18 March 2014, 04:31 PM IST
Every major communal riot in India's post-Independence history can claim to have owned at least one judicial inquiry commission, some can even boast of more. The ruling powers have forever used the 134-year-old Commissions of Inquiry Act as a tool to quickly pacify the agitated populace by ordering "independent probe". Unfortunately, the act of delaying the justice also comes into effect right from that moment.
The probe goes on endlessly, reports are not tabled for years, and some time when a 'commission of convenience' becomes 'commission of contradiction' for the government it's disbanded or the recommendations rejected — Justice Srikrishna Commission, which probed 1992 Mumbai riots and blasts, suffered these fates. At the bottom is a list of 15 riots and their probe panels.
The 1984 anti-Sikh riots have been probed by as many as 10 inquiry commissions and committees in the last 30 years. More talked about but technically less investigated case in point would be the 2002 Gujarat riots, where the number may reach five if NGOs and NHRC are also on the list. The '84 riots can also be cited as one of the top examples of guilty going unpunished.
With Lok Sabha elections approaching, the 1984 riots and the 2002 Gujarat riots are in focus, again. Several previous and some recent massacres like the 2011 Gopalgarh, 2012 Assam, and 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots, however do not find such mention. This, of course, does not mean that these riots will not be a factor in the coming elections.
Apart from their immediate political relevance, there is another common factor connecting 1984 and 2002 riots — Justice GT Nanavati has probed both of them. In both the cases, he was appointed to the job by BJP governments. Justice Nanavati Commission started probing anti-Sikh riots in 2000, 16 years after the riots. Its final report was tabled in Parliament in 2005. Justice Nanavati-Shah commission was set up in March 2002, to probe Godhra train burning and massacre that followed, and after a dozen years and dozen-and-a-half extensions later, it is yet to give out the final report. Common sense and sense of commonest man would both suggest that more time may be needed to closely probe an older incident.
The Nanavati commission's final 184-page report on '84 riots detailed accusations and evidence against Congressmen Jagdish Tytler, Sajjan Kumar, and H K L Bhagat. They were accused of instigating mobs. The report also held the then Lt Governor P G Gavai and police commissioner S C Tandon responsible. Several previous probe committees had also recommended registration of cases against Sajjan, Tytler, Bhagat and others.
On the 2002 riots, the Nanavati commission has so far given out one report on the burning of Sabarmati Express train coaches. The commission concluded that it was an act of arson that followed a clear conspiracy. These findings in a way were confirmed by the special court which convicted 31 people for conspiring and burning to death 59 train passengers. Interestingly, Justice U C Banerjee Committee claims that Godhra was an accident and there was no conspiracy.
"This is not the first time that differences emerged in the way in which a riot situation has been interpreted. The members of the Inquiry Commission on the 1989 Bhagalpur riots did not agree on the findings...," says inter-community relations expert B Rajeshwari, in an online article.
Sometimes the truth is just another version. You may see it and yet not recognize. Or you may just pick the version that suits you best at that moment.
The second report of the Nanavati commission will cover the riots that followed the burning of the train. Special court has already convicted former Gujarat minister Maya Kodnani, former VHP man Babu Bajrangi and several others in some of the riot cases. It has also accepted the SIT's clean chit given to Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi and others. Meanwhile, the commission has been rebuked by the Gujarat HC for seeking case papers from the SIT, instead of carrying out the independent probe as it is meant to.
In such a situation, guessing what would the commission's next report say can't be too hazardous. The way has been cleared for the commission to keep the dirt away from the topmost politicians and babus and lay blame at the door of select nondescript persons.
On a more optimistic note, there are clear signs that taint of riot on a politician no longer shines bright and massacres are loosing their political currency. Let's hope that the public's intolerance towards communal violence increases in direct proportion to the rise in fundamentalists' intolerance towards liberal art and culture.
1961 Jabalpur Justice Shiv Dayal Srivastava Committee
1967 Ranchi Raghubir Dayal Commission
1969 Ahmedabad Justice P Jaganmohan Reddy
1970 Maharashtra D P Madan Commission of Inquiry
1979 Jamshedpur, Bihar Jitendra Narain Commission of Inquiry
1980 Moradabad Justice M P Saxena
1981 Biharsharif, Bihar Balasubramanian Commission
1984 Delhi Justice Jaggannath Misra Commission 1985
Justice Nanavati Commission 1999
1989-90 Bhagalpur Bhagalpur Communal Riots Inquiry Commission
1992-93 Bombay Justice Srikrishna Commission
1998 Coimbatore P R Gokulakrishna Commission of Inquiry
1999 Manoharpur, Orissa Wadhwa Commission probed burning of Graham Staines
2002 Ahmedabad Justice Nanavati and Justice K G Shah
2011 Gopalgarh, Rajasthan Justice Sunil Kumar Garg Commission
2013 Muzaffarnagar Justice Vishnu Sahai Commission
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