Muzaffarnagar riots panel does whitewash job
The report of the Justice Vishnu Sahai Commission of Inquiry into the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots in Uttar Pradesh is a whitewash job, absolving the State Government completely. It is difficult to believe that the violence on such a large scale could have happened without complicity, or at the very least ineffectiveness, at the highest levels of administration, which includes Government servants and police authorities. At least 60,000 persons were rendered homeless and more than 60 people had been killed in a cycle of mayhem when the law and order machinery failed to respond adequately. In the immediate aftermath of the violence, there was open talk of the interference of some influential members of the Akhilesh Yadav Government.
There were also allegations that the local police and administration in Muzaffarnagar were under considerable pressure to go slow on the accused and implicate political rivals. Further, it is true that, had the Government acted in a timely manner and impartially, the trouble, which later assumed grave proportions, could have been nipped in the bud. There was no dearth of witnesses to tell the true story. But Justice Sahai miraculously found no evidence of the failure of the State authorities, barring low-level officials. He has attributed the riots to local intelligence failure and lapses on the part of the administration and the police. This is a vague and flimsy observation.
Unfortunately for the Samajwadi Party Government in lucknow, Justice Sahai's findings are not going to close the lid on the issue. Not only is nobody convinced by the report but the belief that the Akhilesh Yadav regime monumentally failed in its duty, will be further strengthened. That there is something amiss becomes all the more evident from senior Samajwadi Party leader and Minister Mohammad Azam Khan's remark that action should be taken against the media because it blew up the incident ‘out of proportion'. But for the media, the Muzaffarnagar killing would have been brushed under the carpet.
Given that Uttar Pradesh votes early the following year for a new Assembly, both the State Government and the Opposition are going to milk the findings of the report. The Bharatiya Janata Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party and even the Congress (which has done business with the Samajwadi Party in recent years) have slammed Justice Sahai's conclusions, while the Akhilesh Yadav regime offers the report as a vindication of its stand that it was always in the clear. But it is one thing to use the report to score points in television debates and another to convince the voters.
That the Samajwadi Party Government is on a weak wicket in Muzaffarnagar became evident when the BJP candidate emerged victorious in a by-election recently from there. The ruling party in lucknow is answerable not just for the riots but the mismanagement of relief and rehabilitation of the displaced persons, who languished in the harsh winter in the open while party bigwigs were busy celebrating the Saifai Mahotsav. In fact, even to this date, the rehabilitation is either not complete or unsatisfactory. The minority community, which was especially hard hit, was seen to be aligned with the Samajwadi Party and had played a role in the party's victory in 2012. But the Muzaffarnagar incident may have changed that equation.