| On the night of January 22 this year,
Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two young sons Timothy, 7, and Phillip, 9,
were burnt to death in a village in Orissa. Their murderer was identified as Dara Singh.
More than seven months later he remains a fugitive. That Dara -- much like Veerappan -- appears to have fallen off the edge of
the world points to a failure of policing. It is also a failure of governance. Instead of
coordinating for a larger good, the state and Central governments have crossed swords,
more keen on extracting political mileage than shouldering responsibility.
There is more to it. The recent murders of Christian priest
Arul Doss and Muslim trader Sheikh Rehman in Orissa are a further advertisement of the
intolerance Dara is attempting to breed. Some tribal communities are uncomfortable with
neo-converts who turn their back on age-old customs. It has meant that Dara has assumed a
sort of legitimacy, preying on tribal insecurities and managing to drum up a certain
support. It is a dangerous precedent, and for this week's cover story
we decided to follow Dara's trail and chart the upheaval that tribal Orissa is
undergoing.
It was no easy task. Special Correspondent Ruben Banerjee
and Senior Photographer Bhaskar Paul began their search for Dara by travelling to
Jamuboni, the site of Doss' murder. Eighteen kilometres from the last roadhead, they had
to ford a river and trek through dense forest to reach their destination. Banerjee and
Paul found that Dara has tapped into the tribals' anger at missionaries, and as Banerjee
says, "He is even romanticised as a sort of Robin Hood figure."
A reflection of the perversity of our times.
(Aroon Purie) |
