A FORMER EMPLOYEE OF THE WEEK would not have been around if Naxals had their way. Her father came from a family of planters, and they were marked by Naxals.
Her father used to sit up and read at night, after the family had gone to bed. Those were the days of wan 40-watt bulbs and hurricane lamps. He had a routine. Before going to bed, he would go to check the study, which had a door leading outside.
On a rainy night, he put down his book and went straight to bed. The next morning, the milkman found the study door ajar and alerted the family. The study was strewn with documents and files. The culprits were arrested and were found to be Naxal sympathisers.
The culprits said they were in the study when the father was still awake. If he had entered the study that night, things would have ended differently. The police recovered a blueprint of the house from the culprits. Guess how they got it? From the electrician who wired the house!
I grew up on college campuses influenced by spring thunder, and it is quite surprising to watch Naxals giving up weapons and joining the political process. For this issue, Chief of Bureau (Delhi) Namrata Biji Ahuja travelled to Sukma, Bastar, Kanker, Dantewada and Warangal, to bring you the story of the Maoists and their fading revolution through the eyes of top commanders and ideologues.
Namrata also interviewed Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai, the state’s DGP Arun Dev Gautam and Telangana DGP B. Shivadhar Reddy. Lawyer Mahesh Chandra, whose father was killed in Chhattisgarh, told Namrata that he studied law to bring social justice, while his father chose the gun.
Speaking of law and legislation, the next big article is about the political drama that rode on the back of the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam. Senior Assistant Editor Pratul Sharma’s main article is followed by veteran politician Margaret Alva’s article tracing the legislation’s history and the long struggle for rights. Namrata and Manira Alva interviewed Beatriz Merino, Peru’s first woman prime minister.
Our coverage of the West Bengal elections continues with Special Correspondent Prema Rajaram’s article on Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s confidantes.
We also cover THE WEEK Ayush Conclave in Delhi. My thanks to Union Minister Prataprao Jadhav, who holds independent charge of the Ministry of Ayush, for inaugurating the conclave.
Then there is also Chief Subeditor Anirudh Madhavan’s take on the latest episode of CEAT BTS, with Krishnamachari Srikkanth. Do check out the video on our YouTube channel, and I am happy that Srikkanth agrees with my view on Vaibhav Suryavanshi. The sensational batter is more than ready to join the big boys.
Coming back to the cover, my wife’s family has a bit of history with the Naxals. My father-in-law, C. Kurian, escaped two attempts on his life. He lived on-site to manage the family-owned Velimalai rubber plantation in southern Tamil Nadu, but spent Sundays with the family in Thiruvananthapuram.
On April 30, 1969, an armed Naxal squad headed to the estate. Their aim was to kill him on May 1, International Workers’ Day. But, during the trek one of the country bombs went off, killing a Naxal. The squad buried him, called off the action and went back into hiding. The next year, they turned up at the bungalow early on a Saturday, confident that he would be there. Thankfully, he had left the previous day to attend a nephew’s wedding.
Jovial and strikingly handsome, Kurian would later tell me, “If they had chopped off my head and put it on the compound wall, they themselves would have felt sorry for separating such a handsome face from its body!”
Bina, of course, did not think it was funny.