Nanavati Commission Report:
(In 1984, when thousands of Sikhs in the capital city were burned alive in a State-sponsored bloodbath, a citizens’ team of PUDR-PUCL visited the affected areas and prepared a report – Who Are the Guilty - that was testimony against the State’s pleas that the violence was a ‘spontaneous’ outburst of grief and anger following Indira Gandhi’s assassination. In conversation with Liberation, Uma Chakravarti, one of the many who helped that team to put the investigations together, reflects on the implications of the 1984 victims’ frustrated quest for justice in the light of the Nanavati Commission Report.)
Following the PM Manmohan Singh’s apology to the Sikh community and the nation in the wake of the Nanavati Report, there have been many voices – from the liberal, secular intelligentsia and media – suggesting that it is time to forgive and forget the carnage of 1984. For instance, a commentator in The Hindu writes that it is time to ‘move beyond the politics of memory’. Justice Nanavati’s report has done precious little to provide any modicum of justice, contenting itself with the barest minimum genuflections towards indicting the guilty. Yet, even that, it seems, may be too much – the same article concludes that ‘rather than firmly closing the book’, Justice Nanavati has given enough ‘ammunition to those who want to keep the pot boiling’. The article’s recommendations are not specific to the 1984 carnage alone – it generalizes the argument that ‘A society is entitled to put an end to the politics of memory over any organized violence’. True enough, the Nanavati Report on 1984 is a warning that we are soon likely to be asked to whitewash the memory of the Gujarat Genocide. It is probably a sordid sign of what to expect from the Enquiry into Gujarat 2002 – also presided over Justice Nanavati, even as it comes to light that his son is one of the counsels for the Gujarat Government in the matter of the 2002 carnage!
21 years after the event – when every door of justice has been closed in the face of the survivors – what are the apologies of a Prime Minister, and promises of rehabilitation and compensation worth? In the months that followed November 1984, what was the response of that other Prime Minister who presided over the carnage orchestrated by leaders of his Party? Less than a fortnight since the genocide, he made the infamous remark – ‘When a mighty tree falls, the earth shakes’ In the next six months, repeated demands for a judicial enquiry were stonewalled by Rajiv Gandhi who insisted that such an enquiry would ‘serve no purpose’ and would in fact not be ‘in the interests of the Sikhs’ – a remark that echoed canards about the Sikh ‘celebrations’ that triggered off the violence! Only when Rajiv Gandhi planned to sign the accord with Longowal did the need to appoint the Ranganath Mishra Commission manifest itself – as late as April 1985.
To understand the full charge of disappointment and betrayal that the Nanavati report carries, it is necessary to take a look at the long struggle waged by the survivors – the vast majority of whom are women – for justice.
- The PUDR-PUCL plea for a judicial enquiry into the carnage was dismissed by the Delhi High Court. A city level enquiry into the role of the police – the Ved Marwah Committee – was scuttled when the Ranganath Mishra Commission was appointed.
- The Mishra Commission, appointed 6 months after the event, tabled its report in Parliament February 1987; it had curious terms of reference. Rather than being asked to enquire into the ‘causes and course of disturbances’, as is customary for such commissions, the Mishra Commission was ‘to enquire into the allegations in regard to the incidents of organized violence which took place in Delhi following the assassination of the late Prime Minister Smt. Indira Gandhi’. The Nagrik Ekta Manch and the Shiromani Akali Dal (Longowal) were allowed to participate in the proceedings but withdrew in protest over the fact that the enquiry was held in camera.
- Amazingly, of the total number of affidavits (2905) submitted to the Mishra Commission, as many as 78% (2266) were what the Commission called ‘affidavits against the victims’! Hundreds of such ‘counter-affidavits’ were filed in favour of HKL Bhagat, anticipating that he would be implicated. The PUDR-PUCL report Who Are the Guilty had demonstrated that while there might have been some sporadic spontaneous incidents on 31 October 1984, the events from November 1 onwards were organized and orchestrated by the political establishment and the police. The Mishra Commission, held that the riots were spontaneous in origin – a ‘reaction’ of grief and outrage; but that later, ‘organised violence’ took place. However, according to the Commission, ‘such organization was not by any political party or a definite group of persons but by the anti-social elements. Such ‘anti-social elements’, the Commission held, were ‘quite a formidable and powerful element in the Indian capital’ due to the population growth in Delhi, the increase in industrial labour which the Commission claimed was accompanied by increased criminal activity, and so on. The Commission exonerated top-level Congress (I) leaders and indicted 19 local level Congress (I) men – taking care, however, not to name them!
