Justice delayed

The lethargic attitude of the Union Home Ministry in furnishing the required files delays the proceedings before the G.T. Nanavati Commission of Inquiry.

THE wheels of justice could not have moved slower for the victims of the riots that followed the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1984. In more than a year of functioning the G.T. Nanavati Commission of Inquiry has managed to examine only 15 witnesses. The reason for the slow pace is mismanagement by the Ministry of Home Affairs, which has either lost or misplaced some important documents relating to the riots. In the absence of these the Commission has not been able to examine more witnesses.

The Commission was appointed by the NDA government on May 10, 2000 to look into the causes of and the manner in which the riots occurred. It was asked to fix the responsibility for any lapses or dereliction of duty on the part of the authorities in taking steps to prevent the incidents. An interim report was not made mandatory; the Commission was asked to make a decision as and when it deemed it fit. The Home Ministry's lethargy has now ensured that the decision will be delayed indefinitely.

The present delay relates to three applications submitted to the Ministry, relating to certain additional records to be produced before the Commission. The first application was sent on December 11, 2000, at the request of Avtar Singh Hit, convener, November 1984 Carnage Justice Committee. The documents it wanted the Ministry to furnish included the communication between the Home Ministry on the one hand and the Ministry of Defence, the Army and the Lt. Governor of Delhi on the other, besides the minutes of the meetings Home Minister of the day P.V. Narasimha Rao had held from October 31, 1984 to November 5, 1984.

The second application, dated February 26, 2001, requested the Ministry to furnish 95 files, which formed part of the report of the Justice Ranganath Mishra Commission of Inquiry.

The third application, sent on March 26, 2001, sought copies of depositions made before the Justice Ranganath Mishra Commission by the then Chief of the Army Staff, General A.S. Vaidya, Major General A.S. Jamwal and Major J.S. Sandhu.

The Home Ministry has not been able to locate these documents so far. Interestingly, some of the documents it could find, including some affidavits filed before the Ranganath Mishra Commission, were found from beneath some old files. Some papers relating to payments made by cheque by the Ranganath Mishra Commission were found in unclaimed almirahs in the basement of the Ministry's office.

In a letter to the Nanavati Commission sent on May 22, the Ministry stated that it could not locate the records asked for, except three files. The letter, a copy of which is now in the possession of Frontline, seeks an extension of time by four weeks to furnish the documents. Signed by R.N. Mishra, Under Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs, the letter said: "...The government is keen that the relevant records are quickly located and submitted to the Hon'ble Commission. With this objective in view, it has been decided to constitute a team of officers to make one more concentrated effort to locate the records." As things stand now, it appears, the production of witnesses before the Commission may get delayed. Notable among those who have deposed before the Commission are writer Khushwant Singh, who had tried to contact President Giani Zail Singh during the relevant period. "Giani Zail Singh did not come on the line but his Secretary informed me that Gianiji had asked him to convey to me that I should move to the house of some Hindu friend," said Khushwant Singh in his affidavit. In his deposition before the Commission, writer Patwant Singh highlighted the casual approach of the then Home Minister, Narasimha Rao.

Patwant Singh said that he met Zail Singh on November 1, 1984, and requested him to make an appeal to the nation over television and radio to end the violence. Zail Singh replied: "I do not have powers to intervene." According to Patwant Singh, the President also refused to speak to Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and said he was not in touch with Home Minister Narasimha Rao either.

On November 1, Patwant Singh met Narasimha Rao and asked him when the Army would be called out. The Minister replied that it would take place in Delhi that evening. "The approach of the Home Minister was so casual that it clearly given (sic) an impression that he is totally unconcerned," said Patwant Singh in his affidavit. "...we knew that if the Army arrives in the city it will not be made effective until November 3, 1984. The murderous mobs were given a free hand for three days," reads the affidavit.

Bharatiya Janata Party leader Madan Lal Khurana also referred to the role of Congress politicians in the riots. Khurana said: "It was for the first time in 1984 that the government permitted such a massacre of its own people. These were not riots. Riots are always a result of violence from both sides. It was a systematic massacre of Sikhs and the then government at the Centre had given direct and indirect support to the culprits."

