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The Putty Man

Can anybody tell me WHY we need a national policy based on "a consensus rather than legislation" to deal with terrorists and brigands? Do governments take surveys before formulating a criminal procedure code...? Why does Union Home Minister L K Advani propagate that a meeting of chief ministers is required to formulate a policy "on basis of a national consensus"? Does he expect valuable inputs from Rabri Devi and R P Gupta...? More ominously, is India's anti-coercion policy to be guided by intellectual and moral contributions from M Karunanidhi and S M Krishna?! Most ominously, will we be safe with Prime Minister Hajpayee -- he who released three deadly terrorists on day 7 of the December hijacking without even letting Indian negotiators play out their gambit -- presiding over the meeting? Are we not in super-deep shit?

The home minister has just said that the aaarrrrgghhhh... "pro-active" policy being pursued by the Centre has started yielding results, in that that "In the last month alone, 222 terrorists were gunned down by the security forces in various encounters. The figure is the highest since militancy reared its head in the Valley." Excuse me, but WHAT is the Centre's role in this achievement of the Indian Army? Because the Centre -- with an emphasis on the PMO -- released the terrorist chiefs, who, in turn, revived their nearly-dead organisations and augmented them with thousands of new jehadis, which, in turn, boosted the morale of other scumbag groups, the Army is *forced* to kill more! It is because of the non-policies of this stupid and insincere government that Indian soldiers are killing more and civilians are dying more. Which is why we won't get the number of *incidents* this year.

If the home minister has a modicum of honour, he should refrain from using this line of argument. For it tells only half the story: More jehadis are entering Kashmir this year -- specifically, since the release of Masood Azhar, who heads the newly formed Jaish-e-Mohammed, and Mushtaq Ahmad Zargar, who commands the Al Umar Mujahideen. It's sickening, the collating of data on the number of soldiers and civilians killed in J&K this year. But it's evident to anybody who merely scans newspaper headlines that the Islamic terrorists have become totally brazen in their operations. They know that the Indian Army is operating with one hand tied behind its back. They know that this is a government that buckles under pressure, whether from human rights groups or foreign countries or Mickey Mouse.

As for the Army, forget the rot doled out by the bureaucrats of the ministry of defence. This is what a dear friend, an officer out there in the killing fields, wrote me: "As always your understanding and feel of the ground realities is perfect. Alas, from all accounts the situation seems to be turning for the worse. There is a definite design to the new militant tactics. And they are succeeding in imposing unacceptable level of caution on the Army units in the Valley. The entire mindset today is defensive. Security of post has stupidly begun to appear the raison d'etre of the units. The Army will have to learn to care a little less for casualties and go out and get them. It is time to take greater chances, to risk it more." So much for all those press releases implying that the security forces are happy with the government's policies.

Whether the April 23 attack on Badami Bagh or the September attack on the Beerwa camp, or the explosions in the Idgah locality of Srinagar in February, or the 18 August massacre of Hindus at Kot Dhara, or the series of attacks known as the Amarnath Yatri massacre, or the massacre of 35 Sikhs in Chatthisinghpora, or the killings of the Hindu villagers in Indeh in August, or the murder of Brigadier B S Shergill and Col Rajinder Chauhan, or the car bomb blast outside the State Bank of India in Srinagar, or the February killings of five Hindu drivers in Qazigund, or the August slaughter of 27 labourers in Qazigund and Acchabal, or the August carnage of an entire family in Kupwara, or the butchery of 11 Hindus in Doda district... etc... etc... ETC -- all the bloodshed rests on the head of the leader of this boneless government. Instead of that solitary knee, spine transplants for the entire Cabinet would have been beneficial -- for the country, too.

The August 21 issue of Outlook wrote, "Mr Advani differed with Mr Vajpayee on the issue of giving in to the demands of the hijackers at Kandahar and releasing the jailed terrorists. True to formula, there were rumours he'd threatened to resign. And though Mr Advani earned brownie points with the Sangh for his tough line, in the end Mr Vajpayee had his way... During an interview to Outlook last year, Mr Advani admitted the compulsions of governance sometimes overrides ideology." Then, The Hindustan Times of October 13 quoted the home minister on the Amarnath Yatri massacre: "I was so upset by the news that I went to the leader of my party and said that I wanted to resign." Vir Sanghvi wrote, "In fact, [Advani] says, too much is made of ideology. These days, people want governance and that is largely ideologically-neutral. 'I have been criticised for saying this. But I believe that it is true'."

