Justice and equity

Twenty years ago, Delhi was in the throes of a riot the likes of which had not been seen in the capital since the terrifying days of the Partition.

On October 31, 1984, Indira Gandhi had been assassinated by two Sikh bodyguards, as a result of which thousands of innocent Sikhs had been targeted by the lumpen of Delhi. The rioting peaked on November 2.

It was always an open secret that the mobs had been directed by Congress politicians. One of them was prosecuted but was let off recently by the court because of "lack of evidence." Amazingly, the rest prospered.

In an article in The Indian Express, Indira Jaising, a lawyer, has drawn attention to this and argued that the manner in which justice was denied to the victims of the 1984 riots emboldened the state to permit the atrocities in Gujarat.

She also makes a reference to the Bhopal gas tragedy in this context. Answering the first, she says the manner in which justice was denied to the victims of the 1984 riots. This needs to be debated carefully.

One aspect that bears close examination is whether the Indian state, in its obsession with equity, has neglected justice. The two are not mutually exclusive and not even comparable in the strictest sense.

More important, one cannot be substituted for the other. But an obsessive pre-occupation with one lulls the political class into believing that social justice, which is a part of equity, is somehow more important than individual justice and that it is enough to take care of the former.

In fact, ordinary justice should be as much if not more a matter of concern for the state as equity.

The underlying problem, of course, is that equity leads to immediate political dividends while normal justice doesn't. In a competitive political environment like ours, given finite time horizons and choice sets, it is easy to see which issue they will choose.

Consequently, how best to deliver justice must engage the attention of the best and the brightest in the land, for otherwise India stands the risk of destroying even further an essential feature of democracy and a just state ""justice delivery.

Restorative justice is every bit as important as re-distributive justice and unless Indian governments recognise this by ensuring retributive justice, we could be in for trouble. The people must have faith that the government will act in a just manner.