NANAVATI REPORT

Punish The Guilty To Prevent Future Genocides

Harkishan Singh Surjeet

EVEN though the Nanavati commission report regarding the horrendous anti-Sikh pogrom in Delhi and elsewhere in 1984 is wanting in certain important respects, there is no doubt that its eventual fallout would go a long way insofar as protecting democracy in this country is concerned. No doubt, much more remains for the UPA government to do to bring the guilty to book and deliver justice to the victims, or even to give the latter a healing touch. Yet, the secular and democratic people at large have welcomed the sacking of a minister from the union council of ministers as a positive gesture.

INITIAL UNJUST PREVARICATION

THIS is, however, not to say that this gesture came all at once. The sad fact is that as soon as the Nanavati report’s highlights became public knowledge, the Congress party and the UPA government led by it went into a prevarication mode. The arguments they advanced after the media highlighted the report were, to say the least, queer. They said, for example, that no action could be taken against some politicians because they were ill or against some officers as they had retired. There was also on display some amount of verbal jugglery. For example, about two members of parliament, one of them a minister, the Congress reaction was that the commission had described them as only “probably involved.” How could one take a step against these individuals on the basis of only probability, they innocently asked. They perhaps deemed it unwise to recall that whenever a minister is alleged to be involved in a case, the very first requirement of justice is that he should be divested of his official position, so that he is not in a position to influence the course of justice. It is another thing that this first requirement of justice is observed more in its neglect and, in their wisdom, the Congress party’s managers thought it prudent to adopt this very course.

This was what in fact the action taken report (ATR) of the government of India (GoI) said in so many words, as The Statesman editorial on August 12 noted with examples. But while the paper sought to convey that this was a folly on part of the union home minister personally and took up cudgels against him, saying that he “deserves the axe,” nobody familiar with the parliamentary system of governance would buy this argument. The question is not of this individual or that, though the paper was correct in saying that the ATR was “a shame and an insult to the collective intelligence of Indians.” In fact, the Congress party and the government conveyed only one message to the country. That they were trying to somehow save certain individuals who were alleged to be involved in instigating the mobs against the Sikh community after the dastardly assassination of Smt Indira Gandhi. 

But this initial prevarication on part of the Congress party was not only unwise; it was patently unjust. It only conveyed the impression that, even after the Congress president Mrs Sonia Gandhi had publicly apologised to the Sikh community for the wrong done to them, the party was not interested in securing them justice. Naturally, it added insult to injury and angered a section of our people who have been denied justice for 21 long years --- even after as many as 9 commissions and committees of inquiry.

WISDOM PREVAILS

SUCH prevarication on part of the Congress party was therefore criticised all around --- naturally, inevitably, justifiably --- besides causing much embarrassment to the party’s UPA allies. Citizens of the country commented upon it in public places, and the Left members of parliament gave the people’s criticism a voice by raising an uproar in both the houses. It was this development that finally prompted the prime minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, to make an emotional intervention in the Rajya Sabha, promising further probe and action in the matter. In fact, it was this gesture on part of Dr Singh that saved the day for the Congress party and the government. As the Hindustan Times editorial on August 12 says, the prime minister’s speech “made it clear that the ‘there is no evidence’ stand taken by the party and government was untenable, and that there was need to address the ‘sentiment’ and ‘perception’ that a great wrong had remained unpunished. His statement has more than made up for the shallow and insensitive ‘action taken report’ that was tabled with the commission report on Tuesday” (August 9 --- Surjeet).

There is, however, no need to quarrel with the editorial writer over the fact that this welcome change in the Congress party’s attitude did not come on its own. Besides other factors, the uproar raised by the Left parties played a notable role in making the Congress realise its folly in the form of what The Hindu editorial on the same day called the “dismissive inaction of the action taken report.”   

Here I quote a substantive and meaningful paragraph from the prime minister’s August 11 intervention in the upper house:

“I have no hesitation in apologising not only to the Sikh community but the whole Indian nation because what took place in 1984 is the negation of the concept of nationhood and what is enshrined in our constitution. So, I am not standing on any false prestige. On behalf of our government, on behalf of the entire people of this country, I bow my head in shame that such (a) thing took place.”

In the same speech, Dr Singh gave the commitment to “reopen those cases” mentioned in the Nanavati report.

To give Dr Singh his due, few heads of state or government have ever been as candid about their government’s folly.

In sum, it is only good for the country that wisdom has finally prevailed upon the premier ruling party of the country. Not surprisingly, if one goes by the articles and editorials appearing in the press, a very large section of our people has heaved a sigh of relief over this change.

LESSONS FOR THE CONGRESS

AS regards what needs to be done in the coming days, one may well recall The Hindu editorial:

“By seeming to act out of fear of the political consequences rather than out of a recognition of the moral imperative of not letting a tainted person continue in office, the Congress lost the opportunity to gain the high moral ground.”

