'Ab Hum Sarkar Hain...'

SHE'S a rebel without a pause. These days, also singularly without a cause. But that doesn't seem to deaden her desire for revolution. Revolution not of the ravinesort anymore. More like a rabid reorganisation of the regular and the routine. Like, maybe, a change in railway stopovers. Change in stringent jail manuals that keep away all and sundry from visiting inmates. Change of bureaucrats who refuse to budge from the rule books. Change in the attitudes of journalists who threaten to ruin reputations.

Change, change, she wants change...oh what change! From Chambal's dacoit queen to Mirzapur's member of parliament. From law breaker to law maker. From asamajik tatva (anti-social element) to leader of the Samajwadi Party. But the quintessential Phoolan Devi remains the same. Maverick and anti-Establishment. So what if she has been elected to represent the Establishment?

So nothing really. The former bandit queen seems determined to be just as baghi (rebellious) as she's always been. "Phoolan shall not be oppressed by anyone. The police, the bureaucrats and the press—all put together—can't intimidate Phoolan into being docile. As for the press, it's been very unfair to Phoolan. I'll complain to Gowda about the press. High time the Prime Minister told the press to stop harassing the downtrodden and the exploited," Phoolan told Outlook. She will not be tamed, she swore over a telephone call from Bhopal's Circuit House. And the last week of June saw her making a point of it.

Threatening, as she did, to set afire the Lucknow bureau of the Hindi fortnightly Maya. The magazine had earned Phoolan's ire by publishing an article about her marriage to her uncle Harphool Singh Kashyap for three months after her release from jail. "Why don't they (the Maya journalists) themselves do it with their mothers and sisters?" the new parliamentarian reportedly fumed in language most unparliamentary. This at a press gathering in the state superintendent of police's office. After which, a crowd of her hollering supporters in tow, she marched out to "burn down" the magazine office. "

We were terrified. So real was the threat that five PAC platoons and some mahila police were called in to protect us," recalls Maya reporter Suresh Diwedi in Lucknow. "Imagine, the police protecting the press the because a frenzied parliamentarian is obviously unable to forget her bandit past. It compels one to think of how frightening the and ridiculous the country's political situation is today." In a less thoughtful and more aggressive frame of mind, meanwhile, the publication's joint editor Babulal Sharma in Allahabad condemns Phoolan's behaviour as "disgraceful". "If she didn't like something we printed, she was free to tell us, issue a denial or even take us to court. There are civilised ways of handling these things. One need not abuse and set out to destroy offices. One needn't act like a dacoit!"

Well, Phoolan doesn't think she did. Sometimes, she doesn't seem to think at all. Even as the Maya staffers were reeling under shock, she hijacked the Lucknow-bound Shatabdi Express on June 30. It started with a group of her supporters stopping the train at Tundla to "welcome and garland" her. Subsequently, Phoolan along with husband Ummed Singh and a security guard entered the engine. Then, say railway officials in Tundla, Phoolan "overwhelmed" driver T.D. Ram into stopping the train again at Etawah where she got off to address a public meeting.

Unwilling to be associated with any comment that could upset Phoo-lan, the rakhi-sister of Railway Minister Ram Vilas Paswan, rail employees speak their minds only when promised anonymity. "It's so convenient now to set up an enquiry which 'reveals' that the driver was retiring and he stopped the train at two stations for his own farewell parties. Hogwash," says an angry station staffer at Tundla. "Thankfully, the poor old driver was to retire anyway. Otherwise he would have lost his job. That woman will make scapegoats of thousands like him if she isn't stopped."

 Not so easy to derail Phoolan, however. Especially when she has decided she has a mission. Like the time she visited Gwalior central jail to distribute sweets and sarees to the women inmates. Storming into the prison with at least 20 supporters, Phoolan demanded that they be allowed to enter the jail to do the good work. Even though the prison manual said otherwise. Jail Superintendent Mangal Prasad Bani put his foot down. Only to have Phoolan put her foot in her mouth yet again. "How can you deny me the right to enter the jail? Ab hum sarkar hain (Now I am the government)," she is supposed to have said. "I'll become home minister and then show you." Unimpressed, Bani stood his ground. Insisting that MPs had free access to jails only in the states they have been elected from.

Phoolan left, but not without throwing a tantrum and using abusive language. "Yes, I did get angry. I went the next day but was refused again. Why? Was I going to loot the inmates? I have been in that jail for years. I have donated a television to the mahila ward. Today, they won't let me enter it," says an irate Phoolan. Adding, "That superintendent is the most casteist man I have ever met."

Madhya Pradesh Additional Director General (Jails) in Bhopal, Narendra Prasad, begs to differ. Having gone through a report on the incident sent to him by Bani, Prasad says that his officer did the right thing. "With a person as volatile as Phoolan in a leadership role, government officials will have to learn to tolerate extreme rudeness and insist that they will do their job regardless of threats," Prasad says. But some, like the Bhadohi District Magistrate Rajbeer Singh are finding it increasingly difficult to do so. Much to the bewilderment of the 52-year-old IAS officer, Phoolan has sworn to "cleanse" the system of bureaucrats like him. "I'll have that corrupt man transferred," says Phoolan. "He wanted a 14-per cent cut from the development fund."

Singh's story is less dramatic. He claims to have met Phoolan only twice. And barely managed to get in a word edgewise on both occasions. Let alone ask for cuts. "She storms in with about 40 supporters and breathes fire. Even logically, where is the chance to say anything to her?" asks Singh. The first time, claims Singh, the Mirzapur MP threw a pile of applications on his table and asked him to "get the jobs done". "The second time was disastrous. She kept insisting that I give money to do vikas ke kaam (developmental work)," Singh recalls, "and my efforts to educate her on the rules that bind a bureaucrat's functioning proved to be exasperatingly futile". So, Singh has given up trying. And is resigned to the idea of receiving transfer orders. "I told her that Iam not attached to any particular place. I don't mind going anywhere for work."

But the lady will not go away. She will stay. And on her own terms. Even those who she has vanquished admit it. Virendra Singh, the BJP contestant who lost the Mirzapur seat to Phoolan, is of the opinion that the former bandit queen will soon turn parliament into her very own fighting ground. "Remember, in Lok Sabha, how she suddenly awoke from her slumber to bash up some MP who criticised her sardar and mentor, Mulayam Singh Yadav. Rail passengers, bureaucrats, police, media and the common man will all have to suffer her. But why be surprised? You've got what you voted for..."

Perhaps. Finally, the exploited village woman who lived a fugitive life in the ravines of Chambal has become an honoured parliamentarian. And she's very awkward with the law. The awkwardness promises to spill into the pages of dailies every once in a while. Amusing some and annoying many. But at the end of her tenure as MP she would have learnt a lesson—people who get votes in favour of social justice have to be just a little more social!