Stockholm Syndrome

The Government, media and Left wing activists act out their farcical parts.

The Government, media and Left wing activists act out their farcical parts.

The very fact that the resolution of the recent hostage crisis in Bihar should be seen largely as a success indicates how low our expectations are, how short our memory. The operation that led to the kidnapping of four policemen had already resulted in the death of seven policemen, and one more was killed while held hostage. Some success, that.

In the middle of the crisis, Swami Agnivesh, referring to the 1999 swapping of three Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorists for passengers on board the hijacked Indian Airlines flight IC 814, said, “Such precedents are not rare in the country and could be applied in this case too, since Maoists are not hardcore terrorists.’’

The incident he refers to took place 11 years ago. We should have learnt a few lessons since, among them the need for a hostage policy specifying if and when we should even consider negotiating with terrorists. The men we had released in 1999 have come back to haunt us often enough. A policy such as this would have ensured that the farce of 1999 need not have been replayed.

Through the crisis, we saw a repeat of much that went wrong then. Television networks that go around spewing much nonsense in the name of nationalism played the same clips of grieving relatives over and over again. The grief of the families was justified, not the use the TV channels made of it. Even as someone who speaks from within the media, I cannot but feel it is time we had a code regulating television. Not every form of voyeurism is justified on the pretext of public interest.

The media, though, did do us the service of providing ample exposure of the hypocrisy of those such as Agnivesh. Even his condemnation of the death of ASI Lucas Tete came with a rider. Nitish, who delayed the initiation of talks, was equally culpable. A man who does not succumb to coercion is now on equal footing with men who kill in cold blood.

 Agnivesh was, of course, bending over backwards to appease those very activists who feel he inadvertently led the police to Maoist spokesperson Azad. But in doing so, far more than the death of Azad (and the Union Government has to account for how he died, despite Chidambaram’s sophistry), he and his ilk are responsible for Tete’s death. 

It is only their insistence on talks, and the support such a suggestion has received from a large number of Left wing activists, that has made Maoists feel that the Government is vulnerable to various forms of pressure. Holding hostages or killing them is only another way of increasing such pressure.

With some bemusement I read a recent comment by Gautam Navlakha of the PUDR, criticising the Government for not going ahead with a dialogue, ‘We want a peaceful resolution to the conflict, we don’t want bloodshed.’ 

It would help if he could come up with a halfway sensible idea for why talks with Maoists should be initiated. Erroneous comparisons are often made with, say, talks with Nagas or various factions in Kashmir. In each of these cases, it is possible to envisage what the talks would involve or what they could achieve. Is there anything the Government could concede that would satisfy Maoists? Perhaps they just might be comfortable with the abrogation of the Indian Constitution and the installation of a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist state.  

I know what my fate will be in such a state. I also know what Gautam Navlakha’s end will be under Maoist rule. Perhaps he has some desire to find out, I don’t. For this very reason, there is a simple message from the crisis—do not negotiate with terrorists who take hostages; don’t talk with Maoists. There is really no difference between the two.

About The Author

Hartosh Singh Bal

Hartosh Singh Bal turned from the difficulty of doing mathematics to the ease of writing on politics. Unlike mathematics all this requires is being less wrong than most others who dwell on the subject.