Devansh Mehta, Ramesh Kunjam, 24^th September 2020

Bimaram Miriam was 27 years old when the Maoists first came to his village in Gumiapal, Dantewada with promises to fight for their rights. Within 2 years, however, those promises rang hollow as villagers were forced into helping them by providing food, money and recruits. Miriam – now known as ‘Mamu’ – was thrust into a leadership role with 200-500 people under his command. In 2006, 2 years after the Maoists had arrived in his village, police targeted him with a bounty of 1 lakh ($1300). From then on, he could not leave the village and his wife had to go to the market and procure supplies from him.

He first tried retiring from the Maoist ranks in 2017, saying that he had to focus on earning a living for his 3 children. After repeatedly refusing the Maoists requests for help on the grounds that he had retired, suspicion began to grow that he would soon join police ranks. On the night of September 17^th 2019, the order was passed to neutralize him. Luckily, he was informed of this by a friend and he surrendered at a police station before the order could be carried out.

The police helped him setup a new life by giving him the 1 lakh bounty on his head, an additional reward of 10,000 ($130) and securing a job for him in the police ranks. However, that is of little solace to Bimaram ‘Mamu’ Miriam, whose family was forced to uproot their life and leave their village without Rs. 700,000 ($9000) worth of land, cattle and other belongings.

“My salary is not much and I now live in a rented house. My kids are in 5^th, 7^th and 9^th grade and expenses keep growing. I don’t know how I will get them through college,” he said.