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There should be no soft options

Daddy, if it ever happens to me, you should never, ever, release anyone!" That, according to the late Rajiv Gandhi, was his daughter's reaction to the surrender of prisoners after militants captured Rubaiya Sayeed, daughter of the then Union home minister.

Did that conversation ever actually take place? I have no idea. But that is what Rajiv Gandhi told the Lok Sabha, and he was speaking with all the authority of the leader of the Opposition. And I am yet to meet anyone, particularly in the Congress, who disputes the story. May we then conclude that was, and is, the last word on the subject as far as the Congress is concerned? Not on your life!

The Rubaiya Sayeed incident was the beginning of a series of shameful surrenders by the Government of India. It is a sorry record when you think about it: every possible political combination has bent the knee to kidnappers without a whimper. The V P Singh ministry which started the slide was a Third Front group. The Narasimha Rao government which allowed militants to stroll out of Hazratbal on their own terms was a Congress outfit. And let us not forget what happened at Kandahar on December 31, 1999 -- the most unhappy way to start a new year, if you ask me.

Today, it is the turn of the Congress once again. If it were not some vigilant citizens and the Supreme Court, I am absolutely sure that India would have witnessed the ministry in Bangalore going down on all fours before a crummy sandalwood smuggler. Would anybody care to remind Chief Minister S M Krishna about what Priyanka Vadra supposedly told her father at the breakfast table ten years ago?

In some ways, what is happening in Bangalore today is worse than what happened at Kandahar. Nine months ago, three prisoners were set free to ensure that 125 innocent lives were spared. What is the current situation? Three lives are at stake, but the demand is that 125 crooks are released from prisons in Karnataka.

The public perception of the S M Krishna ministry being spineless is a bit unfair by the way. Let us see: the crime, the kidnapping of Dr Rajakumar, took place in Tamil Nadu. The victim is being held in Tamil Nadu, not Karnataka. But has the government of Chief Minister Karunanidhi even filed a First Information Report against the smuggler?

Assigning blame can, however, be safely left to another day -- hopefully when the Kannada superstar is back home, when Veerappan is no longer up to his old tricks, or both. (There is, I am sure, blame enough for all concerned!) What we -- the Union and state governments and the people of India at large -- require is a game-plan to deal with future incidents of blackmail.

In a democracy, governments react to public pressure as much as they help to create it. So I think it is up to us to take the lead. Going back to what happened after the hijacking of Flight IC-814, I think there was a silent majority against the release of the prisoners. Unfortunately, the chief problem with silent majorities is just that -- they are silent! That permits a vocal minority to hog the headlines. (In all honesty, I do not know how I myself would have reacted had members of my own family or a close friend been aboard that plane. I hope I would have conducted myself otherwise, but that is a desire and not a statement of fact.)

Moving on, let us also fault governments for permitting themselves to be pushed by the media. Individuals, especially those who come under stress, can be forgiven for the occasional display of emotion; governments, however, are expected to have a wider perspective.

It will, of course, be difficult for future governments to adopt a tougher stance, given the pusillanimity of their predecessors. If nothing else, they will lay themselves open to the charge that there is one yardstick when a celebrity is kidnapped and another when 'ordinary' citizens are the victims. I am sorry, but at some point you have to draw a line and say enough is enough.

The first step to that has to be an open admission that Indian governments have been doing everything wrong right down to this day. Let there be an open admission that the Rubaiya Sayeed incident was comprehensively mismanaged. Then, lay down the policy that the Government of India shall not negotiate at the point of the gun. (The external affairs minister has already said as much about Pakistan; why should there be another policy for Pakistan's pawns? Or their imitators such as Veerappan?)

Is it possible, even now, to begin by adopting a harsher tone in Karnataka? Up to now, there has been a tendency to shrink away from harsh measure, the standard explanation being a concern for Rajakumar's life. Is this really a valid excuse?

Veerappan, whatever else you might say of him, has never exhibited any suicidal tendencies. (If anything, he seems to drop hints of coming out of the jungles, perhaps to join politics!) Harming the Kannada superstar is almost guaranteed to bring vengeance upon him; the public outcry would be so great that both Karnataka and Tamil Nadu would be forced to start operations against him. It is possible that under those circumstances the Union government would send in the Indian Army. In other words, harming his victim is the last thing that Veerappan would do.

There is, I am afraid, no real reason why Karnataka and Tamil Nadu are so reluctant to stand up to a bully. In the long run, the best advice was the one offered by the teenaged Priyanka Vadra: come what may, do not offer an exchange of prisoners!

T V R Shenoy