A sad day for Arunachal

The death of former Arunachal Pradesh chief minister Kalikho Pul adds another inglorious chapter to the state’s politics, where power play among ruling party members is part of the political tapestry. While there’s never any good excuse for taking one’s life as the act suggests cowardice, it’s sad that a politician with a possible troubled childhood (having lost both parents early, and starting working life as a beedi/paan seller to fund night school) should go to such extremes. Rising from being a carpenter hailing from the smallest ethnic group to CM, though briefly, he should have been a role model rather than a tragic statistic. Of course, as coincidence would have it, three CMs have died young in the past five years, though from a variety of causes, from a helicopter crash to illness and a suicide.

As recently as last month, Kalikho Pul was on the gaddi in the strategically-important northeastern state, to which China seems to be staking claim. The Supreme Court pulled the rug out from under his feet in a landmark ruling on undue interventions by governors in politics. It’s in the realm of speculation whether his being displaced led to the former CM’s possible depression. He had married thrice, which on the face of it suggests that Pul may have had an interesting marital history. However, no circumstance can be considered so extenuating as to force someone to take his/her own life. For someone who has been a chief minister to even consider such a step doesn’t send a good signal to the nation’s youth.