knowing what to do. It was a good ten minutes before I realised I had to leave. I am a survivor of child sexual abuse, I’ve survived 13 years of sexual abuse, which includes rape. I don’t know why I never told my parents…whether it was to cover up my foolishness for having confronted him, or just not wanting to scare them anymore, but I don’t know.”

She began to avoid college, showing up only to write exams.

“But he managed to sit in front of me for one exam, and when we were waiting for the invigilator to collect the paper, he turns around and blackens my entire first page. Apparently, you can’t submit the paper then. Thankfully, the invigilator fastened a new sheet on top and signed off on it, and I was allowed to submit it. We get out, and I feel a sharp punch on my lower back. I had this shooting pain from my lower back to my toes and I’m bending double and he’s holding a bunch of brass knuckles in his hands right up to my face saying the next time this will be in your eyes. There’s nobody by my side. There are people walking up and down. I’m bent double. I’m in pain. I’m silent. I’m frozen. I’m quiet.”

Their next encounter was at the annual prize-giving ceremony, to which Amala had brought her parents. “In a full crowd, he walks past me and shows a bunch of condoms, saying, ‘This is for later.’ I got up, I went and sat with my parents, and he’s staring at me throughout the ceremony. I told my parents this is what he’s done, let me get out of here. They brought the car around. I bent over, crawled out of the hall, just praying I would get out safe.”

She decided she would not go back to college, even if it meant she did not earn her degree.

“But he knew where I lived—he’d followed me every single day of college as I would find out later from auto drivers and the watchman. So, he began to camp out at my place. He would arrive in the afternoon, and spend the entire day outside my apartment, just watching, keeping an eye. I tried to go about my life. He was literally staked outside my house, following me everywhere. I’d step out to sign a courier, and he’d be there. I’d go to the pharmacy, and he’d be there. I just had to look over my shoulder and he would be there. I was losing it, I needed a therapist, so I started seeing a therapist. He would follow me there.

“Once I’d gone out with my mother, and when we come back, there’s a tiny canister outside my door. She opened it. Somehow it slipped, crashed on the ground; it was acid. So my mum is like who left acid here, some stupid servant, you know, we don’t think…”—she paused for some time and then resumed her narrative—“Open the door, we go in, we see a note has been slid inside, saying, ‘Did you see the acid? That’s going to be on your face the next time’.

“The next morning I woke up like I was normal, saying I’m going for a jog. My mum was paranoid, ‘Why are you going out, what if he’s there, with…[acid]?’ And I said, ‘Who, ma?’ I’d snapped. I completely dissociated with everything. Four years were completely blanked out. 2006 to 2010, I had wiped out.”

At this point, she stared out of the window of the coffee shop where we were sitting.

“Do you want to take a break, shall we stop here for now?” I asked.

She seemed to be making an effort to stay composed. Finally, she reached for a tissue. But her eyes were dry, and she twisted it in her hands. “It’s just…I haven’t spoken about this before. I didn’t think I ever would.”

The next time we spoke, she took up from where she had left off. She told me she could not remember a thing—she did not remember a single day of college, she could not answer basic questions about the subject she was studying, and she had no idea who this man her mother had mentioned was.

“My therapist said it’s dissociation, a coping mechanism when there’s high level stress. So she said, ‘We’re not going to let you remember anything, but you know you’re unsafe. You’re not going to put yourself in a place where you’re alone.’ So I had everyday instructions. I hate to reference this, but it was like Gajini, the movie. I used to have a notebook which would tell me these are your numbers, this is where you should not go, this is how you should not be.”

The therapy went on for ten months before her memory began to stir. And it took a toll on her.

“For almost a year, I put myself in solitary confinement, literally. Of course, family and friends would come, but I never went out of the house. I was so sure that if I set foot outside those four [walls]…not just my house, but my room. If I stepped out of that little, tiny space, all my predators were there, everybody from my childhood. I started having these panic attacks at night—I couldn’t sleep without the light on. If the AC was noisy, I couldn’t sleep. There were certain actors whose faces I couldn’t see on television. There were certain sounds, certain words I couldn’t hear without getting triggered. That version of me still scares me because it shows me how much I can be destroyed while still being alive.”

On one of her first forays out of her house, in 2012, her stalker followed her family to a bookstore, and brushed against her at the billing counter. He was back. Amala asked that the details of how she shook off her stalker be withheld. The last time she saw him was when he showed up at her doorstep one day.

“He rang the bell once, and obviously, no one thought it was he. So we opened the door, saw him, and slammed it shut. Then he went on ringing the bell, like a hundred and fifty times. He’s drunk and he’s holding a bottle. He breaks it on the step and starts screaming about how if he doesn’t kill me that day, he will kill himself. And then he started cutting himself with the bottle.”

