13 years after the brutal massacre of landless poor by the Ranveer Sena at Laxmanpur Bathe in Jehanabad, Bihar, the Additional District and Sessions Court of Patna sentenced 16 Ranveer Sena men to death and 10 to life imprisonment. The verdict, though belated, is welcome – but those who bear greatest guilt for that massacre - Ranveer Sena Brahmeshwar Singh and the political patrons of the Ranveer Sena escaped punishment entirely.

On the night of December 1, 1997, armed cadres of a Ranveer Sena, a landlords' private militia, had crossed the Sone river and arrived stealthily at Batan Bigha, a dalit hamlet of Laxamanpur-Bathe village, on the banks of Sone river that forms the boundary between Bhojpur and Jehanabad (now part of Arwal) districts. Using swords and guns, they slaughtered 61 people: unarmed and sleeping villagers (including 27 women, 8 of whom were pregnant, and 17 children including a 1-year-old baby); some fishermen whom they happened to encounter on their stealthy journey across the river; as well as the boatmen who rowed them across the Sone.

In the 1990s, the Ranveer Sena and the Bathe massacre were being rationalised in much the same terms that the Salwa Judum is rationalised today – as a ‘spontaneous reaction’ against ‘Naxalism’. In reality it was a landlords' militia intended to suppress and intimidate the political assertion of the landless poor, under the banner of the CPI(ML) Liberation. The Batan Bigha tola at Bathe had supporters of both CPI(ML) Party Unity and the CPI(ML) Liberation. But the village had not been a stronghold of either party, nor was there any ongoing conflict on land/wage issues. The massacre was no reaction or retaliation – it was a cold-blood terror attack meant to warn the rural poor of the consequences of joining the revolutionary left movement. Bathe was chosen as a soft target and for its strategic location near many key districts of Central Bihar.

Bathe survivors still insecure

Immediately after the verdict, affected families and witnesses faced intimidation and threats. In response, the CPI(ML) held a demonstration on 10 April at the memorial to the Bathe martyrs which the party had constructed in Bathe village itself. Many of the affected families, including many women, participated. Later, they also made plans to keep night vigils in anticipation of retaliatory attacks. On the night of 18 April, there were again some sporadic attacks on dalit homes, initiated by the kin of some of the Bathe convicts of neighbouring Kamta-Phulwari village. Kamta was the village where, on 30 November 1997, a major Ranveer Sena gathering took place and a 'mega massacre' was planned. Activists of the CPI(ML) Liberation had informed the police then of such an impending attack and had sought protection for the dalit hamlet – but none had been provided. Today, though the Ranveer Sena has disintegrated, feudal reaction continues to simmer in the wake of the verdict.

“Masterminds of the Massacre Are in Power”

Following the verdict, Justice (Retd) Amir Das who had headed a Commission of Enquiry into the Bathe massacre and the political linkage with the Ranveer Sena said, “the masterminds of the Bathe massacre are in power in Bihar today."

The Ranveer Sena was known to have BJP and Sangh Parivar backing; during the debate in the Bihar Assembly on the Ranveer Sena's Bathani Tola massacre of 1996, then CM Laloo Yadav had placed a leaflet by the Sena calling for votes for BJP candidates. A Central Investigation Team (constituted after the Bathani Tola massacre) found that an RJD MLA from Mokama, Dilip Singh, had supplied sophisticated arms to the Ranvir Sena. In the wake of outraged protests following the Bathe massacre, and widespread allegations of political backing for the Ranveer Sena, the Government headed by Rabri Devi set up the Justice Amir Das Commission to probe the political linkages of the Ranveer Sena. The Commission complained of non-cooperation even from the RJD Government. In 2006, when the Commission was on the point of preparing its final Report and had requested for a final extension of its tenure, the JD(U)-BJP alliance headed by Nitish Kumar disbanded the Commission months in one of its first actions after it came to power.

According to Justice Amir Das, his Report had the evidence to indict 42 political leaders across the political spectrum, mostly from the BJP and JD(U) but also the RJD and Congress; leaders including BJP leaders like the present Deputy CM of Bihar – Sushil Kumar Modi and former Union Minister C P Thakur and former RJD Minister Shivanand Tiwari who is currently the JD(U) spokesperson. In response to a petition by the CPI(ML), the Patna High Court had then ordered that the findings of the Amir Das Commission be made public – an order that has been ignored.

Justice Amir Das' remarks are borne out by the murky story of Barmeshwar Singh.
Ranveer Sena Chief Barmeshwar Singh was arrested in 2003 and has since been in prison in Bihar – yet the CID continued treat him as an “absconder” (as he was listed in the original chargesheet) and never interrogated or charged him for the Bathe massacre. There has been a move to have the Bathe case reopened to investigate the role of Barmeshwar Singh. If indeed that does happen, it remains to be seen if a strong case is made out, or of if the police create a weak case with weak witnesses against him.

Responding to the Bathe verdict, Barmeshwar Singh gave the JD(U)-BJP regime his accolade: had a government like Nitish's been there to guarantee "law and order", he said, there would have been no need to form the Ranveer Sena.

The Nitish Government, in blatant betrayal of his poll promises of land reform and his rhetoric of 'mahadalits' and 'most-backwards', has essentially remained loyal to the traditional feudal support base of the JD(U)-BJP, and has proved that loyalty by disbanding the Amir Das Commission and jettisoning the recommendations of the Land Reforms Commission set up by his own Government. The massive turnout in the CPI(ML) Rally at Patna's Gandhi Maidan on March 31 this year, in spite of the searing summer heat, is testimony to the determination of the rural poor not to let the agenda of land reform be jettisoned without a fight.

19 April is the anniversary of the infamous Arwal firing of 1986 – when police had fired on rural poor demonstrators in an incident that recalled Jallianwala Bagh. Like the Amir Das Report, the Report of the Commission that enquired into the Arwal massacre was never tabled in the Bihar Assembly. Rural poor in Arwal will hold a Protest March for Justice on April 19 this year, demanding that the findings of the Amir Das Commission be made public and Barmeshwar Singh as well as the political masterminds of the Bathe massacre face justice. Their slogan - "Arwal Bathe Jansanhar – Asli Mujrim Kyon Farar? Nitish Sarkar Jawab Do" (Why are the real culprits of the Arwal and Bathe massacres escaping justice – the Nitish Government must answer) – confronts the ruling political class of Bihar with an uncomfortable question and uncompromising quest for justice.