Chidambaram Vs. Intellectuals

The person leading the campaign against the ‘sympathisers’ is Union home minister P. Chidambaram. I’m a great admirer of the HM, who is a man of formidable competence, vision and energy. Sadly, he thinks any attack on the way the state is handling the Maoist problem is a personal attack on him. Perhaps Mr Chidambaram’s insistence that intellectuals condemn Maoists has a psychological reason: he considers himself an intellectual and, consequently, craves for the support of his fraternity to justify his actions. But stories of state brutality—as spelt out in Outlook last week—pit the intellectuals against Chidambaram.