Veerappan, the bandit who reigned supreme in the jungles of South India was killed on Tuesday and buried on Sunday. His blood stained dramatic life spanning over three decades on the run came to an anti climactic end, as is often the case with criminals.
His saga may have ended with his death but lessons one could draw from India’s experience with him will live on.
A close look at his limited but powerful terror network reveals that apart from relying on violence for survival he, too, had made himself attractive to a section of the populace in whose eyes he is still a hero. It is little surprise that in those rural backwaters, he managed to project himself as the Robin Hood of India letting crumbs fall off his table for the consumption of the poor. Thus, he found his way into the hearts of thousands who had no other way to give vent to their pent up frustration. To the voiceless, he was a gun-totting knight charging at the dragons of oppression and their support for him may have made it difficult for the Indian police to bring him to justice.
According to a BBC report, at his funeral some mourners had cursed the police who had killed him. They had said by killing him the police had incurred the wrath of gods.
Veerappan was a character wrapped in layers of myth and heroics like the protagonists of olden ballads. Any criminal usually spawns a coterie of admirers who sing hosannas to him. Even mass murderers like Hitler and Idi Amin were not short of followers who were prepared to kill or even die for them. Veerappan was no exception.
The problem that Veerappan had in that part of India was that he could not hijack an ethno-religious cause to justify his terror project. This prevented him from gaining international support unlike his soulmate across the Palk Strait and as a result had none to stand in the way of the Special Task Force of Tamil Nadu, which closed in on him and sent three bullets through his head.
A jubilant Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayaram Jayalalitha proudly announced the death of Veerappan: "It is with a sense of pride and fulfilment that I wish to announce ... the good news that the notorious forest brigand, bandit, murderer and dacoit Veerappan, along with his entire gang, has been shot dead." But it is intriguing what India, which accomplished the mission of eliminating Veerappan within just ten months, had been doing for over thirty years. Why the Tamil Nadu leaders had balked at going for the kill previously is also a question that needs to be answered.
In a way, why India took so long to get him is understandable given the failure of the mighty US to track down its bete noire, bin Laden. Despite having the best military machine on the planet at its disposal, the US has been trying to capture Osama the Elusive for years.
As much as Bush is trying to pull bin Laden out of his hat closer to the polling day so as to kick Senator Kerry out of the ring, bin Laden must be working overtime with a view to launching an offensive devastating enough to turn America against Bush. Terrorists always have an edge over democratically elected leaders. For they have to be lucky only once. Others have to be lucky all the time.
With the killing of Veerappan, India will now be able to bury its past tainted with failure to deal with a brigand for so long. But its humiliation is far from over. Across the Palk Strait, it has the killers of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi at large. That they had links with Veerappan is well known. How India is going to handle the issue of bringing assassins of Rajiv to justice, remains to be seen.
