Paan Singh Tomar - Once Upon A Time In India's Wild Wild West

"The best thing for a bandit is a bullet" - Old Chambal Saying



The day after Paan Singh Tomar died, the newspapers carried pictures of him as he was in his heyday, a tall handsome athlete, breasting the tape, head flung in the agony of victory. In his time, he was a sporting hero, held records for long distance running and represented his country. He was a soldier for much of his life, and, on hearing of his death, one of his former officers sent a picture of him wearing a neat team blazer, with a comment about his smartness. Paan Singh was a runner all his life, and he died running, too.

After he left the army, he returned to his village and became enmeshed in the cast and land disputes that disfigure and provide an important part of the culture of Indian society from which he sprang. He killed a man in a quarrel, fled and became a bandit, a dacoit. In this, as in athletics, he became a champion, a ruthless murderer and kidnapper who was soon high on the police list of most wanted men. His military experience helped to make him more than usually competent in his new trade. He lived by the application of terror, the brutal assertion of his will over others and his skill at evading his hunters in a long and remorseless race.

Pan Singh was a denizen of the Chambal valley region of north central India, the heartland of banditary for 800 years.The Chambal river flows about 160 miles south of Delhi, only 40 miles south of the Taj Mahal at Agra. The territory inhabited by bandits, covers about 8,000 square miles and sprawls across parts of Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. The chief town of the region is Gwalior, whose fortified cliffs rise 300 feet out of the plain. The entire region is a hot, dry and inhospitable place for much of the year and the unmappable twisting fissures and the neighbouring jungle, make a natural and perfect robbers' roost.

Emerging from the jungle and crossing the dry scrub, Paan Singh and a dozen of his men arrived late one afternoon at a mud-walled village in a poor cobblers' community of low thatched houses and rutted streets. The people bent respectfully to touch the bandits' feet, and Paan Singh gave his orders. For his own use he commandeered a whitewashed room, which had a simple daubed painting of a tiger on the whitewash and two charpoys, string beds, on the beaten earth floor. Paan Singh was evidently satisfied. He ordered a bottle of country-made whiskey, for 30 rupees, and a goat for his men to feast on for 150 rupees. Bandits can afford, and usually pay, high prices for the food, clothing and ammunition they buy from villagers, both sides accepting the part that brigandage plays in the marginal local economy.

Paan Singh entered the amounts he spent in a small blue diary. He was a careful book keeper and recorded the shares he paid to his men after a robbery, or the paying of a kidnapped ransom. As is the usual practice among dacoits, the chief takes half the spoils and distributes the rest according to the firepower of each man's gun.

He felt safe as he ate and drank because this village of Rathiankapura, which lies up a rough dirt track off the road from Gwalior to Bhind, was the home of one of his gang. Caste and clan royalties are an important hedge of security for dacoits who prefer to seek shelter among their own kinsmen and caste fellows. Other castes are often their enemies and prey, and therefore, a source of betrayal.

The police develop a network of informers to penentrate the barriers of caste secrecy, loyalty and fear. Dacoits, for their part, have their own spies and are ruthless and vicious with police informers, genuine or suspected. Paan Singh himself had dealt severely with the people of a village called Pawa, near Gwalior. There had been a skirmish with the police near this place a few months before, and Paan Singh's brother had been killed. Paan Singh retreated, swearing vengeance, certain that someone in the village had betrayed him. He returned, took five men from their homes, roped them together and shot them.

As Paan Singh ate goat and drank whiskey in his whitewashed room in Rathiankapura , a force of about 100 policemen quietly surrounded the walls in the darkness. The gang had been betrayed. A cool young police superintendent, Vijay Raman, entered the main gate with a group of his men and shooting started. It went on for hours. By four in the morning the police were 300 strong and shooting by the light of parachute flares.

All that was left for Paan Singh was a desperate sprint for safety. He ran through an alley, out of the gate and into the open where some scrub and stooks of hay provided shadow. He was running when the bullets cut him down. He was 49 and had a price of 10,000 rupees on his head, a score of murders and 50 kidnappings to his name. His body, and the bodies of nine of his men, were laid out at the feet of the police for the ritual of the team photograph and were subsequently taken for display in Bhind, the nearest town. People turned out in force to stare, for a dead dacoit is a great attraction. Hawkers lit their fires and sold hot nuts, fried snacks, sweets and soft drinks, and the stinking spectacle became a carnival.



Trivia : Paan Singh set the national steeplechase record in the 1958 National Games in Cuttack (9:12.4) and bettered the mark in the 1964 Open Meet at Karnail Singh Stadium, clocking 9:04. He ruled the steeplechase event at the Indian National Games for 7 years in a row and his record stood unbeaten for 10 years.


UTV's upcoming film is about this soldier-turned-athlete-turned-bandit.
Irrfan Khan stars in the title role of Paan Singh Tomar, and I hope it'll be a performance worth cherishing.