Month: May 2024

Posted on

An Encounter to Remember

I was a young Assistant Superintendent of Police in 1973 when the Banka by-election was announced. The Lok Sabha constituency was then a part of Bihar’s Bhagalpur district and the District Magistrate, Bhagalpur, was the returning officer. One morning, Wati Ao, the DM, curtly called me to his office. “Jaldi ao,” he shouted in his heavily Naga-accented Hindi. I scurried over to the DM’s office which was just fifty yards away.

A bizarre sight met my eyes in the DM’s chamber. There was a sizeable crowd in the room and the DM sat in a corner with a resigned expression. Sprawled on the large office table was an unkempt man with a green bandana on his head! I was about to scream at the pyjama-kurta clad man but Ao’s expression made me hesitate. Politely, I asked the man what he thought he was doing. He said he was on satyagraha. He complained that the DM had deputed an official to the treasury to deposit the security amount for Shakuntala Devi, the Congress candidate, when she came to file her nomination. He demanded that he should be extended the same courtesy. I assured him that I would get it done for him and asked him his name.

Surprised, he said, “You mean you don’t know who I am?”

“No Sir, I don’t! And I don’t care. But I need your name for filling the treasury challan,” I said

My youthful brashness seemed to amuse him as much as his antics amused me. “Write down,” he said, “The name is Raj Narain.” Still lying on the table, he took out a bundle of currency notes from his kurta pocket and gave it to me.  He clambered off the DM’s table only after the treasury counterfoil was brought, which he submitted with his nomination papers.  

Later, when the polling date approached, the district SP fell ill and I had to take charge of security arrangements for a difficult election. It was indeed a clash of titans. Shakuntala Devi of the Congress treated Banka as her pocket borough and was confident of winning. The Communist Party of India had fielded one of its giants – Tarni Mandal, who is now quite forgotten. Madhu Limaye, who ultimately won the election, was a towering leader of one socialist party. The enfant terrible of the pre-Emergency days, Raj Narain, represented another socialist party. There were also other less well-known candidates.

It was a remarkable election for several reasons. Even though many bigwigs came, and the contest was keenly fought, the election concluded peacefully. Many said it was the fairest election that they had ever witnessed and, unbelievably, the ruling party nominee forfeited her security deposit! In 1973, this was unprecedented. For me, however, the most memorable event was my encounter with Raj Narain. In my mind’s eye today, more than fifty years later, I can still see him stretched out on the DM’s table in a pose reminiscent of Lord Padmanabha reclining on the serpent sheshanag!   

The Week May 12, 2024

Posted on

The Ruby Mines and the Jade Mountain of Burma

In the 1970s, areas of Burma (now Myanmar) adjoining Manipur were poorly governed, and the very mention of the Somra Tract or Kachin conjured up images of armed rebels sneaking through jungles. Naga and Mizo insurgent groups had used routes through these sparsely populated areas to reach China. Then militant Meitei groups also set up camps across the border. Collection of trans-border information was important, and every villager living in the border area was a potential informer. Many of them collected good money from different intelligence agencies by peddling the same information. Fabricated stories often gained currency because there was no way of verifying information emanating from Burma, and security agencies were sometimes misled by concocted yarns.

Understandably, therefore, I disbelieved the story of the discovery of a mountain of jade when I first heard about it. But as the local head of a Central intelligence agency, I couldn’t just disregard the persistent rumours, even if they varied in detail. There were reports that a huge ruby mine had been discovered near Myitkyina, that the Burmese army was guarding a mountain of jade in Layshi and that valuable gemstones had been discovered in Homalin. A trans-border informer of mine claimed that there was a significant movement of the Burmese army because of geological finds near Hkamti. I discounted his claims, but I became curious when he asserted that a magical substance had been found — it never caught fire, and it could be uranium ore! He promised to provide me a sample of the mineral on the condition that he be paid a handsome amount, which happened to be higher than my monthly salary. I told him to first get some evidence of the magical discovery.

Several weeks later, the informer slunk into my office late in the evening and, with a flourish, took out a cricket ball-sized rock from a bag and placed it on my table.

‘Uranium, sir,’ he said. I jumped out of my chair. I did not know what uranium ore looked like, but I had no desire to die of radioactive poisoning. I yelled at the informer, but he assured me that I was safe; after all, he had been carrying the rock around for more than two weeks. Nevertheless, I told him to replace it in the bag, which I then got him to hang on a tree in the office compound. Reluctantly, I paid him a portion of the amount he had demanded.

But I was in a quandary. I could not send the rock to my superiors in Delhi if it were indeed radioactive, nor could I send a report that it was uranium without confirmation. So that rock continued to hang on the tree till, fortuitously, a geologist friend visited Imphal a month later. I showed him the ‘uranium ore’ and he burst out laughing. He declared that it was asbestos ore, large deposits of which had been found in Burma. The discovery was quite worthless because asbestos use was banned. I had no option but to write off the money that I had paid as spent on buying experience, and, sheepishly, I threw the rock away.

(The Tribune – May 10,2024)