Bringing in the Thieves

For Indian administrators, the dacoits are a problem as old as government itself. Governments call them bandits, but they consider themselves rebels, hold sway in an 8,000-sq.-mi. deeply ravined area south of New Delhi. For centuries, kings, moguls and viceroys have fulminated against dacoit leaders who holed up in this Indian counterpart of the Dakota Badlands, shrewdly cultivating a Robin Hood reputation for robbing the rich and occasionally sharing their loot with the poor. Since independence, some 5,000 Indian police have tried to flush out the dacoits, using radio intercoms, rugged Jeeps and the latest weapons.

Poor Pickings. For weeks past, Vinoba Bhave, 64, the holy man who has covered 30,000 miles in loincloth and rubber sneakers in a crusade to talk rich Indian landlords into sharing some of their land with the poor, has been trying to do with prayer what the police had failed to do with guns. Assured by an optimistic social worker that at least 300 dacoits would surrender to him if only he would tour the ravines, Bhave trudged into remote villages, calling on the dacoits to come out, repent their wicked ways, and stand trial for their misdeeds. Bhave's prayers were also designed to soften the hearts of the dacoits' accusers, with the hope that penitent dacoits would get light sentences. "My visit," said he, "shall be like the flow of the Holy Ganges in which whoever wants to can wash."

At first few dacoits seemed interested in coming clean. Only one, named Avatar, appeared at the afternoon prayer meetings that highlight each Bhave day, and there knelt and touched the holy man's feet. As dacoits go, Avatar was not much of a prize: he had left home at ten to take up the life of an outcast and had no heinous offense to confess. But Bhave's disciples received him like a prodigal son, dressed him in a spotless white robe, and put him to work passing out religious tracts.

Police Keep Away. Then came barren days in which no more dacoits appeared, and even Avatar began to complain that "life in the ravines was more fun." In his sermons Bhave began to criticize the police and to sympathize with dacoits, whom he called good men who "early in life took a wrong turn." It was easier, he said, to move the dacoits of the ravines to repentance than to soften the hearts of the "dacoits" in official places. His most distinguished camp follower, Major General Yadunath Singh, onetime military secretary to Indian President Rajendra Prasad, mounted a bicycle and pedaled back into the gullies to dicker personally with dacoit leaders. To avoid intimidating dacoits who might want to come in, Bhave ordered police to stay away from his camp.

The change seemed miraculous. By twos and threes, black-mustached dacoits began drifting in, lugging high-powered rifles, hand grenades and thousands of rounds of ammunition. In the biggest haul, eleven former members of the outlaw band of famed Man Singh, mowed down in a pitched battle with police in 1955, strode into the prayer meeting a fortnight ago and hailed Bhave as "baba" or saint. Over each Bhave prayed: "Let him be a true follower of God."

Synthetic Miracle. Late last month, as Bhave turned over to police a batch of 20 dacoits, emotional India went on a jag: bar associations pledged to supply defense counsel without charge, and Bhave's womenfolk garlanded the prisoners with tinsel like so many heroes. Even India's President Prasad sent Bhave a message of congratulations: "The whole nation looks with hope and admiration at the manner in which you have been able to arouse better instincts." In all the hullabaloo, no one paid much attention to the fact that Lakhan Singh, No. 1 dacoit on the still-at-large list, had sent word that he preferred to take his chances on capture, or that another dacoit, after attending a Bhave prayer meeting, hustled off to commit a robbery less than three miles away.

But last week, sober second thoughts began to set in, and for the first time since he began his march around India nine years ago, Bhave found himself under heavy attack. Dryly, the Times of India noted that ten times as many dacoits had surrendered to police in the three years previous. From Madhya Pradesh Police Inspector-General K. F. Rustomji came the bitter charge that Bhave's criticisms of the police had weakened their morale and heartened the dacoits, with the result that the crime rate in the ravines was on the rise. In acid agreement, the Hindustan Times summed up: "If Bhave's mission was a miracle, it was a synthetic one, for whatever results have been achieved, the price has been disproportionately heavy."

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