POLITICS-INDIA: Govt. ‘Soft’ with Film Star’s Abductor – Critics

By Ranjit Devraj Reprint | | Print |

Ranjit Devraj

NEW DELHI, Sep 11 2000 (IPS) - The over month-long abduction of a highly popular Indian film star by the country’s most wanted outlaw has once again revived charges that the Indian state is going ‘soft’.

South Indian cinema star Rajkumar may have been freed from the jungle hideout of his captor Veerappan by now, but for a Sep. 1 ruling by India’s Supreme Court.

The apex court has stayed the release from jail of 115 men of the Tamil National Liberation Army (TNLA) as demanded by the legendary bandit who has, for years, eluded police forces specially created for his capture.

The governments of southern Tamil Nadu and Karnataka states had agreed to this demand to end the country’s most sensational abduction since the December 1999 hijack of an Indian Airlines plane to Afghanistan by Kashmiri militants, shortly after its take off from the Nepalese capital.

The critics say that authorities are again buckling under pressure, thereby showing “weakness”, which would only encourage more such crimes.

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government was criticised for yielding to the hijackers’ demand to free their jailed colleagues.

This time the Tamil Nadu and Karnataka governments have been pulled up by the Supreme Court.

The apex court was not impressed by Karnataka’s plea that the continued captivity of the 73-year-old Rajkumar could lead to serious ethnic clashes between the people of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

The two adjoining states are home to ethnically different people. Veerappan, who roams the jungles bordering the two states, belongs to a low caste Tamil group, which sees the bandit as a saviour.

Communal clashes have broken out in past between the people of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka over the sharing of the water of the common river Cauvery.

Rajkumar belongs to Karnataka and his abduction sparked off riots in the state capital Bangalore.

“It is the Karnataka government’s job to maintain law and order. If you (the Karnataka government) cannot do it, quit and make way for somebody who can,” declared the Supreme Court.

But even after that stern order, the chief ministers of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu have publicly said they would still try to find a way of getting around the court’s ruling and satisfy Veerappan’s demands.

The two states, which rarely agree with each other, are said to be working together this time because both stand to gain by meeting Veerappan’s demands.

The jailed TNLA men belong to Tamil Nadu’s Vanniyar caste, to which Veerappan also belongs. They are said to have links with Sri Lankan Tamil Tiger rebels.

The Vanniyar community forms nearly a fifth of Tamil Nadu’s population and state chief minister Muthuvel Karunanidhi’s Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) party is keen to please this group ahead of forthcoming state assembly elections.

The federal government has refused to intervene on the grounds that law and order is a responsibility of the states under the Indian Constitution.

However, Indian President K R. Narayanan has publicly indicated his displeasure with the handling of the abduction by the two state governments.

Well-known Indian law enforcement officials have also been critical of the two governments.

K.P.S. Gill, a former top Indian police official, who is credited with crushing the over decade-long Sikh separatist militancy in northwestern Punjab state in the early 1990s, has rapped the country’s politicians for playing politics with law and order.

Media commentators also disapproved of the state governments’ decision to free the jailed men.

“India’s political establishment has easily surrendered to the blackmail of hostage-takers. In succumbing to Veerappan, the governments of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu have travelled a road which was laid much earlier,” said ‘The Hindu’ newspaper.

The daily listed the release of Kashmiri militants by the Vajpayee government to resolve the hijack and a similar action a decade ago by former Prime Minister V.P. Singh’s government to free a cabinet minister’s daughter held by Kashmiri militants.

Accused of capitulating to Veerappan’s demands, the chief ministers of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu have cited the Vajpayee government’s handling of last year’s hijack.

“Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh even escorted the militants to Kandahar to personally hand them over to the hijackers,” said Karnataka Chief Minister S.M. Krishna.

Journalist R.R. Gopal who is shuttling in and out of Veerappan’s jungle hideout as mediator, reported that the Veerappan too used the same argument.

However, the BJP’s hardline associates have defended the Vajpayee government’s action on the hijack.

According to M. G. Vaidya, spokesperson of the pro-Hindu Rashtriya Swayam Sewak (RSS), which is said to be the BJP’s ideological mentor, there is a difference between Kandahar and Karnataka.

“The hijacking happened on foreign soil and we can understand the Taliban or Pakistan not cooperating, but why can’t the two state governments cooperate and nab this bandit?” he argued.