Chapter 9: BEYOND ENEMY LIES
The Defectors Resettlement Colony was quite a distance away from the city, taking an hour’s drive to reach from Royapuram, and by the time they arrived, Maya had drifted off to sleep in the car.
‘Maya, wake up. We have almost reached.’
‘How long was I asleep?’ she asked rubbing her eyes.
‘For around 30 minutes, your eyes closed as soon as we hit the expressway. There it is,’ Naga said pointing ahead.
The place seemed like a fortress, with heavily armed guards, high concrete walls topped by barbed wire and close circuit cameras.
Naga parked his car at the entrance and told Moon to wait in the car. He walked to the main gate and greeted the security guard. He was escorted to the visitor’s section, where he had to register their names, provide identification proof and fill up a form.
Clutching two visitor tags, he came back to the car and handed one to Maya.
‘Hang this around your neck. Don't lose it, or we will get into trouble.’
He hopped into the car and this time drove right through the open gates. It was just the beginning. They had to pass through two other checkpoints, and then travel for nearly a kilometer on a deserted road sprinkled with soldiers, before they finally reached a huge brick building.
More formalities. They had to register once again and wait in the lobby. Shortly after, a middle-aged balding man carrying a file walked towards them.
‘Mr. Nagarjuna?’
‘Yes,’ Naga said standing up from his seat.
‘I'm Krishnamoorthy, senior researcher. I have been asked to assist you. Hope you write something about our efforts in The Hindu’
‘Nice meeting you, this is Maya, she is a research scholar from Corea.’
‘Glad to meet you both, come this way please.’
‘Sir why is there so much security here?’ Maya asked.
‘Last year we caught a few spies who were posing as defectors. They were sent here to kill the resident defectors and blowup this place.’
‘Where are they now?’
‘Dead. They consumed cyanide as soon as they were confronted.’
‘How many refugees stay at this facility?’
‘We can accommodate around 2500 people in a year, and 400 simultaneously. Right now there are only around a 100 refugees undergoing training, the rest have finished their course and have settled elsewhere.’
‘I don't understand.’
‘You do know the government operates this support facility for newcomers from Hindustan to help them resettle in Dravidian society? Every year, around 4000 Hindustanis defect to Dravida, but they do not all come at the same time. They arrive individually or in small groups at different times, whenever they manage to escape.’
‘What happens after they are sent here?’ Maya asked taking down notes, as she walked.
‘We offer a three month resettlement course for social adjustment in our country. The ultimate objective is to instill confidence, narrow the cultural gap, and motivate them to achieve sustainable livelihoods in a new environment. We also have a team of psychologists and sociologists to watch over them.’
‘Is that necessary?’
‘Absolutely. The level of economic development is so different between both countries that they get a culture shock. The percapita income in Hindustan is only $ 800, while in Dravida it is $32,000.’
‘Even Corea has a percapita GDP of only $3,000, but it was not such a big shock for me.’
‘Maya, we are not just talking of per capita GDP but also the quality of life. Millions of people die in Hindustan every year because they cannot afford food to eat and clothes to wear. Corea is a democracy, where at least the basic necessities are available,’ Naga intervened.
‘I heard that food rations, housing, healthcare, and education are offered free in Hindustan, and they have also abolished taxes.’
‘There is big difference between propaganda and reality. Maybe you will change your opinion after speaking to a few defectors,’ Krishnamoorthy said, swiping his card against the security bar, and unlocking the doors.
‘What happens after they finish training?’ Maya continued.
‘After the course, they get citizenship cards within two weeks so that they can apply for a passport. The government rents a small apartment for the defectors and gives them some cash and incentives for their employment, education and medical support.’
‘Do they adjust well after they go out in the society?’
‘Unfortunately, we have found that they take a long time to adjust to Dravidian society and its level of development, but we are constantly updating our training techniques.’
‘How many people have trained here so far?’
‘Today there are close to 1.2 million defectors living in Dravida. This Center was only established in 1985, so we have trained around 700,000 people.’
