From jungle nights to ceiling fans: 1st night of freedom sans sleep

JAGDALPUR: They couldn’t sleep. Not under the roof, not on the mattresses, not with the hum of ceiling fans or the whir of traffic. For 210 former Maoists who surrendered on Friday in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar after decades in the jungle, the first night of peace was sleepless.

Used to watching stars through forest canopies and fleeing at the crack of a twig, the men and women who once lived on alert found themselves dazed by comfort. By Saturday morning, they woke to a world they had not known for 20 or 25 years. Housed at the police training centre in Jagdalpur, they asked for newspapers and TV to see how the “outside world” viewed them. They preferred to cook their own food — “to stay busy,” they said — and stuck to one old ritual: morning tea together.




“This is a rehabilitation of a different kind,” said Bastar range IG P Sundarraj. “It’s no less than the first day at a hostel for a school kid. They’ve come from different units, many don’t even know each other. They’ve asked for a couple of days to settle in.”

ADG (anti-Naxal operations) Vivekananda Sinha, who met them, said the first step is to make them feel at ease. “They will soon start yoga, sports and other activities. Coming out of the psychological trauma of being in the forest for years isn’t easy. They know there’s now no threat, but comfort feels strange.”

At the surrender ceremony, the 210 cadres stood stiff — faces blank, eyes hard — the same hands that once fired at security forces now holding roses. Before them stood the jawans they fought for years.

For the region’s people, many who had lost family to Maoist bullets, the sight of the “andar wale dada log” (the guys in charge) stepping into daylight felt unreal.Some clenched their jaws in anger but stayed silent. “I hope no more innocent people get killed in Bastar,” said villager Sonu Markam, who watched the ceremony.