The missing persons saga would make any policy maker’s list of problems you can’t throw money at. But that is what the government is considering doing. The plan is to give a monthly allowance of Rs 60,000 to the families of the missing persons who have been missing for the past seven years as compensation. Though there isn’t much money to go around, the government explained, we’ll get the Baitul Maal to put a little something together.
The government could claim that criticism of the plan is unfounded. The payment in no way indicates that the government intends to shut the cases down. Some of the missing persons were the sole bread earners of their families and their loved ones could use the money. But that is the theory. In effect, the way of the world tells us something quite different. Not only will these cases be closed, if only not formally, there are going to be more disappearances in the future.
The scope of the problem is so depressingly wide that even going after individual cases is going to amount to treating the symptoms, not the cause. Much is made of the need to rethink our security paradigm. While that is true, there is also a need to change operational protocols as well, the ones that are value-free, regardless of the paradigm involved. Intelligence agencies are supposed to collect intelligence, not pick people up. If there indeed is incriminating evidence of certain behaviour, it is the job of the law enforcement agencies to do the needful. The latter operate, usually, under at least the semblance of due process. The law of the land spells out certain liberties for its citizens. Anyone picked up by the law has to be produced in front of the judiciary within a stipulated period of time.
The state has a responsibility to protect its citizens; in that regard, compensation for their families is not too outrageous a proposition. But if this is intended to mean anything by way of closure, it is an outrageously incorrect approach to the problem.
