Every time there is a conviction in Gujarat riots case, I begin to hope that the day is not far when the real culprit, state chief minister Narendra Modi, will be brought to book.
The 28-year-long sentence awarded to Maya Kodnani, who organised the massacre at Naroda-Patya in Ahmedabad, makes me confident that justice can be delayed — the riots took place in 2002 — but not denied. Modi lauded her role on the riots so much that he made her a minister. But the Supreme Court’s special investigation team (SIT) caught up with her crime even after the exoneration by the police which did its best to shield Kodnani’s.
The question which nags me all the time is how to punish a chief minister who plans and executes the killing of his own people because they belong to a different religion. Some 2,000 Muslims were killed, 95 at Naroda-Patya alone. A similar point confronted me when after the assassination of Indira Gandhi in 1984, more than 3,000 Sikhs were killed in the national capital, New Delhi. Then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi was responsible for blessing all that was plotted to kill the innocent. His infamous remark still haunts me: ‘When a big tree falls, the earth is bound to shake.’
Both in Gujarat and Delhi, the pattern of killing and looting was the same: The public was instigated, the police were instructed to look the other way and the army’s induction was intentionally delayed. Had there been the institution of Lokpal in position, it would have probably stepped in to name the culprits including Modi and Rajiv Gandhi. In the absence of any such remedy what do people, especially the victims, do to get justice? When the protector turns into a killer there is no remedy for the protected.
In fact, both Gujarat and Delhi have raised a general question about the independence of law and order machinery. The police are at the beck and call of rulers and they do not function independently. The police reforms recommended by the Dharamvira Committee as back as 1980 could have retrieved the situation to some extent. It would have meant transferring control of police to a committee, including the opposition leader. But no state has been willing to implement the recommendations.
Since the states jealously guard their sway over the law and order machinery, it is difficult to imagine that they would agree to any federal force when New Delhi itself has got politicised. Coming to the minorities, the experience of Muslims in Gujarat and of Sikhs in Delhi bring out the truth that the rulers go to any extent to save their party members. They have different names but in real terms they are the party’s rough necks who have over the years become an instrument of tyranny in the hands of political masters.
The bigger tragedy
The real disturbing aspect is that more and more Hindus are getting contaminated by the RSS and its parivar. It is heartening to find that one member of the Bajrang Dal, the militant wing of RSS, has been given life sentence in the Naroda-Patya case. Still the bigger tragedy is that the majority community looks like turning its back on secularism which it should realise can undo India.
The BJP which expects to win at the 2014 election does not feel its responsibility in keeping the country safe from parochialism. True, the other national party, the Congress has become a carbon copy of the BJP, but it still supports the secular ethos.
I was, however, disappointed when the Congress government neither acted against the Shiv Sena, particularly Raj Thackeray when he instigated the crowd in Mumbai in the name of national chauvinism. Nor did the government move against the Muslim fundamentalists who indulged in violence at Azad Maidan and killed two persons. I am told that the person who goaded the mob at the maidan is a local Congress Muslim leader. Regretfully, both the Congress and the BJP have come to believe that they would get more votes if they talked in terms of caste and community.
Had the Supreme Court not selected the nine cases of fake encounters out of many, no Maya Kodnani would have been punished. But there was no Supreme Court to intervene in the case of Sikhs’ killings because the Rajiv Gandhi administration had cleaned the stains from the plate.
No proof was left behind and the records were fudged. The entire massacre was orchestrated by the ruling Congress and executed according to a pre-prepared plan.
It was an young lawyer, H S Phoolka, who made a formidable case from the affidavits of victims. Even then his experience and those of the others who have tried to get justice is that even now the Congress government is creating impediment at every step to block any persecution further.
The conviction in Gujarat is an exception. At least there were still some records which helped the SIT to rebuild the case. But in Delhi, the Congress government has effaced all evidence lest the guilty of 1984 massacre could be traced.
There is yet another case of government’s suppression. I am referring to the killing of 22 Muslim boys at Hashimpura in UP in 1987.
The case has not moved from the lower court. The rioting in Assam too has been anti-Muslim. The lessons to be learnt from all these happenings is that the rule of law by itself does not mean anything unless the government is willing to follow it without fear or favour.