POLITICS: Debate Rages as India’s Robin Hood Strikes Again

By Ranjit Devraj Reprint | | Print |

Ranjit Devraj

NEW DELHI, Sep 2 2002 (IPS) - Two years after he created a storm by kidnapping for ransom, a popular film star often called India’s Robin Hood has struck again, boldly carrying off a prominent politician into his forest hideout and triggering a new round of finger-pointing about how to capture the elusive brigand.

Veerappan, southern Karnataka state’s most popular film star, brought his latest victim – former state minister H Nagappa – into his forest hideout close to the state border with adjoining Tamil Nadu on the night of Aug. 25.

The fact that a Special Task Force (STF), constituted 10 years ago to catch him, was deployed around the Sathyamangalam forests — Veerappan’s Sherwood — did not deter him from knocking on Nagappa’s well-guarded home a week ago.

Veerappan has survived and even thrived not only because of his superb jungle survival skills but also because of the intense rivalry between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka over a whole host of inter-state issues, including the sharing of the waters of the Cauvery river.

On Monday, Tamil Nadu chief minister Jayalalitha Jayaraman blamed the Karnataka government for the fact that Veerappan is still at large, and alleged that it had paid six million dollars to secure Raj Kumar’s release.

Karnataka chief minister S M Krishna reacted promptly, saying that Jayalalitha’s allegations were nothing but outright lies.

But the fact is that if the Karnataka government did not also release some of Veerappan’s friends from jail as demanded by Veerappan in exchange for the release of an earlier captive, film star Raj Kumar, it was only because of the intervention of the Supreme Court which blandly suggested that any government that could not safeguard the safety of its citizens had better resign.

The apex court observed that if a democratically elected government appeared ready to bend the law and release prisoners, it would breed contempt for the law and invite citizens to become a law unto themselves — as Veerappan seemed to be doing.

“It seems to us certain that Veerappan will continue with his life of crime and very likely his crimes will have anti-national objectives,” the court pronounced prophetically.

And Veerappan has not let the court down, as shown by this latest episode in a life of poaching and crime that openly mocked the might of the Indian state.

In another setting, Veerappan may have been valued for his immense skill in jungle survival techniques and living off the land as well as in guerrilla warfare, as the state tried to close in on him in the high altitude, 16,000 acres of forest land that straddles Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.

Of the 130 people Veerappan is said to have killed over the years, 40 were uniformed men belonging to the police or para-military forces sent into the jungles, sometimes supported by helicopters hovering overhead, to get him. But the hunters became his prey.

Acting on the theory that Veerappan depended heavily on the loyalty of villagers who live in and around the Sathyamangalam forests for intelligence and timely tipoffs, one of the police officers who went after him, Superintendent P Harikrishna, began cultivating the villagers with gifts.

The trick failed to get the villagers to switch loyalties. Veerappan, whose accuracy with a hunting rifle is legendary, later recounted to R R Gopal, editor of the popular Tamil daily ‘Nakkeeran’, how he felled Harikrishna with a single shot to his head and then took away the AK-47 assault rifle that his adversary was armed with.

Another hunter-turned-hunted was Gopalakrishnan, also a superintendent of police. Nicknamed ‘Rambo’ for his bulging muscles and swaggering attitude, Gopalakrishnan bragged to journalists that he would get that “illiterate thief” within a week.

Hearing of it, Veerappan challenged “that buffalo” to come and get him through a message printed in several newspapers. The enraged Gopalakrishnan sped through the jungles with an armed posse only to drive over a strategically placed landmine.

Ten years later, he is still in the United States recovering from multiple injuries.

The editor of ‘Nakeeran’, who has acted as the government’s emissary on several occasions, had no difficult making contact with Veerappan. It has even come away with footage of him with his trademark upturned whiskers praying devoutly to his deities or performing calisthenics which includes jumping though a hoop made by clasping his fingers together.

According to Gopal, Veerappan and his small band survive by being constantly on the move and living off the jungle, carrying on their persons frugal kits consisting of ammunition, medicines and rations. It seems the main items in his arsenal are infinite patience, intimate knowledge of the terrain and careful planning.

‘Nakeeran’ ran several interviews of Veerappan even while the Special Task Force was hunting for him and the editor is now under investigation by the authorities.

After spending a month in captivity, Raj Kumar displayed signs of suffering from the ‘Stockholm syndrome’ and had fulsome praise for his captor. He even advocated a negotiated surrender on the bandit’s terms, which include a political future.

Undoubtedly Veerappan’s demands are inspired by Phoolan Devi, who succeeded in becoming a member of Parliament in spite of the mass murders she was supposed to have carried out in revenge for her rape and humiliation by the landowning Thakur community of northern Uttar Pradesh state.

Phoolan Devi met her end far away from the wild ravines of Chambal in central India, where she reigned supreme as the legendary ‘Bandit Queen’. She was shot dead in broad daylight by a Thakur in July 2001 outside her official home in New Delhi, a stone’s throw away from Parliament.

Veerappan’s end is now under study by the Tamil Nadu and Karnataka chief ministers who have, despite irreconciliable differences, pledged to hunt him down if they have to flood the forests to do it.

The difficulty is that they have to find a way of doing that without compromising the safety of the hostage, Nagappa. It might just be easier to give Veerappan the amnesty he has asked for in the past and even let him stand for elections.