Justice
Nanavati of the Nanavati-Shah Commission inquiring into the post-Godhra
riots in Gujarat has an extremely difficult, nay impossible, task of
dispensing justice to more than 2000 people who perished in the
state-sponsored pogrom against Muslims in Gujarat in January/February
2002. The Commission, set up in March 2002, has received four extensions
already, the latest one for six months till May 5, 2006. It may not make
much headway by then as very powerful personalities in the country are
keen that justice not be done.
First,
it was the secretariat of the first citizen of the Republic, President
APJ Abdul Kalam, which nonchalantly refused to cooperate with the
process. The Commission had appealed to the current President to
cooperate with it when it requested Rashtrapati Bhavan to make available
certain correspondence between his predecessor K R Narayanan and the
then Prime Minister A B Vajpayee. These documents may establish criminal
acts of commission and omission on the part of the State and the Central
government and fundamentalist politicians of the country.
The
President's secretariat wrote back to the Commission bluntly refusing to
make the correspondence available for scrutiny. It claimed
"privilege" over the correspondence on the basis of article
74(2) of the constitution. This article bars any inquiry by any court
into whatever advice is tendered by the council of ministers to the
President. Kalam's secretariat claimed the exchange between President
Narayanan and Vajpayee's cabinet was in the course of his discharge of
his functions as head of state comes under the article's purview. This
was apparently an attempt by a grateful Kalam, who owes his appointment
to the ceremonial office to Vajpayee's Bharatiya Janata Party, to put a
screen over the role of Vajpayee government in Gujarat pogrom.
The
Genocide Probe Commission saw through the design and rejected the
arguments advanced by the President's secretariat. Taking cognizance of
the "high position of the President", the Commission made a
"request" to the President's secretariat instead of issuing a
"directive" to produce the letters written in the month of
March 2002 by Narayanan to Vajpayee. The commission noted in its
"request" of May 2005 that these letters were relevant to the
inquiry and added that the information contained in the correspondence
was not likely to adversely affect security or the interest of the
State. [See "Will PM Manmohan Talk Tough to His President on
Gujarat Massacre?" < http://www.satribune.com/archives/200509/P1_iyan2.htm
> reproduced in Milli Gazette in October 2005.]
K
R Narayanan had told a Malayalam periodical that the Vajpayee government
had not heeded to his advice to give shoot at sight orders to the army
to control the riots. The army had been called out on Feb 28, 2002 but
the State government did not deploy it for quite some time and allowed a
free hand to ruffians to ransack establishments belonging to Muslims.
[See Ex-President Narayanan Reveals Zealots' Role in Ethnic Cleansing of
2002]
Yet
another quarter that is keen to deny justice for the hounded minorities,
ironically, is the UPA government at the Centre with the supposedly
secular Congress Party at the head of the coalition.
No
kidding this.
The
UPA government has chosen to toe exactly the same line chosen by the
Rashtrapati Bhavan. In October 2005, the UPA government formally refused
to hand over to the Nanavati-Shah Commission the letters written by
former President K R Narayanan to the then Prime Minister Atal Behari
Vajpayee on the 2002 Godhra riots. The Central government stated that
their disclosure was against public interest!
In
a letter to the Commission, handed over to the Commission by a
nondescript babu named Jugal Kishore who is an Under Secretary in the
Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, the Congress-led
UPA government said the Union Government had "carefully read the
commission's order dated May 11, 2005 and is of the view that the
documents are unpublished official record relating to the affairs of the
state and the documents contain communications made in strict official
confidence." It pleaded that the documents cannot be handed over as
"disclosure of the letters would cause injury to public
interest."
The
commission could not believe that the Central government would take such
a casual approach and let an ordinary Under Secretary make submissions
of a far-reaching nature.
Is
it not in "public interest" that the truth comes out fully and
promptly?
The
Central government headed by Manmohan Singh, who incidentally belongs to
the minority community that suffered devastating damages during the 1984
anti-Sikh riots engineered by Congress ruffians, has virtually admitted
that public interest in India does not necessarily include the
interests of the hounded minorities. A fresh affidavit was filed on
February 8, 2006 before the Commission by Additional Solicitor General
Mohan Parasaran to this effect on behalf of Pratyush Sinha, Secretary,
Department of Personnel & Training. The UPA government's counsel
refused to budge on the earlier stance taken by the Under Secretary on K
R Narayanan's correspondence. It reiterated the claim of privilege to
the correspondence.
In
the affidavit, Sinha says these were disclosures in relation to
"privileged class of documents viz cabinet papers in the form of
advice and opinion of the highest constitutional authority viz the
President and the Prime Minister" qualifying for immunity under
article 74 (2) of the constitution. He adds that he had "carefully
examined, read and understood" the contents of the letters
/documents exchanged between Narayanan and Vajpayee and that much of the
documents contain "several important contents which if produced
will would seriously prejudice and affect public interest in a variety
of ways, consequently affecting the national interest as well."
The
Commission noted that Parasaran had not even cared to mention specific
dates of correspondence between KRN and Vajpayee in the affidavit. When
the Commission specifically questioned Parasaran on this, he said there
were several letters written by the President between Feb 27 and Mar 31
of 2002. He termed these documents in the nature of "high level
interdepartmental communications by the highest constitutional
authority."
Justice
Nanavati queried Parasaran as to how a revelation which had been made
by the President himself in a Media interview, whose authenticity he did
confirm to the Commission in a letter, could harm national interests .
He said these were critical documents "which will throw a flood of
light on whether there was negligence on the part of the
government."
Justice
Nanavati's comments on the Central government's affidavit raise some
interesting questions:
Who
gains by hushing up the contents of President Narayanan's correspondence
with the BJP-led government as hapless Muslims were being massacred in
Gujarat? If letting the truth come out prejudice public interest and
national interest, do depredated minorities not count among the
"public" of this "nation" ?
It
is high time the Central government takes the proceedings of the
Judicial Commission seriously and stops deputing callous officers of
uninterested ministries to muddle in the matter. In order to prevent
another genocide for "ethnic cleansing" of the region, which
fundamentalist politicians are keen upon, the interests of minorities
must be recognized as in public interest and national interest.
