Thérage, a god-fearing man, drew the cross and
closed his eyes in fear of being damned for putting a saint to death. He begged
forgiveness of the girl and proceeded to light the pyre under her. As flames
shot up, Joan screamed the holy name of Jesus and invoked the Saints of
Paradise without ceasing. The crowd gasped and many began to sob. Then her head
drooped and her body became motionless.
Jyothi closed the textbook and skimmed through
her notes. She had a paper due for her Women’s Studies class. Joan of Arc, the “Virgin
Warrior” of France who was a saint to
many, fascinated her. She reminisced about the life of the illiterate peasant
girl from Domrémy in medieval France. Apparently, the “Holy Maid” could
electrify those around her and struck terror into the hearts of her enemies.
Joan’s self-confident, charismatic and supremely determined persona resonated
well with her.
It had been two years since Jyothi Ramani
arrived on the campus of the University of Delhi for her post-graduate studies,
the first member of her extended family to do so. She hailed from Janwada
village in the Telangana region of Andhra Pradesh. Her family owned agricultural
lands in Janwada for two generations. Jyothi aspired for an academic career in
one of Telangana’s leading colleges. She had full support of the family in her endeavor.
The social pressures to conform to the ‘norms’ did not encumber the clan. Her
generation grew up in a different era, free of the crushing feudal
exploitations that had ravaged her ancestors.
Jyothi cuddled the mobile phone in her pensive
mood. The device’s screen indicated that the hour was nearing midnight. Looking
at her notes, Jyothi found the word she wrote down in uppercase and encircled:
HERESY. Of all its lexical descriptions, the one that seemed most appropriate
in Joan’s context was the following: an opinion, doctrine, or practice contrary to the truth or to generally
accepted beliefs or standards.
Joan had to pay with her life on charges of ‘heresy.’ The word had
stirred Jyothi’s emotions. Did she find a parallel in her own life?
Last summer Jyothi was chronicling the life
stories of the women involved in the Telangana uprising of ‘40s and ‘50s for a
Women's Studies project. She had heard so much about the peasant movement while
growing up. Her grandmother, Rukmini, used to talk excitedly about one Chityala
Ailamma.
Chakali Ilamma, as she was popularly known,
was a mother of four. When the zamindar Visnur Ramachandra Reddy tried to take
her four acres of land in Palakurti village of Jangaon taluk, she revolted. Her
rebellion inspired many to join the vetti
chakiri udyamam (forced labor movement).
Jyothi felt that Rukmini had more stories to
share than she had recounted thus far. One evening, she found her grandmother
alone in her bedroom sorting through a stack of papers. She stepped into the
room and closed the door behind her. Rukmini peered at her from underneath the
thick glasses. Jyothi sat quietly on the bed next to the old lady and smiled at
her.
Jyothi was Rukmini's eldest grandchild.
Growing up, she was attached to her grandmother more than any other children in
their large joint family. On many hot afternoons, she would seek refuge in her
grandmother's bed, listening to stories of Ramayana and Mahabharata. At other
times, Rukmini would be braiding Jyothi’s hair while humming Bonalu (a festival honoring Goddess
Mahakali) hymns and revolutionary songs.
Jyothi laid down a notebook and a small
cassette tape recorder that she was carrying in her hand. “I’m writing about
the women of Telangana struggle,” she explained to Rukmini, “It is important
for our generation and beyond to know the sacrifices you had made.” The
literature did mention about women’s active participation in the land movement,
in agricultural labor wage struggles, in seizure of landlord’s grain, and
against forced evacuation of tribal people from their lands. However, Jyothi
wanted to learn about women’s battlefield experiences when fighting alongside
their fathers, brothers and husbands.
Rukmini paused from stacking the papers and
looked at Jyothi. She removed her glasses and wiped them with the end of her
saree. She then put them back and picked up the tape recorder. Her eyes
wandered as if scanning the room and eventually fixated on the recording device.
Jyothi reached out and turned on the gadget. Rukmini took a deep breath and
spoke firmly into the device.
Rukmini was born as Nagamma into the Koya
tribe from the Godavari forest region of Khammam district. Her family had
farmed on a few acres of land under the vetti
(forced labor) system in Potuvarigudem village in the Palvancha forest area. She
was the eldest child of her parents. During her childhood, the social
conditions were oppressive in all the districts of Telangana. The Nizam and his
cronies behaved as arbitrarily as medieval potentates. Poor peasants were
subjected to innumerable illegal exactions like paying nazaranas (presents in kind or cash) whenever there was a birth,
marriage, or death in the family. The worst of all these feudal oppressions was
the prevalence of keeping girls as ‘slaves’ in landlords’ houses and using them
as adi bapas (concubines).
When Nagamma reached puberty, her family
married her off to a peasant boy from her gotram
(one of five sub-divisions of a Koya clan). As she attained womanhood, her
husband began to treat her very badly. She was fed up with him and fell in love
with an agricultural hand of the village landlord; the two developed an
intimacy. Nagamma’s case was brought before the village committee. After
hearing her plight, the council decided that she was free to exercise her will
and granted her a divorce.
