- Sanjay Kumar
At 7 AM on 30 July, 2015, the Republic of India hanged a man named Yakub Memon. By all means, though without anyone’s planning, the hanging turned out to be the endpoint of a consummate exercise. Three judges of the highest court of the land sat through the night, right up to two hours before the execution to decide on the last petition of the condemned convict. The highest law official of the central government came to put forth arguments against the petition at two thirty in the morning, while some of the most respected and best legal minds of the country argued for it. Even before this post mid night hearing, the case of Mr Memon had been through more than one round of curative and review petitions in the Supreme Court, and mercy petitions with the President of the Republic. Much earlier, in fact more than twenty years ago, the Mumbai police had carried out perhaps the most painstaking, and detailed investigation of independent India into the 12 March, 1993 blasts; cracking the case within two days and filing a 10,000 page charge sheet within eight months. The trial involving 123 accused, 684 witnesses and voluminous material evidence ran for ten years. After Mr Memon’s guilt and conviction were established by the trial court, his appeals had gone on in the Supreme Court for nearly a decade. Two years ago the then Government of India had hanged Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri convicted in the Parliament attack case, without informing his family, and refused to hand his dead body to them. Nothing of that shameful behaviour was repeated this time. What more could the criminal justice system of the country have done in the case of Mr Memon! Yet, his execution has left behind more questions on the institutional biases, and ideological underpinnings of the Indian state, than perhaps any other execution.
The crime and punishment of March 1993 Mumbai blasts invariably rake up the fact and consequences of the communal violence the city had suffered two months earlier. Even the government appointed Justice B.N. Srikrishna commission had noted a feeling of revenge among a section of Mumbai Muslims after their community was targeted in the riots. However, the main reason riots and blasts get associated even two decades later is the stark contrast in state response to the two crimes. The December 1992 and Jan 1993 killings had claimed 900 lives. The Srikrishna Commission had squarely held Shiv Sena, the main political party of the city, responsible for the mayhem. However, the criminal justice institutions of the country have managed to convict only three persons with one year imprisonment.
Independent India was born in the frenzy of Partition violence, which consumed up to 500,000 lives and led to forced migration of 15 million, the largest ever seen in human history. The violence was all criminal, little of it could be justified in self-defence, and it was committed by non-state actors. The crime of terror too visited India soon after. Both, the 20 January, 1948 bombing of Gandhi’s prayer meeting, and his murder ten days later were the work of Hindu fundamentalists. Indians have suffered communal and terror violence ever since. Many more have suffered communal than terrorist violence. Yet, Indian state has treated the two sets of crimes very differently.
Communal and terrorist violences share a number of features. Both involve criminal conspiracy and organisation, have political goals and target innocent citizens. They are different in other aspects. Preparations of communal violence are often public. Many commissions appointed after incidences of communal violence have noted aggressive political mobilisations before actual mayhem. Actually, it is not difficult to predict communal violence and its perpetrators are well known in advance. In contrast, terrorists remain hidden till they attack. Communal violence rarely targets state. Terrorist violence is often a direct challenge to state’s authority and its functionaries. There is also a macabre class element. The affluent sections of the so called majority community are rarely likely to be victims of communal violence. Terrorist violence, even when random and not directed at high state functionaries, is ‘universal’ in the sense that anybody can be its victim.
State functionaries in India continue to view communal violence through the colonial lens, as a ‘natural’ aspect of Indian social life. It is treated as a riot between two groups. The best state response is seen as keeping itself at a distance, appear even-handed, and to not let things go too far. This is pure state ideology; learnt, argued and justified by its functionaries, which is far removed from the actual reality. As Nellie (1983), Delhi (1984), Bhagalpur (1989), Babri Mosque demolition and accompanying killings (1992), Mumbai (1992-3), Gujarat (2002), and Muzaffarnagar (2014) show, the communal violence in India is actually a planned violence against a beleaguered minority, with a well defined political goal. This should be evident to anyone with a modicum of objectivity. Why do Indian state functionaries refuse to see this reality? This is because of the majoritarian bias at the very heart of the Indian state, which makes it blind to crimes committed in the name of the so called majority. The majoritarianism of Indian state and politics may not be as deep and as manifest as some other countries of South Asia, but that is hardly a solace to its victims, or others wishing to build a democratic society.
