A decade back, when we were making a documentary called `The Source of Life for Sale’, on around nine struggles on water privatisation in India, I happened to move around in Chhattisgarh to look into some of the issues there.
A river called Shivdham was sold to the corporate industry by the elected representatives there at that time. Being in power in this country, it can also take you to a status of God, who they assume have created rivers, forests, seas and hills. But the elected gods have no pretension to have the capacity to create. They can only sell to destroy.
Another river called Kelo was sold to the well known industrialist, Jindal. But it was not an easy process. There was a stiff resistance from the local people. Four local women even started a hunger fast against it. And one woman called Satyabhama died in the hunger fast. The collector rushed to the spot and expressed his compassion by promising 300,000 rupees to Satyabhama’s family. The money was never given. The collector was transferred.
I found it very difficult to get a photograph of this woman called Satyabhama. My friend Gautam Bandhopadhyay in Chhattisgarh finally managed to get a photograph which was broken with several shades of white on her face. My friend Mustafa Desamangalam and editor Aditya sat on this photograph on a computer and recreated her photograph which we used in our film.
After that I told many of my activist friends that though there are a number of struggles against water privatization in India, but here is one woman who gave up her life for such a struggle! And there are not too many instances of martyrdom due to a hunger fast in the history of people’s movements in India. She must be remembered and projected as a symbol of struggle against water privatization in India. I tried. But sometimes, in activist circles, you may feel that the dead are the lucky ones. And memories are only for those who love haunted stories.
The name Satyabhama has been ringing on my ears ever since. Years later, when I was moving around in Kandhamal, walking through the debris of the destroyed churches and watching the faces of Adivasi Christians and Dalit Christians filled with fear, I met Satyabhama again. This Satyabhama was different, but yet the same. And both were women!
This Satyabhama in Kandhamal was again a poor woman like the Satyabhama in Chhattisgarh. Both expressed immense courage in different contexts. What is more important for us is to recognize that Satyabhama in Kandhamal is alive and we must know more about all such Satyabhamas in this country, if we have to understand the words like `secular India’ enshrined in our Indian Constitution. It is on this living Satyabhama that I would like to share some words with you.
The time was 2008. Swami Laxmanandam who used to spit venom against the Christians in Odisha from mid 1960s onwards, was murdered by the Maoists. Since the Maoists had given an advance notice that he would be murdered, there was also a police protection for him. The Maoists executed their job as per schedule and the blame was put on the Christians in Kandhamal by the Sangh Parivar.
Around 350 churches and worship places belonging to the Adivasi Christians and Dalit Christians were destroyed. More than 56,000 people were displaced and over 100 people were killed. Around 5,600 houses were burnt, looted and destroyed and over 40 women were raped or molested. Kandhamal was burning and the Christians were running in fear.
In such conditions, a group of seven Christian sisters ran towards the Hindu house of Satyabhama Nayak, a widow who was barely struggling to manage herself and her family. Satyabhama knew very well that giving protection to the Christian nuns at that time may cost her own life also. But yet she did it.
I was curious to know why she undertook such a courage, since Hindus who gave protection to Christians were also killed at that time. During the same time, a local Hindu, who was also a BJP member, was killed for trying to stop Sangh Parivar from attacking the Christians in his village.
If they could go to such an extent to their own people, Satyabhama would have had no chance in front of them. I interviewed her for a documentary film. But unfortunately it is difficult to share the full text of any interview in any such films due to constraints of the format. Therefore, it is being reproduced here.
Satyabhama is not a lone rider. You will find Satyabhamas in every communal riot. While the mainstream press focuses their attention on the sensational news providing more coverage to those who undertake violence, and a small column occasional news for the secular protests against communal violence, the real secular people who act with convictions on harmony on the ground are not usually identified.
If India has still some secular traditions left, it is only because of such Satyabhamas on the ground. The only hope we have today is that even in these burning hours of communal polarization and politics of hatred, we still can witness such courageous women, who believe strongly on harmony and execute a task which the Indian State has failed for decades.
The story of Satyabhama in Kandhamal gives us ample evidence to understand that it is not religion which creates communal violence in India. It is just politics. Religion is only a tool. And most of these people who involve in violence also do not really believe in religion. It is only a mass of people filled with fear trying to generate fear on others, searching for their own identity through bloodshed in a world which drains their own identities. And it is easy to sit back and write this. But it is not easy to live it.
If it is religion that creates violence, then we will have to explain why a religious Brahmin family expressed the same courage to provide shelter to human rights activist Prof. Bandookwalah, when Gujarat was burning. In 1984, when the Sikhs were massacred in Delhi, there were people from different religions who expressed such solidarity.
In Gujarat, even Christians as well as atheists came forward to support the Muslims. The list of those who try to build harmony in the most difficult conditions is long. But one thing is clear. We are still surviving because of the relentless work of those unknown and unidentified people.
Recognizing such efforts is as much a political activity as much as providing relief to the victims of communal violence or initiating protests against violence.
To my relief, when I mentioned about Satyabhama to comrade Annie Raja, who is a national leader of the women’s wing of the Communist Party of India (CPI), she said that they were having a national event of their women’s wing in Delhi and that Satybhama of Kandhamal could be honored in that function. Satyabhama and a team from Kandhamal left for Delhi soon after that to receive such facilitation, thanks to the sensitivity of Annie Raja. It is only with such support mechanisms that more seeds of harmony can sprout in future.
Big trees may fall during a storm. And small plants may survive. Our aerial view in politics restricts us to see the small plants. It takes more courage to withstand a communal onslaught with full conviction on humanity and harmony. Satyabhama in Kandhamal, represent that collective harmony.
Our Indian identity has tasted blood. It will take a long time to remove the smell of blood from our own souls. As a civilization based on a history of bloodshed, it is time that we keep recognizing all those who are devoted to the act of cleaning the smell. They are our future.
(K.P. Sasi is an acclaimed documentary film producer.)