This may be a bit uncharitable judgement but, to be sure, it cannot be dubbed unfounded. For, on many occasions in the past, the Congress party has either appeased the communal and fundamentalist elements of various hues or outright surrendered to these forces. Examples are galore but we refrain from quoting them at any length, as they are only too well known. Suffice it to say that the Congress party played what has often been called the “soft Hindutva” card in the latest assembly polls in Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh. It is therefore not surprising that, even though the Congress party cannot be called communal, doubts remain in popular perception that it may capitulate before the communal forces on one issue or another.

To be true to facts, this is one of the banes for this biggest among the non-communal parties in this country. In the past, the Congress has suffered severe erosion in its mass base because of its economic policy surrenders, because of its foreign policy bloomers and no less because of its capitulation to communalism. Now, in the wake of the 2004 Lok Sabha poll results, if the party thinks that the vast Indian mass has accepted it unconditionally, it would only be heading towards yet another and perhaps more fatal debacle. Can one deny the fact that it was the mass anger against the BJP led regime’s economic policies, saffronisation drive, communalism and its craven attitude to imperialism that made the people opt for the Congress and allies? The Congress can consolidate its recently recouped mass acceptance only if it steers clear of its past follies. For this purpose, among other things, it has to take a forthright stand on the questions of national unity.

As for the guilty of the 1984 massacre of the Sikhs, certain names are already known to one and all, and let’s hope that the Manmohan Singh government would expeditiously take the required steps to bring them to book. But, apart from these well known names, people know that there were certain other individuals who were in positions of power and could have stopped the massacre if only they had wanted to do so.

And why cannot the Congress mobilise the people of Gujarat to demand Modi’s ouster? Its inaction in Gujarat can only make it lament later, to say the least.

WHAT ABOUT GUJARAT?

COMMENTING on the Nanavati report about the 1984 massacre of the Sikhs, more than one paper has drawn attention to or parallels with the Gujarat massacre of 2002. As we know, during that holocaust, more than 2000 Muslims were done to death, women were raped, houses, shops and mosques were destroyed, and even the tomb of Urdu poet Wali Dakani/Gujarati was not spared.

The Hindustan Times editorial, for instance, writes: “At the end of the long day, it became clear that the Left and more sober elements in the Congress have….  understood that the 2002 Gujarat massacres must be the subtext to their reaction to the Nanavati report.”

The Hindu editorial says: “As in the Gujarat riots of 2002, here too the Nanavati commission makes it clear that the attacks were not spontaneous but organised, and that the attackers had some assurance of immunity from the police.”  

In the same paper, on the same day, one commentator writes: “If many Indians were genuinely ‘astonished’ by the well organised killing of Muslim fellow citizens in Gujarat in 2002….this was because they had chosen to forget November 1984….”

And an article in The Asian Age states: “The violence in Gujarat is just three years old. The wounds have not healed, the memories are still fresh, the anger is not palpable as the victims are still being terrorised. The perpetrators of the violence continue to rule the roost.”

It is in this context that political commentators have stressed the need of stringent laws to prevent the outbreak of communal riots and to punish the guilty in case such a riot breaks out after all.

NEED TO PREVENT GENOCIDE IN FUTURE

NEEDLESS to say, this recall of the Gujarat massacre is quite logical in today’s context. But it also puts a big question mark on the BJP’s hyperbolic claim of being the defenders of democracy in the country. Today they may well be shedding tears over what happened to the innocent Sikhs 21 years ago, but a person needs to be utterly gullible to believe that their tears are not a crocodile’s tears. The Times of India editorial on August 12 is very categorical in this regard. Among other things, it recalls how the Supreme Court severely castigated the Modi government on Gujarat violence and says: “Former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee called for Manmohan Singh’s resignation on the basis of the Nanavati commission report. He should now advise Modi to follow in the footsteps of Tytler. The earlier, the better.”

Some commentators have also recalled what the BJP and Shiv Sena tried to do to the Srikrishna commission’s probe when they came to power in Maharashtra. For instance, one commentator writes in The Indian Express (August 13): “If Vajpayee and Advani, after their solemn speeches last week, recall what their own party did with the reports of the Srikrishna commission on the Bombay riots of 1992, they will be ashamed too.” Let’s recall that the BJP-Shiv Sena government of Maharashtra disbanded the Srikrishna commission in 1998 when Vajpayee was their team leader in New Delhi, and that it was only a huge public outcry that forced the Vajpayee regime to revive the commission. 

It is thus clear that no matter how loudly the BJP makes protestations over the recent Nanavati report, they cannot hope to mislead to masses in any significant way. As for the Congress, it would do well to remember what even the editor of The Indian Express says about it as well as the BJP: “If there is one thing that has emerged with the Nanavati report and its aftermath, it is that political parties have to accept (that) their past will continue to come back and haunt them. They cannot, as in the past, use brute force to sweep all questions under the debris.” We can only hope that Dr Manmohan Singh would remain true to the word he has given and pursue the 1984 cases steadfastly, which is absolutely essential to ensure that no one dares to organise such genocide in future.