In a small village in Katapahari paralyzed by fear and deserted by its men fleeing the fallout of the government’s crackdown on Maoists, ‘hope’ came alive in the dead of night yesterday — helpless and despairing.

Jashomoni Mandi, one of the scores of tribal women forced to flee their homes, gave birth on the verandah of the Narcha village primary school building in the heart of Lalgarh’s battle zone and lay in her blood with her baby in her arms for a full seven hours before a village midwife arrived from Chotopelia to cut the umbilical cord.

Both Jashomoni and her baby girl are safe.

Women at the relief camp in Narcha — their lives wrecked by the bloody Naxalite-CPM turf wars and their future a dark hole of uncertainty — have named the child Aasha, hope.

With security boots firmly on the ground and the Maoists having fled the battlefield, a team of eight Secretaries to the government of West Bengal was supposed to reach Lalgarh today to begin implementation of Chief Minister’s Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s declared plan to “win back” the local tribal population.

Until late tonight, the officers didn’t arrive — apparently they were held up by rain. If they manage to come tomorrow for their intended six-day stay in the area, the story of Jashomoni and Aasha will be a good starting point to finding out what Lalgarh lacks — and needs.

Jashomoni — who was still lying with Aasha on the primary school verandah when The Indian Express left them late on Tuesday evening — had left her home in Chotopelia with her husband Ranjit five days ago. Afraid of getting caught between the Maoists and police, they reckoned they would be safer at Narcha, some four kilometres from Lalgarh police station.

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