Jharkhand: Rich land, poor people,

Growing up in Jharkhand, December was picnic time. Entire families in big noisy groups rented trucks and set out in the bitter cold of early Jharkhand mornings to get to places like Ghatsila, Joeeda- the confluence of the Subarnarekha and Kharkhai rivers- and Dimna for a day of fun and frolic in the winter sun.
These were places which far removed from the hustle and bustle and pollution of industrial Jamshedpur looked like time had stopped since God created them.
But for young boys like us and even grown up men, the picnics of Jharkhand also held another and more important fascination.
In a time when India had just opened up to the outside world under the watchful eyes of Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh, internet and easy availability of porn was not an option.
The next best option was hiding behind the cliffs and dry grass growing all along the banks of thinning rivers to watch tribal women bathe, which they always did without any clothes. Abject poverty meant that a change of clothes was for most women never an option and backbreaking physical labour meant that their bodies were taut, without an ounce of fat and glistened in the play of sun and water.
Luckier still getting caught in this act of delicious voyeurism did not come with the fear of getting thrashed by other tribals which was a strange paradox for a people who always saw the non-tribals who have made Jamshedpur their home with great mistrust.
The reason for this paradox was not their naked ladies but their naked children. All through December and January, hordes of families made their way to these places. Any news of a picnicker thrashed by tribals during this season went back to Jamshedpur increased manifold and it usually put a premature end to the picnic season.
With that came to an end the poor tribal’s only chance to have cakes, chicken masala and rice that had aroma rather than a stench.
That is because every year when a group of families took up a scenic spot to enjoy their picnics, small groups of almost full-naked men would arrive with arrows and bows and demand food. The menace- if being ‘civilized’ allows us to use that term- forced people to carry extra food as bribe for the tribals. A few bars of chocolates also got thrown in for the little kids who waited back at the hamlets for their fathers to come back with the ‘loot’. Sundays and public holidays in these two months meant happy hamlets all along these picnic spots.
So that meant that a proud race of people, who even took on the British when the white man took on their customs- remember Birsa Munda- never thrashed city boys ogling at their naked bathing women because that helped their children- those who managed to not end as infant mortality statistics in the block development officer’s file- get food far better than they would probably have all their lives.
In a dirt poor state with more minerals than any other part of India inch by inch, where men allow boys to ogle at their women if it got their kids food, comes the news of a man who while being its chief minister made enough money to buy mines in distant Liberia, set up plants all around Jamshedpur, and make a whopping Rs 400 crores in hawala transactions half way around the world.
Madhu Koda had made history when he became the first Independent MLA to become chief minister. In a state where horse-trading is rampant and government change at the whim and fancies of a handful of MLAs, we probably now know the reason how Koda managed to become CM.
Is it any coincidence that Jharkhand is the most potent naxal laboratory in India? Any coincidence that almost a quarter of the state is inaccessible to cops all round the year, all part of liberated red land?
Who is right, who is wrong? These answers are never easy. In Jharkhand, they are tougher still.