Integrity demands that when one fails, and fails so resoundingly, one resigns. One doesn't simply threaten to resign and then let people know of one's turned-down offer of resignation. And one certainly does not say things like, "At least two members of the Congress party met me privately and said that if I resigned, then it would be a victory for those who had planned the killings"; since when do the thoughts of Congresswallahs count so much with an RSS man...? One puts one's foot down when malicious Pakistani terrorists who've caused havoc in J&K are about to be released; one revolts when the Army is told to implement a ceasefire in Kashmir. Especially since J&K happens to be one's special portfolio. Also, one doesn't suddenly begin to talk about an ideological neutrality in governance when it's convenient to do so. Or it stinks -- to high heaven. It reveals that one is no different from the likes of Buta Singh and what-have-you who preceded one. It shows that all that crap about nation-before-self was just that -- crap.

It's entirely probable that the duffers of the Sangh Parivar buy such dodges; independent folks, however, eventually see through bullshit. This was brought forcefully to my notice when one reader wrote, "I read this in The Times of India, 'Centre ready to help in Rajkumar crisis: Advani.' Perhaps it's the home minister's turn to accompany the terrorists to the (in-house) kidnapper's base after the minister for external affairs did it for the (foreign) kidnappers in Kandahar." Another wrote: "Shame on people like Advani who regret only long after the actual tragedies (remember the Babri Masjid riots? He later described that 'as the saddest day in my life') and never accept the responsibilities for their actions. What was he doing as a senior member of the party and Cabinet when Jaswant flew to Kandahar?" What we, the non-Parivari nationalists, have now gauged is that the worthy who holds one of the three most important portfolios in government is an overcompliant and easily silenced clerk. What "Iron Man" -- this is Putty Man.

Meanwhile, an unbelievable thing occurred. The Supreme Court, deliberating on petitions filed by Abdul Karim and B L Wadhera challenging the Karnataka and TN governments' decision to free detenues for Rajakumar's release, asked, "Has anybody considered what would be the effect of the release of 51 TADA detenues on witnesses already examined, the witnesses to be examined and society in general? And what would be the effect of their release on the morale of police in general and the Special Task Force in particular?" Hope! There's hope! Hope that the Supreme Court forces a spine into these slugs.

I ask all those blindly-BJP-supporting dorks who rapped me when I assumed my anti-Hajpayee stance: If the parents of the hundreds of soldiers killed in attempts to capture Harkat and Al Umar terrorists had filed PILs during the hijack crisis, would the Court's query have been different...? Who is responsible for the death of, to name just one, "Sepoy Devender Bhati, who fought bravely in the encounter [with Jaish-e-Mohammed militants] and was instrumental in killing a couple of militants, made supreme sacrifice after sustaining bullet injuries" (The Daily Excelsior, Oct 13)?

I put it to you: PM Hajpayee acted unexpectedly swiftly in releasing the terrorists because he did not want to give anybody the time to put together a resistance. No "consensus" was needed then; why is it needed now?

The Supreme Court is especially anxious over the relation between Veerappan and secessionists: "We will take into account the fact that Tamil Nadu has confirmed the association of Veerappan with secessionist elements." "The forest brigand will kidnap someone else tomorrow if he releases Rajakumar today on the acceptance of his demands by the governments of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. Are all these factors considered by the government?" it asked.

I ask you: Except for those writing "Indians" obviously in the pay of Pakistan or China, did anybody doubt Azhar's and Zargar's agenda vis-à-vis the Indian state of Jammu & Kashmir? What has been the outcome of their release? Did this "most popular Prime Minister" consider the country and the good of the people? Did his home minister? If anybody writes me otherwise, here's what I will do: kaana khaali ek vaazveen ("make one's ears ring"). No matter what other nations do, India must legislate that it will never negotiate with outlaws or terrorists. Period. Tomorrow, if another desperado kidnaps Sachin or Lata, will a Hajpayee or Krishna surrender to him, too? The greatest deterrent for criminals is not that they can't commit crimes; the disincentive is the punishment.

I am SICK of the BJP's posturing. We've never had a worse government! As bad, yes; but worse, never. The BJP -- not the rest of the motley fools, mind you -- is reaping the fruits of an economy put in motion by Narasimha Rao, who's now about to be jailed. And these originally-Swadeshi-advancing and ever-nationalism-touting jokers are opening up the IT sector and selling off Air-India and increasing the Haj subsidy. And the idiot populace grins happily at the Sensex (oops, not any more) and then worries over THE KNEE! Bye, I'm leaving to puke.

Stop Press: This morning's BBC News says, "The authorities in the Indian-administered Kashmir say that there has been a phenomenal rise in the number of casualties among the Indian security forces fighting militants. The state junior home minister Mushtaq Ahmed Lone announced that more than two-and-a-half-thousand people have been killed in fighting so far this year -- the highest figure for four years. More than six-hundred of them were security forces -- a far higher number than previous years."

Varsha Bhosle