‘Where do these defectors stay? In Madras?’
‘No, they are all sent to different provinces. Each province has a yearly quota for accepting these defectors. Here, this is the cafeteria. I have arranged for a few defectors to come here in turns so you can talk to them.’
Krishnamoorthy went to the counter to order a few drinks and snacks, while they seated themselves at a table.
A few minutes later a young girl in her teens walked in. Krishnamoorthy approached her, exchanged a few words and then brought her to their table.
‘This is Kavita, she is 20 years old, and is from Basantpur in Bihar province. Her father died when she was just three. At that time Hindustan was in the grip of a famine which eventually killed three million people.’
‘Can she speak English?’ Maya asked.
‘Unfortunately she cannot. She knows only Maithili and a little Hindi. Don't worry I can translate for you,’ Krishnamoorthy said.
Her story touched Maya's heart, and brought tears to her eyes. She was not aware that conditions were so bad in Hindustan.
Kavita began by telling them about her childhood, when her mother was still alive. She recalled going up to the mountains and growing food without being seen. Her mother and sister did the farming and she would walk four hours to the market and help sell whatever they could grow. At times they even caught wild rabbits and fowl to sell.
When she was 12, her mother died, after a small cut in her foot led to a serious infection. There were no hospitals nearby and the closest was 200 kilometers away in the capital of the province. She and her sister had to survive on their own without any family or social support, looking out for wild animals, and surviving on tree bark and wild fruits. In the winter of 2002, they decided to escape with four other orphans, by crossing the freezing Koshi River in the dead of the night. Two girls were shot by the border patrol, but the rest managed to escape to Rajbiraj in Nepal. One of her friends had a relative in the village, who instead re-directed them to another Nepali family in Kathmandu who they said would put them up.
Their host lived in a small tin shed in the suburbs of the city. One portion of the shed was given to the three girls, and they realized to their horror that they were expected to provide sexual services to tourists. Their room was locked from the outside, and they received only food, no pay, and were forbidden from going out. It was like a dark prison with no means of escape. After 11 months Kavita's sister managed to escape, but there was a police raid and she and the other girl were deported back to Hindustan. They were imprisoned in a labor camp in Thar Desert, where they were forced to do hard labor, in unhygienic conditions. Many women died because of the harsh weather, and they would regularly dump bodies outside.
After 18 months Kavita had an unexpected visitor, her sisters boyfriend who had escaped to Dravida. He had hired a broker, located her and bribed the guards to let her go. She had to hike to the mountainous region of Tibet, then a land journey to Burma then by boat and by foot in Thailand. The broker left her at the gates of the Dravidian Embassy, and she finally arrived in Madras. The whole deal cost her sister around
$15,000.
‘If Hindustan provides free food, education and medical care, why did she have to escape?’ Naga asked Maya, raising his eyebrows.
‘Madam, the free food, education and medical care are only for the privileged residents of Delhi, Bombay and Calcutta, while the remaining citizens are on their own. They have to work in farm cooperatives and government factories. Most of the young men prefer to join the army because they are at least assured of food. That is why Hindustan has the largest standing army in the world,’ Krishnamoorthy quipped, as Kavita got up folding her palms together and left.
‘How big is their army?’
‘The total armed forces strength is 7 million. For comparison, China has the next largest of 2.7 million. Hindustan has a military first policy, and they spend 30 percent of their GDP on defense. What is more, Soviet Union also has many bases in the country, as a counter to the American bases in Dravida.’
‘What is the military first policy?’
‘Hindustan prioritizes the armed forces in all affairs of state and allocates national resources to the army first. It dominates their political and economic system, serving as their guiding ideology.’
‘Do they really need to spend so much on their military?’
‘They have a very long and porus border, their main enemies are Pakistan and Dravida on either side. Besides, the border with friendly countries like Nepal, Bangladesh, China, Bhutan and Burma also need to be guarded to prevent defections. Here comes our next guest. He ran away from the Hindustan army, maybe he can give you more details.’