Alerted by the commotion, someone had called the police. It was the last time she saw him, but she received “filthy emails” from him over the next two years, including morphed pictures.

“He’s not in custody now,” Amala said, quietly, “Every day, I worry that he will show up again. As I’m talking to you, I worry that he will recognise the story and come for me again.”

Hours after our first meeting, I got a text from Amala. She told me the first thing she had done after going home was to throw up. “But my therapist said it was expected.”

*Names have been changed to protect identities

(Published in the November 2016 edition of Fountain Ink.)

BY JOST FRANKO

“Remember where there used to be trees full of clementines, and peaches, and olives here, remember?” asked five-year-old Zain upon my return to Rafah, after the last war in 2014. “The soldiers took them,” he explained. Like most farmers, his father Sami Qudaih cannot afford to buy his family a new home and cultivate land in a safer part of the Strip. They’re forced to build and rebuild their home, war after war, on the land from where the eyes can only see the border, and sniper towers surround children’s playgrounds.

Most of the Palestinian farmland in Gaza is located at the so-called buffer zones—a no man’s land that was established as a safety barrier by Israel. Bullets and tank shells frequently land in their fields, and shrapnel often decorates their homes. Even though the official length of the “safety zone” is 300 metres, in reality, the buffer zone can extend up to 1,500 metres from the fence (border with Israel), and is enforced with lethal force.

Jihan and Mohammad Abu Daqqa were raising five children in the town of Khan Younis. Their house was roughly 300m from the Israeli border. After the war in 2014, they were left with nothing—their land was bombed and so was their home. The harvest they were storing in the shed next to the house was also destroyed along the way. “I’ve been through dozens of wars, I’ve witnessed everything. Our home was always affected, but not to this dimension,” Mohammed Abu Daqqa recalls. “But when I hear stories from others, I’m just thankful my family is alive.”

War has critically weakened the agricultural economy and destroyed much of the farmland. During my previous visit to Gaza Strip in the same period, it was harvesting season. After the 2014 war—the Operation Protective Edge—olives, clementines and eggplants were not there to be harvested.

We were sitting in Khalil Zaanin’s farm in the northern part of the Strip, when a man on a donkey cart passed us by. They greeted each other by raising a hand. A little after, Khalil told me, that the man, a fellow farmer, has lost 17 members of his family in the 2014 war—and he was the only one that survived.“It’s a life with no guarantees whatsoever…whether you have plans or not, it doesn’t matter,” says Khalil.

Jost Franko is an independent documentary photographer from Slovenia.

The photo story of the December 2016 issue of Fountain Ink.

BY ARPIT PARASHAR

“Mahaul bhi toh banna chahiye (The mood needs to be set),” Sidharth says, enthused by the dark clouds visible from the balcony of his small apartment.

After weeks of hot, dry weather, it is finally raining heavily in Delhi. Sidharth is all set for an “outing” in the evening.

As we drive through the inner circle of Connaught Place some hours later, he switches off one of his two phones and stows it in the glove box. “It has no use till tomorrow.”

This is the number on which his family and friends contact him.

The number that is switched on is only known to a select group, and this is the one that rings as we approach Rajiv Chowk metro station.

The couple he picks up have come in from Gurugram. After a few drinks at a restaurant, Harry*, a retired colonel, gets nostalgic for his days in the “mighty Indian army”. Even as Sheena* asks after Sidharth’s health, family, and work and remains absorbed with him, Harry begins to vent his frustration with the poor handling of the monsoon in Gurugram.

“We in the army are experts at handling even the worst kind of flood in the country and these people can’t manage even the drains in the city after a few hours of rain.” Harry now runs a company that manufactures industrial tools for factories in the National Capital Region (NCR), but says he would have preferred to stay in the army had the circumstances been better at the time.

Sheena offers no opinion. She is insisting to Sidharth that he needs more exercise to “reduce some more fat” and build stamina. The conversation meanders through fashion trends to gossip about their circle of friends. It appears Harry and Sheena meet these couples often, and  Sidharth, now single, is present at almost every gathering.

At last, Sheena decides it’s time to leave. Harry gets a few drinks packaged in disposable glasses. Sheena and Sidharth talk softly among themselves through the hour-long drive home. Harry, who is sitting behind Sidharth, sips on his straw, silently staring out of the window. He gets through three glasses before we reach his double-storey residence. It is nearly midnight.

Harry arranges for more drinks from his bar cabinet, which is hidden behind a curtained wall by the car park. The gate is locked for the night, and the watchman closets himself in a small outhouse.  Sheena hurries into the house while the men pour more drinks. After an awkward silence that lasts through the first round, Harry asks, “Does she want me around?”

