Public memory is all too amnesic., and the Bhagalpur blinding’s which sickened and shocked the nation when they were exposed in November 1980 have almost become history. Even the dogged legal battle for justice by the blinded has virtually disappeared from newspaper columns, lowering a ‘curtain of silence on one of the most shameful episodes in modern India. Yet, two events forced attention on Bhagalpur last fortnight. On December 18, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) submitted its full report on the blindings to the Supreme Court. And, the following day, a young documentary. film maker, Tapan Bose, held a first private screening of his hour-long colour documentary, An Indian Story, on the blindings and the repressive social structure of Bihar.  

The CBI took almost a year to complete its investigation, interviewing more than 2,000 people. It’s still a confidential report and is believed to unequivocally indicate almost every police and civilian official who participated-directly or indirectly-in the blindings or the massive cover-up afterwards. It is expected to recommend legal action against those who were directly involved in the blindings and departmental action against senior officials who may have encouraged them.  

But reams of CBI jargon cannot begin to adequately communicate the inhumanity of the blindings. Tapan Bose’s film (see box) does so with power and pathos. Unfortunately, it isn’t likely to make the public circuit. The film was viewed by the Censor Board’s top officials in Calcutta on December 8. Unable to reach a decision, the Board referred the film-a passionate indictment of authority-to its legal advisors. Sources say the film has been sent on to the Law Ministry where, like Kissa Kursi Ka, it will Moulder in its cans.  

To take a fresh look at Bhagalpur, to find out what had happened io those who lost their sight and those who took it from them, India Today sent Correspondent Chaitanya Kalbag to Bihar to investigate. His report: 

Symbolically, Bhagalpur’s streets are plunged in darkness by power cuts every evening. Riding bicycles and cycle-rickshaws through the gloom of the district headquarters, the citizens of Bhagalpur seem to teeter perpetually on the edge of violence, terror and death. But talk of the 33 blinded undertrials only provokes anger at nosy investigators from the outside world. From beggar to bureaucrat everybody still says that blindings were the only way the criminals could be checked, and that the unsavoury publicity they got wreaked havoc with the region’s law and order, and peace of mind. 

The paradox remains unresolved. Bhagalpur’s notorious criminality hasn’t decreased because of the blindings. Soon after the disclosures, the “demoralised” police turned a “Nelson’s eye” to overt crime. Changes at the top in the police hierarchy had some stimulating effect towards the end of 1981. But Cheery police statistics are, oddly enough, contradicted by citizens, who say that crime is getting worse every day. To deal with it, the Bhagalpur police have now gone to the other extreme: during the last three months, at least 62 people have been killed in ‘encounters’. The police predictally explain that most deaths occurred at the hands of the public.  

To combat crime, says District Magistrate Shiva Priya, Citizens Resistance Committees have been formed in every village. and he is granting them arms licences. Priya’s records show that only 4,470 licences have been issued in 1981. But every citizen privately admits that he keeps a gun for self-defense-and Bhagalpur town’s population alone is 2.2 lakh. Lala Indu Bhushan, 45, president of the Bhagalpur University Teachers’ Association, expresses popular feeling in the town when he says: “The blinded criminals received unnecessary moral, and even financial assistance. But now the trend is to kill criminals in encounters. It is better than blinding, it invites less trouble.” Bhushan is incensed at the monetary aid the blinded got.? Says he: “Lawyer Vinod Thakur was blinded by the criminals, but did the Government give him money? Is the Government protecting the ordinary citizen?”  

Token Punishment: With attitudes such as these, it is hardly surprising that the stars in the gruesome deeds have all been given plum posts. After a short and token suspension, the 15 sub-inspectors (s) named were quietly reinstated and transferred elsewhere. Short of being monetarily rewarded, the leading actors in the drama are being well looked after by the state Government. A sampler:   

Prem Prakash Sharma, who was district magistrate of Bhagalpur during the blindings, is now special assistant to Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Bhishma Narain Singh.  

Arun Pathak, who was home commissioner when the story broke and earlier divisional commissioner of Bhagalpur during the blindings, was first given the personnel department; now, he holds the choice post of industrial development commissioner in Patna.  

Mihir Kumar Jha, who as additional inspector-general, Criminal Investigation Department (CID), tried to sabotage the CID enquiry into the blindings, was promoted in July 1981 to the post of inspector-general, Military Police, Bihar.  

