Some politicians know that riots are the time to, well, makea killing. As politics of hate and violence has become an accepted form ofpolitics, riots are the time to make a career. Maya Kodnani, a three-time MLAwho has been sentenced to 28 years in jail, is certainly not the firstpolitician who led murderous mobs, but she is among the few who have been convicted.
During the 1980s, when riots were an annual affair inAhmedabad, many such careers were made on either side of the communal divide.Let us take the case of the worst riot that the city faced in 1985. A gentlemancalled Abdul Latif, a bootlegger by profession, became a hero among Muslimsafter he killed a policeman who had fired at a mob. He did go to jaileventually, but the punch line of the Latif saga is that he won municipalityelections from five wards, unopposed, while he was in jail five years later.(He was killed in an encounter in 1997)
Also in 1985, a five-year-old BJP was already making wavesand was soon to come to power in the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation. One ofits rising stars, Ashok Bhatt, a veteran of many riots, allegedly led a mobthat killed a policeman, according to a police complaint. Bhatt was acquittedin 2006, but not before the irony of having Bhatt as law minister who woulddecide on how the State government would fight the case against Bhatt theaccused.
Given such sterling precedents, Kodnani was working with afamiliar script. She must have been shocked and surprised to find thatorchestrating massacres, even under some twisted ideology, is a crime and yougo to jail for that.
What would she have thought as she went to the labourlocality on the outskirts of Ahmedabad on February 28, 2002? She would havethought that nobody ever gets punished in riots, at any rate, maybe footsoldiers, not politicians. Because riots are not crimes per se, maybe apolitical crime but that can be dealt politically.
For a while, it seemed her logic was impeccable. If you areon the right side of the powers that be, legal processes can be tinkered andwitnesses can be talked to. Thus, even an FIR against Kodnani could not to belodged till some of the survivors raised this issue before the visiting primeminister. And, of course, she was not only re-elected to the assembly for twomore terms, she even became a minister “ of women and child welfare, given herbackground as a good doctor of Naroda.
The pleasant surprise has been that there was a twist in thefamiliar tale this time and the judiciary has delivered justice. In a rareinstance, a politician has been found guilty of rioting. That, let’s hope, willset a deterring precedent.
Meanwhile, the Naroda Patiya verdict is in a series ofjudgments relating to the 2002 riots. Even if a decade later, justice is beingdelivered to the victims and survivors. Few had expected this ten years ago. Itwas probably the unusual pressure from the media and activists, arguablybecause they were the first riots in India after the advent of 24x7 televisionnews. It is a welcome development. It is heartening to see the term ‘closure’becoming a cliché in no time.
As Planning Commission member Syeda Hameed noted in a signedarticle in a national daily, “In terms of justice, this is not just anotherexample of der ayad durust ayad. This is special... Nothing can now stop thecourse of justice which has begun; it will undoubtedly reach its logical end. Maybenow, the sorrowing families will sleep in peace.”
Is this, then, the right time to debate the reconciliationproposal once again? Following the model of South Africa’s Truth andReconciliation Commission which investigated crimes of Apartheid, some well-meaningactivists of Ahmedabad floated this suggestion of going beyond the usualjudiciary and punishment model “ justice in a limited sense of the term, whichcan do little to actually heal any wounds and bring the two communities closer.Instead, they suggested, let us bring the two communities together, let theperpetrators confess their crimes and let the victims forgive them. This shouldlead to the delivery of justice in a deeper sense of the term.
When this idea was mooted years ago, the first convictionswere yet to happen. Nobody supported the proposal and even motives wereimputed. After the series of convictions over the past year, reconciliationmight be the idea whose time has come.
