Law and Order in Tarai

A team of senior bureaucrats, following their field trip to some half a dozen Tarai districts, has submitted a report on the lawlessness and poor presence of the state in the southern plains. The report is far from [break]being a revelation and contains nothing new. But the fact that bureaucrats as senior as ministry-level secretaries felt the need to experience first hand the situation on the ground, and found the place close to ungovernable, show how far things have deteriorated. The report, prepared by a team led by Chief Secretary Madhav Ghimire, says lawlessness has led to poor governance, thereby impacting, among other things, the performance of development projects. The problem of lack of development work, absence of employment opportunities and lack of income sources on one hand will further contribute to lawlessness on the other and these twin evils will continue to feed on each other.



Another bleak aspect of the Tarai picture, as painted by the report, is how various underground armed outfits routinely threaten government officials and successfully obstruct them from carrying out their duties. Initially, it was only civil servants of hill origin who were threatened and cowered into submission. But as most bureaucrats of hill origin have left their Tarai postings -- a fact also substantiated by this report -- the criminal groups have turned to Madhesi civil servants, and the citizenry, for undue favors and ransom. The latest lot to leave the Tarai are businessmen of Madhesi origin and middle class Madhesi families, who increasingly fear for their lives and property.



Though the Tarai has remained in such a mess for long, with matters worsening markedly of late, the state has failed to bring in a good plan or strategy to arrest the anarchy. The much-hyped Special Security Plan (SSP), which was designed specifically with the growing law and order challenge in the Tarai in mind, seems not to have had the desired results. We know that the SSP was not implemented in earnest due to lack of resources and also lack of political will. The home administration has complained repeatedly that the police never received the resources allotted to them, and in many cases police teams on the ground lacked even the fuel for regular patrolling.



If the police force was crippled by lack of resources, they were hamstrung by never-ending interferences from politicians. Each time they apprehended someone on suspicion of wrongdoing there would be pressure from politicians of one or another party to release him [it´s seldom been she] immediately and unconditionally. Criminals have connections with every party that has a political base in the Tarai and they have exploited this nexus during crunch times. Taking things under control in the Tarai, therefore, requires as much hard work by police and the home administration as commitment on the part of politicians hailing from the southern plains.

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