About 60 years ago, on the night of 14th/15th August, 1947, Pakistan and India became independent nations. The partition of the pre-Independence India was made on communal basis. So, it resulted in unprecendented communal riots in the history of mankind where more than a million of Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims were killed mercilessly by each other and millions more were made homeless. It could have been a smooth affair if the Indian and Pakistani political leaders had shown sagacity and agreed to (i) either a Lebanese type arrangement where President’s post would have been reserved for a Muslim and Prime Minister’s post could have been reserved for a Hindu with President being given more powers as well as accomodation for Sikhs and Christians by reserving certain key Ministerial posts for them or (ii) peaceful exchange of population. Nehru and Jinnah did not agree for option (i) and Gandhiji and Nehru avoided peaceful exchange of population by insisting on India remaining a secular united country forcing Jinnah to give a call for direct action.
The British Viceroy, Lord Mountbettan failed to ensure a peaceful transition of the Government and his officers also failed to perform their duties. They seemed to be in too much of a hurry to go back to England and save their skins.
Since Independence, a number of communal riots had taken place but the worst was the anti-Sikh riots of 1984 which were in fact not riots but massacre of Sikhs because riots take place when two sides fight but Sikhs being too small in numbers could hardly fight. After more than two decades, Nanavati Commission gave a report on this massacre but no action has been taken on it so far. The Action taken report laid by the Government on the Table of the Lok Sabha has not been implemented. It is most unfortunate that even the Supreme Court took a lenient view of the case against a Hindu butcher who butchered a number of Sikhs like goats and reduced the death sentence awarded to him by the High Court of Delhi
into life sentence and again, when the CBI Officers went to arrest Congress M.P. Sajjan Kumar, who was master mind behind this massacre, a large crowd gathered at his residence made life miserable for CBI officers and they had to beat a retreat. It was really a shameless thing for the then Congress Govt.
Regarding Bhagalpur riots in which the victims were mostly Muslims, the judicial proceedings took almost two decades and nobody was sentenced to death. Justice was delayed and denied to the victims of the Bhagalpur riots. Finally, after 14 years, 20 people were awarded death sentence by a TADA court which went into the case regarding 1993 Mumbai Bomb blasts where victims were mostly Hindus. However, the justice was again delayed and thus denied. Moreover, the mastermind behind the blasts, was allowed to escape from the country thus avoiding punishment. However, the Government could do nothing about the 1993 Mumbai Communal riots where Muslims were mostly the victim even after appointing a Commission. The report of the Commission has long since come but no action is being
taken on it because the Congress Party and NCP party does not want to lose Hindu votes to Shiv Sena and BJP. Similarly, BJP and Shiv Sena when they were in Government did nothing in the matter because they too were concerned about the Hindu votes.
Is it not really shameful that Justice which was considered blind and was applied equally to everyone irrespective of his caste, creed or race has also become a victim of Vote Bank Politics.
satbir singh
[email protected]