“I don’t think so. But you should ask her,” replies Sidharth. Before he can finish, Harry interjects, “Have fun then. Be good.” Sheena comes back and exchanges a significant look with Harry, and then walks into the house with Sidharth.

As I watch them, Harry asks, “You’re not married, are you?”

“No I’m not.”

“Good for you.”

“Why?”

“Well, because you still have the choice.” He pauses and then adds in a burst, “To marry the person with whom you fall in love and who in turn falls in love with you. Then you will, at least, have enough reason to blame each other for your faults. Mujhe dekho (Look at me), I can only adjust, as I have after being ‘happily married’ for ten years. But I’m glad I found Sidharth. At least I have saved my family now. Cheers to that.”

Sidharth is a gigolo, more politely a male escort, more brutally  a man whore. He gets Rs. 20,000-Rs. 40,000 a night to have sex with the women who hire him. He must ensure that the woman is “satisfied” before he is paid—and, of course, to ensure he’ll be called in again. Sheena is his client for the night, seemingly with Harry’s approval. In fact, it was Harry who contacted Sidharth after getting his number from an acquaintance a few years ago. After several meetings, first man-to-man and then with Sheena in the loop, the couple decided he was their best option.

“In most cases the couple has to trust you and you have to build an understanding with them. They must be sure you mean no harm, you’re just doing it for the money, and in the end everybody should go away satisfied. It isn’t a street deal as in the case of prostitutes,” says Sidharth. He prefers to call himself a “sexual service provider”.

Sidharth’s entry into this profession is rife with drama—a failed love affair, a chance conversation, a broken marriage that ended in a court case which he is still fighting, all played a part.

He used to be an outgoing child, he says. But his parents moved to Noida with his two siblings, leaving him with an aunt. This made him “emotionally vulnerable”. His father, a senior officer in the Uttar Pradesh Police, insisted on Sidharth staying in a boarding school with a strict routine. He was soon enrolled in Sherwood College, Nainital.

He did quite well at school, until Class XI. At the time, his grades began to plunge, which led to tensions with his father. He would be beaten “mercilessly”, he says. Things between him and his father got so bad that he would not stay at home when his father was in town. At 18, while studying for his graduation through a correspondence course from Delhi University, he had taken up a part-time job at a cyber cafe. He would either sleep at the cafe or at a friend’s place. He did live in the Noida flat when his father was away, but was financially independent, he says.

Around this time, he got addicted to online chatting and found it “fun” chatting with women. He says he found “love” too—apparently, women who were in love with him sent him money to visit Philippines and UK, which he duly did. However, none of these affairs worked out, and the woman with whom he fell in love was from closer home—Vadodara in Gujarat. Their romance transitioned from the virtual to the physical realm when he made a trip to Vadodara. He stayed in a hotel, where the woman met him and they “confessed their love for each other”. He made a second trip too.

“She was from a wealthy business family and told me her parents would not approve of our alliance. And one day she said her marriage had been arranged with an NRI from the US and that she would be married off within a few months. That is when I decided I had to bring her to Noida with me. We were both adults and had the right to make our own decisions.”

He reached Vadodara and waited at the railway station until she snuck out of home late at night. They boarded a train to Delhi and reached Noida the next day. His shocked mother admonished him for “forcing” the girl to elope although she wanted to marry him. “My father came home and beat me to pulp with his police belt the next day. I had to stay [at home] since I could not have her roaming the streets with me all night. Eventually he realised I could be married to her legally and told me to find a decent job soon so that I did not cause trouble for my family. He also informed the Vadodara police and her parents came home a few days later with the police team.”

After the discussions, a compromise was reached and the girl’s parents consented to the alliance and asked Sidharth to get a job within a month so that the marriage could be arranged. They took their daughter back to Vadodara. But she would not return his calls. His father told him she must have come to her senses, and he must move on too.

“After almost ten years we connected through Facebook again. She is in the US, married to the same NRI, who does not know what happened between us. She says she was beaten up and forced to stay indoors for months, after which she had no choice but to marry as per her parents’ wish. We still talk sometimes and she has promised to meet me when she visits India next.”

The incident left a deep scar and he decided to take charge of his life. “Money is everything. If you don’t have money you can’t do anything in this world. I worked harder and got into the real estate business with shady men from the hinterland. At times I got into trouble, but managed to keep earning.” He took up a year-long course in animation and graphic design at a high-end institute in South Delhi. He funded it himself.

He then moved to Mumbai where an old school friend was based, and worked as an assistant animation artist for someone who- he says is an acquaintance of Bollywood film director Mahesh Bhatt. “I even met Mahesh Bhatt once at his office,” he claims. Mumbai introduced him to the concept of a gigolo. When the cost of living in Mumbai threatened to overwhelm him, his friend came up with an idea to supplement his meagre income.  The friend, Sidharth discovered, was a gigolo too.