The year was 1948 and the Telangana Peasant
Movement was in upswing. The Andhra Mahasabha and the Communist Party had
established footholds in the region, particularly among the youth. Nagamma
would find these organizations in her village holding meetings to denounce
usury of the landlords and distributing chittis
(receipts) authorizing people to refuse vetti.
To counter influence of the resistance, the Razakars
(Nizam’s militia) and the police set up camps outside her village and began terrorizing
people. Women and girls were particularly vulnerable – often targets of
abduction and rape.
One evening, Nagamma was visiting her friend
in a neighboring village when the Razakars, backed by the police, raided the
hamlet. Nagamma ran desperately away from the crowd. As she neared the edge of
the Palvancha forest, a resistance squad emerged and opened fire on her
pursuers. She thanked her saviors and instead of returning to family she decided
to join the dalam (squad). The group
was led by one Jagannatham.
In her new life, she assumed the name of ‘Rukmini’,
after Lord Krishna’s principal wife who was also considered to be an avatar of
Laxmi (the goddess of fortune). Rukmini became an active member of the squad
helping it with all its chores. She learned to handle firearms and participated
in a number of actions against the Razakars, the police and even the Indian
Army. She was soon promoted as the second-in-command.
Gradually, Rukmini and Jagannatham developed
mutual affection. They discussed at length about possible matrimonial alliance
– she was a Koya woman who had divorced her husband and he belonged to the
Gowda community of the plains – overcoming the age-old suspicions of the tribal
people towards the domineering plainsmen. Finally, they decided to tie the knot
and sought Party permission. The Party approved and solemnized the marriage.
Over the next couple of years, Rukmini and her
squad moved through Telangana in support of the uprising. During the period of
guerrilla life, she learnt to read and write and developed her political
consciousness. Those formative years gave her the opportunity to witness some
of the most astounding expressions of human endurance in face of adversities.
In one incident that she could recall, the police
raided a Koya hamlet in the Godavari forest area of Gundala and tried to take
away several men. Women from the neighboring hamlets rushed forth and surrounded
the police. When the police opened fire, the women pelted them with stones from
behind the trees and refused to disperse till their menfolk were released. The
police had to yield ultimately. In another incident, the police subjected
seventy women from Nereda village to beating with tamarind birches on suspicion
of being rebel sympathizers. They were forced to wear pajamas and chameleons
were placed in their private parts. The pajamas were tied up at the bottom to
prevent the critters from escaping. The entrapped reptiles started biting; the
agony of the women was indescribable. Red chili powder was sprinkled into the
wounds. The women were ill for five months. Rukmini visited the victims
regularly and cared for them till they were able to resume normal activities.
Some of these women eventually joined her squad.
On a pleasant autumn evening in 1950, news
reached the squad that Lachamma, a washer-woman of Nadigadda village, was
caught in a raid by the Indian Army. She used to wash the clothes of Rukmini’s
squad and of other guerillas and had helped them to ferry supplies across the
river. She was tied to a tree branch, upside down, naked, and was beaten with lathis and birches to force her tell the
whereabouts of the local guerillas. After the coercion attempt failed, the Army
left warning the villagers not to remove Lachamma. Jagannatham set off for
Nadigadda with a few men to intervene. As the group was crossing the river,
they came under attack. The Army had laid a trap; the messenger had betrayed
them. The entrenched rebels fought valiantly but were outgunned. Their bodies
were recovered from downstream a few days later.
Rukmini was devastated. She was pregnant with
her first child. After deliberation with her comrades, she decided to leave her
squad and return to civilian life under the protection of the rebels. Her
family had already been forced out of their native village by the authorities
when it became known that their daughter had joined the resistance. Rukmini
traced one of her siblings to the Akkampeta village in West Godavari district.
Her parents were already dead. She decided to move in with her sister who was married
to a primary school teacher of the village.
A few months after joining her sister, Rukmini
gave birth to a healthy baby boy. She named her Jagannatham. In October 1951,
the Telangana movement was called off. The following year saw the rise of the
Communists into power. Rukmini contacted the Party leaders of Khammam district
to help her with rehabilitation of partisan resistance women like her. In
Akkampeta, she began organizing classes for village women with the help of her
sister.
One morning, a man in his late twenties
arrived in Akkampeta. He was Ranga Rao, an underground fighter who had recently
come out of hiding. The Party leaders had dispatched him to assist Rukmini. He
would be bringing women cadres after the initial assessment of her needs was
completed. He stayed for a week and befriended the three year-old Jagannatham. When
departing, he invited Rukmini to visit the Party headquarters in Khammam town.
Over the next several years, they took several trips together in support of
Party activities. In early 1956, the two returned to Akkampeta as a married
couple. They had decided to move west, to Janwada village in Rangareddy
district, where Ranga Rao’s family owned lands.
Rukmini took a pause from her narration and
put the tape recorder on the bed. Jyothi knew the rest of her life story.
Jagannatham was Jyothi’s father. Rukmini went on to have two more sons and a daughter
with Ranga Rao. Grandpa had passed away a few years ago.
