RUMBLE IN THE JUNGLE
13 years after his team eliminated Veerappan, K Vijay Kumar has written an insightful book
Just like how, in Sholay, Gabbar measured his terror by the fact that parents frightened their children to sleep by mentioning his name, kids of the 1990s were often terrorised into sleeping by a mention of Veerappan. However, the people who lost the most sleep in anticipation of the moustachioed brigand’s moves were the men of the Tamil Nadu-Karnataka Special Task Force (STF). 13 years later, the then Tamil Nadu STF chief K Vijay Kumar, who led the team that terminated the Veerappan saga during 2004’s Operation Cocoon, has come out with an insightful chronicle of the 20-year- long fight. Incidentally, the only child to have died at Veerappan’s hands was his own newborn daughter. Apparently, Veerappan was shaken after a close shave with the authorities and was not about to let anything compromise his location in the jungle. To a man with such motives, a newborn baby with 110 decibel cries was a liability. A simple gesture to the midwife did the job. This ruthless sacrifice is said to have stunned his gang of 100 or so jungle dwellers and ensured their utter loyalty.
The long fight between the STF and their A-1 (accused-1/Veerappan) raged fo r over two decades, but the story in the book dates all the way to the brigand’s early days. Koose Muniswamy Veerappan was born in the village of Gopinatham border- ing the deciduous forest that he would later reign over. Introduced to guns at a young age, he became a perfect shot and was charged with poaching as a boy. Fleeing the authorities, he took refuge in the jungle and, as Kumar writes, “The rest is history”. Since his start in the Indian Police Services (IPS), Kumar’s career had been everything a ‘man of action’ could ask for, with postings everywhere from Tamil Nadu to Kashmir, and all the way up to Rajiv Gandhi and J Jayalalithaa’s security detail. But it was in June 2001 that he got the job he had long wished for. On J Jayalalithaa’s return as Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Kumar was recalled to head the Tamil STF along with Walter Davaram as the Joint Chief of both the Karnataka and Tamil Nadu forces. Kumar has dedicated the book to J Jayalalithaa. The late Tamil Nadu chief minister seems to fly through the pages as the commander of a shining army fighting the darkness of the jungle. Jayalalithaa was famous for ruling her party with a firm hand and her resolve in putting an end to the ‘sandalwood smuggler’s menace’ was just as firm. When the former Karnataka minister H Nagappa was kidnapped, the minister’s wife visited Amma to urge her to accept Veerappan’s demands and stop all STF operations. Of course, Jayalalithaa refused.
This book is a testament to the courage of the STF officers. Reading about Operation Boston and Operation Cocoon, is like watching a top-notch thriller. Though the world is now struggling to deal with external threats, the Veerappan episode showed how an internal threat can shake a state. Incidentally, this book is as much a commentary on the Indian media’s sensationalism as it is a case study of how to fight an internal threat. Veerappan, in his later days, grew more political and his affiliations with Tamil radical groups grew stronger. The media too began empathising with him and questioned the STF’s methods. Featuring a ruthless villain being chased by honest officers, jingoistic political leaders, and victims caught in the line of fire, all set against the forest — this book has everything that makes for a compelling read.