- The Mishra Commission spawned several Committees – to look into the death toll, police role and to monitor registration of cases. One of these – the Kusumlata Mittal Committee to investigate the police role - distinguished itself by a detailed and painstaking report. Mittal found evidence of refusal to file FIRs, filing of ‘omnibus FIRs’, failure to conduct Test Identification Parade, fudging of records and evidence - all the hallmarks of police complicity that we saw repeated in Gujarat. Mittal recommended action against 72 policemen – and summary dismissal of six officials (under Article 311(2) (b) of the Constitution). These six included Chandra Prakash (then DCP South) and Sewa Das (DCP East) as well as the ACP HC Jatav – who had presided over the worst the massacre. Far from dismissal, however, these police officials were all promoted – Sewa Das is now number two in Delhi.
What of the survivors – the widows and women who filed the hundreds of affidavits and cases and made rounds of the Commissions, Committees and Courts? Most of the cases never came to trial. Of those that did, 92% were acquitted – on grounds that there was ‘sole testimony’, ‘no corroborative evidence’ and so on. What happened to those who braved intimidation and the attrition of years, to testify in court? The PUDR report – 1984 Carnage in Delhi: A Report on the Aftermath – mentions a case that was dismissed due to the ‘unreliability of the witness account’. The eyewitness was a woman – the sole survivor of a joint family that was massacred by the mob while she sheltered with neighbouring women. The judge declared the ‘attitude and conduct of the witness…strange. Her kith and kin were butchered and she had the audacity to say that she took shelter with a crowd of women.’
In it to be noted that despite this long, tortuous and insensitive denial of justice, 2500 affidavits were filed before the Nanavati Commission – this means that in the year 2000, 16 years after 1984, there were 2500 people still looking for justice.
Justice Nanavati selects only some of these affidavits for attention. Several of the affidavits mention rape – but Nanavati selects none of them. He examines – and exonerates – Rajiv Gandhi, on the basis that he had made appeals for communal harmony, and that there was no evidence to show that he had masterminded the violence.
He examines the affidavits filed by several eminent citizens (many with Defence experience) – including Lt. Gen. Arora (retd), Patwant Singh, Khushwant Singh and others who had visited the Home Minister Narasimha Rao before noon on November 1 and demanded his intervention. These citizens had remarked on the fact that Rao’s residence showed no sign of crisis, no sign of any unusual activity, and that he himself seemed remarkable unmoved. On this Nanavati summarises Rao’s reply approvingly that he was a man who did not believe in ‘hustle and bustle’ and ‘tall talks’ – and that his home was quiet because he had deployed his staff elsewhere where they were needed.
But lack of visible concern is not the only charge that is brought against the Home Minister. What about the crucial question of deployment of Army and the conduct of the Delhi Police (which falls under the Home Minister)? The PUDR-PUCL report had noted the late deployment of Army – and the fact that in the areas where it actually was deployed, it received no guidance and co-operation from the police, which in fact misguided the troops. Nanavati heard an account of the days 31st October to 3rd November by Major General Jamval, stating that he had his troops ‘in readiness’; Army was told to cover only two districts—central and south on the 1st of November; it was deployed in other districts only by the evening of the 2nd and was effective only from the 3rd by which time the 72 hour massacre was complete. There is also the fact that no Joint Control Room set up between the police and the Army. Faced with evidence of these acts of omission, Rao says, amazingly, that the ‘Home Minister is not competent to call troops’. If not, who is? According to Rao it is the Chief of Army Staff under the Defence Minister. This is, of course, patently false; the Code of Criminal Procedure 1973 empowers an Executive Magistrate to call in the army for help to disperse a crowd or control a situation. But even if one takes Rao’s word – why doesn’t Nanavati enquire why Rao didn’t contact the Defence Minister? After all, it was Rajiv Gandhi himself who held the Defence Portfolio! Rao then says that the Commissioner of Police does not take orders ‘directly’ from the Home Minister ‘unless it is urgently required’. Wasn’t a direct order ‘urgently required’ when the Home Minister had been informed that thousands were being burned alive? Aren’t the above remarks of Rao an admission that he did not, in fact, call in the Army and direct the Police to quell the violence? Later, Rao, however, goes on to say that he did ‘give instructions whenever necessary’ to deploy Police forces and the Army. Nanavati sees no evasion or discrepancy in these mutually contradictory statements. Rao, in his statement also makes the breath-taking claim that he visited relief camps, which was ‘more important’ than visiting the places where incidents of violence were reportedly occurring! He suggests that Lt. Gen. Arora and the others are lying – if they are telling the truth, why, he asks, didn’t they speak out twenty years ago? At the end of it all, Nanavati spends a few sentences concluding that there was ‘no delay or indifference’ in the Home Minister’s conduct!
