The parable of Phoolan Devi

Phoolan Devi died as she lived, dramatically. Her death highlights some basic issues: When society and the law fail the people, often the victim can turn into a victimiser. SWAMI AGNIVESH and Rev. VALSON THAMPU write on the need to address the social reality that many Indians face, if we are to realise our full potential as a nation.

IT is anybody's guess if Phoolan Devi, the bandit queen turned politician who succumbed to an assassin's bullets the other day at the prime of her life, would have lived longer if she had remained in the Chambal valley rather than venture into the capital city of the nation. She died as she had lived most of her life, dramatically. Through a combination of significant and ironic circumstances, the assassination of a reformed and rehabilitated "ex-enemy of the society" has made headlines in the media: the very media that turned her into a familiar stereotype. Stereotypes, as a rule, are a flight from the truth. What was the truth about Phoolan Devi?

Her parents called her a "flower." That was what her name - Phoolan - meant. How did she, then, turn out to be a thorn in the flesh of so many? This question takes us to the sociology of crime, especially in the Indian context. The story of Phoolan is a parable on our pathology; a case study on how our society spews up the poison that endangers its own life.

As a young girl, Phoolan gave no evidence of any special proclivity to crime. Of course, she was more spirited and undaunted by the power and pretensions of others than was usual for girls of her age and station. That was, in part, an innate personality trait as well as the product of an early exposure to human callousness and hard-heartedness. Circumstances of life subjected her to systematic harassment and unspeakable emotional hurt. It hardened her resolve to fight back and to exact a tooth- for-a-tooth. Or, more accurately, a jaw-for-a-tooth, as Mr. Arun Shourie said in a totally different context.

Injustice and exploitation awaited young Phoolan in every segment of family and social life. Her parents were cheated out of their property by an unscrupulous and rich relation who also disrupted and aborted the marriage of her sister Rukmani. Phoolan herself was forced into a marriage at the tender age of 11 to a man older than her by two decades. Soon enough, he abandoned her when she began to develop signs of ill health: a twist to which poor women in rural India are not strangers. Later, she was witness to her parents being brutally attacked and humiliated by her uncle with the help of hired hoodlums. Subsequently, she herself was attacked, abused and humiliated. It is a measure of the misery and helplessness that Phoolan and her family endured then, that her mother advised her to end her life by drowning herself in the river nearby.

Being informed of her uncle's plan to have her abducted by bandits, Phoolan sought protection from the police only to be ridiculed and rebuffed by the keepers of the law. "Abducted? So what? They will keep you for a few months, get tired of you and abandon you." Such were the words of comfort that greeted her. Eventually, she was abducted as she had feared and was transplanted much against her wish to a world of crime and violence. With that began one of the most dramatic and romantic stories of crime and vendetta in recent history. The story of Phoolan is, thus, a cocktail of covetousness, callousness and organised cruelty, potent enough to turn every victim into a potential victimiser. And if, in spite of this, Phoolans are few and far between, the reason for this is not that this terrible mix is a rare phenomenon in our society. It is that the spirit of recklessness, injustice and oppression rarely finds expression, especially among women who have been socially conditioned to put up meekly with inhuman conditions of life which are even invested with religious sanctions.

Phoolan was no rare monster or genius of crime. If her long-time personal assistant, Francis, is to be believed, she was an exceptionally kind-hearted and generous person who responded compassionately to human suffering for as long as he had known her. Apparently, it was primarily her eagerness to help the people, especially the poor and the underprivileged, that made her venture into politics. This is what fills the tragedy of Phoolan with deep pathos. That circumstances of life and social conditions can be so harsh and heartless and they craft a monster of inequity out of an ordinary village girl is indeed a scary prospect.

The story of Phoolan is a window on the predicament of many in our society, especially in rural India. Millions live smarting in conditions of gross injustice. They do not have the means to procure justice for themselves. All too often the keepers of the law align themselves with the forces of oppression and injustice. Constitutional provisions remain pipe dreams as far as the poor and the marginalised are concerned. Litigation is not a viable option for the overwhelming majority of our people. We pay lip service to the creed that dispensing justice is one of the most sacred duties of the State and that the expectation of justice is a basic ingredient in the loyalty of the citizen to the State.

The fact remains, nonetheless, that India today bristles with alienation of various kinds. It is high time that this social reality is addressed with the seriousness that it really deserves. It is comic to recommend patriotism to the people and routinely betray the corresponding obligation to meet their legitimate aspirations from the State. No society that accommodates rampant injustice has ever proved healthy or viable in history. And there is no basis to assume that India can be an exception to this universal rule.

Ironically, Phoolan's ascent to political visibility, not less than her submergence in crime, advertises the sickness of our public life. Her only qualification, for aught we know, for a career in politics was her folkloric track-record in crime. The very fact that this was seen at once as a political goldmine affords an insight into the mass psychology that prevails in this domain at the present time. In a society of injustice that breeds a sense of powerlessness in the masses, the instance of "one among us" having succeeded in braving the juggernaut of the establishment has unfailing popular appeal. In such a context, it is inevitable that crime becomes a common ingredient in political leadership. That being the case, it should not surprise us that our political culture is being increasingly criminalised. By available statistics, about 35 per cent of our lawmakers have criminal record of some kind or the other. While people disapprove of crime, they tend to develop deep and sub-rational appreciation for successful criminals, especially those who create the impression of "taking on the unjust system."

So there is good sense in Phoolan's assassination hogging the headlines right across the country. This is not merely because her journey from Chambal to the chamber of national legislature is a rare success story, which it is. It is also because her life and death capture the tragedy of thousands, if not millions, whose native genius is crushed and denied true expression. We are quick to boast of a billion-strong population and are, occasionally, stung too that this sea of humanity does not yield many pearls of distinction in the field of athletics, games and other frontiers of human excellence. Tragedies like that of Phoolan's must make us sit up and wonder how many among this billion that we boast of have a reasonable chance of realising their full potential. Almost one in every three children below the age of 14 is living in conditions of bondage, deprivation and exploitation. Crass poverty disables millions of parents from giving the bare minimum facilities and opportunities for growth and development in this society of intense competition. For the poor, especially since globalisation, waiting for the "trickle down effect" is like waiting for a train that is unlikely to arrive.

"A nation that enables the son born of a farmer as I was some sixty years ago," wrote President Lyndon Baines Johnson of the United States in the mid-1960s, "to reach where I have deserves to be mentioned among the best philosophies of the world." It will be a pity if, in the plethora of journalistic sentimentality in the wake of Phoolan's assassination, the basic issues highlighted by her personal tragedy were to be lost sight of. The birth of another Phoolan on account of the collapse of justice and the callousness of administration is a far greater tragedy than the death of this ex-bandit queen; for not every Phoolan can make it to the Parliament and the mystique thereof.

Swami Agnivesh is a social activist and national president of the Bonded Labour Liberation Front.

Rev. Valson Thampu is a distinguished author and peace activist. He is a faculty member of St. Stephen's College, Delhi, and an ordained minister of the Church of North India.

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