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John Mathew

Sister Valsa has been brutally murdered.” The newspapers of November 17 last year splashed the shocking, outrageous news.

Who was Sister Valsa? Why was her life snuffed out? How did she reach the nondescript Pakkuwada village in Jharkhand State from remote Kerala? What was she doing in the Maoist-infested state? The list of queries is unending. Vested interests spread many rumours, too.

“Valsa was killed due to her greed and love for money,” pronounced a local BJP leader even before her body was removed to the mortuary.

There were other rumors making the rounds. “Valsa had investments in tourist resorts in Kochi”; “She betrayed Adivasis in league with coal mine owners”; “Cheated Adivasis killed her”....

There was no end to rumour-mongering and speculation. Luckily, none charged her with proselytization.

None of the newspapers or journalists took pains to visit the Jharkhand village and get to the truth. Those who indulge in armchair journalism with the help of the internet and laptops did not bother to visit the Naxal-hit Adivasi areas to ferret out the facts.

Indian media, especially the vernacular ones, have always been critical of the Church and its activities. If the issue was some sensational news about sexual escapades of Christian priests or nuns, media would have jumped in to give it undue coverage with banner headlines and breaking news.

Representing Deepika, I was part of a delegation that visited Pakkuwada recently. The members of the team included John Dayal, member of the National Integration Council; Sr Mary Scaria, a Supreme Court lawyer and member of the congregation to which Sr Valsa belonged; and Sr Helen Saldana, also a Supreme Court lawyer.

It was an unforgettable visit that left many memorable events and incidents etched on our minds. The touching narration of the people in the area, among whom Sr Valsa lived for 24 years, is enough to choke one with emotions and sentiments.

Valsa was the seventh of the eight siblings of CM John and Elykkutty of Vazhakkala, near Edappilly in Ernakulam district. She was a brilliant student. On completion of her education, she became a teacher at Pious Tenth Upper Primary School at Edappilly.

Soon she realised that she was called to do something different, something other than teaching. Her love for the poor and craving to serve the marginalised people left her restless.

To fulfil her cherished dreams and longing, she left her teaching job and joined the Congregation of Sisters of Charity of Jesus and Mary in 1993. Considering Sr Valsa’s desire to serve the marginalised tribals, she was sent to Bihar by her superiors.

Thus it was her ardent wish to work for the poor Adivasis that brought her to the distant land of Pakkuwada. But before landing in the village, she had worked at Sahibganj in Palamu district in Bihar. She was also part of the social works undertaken by Jesuit priests in Patna. In Sahibganj, she was working among Musahars, the rat-eating, low-caste community.

She had a nauseating experience when she reached the Musahar village, along with another Keralite nun. They were given rat meat. Sr Valsa’s colleague started throwing up as she saw the food.

Slowly, Sr Valsa was in the thick of things among the Musahars in the village. She lived with them, ate with them, learned to speak their language and dressed like one of them.

In 1995, she got a transfer to an interior village – Jiapani in Jharkhand. One of the extremely backward areas in the state, most of the inhabitants were Santhal tribals. Later in 1998, she was transferred to Pakkuwada.

Sr Valsa spent the most turbulent days of her life in this ordinary village. The area was dotted with coal mines.

Panem Coal Mine was one of the most prominent private companies there. This Kolkata-based company had forcibly vacated numerous local tribal residents from the area to expand its mining activity. Most of the land, thus vacated, was fertile and cultivable.

Those who resisted were brutally beaten up and their houses set on fire. The women were left with no alternative but to flee the place with their little ones. The young men who resisted the move were trapped in false cases. Some of them were shot dead and their bodies were recovered from forests and coal mine areas. Many were killed in fake encounters and branded as Naxals.

The Santhals of Jharkhand are the most backward tribals in the country. They solely depend on the forest for their living. Hence the large-scale mining left their lives in tatters. They lost their hearth and home. The water in the area became polluted. The air was filled with black dust and ash. Their life, in short, went off the track.