Gajendra Narain, who was deputy inspector-general (DIG), (Bhagalpur Range) during the blindings, is now DIG (Vigilance). 

Vishnu Dayal Ram. who was deputy superintendent of police (VSP), Bhagalpur, during the blindings, has been promoted as superintendent of police of the coveted Muzaffarpur district. 

Sub-Inspector Ashok Kumar Acharya, who as officer in charge of the Rajaun police station is alleged to have supervised the blindings of nine men on October 6, 1980, is now reserve sub-inspector in the inspector general’s office, Patna.  

Sub-inspector S.N. Prasad, who is alleged to have blinded Kashi Mandal and two others, has been posted as personal assistant to the DIG (Administration), Patna. 

DSP B.K. Sharrma, posted in Bhagalpur during the blindings, has been made city DSP, Ranchi.  

In stark contrast has been the fate of the two men who did more than anyone else to bring the blindings to light, and then to matchlessly expose the culprits. Superintendent of Bhagalpur Jail Bachu Lal Das is fighting a lone battle in the Supreme Court against his arbitrary suspension. He is permitted by a court order to continue occupying the superintendent’s bungalow in Bhagalpur. Lalit Vijay Singh, 46, who as DIG (CID) headed the team that bluntly showed up the police as the guilty party and was later suspended for having publicised the report, had his stand vindicated by the Supreme Court in March 1981 when it was ruled that the CID reports would form part of the evidence in the undertrials’ case, and must needs be made public. But Singh was shunted into the ignominious post of DIG (Home Guards). He says he has not sought to fight back because it would adversely affect the blinded undertrials’ case.  

Callous Treatment: The victims, not unexpectedly, have fared the worst. They had been granted Rs 15,000 each from the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund. In November 1980, the Bihar Government announced that it was sanctioning an additional Rs 15,000 to each victim; more recently, it swore in an affidavit to the Supreme Court that the money had already been deposited. But it has not been; even the original sum does not figure in any victim’s bank passbook. The money lies with the district treasury, and every month the treasury pays Rs 125 into each victim’s account as part of the interest on the original sum. 

Two of the blinded, Baljit Singh, 24, and Patel Sah, 35, who live in Bhagalptir’s Mundichak locality, complain that they have to visit the district court many times before they can locate the official who releases their money. Baljit Singh was in Delhi for ten months from December 1980; he was operated upon in the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) to insert a steel splint in his ankle, which had been smashed by police lathis. Baljit Singh is unmarried, but Patel Shah has a wife and three children to look after. “Is Rs 125 enough to feed them?” he asks. Cases instituted against the blinded men are continuing in the district court. “After all this do they want to extract more justice?” cries Baljit’s mother. “Better that they kill my son. Everybody in our family avoids us now. Who will look after him when his parents are dead?”  

The Bihar Government offered to send the blinded men to the National Institute for the Visually Handicapped at Dehra Dun for vocational training. Only seven men, says Priya, agreed to go, but only three in the end made the trip: Umesh Yadav, Saligram Sah and Kamla Tati. Both Baljit and Pate1 had agreed to go, but Baljit returned too late from Delhi, and Pate1 feared that his family would starve if he left. The two men were among the nine blinded at Rajaun police station on October 6, 1980-the last and largest batch.  

Umesh Yadav’s house in the Mahayaganj area is little more than a mud hovel. He left for Dehra Dun on November 17. His wife shrinks from questions. The family was ostracized by the neighbourhood after the blindings were exposed. The hebe1 does not look as though it belongs to a rich criminal. In fact, the CID team that investigated the blindings and submitted its reports between January 10 and 27 last year, categorically said that most victims had had charges framed against them after the blindings, and that too in a suspicious manner.  

Bihar Chief Minister Jagannath Mishra met India Today in his Patna office on December 20, soon after he had triumphantly announced the end of the ten-day government, employees’ strike that had crippled the state. Mishra at first flatly refused to discuss Bhagalpur but changed his mind when pressed. He admitted that crime in Bhagalpur district had increased but blamed the Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) of Bhagalpur, S.K. Sinha, for being too liberal.  

