Laloo Prasad Yadav insists the new inquiry committee will probe what really happened in coach S-6 of Sabarmati Express that day at Godhra railway station two years ago. It will exhume the facts from the rubble, separate truth from rumour. That is an entirely praiseworthy endeavour. Then why does the scepticism persist? Why is it that the Justice U.C. Banerjee committee just set up by the UPA government evokes apprehension in those who have stakes in seeing truth and reconciliation in Gujarat? It is because it is so easy to pick holes in Laloo Yadav’s pledge at the outset. To begin with, there is the question of the necessity of another probe. The state police is already investigating Godhra, so is the Nanavati-Shah commission. Surely, there is a certain excess being committed here. No matter how finely honed the distinctions in their mandates, they are certain to pull apart a system that has already proved its sloth and lack of will when it comes to delivering justice. And what if they come up with three different sets of conclusions? True, the Gujarat police cannot be trusted to do its job, more evidence surfaces every day of that force’s weak spine when it came to resisting political pressure during the communal violence. And yes, the Nanavati-Shah commission was set up by the same government that stubbornly reposed its trust in Narendra Modi. Yet, the answer cannot be to set up another committee/commission that, going by past experience, will seek more extensions than it deserves to receive. The answer to the stalled justice in Gujarat is surely to ensure that the existing justice system is made to work for the victim. In the riots cases, the Supreme Court has already assumed that role in a stellar fashion by transferring cases and forcing the police to reopen cases they had summarily closed. In the Godhra case, on the other hand, 98 individuals are already in jail, slapped with Pota. Here, the cause of justice is better served by ensuring that their trial, which has been stayed by the Supreme Court, is resumed and proceeds apace. Those proceedings would yield us the vital clues to the truth, that day in Godhra. Neither truth, nor justice is served by another committee set up at the insistence of a leader who has an election to win in the near future.
