Criminals have no region, caste or religion

I find little difference between the Kashmiri terrorists and the North Eastern insurgents on the one hand and the Tamil Nadu government on the other. “Any Tamilian anywhere in the world cannot be wrong,” is its mindset. The LTTE of V Prabhakaran in Ceylon or the Tamilians in Malaysia or Myanmar or Mumbai are all wronged by the local governments. They are only Tamilians; not Indians. The latest is the encounter of illegal Tamil woodcutters in Seshachalam Hills in Chittoor district. The AP government has been urging the Tamil Nadu for long to prevent smugglers from entering the Andhra Pradesh territory for smuggling red sanders. Several policemen and forest guards and some civilians who were termed the 'informers' were killed by the smugglers. Not an iota of sympathy was expressed by the Tamil Nadu government or the upholders of civil liberties. Nor have they stopped entering. With impunity, again on 12th April,2015, 61 entered the forest and Nellore Police arrested them. (Hans India, 13th April, 2015.)

The State has to safeguard the civil liberties of the personnel in the law enforcing agencies and the law abiding citizens, who too have a 'Right to their life and personal liberty.’ In the process, it may have to cross the Lakshman Rekha by a few inches. Those killed in the encounter are, by chance, Tamilians. Even if they were to be Andhras, they would not have been spared. In such a case, would TN have raised a similar voice?

Plants, herbs, animals, birds, rodents, reptiles and thousands of other natural resources came to this planet millions of years earlier than the man. They too have a life. Their life too is non-negotiable. Darwin said: Living Things may refer to life, all objects that have self-sustaining processes (biology). His conclusion was “that man with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which extends not only to other men but to the humblest living creature, with his god-like intellect which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of the solar system–with all these exalted powers–Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.”

Hence analysing either spiritually or materially, which interpretation as important, if not more as the logic, flora and fauna have a right to survive; a right accrued to them even before the man was evolved on this planet; hence the concern of environmentalists.

Karnataka was fortunate that sandalwood brigand and ivory smuggler was killed in Tamil Nadu itself.

K C Kalkura