Method in madness

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A decade since Gujarat genocide, former DGP of Gujarat R.B. Sreekumar writes for DC about system failure, belittled law-enforcers & lost lives

The Gujarat genocide in 2002, resulting in the killing of nearly 1,500 innocent citizens — mostly Muslims — and the subsequent subversion of the governmental machinery to sabotage justice delivery to the riot victims, has been evaluated in two ways.

One is the academic view that deems these riots as a system failure in respect of governance, that had happened on account of the in-built structural infirmities and the long rope of discretion that was given to the functionaries to contrive and manipulate the administrative machinery to their subjective requirements such as are fully tailored to the hidden agenda of the political elite in Gujarat.

The other is that the school of pragmatists perceives the whole malady to be a man-made disaster, for want of professionalism, integrity and commitment to the letter, spirit and ethos of the Indian Constitution, from chief minister Narendra Modi down to the level of constables.

An analysis of the sequence of events from the time of the gruesome killing of 59 Hindu passengers in the train burning incident on Feb 27, 2002 to this day will raise many unambiguous facts and data on the deliberate acts of omission and commission by political leaders, bureaucrats and policeman aiming at the actualization of the anti-Muslim carnage and lopsided justice delivery to the riot victims.
This would give greater credence to the second appraisal by the realistic observers of the events.

There are many laudable but less known instances of police officers and those in the executive magistracy religiously implementing the codified administrative wisdom detailed in a plethora of governmental regulations and effectively containing the violence and keeping the human causalities and damage to property on as low a scale as possible.

The position of Surat city violence statistics is quite unique. The city, the second most populous in Gujarat, did report only seven deaths due to violence though in previous communal disturbances, particularly in the 1992 post - Babri Masjid demolition violence, hundreds of citizens had been killed.

It is well-known that the Gujarat government, true to its alleged ulterior motive of portraying the 2002 riots as a spontaneous, uncontrollable articulation of justifiable ire against the community of the alleged perpetrators of the Godhra train fire tragedy, by the majority community, has till date underplayed or belittled the praiseworthy and model performance of the law enforcers in the above mentioned areas of nil or negligible violence.

Significantly, practically all police officers who had genuinely enforced the rule of law to ensure security to the minorities had incurred the wrath of the Modi government, and many of these persons who refused to carry out the covert anti-minority agenda of the chief minister were punished with disciplinary proceedings, transfers, denial of promotion and so on. A few upright officers had to leave the state on deputation.

Ideally, any chief minister committed to his oath to the Constitution of India and cannons of ethics would have primarily moved for de-politicization and de-communalisation of the Godhra train fire incident and thereafter scrupulously implemented the principles of Raj Dharma.

But, the tone, tenor and thrust of the chief minister's response to the Godhra train fire incident had betrayed a political strategy to project the tragedy at Godhra as an international conspiracy targeted against the Hindu community. He did this with an eye on achieving electoral dividends through Hindu communal mobilization.

Calculated acts on the part of the administration include, among others, the handing over of the bodies of Godhra train fire victims to VHP leaders in violation of the regulations on the handing over of bodies only to the next of kin of the deceased, the delay in imposition of curfew in Ahmedabad city to facilitate the parading of dead bodies, the delay in requisition of army, the chief minister's illegal directions to officers to allow Hindu revenge against Muslims, in a meeting held at the CM's residence, the public announcement by the CM declaring the Godhra train fire incident as a pre-planned conspiracy even as there was no such information to the police, the CM painting the anti-minority blood bath as an operation of Newtonian Law or reaction, and the refusal to act against the sections of the media that were making false and communally inciting reports despite hints of such possibility from the State Intelligence Branch (SIB).

Also, the transfer of officers who checked anti-minority bloodshed by armed Hindu mobs in the thick of the riots, the refusal to take follow-up action on numerous SIB reports for correcting anti-minority posture of the government officials, the impeding of justice delivery to riot victims, the failure to visit areas of major mass killings even as the CM visited the site of the Godhra train fire incident and met the relations of those killed in train fire, the appointment of pro-VHP advocates as public prosecutors in riot cases against those accused of anti-minority crimes, the refusal to transfer officers from important executive posts in areas of high voltage violence despite SIB recommendations, till the arrival of K P S Gill as advisor to the CM, the failure to maintain the minutes of the situation at review meetings chaired by the CM, the making of a sham of the monitoring exercise allegedly for avoiding accountability in any subsequent investigation or judicial scrutiny, the placement of two cabinet ministers in the offices of the DGP and CP Ahmedabad city allegedly for restraining the police from blocking anti-minority mob violence, the misuse of government. funds to undermine a PIL before the apex court by Mallika Sarabai asking for a CBI investigation of the riot cases, etc, are clear indications of a method in the madness.

The civil bureaucracy supervising the police force, consisting of the chief secretary, home department officials and executive magistracy, are legally bound to implement the government regulations.

Strangely, chief secretary G Subbarao, who as the secretary of the state cabinet was the bridge between the bureaucracy and the political leadership in the government, had not submitted any affidavit to the judicial commission inquiring into the role of the chief minister and others in the course of, and in the aftermath of, the 2002 communal holocaust.

The anti-minority prejudice of the administration was brought to the notice of the government by SIB, but deliberately, no follow up action was taken. Nor did the government. question the veracity of the SIB reports. So, all those defaulters in government. were responsible for criminal negligence punishable under sections 166, 186, 187 of the IPC.

Unfortunately, the investigators from Gujarat Police and SIT constituted by the apex court, under Dr. R.K. Raghavan, had failed to arrest and prosecute all those officers responsible for culpable acts.

Many officers became non-performers during riots not for want of skills, human and material resources, legal authority and logistics but on account of lack of motivation, will, courage and moral stamina to swim against the tide of subservience and servitude to a chief minister carrying out an anti-minority agenda, for political capital, at the cost of the rule of law.