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March 10, 2002
REVIEW: From the frontline
THE saying ‘truth is stranger than fiction’ may be a cliche, but like all cliches it has a ring of truth to it. The noted Indian journalist Anita Pratap, who was taken under his wing by M.J. Akbar, the distinguished editor of Sunday during her days as a cub reporter, has reported from some of the worst trouble spots in the last two decades. She went through some truly spine-chilling moments and thanks to her ability to talk her way out of ugly situations, she escaped physically, if not emotionally, unscathed.
Anita Pratap demonstrates her highly developed descriptive and narrative skills in her immensely gripping and fast selling volume Island of blood: frontline reports from Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and other South Asian flashpoints.
The book starts with descriptions of her relationship with her son Zubin (one wonders how does a South Indian Christian family adopt a Parsi name) but soon moves to her first trip to Sri Lanka in November 1987, “a month after the India-Sri Lanka accord had disintegrated into a vicious war between the Indian army and the LTTE”, when she was working for India Today and was looking for an interview with the Tamil Tigers’ chief V. Pirabhakran.
Accompanied by her photographer colleague, Shyam Tekwani, she leaves for Jaffna via the jungle route, which is a day-long trip, but in order to minimize the risk of being caught she is advised to take a more circuitous route. They have many narrow escapes, but are ultimately caught and brought before an Indian army officer, who is a compulsive reader of newspapers and magazines. One look at her passport and he realizes that he is talking to the well-known journalist Anita Pratap. That helps her and she is allowed to proceed on her journey to Jaffna.
Without taking sides, she portrays the plight of the ordinary Tamils, who have suffered at the hands of the Sinhalese in no uncertain terms. Though an Indian, she doesn’t spare her own government, and says that the Indian army had no business to be in Sri Lanka.
She is shocked to discover that before the Indians arrived, Sri Lankan air force had carpet bombed important Tamil towns in the Jaffna peninsula and reduced them to ghost towns. “The main streets looked disused sets from a World War II film. Ruined hulks of buildings with collapsed ceilings and facades riddled with bullet holes were mute testimony to a brutal war.” Among the most captivating passages of the book is the one describing Pratap’s meeting with Pirbhakaran, the LTTE leader. Before she can see him in flesh and blood, she is shown his video documentaries. He appears as an idealistic macho man — revolutionary and romantic — but when Pratap meets him she is “speechless with disappointment”. He is indistinguishable from a million other Tamil men. “Any resemblance between the powerful, confident, camouflage-uniformed guerrilla leader in the video and this mild-looking, self-effacing civilian was purely coincidental.”
But at the end of the two-hour meeting she begins to consider him as the most remarkable man she has ever met or is ever likely to meet.
At that time India (read RAW) is training, arming and funding the LTTE, but Pirbhakaran has the vision to realize that India would never allow Tamil Tigers to create a separate state in Sri Lanka because of its own 55 million Tamils in Tamil Nadu.
It is not just Sri Lanka that Anita Pratap writes about in Island of Blood. She also reports from where the action is or where she can see the immediate aftermath of a tragedy. She sees the frenzied Kar Sevaks, incited by leaders who are to become ministers in the BJP government six years later, demolishing a historical mosque.
She is caught in a crossfire between the Talibans and their enemies and hardly is she able to run away from the scene with her camera crew that she is spotted by an angry Taliban commander, who carries an air of stern authority. He is enraged and so is she. But before the battlelines can be drawn, better sense prevails on both sides and she rushes to the van waiting to transport her and the crew to Kabul.
Pratap is also witness to the riots engineered by Shiv Sena in Mumbai. It is a more harrowing scenario than the one at the time of Partition in what was one of the most peaceful cities in South India. She meets several Muslims fleeing from Mumbai, one of them blurts out in impotent rage, “The RSS tells us, go away to Pakistan. What is Pakistan to me? I have never been there, and why should I go there?”
Pratap also interviews the schizophrenic Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray and reports what clearly is his convoluted logic. She recalls her first meeting with the fire-breathing leader when he insists on knowing to which side of ‘the great divide’ she belongs — Hinduism or Islam. She informs him that her religious belief has nothing to do with her profession and that she wishes to meet him in the capacity of a reporter for Time magazine.
“Then you can kindly go back to your Time magazine, I have no interest in giving an interview to a journalist whose background I don’t know,” comes the reply. He is mellowed somewhat when Pratap reveals that she is a Christian.
Anita Pratap also recalls her visits to cyclone affected villages of Bangladesh and the districts of Maharashtra that are ravaged by a severe earthquake. The harrowing tales are contrasted with her occasional visits to exotic places which appear as vignettes. But if there is one thing which makes the volume worth reading and worth recommending then it is the first half that gives us the human side to a devastating civil war in Sri Lanka. As fellow South Asians we ought to know the plight of those suffering endlessly in that remote corner of the subcontinent.
Island of blood: frontline reports from Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and other South Asian flashpoints
By Anita Pratap
Viking Books/Penguin Books, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi-110 017, India.
Website: www.penguinbooksindia.com
ISBN 0-67-004903-4 276pp. Indian Rs295
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