Sr Valsa formed an organisation named Raj Mahal Hill Protection Samiti to lend a helping hand to those who had been vacated from over a thousand hectares of land by Panem coal mines.

In 2006, the Jharkhand government and the Panem Mine Company signed an agreement. Accordingly, those who lost land were to get 200 square meter plots for rehabilitation, 60,000 rupees (US$1,230) per year as compensation for loss of cultivation, free education for children, free healthcare, employment for one person from each family and replanting of trees wherever old mines had been levelled. However, residents allege that hardly any of these terms has yet been implemented.

Sr Valsa was jailed twice in 2007 for leading protests against the company. Later when the court realised that most of the cases against her were fabricated, she was granted bail. She was indeed a sore in the eye both for the Panem company and the local political leadership. Many lost sleep over her influence among the Santhalis.

The company tried many tricks to win over the local tribals. Many were given vehicles and other benefits so as to split the locals into two groups. To some extent, the company succeeded in dividing Sr Valsa’s organisation by hook or crook. However, a majority of the members stood solidly behind her.

After her return from a holiday in Kerala, Sr Valsa contacted her lawyer on November 7 to discuss the status of some of her cases. Two days later, one of her aides, a Santhali girl, was sexually assaulted. The local police refused to register an FIR. She contacted the Superintendent of Police who gave her an appointment for November 17.

On the evening of November 16, a mob of 40 to 50 people surrounded the house of Sonaram Hembrom, a village leader, where Sr Valsa was staying. They were armed with traditional weapons like bows and arrows, axes and tridents. The mukhya and his family members were tied to a tree in the courtyard. Many stood guard at nearby houses so that none could come out in support of Hembrom or Sr Valsa.

Police have so far arrested seven persons, including Paisil Hebrom who is believed to have taken the lead in killing Sr Valsa. It is also said that some of those arrested are those who have worked with her.

The assassins who barged into the house axed Sr Valsa from all sides. The walls of the room wherein the gruesome murder took place were splattered with blood. She died on the spot, without being able to even cry for help. The killers raised slogans, left the spot in no time and disappeared into the darkness.

Hembrom managed to untie the knots of the rope that bound him and came to Sr Valsa. He fell unconscious after seeing her body. The police were informed only in the morning.

Police do not go to the interiors of the villages at night for fear of Maoist attacks. It is alleged that there is an unwritten pact between the Maoists and the police. The latter usually reach the spot of Maoist attacks only a couple of hours after an incident, so the attackers get enough time to escape to safety.

Residents say that Panem company officials had reached the spot even before the police arrived. They retrieved a register containing the details of people who had been ousted from tribal land, which was kept in her box. People believe that the whole episode had been a drama enacted by the company in connivance with the police.

The police had recovered Maoist leaflets from the tragedy site. But according to people in the know, these had been brought to the spot after the murder was committed. They also confirm that the poster of Cuban rebel leader Che Guevara, recovered from the box of Sr Valsa had also been deposited there by those involved in the crime.

Executive director of Panem company, Nibhilesh Kumar, said: “Valsa was a good social worker. She lived for the people. She died for them. I have not met her personally. But I feel extremely sorry for her untimely and untoward death.”

The people of Jharkhand live in darkness despite their decisive role in lighting up big towns and cities. Their cultivable land and hutments have been bulldozed. Those who have raised a voice of protest have been silenced.

Sr Valsa had been living in penury. Her box contained a few cheap clothes and essential items only. One of her prized possessions was an ordinary radio that helped her stay in touch with the world outside – and the controversial picture of Che Guevara.

We spent a few minutes in silence at the spot where she gave up her life. We bowed our head in prayer. A lone kerosene lamp stood flickering as a mute witness to our presence and prayers.

As I snapped photographs of her room and its surroundings, my hands shivered; my lips quivered. We left that great martyr’s room after touching its blood-splattered floor. Slowly, with unsteady steps, we started walking along the narrow road that had been blessed by the footprints of Sr Valsa John many a time.