“He is granting bail too easily to criminals,” said Mishra, “How can the police check crime?” He said that if the local report indicted any official, he would take “all action” against every guilty official. Claiming that he had no details of the concerned officials’ comfortable transfers, Mishra nevertheless conceded that there were at least 2,200 vacancies in the police ranks throughout Bihar. But he repeated, “the real obstacle is the judiciary.”  

In Bhagalpur, CJM Sinha was livid when told of the chief minister’s charge. “Both the district magistrate and the SP here wrote to the chief secretary in Patna asking for my transfer,” he said, “but their request was turned down. I am merely sticking to the Supreme Court’s directives and the amended Criminal Procedure Code and the Police Manual. Section 167 of the Code clearly says that if the police do not produce substantive evidence against a prisoner, thin 60 days of his arrest, he is then liable for bail, and Rule 224 of the Bihar Police Manual says the police shouldn’t expect the courts to detain an accused person beyond 15 days if they do not produce ‘reliable and reasonable evidence’. How many cases have they followed up? Never do they furnish evidence, case diaries, or memorandums of evidence. I have no choice but to grant bail.”  

Manpower shortage: The police admit that they are tardy in furnishing evidence. but blame it on shortage of manpower. Superintendent of Police (SP) Amar Pratap Singh, 29, said that there were at least 350 vacancies in his 1,100-constable force. In addition, there were 23 sub-inspectors’ vacancies in the district. Some recruitment had been done recently, but it would be a year at least before the recruits completed training. To make do. said Singh. He was hiring Home Guards on a daily wife basis.  

“But,” said Singh, “the Home Guards are often not paid up to six months, and so they frequently desert their posts. We cannot even take action against them.” Sources in Bhagalpur privately aver that there is a “menu” for serious crimes, with fixed rates for murder, dacoity, rape, and kidnapping. Payment results. the sources allege. in immediate bail. Whether it is so or not. the CJM. Bhagalpur granted bail during 1981 in as many as 242 cases registered in the 11 police stations under his jurisdiction (the district as a whole has 34 police stations).  

Most of Bhagalpur’s crime is perpetrated by the lower caste Gangotas, who dwell on the banks of the Ganga in the diara area and are landless labourers in the main. They eke out an existence from the fertile alluvial soil that is uncovered when the river ebbs after the monsoon. But the diara is a shifting area, and land disputes regularly explode into violence and murder, with the fittest getting to harvest the crop. The southern bank of the river has fertile mango groves that produce the famed Zardalu and Malda mangoes. Usually, the orchard owners give contracts to pickers for as much as Rs 1.5 lakh per season. Thes year, crime in the belt stretches from Sultanganj in the west to Colgong in the east. has been so bad that the orchards’ going rate has dropped to as Loat as Rs 25,000.  Singh says that his men cannot even venture across the river for six. months of the year.  

Poverty: DIG; Upendra Prasad. 52. who joined in July 1981. says that the only way 10 combat crime in Bhagalpur is to issue an ordinance providing for arrest without bail for six months, as has been done recently in Uttar Pradesh. Prasad does not agree with the theory that Bhagalpur’s poverty contributes to its crime; he says: “I subscribe to the Marxist interpretation of history, which says that all causes emanate from materialism.” But Bhagalpur is undoubtedly poor. Eighty-three per cent of its workforce is engaged in agriculture. and 46 per cent are landless labourers. Of the district’s 24-lakh population, at least 14.5 per cent is constituted of scheduled castes and tribes.  

But the blinding, which enjoyed such popular support, have by no means reduced the spiraling crime rate. Official figures notwithstanding, there are quite a few major gangs. particularly those led by Lale Mandal. Nirla Mandal and Jaginder Mandal continue to wage terror in the diara area. Two months back, a steamer ferrying passengers across the Ganga was stopped in midstream by three boats crammed with armed men, who plucked out three passengers, hacked them to death, and tossed the bodies into the river. Not one witness has so far come forward to testify against  Sudama Mandal, the biggest gang-leader who surrendered soon after the blindings.

“We are witnessing the complete collapse of civilised society.” bemoans Ramjee Singh, who heads the Department of Gandhian Thought at Bhagalpur University, “and we are trapped between the Scylla and Charybdis of the criminals and the police.” Most Bhagalpur citizens tend to agree with Singh. They allege that the police are always allied with the criminals. “There are at least 300 illicit distilleries in this town.” says Hari Shankar Sahay. “And you can imagine how much money the police make from them.”  

