The Man Who Stops Thieves

In a remote village in Gujarat where a people follow the tradition of thievery, comes a retired school teacher with his bag of lessons.

By B. Easwaran & Milind Ghatwai

Ramkishore Pathak

The village of Desar, perched on an open shrubland in the Panchmahals district of Gujarat, is infamous as a breeding ground of dangerous robbers and thieves. But the 700-odd Nayak tribal population living here is battling hard to change this age-old image and lead a crime-free life.

In their process of reformation, they are being offered magnanimous help by Ramkishore Pathak, a retired school principal from Vadodara. Clear about his motive, he says, ‘‘With my children well-settled, what else do I have that will keep me occupied? So, I devote myself completely to social work. It doesn’t matter if I am killed by the robbers I’m trying to bring to the right path.’’

For his noble mission, Pathak has set up the Rameshwar Sevashram in Desar. Though it doesn’t even have a shed in the village yet, the Sevashram has won some followers in those willing to change Desar’s image.

Myths and legends abound in this land of robbers. For as long as Desar’s 55-year-old chronicler and postman, Kalubhai Nayak, can remember, menfolk from the village have set out at night to burgle houses and rob farmsteads saying, ‘‘Amey ramva jayiye chey (We are going out to play).’’ The men set off, hoisting a ganeshiyo (a crowbar used by burglars) on their shoulders, while the women hang their bangles on a nail above the doors of their mud-plastered huts and wear them only when their husbands’ return.

The Desariya robbers personify terror and cruelty to nearby villagers, as tales of their atrocities float endlessly. Resistance to the plunderers is said to have disastrous consequences. Apparently, any man who fights them is stripped and his head is rough-shaved with a sickle, leaving his scalp horrendously scraped. The Desariyas then urinate upon the man, eat monkey meat and drink the blood of cows and buffaloes. Police sub-inspectors, who have served at the nearest chowki in Rameshara town and around Halol and Godhra (where Desariyas usually strike), testify to such gruesome accounts.

The two rival groups in Desar working together on a drought relief site

The legends of this village of 900 acres and some 300 households are known all across Gujarat as well as in the tribal belt of Madhya Pradesh. So much so that when Bhavesh Patel, from a neighbouring village in the Saurashtra region, decided to take up the post of a primary school teacher in Desar, he was ostracised by his entire family. And upon leaving Desar, Mohan Nayak had to change not only his name but also pretend to be from another village to get a job.

Despite its notoriety, there has been very little documentation of Desar. The district gazette gives a general account of the Nayaks but doesn’t mention the village. In the 1960s, Gujarati writer Vajra Matri wrote about Desar’s fabled powers in a book called Kaal Raat Ni Dhunti Bhutaval. But today, the book is almost impossible to find. And surprisingly for a tribe, the Nayaks of Desar have no tradition of folk songs or art that would give one some insights.

A legend traces Desar back to the time of the Ramayana. On the bank of the village pond stands a Shiva temple and near it are some relief figures in stone. One of them is of King Dasharath aiming a bow and arrow and another is of Shravan carrying his parents. Dasharath’s accidental killing of Shravan is said to have happened here, which makes fatalistic villagers believe there is no hope for Desar because of the curse of Shravan’s parents.

Another explanation comes from Sahitya Akademi winner Dr Ganesh Devy who works with the tribal population of Gujarat. He reckons the village came into existence at the end of the 17th century.

During the 16th century, Champaner (some 40 km from Vadodara) was the fort-capital of the state and all tribal chieftains of areas around it paid one-fourth of the village harvest as tribute in exchange for patronage. Stable villages grew around the fort about this time.

However, with the decline of Champaner in the 17th century, tribesmen from these villages took to soldiering for passing armies. Consequently, when employment was hard to come by, they resorted to robbery. Thereafter, the British confiscated forest land and tribes were shorn of their land and their rights to collect toll.

Thus began the decline of villages like Desar. Hardly anything grows in the region’s rocky reddish-brown soil. ‘‘It is circumstances like these which have made Desar’s people resort to crime,’’ says Devy.

On January 26, 2001, Pathak gathered villagers for a flag-hoisting where they forswore alcohol, meat and crime in the name of Surajdada and Dharti Mataa

Devy also dismisses the stories of their cruel rituals as myths. He explains how tribals have a ritual of killing a buffalo by cutting an artery in the neck so that the blood fountains up. The chieftain usually wets his thumb with the blood and licks it. ‘‘This has been transformed in the public imagination to blood-drinking,’’ he says.