Besides the role of politicians, the alleged role of the Delhi Police in causing the riots has also come under scrutiny. Journalist Rahul Bedi, who covered the riots for Indian Express, said police officials gave active as well as tacit support to rioters. Bedi who visited Block 32, Trilokpuri, one of the worst-affected areas, said: "The street in Block 32 was littered with charred bodies, limbs and burnt hair. It was very difficult to walk without tumbling upon these parts. There I met a Sikh woman who took us to the scene of the massacre. There was a boy whose stomach had been cut open. He was holding it together with his turban. He was thirsty and wanted water. We, the reporters, took him to the police vehicle. I subsequently learnt that the Sikh boy had died in the hospital."

Bedi said that he helped several injured people and that the Station House Officer (SHO), Kalyanpuri, Soor Vir Singh, did not do anything to help anyone in Block 32. "We did not find the SHO or the police people making any arrangement. When we left they were standing there, surrounded by mobs."

Joint Commissioner of Police Amod Kanth, who was then the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Central Delhi, is among the police officers accused of participation in the riots. The Carnage Justice Committee (CJC), which represents the victims, had filed an application before the Commission demanding that Kanth be stripped of the gallantry medal awarded to him in appreciation of his action in arresting the members of a Sikh family for opening fire at and causing the death of an army man, Kishan Bahadur Gurung, at Paharganj. The court had later acquitted the members of the Sikh family after an inquiry revealed that the bullet that was allegedly fired did not match the one recovered from the body of the deceased. "Amod Kanth came before the Commission to defend himself. He also sent a written reply to the Commission. It concealed certain facts. We have now filed a supplementary application before the Commission asking Kanth to furnish some more details," said CJC counsel I.S. Bakshi.

The depositions made before the Nanavati Commission so far emphasise the planned nature of the riots. The statements contradict the conclusion of the Justice Ranganath Mishra Commission that the rioting was spontaneous.

According to the Ranganath Mishra Commission Report, "the short span of time that intervened would not have permitted any scope for any organisation (of riots) to be done." Referring to the role of the Congress(I), the Commission explicitly said that the gloom that had spread and affected Congressmen in particular would have made it impossible for them to organise violence.

Journalist Madhu Kishwar, who deposed before the Commission, had however said that she found local Congress leaders among one of the mobs she encountered. Kishwar said: "I and my two colleagues saw a mob shouting slogans like 'Khoon ka badla khoon sey lenge' (blood debts will be repaid by blood) going towards the local gurdwara. When we tried to stop them, we were asked to get out of their way or else be thrown into flames. The person leading this mob was later found to be a local Congress leader."

Thus, an important task before the Commission is to take a stand with reference to the two strands of literature and testimonies of the 1984 riots. First, there are documents collected by a host of civil rights organisations such as the People's Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR), the Peoples' Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), and the Citizens' Justice Committee. These groups had conducted investigations of their own to identify persons involved in the riots. Their efforts were prompted by a lack of adequate government documentation of the violence. To this group belong some of the writers and journalists who have deposed before the commission. Second is the Ranganath Mishra Commission, which investigated "allegations in regard to the incidents of organised violence". In this case, the inquiry was conducted, it appears, not so much to find the reasons for the disturbances in Delhi but to look into certain "allegations" by the riot-affected.

Cumulatively, it is to be hoped that the affidavits presented to the Nanavati Commission as also the Ranganath Mishra Commission would clarify the nature of the violence and help identify the guilty. This is not an easy task. Its implications extend beyond ascertaining the role of the specific state actors who were involved in rioting and raise questions about the nature of the social fabric, with particular reference to Hindu-Sikh relations. This is because unlike the more common Hindu-Muslim riots, the November 1984 riots followed a seeming absence of overt communal tensions between Hindus and Sikhs. It is true that these riots followed a violent conflict in Punjab between the Indian state and Sikh militants, which peaked with the Army's Operation Blue Star in the Golden Temple. However, it cannot be concluded that underlying tensions between the Sikh and Hindu populations, particularly in Delhi, where most of the killings took place, made a showdown inevitable.