Rakesh approached them smiling.
His tale was even more horrifying, and he had succeeded in defecting on his third attempt.He almost died a few times, after being caught, and was severely tortured in the prison camp in Nagpur.
Maya sat transfixed as he narrated his ordeals, life in Hindustan and his escape. She met two more defectors after him, who narrated their equally bad experience, sending a shudder down her spine.
She failed to understand how her country, a democracy, could maintain friendly relations with a regime that treated their citizens so brutally.
On the return journey, two hours later, Maya sat in silence as Naga cruised his car on the expressway, occasionally shaking her head in disapproval.
‘Are you convinced now?’
‘Seems unbelievable. How did Hindustan become a dictatorship? I heard it was a democracy even after the civil war.’
‘Yes actually, it was a multi-party democracy for eight years after the civil war. Indira Nehru was the Prime Minister and her party won two straight elections, in 1967 after the civil war, and 1971 after the Bangladesh war.’
‘What happened then?’
‘There were many allegations that she won the 1971 elections by fraud, there were a lot of protests and satyagrahas, with students and labor unions leading the agitation which slowly spread across Hindustan. A court case was also slapped on her for election fraud and use of state machinery for election purposes. The court found her guilty and banned her from contesting any elections for ten years.’
‘She retaliated by becoming a dictator?’
‘It was not that easy.’
‘She was democrat at heart, being the daughter of Nehru, and wanted to resign. Others around her who feared losing power poisoned her mind.’
‘What did they tell her?’
‘They convinced her that she could democratically retain power by imposing internal emergency. They cited threats to national security from Pakistan and Dravida, in addition to challenges of drought and the oil crisis, which had crippled the economy. The strikes and protests were paralyzing policies and hurting the economy of the country greatly.’
‘What is internal emergency?’
‘Although Dravida drafted a new constitution, Hindustan continued to use the old one that was drafted under Nehru. Article 352 of their constitution, allowed the government to grant itself extraordinary powers and suspend democratic freedom to citizens. It allowed her to launch a massive crackdown on civil liberties and jail thousands of opponents. She rewrote the laws, completely bypassing parliament, and converted Hindustan to a single party rule modeled on the Soviet Union, with the help of Brezhnev.’
‘It is not a communist country like Soviet Union. Is it?’
‘They call themselves democratic socialists, but follow exactly the same communist party rules. At the top of the Congress Party is the Central Committee, elected at party conferences. The committee in turn votes for a Presedium and Secretariat. The Chairman of the Presedium becomes the President of Hindustan.’
‘She has managed to remain in control by always getting her nominees elected?’
‘Yes. They still have a feudal mentality and a lot of it has to do with poverty and illiteracy. She also made Hinduism the national religion, polarizing the majority population in her favor. She is Nehru's daughter, and everyone believes she is entitled to absolute power.’
‘Is that the reason her son is now the President?’
‘After her assassination by bodyguards loyal to the banned Democratic Janata Party in 1984, her younger son took over.’
‘Younger son?’
‘Her elder son had a falling out. He studied in Europe and believes in the democratic traditions that his grandfather believed in. He stays in Italy with his wife and children.’
‘You think he will come back if Sanjay Nehru dies?’
‘Unlikely. Sanjay has a son who is being groomed to take over.’
‘Like a family business?’
‘Democratic socialist family business. Although, if Rajiv comes back from Italy, he may reintroduce democracy and there will be peace here.’
‘You think that is likely.’
‘I hope so, but it is difficult. We all know what happened to Gorbachev after he introduced glasnost in Soviet Union. The military did not allow him to continue as President, and have their own man as leader now.’
‘Anyway, today's meetings have really opened my eyes.’
‘That is why I arranged it. What time do you have to meet Professor Ganapathy?’
‘He said three. What is the time now?’
‘It is two. Let us have lunch and I will drop you off. You can stay in the library after the meeting. I have to show my face in office for a little while. Keep your mobile switched on.’