PROFILE : S.M. Krishna,
a hostage of Veerappan's whims
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Unflappable, suave and ever ready with a smart riposte. The Karnataka Chief Minister S.M. Krishna has always been so. Until one day jungle outlaw Veerappan netted the biggest catch of his life. Its about five weeks now that film icon Rajkumar and three others have been in the bandit’s clutches. For S.M.Krishna, life has not been the same ever since.

He had been on a high from the day he took over reins of the state. Donning the mantle of a reformer, he kept Karnataka’s flag flying by wooing international investors. And Bangalore’s reputation as the Other Silicon Valley continued to soar. His stock in the Congress party grew. Dissidence, which shattered many a chief minister in the state, was nowhere in sight. In short, there was nothing more he could have asked for.

Never would he have imagined even in the wildest of dreams that Veerappan would become his first challenge. And what a challenge it has been. Unlike in the past, the prime hostage is no ordinary man. Rajkumar is a living legend and it hurts a Kannadiga’s pride to see him in a despondent state. Added to this is another emotive angle. Veerappan is a Tamil and given the traditional animosity between the aggressive elements in the two states, Krishna and his Tamil Nadu counterpart M. Karunanidhi are faced with the dynamite of a linguistic riot.

It is quite evident that Krishna has lost his composure in the face of what has also been a sort of personal crisis for him. His face, his responses say it all. He slipped badly at a media meet when he referred to the dreaded killer of elephants and men as Veerappan avaru, the suffix being a respectable form of address. It is as if the chief minister himself is in the grip of the Stockholm syndrome.

Krishna and his administration seem totally in awe of the situation. From day one, he began toeing the soft line. There was never a strategy. There is a Special Task Force, on which crores have been spent, exclusively to nab Veerappan, dead or alive. But it has not even been consulted. Even the thought of a rescue operation was not entertained. Nakkeeran’s Gopal became the only hope. And Veerappan’s outrageous demands were being conceded without the slightest hesitation, until the Supreme Court stepped in.

There are no two opinions now that the State has never been able to take a hard line in such situations, be it in the Rubaiya Sayeed case or in the more recent Kandahar hijack. Krishna therefore cannot be singled out for attack either by the courts or anybody else. But in the words of one opposition leader in Karnataka what is missing in the Rajkumar hostage crisis is ‘‘even the semblance of a strategy.’’ ‘‘My argument is that the government should have pursued a carrot and stick policy and not merely a carrot policy where everything that is asked for is given,’’ he says.

It is Krishna’s misfortune that his government is paying for the sins of earlier ones who allowed Veerappan to grow into a monster. But nobody will pat him on the back when the crisis ultimately gets resolved. The attack will only get sharper. There are already murmurs about how development in the state has virtually come to a standstill. Officials who are known to work only under constant pressure are reportedly relaxing as the CM and the entire administration is preoccupied with Veerappan.

It will take considerable effort for Krishna to repair his and the state’s image. His credentials are no doubt impressive. A Fulbright scholar, a union minister during the days of Indira Gandhi and one of the best Speakers the Karnataka Legislative Assembly has ever had. But more than these what will help him in this exercise is his survival instincts. His leader Sonia Gandhi is behind him but rivals in the state Congress are waiting for the crisis to end to mount an attack.

Krishna does not belong to that crowd of public figures who run to godmen for solace. But he sure is god-fearing. He didn’t lose much time in taking a chopper ride to visit a favourite temple of his not many days after Rajkumar’s abduction. The irony is that this temple is located in the verdant Male Mahadeshwara Hills, which is Veerappan territory.

B.S.NAGARAJ

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