Casteist fire

Behind the attack on a Kahar family in Bihar causing the death of a pregnant woman and five children is a long-standing dispute involving land ownership and caste prejudices.

AMAN SETHI in Raghopur

THE buffalo sits quietly, listlessly flicking its tail at the flies that swarm around it. Dulhari Devi Mahto carefully peels back the bed-sheet, and points at large, oozing burns on the animal's back. "They didn't even spare Rani. But, then why would they? She was at the centre of all that happened."

In the early hours of January 1, a group of armed men surrounded Dulhari's son's house at Rampur Shyamchand village in Bihar's Vaishali district and set it on fire, killing her pregnant daughter-in-law and five grandchildren. Only her son, Bijender Mahto, survived; he lies in the intensive care unit of the Patna Medical College Hospital. The perpetrator is Jagat Rai, a local Yadav strongman and a sworn enemy of the Mahtos.

As has been widely reported in the local and national press, Bijender Mahto, of the extremely backward Kahar caste, was forced to pay the price for challenging the authority of Jagat Rai, by taking him to court on the charge of stealing his buffalo. His face a mask of blisters and burns, Bijender Mahto speaks softly, yet firmly. He blames Jagat Rai and his son Ajit for what happened to him.

Speaking to Frontline, Mahto explained that the Rais stole his buffalo in September last year. "I asked them to return it, but when they didn't, I had no option but to go to the police." The police returned Mahto's buffalo, and Ajit and Wazir Rai were imprisoned. Soon after, Jagat Rai asked Mahto to withdraw the cases, threatening him with dire consequences should he not comply. When Mahto refused, Rai and his men drenched Mahto's hut with petrol and set it aflame in the dead of night, he said. "I forced open the door and ran screaming to the police station," whispers Mahto bitterly, "But no one came to my help."

Mahto claims to have seen clearly the faces of the killers and has identified them as Vipat Rai, Bechain Rai, Ram Babu Rai, Dhundu Rai, Inderjeet Rai, Shankar Rai, Nathun Rai and Daulat Rai, among others. In all, 11 people have been accused of the crime and declared absconders by a Vaishali court. The court has seized their property, and Jagat Rai's wife and three others have been arrested.

Apart from his mother Dulhari Devi, all that remains of Bijender's immediate family are his eldest son Pankaj and daughter Rinku Devi. Pankaj, a slender boy of 17, was in Delhi when the incident took place. His father in the hospital, Pankaj sits with a swarm of anxious relatives, comforting them and being comforted in turn. Numb with grief, he seems completely in control. Only his eyes offer any trace of emotion as they move from the burnt shell of his home to the open fields. "I liked my work in Delhi," he says, "I worked at a helmet factory in Ghaziabad. I left only six months ago. I came home to find nothing but ashes."

While the Rai-Mahto feud over the stolen buffalo has been exhaustively documented, court documents made available to Frontline illustrate that the Rais and the Mahtos crossed swords long before the buffalo entered the picture. "Everyone blames poor Rani [the buffalo] for all that happened, but that is only half the truth," says Vinod Mahto, Bijender's elder brother. "This buffalo was only the most recent provocation." According to Vinod, the Rais and the Mahtos once had a very close and symbiotic relationship.

The story goes all the way back to the time of Jagat and Bijender's grandfathers. "Jagat Rai's grandfather was a great man," says Vinod, "He gave us six kattas of land by the river." The Mahto clan grew upon that land, cultivated it and built their houses. In exchange, the Mahtos would work on the Rais' land when required. Things went on smoothly for over two generations until 1976 - the year of the great flood. The 1976 floods in Bihar caused incredible damage to life and property all along the banks of the Ganga. The Mahtos were only one among the thousands of families who lost their land and property to the surging river. When the water subsided, the land was also gone. The river had changed course, and the six kattas of land, a symbol of the bond between the two families, was submerged under several feet of water. In the meantime, to compensate for their loss, another wealthy family granted the Mahtos land.

In the late 1980s, people in Raghopur noticed a strange phenomenon - the river was changing course again. Little by little, the Ganga was altering its path along its vast flood plain, a process known in geological terms as `meandering'. According to local fishermen, by 1990 the Ganga had changed course decisively - regurgitating the land it had hastily swallowed in the1976 floods. Bijender Mahto's land had been returned.

Unfortunately, this time he was not the sole claimant. Jagat Rai decided that he wanted the land back and retook it by force. The dispute went back and forth for a few years until it was finally settled in court. In November 1992, the court awarded ownership of the land designated Khata 409, Khesara 2055 and 2056, to the Mahto family. Needless to say, the Rai family refused to abide by the court decision and has maintained possession of the land to this day. The seeds of discord had been sown. The Mahtos had been marked as a low-caste family that had had the temerity to challenge the dominant Yadavs in court, and what is worse, won. "Since the day of the verdict, things have never been the same," sums up Vinod. "The Rais used every opportunity to coerce and humiliate us."

Land ownership in Raghopur has always been a contentious issue. The area has large tracts of land with apparently no titles. While the Bihar government owns most of the land, ownership is usually acknowledged on the basis of possession. Thus, `capture' is the most common term heard in connection with land disputes. Dominant castes such as the Yadavs are usually the ones doing most of the capturing; extremely backward castes like the Kahars find themselves at the receiving end.

In the tragic case of Bijender Mahto, the theft of the buffalo was merely another arrogant exercise of power on behalf of the Yadavs. It was designed to illustrate their superiority and contempt for the law. Thus, the arrest of Jagat Rai's relatives was seen not just as a blow to their prestige, but as a direct attack on their armour of invulnerability. An attack that had to be avenged so brutally that no one in the village ever dared raise their heads again.