PALINI R. SWAMY writes from Bangalore: A very powerful chief minister of a very large State goes missing over a very dense forest reputedly infested with very vengeful Maoist elements. His very large party goes into a very large tizzy and pulls out all stops to trace his whereabouts.
The Indian Air Force is drafted. The Indian Satellite Research Oorganisation jumps in. Even the US defence department plunges in. Helicopters, fighter aircraft, low-flying reconnaisance aircraft, refuellers, river boats all join the hunt. Army men, CRPF personnel, anti-Naxal Greyhound cops and other security chaps come in.
Chenchu tribals on the ground work with spies in the sky. Night-vision goggles, thermal imaging devices are all used. Less than 24 hours later, Yeduguri Sandinti Rajasekhara Reddy is revealed to have unwittingly fulfilled his promise of political retirement at the age of 60.
Seeing such electric inter-governmental efficiency and action directed to save one man (and his four co-passengers) from the thick of the jungles of Nallamalla, my mind raced back to the days of Koose Muniswamy Veerappan Gounder whose tragicomic show went on unhindered for all of 17 years.
Approximately 148,920 hours.
What if YSR-style force and might (and intent) had been used when Veerappan, to give the man his media moniker, was running riot in the forests of B.R. Hills and M.M. Hills, in Kollegal and Gundial, and challenging the might of three State governments—Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala—and of successive governments at the Centre?
What if the various governments and their home ministries, our netas and babus, had showed the same seriousness or purpose with a rampaging brigand as they did with a popular chief minister instead of allowing the “pursuit” and “hunt” look like a joke it had become till his death?
Would the lives of 184 people have been saved?
Would the policemen—Shakeel Ahmed, Harikrishna and countless others—and forest officers like P. Srinivas who walked into ambushes have been around? Would MLA H. Nagappa be alive today? Would the kidnapping of Dr Raj Kumar have been avoided? Would R.R. Gopal have become such a landmark figure in journalism?
Would the police forces of at least two States have been not reduced to caricatures?
Comparing 9/11 with the tsunami gets a world, which knew neither, all charged up.
Maybe we should get closer home and start comparing Veerappan and YSR, about both of whom we have seen, read and heard, to understand the difference.
The difference between action and inaction, between life and death, between comedy and tragedy, between VVIP and common citizenry. The difference, really, between 148,920 hours and 24, which, for the academically inclined, is 148,896 hours.
Graphic: courtesy The Telegraph, Calcuta
Tags: Churumuri, Dr Raj Kumar, Nakkeeran, Sans Serif, Veerappan, Y. Rajasekhara Reddy, YSR
5 September 2009 at 5:38 pm
For that matter, would the Centre have done the same thing had a lesser Congress CM – or worse – a BJP CM gone missing?
5 September 2009 at 5:41 pm
Why should we bring culprits to justice that easily? Isn’t it good fun for the people to read that news about hide and seek game?
Well, after all politicians need some sort of protection from Veerappan! YSR is a different story… he is the CM… We must use the entire army to spot him if required. But for some brigand like veerappan? Nah!
5 September 2009 at 6:07 pm
Hi. I remember attending J H Patel’s press conference at the Bangalore Press Club. When someone asked him the reason for not being able to catch Veerappan even though he had by then killed several police officers including an IPS officer, he replied that there is no need to deploy the entire police force to catch a rat. What a rat Veerappan eventually turned out to be: He ended up kidnapping matinee idol Raj Kumar. The state had to pay a heavy ransom apart from losing Raj Kumar. Because, as many say, hardship in the jungle, told on his health.
Look at the way the media covered the events leading to the discovery of YSR’s death because of the copter’s crash. I am not sure if any newspaper talked about the others who were in the copter: about their families and their agony. Weren’t those who travelled with YSR human beings. As if this is not enough, Indian Express carries a report today stating that the pilot who flew the copter was not in the right frame of mind raising suspicion about his intentions. You guys need to be ashamed of running such a story. The next thing you will find is that each of the family members of the pilot will get lynched by a crazy mob in Andhra Pradesh. Indian Express ought to know what is an exclusive and what is not. It is another matter that Express treats its own employees with the same contempt: asking its sub editors to find their own transport after the night shift and leaving them at the mercy of baying dogs in the middle of the night. You can’t expect better from Indian Express anyway.
5 September 2009 at 6:26 pm
they can still do it to wipe out Maoists and Naxals… Continue the search, comb entire forest for hideouts… Finish them for once…
5 September 2009 at 6:57 pm
Sigh.
5 September 2009 at 6:58 pm
I agree with enidhi.
