The Hindu : The hunter and the hunted

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, May 20, 2003

Opinion

Opinion - News Analysis

The hunter and the hunted

By Harish Khare

NEW DELHI MAY 19. Mr. U.N. Biswas, former Joint Director of the Central Bureau of Investigation, is in the news today. He propounded the "conspiracy theory'' which created havoc in national politics during 1996-1997 in the much-talked about fodder scandal in Bihar. As the officer in charge of investigation under judicial protection, Mr. Biswas invented innovative arguments that helped whip up an anti-Laloo Prasad Yadav hysteria in and out of Bihar. The present NDA dispensation owes a debt to him for defining a certain kind of political correctness and that correctness cast the BJP as the paragon of virtue and its political rivals as the practitioners of "corruption.''

However, if any of these arguments were to be applied to Mr. Biswas's current difficulties with the law, he would probably be judged as guilty by association as he judged others to be. Today Mr. Biswas is protesting his innocence; and he is being given the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps justifiably so.

It speaks rather poorly of Mr. Biswas's skills as a police officer that he could not "smell'' all the shady and, probably, criminal activities his tenants were carrying on right under his very nose. But Mr. Biswas can claim to have ceased to be a police officer after his retirement.

It is a different matter that as long as the NDA Government remains in power, he will continue to enjoy the requisite protection. In fact, his name has often figured in the list of possible gubernatorial choices. There is also talk of the Trinamool Congress fielding him as a Lok Sabha candidate.

But Dr. Biswas's current embarrassment is also a reminder of the pitfalls of the culture of accusation. The BJP and its NDA allies have benefited from this in the past; now in Government, its leaders tirelessly advise the media against making hasty and harsh judgments. The hunter is feeling the agony of the hunted.

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