Labels matter

From the rage over the transportation of the bodies of the four Chhattisgarh policemen killed in a Maoist-triggered blast in a garbage truck,one important thing has been salvaged. The outcome of the sad episode is the honouring of the four slain in the line of duty as martyrs. While its often argued that Indian police and paramilitary personnel get little respect in both life and death,the use of this one word by one and all shows how the advocates of relativism vis-a-vis Maoists have lost the argument. The public outrage has lit up the place those who fight,and often die,to protect our life and liberty occupy in the states and publics conception of things. Yes,they are martyrs,certainly in the sense they are dutiful heroes,deserving of honour and our respect,whose sacrifice cannot be compared,still less equated,with the deaths of the sanguinary insurgents they battle.

It is an important distinction,given the blurring of the lines we had been witnessing,for instance,with the participation of activist and physician Binayak Sen in the Planning Commission meetings. An ambivalence has prevailed among advocates of a certain relativism between the policeman and the militant. This is a distortion of the discourse,and it has been the agenda of Maoist sympathisers.

The equation between those who wield arms to safeguard the life,livelihood and constitutional liberties of citizens and those who use weapons to cynically wreck the same was not only spurious but also the most grievous injury that could be done to these police and paramilitary men.

The war on Naxalites had been bolstered and doubly legitimised by taking on the intellectual defenders of Maoist violence. That anti-Naxal strategy,along with the facts of Maoist brutality,had exposed the Maoist sympathisers position for the vacuum it is. The Kirandul episode,despite the additional,unnecessary grief it caused the kin of the slain,has put the question of who and what these policemen are beyond any scope of doubt.