“At first he told me you just have to stand at Juhu beach with a red handkerchief hanging out of your pocket in the evenings and someone will pick you up.” It’s a technique used by gigolos in Delhi and NCR too.

“When it didn’t work out, initially he fixed me a deal with a woman who picked me up from the beach and took me to her flat nearby. That was when I saw what life really can get you if you’re game for whatever comes your way.” The woman’s husband worked for a shipping company and was home only for 4-6 months a year; his wife was alone, and her husband earned the big bucks, which he sent home. “She was young, barely 30 at the time. She had a big circle of friends and was a big party person.”

His failed love story earned him her sympathy and his affable nature won her trust. The woman had almost adopted him and for the next few months he didn’t stay with his friend but was at her house. “She bought me clothes, footwear, what not and even deposited huge sums of money in my account before I met my friends or when I had to make a trip to Delhi for a few days.” To earn his keep, he would have to keep her sexually satisfied. “I thought it was the best deal in the world.” She often called her friends over and many even took him to their houses to spend a night or two with them.

Enlarge

Sidharth began to shirk at his day job, and was soon unemployed. This wasn’t a hindrance until his lover’s husband was due to return home.

“She told me she would send money every month but that I should find another house and concentrate on my work. She was clear on her priorities but always assured me of help and never backed off. I realised I was just being used.” He stayed on in Mumbai for a few months, but eventually returned to Delhi, where he found a job at a BPO, and rented a flat so that he wouldn’t have to move in with his parents. The money his patron from Mumbai sent him came in handy.

This was around when he met Manpreet, the daughter of a Sikh NRI who had studied in Delhi and worked in the human resources department of the company where he was also employed. He says initially he didn’t chat her up, since she was “not good looking”, but grew close to her since she was also deeply religious, like his mother.

“For a sinner like me to find such a girl felt like I had been blessed or my mother’s prayers had been answered for me. She proposed to me within a year and I had no doubt that I wanted to leave my past behind and begin a new life with her.”

But his mother did not approve. “There were altercations and my father said she had ‘hit a jackpot’ in me and that I was only falling for her because she was wealthy.”

Manpreet’s parents too were against the marriage at first, but relented and even bought her a flat in the Sahibabad area in Ghaziabad. Sidharth’s family, however, had all but disowned him. “My mother said she would always speak to me and meet me, as did my sister, but that I was not allowed in the house ever again.”

While life was moving smoothly for Sidharth at the new flat with a decent job to sustain the couple, Manpreet was getting disillusioned with the life she was leading, having left her family back in London. Many of her relatives had stopped talking to her. “She wanted me to find a job in the UK and I was willing, but the recession hit in 2009 and there were no jobs.” He lost his job in the travel industry as well and the couple was low on funds. Her family offered to put them up in London and promised to take care of their expenses till they found jobs. But Sidharth refused. “I was already indebted to them since they had bought the flat and didn’t want to move to London and do odd jobs just to sustain myself. Her family began to feed her a lot of stuff against me and she got panicky; she was more abusive by the day.” They eventually divorced as he stood his ground, but Manpreet filed cases against him in Delhi, including domestic violence. He claims he never hit her and that “it was beyond him” but she has stayed on in Delhi, found a good job and appears at every hearing at the Tees Hazari courts in Delhi. She refused to speak over the phone or in person despite repeated requests.

That was when he found the one-room flat in Noida where he now lives and works for some online travel industry firms. “But it is barely enough to sustain myself, leave alone the expenses of the lawyer, whom I have already paid close to Rs. 4 lakh.” That is the reason, he says, he decided to become a professional gigolo.

***

Like the thousands of newspaper ads every day offering “massage services” as a euphemism for escort services,  gigolos too have their fronts. But they don’t need to be as discreet as their women counterparts, because male prostitution is not, strictly speaking, against the law. In fact, there is no mention of men in the laws governing prostitution—it is as if it was beyond the lawmakers of the time to envision the prospect. Solicitation for prostitution, however, is a crime. Certain sections of the Indian Penal Code like those dealing with public nuisance and indecency can also be applied, but are rarely used in cases of high-end male prostitution.

A Google search throws up a host of websites offering gigolo services, including “hardcore” men. Facebook and LinkedIn have detailed profiles of professional gigolos, whose fees range from Rs. 3,000-Rs. 20,000. Some profiles show pictures. Most have details of physical attributes, including the sizes of their penises.

Rohit Chaudhary, who is from a village on the outskirts of neighbouring Ghaziabad has a Masters in mass communication from a private college in Meerut. But he was always more interested in body building. “Most of the guys in my village either want to join the armed forces or police; or they wanted to be body builders and muscle men accompanying politicians or local leaders. I couldn’t escape it and I’m glad that I went into it,” he says. His village is Jat dominated—most of its menfolk are good-looking and have broader frames than average, he says.

