Memory lapse

Illustration: Job P.K.

The plot was hatched. And a poor Muslim cook was at the centre of it. The year was 1917. Mahatma Gandhi was visiting Champaran in Bihar to see for himself the plight of the farmers who were being forced by the landlords to grow indigo. During the visit, he got a dinner invitation from an Englishman, Erwin, who was the manager of an indigo plantation. Erwin had planned to eliminate Gandhi by serving him a glass of milk laced with poison, and the task was assigned to his cook, Batak Mian.

When the time came, Batak Mian presented the glass of milk to Gandhi, but he also warned him of its contents. Dr Rajendra Prasad witnessed the entire episode. Though Gandhi escaped the sinister plot and successfully led the Champaran Satyagraha, Batak Mian had to pay a heavy price for it. He was dismissed from work, put behind bars and tortured. His house and land in Siswa Ajgari, a village near Motihari, were auctioned and his family was forced to leave the village.

In 1950, after Prasad was elected as the first president of India, he visited Motihari which was the headquarters of an undivided Champaran. A crowd gathered at the railway station to welcome him. On alighting from the train, Prasad witnessed a commotion near the entrance. He saw an old man trying to make his way towards him. Prasad recognised him instantly and walked up to him and hugged him. He told the crowd that it was Batak Mian, the man who saved Gandhi’s life. Prasad wondered aloud what would have happened to the country if Batak Mian had given in to the plantation manager’s inducements and threats.

When Prasad was informed of the hardships faced by Batak Mian and his family, he ordered the collector of Tirhut division, which comprises six districts including East and West Champaran, to give 50 acres of land to Batak Mian and his three sons, Rashid Ansari, Sher Mohammed Ansari and Mohammad Jaan Ansari.

However, 100 years after the Champaran Satyagraha, Batak Mian’s grandchildren are still waiting for the government to honour its promise. According to Alauddin and Kalam Ansari, sons of Batak Mian’s youngest son Mohammad Jaan Ansari, the family got just six acres, not in Siswa Ajgari, but in Ekwa Parsauni village in West Champaran in 1958, a year after Batak Mian died. About 110 kilometres from Motihari, the land falls under the Valmiki Tiger Reserve forest area bordering Nepal. Mohammed Jaan and his family moved to Ekwa Parsauni in 1961 and have been living there since then. They live very close to a river and the fear of flooding and attacks by wild animals rattles them. Illiterate, they make a living as labourers.

Place in history: Batak Mian’s grandchildren with his photograph | M.S. Anoop

In 2010, after a newspaper carried a report on the pitiable plight of the family, then president Pratibha Patil ordered the district magistrates of East and West Champaran to present a report on action taken by the Bihar government to fulfil Prasad’s promise. But nothing came of it. “We are fed up with the attitude of the authorities in sanctioning the land,” says Kalam. “We are planning a satyagraha at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi. For years, we have been running from pillar to post to get the land.”

The family is also upset that the government didn’t honour Batak Mian during the 100th anniversary celebrations of the Champaran Satyagraha. “Though the state government organised various functions in Patna and Motihari, we didn’t get an invitation or felicitation,” says Alauddin.

In Siswa Ajgari, the tombs of Batak Mian and his wife, Indira Khatoon, lie unattended to. “We want the government to build good roads and other facilities in our village so that we could turn it into a memorial,” say Naimudeen and Sarfullah, two locals who are pained by the government’s apathy towards the legacy of an unsung hero.