Bhind is a small, dusty town in the badlands of Madhya Pradesh, near the border with Uttar Pradesh. Few people have heard of it and it has no particular distinction except that it’s located in a region where everyone and their two-year-old owns a gun. They’re not afraid to use it, either.
Nobody wants to go there. In Gwalior, cab driver after cab driver refused, claiming the roads were terrible and the area “not so good”.
Finally, one agreed and two hours after leaving Gwalior we discovered they were right. There was no ‘road’ as such, just potholes between slabs of tar. Dust rose on both sides of the cab in brown, choking clouds. The further we got from Gwalior, the more men we saw lolling by the roadside, lovingly polishing large guns.
The reason for this excursion was Seema Parihar, who was then in Harkapur, near Balugadia village. It is a collection of a few houses and a small shop. But villagers claimed they did not know she lived there. Ask someone else, they said.
You can’t drive to Harkapur. You park on the main road and walk the rest of the way on a narrow path littered with cow dung and patrolled at the inner end by a formidable guard. He inspected us suspiciously, then led us to where two of Uttar Pradesh’s most notorious ex-bandits reside.
Seema, the first woman bandit after Phoolan Devi to capture the public imagination (though not as wildly or popularly), welcomes us with coffee. Tall, with a weather-beaten face and hard eyes, she’s very much in-your-face. You immediately want to take a step back.
There are lots of rumours about her — that she’s an accused in 29 murder cases, and many other robberies and abductions. She is said to have abducted over 200 people, murdered more than 70, and led a gang of dacoits in the forests of Chambal.
Kidnapped at 12 and forced into the jungle by bandits, Seema, born in
Auraiya, Uttar Pradesh, spent 18 years there, and was an expert with firearms by the time she emerged.
Almost immediately she says, “I don’t want to talk about the past. That door is shut.”
So what has she been doing since surrendering in 2000? “In 2006, I joined the Indian Justice Party, (an unrecognised party in UP) and contested elections from Mirzapur the following year. I knew nothing about politics. I did not know how to campaign. I lost by about 800 votes.”
That initial taste of politics left her wanting more. In 2009, she joined Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party. She doesn’t have a party post, but she has met Mulayam and set her sights on social service. “In politics, there are so many more people you can reach out to. It gives you a better platform to understand people’s needs and do something,” she says. She certainly has picked up the style.
What’s her precise interest? “Corruption, female foeticide and education for girls. I want to focus on these. I missed out on education and I felt that badly when I was in Mumbai. All around me I see women who’ve never had an education. I know what it’s like and I want to do all I can to help.”
Seema is especially interested in helping curb female foeticide and infanticide. Perhaps this stems from what she herself went through as a child. Though that “door is shut”, her occasional remarks give you an idea of her past. “No girl, at 12, voluntarily goes into the jungle. It’s a horrible life. And you can’t leave, ever, for fear of the authorities.”
Her partner Suraj Singh added, “If anyone fell sick, that was the worst thing. First we would call the village doctor. But if the illness was beyond him, we would commandeer a vehicle to take them to the city and find a hospital. It was forever happening with the girls in the forest as they frequently got pregnant and we had to take them for abortions.” Complete stealth was the keyword, ensuring that no word leaked to the police.
Their main source of income, Suraj said, was abduction and extortion. “But we never kidnapped girls for money. We had a code of honour.”
The highest ransom they ever got? “About Rs 20 lakh,” he said, with a grin. “Believe me, agonised families will give any amount to free their loved ones. And we kept our word: if the money came in, the victims went back to their families.”
Last year, a phone call from the producers of reality TV show Bigg Boss saw her flying to Mumbai for the show’s fourth season. “An awesome experience. My fellow house members were fun to be around, the drama was entertaining and I had a fantastic time,” she said.
Though her film Wounded (2008 )in which she plays herself, bombed at the box office, Seema has not ruled out further forays. She has three film offers and one for a Punjabi TV serial, which she is considering.
She’s had bad times, too. In 2006, her older brother was killed in a police encounter. Seema believes it was retribution for her crimes. She now supports her nephews as well as her son, at school in Gwalior. All she wants now is a peaceful life.
Beneath all that bluster and aggression lies a child-like enthusiasm that cannot fail to charm. It’s hard not to share her wonder at the chance to go to Mumbai, join a political party, perhaps turn her life around. “Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine these things happening to me. The fact that I was so popular in the show, did a movie, and saw a bit of the world is, for me, an amazing thing. I’ll never stop being grateful for that.”
— zubeda@expressbuzz.com