A moment that changed me: a rebel fighter who risked his life for love was murdered, and part of me died too
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Loading... - Fakru Khan
- 10 Aug 2022
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I first met Korsa Joga in March 2013 – a chance encounter in the intelligence department. He was a former insurgent who had recently been trapped and been asked to surrender, alongside his lover, Varalakshmi, a former government teacher. Both were Adivasis, the indigenous people , and native to Bastar, a massive wilderness that remains the battleground between the state and the ultra-left Maoist guerrilla fighters known as Naxalites.
We had quickly formed a bond that was deeper than the usual ones journalists strike up with the people they meet on assignments. His decision to abandon the revolution and his AK-47 to be with the woman he loved, and his escape from the jungle to the cities to begin a family life with her, fascinated me. After his short stint with the police he became a police informer in Bijapur, southern Bastar, and I would meet him during my visits, calling him to ask about his new job and the threats he faced.
I discovered his history: that during his guerrilla days he was married to a Naxal fighter called Savita Madkam, but then he met Varalakshmi when he was passing through a village with his platoon. She taught in the local school and soon Joga was looking for excuses to meet her.
But the Maoist rulebook prescribes that a marital life must conform to the “requirements of the revolution”. His relationship with Varalakshmi amounted to an act of gross indiscipline, as well as being against the ideals of revolution. So he decided to leave the party he had been associated with for more than a decade to begin a life with her in a distant city.
Then the police department sent him back to his village – to fight for the other side. The once dreaded Naxal leader was now a soldier for the state – and on the hit-list of his former comrades. If the police job was the only option, I had advised him, he should go to a city, not his village. His police bosses knew the threat, but wanted him to be deployed to maximum tactical advantage.
When a Maoist decides to surrender, they usually know the police will deploy them against their former organisation and mentally prepare for a long time before switching sides. But Joga left the jungle to begin a family, and was only forced to join the police when he and Varalakshmi were trapped.
Unable to refuse orders, he began to prepare for his move by building a small house in his village for himself and Varalakshmi. One morning, he travelled there to inspect how construction was going. That’s when his old friends managed to waylay him. Read More...
