What Retirement Looks Like When You've Spent 14 Years on the Run

Balwant Singh Tomar spent 14 years as dacoit in the Chambal region in Madhya Pradesh before surrendering to police in 1982—a year after the death of his uncle, champion athlete-turned-dacoit Paan Singh Tomar in a police encounter. The 66-year-old once had a bounty of Rs. 50,000 on his head and now runs a sandstone business on the outskirts of Gwalior.

VICE spoke to him about his days as an outlaw in Chambal, retirement life and his greatest exploits.

VICE: What made you turn to dacoity?
Balwant Singh Tomar: It started when a property dispute between my family and my uncle turned violent in 1977. I was in my 20s and Morarji Desai was just appointed Prime Minister.

The dispute went to the panchayat. No official or authority was ready to listen to us. The local superintendent of police and collector were present, but they failed to deliver justice to us.

One of my cousins, Chutki, brought his licensed gun, stepped on the terrace of our home to fire at the policemen. One was injured while others ran. Even today, there are the bullet holes on the wall of my house. The rest of us decided to leave the village and move to the adjoining forests. There were six to seven of us, including my 65-year-old father Matadin Tomar, my uncle Paan Singh and his son.

An individual doesn’t become a dacoit by himself, the circumstances, enmity and police make him one.

Why didn’t you take to the courts?
There was a lot of corruption those days and people were blind about earning money. If you took your complaint to nearest police station; the daroga [policemen] wouldn’t listen to you. The pradhan [the village’s highest authority] doesn't listen to you. The patwari [village accountant] wouldn’t let us sow our land. There would be no dacoits if even one of them did their jobs, but who the hell listens to a poor man?

All of them took money from us. We didn’t have money at that time. Humari poori ladai sirf 1.5 bigha zameen hai. [Our entire fight was over than one and half acres.]

What was life in the forest like?
There were police looking for us everywhere. Chambal lies at the intersection of three states—Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. The police of these three states was looking for us but couldn’t find us. We operated like a regiment. Around 10-12 men made food while around 30 were supposed to guard the premises.

There used to be a lot of planning before we executed our missions. We used to look up the map of the village we were going to attack and the leaders planned the whole thing to perfection. The gang was often divided into teams of six. Everyone would follow what their sub-leader said. Seniority matters a lot in this line of work.

Where did you get weapons from?
As a result of our exploits, we now had money. Money changes everything—you can get everything in the world if you can pay the price. For a normal medical treatment that cost Rs. 50 in the village, we would pay Rs. 5,000. Why wouldn't anyone help us?

Paisa fekkho, tamasha dekho. [Throw money, watch the show.]

We used to buy weapons from some dealers in Jammu and Kashmir. There are so many dealers who have illegal businesses, who would supply anything for the right price.

A regular MAC-3 was around Rs. 5,000 then. Gradually, we began to buy more weapons.

Were there any rules or moral codes that you adhered to?
Baaghis [rebels] and sadhus [saints] have a lot of similarities and adhere to same principles. They don't touch someone’s daughter or wife. If someone broke these rules, he would be expelled from the gang.

Whenever we went to rob a house, we would gather all the female members on one side of the home and only then rob them. We didn’t even touch the jewellery that the women were wearing.

If someone poor was getting married and he didn't have money, we would help.

How did you decide to target someone to rob or assassinate? What were the criteria of your choice?
It worked on the principle of enmity. We had a lot of enemies in our village. If someone helped our enemies, then they were our enemy too. On one occasion, we killed 11 people and burned down the entire village, and the survivors became our enemy. Dushmani dushmani ki wajah se hi to ye sab hota hai. [Violence begets violence.]

Did you have rivalry with other gangs in Chambal?
The dacoits in Rajasthan were leechads [dicks] of the highest order. They didn’t have any principles like us. They would kidnap someone’s daughter, rob anyone’s house and do wrong things with the family members. We used to drag them out before killing them.

Did you make use of informers?
We had mukhbirs in the villages who’d tip us on whom to kidnap. They’d tells us which houses had money and give us a layout about the village, and its streets.

To make sure the informers didn’t turn against us, we kept their children. After we kidnapped somebody, these same people would take our ransom letter to the victim’s house.

What was your greatest accomplishment as a dacoit?
Once we kidnapped a Congress politician called Om Prakash. We got a duplicate police van made and even got a fake SP badges and police uniforms. We abducted him on a busy street in broad daylight.

A Congress politician?
Well, he was a district president of the Congress party in Etah.

What do you think about the Bollywood’s representation of dacoits?
It was way different. They show them cruel and dark with friendly horses—we didn't have motherfucking horses! We used to travel in cars, sometimes provided by police and politicians.

Look at how the film industry made a hero out of Phoolan Devi. Later she became a politician. She didn’t deserve the fame and attention that came her way. She was not a big dacoit. It was more hype than substance.

Did you ever take time off from dacoity? Did you ever go to a beach or something?
Yeah we used to holiday, every six months or so. However, we mostly used to go to temples to seek blessings. I went on a darshan to Ma Kaila Devi lots of times .

Apart from temples, I have been to a number of places in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan—places like Etah, Etawah and Mainpuri. I would call a jeep or something and just wear dhoti-kurta like the people used to wear in those days. Mere chehre pe thodi likha tha ki main dacoit hoon. [It was hardly written on my forehead that I was a dacoit.]

How and when did you decide to surrender to the police?
I surrendered with 106 other dacoits on 30th November, 1982 in front of the then-Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Arjun Singh. The police had been asking us to surrender for along time because they knew they wouldn’t be able to capture us. There was a politician, Babu Lal Solanki who mediated and told the Chief Minister about our demands.

What were your demands?
We had almost 32-33 demands. We refused to be handcuffed when we surrendered or during the court proceedings. We also wanted a B-class jail, 20 feet of land , education funds for our children and some of the criminal charges to be dismissed.

During the time you were breaking the law, weren’t you afraid of death?
The day I left my village for the Beehad [the ravines of Chambal], I knew that I was going to die anyway. Death was like a cloud over my head, all the time. You can’t think about death otherwise you won’t be able to do anything. When our gang members were killed, we grieved, mourned and then planned our revenge.

What do you tell you children and grandchildren about those days?
I have four sons and daughter-in-laws in my family and a number of grandchildren. They are doing good in life. One of my son is in the army, another one has a business. I only tell them that what I did was wrong. It was a bad path that I had chosen and I regret it.