?Biggest Internal Security Threat? Became the ?Essence of Freedom?

Talking to India Today TV, Former Minister of Home Affairs and Congress leader, P Chidambaram remarked about the arrest of Maoist sympathiser Varavara Rao, in the following words, “…But to go after Varavara Rao, the most celebrated poet in Andhra Pradesh for 50 years, a revolutionary by his admission, someone who holds extremely Left views, so what? This is the essence of freedom!”

What happened to Mr Chidambaran, who in the UPA-II administered Operation Green Hunt to comb out Maoists from Dandakaranya in Chhattisgarh? Where is that Mr Chidambaram who felt that the Supreme Court judgement on the disbanding of Salwa Judum will impact on the anti-Naxal operations? Why that Mr Chidambaram went in hiding created a ‘fear psychosis’ among the Urban Naxals by booking activists and Naxal sympathisers like Dr Binayak Sen, Arun Ferreira, Vernon Gonsalves, and many others under Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967? Perhaps that Mr Chidambaram was acting under his PM Dr Manmohan Singh’s realist prophecy that “Naxalism remains the biggest internal security challenge facing our country.”

However, the same former Home Minister and his Congress party tend to take opposite positions when they are not in the Government. How does the ‘biggest internal security challenge’ become the ‘essence of freedom’ in a matter of few years?

Varavara Rao, whom Mr Chidambaram has identified only as a ‘celebrated poet’ and says that he has no issues with Rao’s radical and violent ideas, is dismissing the facts of history!

Rao is one of the founders of Viplava Rachayitala Sangahm (Revolutionary Writers’ Association), popularly known by its acronym Virasam, that supports and propagates Naxalite ideology and practice. He has been arrested earlier on many occasions for propagating the Naxal ideology through literary activism. Under NT Rama Rao Govt in Andhra Pradesh 1980s, with Rajiv Gandhi-led Central Government, Rao was arrested in 1985. Six cases were foisted against him in 1985 alone. His interviews were restricted, and he was kept under severe surveillance. His mails, including registered newspapers, were censored for months together. He was implicated in two more cases while he was in jail. One of them was another conspiracy case by name, Ramnagar Conspiracy Case. Rao was acquitted in 2003.

He was again arrested in 2005 when the deceased Congress leader YS Rajasekhara Reddy was the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh. It has been reported that Rao shouted “long live revolution” as he was detained then.

Does Mr Chidambaram doesn’t know all this about Rao? Surely, he does. He knew all this well when he was the Home Minister of the country. But, Congress DNA in his modus operandi ignored these facts to compromise the national sovereignty and integrity.

Another prominent Congress leader Salman Khurshid, who was, Minister of Law and Justice in 2011-12 in UPA-II, has made another appalling observation regarding the recent arrests of Maoist activists and sympathisers in connection to Bheema-Koregaon probe. Khurshid has been reported as saying, “Are the arrests of Maoist thinkers about the fear that their revolutionary zeal is a threat to the State or is it an attack on Dalit aspiration? How dare the disadvantaged challenge crony capitalism disguised as populist governance? Mere words for food, justice?”

Mr Khurshid is in a mode of denial, like his other party colleagues. The Congress party and UPA are now going all out in support of these self-styled activists, prejudicing the case, by already declaring them innocent, even though some of those arrested were convicted earlier by courts for similar offences. The same UPA in December 2012 had identified 128 organisations linked to the Naxals and written to all States asking them to take action against those people involved with such organisations.

Pune police investigating the case confirmed that Varavara Rao, Sudha Bhardwaj, Surendra Gadling, Rona Wilson, Arun Ferreira, Vernon Gonsalves and Mahesh Raut are all part of organisations that are on the list of those 128 organisations which was shortlisted by the UPA Government in 2012.

It is highly unfortunate that a prominent national party like the Indian National Congress is willingly compromising the national interest and integrity to acquire an upper hand in politics. What else can explain the double standards of the Congress party?