Rohit, though, was an object of ridicule—despite standing at 6’2”,  he says he looked frail in school. “I was also interested in studies and was good at languages, both Hindi and English, which is why I took up the arts stream and then studied mass communication for five years.”

He interned at a news channel while completing his Master’s degree, but left disillusioned.

“The pay is a scandal and the workload immense. More than your talent, it is the stupid errands you run for your seniors that get you a raise. I lost interest.

By then he had taken up body building at a gym funded by the village panchayat. Within a year he had a strong upper body and impressive biceps. Soon enough, a cousin who had been working for years as a bouncer at a high-end discotheque in Gurugram found him a job at the same club. “The pay was decent, and the work only for a few hours, after which you got free drinks and dinner.”

At this discotheque, he met a woman who he says was in her late 30s and very rich. “She came with a few male friends. They seemed to have some sort of altercation—she started screaming and making a scene. The men left within a few minutes—they must have been afraid they would be blamed for her state.” He says the woman was so drunk she could barely walk. The boss decided to have her escorted home in a taxi, and sent Rohit to see her back safely.

“He probably knew her from before and even gave me her address.” By the time they reached the farmhouse on the outskirts of Gurugram, she had nearly sobered up. She offered him a drink and something to eat. “She thanked me at first, but then kept saying how lonely she was. She then said she wanted to have sex with me, which alarmed me. Drunken state mein kuch ho jaata aur baad mein police case ban jaata toh meri toh zindagi barbaad ho jaati (Had something happened in her drunken state and later there would have been a police case my life would have been ruined).”

Enlarge

But Rohit could not resist. He had never had sex before. He had never had a girlfriend either. “She also made me feel extremely comfortable, took me in for a shower with her and we had sex all night. I felt like I had fallen in love. When I was leaving in the morning she quietly put Rs. 5000 in my pocket and told me to buy some new clothes; she said we would meet again.”

Rohit would wait for her to call or for her to show up at the discotheque with her friends, expecting to go to her place later that night. “And it always happened, almost.” She would get drunk or even feign it and ask that he be relieved of duty for the night so that he could drop her home. His co-workers were supportive since they all had their exclusive “clients” to whom they were escorts, in more than one sense of the word. “Everybody earned well through such deals but I had been thinking that I would marry that woman one day or at least have a long affair with her. Mujhe toh pyaar hi dikhta thha bas (I could only feel love).”

That was until she called in another man to join them for a night out.

“I was so shocked that I started crying and wanted to leave. But she consoled me and made me gulp a few drinks. She said she wanted me to prove that I was better than everyone else and especially the other guy. The guy fell asleep after just one round in the shower, during which she made us do some really dirty things, while I worked like a maniac all night. I could not even walk properly by the morning but got paid Rs. 10,000. That was the day I realised I was just a prostitute. She had the money and she needed men with good build and large penises; as simple as that.”

She continued to visit the club, and Rohit continued to get paid to be with her.  He still recalls her as his first real ‘love’. “Jaise ek ladki ka pehla sex partner special hota hai mera bhi thha (Like a girl’s first sexual encounter is special, mine was too).” But he didn’t remain exclusive for long. His client recommended him to her friends.  He would get a call in the afternoon and be picked up at night. Sometimes he was treated badly, he says. The attitude of some women is not unlike those of the men  who treat prostitutes like filth.

“Women would take me to shabby hotel rooms, offer me cheap whisky and ask me to ‘get it up quickly’. It was mostly just mechanical. They wanted pleasure, and I had the tool for it. I got used to it. I would vent my anger in the way I went through the act, and they loved it. In fact, some women asked to be strangled or hit during sex. I just had to try to be aggressive and violent all the time and they would tell me how much of it was enough.” Masochistic clients were preferable to the sadistic ones. On many occasions, says Rohit, women want the man tied up, and then use physical torture to make him aggressive and angry. Some women like to use hot wax on the men’s bodies, while others use rods or handcuffs to hurt the men during sex.

Rohit earns Rs. 30,000-Rs. 60,000 a month apart from the Rs. 30,000 he gets from his present employer. He got married about a year ago, and is expecting his first child. Getting married was not an easy decision, he says, but he was happy that his parents were so excited at the prospect. “And when I met [my future wife], I felt an instant connection. I could see my own self in her outlook. She is a romantic and an ambitious girl. She used to teach in a school in Ghaziabad (and still does) and wanted a happy marriage, but also wanted to follow her own goals.” Rohit decided not to give up moonlighting. He would be able to support his family better.