5 September 2009 at 10:00 pm
Good point by Shining Tumkur! …”As if this is not enough, Indian Express carries a report today stating that the pilot who flew the copter was not in the right frame of mind raising suspicion about his intentions. You guys need to be ashamed of running such a story. The next thing you will find is that each of the family members of the pilot will get lynched by a crazy mob in Andhra Pradesh. Indian Express ought to know what is an exclusive and what is not. It is another matter that Express treats its own employees with the same contempt: asking its sub editors to find their own transport after the night shift and leaving them at the mercy of baying dogs in the middle of the night. You can’t expect better from Indian Express anyway….”
6 September 2009 at 2:43 am
the large scale hunt seems to indicate that YSR was a bigger criminal than Veerappan.
6 September 2009 at 5:45 am
Indian Space Research Organization.
There’s something called “getting the facts straight” in journalism.
6 September 2009 at 6:13 am
Is YSR another LN Mishra story!?
6 September 2009 at 10:45 am
Did anyone at anytime really hunted for Veerappan?
Wasn’t the crorers spent supposedly to catch Veerappan disappearing into the ‘black hole’?
In the end even the ‘encounter death’ created suspicion in the minds of the people who were following the ‘drama’.
Yes, if someone had really searched for Veerappan with the same enthusiasm as that was shown in the Nallamala forest, Veerappan would have become history long time back.
Wishful thinking, probably! But then Veerappan made many stinking rich..through his ivories and sandalwood.. and also through the ‘search money’ ear marked for his head.
6 September 2009 at 7:35 pm
Here are some reasons why doing all those things wouldn’t work with Veerappan
1. Veerappan was mobile, not lying dead at one spot like YSR’s body
2. Veerappan was actually trying not to be found, unlike YSR’s dead body and chopper
3. Veerappan’s “area of influence” is several magnitudes larger than Nallamala
4. Terrain in the B.R.Hills is very favourable for hiding, unlike the Deccan Plateau
5. ATC had a rough idea of where to look for YSR’s chopper. At the best of times, we only knew Veerappan was somewhere in the B.R.Hills
6. As a pilot myself, I know the thinking process of other pilots which would help me while doing a search and rescue operation. You would think that a policeman should be able to think like a bandit, but let’s give them the benefit of the doubt
The most important reason however, is that people wanted to find YSR. There were powerful people who did not want Veerappan found. Let us also not forget that all the resources to find YSR notwithstanding, the death toll is roughly the same considering the several idiots who took their lives, died of shock, or died in stampedes.
Finally, what found YSR was not the fancy equipment deployed by the governments (whoever heard of a fighter jet pressed for search and rescue!! It’s like looking for lost keys on the road while driving at 80 kmph), but good old fashioned eyeballs in another chopper.
6 September 2009 at 8:03 pm
i have a sneaking suspicion that there is a reason why he was finally brought down by TN police instead of KA police. I think it was stage managed to contain the fallout and prevent him from being a martyr to ta cause. I mean, martyrs to ta cause are always desirable, but this one was causing lot of bad blood between inescapable neighbours and thus posed a danger to NRTs. so they bumped him off.
wonder what sunaad has to say about this. he wrote the book on our fav aane kaLLa. so he must know some inside stories that we are not privy to.
despite all this touch wood we have some of the best protected greens in all of the country and prolly world also. work of karanth and sundry other nameless faceless workers from mysore. lets keep it that way.
6 September 2009 at 11:56 pm
Sunaad and Vijendra Rao, both wrote about Veerappan.
Vijendra Rao even alleges that Sunaad plagiarised his book and had sued him, wonder what happened to that suit?
7 September 2009 at 5:50 am
tsubba,
Is n’t this the same Sunaad involved in the court case with his one-time close friend (?) for pilfering notes for his Coffee-table book on Veeappan? Probably Sunaad needs more notes!!!!! Watch out!!!
7 September 2009 at 8:51 am
conspicuous by its absence is the list of also reads. for a forum that wear its evanjelism on its sleeve, the pointers to the list pointing to the mafia-giri of YSR is surely not absent by a clerical oversight.
7 September 2009 at 9:02 am
G3S, they were using sukhoi for thermal mapping capabilities. not for jingchak. curiously though that didnt work. prolly the green cover and rains and the fact that the actual wreckage was found under some cliffs. all in all i think there is more than meets the eye.
7 September 2009 at 1:43 pm
TS,
Now Santhanam will claim “Sukhoi’s are useless! The thermal mapping yield-e was less than …”
8 September 2009 at 12:29 pm
Well, what if the Congress govt had shown half this agility in trying to protect people from the Jihadis on 26/11 ?