Bringing those guilty of heinous crimes against humanity to book has been a demand of justice-loving people all over the world in modern times. The setting up of international courts to try those accused of war crimes, the hunt for Nazi tyrants even 60 years after the end of World War II, the trial of notorious dictators like Pinochet, are examples of cases where people have persisted in the struggle for justice. In India too, justice loving people have waged a relentless struggle to punish those guilty of heinous crimes such as the massacre of Sikhs in 1984.  

It is a well known fact that those guilty of organising some of the most heinous crimes involving the massacre of thousands of people in India are never convicted and punished. This, despite the innumerable instances that point to their guilt, and despite the fact that the victims of the massacres and masses of people have been fighting for justice and punishment of the guilty for many years on end.

Following widespread protests all over the country against the attempts of the authorities to give some of the guilty a ‘clean chit’, on April 9, 2009, on the eve of the 15th Lok Sabha elections, the Congress Party was forced to withdraw its candidates - Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar - from two of the Lok Sabha constituencies in Delhi. Both Tytler and Kumar have been indicted by various peoples tribunals set up in the aftermath of the genocide of Sikhs as some among the main organisers of the massacre of thousands of Sikhs in Delhi in 1984.  It must be noted that these peoples' tribunals have held the Congress Party and its main political leadership, as well as the state apparatus guilty of carrying out the genocide and failing to protect the people.

The withdrawal of the candidature of these individuals may be seen as a grudging acknowledgment of their criminal role in organising the massacre of thousands in 1984 and a step forward in the struggle for justice.  However, it in no way ensures that the guilty have been or will be punished or that such criminal communal genocidal massacres and attacks will not occur again. Much confusion has been created about who are the real organisers of such genocides and why the guilty are never convicted or punished.

The Indian state was the organiser of the genocide of Sikhs in Delhi and other places in 1984. The Congress Party which headed the government at that time was directly responsible for organising and supervising the massacre of thousands of Sikhs. The entire state machinery was involved in the execution of the genocide and its subsequent cover-up. By focusing on one or two individuals, this reality is sought to be hidden.

Why is it that 25 years after the crime, the onus is still placed on the victims and other ordinary citizens to provide 'evidence' so that the courts of law may pontificate on who was guilty? Why is it that despite repeated Commissions of Inquiry and volumes of evidence, some individuals only may be convicted, while the main political leaders and the heads of the state machinery at that time -- the President, the Prime Minister, the Home Minister, the Lieutenant Governor, and the Chief of the police and so on -- are not held responsible? Why is it that the intelligence agencies of the Indian state, which are endowed with immense powers to catch criminals, cannot find out who the criminals were, even after 25 years?

The same questions may be asked about the genocidal massacres of thousands of Muslims in Gujarat in 2002 and numerous other such crimes that have been periodically organised against one or another section of the people.  

There can be and is only one reason for this. State organised genocide is part of state policy; it is a preferred method of rule of the Indian bourgeoisie. All the political parties of the ruling class use this weapon at some time or other. This is why, 25 years after the genocide of Sikhs, 16 years after the massacres following Babri masjid demolitions, and 7 years after the Gujarat genocide, the guilty remain unpunished. None of the ruling class parties is interested in losing this favourite weapon of rule.

It is disgusting to witness in the media, key leaders and spokespersons of both the Congress Party and the BJP trying to score points over one another, each using the crimes of the other to justify its own. Clearly, neither of them is interested in addressing the main issue, as to why the real organisers and perpetrators of such crimes go unpunished. The reason for this is obvious – both of these parties are guilty of systematically organising communal violence and massacres to divide the people and drown in blood the united resistance of the people to their criminal rule. Organising communal massacres and genocide is a favourite weapon of the ruling class, the big monopoly bourgeoisie, to safeguard its system of rule and plunder. The Congress Party and the BJP are both committed to serving loyally the agenda of the big monopoly bourgeoisie. The Indian state, including its legislature, executive and judiciary, is in the hands of the big monopoly bourgeoisie. Political power is in the hands of the big monopoly bourgeoisie. That is why the guilty are never punished.

The experience of India and the world shows that only a revolutionary government committed to dismantling the instruments of state terrorism and communal pogroms will expose and speedily punish the guilty. It will follow the principle of command responsibility, i.e. that those in positions of command when such genocides have taken place must be tried and punished.

The people's struggle to punish the guilty will continue! It must be continued and taken to its logical conclusion. Political power has to be wrested from the hands of the big monopoly bourgeoisie and vested in the hands of the working class, in alliance with the peasantry and all other toiling people. Only the worker-peasant rule can ensure that all political parties and forces responsible for organising such heinous crimes against the people are meted out the punishment that they deserve and that will serve as a stern deterrent to any such crimes in the future.