HVK Archives: Justice Srikrishna is ore to be pitied
Justice Srikrishna is ore to be pitied - The Free Press Journal
M. V. Kamath
()
September 3, 1998
Title: Justice Srikrishna is ore to be pitied
Author: M. V. Kamath
Publication: The Free Press Journal
Date: September 3, 1998
The Srikrishna Commission was appointed to inquire into the riots
in Mumbai during December 1992 and January 1993. Its work was by
no means smooth. At one stage its terms of reference were
expanded. At another stage the Commission itself was disbanded
and was only revived at the instance of the Prime Minister. For
all that the Commission completed its task and its report became
available almost five years after it started functioning. It has
been dismissed by the Maharashtra Government as being anti-Hindu
and pro-Muslim. But it has been hailed by many distinguished
lawyers such as Nani Palkivala, as many retired judges like
Bakhtavar Lentin and P.K.Bhagwati, the latter insisting that it
is "improper for a government to impute a bias against a judge".
More reactions pro and con can be expected. We have yet to hear
the last word on the subject. No matter how objective a judge is,
in matters relating to communal riots, there never can be such a
thing as a totally bias-free report. The fault is not that of the
judge or the Commission. The fault lies in the system. The matter
was touched upon by Justice B.N. Srikrishna himself in his
summary of the report. "Till there is a radical change in social
outlook" writes the learned judge, "achieved only by total
revamping of social values and widespread education, communal
riots must be treated, perhaps, as an incurable disease......
Justice Srikrishna further noted that "communal riots, the bane
of this country, are like incurable seizures whose symptoms,
though dormant over a period of time, manifest themselves over
and over again". But is there no cure available? Throwing his
hands up, Justice Srikrishna adds: "This Commission has no
magical nostrum or panacea to offer, but only age-old wisdom
conditioned by newer experiences". That is an admission of
defeat. At the same time it is exemplification of the magnitude
of the problem. The problem is not the Shiv Sena or the BJP or
the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) or the Bombay
Muslim Action Committee. They are only symptoms of the disease.
The disease is the non-reconciliation of Hindus and Muslims.
Memories of over eight hundred years of Muslim rule in India
persist. Past tyrannies are remembered, old psychic wounds are
frequently reopened and built-up anger explodes. The trouble
with history, it seems, is that it is remembered. Would that all
of us could forget the past and start anew! That is not
vouchsafed to us.
Justice Srikrishna, let it be said, is not unaware of the problem
but his reference to it is brief. The trouble is that our
intellectuals, especially Hindu intellectuals, are afraid to face
up to their own psyche. Understandably so, because memories of
humiliation are painful. But that does not mean that they are not
remembered. It certainly does not behove anyone, least of all a
judge, to lay the flattering unction to his soul and tell the
world that at all times of communal riots it is the Hindu who is
always to blame. Justice Srikrishna dares to go back into history
only up to the point of the demolition of the Babri Masjid. He
truthfully describes it as a "dilapidated structure which perhaps
was not even used as a mosque. "Then why should its demolition
have created such an uproar? It does not require even an amateur
psychologist to point out that the Babri Masjid stood for the
collective guilt of the Muslims whose ancestors went on a rampage
against Hindus and Muslims. That masjid should not have been
built in Ayodhya whether or not on a demolished temple site, even
as it would have been sacrilegious for an imaginary Hindu
conqueror to have built a temple to Shiva in Mecca close to the
Kaaba. To expect Hindus- who have been fighting for the site for
over a hundred years- to let the dead past bury its dead is not
to understand human psychology.
Here we come to a third party to which there is no reference in
the Srikrishna Commission Report. And the third party is the
"secular" Hindu who, in his own way, egged on the Muslims to
fight the VHP. That role was played subtly but it was sufficient
for the likes of Syed Shahabuddin to refuse to make any
compromise with the VHP. Had the secular Hindu intellectual
showed some statesmanship in explaining to the Muslim the nature
of the sentiment of the run-ofthe - mill Hindu and work for a
happy compromise, much of the distress that followed the
demolition of the Babri Masjid could have been avoided. The
guilty party in the circumstances is neither the allegedly
fundamentalist Muslim nor the angry Hindu but the brand of
wretched secularists who fanned the fires. This character has
much to explain and expiate for.
Justice Srikrishna, who for all his Hindu religiosity, is part of
that "secular" Hindu establishment makes an unacceptable
statement in condemning the demolition of the Babri masjid as an
"irresponsible act". Without the attachment of past history and
the record of Muslim tyranny, the demolition of any masjid
concurrence of Muslims, could possibly fall into that category.
But the Babri Masjid stood for all that were wrong, unacceptable
and divisive in Hindu- Muslim relations. A wise Islamic
community would have seen it in that light and sought to make
amends. A wiser ecular leadership would also have brought that
to the attention of the Islamic community. This leadership failed
on all counts. The major part of the blame, in the circumstances,
lies four square, on the so-called secular community. The blood
of the dead is on their hands.
To quibble over how many Hindus were killed and how many Muslims,
or who started what, in the circumstances is irrelevant. The
arguments over these irrelevant facts can go on endlessly, as
they surely will. But they do not touch the core issue which
remains embedded in our psyches. At one point Justice Srikrishna
writes: "Police officers and men, particularly at the junior
level, appeared to have an in-built bias against the Muslims
which was evident in their treatment of the suspected Muslims and
the Muslim victims of riots". This is a sweeping statement that
merits examination. But let us presume that it is word-to-word
literally true. Shouldn't we ask ourselves why this is so? At
another point Justice Srikrishna says: "Despite knowledge of the
fact that the (police) force had been infected by communal virus,
no effective curative steps were taken over a large period of
time..." Surely, the police force was not instituted after the
Shiv Sena-BJP government came to power? Men must have been
recruited during earlier Congress regimes. Weren't Congress
governments aware of the nature of the men they recruited to the
police force? But the over-riding question is not who recruited
whom but why is it that anti-Muslim sentiment persists even among
the young?
For fifty years the national and local leadership has not faced
up to the issue of our times which is the irreconcilable nature
of Hindu-Muslim relations. Even now, instead of looking at the
issue in its face, our leaders are working up passions on
peripheral issues. Sack the Joshi Government, maintain some.
Arrest the Shiv Sena leader, aver some others. It makes them feel
virtuous Haven't they established their secular credentials?
Aren't they such good boys? And don't they deserve a pat on the
back?
Justice Srikrishna has done what he was asked to do: inquire into
the riots. This means going into the nitty gritty of what
happened where, which is par for the course. His was an
impossible job which he did to the best of his abilities. He was
not invited to philosophise over Indian history which alone would
explain all riots- and not just the, riots of December 1992 and
January 1993. That was beyond the scope of his inquiry. The poor
man deserves neither to be pilloried nor glorified. He is more
to be pitied. Hindus in India may be a majority, but they are a
psychological minority. They have to get out of that mind-set.
The Muslim refuses to carry the burden of past Islamic tyranny.
That is his problem. That alone will explain the conflict between
the two communities. It is only when the Hindu comes to realise
that he is indeed the majority community and the Muslim comes to
accept that his community has much to atone for, that the former
will learn to be more gracious and forgiving and the latter
become more deserving of forgiveness. But for how many more
centuries do we have to wait for this to happen?
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