He goes on to indict the then Lieutenant Governor of Delhi, PG Gavai and another police officer SC Tandon for ‘colossal failure of maintenance of law and order’ and callousness, but – recommends no action! He lets off Sewa Das (former DCP East) on the grounds that he has already been exonerated by a departmental enquiry – but states that Chandraprakash can face an enquiry despite also having been let off by a departmental enquiry.
Allegations against HKL Bhagat are not investigated on the grounds that Bhagat now suffers from dementia. About Sajjan Kumar, Nanavati concludes that there is a ‘probability’ that he is guilty; and so he recommends that those cases in which chargesheets are yet to be filed be pursued. About Tytler, he recommends further investigation in one case.
How are Nanavati’s conclusions different from Mishra’s, which was widely seen as a biased and partisan whitewash job? Nanavati too concludes that there were stray incidents of spontaneous violence on the first day but that there was organised violence from the morning of the first. He notes what Who Are the Guilty had recorded in 1984 – the huge organized mobs, the use of DTC buses to transport violent armed crowds. But the crucial question is: who did the organizing, when and how? Here, Nanavati, unlike Mishra tells us he has ‘evidence on record’ that meetings were held on the evening of 31 October, and that the mobs moved ‘without fear of the police’. But who actually organised and masterminded these meetings – Nanavati leaves them nameless, faceless.
He too lays the blame at the door of ‘anti-social elements’ and local level Congress leaders. He, like Mishra, has his own sociological analysis of the pathological violence inherent in the poor: ‘Poorer sections of society who are deprived of enjoyment of better things in life’ took the opportunity to loot. Criminals, free of fear of the police for once, got a free hand. But who was responsible for making sure the killers had nothing to fear from the police? Who was responsible for the police turning a blind eye? He also holds that local Congress leaders indulged in violence for ‘personal political gains’: these petty personal gains, mind, are distinguished from the Congress Party’s own lofty political ends! Again, in most of these cases too, Nanavati finds himself unable to recommend action.
The political imperative seems to prevent the force in power from indicting even its own Opposition – and State power in itself seems to bestow immunity; one doesn’t need the AFSPA for immunity from prosecution right in the capital. We are thus faced with a total alienation from the political system – where even the judiciary does not provide any checks or balances. In such a situation, civil liberties groups, victims and democratic forces all seem to be struggling for an answer: how to prevent another 1984; another betrayal in Gujarat? Many of us are able to think constructively in segments on this question – for instance to suggest that the evidenciary requirements in such instances (such as a time bar for filing an FIR) be changed. But institutional solutions being offered do not offer hope. The Communal Violence (Prevention) Bill prepared by the UPA is not designed to nail down the Rajivs, Raos and Modis for their acts of omission and commission in genocide – it only allows for them to be armed with more draconian powers.
It seems now that the Congress’ calculated 6-month delay in tabling the Nanavati Report was a deliberate ploy – resulting in diverting attention away from the Report’s highly questionable exoneration of Rao and Rajiv, and focussing all attention on Tytler. Now, the Congress move is to plead that Tytler’s head and Manmohan’s apology are ‘enough’ – the most that an honourable man of integrity like the PM could have done.
It is true that some sections of the Sikh community, deprived of all justice, possibly does see Tytler’s being axed as a vindication, however symbolic. Equally true is the fact that for all its pleas, the Congress is widely seen as guilty of the 1984 carnage. But the fact remains that the common wo/man’s cry for justice has been tragically, cruelly aborted. We have seen the VP Singh Government, the Gujral Government fail to pursue justice for the 1984 victims. The Nanavati Commission, appointed by the BJP-led NDA, too has refused to unequivocally identify and indict the guilty. The BJP itself has fallen silent on the issue after the action against Tytler and the PM’s speech. The UPA has smoothly shifted gear and is talking only about compensation and rehabilitation. No one, not even the Left which is supporting the Government seems to be asking – precisely how does the UPA Govt. plan to reopen investigation into the cases against Tytler and Sajjan? After Nanavati’s clean chit – have we no choice but to accept the polite fiction that Rao and Rajiv stand posthumously vindicated and virtuous?
Those who call for an end to the ‘politics of memory’ assume that it is only the Congress’ political opponents who have a stake in that politics. What do we tell those individual survivors who kept alive their memory in the face of threats and demoralisation; who chose justice over retribution? That they must exchange that memory for an apology by a Sikh PM – which is all the justice they must expect? Surely the politics of forgetting does violence to that of memory – and surely ‘forgetting’ Delhi 1984 will pave the way for ‘forgetting’ Gujarat 2002, and invite those horrors to repeat themselves? q