Jain omission

India is widely misrepresented as a nation of fatalists. Its people are actually incurable optimists. Despite the early warnings of the Jain...

July 13, 1998 12:00 AM IST

3 min read

India is widely misrepresented as a nation of fatalists. Its people are actually incurable optimists. Despite the early warnings of the Jain Commission8217;s interim report, they entertained the faint hope that the final report would contain something of legal value which could be the basis for prosecution. Alas, they have been let down again by Justice Jain, who held the most attractive sinecure in the country for six years and produced nothing of consequence beyond surmise, suspicions and reams of affidavits.

The information contained in Justice Jain8217;s final report is no doubt useful, but his brief extended beyond merely collecting it and arranging it in neat little chapters. He was appointed to analyse that information in order to get at the root of the conspiracy to kill Rajiv Gandhi, to identify the guilty and to provide clinching evidence for their prosecution. Jain has failed to deliver. In the latest instance, he has only said that Chandraswami8217;s movements were suspicious and suggested that the tantrikshould be investigated further. Possibly by another inquiry commission. Possibly, horror of horrors, by Justice Jain himself.

The Jain Commission has imposed shamelessly upon the public exchequer and public patience. It has been successful only as a political weapon. It has been used to bring down one government and it now threatens the stability of another. The AIADMK8217;s demand for Karunanidhi8217;s ouster finds its justification in Justice Jain8217;s remarkably odd findings about the state of affairs in Tamil Nadu. In his interim report, he had more or less indicted every Tamilian of harbouring terrorist sympathies. Most notably, the interim report was the launchpad for Sonia Gandhi8217;s political career, such as it is. It validated her image of the wronged widow and supplied much of the imagery, replete with blood and sacrifice, that was the hallmark of her first public speeches. Apart from making these political developments possible, the Jain Commission has achieved nothing. The only convictions relating to theRajiv Gandhi case were handed down by the Poonamallee special court in Tamil Nadu without any help from the Commission8217;s illuminating inquiries.

Justice Jain has summoned everybody of consequence and recorded whole stacks of evidence. At one point, he famously toyed with the idea of summoning Yasser Arafat. The result is a body of raw data on the case. Some of it is of use. Some of it is utterly irrelevant. Some elements border on the bizarre. The government will now have to file an Action Taken Report. The first action it took, and very sensibly too, was to wind up the commission. That was in the days of I.K. Gujral. Now, the present government has two options. It can either claim that it is impossible to act on the report in its present state, when it cannot seem to go beyond the level of suspicion and surmise. Or it could submit Justice Jain8217;s data to more adequate authorities. And, hopefully, expect delivery in a few weeks, not a few years. The nation has a right to know about the circumstances in whichits former chief executive was killed, but not at the cost of more time, more money, more political instability and more exasperation.

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