(The Hindu,
13 Sept 2006)
Wounds that have yet to heal
by Kalpana Sharma
The judgment in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts should not obscure the absence of closure on the 1992-93 communal riots.
MARCH 12, 1993 is a day not many in Mumbai, who were present on that day, will forget. Over a dozen serial bomb blasts ripped through the city from the early hours of the afternoon. They tore apart chunks of Mumbai's landmarks such as the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) building on Dalal Street and the Air India building at Nariman Point. And, 257 people died, more than 700 were injured.
The blasts took place at a time when Mumbai's residents had yet to recover from weeks of the most vicious communal riots the city had witnessed in decades. Hundreds had died, crores of rupees of property had been destroyed, and hundreds of thousands of people had been displaced. Virtually the entire city had been touched by the killing, the arson, the reprisals, the hate campaigns, and the fear.
Before people could fully recover, and even as the first tentative steps were being taken to come to terms with the riots, pin responsibility, compensate the families of the dead and the injured, and build structures that heal the rift between communities, the city was shaken once again. Some saw this as a closure, a statement on behalf of a community that had been deeply wounded. Others wondered whether this would make the community much more vulnerable in the years to come.
On Tuesday, when after years of delays, adjournments, and arguments, P.D. Kode, the judge appointed to hear the case in the specially designated court under the Terrorists and Disruptive Activities Act, finally began reading out his judgment in the 1993 bomb blast case, some could not quite believe that "judgment day" had finally dawned. For, barely a month ago, on August 10, the entire city had waited for the pronouncement that never came. Would that happen again?
Fortunately, this time the way had been cleared when Abu Salem, extradited from Portugal in 2005 and charged under the same case, agreed not to pursue the matter of separation of his trial from the main case.
While the full judgment will take many more weeks as there are 123 individuals involved and many of them face multiple charges, the very fact that the process has finally begun has been greeted with some relief. Even a case as complex as this, should not have taken this long. The lives of these individuals, and those connected to them, have been virtually put on hold these 13 years.
A reminder
But the judgment in the 1993 bomb blasts case is also a reminder that there has been no closure on the communal riots that preceded the blasts. In his comprehensive report into the riots and the blasts, Justice B.N. Srikrishna has named specific individuals who he held responsible for dereliction of duty. The list includes 31 policemen who have been named under the head "Delinquency of police personnel." Yet, though the Maharashtra Government came out with an Action Taken Report (ATR), in fact, nothing has been done. Hardly any cases have been filed against those responsible for the crimes during the period of the riots.
When an event as dramatic as a bomb blast takes place, the media and the public turn their attention to it. And there is a demand that the culprits be found and punished. But what about the communal riots that leave behind the seeds of hate and despair? When these are left unresolved, you lay the ground for more anger, more hate, more despair, and the feeling that justice can never be done through legitimate means.
Maharashtra has seen innumerable commissions of inquiry look into communal riots, only to have their reports sit on shelves with no real action by the Government. As a result, the same police force, charged with partisan and communal behaviour by Justice Srikrishna, is now assigned the task of uncovering the perpetrators of the more recent bomb blasts. But can such men function within communities where they continue to be hated and distrusted? An illustration of such distrust was evident in Malegaon after last Friday's blasts when people immediately turned on the local police in their anger and sorrow.
For, one of the provocations for the 2001 communal riots in that city was the perceived partisanship of the police. In that case, too, despite an inquiry commission, no action has been taken.
Mumbai is no different. The 1992-93 riots were a long time ago, as were the serial blasts of 1993. But memories do not die that easily. Their permanence manifests itself in the separation and the distrust between groups and communities who even if they live separately had done so in the past with a high degree of tolerance and even some affection. That is the warp and weft of a pluralistic society that has been strained today almost to tearing point.
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