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We Want To Read That Report Now!

And then, there's L K Advani. Just days ago, he issued a call to the country to build a "Rashtra Mandir" (National Temple). He says this is what he meant through all those years, through those endless charioToyota miles he drove, speaking so passionately of a Mandir. A Mandir By Another Name. It's a trifling thing, a minor quibble, that he had innocently mispronounced "Rashtra" as "Ram" all along.

Well, at least he has his pronunciation correct now. More power to the home minister. May he come to understand what some of us feel about his call. As journalist Nikhil Wagle spelled out at a recent public meeting, there can be no Rashtra Mandir until there's justice for riot victims. In fact, no Rashtra Mandir can be built on the backs of thousands of murders -- in riots and elsewhere -- left unpunished.

Which brings me to a certain 700 page report about a certain 4.5 year long inquiry that has occasioned certain tailpieces in my last few columns here.

Tailpieces or not, in the end it mattered not at all. When the Maharashtra assembly session ended last week, the government of the state had many singular achievements to its credit. Prominent among them were: not making the Srikrishna report public. Not keeping empty promise after hollow promise to make it public. Denying that promises were ever made to begin with.

Indeed, the tailpieces I tacked onto those columns made no difference whatsoever. Not that I had expected them to. Really, why would the state's BJP-Sena government choose to make the report public? Why should the very people who rioted all over the city of Bombay five years ago now publicise a report that will assuredly have things to say about their rioting? No reason at all. Of course, they can't say so in so many words. So they have scrabbled in the dust for every flimsy excuse possible to put off showing us the report. Yes ma, it's true: these so forthright, so fearless parties are scared entirely out of their wits by a mere document.

A mere document. There's a demonstration, if you ever wanted one, of the power of ink on paper -- even if you have not yet seen the ink or the paper.

With Justice Srikrishna's report on his inquiry into the riots in Bombay in 1992-93 -- or, for that matter, with the report of any such inquiry -- there's one argument that overrides every other. It fits in these six words: the report is a public document. More verbosely: it belongs to us, we paid for the inquiry, no government has the right to withhold the report from us, certainly not the government in Maharashtra.

It's really an utterly simple argument. We have a right to know what's in that report. There'd be no need for further elaboration, were the government not working overtime to find reasons to keep the report secret.

Since it is, consider: The judge spent four-and-a-half years on the inquiry. All his hearings were public. Witnesses were examined and cross-examined in public; police officers were heard and sometimes even pulled up in open court. The press covered nearly every day of the inquiry, reporting all the strange turns it took, the odd tangents it followed, the nonsensical delaying tactics, the bland accounts of stomach-turning events. You will find copies of every examination, every document placed on record -- everything Justice Srikrishna used in writing his report -- with several different lawyers, activists, NGOs and reporters in the city. Nothing about Srikrishna's inquiry was hidden.

So why must the report itself be hidden? Why must we battle so hard to know what's in it?

Such extraordinarily naive questions! You're right if you think so. As every other inquiry report has, this one has certainly named some very powerful people, certainly recommended that they be punished for their crimes during the riots. We all know that powerful people provoke and manipulate riots to amplify their power. The judge heard about member of Parliament Sarpotdar's riotous doings; Remote Control Thackeray's vile writings; the unsavoury activities of their other colleagues, all five years ago. He heard about then-chief minister Sudhakar Nero and his gang's shameful twiddling while Bombay went up in flames.

If Srikrishna had not written critically of these men, if he had absolved them of any guilt for the riots, you know the report would have been out and available for you to read within minutes of its submission. Instead, you have before you the government's wriggly, ugly attempts to explain why it is preventing you from reading the report.

Watching them, you also know the report nails those men hard. Of course it must be hidden away. Thrown away, even.

If you remember, the Maharashtra government once tried to do just that, at least figuratively. That was over two years ago, when it shut down the inquiry altogether. That was just one sign, only the most egregious till then, that it was terrified of the light the inquiry would spray on various dark misdeeds.

During his two weeks in office that year, Prime Minister Vajpayee made a particular point of asking the Maharashtra government to reinstate the inquiry. Vajpayee's request was widely played up as the man's commitment to justice, transparency, even secularism. There was no talk then of Rashtra Mandirs, but there's no doubt these values would be building blocks in one.

Of course, there were the cynics who said Vajpayee had one beady eye on a vote of confidence his government was to face in Parliament. Asking for the inquiry to be reinstated, the cynics went on, was a mere ploy to win over MPs to support him. (Didn't work, of course: Vajpayee saw the writing on the wall and resigned before the vote).

Still, whatever his reasons might have been, the inquiry was resumed.

So where are Prime Minister Vajpayee's commitments today? If he truly wanted the inquiry to go ahead then, he must surely want its report read by the people now. Well, the report made its way into officialdom two-and-a-half months ago. Why has Vajpayee not asked the government of Maharashtra to make it public? Or might it be that the cynics were right two years ago? That the silence this time is because there is no vote of confidence to worry about?

The government told Justice Srikrishna that during the riots in Bombay, 872 people died, 1,829 were injured and 443 are missing. As always, unofficial estimates are far higher. Whatever they are, behind the bland numbers are hundreds of traumatised families who have waited five years for justice: for loved ones, ordinary human beings, hacked to pieces, burned to a crisp, thrown over bridges, shot through the heart.

Through those years, their demands were always met with the specious excuse, unfounded in any law, that action cannot be taken until the inquiry is complete. Well, unfounded or not, that excuse is now gone. The inquiry is complete, its report submitted. Nothing prevents it from being made public; nothing prevents the guilty being punished; neither of those is happening.

And until they do, L K Advani should know that his Rashtra Mandir is going to be sitting on some very sandy foundations indeed.

Tailpiece: Why not more?

"Chief Minister Manohar Joshi stated in the legislative assembly on Tuesday that the report of the Srikrishna Commission would not be tabled during the current session of the legislature. ... Mr Joshi denied having given an assurance earlier that he would table the report by April 20." The Times of India, April 22, 1998.

"The Sena-BJP government made regular announcements that it would table the report 'shortly.' In fact, Deputy CM Gopinath Munde had promised to make the report public in February itself. CM Manohar Joshi told the state assembly that the report would be tabled during the current session along with the action taken report. An announcement to this effect was made as late as April 16." The Times of India, April 24, 1998.

"[Joshi] had assured the House in March that the committee [set up to prepare the action taken report] would be asked to expedite the work and submit the report by April 20 so the government could table the report in this session." The Asian Age, April 21, 1998.

"Under the [Commissions of Inquiry] Act, there is no provision to say that the commission should make a confidential report. ... The Srikrishna Commission is now public property. The government cannot withhold it." Justice H Suresh, in Mid-Day, April 17, 1998.

Here's an appeal to Maharashtra Chief Minister Manohar Joshi that is being circulated by Communalism Combat. Please read it and send it in, as is or edited as you wish:

Date: Shri Manohar Joshi Chief Minister of Maharashtra Mantralaya, Mumbai Fax: (91-22) 2028594.

Dear Honourable Chief Minister,

After four years of painstaking effort, the Srikrishna Commission submitted to your government, over two months ago, its findings on who are the guilty for the extensive loss of life and property during the Mumbai riots and serial bomb blasts in 1992-93.

I/We, the undersigned, fully support the widespread demand that in the interests of justice, truth and the emotional and psychological rehabilitation of hundreds of victims of mass violence, the Srikrishna Commission report must be made public IMMEDIATELY.

Yours sincerely, Name: Address:

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