Geetanjali Krishna: Village woes

Do you mean to tell me that for two years you were on the rolls of a school, supposedly attending classes, when you were actually working in Srinagar?" I interrupted while listening to Baijnath's story.

He was sitting in front of me, fiddling with my children's broken toy phone, a 19-year-old from Kubernala village, South Jammu. "I studied till class IV in a school in my village when it was forced to shut down because of increased militancy in our area. But when it reopened, the teacher kindly gave me proxy attendance on the condition that I cleared my exams at the end of the year!" he explained.

But this year, Baijnath fears, his name has been finally cut off from the school rolls: "this proxy business was okay in primary classes, but not any more, my teacher says," he shrugged ruefully.

"My village, Kubernala, is very remote. It has no roads, no electricity, no water, no telephones, no health centres and no schools "" no shops either!" he reminisced. "It's nothing but a cluster of 30 to 35 huts, but it's my home."

Most villagers grow wheat and corn for subsistence in the summer months. "In winter, we get heavy snow, nothing can grow at that time. So we have to usually supplement what we grow from the market, a four-hour walk away," said Baijnath, "actually we have nothing in our village but peace and quiet!"

Militancy has shown how fragile that peace is, though Baijnath said the militants he's seen over the years have not disturbed locals except to ask them for lodging and the odd goat for meat.

But villagers always feared that the militants would lure young boys like Baijnath into their way of life. "We heard that some boys from a neighbouring village had joined the militants, and that really scared many people," he said.

Since there are no real avenues for employment in Kubernala, few people allow their teenage sons to stay with them in the village. "I was 15 when my father sent me to Srinagar to work in someone's home. He said there was nothing for me to do in the village, and the fear of the militants only hardened his resolve," said Baijnath.

Not surprisingly, most other boys his age did the same, while the older men stayed back to tend the land. As Srinagar became increasingly unsafe, his father told him to go some relatives in Delhi, and try his luck there.

Suddenly, our conversation was disturbed by some tinny Bollywood music. I looked at the toy phone in his hands, startled. "It's working now," said he, handing it across to me. "How did you do that?" I asked in wonderment. "It was easy, there was a wire loose," said he.

I suggested that with his obvious talent for circuits and wires, he should train to become an electrician. He currently works as a domestic servant at a salary of Rs 1,600 a month. "Maybe I'll try my hand at it later "" but first, I want to try and get a government job!" said Baijnath.

Militancy is now on the decline in Jammu, he said, ever since the government stationed armed civilians in villages to maintain security. "My father is one of them, he gets a stipend of Rs 500, and carries a 303 rifle," he said proudly. So does he now want to get that one-way ticket back home, I asked. He replied somberly, "I can't. Even if peace returns to the valley, my village is going to stay the way it's always been!"

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