Heard about two inquiries into Indian atrocities that are going on as you read this, both of which, for now, are expected to produce reports sometime this year? One is an inquiry into the crimes in Gujarat in February and March 2002: the killing of 60 Indians on that train in Godhra and the massacre of a thousand or more Indians that followed throughout the state. The other is an inquiry into the slaughter of 3,000 Indians in Delhi in 1984, following Indira Gandhi's assassination.
What is common to these two inquiries, you might ask. That is, apart from what is common to every such inquiry in India: they meander along at taxpayer-paid glacial speeds, cope with deliberate delays, are forced to ask for repeated extensions, eventually produce reports that nobody reads and governments refuse to act on, and are then forgotten. They are also the perfect screen for governments that have no desire to punish criminals and still want to pretend that they do. All those apply to these two inquiries, I'm positive.
But there's one more intriguing detail about these two. They are both headed by the same judge: Justice G T Nanavati.
One honourable judge is simultaneously inquiring into two of India's most shameful episodes, two of our country's greatest crimes. I mean no disrespect to a judge I don't know at all. Has Justice Nanavati been saddled with two enormous tasks, in the knowledge that therefore both reports will be even slower in coming than either one would be? Are the politicians and bureaucrats who gave him these jobs off somewhere, laughing at how easily they have managed to pull yet more sheepskin over our eyes? How easily they have got you and me nodding our heads, thinking lofty thoughts such as 'the wheels of justice are turning,' and 'the law will take its own course'?
If we are thinking those thoughts, of course, we've forgotten that inquiry commissions have nothing to do with the law and justice in the first place. Among other things, that's because they are not courts of law, cannot punish people, and governments are not required to act on their recommendations anyway. Besides, with Nanavati, a small bit of news from a few days ago is a pointer to the hopelessness of both his inquiries and the cause of justice.
A man called Sajjan Kumar, a powerful Congress leader from Delhi, was acquitted in what was the last existing attempt to bring him to justice for his crimes during the killings of Sikhs in 1984. Sure, the wheels of justice turned for Sajjan Kumar, the law did take its own course. For 18 years the wheels turned. They turned and turned more till we reached, on December 23, the dead end we could have predicted all the way back in 1984: the case against the man was dismissed.
And this happened even though the guilt is down in black and white in inquiry report after inquiry report, and will no doubt figure in Nanavati's report too, when it makes its appearance. Oh yes, many bodies inquired into the slaughter of the Sikhs and issued many reports. Take a deep breath, now, and hold tight as I run quickly through them.
The first inquiry connected with the 1984 massacre was when police officer Ved Marwah headed a committee to investigate the role of the police in the massacre. Six months after the tragedy, the Rajiv Gandhi government appointed Justice Ranganath Misra to investigate 'allegations in regard to the incidents of organised violence.' Justice Misra submitted his report in August 1986. Another six months later, in February 1987, the government tabled his report in Parliament and, on Justice Misra's recommendation, promptly appointed three more commissions. Yes, three more.
The Jain-Bannerjee commission was to look into cases that were not registered or not adequately investigated. The Kapur-Mittal commission had to identify guilty police officers. The Ahuja commission was supposed to come up with the exact number of people killed. (Six months later, Ahuja had the figure: 2,733).
Jain-Bannerjee's first recommendation was to register a case of murder against Sajjan Kumar. One of his accomplices, Brahmanand Gupta, immediately went to court to shut down the Jain-Bannerjee inquiry on legal technicalities; two years later, he succeeded. In March 1990, the V P Singh government appointed the Potti-Rosha committee, taking care to correct the legal problems that had resulted in the Jain-Bannerjee fiasco. In August 1990, Potti-Rosha issued recommendations