Bhagalpur is one of the oldest districts in India: it was established in 1724 by the East India Company. And it is situated in an area once ruled, in the sixth century, by Chandragupta Maurya, whose chamberlain Chanakya set up the oldest police force in the world. Chanakya stipulated that any policeman caught committing a crime would suffer twice the punishment due to an ordinary citizen. That was a precedent of sorts. but today’s Bhagalpur ominously threatens to be a precursor of a stage when the entire country is ruled by barbarity.

Tapan Bose  

Blind On Reel  

TAPAN Bose, 32, decided to make An Indian Story when he attended a People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) meeting in Delhi just before the blindings were exposed in the press. He began work on the film in March 1981 when he met a few blinded undertrials in Delhi. Later, he travelled to Patna and Bhagalpur for further shooting. The rough print was ready by August. “But,” says Bose, “we realised then that the film was limited, it tended to be verbose, it did not convey the whole Bihar situation.”  

So Bose went back to Bihar, and shot some footage in Bodhgaya, where a Gandhian struggle has been going on for two years against the Bodhgaya Math’s mahant and his ruthless exploitation of bonded labour, and in Musahari, where two struggles-one inspired by Jayaprakash Narayan and the other led by Marxist-Leninist Raj Kishore-have been going on side by side. The result was powerful. 1.700-metre film that left the few people who saw it at private screenings stunned and shaken.  

Searing Chronicle: A good example of cinema-verité. The film uses examples from Muzaffarpur district and Bodhgaya to bring home the oppression confronting Bihar’s lower caste poor. Bhagalpur forms the bulk of the film, and using interviews with Bhagalpur citizens, the blinded men, and Supreme Court Jawyer Gobinda Mukhoty, Bose closes in on the terrible inequality and criminality that grips the area. Shots from pre-independence films showing colonial police attacking protestors, collages of news reports on the Bhagalpur blindings, and crime statistics given by the police in the area all add up to a searing chronicle of the area’s problems.  

At times the film gets patchy, at times interviewees’ voices are drowned by background noise, but in the end, helped by good sub-titling of the entire film and the apparent sincerity of its maker (who appears often in the film, talking to people) the viewer rises with a heavy heart. Story is not the kind of bland propaganda churned out by the Films Division, where, says Bose, “Documentaries are merely files”. One shot above all sums it up: the Union Jack descending the flagpole while the Indian tricolour goes up on August 15, 1947. Cruelty wears a brown face now, instead of white, and it is much more wanton and savage than the British could ever conceive of.  

After an apprenticeship under documentary film maker S. Sukhdev, Bose set up a small production unit, Cinemark, in 1975. He was joined by three other young people-Suhasini Mulay (who acted in Bhuvan Shome and had studied filmmaking in Canada), cameraman Salim Shaikh, and editor Prakash Kothare. Based in Bombay, Bose depended entirely on donations from friends to make Story. The processing, printing and subtitling cost him Rs 2 lakh.  

 Trouble: He has applied for a “documentary feature” certificate from the Censor Board, because ordinary documentaries invite a duty of Rs 10,000 per print. The film, however, after passing through three rounds of examination by the censors, has still not been certified. Officially, Bose has not been told the reasons, but he has learnt that the board had three reasons: the Bhagalpur matter was sub judice, it could lead to libel, and it could amount to contempt of court.  

But Bose, who braved intimidation from the DIG Police, Bhagalpur, and inclement weather in order to shoot his colour film, says that the film is based on what was published. He tried to enter the film in the Indian Panorama section of the film festival beginning in Calcutta on January 3, but it was rejected. If necessary, he says, he will fight the case all the way up to the Supreme Court.  

Having mostly made children’s and advertising films so far. Bhagalpur seems to have whetted Bose’s appetite: he is now planning films on deaths in police ‘encounters’, the caste problem, and the organised working class. “My film is not as political and as critical of the Government as Ritwik Ghatak’s Amar Lenin and Gautam Ghosh’s Hungry Autumn,” says Bose. “It is not meant for the masses, it is meant for the gentry, it is some kind of an appeal to their consciences. It will be interesting to see how the Government ultimately deals with the film.”