RAIPUR: As the bodies of Maoist commander Madvi Hidma and his wife Rajje reached their native village of Puvarti in Sukma district on Thursday morning, the forested hamlet in Bastar erupted not in slogans, but in a long, piercing cry of grief.
On Thursday, when the white vehicle carrying their bodies finally turned off the kuccha road into Puvarti, the pain that had been building quietly broke into the open.
Women clutched their heads and wailed. Men stared in disbelief, sitting on their haunches wearing lungis. Many villagers kept repeating the same line — they never thought Hidma could actually die.
Hidma might be a dreaded Maoist with assasination of hundreds on his head, but in his own community and village, it appeared that he was like a hero to them.
A huge funeral pyre was prepared and villagers offered clothes to it as a tribute and love to the departed soul. Some offer towels, others give blankets and their own clothes. It's also believed that the clothes help in easy burning of the pyre, is why the offering is made. In tribal communities, even the women participate in large numbers for the funeral. In a video from the village, Hidma's mother Madvi Pojje is seen offering blankets on the top of the pyre, which would be atleast 6-8 feet high.
For two days, the village had lived on rumours and news flashes from faraway Andhra Pradesh. On November 18, Hidma, his wife Rajje and four others were killed in an encounter in Alluri Sitarama Raju district.
More than 200 villagers from all eight paras (hamlets) around Puvarti gathered outside the village as word spread that the bodies were on their way. The weekly village haat, scheduled for the day, was called off by security forces amid heightened emotional tension and intelligence inputs about the possible presence of Maoists in the area.
Locals said they had heard that some Maoist had slipped into the region to quietly meet Hidma’s mother and offer condolences.
“There were inputs, so the haat was cancelled as a precaution,” a security official said. “The focus today is on ensuring the last rites pass off peacefully.”
Hidm'a wife Rajje's brother told reporters that Hidma wasn't "khunkhar" rather he was very soft spoken. Hidma used to meet us and never asked me to join Maoist ranks, the man said, adding that Hidma would ask me to study properly and work hard.
“This fight is not ours,” he said. “In this war, it is the youth of Bastar who are dying.”
As the bodies were lifted out and laid on the ground, Puvarti broke into “roon–saun” — the traditional Bastar mourning call. It is a sharp, rolling wail that rises from one courtyard and is answered by another, carrying from house to house faster than any phone call.
Videos from the spot showed Hidma’s mother and relatives holding their heads, swaying with grief as the roon–saun echoed through the village.
“It is not the ideology that you see today,” said one relative quietly. “It is just a mother, a family and a village losing someone they knew since he was a bright boy."
A love story born in the movement, ending in the same fire
Inside the Maoist organisation, Hidma and Rajje were known not just as comrades but as a couple whose relationship defied the harsh, rule-bound world of the underground.
A surrendered Maoist who was once security guard for Hidma, recalled that when he first proposed to fellow cadre Rajje, she turned him down.
“But he didn’t give up for two years. He kept asking, and finally she agreed.”
Strict organisational rules meant that senior cadres like Hidma were expected to undergo vasectomy before marrying. “He himself got it done to follow party rules." The wedding took place within the organisation, with Maoists from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh arriving as a unique kind of “baraat”.
When he finally brought his new bride home to Puvarti, she did not wear a red bridal sari, but a black uniform, a weapon slung over her shoulder. Hidma too came armed.
When the news of Hidma’s encounter killing broke, parts of Sukma had celebrated with fireworks on Tuesday, but in Puvarti, the mood was the opposite — a blanket of mourning over the village that once saw a barefoot boy grow into the most wanted face of the insurgency.
Soon after news of his death reached the family, Hidma’s ageing mother had made an emotional appeal to the police.
“I am old now,” she told officers. “I cannot bring my son’s body to the village. You bring him here so that I can perform his last rites.
Police facilitated the family’s travel to Andhra Pradesh and coordinated with local authorities there to ensure the bodies could be taken to Sukma.
As her son and daughter-in-law finally returned home in coffins, the mother who had once pleaded with him to “come back and live in peace” now faced the reality that he would never walk through the door again.
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