The
ESTRANGEMENT
and
ALIENATION
081106
updated 081106
I am a jailbird
yes, i have been a prisoner. that was some time back in the early nineties, in january-february 1991 to be more precise. this happened while i was on a three years deputation with a police set up under the home ministry in the north east.
not that the army had shunted me out to that set up; it was the other way round - i volunteered.
"that means it is a self-inflicted injury"
that was the retort i got from an army colleague when i told him i had volunteered.
in fact in ambala itself, dada had told me that if he had seen my application offering myself to work in this particular set up he would have put it in the waste paper basket and that would have been the end of my deputation. but by the time he arrived the papers had already been forwarded. he had told me frankly "you are going to end up in trouble" but i am sure when he said that he would never have visualised the type of calamity that ensued.
the fact of the matter is that i was in the north east earlier. during that period I had provided "medical cover" to men from this set up on an lrp ( when such things come up some one in uniform is made the scape goat in spite of this particular set up having three or four civilian doctors on their rolls in almost every unit). people in this set up were very well off when compared to fellows like me. They had built up accommodation and all sorts of facilities while we were in bunkers and shunkers and such.
again for those posted to this set up, the moment they get out of the head quarters their meter is down, ticking away to glory for the DA amount - irrespective of whether it is to a company of the same battalion that they are going or some where else, it is supposed to be temporary duty!
so i thought, why not? rather than listening to jagjeet singing "ya khuda ret ke sehra ko samundar kar do" on the banks of the indira gandhi canal in rajsthan (then i was using - or is it abusing - a sakthiman's battery for my two in one; we did not have any power supply) why not enjoy the lush greenery of the north east! and lo i was there in no time.
now coming to this particular unit of this set up where i underwent incarceration - i had joined them in the latter half of 1990 and had spent only a couple of months or so with them before i went on annual leave for the year. all the same i have come to know a lot about this particular unit. people some how or other confide in me. may be because i know how to keep a secret or could be that i am or at least I was, a good listener.
i have been told of an incident by one of the company commanders of the commandant slapping one of his men in public - it was a karalite who was slapped and the fellow did not enjoy it.
all sorts of funny things were going on. the armoury of one of their companies was raided by outside agencies looking for smuggled goods. if i am not mistaken it was on a tip off from an insider.
later the commandant had a tiff with one of his officers - both were army officers on deputation. there was a crisis and they wanted me to refer this officer as a psychiatric patient. the DIG even suggested a diagnosis - "anxiety neurosis"; i refused.
All the same they got what they wanted.- they approached a civilian doctor posted to the unit.when I asked him about it he said "i thought so" - that is the charm of psychiatry; You can get away with anything! it is a subjective thing "what you think about what some one else thinks". could be dr.x was right but it could also be that the morbidity is in x's thoughts and not the other way round. but he who has more clout is right and his thoughts are the right one and the normal one.
coming back to the original story, i was to have reported back after my annual leave on 27 december 1990. on the night of 26/27 there was a death in the unit. a rifle man died of bullet injuries. the story was that this fellow who was on sentry duty during the night died when his personal weapon an SLR, accidentally went off.
i am not a forensic expert but i have seen and used an SLR during training; it is a safe and efficient weapon - though rather bulky. i cannot visualise how a bullet from an slr can kill its user except if he was planning to take his own life. again as far as i know there were no skirmishes in that area at that particular time and even otherwise it is a compartively quiet area in the north east. under such circumstances you do not cock the rifle while on sentry duty. in fact this very act is usually a warning to the intruder who is not identifying himself when challenged. could be i am mistaken or that the policemen have a different way of functioning.
i reached the locality on 27 dec and by that time the body had been cremated. i do not know the person killed but i understand the fellow again is a karalite. i think his relatives were there in the unit to collect the money etc. while i was in custody.
i wanted to keep away from the set up and applied for annual leave in january - but it was rejected. within no time i found myself a prisoner - I was in military custody for nine days.
why nine days only?
unlike in civil set ups rules have to be strictly followed. the maximum period one can be kept under military custody is eight days and the ninth day the fellow has to be court martialled.
then it should have been eight days only; how come i was held for nine days?
because people were very fond of me, sonny; there is invariably a holiday, a sunday, in all eight days. holidays are not counted and i could technically be held for nine days on that pretext. so i was in for nine days the maximum possible under those conditions.
i was not exactly in a prison cell. till you are tried and found guilty and sentenced you get all the privileges of your rank. so i was under house arrest.
there are two types of arrests - closed arrest and an open arrest. i was not under closed arrest. why not?
problem of protocol bachuoo. under closed arrest the prisoner is under guard. the guard commander has to be some one senior to the prisoner and the guards of the same rank as the prisoner. that means all the senior most officers of the unit will be standing guard outside my house - not very practical. that was why it was open arrest.
The type of arrest is immaterial as far as the legal connotations were concerned. And another interesting factor is that one is supposed to perform his normal duties while he is a prisoner - very interesting!
The DIG used to talk to me on the radio, the basic idea was to find out if I had come to the stage of crying out "muche bachao" (SoS). but I held on and ultimately told the DIG bluntly that if he is under the impression that I will come down on my knees and beg for mercy he was sadly mistaken - and that was that.
Out side I could hear the men passing by, commenting about "bali ka bakra" the sacrificial goat- the code name for the medical officer is sheep.
