The Economic and Political Weekly
January 29, 2005
Editorial
Banerjee Committee: Elusive Truth
The truth, it has been said, will emerge if sufficient efforts are expended in its search. Yet, despite the efforts and the time invested, the 'truth' about Godhra that emerges at every turn is one that has many versions, is contentious and remains as difficult to unravel as ever.
The events that followed Godhra when 59 passengers, mainly kar sevaks, burnt to death when a coach of the Sabarmati Express caught fire on February 27, 2002, saw some of the worst violence in post-independence India. The communal riots claimed more than 2,000 lives in Gujarat, most of them Muslims. Since then, any criticism of the Narendra Modi BJP-led government's inability to prevent the total breakdown of law and order has been deflected by invoking Godhra, as BJP leaders insisted it was the conspiracy hatched and enacted at Godhra that sparked off the 'shameful' riots. The Modi government's zeal in bringing the Godhra conspirators to book, even as riot cases in several other grievous instances floundered, saw more than a 100 people arrested under POTA, 76 of whom were subsequently charge-sheeted.
The Nanavati-Shah Commission set up by the Modi government to inquire into the 'setting on fire of some of the coaches of the Sabarmati Express train', is now into its third year of investigations, but it has never been able to free itself of charges of 'political association'. Neither has the U C Banerjee Committee, set up last September by Lalu Prasad Yadav, the railway minister in the UPA government, to probe the fire in coach S6 of the Sabarmati Express. In its interim report submitted recently, a fortnight before elections in three crucial states including Bihar begin, the Banerjee Committee believes the fire was 'accidental'. The report draws on the evidence of forensic experts and engineers to conclude that "at this stage... a preponderance of evidence (suggests) that the fire in coach S6 originated in the coach itself without any external input"; the report, in fact, indicates that the fire may have started due to cooking inside the train. It also records its disbelief that the trishul-armed kar sevaks, who formed 90 per cent of the coach's total occupants, allowed themselves to get burnt. The report also chastises then railway minister, Nitish Kumar, and the railways for not conducting the mandatory inquiry by the commissioner of rail safety.
The interim report does dispense with the 'conspiracy' theory (and there are several) but the Banerjee Committee leaves other issues unanswered. The agonising question as to how the fire started remains in search of an explanation. Moreover, neither police charge-sheets nor the present interim report have yet been able to establish any link between the 'huge' crowds that amassed outside cabin A at Godhra station and the actual incidence of fire. All that has emerged is a mass of theories, contradictory and conflicting but with little clinching evidence.
The final report of the Banerjee Committee is still awaited, the Nanavati Commission report is due in December and investigations by the Gujarat police remain ongoing, yet truth remains elusive. But Godhra remains an emotive issue; the BJP's fears that it will be used for political gains in Bihar are valid, while the Election Commission has 'reprimanded' Lalu Yadav for using it to his own advantage in Bihar, i e, consolidating the Muslim votes. Godhra needs closure, not just for its victims and survivors but to also ensure that the state and its institutions, which rather than ensuring security chose to indulge in the politics of cynical manipulation, are brought to book. There is also a case to be made for US style commission inquiries that are conducted in public. It is necessary that pettifogging over the report, its findings and its immediate utility, does not obfuscate the wider issue of the state's role in the riots that followed, of the many instances that reveal collusion between state authorities and rioters, and of the final need to ensure justice. The Banerjee Committee's interim report does expose the mishandling of the inquiry by the railways and it does suggest that there is enough evidence to question the allegation that coach S6 was set on fire by the residents of Godhra. But a clear resolution of Gujarat, vital for the Indian state to retain its 'secular' credentials, is something this interim report was not equipped to do, nor should the brouhaha that it has generated be mistaken for its having done so.
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