She kept the tape recorder running as she
watched Rukmini slowly breaking into reciting the bardic tale of Telangana Veerayodhulu (Telangana Heroic
Warriors):
“They raped even the newly delivered
ladies; they cut the new born babies into pieces
They stripped the pregnant women; and
stabbed them in their stomachs;
They tied the ladies in hay-stacks; and burnt
them to death.”
Jyothi began writing her term paper. She had
about two hours to work on it. This word, heresy, was so intriguing.
Throughout human history, the heretics or the
proponents of heresy had been hounded down and often put to death. All the
major religions of the world had the dubious distinction of persecuting the
heretics among their ranks – Jyothi found through her internet search.
Even before Joan’s tenure, the Catholic Church
was enforcing pre-existing episcopal powers to inquire about and suppress
heresy. Joan’s trial for heresy was politically motivated in the midst of the
Hundred Years War between England and France. England resented Joan’s support
of the French crown. Her reputation as a French prophetess and saint needed to
be destroyed if England were to have a “divine claim” on northern France.
Jyothi’s mind was getting foggy. Rukmini's
life story was an embodiment of heresy too. Her peasantry roots, her marginal
existence on the fringe of the society while shepherding her younger siblings,
and of course her life as a rebel fighter among the ranks of males – all bore
striking resemblance to Joan. There were too many similarities in these two
lives, centuries and continents apart, to be purely coincidental. The
subjugation of Telangana and her inhabitants was no different than the conquest
of Joan's land and her people. The social and political forces had prompted
both girls – not surprisingly, they were nearly of the same age – to seek
retribution by rejecting their 'traditional' roles and following their
conscience.
Jyoti needed a break from typing. It was
almost two o’clock. She wrapped herself in a shawl and stepped outside in the
December chill. From her balcony, she could see lights aglow in many of the
dorm rooms. Those were the late night crusaders like her. There was a group of
girls hanging out in the courtyard. Some were milling around the canteen. The
road outside the hostel was eerily quiet, except for occasional barking of
stray dogs. Students, particularly girls, stopped venturing at night. Security
on and around campus was on everyone’s mind for quite some time.
Just a year ago, the whole campus erupted in
rallies and protest marches following the rape and brutalization of a young
woman, who was about Jyothi’s age. She too had gone to India Gate with her
classmates demanding justice for the victim, which in a way was to ask the
society to respect her gender. That unfortunate girl, Jyoti Singh Pandey,
shared her name and also her dream of a career. How odd a coincidence could that
be? Then there were Kiran Negi of Dwarka in south-west Delhi and Shipra Ghosh of
Kamduni in West Bengal – the nineteen year olds had aspired for
self-sufficiency through work and education – who were brutally raped and
murdered. All three girls, like Jyothi, were the eldest of their respective
siblings, but that would be the least similarity they would share with Joan and
Rukmini. Certainly, each of these women decided to live ‘a life of her choice’,
which could make her a heretic to an appropriate authority.
A well thought-out conclusion was what
remained of the term paper. Jyothi paced a few times between the room and the
balcony, still unsure of the concluding remarks. The more she tried to put
‘heresy’ into perspective, the more her thoughts became convoluted. Who had the
‘moral’ authority to prosecute a heretic? In Joan’s case, the Church used the
charges of heresy to silence dissent. Did the modern society or certain
sections thereof assume that authority? Why then these girls would ‘burn at
stake’ for not conforming to social ‘norms’? It appeared that humans had made
little progress at the existential level since Joan’s time in spite of the
relentless march of civilization at esoteric levels.
Perhaps, her confusion would not be resolved
by the time her writing was done. She was all ready to retreat on this chilly
night. Clutching the textbook she slipped into her bed, hoping to skim through it
one more time before hitting the lights. It wasn’t long before she fell into a deep
sleep.
That night Jyothi dreamt of three maids in
pure white dresses crossing the blue waters of Gandipet (aka Osman Sagar), the
lake near her village. These apparitions were like Joan’s visions of St.
Michael, St. Margaret and St. Catherine. They entered her room through the open
window and congregated around her bed. She saw Kiran, Jyoti and Shipra smiling
at her. In sweet but firm voices, they urged her to don a shining armor and
step into men’s battlefield just as the French maid did some six centuries ago.
The armor would prevent her from getting molested or raped and she could preserve
her virginity like Joan. This wasn’t a call of duty for god; rather it was a
higher calling – for humanity.
Jyothi was jolted off the bed by the alarm of
her mobile. It was seven o’clock in the morning. She had another hour before
heading for college. Should she be writing about her dreams in that remaining
section of her assignment? An SMS from her father confirmed that Janwada was very
soon to be the talk of the nation. An NGO would be implementing social programs
to promote safe water awareness and hygiene practices, especially among women
and children. They would invite celebrities from Bollywood and Hollywood to
come to the village to raise funds in the New Year. That was indeed great news!
There could be an opportunity to discuss women’s health and wellbeing in and
around her village too, thought Jyothi.
She was looking forward to going home.
March 7, 2014
Princeton, NJ
