B L Saraf
In State Government’s latest order to appoint a Commission of Enquiry ” to tell people of Shopian the whole truth” of the Gagran incident of last month , we are reminded of 1970’s , hugely popular, B B C T V serial Yes Minister which latter on graduated to Yes Prime Minister, with the progression in fortunes of the chief protagonist to become the British Prime Minister . The serial , in scintillating wit and humour , is a telling comment on how a manipulative bureaucracy lays vice like grip on the State administration and pulls the strings to make puppet of even awell-meaning Minister. Well, that story is for the other day . The Minister Rt Honourable Honecker has some problem in his constituency . His electors represent to him and the Minister wants to do everything by the Government to come clean on the issue. Just, then , steps in his Permanent Secretary, Sir Humphrey. He cautions the minister not to go forward with the move and, in the alternative, advises him to have a commission of enquiry to tell his electors the truth at an’ appropriate time’. The permanent secretary wins the case on the strength of his’ forceful argument’ that the move willprovide job to a former judge or an ex bureaucrat – who may have obliged the Minister in the past , and secondly, the ‘ truth ‘ will be revealed to the citizen slowly and gradually, very convenient for them to forget. Because, permanent secretary argues, informing them of the truth in one go and so soon after the event may not be in the “greater public good .”
The State Government may not have , exactly , the reasons which Sir Humphry proposed to his ‘Boss ” for instituting the commission of enquiry, and could be serious in meaning the business . Nevertheless , how the working of some of the commissions of enquiry instituted in the last few years was hampered and how scant respect was shown to their reports by the Government raises few serious questions . Coming to the latest Shopian Enquiry Commission, Justice Jan Commission’s report — instituted in the wake of brutal rape and gruesome murder of the two young ladies of the town in 2009 –comes to the mind. Leave alone any action taken on the findings of the report , the activists who fought for the justice of two unfortunate ladies, ironically , found themselves in the array of accused in a criminal case , filed by the CBI to whom the investigation of this occurrence was handed over by the State Government .
The other case in the point is the Justice O.P Sharma Commission report , which was instituted to figure out how KuldeepVerma had died and how unceremoniously his dead body was cremated in utter disregard to the religious and customary practices. The unfortunate death was one of the sad consequences of the Amarnath land row which had engulfed the State in year 2008 . Just to shield some erring police and other officers and not allowing the truth to come out, the Government was helpful in scuttling the working of the Commission at every stage. It was with great personal efforts that the Commission submitted the report which has yet to see the light of the day .
To be fair to the State Government , all other Governments in the country – including the Central one – treat these commissions with same degree of indifference , no matter they are instituted with great fanfare and misleading earnestness . To cite few instances , Justice Srikrishna report on Mumbai riots of 1993 and Justice Liberhan Commission report on 1984 riots gather dust. Justice Nanavatireport onGujarat riots of 2002 is still awaited .
The Government will have to realise that the problem , indeed , lies in its ‘ assumed ‘ endeavour to find the whole truth. Because, there are no whole truths . As someone has rightly said that there are only half truths. Allow half-truths from contending sides to come up. Put in place a confidence inspiring, hassle free and efficient mechanism to sift and balance them objectively , with a view to achieve larger public good . Then, probably , the State would no find itself obliged to go through the motions of having a ‘ fact finding commission ‘ whose report is , ultimately , consigned to a dust bin. What compounds the problem is that the governments often suffer from, what Rolf Dobelli says in his book The Art of Thinking Clearly, Information Bias. It tends to gather more information in delusion that it would guarantee better decision . Pray , concentrate on bare facts and allow a poor citizen to know them when it matters most. It is time to put an end to the farce.
By the way , who wants to know the truth ? Stupid ! We are living in wartimes. So, follow what Winston Churchill said long ago ” It is war time. Truth is precious. It should be always attended by a body guard of lies.”
(The author is former Principal District & Sessions Judge )
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