When presented with two diametrically opposite versions of the same event, by two different commissions of inquiry, anyone reading the two reports will either be completely confused, or choose to believe one or the other, according to personal predilection and political bias. Justice Nanavati (appointed by the Gujarat government) has determined that the Godhra train fire in February 2002 (which killed some 55 Hindus returning from Ayodhya) was the result of a well-planned conspiracy, while Justice Banerjee (appointed by the railway minister in New Delhi) has already declared that it was the result of an accident. The reports have inevitably become the subject of partisan political debate, and the unfortunate result is that what should have been a question of objective truth (what, who, how, if not why) has become a matter of personal belief. This is not how one of the defining episodes in the country’s contemporary history should have been investigated.
That the Nanavati interpretation of events is different, not just from the findings of the Banerjee findings, but also from the conclusions drawn by the retired Justice Krishna Iyer (at the head of a nine-member ‘concerned citizens’ tribunal) may be neither here nor there, because Mr Justice Iyer has rarely been the most impartial of voices in recent years. But it bears pointing out that the conclusions drawn by the Nanavati commission appear to be based largely on the report of the investigating officer in the Godhra train burning case, which the Supreme Court recently declined to accept. The apex court has, instead, constituted a fresh special investigation team, headed by former CBI director R K Raghavan. That report is still awaited.
Without going into the contentious area of which version of events is more credible, it is easy to see that Justice Nanavati has done himself no credit by the manner in which he has gone about his task. He has released one part of his report (on the Godhra fire itself), without being anywhere close to completing work on the second part (relating to the even gorier aftermath). Yet he has already exonerated the state’s Narendra Modi administration of all charges. His findings are also contrary to what has been stated by the National Human Rights Commission, which had held Mr Modi’s government guilty of not providing relief to riot victims. Similar condemnations were issued by a fact-finding committee appointed by the Editors Guild, while the Tehelka sting provided horrific accounts of what people from various Sangh parivar outfits claimed they had been doing.
Marx is often quoted for saying that history repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce. Both the Godhra fire and the pogrom that followed were massive tragedies. In the six years since then, cases relating to the pogrom have been transferred out of Gujarat by the Supreme Court, commissions of inquiry have become political football, and there is no closure. The country should be aware that this descent into farcical role-playing could lay the ground for an even bigger tragedy, if the events of 2002 and after become the wellspring for a domestic terrorist network to be born and find sustenance.