On International Women’s Day on March 8, the Chhattisgarh police organised a 3-km walk in the state capital Raipur to promote “zero toleran...
On International Women’s Day on March 8, the Chhattisgarh police organised a 3-km walk in the state capital Raipur to promote “zero tolerance” for crimes against women. The same day, 400 km away, over 500 Adivasi women walked long distances to gather in a village in the conflict-torn region of Bastar to commemorate two women who had lost their lives to alleged police excesses.
The meeting ended abruptly. The police swooped down and arrested Hidme Markam, a 28-year-old woman activist from Dantewada’s Burgum village, who had helped mobilise the gathering.
The police claimed Markam was an absconding Maoist insurgent who faces serious charges in five cases registered between 2016 and 2020. But social activists in Bastar point out that the former government-school cook has been part of virtually every major civil rights movement in Dantewada in recent years and was a regular at public gatherings, big and small.
Soni Sori, a former school teacher who battled police cases to emerge as a prominent leader, contesting elections on an Aam Aadmi Party ticket in 2014, said that Markam had accompanied her to meetings with state officials. The most recent instance was a meeting with the governor of Chhattisgarh in Jagdalpur on February 10, Sori said.
In an interview...
