Plain speaking at last

It took the Supreme Court to call a halt to the farce and spell out a few home truths in the kidnap drama which began when Veerappan spirited away Rajkumar over a month ago. The apex court has not only indefinitely stayed the release of Veerappan’s associates by the Karnataka government, it has also roundly reprimanded the government for succumbing to such patently "illegal and unreasonable" demands of the bandit. On the state’s plea that grave consequences such as civil unrest may follow, the bench reminded the government that it was its responsibility to maintain law and order. And that if it was not equal to that task, it may quit and make way for a dispensation that can. This plainspeaking by the apex court is wholly welcome. For far too long, a whole nation has been helpless witness as a petty thug dictated terms to two state governments and got away with it.

Having said that, however, there is a question here. Why did it need the Supreme Court to pronounce what any right-thinking citizen could havepointed out to the governments of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, and what they themselves ought to have known all along? That there can be no legitimate grounds for succumbing to the brigand’s blackmail, that this would only be "compounding negligence upon negligence upon negligence…" That the court needed to intervene at all only further underlines the all-round abdication of responsibility by the state in the face of the brigand’s challenge. Ever since Veerappan carried away the Kannadiga matinee idol into the jungle, the governments of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu have appeared completely helpless; they have shown no signs of any resolve to meet the situation. As they have rushed to meet the robber’s demands one after the other, there has been no suggestion of any strategy to find a more honourable way of rescuing Rajkumar other than abjectly succumbing to his abductor’s blackmail.

Instead, the governments of S. M. Krishna and M. Karunanidhi have been all too willing accomplice to the thief’s self-serving posturing now as Robin Hood, and then as Tamil revolutionary. In a sense, this abject capitulation was not surprising. It only followed the pattern of the state’s response to the criminal down the years that has made it possible for him to successfully remain at large. Despite the police forces of two states and the Special Task Force, and notwithstanding the tax payers’ money that has been spent ostensibly to nab him so far. In this scenario, the governments’ plea that they were meeting Veerappan’s demands for the larger good has transparently seemed like a feeble fig leaf meant to cover up their unresisting surrender.

It is true that it is the responsibility of the state governments to assure the safe return of the much-loved matinee idol. It is also true that the failure to accomplish this may be fraught with a larger danger it may spark off long-simmering tensions between communities. But with all the formidable resources at its command, can not the state figure out a means of rescuing Rajkumar without caving in to the brigand’s every whim? It is sad that it took the highest court in the land to frame this most simple, most obvious, of questions.