“Morals do not matter in this big bad urban space. In my village and for my family what matters is that I earn good money and take good care of my family. All men are cursed; they have been sent into the world with the responsibility of earning money. That is the way it is and I am doing that.”

He visits his family only during the weekdays. They understand that the majority of the work at discotheques is on the weekends. He lives in a single room flat in Karawal Nagar in Delhi where he only goes “to sleep”. His wife doesn’t know about his secret profession, and he intends to keep it that way. “Sometimes it’s difficult to be in bed with her because I don’t feel the love anymore. I’m used to behaving the way the woman wants me to. But then I fake it; if I can fake being violent or kinky, I can surely fake making love to my wife. She is all I have. She is my future. She is the only person who will still be around when I can’t ‘get it up’ anymore.”

***

Getting an erection becomes difficult for most gigolos after a few years. Many use medications or steroids that ensure an erection for a few hours. Over time, though, they suffer from side-effects like depression, anxiety and in extreme cases impotency. Most common among the tricks to get a prolonged erection is cocaine. Sukanya Kumar, a volunteer at one of the leading rehabilitation centres in Delhi, says there have been many cases of gigolos getting addicted to cocaine over the last few years.

“These men, even after recovering, go into depression since they feel their families will not accept them because of the profession. Such cases pose a stiff challenge since recovery from addiction is not the solution. In some cases they relapse since they can’t find other means to earn money and they believe cocaine is essential [for what they do],” she says. The men are first introduced to cocaine through friends who are in the same profession, or through the agents who initiated them into the gigolo business. Agents handle the websites and groups that receive ‘orders’ for men online. Exploitation of the men takes place once they become reliant on money as their source of income through the gigolo profession. Rohit says that if a gigolo does not have his own contacts and circle through which he receives orders or calls for one-nighters, there is a chance that the agents keep up to 50 per cent of the money that the client pays. Greed drives them to make promises that cannot be met without performance enhancers.

To a query on “well-built, sociable and English-speaking boy” on the social media site LinkedIn, one such agent replied, “We guarantee a full-night erection from the boy along with complete satisfaction for the client”.

Kumar says this is only possible through the use of cocaine or other addictive tablets  with various side-effects.

Many gigolos have contracted AIDS from women clients who insist that he not wear a condom.  The risk exists with gay male clients too, but Kumar says such instances are extremely rare, since gigolos only assent to gay sex when they are in desperate need of money.

***

Unlike Rohit, Sidharth is not among the gigolos who advertise themselves. He is not part of an organised “sexual service providing” group either. He works in a circle of friends who may or may not be gigolos themselves, but know each other to be part of a social group that does not look at gigolos from the prism of prostitution.

Two of his friends from this circle were at a get-together in his Noida apartment. They have financially secure jobs, but offer their services for a higher rate. “Like [some people] would prefer to call in a foreigner, (mostly white women from central Asian countries who travel to India for a few months every year) the demand of both the client and the gigolo matters,” says Vikas Bhandari. Vikas quit when he got married last year.

“I couldn’t lie to my wife. Earlier I did it for the fun and the money which we[my friends and I] would spend on discos or travel. But now my wife and I earn and spend our money together. Life has changed.” Many of the calls he now gets are diverted to Sidharth, who himself turns down offers he finds suspicious or not “exciting enough”.

“Sometimes a couple just wants to talk about it and is not sure whether they want to go for it. At other times they have strange kinky fantasies they want to experience together. In such cases we take a call on whether to refuse or go ahead with it. In many cases they view us suspiciously, too, which makes it uncomfortable and so we refuse.”

The fantasies vary. Many women demand a strip dance or an orgy where other men are also called in and women treat them as slaves, tying them up and fiddling with their penises and testicles. At other times they demand “unnatural” sex—which makes it risky for both the man and the woman. “Basically, the one who has the penis decides what he can or cannot offer. The women cannot dangle the money and make me do whatever they want. A certain level of decency has to be attached to it. That is why we are service providers and ‘special friends’ to our clients, and not man whores,” says Sidharth.

***

They claim the services they provide have saved many marriages. Sidharth often visits a couple in Faridabad, who run a garment business together. Foreplay consists of drink and “dirty talk” between Sidharth and the wife, with the husband taking an active part. Then, they discuss and decide how the night will play out. The wife works on Sidharth until he gets an erection. The husband watches them have sex, but does not join them.. “Sometimes he masturbates when he sees his wife enjoying and moaning. He says it is difficult for him to get an erection since he was diagnosed with diabetes some years back and gradually lost his drive for sex.” The couple have not had a robust sexual relationship since. Such issues are not discussed in their family or social circle, explains Sidharth, and adds that they are religiously inclined people who organise Amarnath Yatra for poor pilgrims every year.

