The Hindu : A conspiracy of silence & inaction

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Wednesday, Jan 08, 2003

Opinion

Opinion - Leader Page Articles

A conspiracy of silence & inaction

By Jyoti Punwani

A decade has not been enough for the victims of Mumbai's post-Babri Masjid demolition riots to get justice, neither in the crudest sense of compensation, nor in the fullest sense of punishment to those who ruined their lives.

NOW THAT the Gujarat elections are over, the truth can finally be said out loud. The conspiracy of silence to which everyone became a party, to "save the country's secular fabric", is finally over; and the Congress' promise to Gujarat's Muslims of a riot-free State with justice to the victims of last year's violence, can at last be described for what it was: a fraud. Ask the victims of Mumbai's post-Babri Masjid demolition riots. A decade has not been enough for them to get justice, neither in the crudest sense of compensation (121 are still to be paid), nor in the fullest sense of punishment to those who ruined their lives. And no one is talking about punishment to the movers and shakers here, those who pulled the strings from their fortress-like bungalows and "like a veteran general, directed his troops".

The only persons against whom Justice B. N. Srikrishna, who probed the 1992-93 Mumbai riots, recommended "strict action", were 31 policemen who collaborated with the rioters directly or indirectly, and who killed innocents through unnecessary firing. Many of them were mere constables and assistant inspectors at that time; a few were sub-inspectors and only one of them was Joint Commissioner.

Not one of them has faced a day's suspension, let alone a minute in a police lock-up, though eight of them have been charged with murder. To the Democratic Front Government in Maharashtra goes the credit of demonstrating the power a police force exercises over the state, of which it is supposed to be only an arm. The last three years that the DF Government has been in power have proved to the riot victims and the few activists still fighting for them, that all the noise they make is nothing when compared to the spectre of a disgruntled police force.

When they came wooing Mumbai's Muslims before the 1999 Assembly elections, the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party were forced to make implementation of the Srikrishna Commission of Inquiry Report part of their election manifestos. But as soon as they assumed power, it became clear they meant to take no action on it. That was not surprising. Since the submission of the report in February 1998, all through the desperate efforts of the Shiv Sena-BJP Government to scrap it, till its tabling in August 1998, the Congress leaders maintained a deafening silence on it.

Had it not been for the continuous prodding by the Supreme Court, where a petition was (and still is) being heard on the report's implementation, the DF Government would have slept on it. Ironically, the chief petitioner was a Congressman, who went on to become a Minister in the Maharashtra Government on the basis of having filed this petition!

Today, the Minister, Naseem Arif Khan, would be the happiest person if the petition was disposed of. He has achieved what he wanted, and more: Mumbai's Urdu press dutifully reports that it is thanks to him and his petition that the report is being implemented; and, he has constituted a `watchdog committee on the Srikrishna Report' comprising maulanas who have not read a page of it. With the two most influential institutions among Mumbai's Muslims in his pocket, the Minister can hardly be expected to bother about the victims, not a few of whom belong to his own neighbourhood.

The Deputy Chief Minister and State Home Minister, Chhagan Bhujbal, must envy him. For it is he who has to face the press whenever the Supreme Court pulls up the State Government for its casual attitude towards the report of a sitting High Court (now Supreme Court) judge. It is to him that citizens sent faxes urging that the anticipatory bail application of the former Police Commissioner, Ram Deo Tyagi, be opposed, and that Mr. Tyagi and his co-accused be arrested. But while Mr. Bhujbal gave in to the first demand, he ignored the last. For, these were serving policemen who faced automatic suspension once they spent time in custody. Having retired as DGP, Mr. Tyagi's career was beyond damage. But even then the Government allowed him to remain in a luxurious hospital for the entire period that he was supposed to be in police custody. The Public Prosecutor actually submitted an application on Mr. Tyagi's behalf in court, provoking the magistrate to angrily demand: "Are you representing the accused?"

But no amount of judicial reprimands, not even from the Supreme Court, have so far shaken Mr. Bhujbal. It is not just that he still retains his Sena ideology. It is obvious that he is under no pressure from his present leader, Sharad Pawar, to implement the Report. As for the Chief Minister, the ever-smiling Vilasrao Deshmukh of the Congress, it is a matter of debate whether he even knows what the Srikrishna Report is all about. Ultimately, the old Congress arrogance still prevails: "Where will the Muslims go after all?" The Gujarat elections only validated this smug premise.

When the Shiv Sena came to power in 1995, one of its first decisive acts was to scrap the Srikrishna Commission. It did not want its role in the 1992-93 riots brought to light by a sitting High Court judge. But at the same time it also wanted to demonstrate that it could provide a riot-free reign. Among the directives given to the police force was that communal incidents must not be allowed to spread. The statistics of its four-and-a-half year reign when juxtaposed with the Congress-NCP's three-year rule tell their own story: Sena-BJP rule: 25 riots, one major, 17 dead; Congress-NCP rule: 44 riots, eight major, 41 dead. The reason for the difference is not the obvious one: that from 1995 to 1999, the rioters were in power and out of the streets, and once ousted, they were back to their old ways. For one, this was to be expected and should have been pre-empted. For another, many of the clashes were between the police and Muslims, while in others, more evident than the Sena, was the ominous presence of activists of the Bajrang Dal, which had embarked upon a full-fledged campaign in the villages.

This was not only a Maharashtra programme. The return of Bajrang Dal activists from Ayodhya in the Sabarmati Express which was burnt in Godhra, was also part of this campaign. Four months before Godhra, the Bajrang Dal's activities had been one of the two main contributory factors in the most serious communal riot in Maharashtra since 1992-93, in Malegaon, in which 15 persons died.

But despite the terrible experience of 1992-93, when the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (and the Sena) had been allowed to foul the atmosphere for months before violence finally erupted on December 6, 1992; despite the wealth of information in the Srikrishna Commission Report on how to prevent communal violence, the Maharashtra Government ignored the Bajrang Dal's activities. Neither did it revamp its intelligence as recommended by the Srikrishna Commission, nor did it even bother to instruct its police that communal incidents must not be allowed to get out of hand.

But not a few Muslims of Mumbai are in an ugly mood today. The Gujarat elections are over. The media blitzkrieg on the tenth anniversary of the Babri Masjid demolition has meant, in Mumbai, revisiting the 1992-93 riots, and facing the reality that justice has not only not been provided, but that no effort has been made in that direction. No amount of iftaar parties has been able to hide that. It was at the Chief Minister's high profile iftaar that a few riot victims distributed copies of an open letter taunting the Chief Minister for his failure to implement the Srikrishna Commission Report. Not a single invitee threw away the letter.

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