The victim is always the tribal

SEWARI (Gadchiroli): “I don’t want compensation, I want justice,” says a frail but resolute Mahari Chukka Pudo, shock and grief writ large on her face. “How can I eat from the money that has my husband’s blood on it?” she asks. Even as Mahari falls silent, her mother-in-law says, crying, “Who killed my Chukka, who killed my Chukka?” Tears roll down her cheeks, as she stands before her son’s grave. Chukka is dead.

It’s not yet clear though, who killed him — Naxals or the police. Sewari, a remote tribal hamlet of sixty-odd households in Naxal-infested Etapalli, 400 km from Nagpur, this is one of tribal hamlets in Gadchiroli caught between the devil and deep sea.

Across the Bande River, which flows along the village, is Chhattisgarh. For the left extremists, it’s a strategic territory. For the State, it’s a forbidden planet. Like tens of hamlets along the bordering villages on either side of the border, Sewari too finds itself trapped in a deadly game, where Maoists are taking on the State.

It’s a conflict, in which the two outsiders — the Naxals and the police — play a bloody game, but the victim is always a tribal.