“And going to a doctor for treatment for him is too risky and taboo according to them. That is where I come in. They pay me Rs. 40,000 for every visit and always treat me well. The added bonus is that the woman is good looking and great in bed, which keeps me going too.” The couple has saved their marriage, their family is happy and their only child, a son, has a home that is unbroken.

The husband spoke over the phone on the condition that his name not be revealed. He said he and his wife have developed a deeper understanding now—earlier there were frequent fights and drunken brawls at home. His wife had threatened to divorce him.

Enlarge

“Our business has flourished since we decided to call Sidharth in and we have travelled more than half the world together,” he says, “Earlier, it had just been the honeymoon to Europe and nothing after. It is a harsh reality but if the sexual relationship is not healthy everything else gets affected in a family, especially in a case like this, since both of us are well-educated and expect to have our desires fulfilled equally. I cannot expect her to only take care of my sexual needs when I am not able to satisfy her.”

Such couples are known as “cuckold couples” in Sidharth’s circle. They can have awkward demands at times. A man in his late thirties, whom Sidharth visits in Noida every few months to offer services for his wife, insists that he watch the act but that his wife should not know.

“He seems to get some kind of pleasure or is just insecure about what goes on and so he sometimes asks me to leave the door unlatched so that he can peep in. Sometimes he hides in the balcony of the room and asks me to make sure the curtain is half-open.” Sidharth says he does it so that his client’s demands are met.

“The man claims that his wife has a high libido and that he is not able to satisfy her. He says that sometimes she insists on having sex many times a night and every night for almost a week, which becomes too hard for him, especially since he works in the IT sector and is mentally exhausted after work most of the time. The man feared that his wife would end up taking a wrong step.”

Sidharth believes the wife is “of dubious character”. He says she mumbles “the dirtiest of things” into his ear about her husband while asking him to meet her alone some times.

“I am not going to do that (meet her alone). His parents live in the same colony and for me to visit her in his absence will be risky as well as a breach of trust. I feel bad for the poor guy who earns well and has given his wife a lavish lifestyle. He has also had the understanding to kill his ego and make sure she is sexually satisfied.” He appears to understand why the husband wants to keep an eye on the bedroom.

While Sidharth is a “special friend” to many couples and single women, in some cases he does get emotionally attached. One woman, who he claims is a close family member of the chief minister of one of the biggest north Indian states, is “almost” his girlfriend. She is married to a businessman and lives in a posh New Delhi locality. She met him with a couple at a common “outing” like the one in Connaught Place and called him for a few more meetings before taking him home for a night.

“Once we got talking, it spilled over to messaging and WhatsApp and frequent calls. Then she started organising trips to various tourist places where we would stay in honeymoon suites like a couple. For her it was the romance that her husband was probably not interested in. We are a full-fledged couple while she is ‘happily married’ to someone else,” he says with a chuckle. It was all paid for by her, in addition to the money she gives him from time to time.

Later, the woman introduced Sidharth to her husband as a distant cousin on her mother’s side. “Since her mother is no more, there was no way for him to cross-check it either.” Now Sidharth regularly visits their house and the three drink together late into the night. She has been to his flat too, when her husband is in town and it is not possible for them to “be a couple” at her house. Sidharth has developed an emotional bond with her and says that he doesn’t take money from her unless he is in dire need of it.

His profession doesn’t allow him to feel lonely, but the “minister ki beti (Minister’s daughter)” appears to be his soul mate.

“I don’t intend to marry her or trouble her life. But we are very close and have decided to keep our relationship alive as long as we can.” Now 30, he says he can only hope to earn well for the next 6-7 years and so takes as many calls as he can, after consulting his friends and weighing them himself. “Workload has been consistently increasing,” he says. “Sometimes it gets difficult to go on so consistently, but I do take care of my health and nutrition so that physical fatigue does not kick in…because mentally I am used to it now.”

Gigolos seem to have a good support system. Sidharth’s circle of friends involved in the business organise meetings to share their experiences, which he says plays an important role in keeping their motivation high. “Since the men keep themselves fit and observe and experience the changes in demands or trends in the business, I too learn new things or just interact and have a good laugh about some experiences, mine or someone else’s.” The groups organise their own private meetings separately; but every few months, through by-invitation-only groups on LinkedIn, Facebook or WhatsApp, the larger community of professional gigolos is informed of the gathering, usually an overnight party at a neutral location. “At times a farmhouse is booked and everybody is informed on what their contribution will be. The organiser pays an advance sum and is later reimbursed. The only condition is that no female partners or friends are allowed.” The party this winter, Sidharth says, will be in Rajasthan and at least a hundred professional gigolos will attend it.

***

As the night wears on, Harry relaxes into a long chat. Having enquired about my journalistic credentials and running through conversation on the Indian Army, Narendra Modi, Pakistan and Kashmir, he returns to his personal life.

