Source: The Hindustan Times, 21 December 1999 | Opinion
SILENCE ON SRIKRISHNA REPORT
by Teesta Setalvad
Seven years after December 1992 Mumbai has turned full circle. The
in-between years, racked by bitterness, disillusion and turmoil saw the
"guilty" in power.
Those who rule today held the reins seven years ago. As the criminals
had gone about identifying the targets in 1992-93, those who rule us
again now had pronounced their impotency to the public. All of us were
witness to the collapse of the administration in that year.
>From February 1995 to September 1999, it was the rule of the guilty.
They fortunately proved themselves so inept and so greedy that the
ballot was the means used to set right the wrongs of the past. In those
four years, it was the citizens not politicians who raised their voices
demanding action against the guilty. It was the citizens who kept the
issue of the Justice Srikrishna Commission alive.
The political game began days after the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance admitted
their guilt by denigrating the judge's report and rejecting it on August
6, 1998. Political fortunes have now turned and those who rule us in
Maharashtra today had watched the city burn seven years ago.
The voice of the opposition Congress rang shrill in demanding the
report's implementation while the Shiv Sena-BJP ruled. Were these
demands a sincere reflection of remorse at their own failure as the
party in power to protect lives of citizens in 1992-1993? Or were they
just one of those cynical games that politicians play so well? Will the
demands from the major national opposition parties echo in the current
session of Parliament or will they be silenced now that power has been
obtained, albeit shakily, in Maharashtra?
On September 6, the Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee had collected over
10,000 signatures to pressurise the Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party
government in Maharashtra to implement the report. On September 30, even
the CPI (Marxist) asked the Centre to set up a panel to act on the
Srikrishna report. In the context of Maharashtra, the demand for the
implementation of the report dominated the opposition's campaign against
the Shiv Sena-BJP combine.
The Congress leadership had for one year now been highlighting this
demand. Since August 1998, when the Shiv Sena-BJP government rejected
the Srikrishna report stating that it was "anti-Hindu", the Congress had
demanded the resignation of both Union Home Minister L. K. Advani and
the then Maharashtra Chief Minister, Mr Manohar Joshi. The party had
stated that the Union Home Minister, indicted by the judge in his
investigation, had "forfeited the moral, political and constitutional
authority to continue as the country's Home Minister." The charges stand
further validated today. Will the party press its demand or lapse into
yet another suspicious silence?
Sharad Pawar, defence minister in the days that Bombay burned and leader
of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) had, on August 8, 1998 in the
last Lok Sabha, and several times later in the run-up to the recent
polls, stated that if his party returned to power in Maharashtra, it
would act on the recommendations of the Srikrishna report. While his
party has changed (the NCP was born after he parted ways with the
Congress), every Mumbaikar would like to know if his resolve on the
issue is as firm as it then appeared.
Opposition parties like the Congress, the CPI-M, the SP, the RJD, the
National Conference, the Muslim League, the RPI and others had joined
hands against the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government using the
Srikrishna report to hit out at the Centre. Senior Akali leader
Gurucharan Sing Tohra and senior Samata Party leader Abdul Gaffoor urged
action on the basis of the report on August 18, 1998, even upsetting the
BJP's central leadership with their publicly-voiced demands at the time.
The game for the ballot is now over.
A political dispensation committed to action against the guilty holds
the reins in Maharashtra now. All the politicians' voices that spoke
vociferously on the implementation of the Srikrishna Commission report
need to be heard now. Their silence is suspicious.
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