If I am ever kidnapped, I hope you never even think of releasing any militants to have me freed!'' Thus said Rajiv Gandhi, then Leader of the Opposition, speaking to the Lok Sabha. He was speaking on the debate that ensued after some terrorists were taken out of gaol to liberate Rubaiya, daughter of the then Union Home Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed. Rajiv Gandhi claimed that he was quoting what his daughter, Priyanka, had told him earlier that day.
As a rule, I am less than interested in what Mrs Priyanka Vadra has to say. But I must confess that I would like to know what she thinks of the manner in which the Government of Karnataka handled the kidnapping of H Nagappa. It was easy to criticise the misdeeds of the National Front administration, but what is her reaction to a ministry run by her own party, the Congress (I)? I am afraid that no politician save one -- which I shall come to later -- has come out of the affair with any credit.
For the record, let me state that no party has a good record when it comes to handling kidnapping. If the National/United/Third Front had its Rubaiya Sayeed affair and the Congress (I) its Nagappa, then the nadir came under the current, Bharatiya Janata Party-led administration three years ago. Or has everyone forgotten the abject surrender of the Indian republic during the hijacking of Flight IC-814?
To refresh everyone's memory, that fiasco ended with the then external affairs minister, Jaswant Singh, escorting Maulana Masood Azhar and his comrades to Taliban-ruled Kandahar. Adding insult to injury, India was asked to pay US $25,000 by way of 'landing rights' so that the Indian Airlines plane carrying the 'negotiators' and a medical team could land in Afghanistan.
To the best of my knowledge, there has been no subsequent effort to make the hijackers pay for this outrage. The murderers of Rupin Katyal are roaming about free as the air, at perfect liberty to commit as many more crimes as they like. In the ignoble history of India's appeasement of criminals, that surrender at Kandahar was by far the worst. (I cannot understand even now why it was necessary to send our external affairs minister in person to bend the knee before Mullah Omar and his disciples.)
So, how does this tie up with the murder of Nagappa? Well, everyone has been shying away from one simple truth: