It's the kind of news item that tends to get buried under others of heavier national importance; for it hardly has any news value that any journalist worth one's salt would ascribe to it. This particular news item one read was about 36 former militants being appointed on Saturday as constables in the Jammu and Kashmir police. No big deal, that. In any case, nothing new about such a measure either.
It is not the news item in itself that is a cause for worry – reading between its lines is, and also by going beyond the straightjacket, desultory headline.
Prima facie, it is like this. For one, the State is rehabilitating former militants. Very noble indeed. And second, the State is making good use of their skillsets. Very thoughtful indeed. A year from now it will make the state and central governments, in turn, tabulate these numbers and come up with claims. Very tall claims, you will realise. About how sincere it is about tackling militancy in Jammu and Kashmir. About how effective its counter-insurgency measures are in that troubled state.
What these governments will desist from telling us is the dangerous games that they play in the bargain. Both with people's lives, as well as their arguably ineffectual measures in tackling militancy in Jammu and Kashmir.
It would come across to one as if these men are good for nothing except at violence. Keeping them engaged in hostilities is good for them. They were foolish enough for fight for someone else's cause at one time. And they are still just as imprudent. They are fighting for someone else's cause even now – those of the state and central governments.
Setting a thief to catch a thief makes for a good Hitckcockian film. In real terms, it is just playing politics – with your own people.
Were the governments to care for these young men, they would have ensured that these people stayed as far away from bloodshed as would have been feasible. There is something grotesquely wrong with people who kill. There is something extremely inhuman about people who kill for other people's causes and political ends. It pays for governments in power to keep such men caught up in that cycle of blood, killings and unbridled tension. It pays to keep them inhuman as can be.
The Indian government has followed this practice for long in the Northeast. Men who were insurgents one day, either were drafted into the state police forces or even into those like the Border Security Force the next. It was the Hiteswar Saikia government in Assam that adopted the most unabashed approach by using the former rebels of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) for his parochial ends.
The government overtly and covertly made use of those who had ostensibly given up the path of violence. Before long, the so-called SULFA or surrendered ULFA (sic) became an extra-constitutional force. They were there to do all the dirty jobs that there were to be done. That, they did. With impunity. And they are still at it as and when duty beckons. Or, whoever beckons.
Regimes of the day will forever look for fall guys – and who better than former militants. Our rulers will carry on with their nefarious and surreptitious gameplans at the mcaro level. And at the micro one, news items as the one in question will continue to remain inconsequential.
