By welcoming Rajiv’s killers, Tamil Nadu politicians are playing a very dangerous game
RP Ravichandran, one of the killers of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, wants the people of north India to regard him and his fellow assassins as “victims instead of terrorists or killers.” As if north India and south India were two different nations, with Rajiv being from the north and his killers from the south! Ravichandran and his thuggish LTTE cronies would like us believe that they were and are the champions of Tamils, if not the entire south India, but facts suggest otherwise. First, on May 21, 1991, it was not just Rajiv who was murdered but also over a dozen Tamils. Second, such was the revulsion against the LTTE-friendly DMK that in the Assembly polls next month, it was thoroughly trounced. The DMK-led alliance got just seven seats, whereas the coalition headed by the AIADMK and comprising the Congress got 225 out of 234 seats, the biggest electoral victory for an alliance. It was not that the DMK was a small party; the DMK-led had won a landslide in 1989, the DMK alone winning 150 seats. And Ravichandran has the cheek to portray himself as a “victim.” Yet, this should not surprise us. After all, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin welcomed the Supreme Court’s decision to release the six convicts including Nalini Sriharan. He hailed the judgment as “a historic foreword to democratic principles.”
Stalin’s reaction was in tune with his Government’s and his party’s pro-assassins stand. The DMK has long campaigned for the release of the killers. When one of them, AG Perarivalan, was released in May, Stalin felicitated him. It is disheartening to know that the release of Rajiv Gandhi’s was supported by all political parties, except the Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party, in Tamil Nadu. In fact, even the Gandhi family wanted to forgive the killers, but the grand old party as a whole didn’t pay homage to cheap sentimentalism and opposed the release. One wonders what happened to the anti-LTTE mood in the State in the last 31 years. How did the pro-LTTE parties become popular in the State? The DMK and other TN parties might be accused of appealing to the basest instincts of the masses, but sadly they are not the only ones doing that. For instance, the BJP did not cover itself in glory when its leaders felicitated the released convicts of the Bilkis Bano rape and murder case. It is unfortunate that we don’t see any red lines in the Indian political arena. Anything goes: murderers of a prime minister can be lauded; rapists and murders can be honoured. Over a period of time, politics and morality had become estranged with each other; now they have parted ways. The champions of realpolitik snigger at any mention of ethics in politics. They have a point: it is impossible for a practice politician to stick to their principles and beliefs all the time. But, at the same time, it is also harmful to banish all ideals and values from politics.