Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah recently renewed his call for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), first made soon after he took over as the chief minister in 2009. News reports quoted him as saying: “Jammu and Kashmir has so many policies for the government’s better functioning, but the healing touch policy is still missing”, “TRC formation would help to find out the truth behind disappearances, political killings, eruptions of militants and causes of Kashmiri Pandits’ migration from the Valley”, and “We want the House (Assembly) to pass a resolution. A person or team that is absolutely non-political and unbiased should be appointed to find out the ground realities”.
India has not had a TRC so far. Mahatma Gandhi’s use of truth as a moral and political instrument in “satyagraha” bears only remote resemblance to such commissions, of which there have been 24 worldwide since 1974. Most of them were instituted to account for the wrongs of an earlier regime and provide the social basis for the “new” nation and government. They allowed victims, their relatives and perpetrators to give evidence of human rights abuses, providing an official forum for their accounts. Such commissions sought to establish a “larger” truth which, along with confession, repentance and forgiveness, was expected to lead to personal and social reconciliation. The balance between amnesty and retributive justice was determined by the historical and cultural context of each case.
A bird’s eye view of some TRCs give us mixed results — the best known of them, the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, established in 1995 (to cover the period from 1960 to 1994) had only about 2,000 testimonies from a total of approximately 20,000 deponents — a very small number given the three decades covered by the TRC and a national population of 43 million. Seven thousand applicants applied for amnesty; only very few were top leaders of the apartheid system. Nearly half of the applicants were from the African National Congress itself. Contrition was not a requirement for amnesty and, indeed, many applicants did not apologise for their actions. In the end, amnesty was granted to approximately 16 per cent of the applicants. The former apartheid state President P.W. Botha defied a subpoena to appear before the commission, calling it a “circus”. His defiance resulted in a fine and suspended sentence, but these were overturned on appeal. In the TRCs of Sierra Leone and Rwanda the numbers were not much better.
For South Africa, transiting to a black-majority democracy, the end objective was perhaps most succinctly stated by Bishop Desmond Tutu, chairperson, TRC for South Africa, and its moving spirit who summed up its intent in recording: “Having looked the beast of the past in the eye, having asked and received forgiveness and having made amends, let us shut the door on the past — not in order to forget it but in order not to allow it to imprison us.” This seems to have been so for Sierra Leone and Rwanda as well. While surveys of both perpetrators and victims (and others) soon after the conclusion of the TRCs gave very conflicting views on the outcomes, these countries have since, at least by Desmond Tutu’s yardstick, shown signs of success. South Africa, of course, has had the added advantage of the sheer power of the major actors on its stage.
No TRC has been established for an international matter so far. Edward Said, a Palestinian-American literary theorist and advocate for Palestinian rights, writing in 1999 on that most intractable of conflicts, concludes (optimistically) that the “yet feelings of persecution, suffering and victimhood are so ingrained that it is nearly impossible to undertake political initiatives. Palestinian intellectuals need to express their case directly to Israelis in public forums, universities, and the media” to change the “nationalism that has developed into an obstacle to reconciliation” and “the degradation of discourse (which) impedes any wider, more generous perspective from emerging. A way out, based on peace and equality (as in South Africa after apartheid), is actively sought, despite the many obstacles”.
Omar Abdullah’s need for a TRC stems from a search for a “healing touch policy (which) is missing”, a prerequisite for the good governance he promises. The mandate he proposes is very wide. No time period to be covered is mentioned. The state and Central governments would need to defend their own actions over the years. “Disappearances” would raise the issue of movements across the LoC. The official forum conducting the TRC would need to be acceptable to the public at large. And, of course, there is no one around of the stature of Mandela. Finally, a TRC would gain greater traction if the people of PoK are also full participants. So are we putting our hopes on “a wing and a prayer”? Yet, Said’s basic arguments perhaps hold good for Kashmir as well.

The author retired as secretary to the Government of India