Reformers’ motives are often suspect. What inspires such altruism in Pathak? Does his work in Desar have something to do with bringing back into use ancestral property that he possesses in the neighbouring Rozypura village? Or are his reasons political?

While answers to such questions remain unclear, Pathak’s endeavours deserve credit. Pathak first visited the village on December 16, 2000, telling villagers he was in search of a lost temple. Villagers tailed Pathak wherever he went. However, by January 26, 2001, he was able to gather some villagers for a flag-hoisting ceremony at which all participants forswore alcohol, meat, and crime in the name of Surajdada (the Sun God) and Dharti Mata (Mother Earth).

Pathak then brought government involvement to the village. Gujarat State Road Transport Corporation now runs two bus trips to the village on a daily basis after being assured by Pathak that the driver and conductor will not be harmed. The Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam Ltd (SSNNL), responsible for the Narmada dam project, has offered co-operation in helping Desariyas reform. SSNNL Commissioner for Rehabilitation, Vinod Babbar, says, ‘‘I am quite hopeful. Nothing is possible overnight. It may take two or three years, but as long as people co-operate, we will be able to change their lives.’’

The biggest difference that Pathak has been able to make for Desar is organising drought relief, which the village has had to do without for years despite having no water source every summer. The district collector has sanctioned Rs 35 lakh worth of works for the village.

Pathak is aware that prior to him, similar attempts to reform Desar have been made, in the form of two well-intentioned reformers, who failed. In 1982, the then district superintendent of police, Jayrajsinh Sarvaiyya, tried to channelise the Desariyas’ combativeness into guard work at industrial units. He had thought jobs would keep them off crime, which was not to be. Years later, D N Padhiyar, a government information officer, tried to reform Desariyas through bhajans and satang. He claims he was able to reform ‘‘60 per cent of them’’ but admits he could not ‘‘keep it going’’.

Pathak’s efforts have got mixed response from the villagers. While one group of villagers readily submit to Pathak’s zeal, the other shoves off his approaches. Of course this is mostly because Pathak has stepped into a six-year-long rivalry within the village, that began during the 1995 panchayat elections. Today, one group that lives in Amli Falia, lead by Jeevan Master, supports Pathak. But the other, led by former sarpanch Chandu Gaja Nayak, living in Jungle Falia, is suspicious of Pathak and feels he favours the other group. Each group swears it is the other that carries on with crime.The hostility is evident at a drought relief site where the two groups are working hundred metres away from each other. Padhiyar remarks, ‘‘A small spark is enough to trigger a big fight between the two groups. Unless they can be brought together, there is no hope for Desar.’’

Pathak’s day is spent trying to reconcile the differences between the two groups, but with little success. Meanwhile, Chandu Gaja’s men find Pathak’s efforts to make the villagers take a pledge against liquor and meat quite meaningless. ‘‘After a hard day’s work at the relief site, liquor is what we need most,’’ asserts one of them, ‘‘and the local brew is available, pledge or no pledge.’’

Policemen, especially inspectors and the constables, dismiss efforts to reform Desar as foolish. Says M S Shah, who was an inspector in Halol from ’84 to ’87, ‘‘It’s their traditional business. They are like animals, they eat raw flesh and sleep anywhere. They won’t give up crime.’’ V K Gakhhar, a former inspector, adds, ‘‘They are criminal-minded. They just don’t want to work.’’

It is obvious that the heat of police hostility hasn’t died. Nor has the belief that Desar will never improve. Though Vadodara Superintendent of Police, Keshav Kumar supports Pathak’s initiative, he says the cases against the 56 Desariyas who are wanted will not be withdrawn: ‘‘In any case they are very difficult to arrest. The law will take its own course. We are supporting Pathak because we hope some of the criminals will surrender.’’

But for now, the village seems to have accepted Pathak. On an elevation near the dirt track to Desar, a group of villagers are building him a hut made of bark-stripped timber, bleached a pale grey in the sun. From the track, the only motorable approach to Desar, it is the only sign of habitation in the area. The incomplete hut and its timbers strikingly resemble a machan for a lookout.