The decision to retire early was made because his family would have disintegrated, he says.

“My two kids (both daughters, aged 8 and 5 now) are sleeping upstairs. When they were younger, my wife was having affairs. Some years back, when my [older] daughter was barely 5, she called me and said ‘mumma is not opening the door’. I was posted near Jaipur at the time and drove back immediately that night.”

He opened the door of Sheena’s room with a duplicate key and found her fast asleep with another man. “They were both drunk and naked. I took my daughter upstairs where the younger one was sleeping.” He spent the night in their room.

His wife only discovered him the next morning, and was shocked to find him at home.

“I slapped her the moment I saw her.” He sinks into deep silence, and it is only after gulping two more drinks and chain-smoking for a good while that he is able to continue his story.

“We fought for many days. I took leave for a month and stayed home, sometimes threatening that I would kill every man who ever showed up to meet her. I started suspecting even the security guard and the cook. I had gone mad in rage. She stayed mum throughout, conceding that she had indeed cheated on me but that she found nothing wrong in it.”

Enlarge

Then one day the couple decided to drink together and talk it all out. “She made it clear that she would walk out of the marriage and not even demand custody of the kids. She was not sexually satisfied. She told me I had a small penis and that she preferred men with bigger ones.” He claimed Sheena had had many affairs during her college days and had been extremely sexually active before marriage. “She even told me she had sex with multiple men at times from the gym where she used to work out. She was adventurous wasn’t she?”

After a few more drinks, there’s a look of disgust on his face. “Brother, had I known this I would obviously never have married her. But our fathers were both in the army and are close friends to date. It was the obvious choice since I went into the army at a young age and had known her since we were kids.”

Harry now had to weigh his betrayal against the future of his marriage, his kids, his image among his army mates, and the relationship between the two families. He was inclined to choose the latter. But he had to solve Sheena’s problem.  He got to know about ‘high-end’ gigolos.

“It would be civil and there would be no feeling of filth or guilt attached to it since you can meet the person beforehand and converse too.” He reached an agreement with Sheena that he would quit the army, set up a business and find gigolos for her. “We spent a year talking about the family, our girls, our future and she supported me, although she bought sex toys to tide her through the phase when I was still struggling to find a foothold in the business.”

Then, Sidharth entered their lives.

Enlarge

“I like him because he is not sophisticated. There is no element of show-off in him. And he understands my situation. I vent my frustrations in front of him quite often, and he always behaves like a good friend.”

The first light of dawn is showing signs of breaking when Sidharth walks out and asks for a stiff drink. He tells Harry that Sheena is asleep. Harry, face down, pays Sidharth, hands over a half-full bottle of whisky  “for the drive back home”. Sidharth and Harry hug each other for a good minute before we leave. Harry goes back into the house.

“How was it?”

“Usual, man. Regular stuff.”

(*Names have been changed to protect identities.)

Arpit Parashar is a freelance journalist based in Delhi.

BY HARIKRISHNA KATRAGADDA

The river Ganga is both a conceptual and a real figure, occupying a space that is epic and monumental in Indian imagination. It is worshipped as a goddess by millions, but it is also one of the most polluted rivers in which untreated sewage and toxic industrial effluents are dumped along its 2400 km journey from the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal.
The Ganga receives 220 million gallons of raw untreated sewage every day, and effluents from more than 1000 industries. The cities and villages along its course dispose garbage into it, and treat the holy river as a sewer. Despite the government’s efforts to clean up with an investment of more than `2,700 crore on the Ganga Action Plans I and II in the last three decades, and about Rs. 3000 crore in the last two years, a recent report by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) blames the dams and blocks placed on the river at many places, reducing the water’s flow. The report has shown that not only has the clean-up mission failed, but that the water in the river has also got filthier.
The first part of my project is Manikarnika Ghat in Varanasi, an important cremation site for Hindus. Charred by hundreds of pyres daily, this is a landscape contaminated with coal, ash and partially burnt human flesh. The other part of my project is a study of the toxic chromium released by the tanneries in Kanpur, which finds its way into farms, food, animals, people and finally into the Ganga.
I make cyanotype prints with light impression and mark-making using site-specific materials with a process based on intuition, chance and accident. The resulting prints that bear burns, tears, creases are not mere images of the contaminated landscape, instead become the contaminated landscape.
They not only represent the materiality of the photograph, but also reflect the erasures and eruptions on the tactile relationship between the river and the people who interact with it. They are marked by signs and traces where the river is both present and in the process of disappearing. These ruptures are metaphors for the fragility and ephemerality of the river, which despite the weight of its deposits and residues is forever in a flux.

This work was recipient of the 2016 India Habitat Centre Photosphere award.