Justifies state terrorism and whitewashes state organised
communal genocide

Six years after the terrible communal violence in Gujarat, the Justice Nanavati Commission has submitted some preliminary and partial findings of its inquiry into the burning down of the train bogie carrying kar sevaks at Godhra and the massacres that were perpetrated on people of the Muslim faith in the days that followed.

The Nanavati Commission is just one of the several commissions of inquiry set up to look into the Gujarat genocide that had shocked and outraged people in India and around the world.  It was commissioned directly by the government of Narendra Modi, Chief Minister of Gujarat, who was deeply implicated in the violence unleashed against Muslims.  At the same time, another commission of inquiry had been appointed by the Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, under the headship of Justice Banerjee, which submitted its report earlier.  The Supreme Court has also set up another inquiry commission under Raghav Behl, after it rejected a report submitted by the principal investigating officer in the case.

As it turns out, the Nanavati report, which is supposed to be a preliminary report of one part of its inquiry – into the train burning incident – completely contradicts the findings of the Banerjee report.  It claims that the burning of the train was a pre-planned conspiracy hatched by local Muslims who were aware of the presence of the kar sevaks on that train and who deliberately set the bogie alight.  In contrast the Banerjee report had quoted forensic evidence to show that the fire was the result of an accident.  The Nanavati report claimed that several local Muslims had met in a guest house the night before to plan the burning of the train, for which they also stocked up vast quantities of petrol.  The Banerjee report on the contrary said that the information on the arrival of the kar sevaks by the train in question could not have been known to the local people beforehand. 

Despite claiming that it was submitting the summary findings of only the first part of its report, which concerned the train burning at Godhra, the Nanavati Commission also gave a clean chit to Narendra Modi and all administrative and police officials in the state regarding their responsibility for the massacre of Muslims that followed.

The release of the Nanavati Commission findings raises several questions.

It is known that Commissions of Enquiry are regularly set up by the government after major state organised communal pograms, to whitewash the crimes of the state. This has been the practice since colonial times, and the Indian ruling class has further developed it. For years, while these commissions carry out their so-called investigations, and prepare their reports, the victims are kept hoping against hope that the truth will come out. But when the state itself is responsible for communal massacres, where is the question of these state appointed commissions of enquiry ever pointing this out?

What is the purpose behind having so many overlapping inquiries going on simultaneously on broadly the same events?  It is clear that these commissions have been set up to pursue the narrow  agenda of the party that set it up, apart from the overall aim of whitewashing the role of the state. Thus the Commission set up by the Narendra Modi government would necessarily whitewash the Modi government’s role, as well as justify the BJP’s analysis of the Godhra train burning, and the genocide that followed. Similarly, all of the numerous commissions of enquiry set up by the Congress governments at the centre on the 1984 massacre of Sikhs whitewashed the role of the Congress Party and endorsed the Congress party’s analysis of the massacre.

The most important thing to note of the Nanavati Commission report is that it has justified the Indian states attacks on people of the Muslim faith at the present time. The conclusions of the Nanavati report dangerously echo the larger propaganda being done by the Indian state and imperialism internationally about Muslims as a whole being religious fanatics and terrorists.  At exactly the time when the police and authorities as well as media are going overboard painting pictures of Muslims hatching terrorist conspiracies in countless places around the country, Nanavati’s conclusions are nothing but more of the same.  It lists the names of various Muslims in Godhra, headed by a Maulvi, who allegedly met secretly in a particular guest house the night before the event and plotted arson to snuff out the lives of the unsuspecting people on the train. The effect is to strengthen the growing witch-hunt against people of the Muslim faith at this time, which serves the sinister purpose of the Indian state and imperialism as a whole.

All thinking people should reject such blatantly manipulated reports such as the Nanavati Commission’s that are a travesty of justice.  The vilification of whole communities such as Muslims, to serve the larger political purposes of those in power, must be denounced. 

State organised communal pogroms are a preferred weapon of rule of the Indian ruling class. The Congress Party and BJP, the main parties of the bourgeoisie, are past masters in deploying this weapon. People cannot expect justice from these same parties - they will never let the truth be revealed nor will they punish the guilty. People must have no illusions about the enquiry commissions set up by such criminalised parties in power.