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LIVING: REFORMED DACOITS
Gunning
For Progress
They
once roamed the harsh countryside in search of victims. Today they work
side by side with people to bring changes in their dry, arduous lives.
By
Rohit Parihar
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| Bhagwan Singh, 38, has constructed
an earthen dam and promotes tree planting |
It's typical bandit
country: an uninhabited, rocky ravine, eerie and menacing as if danger
lurked behind each stony outcrop. But Jagdish Gujjar leads the little
procession with nonchalance-until a sudden flash of ochre streaks across
the bleak landscape. Disturbed by the feetfall, a tiger feeding on a buffalo
has leapt into the sparse vegetation. The swarthy, mustachioed Jagdish
is unnerved but he quickly regains his composure, as a man whose life
depends on quick responses must. He continues to lead the scared group
through the mongoose-infested forest until they reach a Shiva temple.
It is here, he says, that he threatened devotees with his panchphera-a
gun that fires five shots at one go-and divested them of their wealth.
Jagdish's is a confession that is becoming common
in Karauli district of Rajasthan. As a favourite of Ram Singh Gujjar,
a dreaded dacoit in the hilly terrain straddling the Chambal and Banas
rivers, Jagdish had a makings of a successful sardar (gang leader). He
was educated and could maintain the gang accounts, not an easy task in
a life revolving around extortions, kidnappings and robbery. But the 28-year-old
gave it all up when he chanced upon a booklet at a relative's house.
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| Sardar Singh Bairwa, 30, has become
a stone mason at a dam construction site |
It was the account of successful water conservation
efforts of an NGO, Tarun Bharat Sangh (TBS), in Alwar. The reports touched
a chord. Some weeks later, Jagdish turned up at the Sapotara police station
to inform the station house officer that he was giving up dacoity to organise
literacy classes. The police officer, who had once grabbed him by the
collar and abused him, offered him a cup of tea. "The respect accorded
to me was like a new lease of life," says Jagdish.
Like Jagdish, several other hardened men are
returning from the jungles to help in the development schemes started
by NGOs in Karauli. "More than 30 dacoits and their accomplices have
returned to villages in less than a year," says Ram Nath Singh Gujjar,
the intrepid sho of Sapotara. The district's superintendent of police,
M.N. Dinesh, has an interesting theory: "These dacoits have finally
seen development and are willing to give up arms." So for the first
time in many years, Karauli has had a year without a kidnapping.
It was sheer desperation that drove these men
to a life of violence. How else would they be able to make a living in
a region where you had to walk 15 km to get to a metalled road, where
it took students three hours to reach a school, where hand pumps ran dry,
where women in labour regularly died on the way to far-flung primary health
centres? There was death, despondency and drought. While the area receives
substantial rainfall, irrigation is almost non-existent. P.K. Deb, a senior
IAS officer, says the bureaucracy conveniently ignored the fact that rocks
and ravines do not retain water. "The villagers could not grow crops
and the forests became denuded," he points out.
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| Jagdish Gujjar, 28, an educated dacoit,
gave up wealth to start literacy classes |
Around two years ago the NGOs Satat Vikas and
TBS started water projects in the district. TBS commissioned 30 ponds
and water-harvesting schemes. Satat Vikas had similar programmes. The
state Government also started some drought relief work. "We suddenly
had a lot of work on our doorstep," says Nadan Singh, 45. For three
decades, villagers of Rawatsar had suffered the antics of Nadan Singh.
He was a boastful robber, who would mercilessly thrash people who resisted
him. Then his wife Karan Bai talked to him about joining the effort to
build a dam in the village. Nadan not only acquiesced, he also later led
the villagers in retrieving two tractors stolen from the construction
site by another dacoit, Bano. Nadan's legal income and livestock have
grown fourfold.
Similarly, the burly Bhagwan Singh, 38, his
metre-long moustache a symbol of menace in Nenia ki Guari village, has
given up a life in the jungles to become a water conservationist. He has
had to take up the gun again, with the police's permission, to protect
himself against irate ex-colleagues, but has settled down to making earthen
checkdams and planting trees. He reaped his reward in the form of a rich
harvest last year.
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| Nadan Singh, 45, teaches people about
the benefits of water conservation |
With people managing to bring the arid soil to
life, more dacoits are resurfacing. Hari Singh of Hathiaki village admits,
"I used to steal foodgrains and sell them to dacoits." He left
home after a police raid, but returned when the digging of a pond began.
Sardar Singh Bairwa, 30, an accomplice of Bhagwan Singh, is today a mason
building a dam in Chorkia Kalan. Ram Charan Jatav, 32, a master guide
for dacoits who spent a year in jail, has dug a pond for TBS and is raising
a dam for Satat Vikas.
Impressed with the trend, Dinesh feels the police
can be involved in development and hopes for area-development funds like
those that the army gets. He believes, as do the dacoits, that long-term
progress is clearly a better alternative to get-rich-quick escapades.
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