Now that the story is a week old, it is no longer in the headlines. One Italian citizen and one member of the Orissa legislative assembly continue to be held captive by the Maoists in Orissa. Most people believe that the Maoists will strike a deal with the government and eventually release the two hostages. This belief emanates from the precedents set in the last 25 years.

On December 8, 1989, just six days after her father Mufti Mohammad Sayeed was sworn in as India’s home minister, Rubaiya Sayeed was abducted by the militants of the Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front. Their demand: release of five militants. Although then Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah was dead against giving in, the VP Singh government decided to free the militants. Rubaiya Sayeed was released within an hour of the release of five militants in downtown Srinagar on December 13. It was the watershed in the insurgency in Kashmir. India had been brought to its knees at gunpoint and many Kashmiris, with assured support from Pakistan, started believing that they could gain ‘Azadi’ from India at gunpoint. That single incident pushed the state down a path where it has taken twenty years, and thousands of lives, for Kashmiris to realise the futility of picking up the gun.