I was ultimately released on the ninth day and was attached to the range head quarters. I was formally charged with an offence that could have sent me to prison for a maximum period of six years. and the formalities started stage by stage - court of inquiry, summary of evidence etc.
it was an ordeal that lasted more than one year. only officers of the highest integrity are put on decision making duties in such cases. they do not see one thing in isolation but in its proper perspective. i remember the colonel a very religious muslim from hyderabad, who did the s of e had been to the small hospital where i used to work on the pretext of "sight seeing". but actually he was prowling there collecting data i am sure.
there were no underhand dealings and we slugged it out, man to man. and by the time the formalities were finished the tide had turned. the authorities learnt the hard way that underneath the sheep's hide there was an altogether different animal.
the set up however had got themselves committed by putting a field officer in custody for nine days and asked for a court martial to try me. I came to know of this decision kind courtesy one of the staff officers at the range hq who on the sly called on me and gave the information and told me to be prepared - so sweet of him. His boss's plan was to keep the process under wraps till the last moment and spring a surprise and march me up one fine morning! and they were waiting for the orders from the eastern command.
in december 1991 i was allowed a few days casual leave, any leave of any type that i was granted during that year. i made a trip to calcutta, to the command hq. The JAG, a maratta was kind enough to allow me to meet him and the brigadier informed me that they had told the army commander that they cannot court martial me on this matter - I heaved a long sigh of relief.
however the JAG had also warned me that it is not obligatory that the army commander should go by their advice. Fortunately for me the commander did go by the advice of the legal experts and the army refused to order a court martial.
now the ball was in the court of the police set up. the only way for them to get out of the muddle they have landed themselves in was a summary disposal by a major general who could maximum give me a severe reprimand. it was a big let down for the policemen. I was on top now. and started throwing my usual tantrums and all.
I was taken directly across the north east to nagaland for the trial. i remember an officer there asking me "what have you done to your co yar? he is looking like a bloody zombie. who is the one going to be tried, you or him? the authorities had taken for granted that i will do anything to end the ordeal ( over and above the legal formalities i was made to climb almost all the toughest pickets of this set up in the north east in the intervening period. luckily i had a very resilient physique then) they never bothered to bring the original witnesses to the trial.
there again they were wrong. i asked for the witnesses and the case had to be adjourned - "jaise the". we returned to our original places.
another day was fixed for the hearing and a whole paltan of men, witnessses and all, moved all the way across the north east to attend the trial in dimapur nagaland. The authorities obviously were annoyed by my gimmicks (anybody would have, for when i was asked to question the witnesses, i said no questions - my idea was only to get the jokers, the nairs and chackos and all, lined up there ) and the IG awarded me a severe reprimand (rather than a reprimand) after a long pep talk.
I clearly remember him telling me after reading my arguments "you are more of a lawyer than a doctor". of course he had no knowledge of my clinical acumen. All he had seen was that I had adapted extremely well to a new completely unfamiliar situation and done well. I took the comment as a compliment.
Incidentally in another major set back to the policemen the severe reprimand awarded to me was set aside by the army "being unjust". i got the information at a later date and then made multiple copies of the communication and had it sent by post to all the senior officers concerned including the IG after i came out on release - just imagine the ignominy of it and the torment the police men would have undergone!
now that it was all over we had to go back from nagaland. i was supposed to travel with the DIG in the convoy. This gentleman was terribly annoyed. First of all he could not get me court martialled and I got away with a minor punishment. Over and above that my other gimmicks like asking that the witnesses be present and adjourning the trial due to which he and his battalion commander had to make two trips to nagaland along with a truck load of men!
If I go with him there was a possibility of my body being recovered from the ravines with a bullet in my back and the case being passed off as the result of an insurgent attack. ( in naga land in those days men used to put a naga shawl over their uniform so as to avoid being picked up and shot by the insurgents).
i am so familiar with death, my own death being discussed ever since i was in my mid twenties, i am ready to face it any moment and that too with equanimity. but i did not want to die in ignominy with a bullet in my back.
so for once in my life i faked sickness and got two days sick leave. i did not have to travel with the DIG in the convoy and travelled back to the base station on my own after a couple of days in a nagaland state transport bus.
why do i bring all this up now? well; it is for a very good reason. to tell you about an inference i have drawn from the above episode in my life.
incidentally at the time of reporting to a unit on posting (that is transfer) we had to fill up certain details and one of the things was NoK (next of kin) to be informed in case of being placed in SIL (seriously ill list) or DIL (dangerously ill list). I used to write a name with the specific instructions "to be informed in case of death only". And one of my bosses got angry and shouted at me for he thought I was being rude to "my people"!- that was in the punjab.
now, coming back to the north east - i mentioned about an officer who had a tiff with the commandant and whom i was asked to diagnose as a psychiatric patient. his father and his nine months pregnant wife had come all the way from punjab to the north east to be with him. how did they know about his ordeal - he must have written to them or telephoned them.
when my time came i was all alone. my ordeal was far more drawn out. it was not exactly a joke facing the prospects of getting court martialled and going through that ordeal of the formalities all alone with no one to go to for succour. I aged like any thing during that one year; I had put up a brave face but the torment was there inside all through.
Looking back I myself am really surprised to note that it never even occurred to me that I should let my "relatives" know about my ordeal- Not even in my dreams did the thought come to me, never! That proves only one thing - my estrangement and alienation both physical and mental with my one time "relatives" was complete and irreversible.
THE APPARITIONSviceman
081108
updated 081108* * *
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