Thread by @rkarnad

One of the early stories I reported was from panchayat polls in #Nandigram, soon after the farmers' rebellion, just as Mamata began to topple the CPIM edifice.
It was an illustration, and a caution, about interpreting images of violence during polls in West Bengal /n

The intimidation and violence, even sexual assault, mostly by the CPIM cadre, was serious. On polling day, the CRPF was heavily deployed, led by an admired DIG Alok Raj.

I was with a patrol when two TMC activists approached, asking for help at a village called Garupara /n

They said CPM men were obstructing the way there and scaring off voters.

We followed them. On the path we found a woman, so old her torso was lined like a leaf, knocked to the ground by goons. The local CPM candidate left the scene on a bike as we arrived, visibly sneering. /n

It seems that this candidate went straight to the CPM side of the village, and announced that TMC activists had gotten the CRPF to thrash him (the first manipulation in this story). As we reached Garupara, people were pouring over from the CPM side. A small riot began ... /n

Some eighty villagers — old women with coconut-scrapers, boys throwing stones — swept around us, and began bludgeoning the TMC men. It looked like they would be lynched, when an order was given and the CRPF jawans lathi-charged. /n

They broke up the mob, then jogged through the village whacking at anyone to send them indoors.
“They’re destroying their own villages,” the patrol leader told me afterwards, catching his breath, “Turning it into India and Pakistan...” / n

This is when it got ugly. I see local police arriving, led by a notorious OC, I won't share his name here. The EC had said he should be withdrawn from poll duty, yet here he is, in uniform and sunglasses, followed by armed retinue and men with handycams (not from the media) /n

He crossed to where the CRPF were recovering, and said, “Did you attack these people? Saale… give me your names. There will be a complaint.”
The CRPF men are enraged, “You’re using gaalis? This is what you do with your power?”
The OC was dead calm. “You'll see my power” /n

Suddenly, the two groups are literally at each others’ throats: the local OC and the CRPF officer grab each other by the neck.
Just before the two police forces attack each other, the officers draw apart.
Angry and bewildered, the CRPF skulk back to their post... /n

The OC now holds court over a village in uproar over the CRPF’s “brutal attack”. It is impossible to tell if any of the injuries on display are real. A woman, crying hysterically, describes how she was asleep when the CRPF burst into her house and began kicking her /n

Local TV crews are appearing. The CPIM candidate – the sneering one – re-appears, to display scrapes on his elbow and back.
I can swear that I saw the OC twist his ring, which has a pointed spur, into his own finger, until a drop of blood rises out. /n

The photographer and I are nervous now, and set off into the fields, aiming to get back to the District HQ. Faster than we can walk, the story travels, coming back to us in new shapes at every village ... / n

We hear: CRPF went through Garupara, asking for party affiliations, threatening villagers. The CRPF beat up the OC... The OC’s arm is broken.

Once the TV channels begins showing the soundbites, it is unstoppable. Two days later, an inquiry was ordered into the CRPF 'attack' /n

This report was published at the coverstory of Tehelka that week, with amazing photographs of the incident, and it won that year's Press Institute of India award for conflict reporting. I'm afraid it's gone missing along with all the rest of Tehelka's archives. /n

There was no single lesson to take away from it. We can't ever dismiss reports of police of cadre brutality, which were only too real.
But it's also a mistake to take images of violence at face value, in a context full of skilled, cynical manipulation (and this was before SM) /n

There is just no substitute for real, corroborated, professional reporting.