Crime and forgiveness

Satyameva Jayate, it seems, must wait if it’s not forgotten altogether. We are all Jains now and the chant is “Michhami dukkadam”: I ask forgiveness for any hurt I may have caused you by thoughts, words or actions, knowingly or unknowingly. Readers of The Asian Age/Deccan Chronicle (refer to BJP spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman’s article “Modi-baiters and the ghost of 2002” on September 19) have also been told that embedded in these two words are layers upon layers of meaning: seeking forgiveness, forgiving others, forgiving self, hoping that forgiveness gets extended to all beings around us.

So deep is Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi’s new-found attachment to such noble thought that he has committed mega-crores of public money while seeking forgiveness for himself. Please forgive me, too, in this season of forgiveness-seekers for harbouring heretical thoughts.
When a Jain muni utters the words Michhami dukkadam, you listen to him with respect and strive to grasp the meaning behind the message. But when the devil starts quoting scripture, popular wisdom tells us to separate the messenger from the message and look for the motive instead. Never mind the orchestrated cries of Allah-o-Akbar by some Muslims enticed or cajoled into swearing their love and loyalty to the self-proclaimed “Hinduhriday Samrat” (“Emperor of Hindu Hearts”).
So, therefore...
Heresy No. 1: Witness the saturation coverage of Mr Modi’s farce (sorry, fast) by news channels. Is Mr Modi’s multi-crore largesse to the media (full-page advertisements in national dailies) at the tax-payers’ expense about forgiveness or is it cash-for-coverage? Heresy No, 2: Let’s recall Milan Kundera’s wise words — “The struggle of man against (misuse of) power is the struggle of memory against forgetting” — and ask: Is Mr Modi really talking about forgiveness or forgetting? Heresy No. 3: Michhami dukkadam also means forgiving oneself? Wow! Mr Modi must love it.
Yes, we are moved by the graciousness and magnanimity of individuals who can never forget and yet forgive those who caused them deep pain and anguish. We were touched by Gladys Staines when she forgave Dara Singh and other members of the Sangh Parivar who burnt her husband Graham Staines and two sons inside a jeep in Orissa. We were similarly touched when Sonia Gandhi, Rahul and Priyanka said they have forgiven those responsible for the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi.
But can the crime-and-forgiveness gesture ever replace the crime and punishment principle that governs the life of nations and international relations? There’s no country in the world without laws stipulating punishments — whether retributive or reformative — for crimes. When crimes against humanity or genocidal killings are concerned, there’s the United Nations’ Convention for the Prevention and Punishment for the Crime of Genocide, 1948, and the International Criminal Court (ICC), established in July 2002, “to help end impunity for the perpetrators of the most serious crimes of concern to the international community”. Those deemed guilty of such crimes can’t hide behind inadequate or deficient national laws to escape prosecution and punishment by the ICC. Remember the Serbian President? (Fortunately for Mr Modi, the Gujarat carnage pre-dated the founding of the ICC.)
“I ask forgiveness for any hurt I may have caused you...” said Mr Modi. May have? In its November 2002 report, “Crime Against Humanity”, the Concerned Citizens Tribunal headed by three retired judges (two from the Supreme Court) concluded that “the Gujarat carnage is nothing short of genocide” and that “the post-Godhra carnage was an organised crime perpetrated by the state’s chief minister and his government”. (Could this be the reason why the chief minister of Gujarat has been denied a US visa for over nine years?)
Should we include three retired judges of the Supreme Court in the list of “Modi-baiters” who are keeping the “ghost of 2002” alive: Justices V.R. Krishna Iyer and P.B. Sawant, who headed the Concerned Citizens Tribunal, and Justice J.S. Verma, retired Chief Justice of the Supreme Court whose report as chairperson of the National Human Rights Commission was no less critical of the Modi government?
Mr Modi and his apologists in the BJP proclaim his innocence in the 2002 post-Godhra carnage claiming there is not a single FIR registered against him in Gujarat. It is obviously not in their interest to tell us that there is no FIR because the Gujarat police, from the local police station right up to director-general of police, simply refused to register Zakia Jafri’s complaint (wife of former Congress MP, Ehsan Jafri who was brutally killed along with 68 others in Gulberg Society, Ahmedabad, on February 28, 2002). It is following such refusal that Ms Jafri, assisted by Citizens for Justice and Peace, filed a writ petition in the Gujarat high court and on its rejection appealed to the Supreme Court in November 2007.
The Supreme Court’s order of September 12 is in response to this petition. Mr Modi and the BJP are jumping with joy, feigning victory. But through several interviews to the media, senior lawyer Raju Ramachandran (who was appointed amicus curiae in the case to assist the court) has explained in detail how the order has effectively fast-forwarded the case to the charge-sheet stage thus rendering the registration of an FIR infructuous. Even as they posture before the public hiding behind the FIR fig leaf, Mr Modi and his party must be losing sleep over the prospects of a charge-sheet implicating him and 61 others in a criminal conspiracy for mass murder, among other serious offences.
In our criminal judicial system, a crime remains a crime no matter how many skull caps and burqas Mr Modi manages to parade in his support. (He was keen on Muslims in skull caps or burqas for photo-op during his fast, but wisely refused to put on a skull cap offered by an innocent maulvi saheb.)
Seeking forgiveness in devious fashion convinces none but the most gullible or willing. Nor will it help those who survived genocidal killings to forget. More importantly, in the Indian Penal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code, there is no provision for mercy and forgiveness. For the convicted, there is only punishment.

Javed Anand is general secretary, Muslims for Secular Democracy, and founder member, Citizens for Justice and Peace