A report that is perfunctory

The most charitable explanation for the Justice B K Somasekhara Commission’s anodyne report on the attacks on churches in Karnataka in 2008 is that it was perfunctory in its investigations. Otherwise, it is difficult to explain why its endeavours over more than two years produced nothing substantial about the incidents. All that it has been able to do is to blame unidentified “misguided fundamentalist miscreants” for the attacks — a conclusion an average citizen would have reached without the paraphernalia of a probe. Yet, even if the commission was unable to pinpoint who exactly were the culprits, it was curiously insightful in absolving the “true Hindus” of any blame.

If the judge had been less preoccupied with the mentality of genuine Hindus and Christians, he might have been able to ascertain the identity of at least some of the criminals. But, as his observation that the reputation of “true Christians” has been damaged by the conversions carried on by “a few organisations and self-styled pastors” shows, his area of interest was wider than the commission’s basic objective. At the same time, his reference to the “inducements” offered by the dubious pastors for conversions points to a possible reason why the fundamentalists ran amok.

Considering that the only person named in the report is a former Bajrang Dal chief in the state, it is clear that the commission was not too far off the mark since this organisation was also named in the murders of Christian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons in Orissa in 1999. However, all that the panel has said about him is that he “publicly” justified the attacks. But this, too, has long been known since he had done so on television. One might have expected the commission to pursue this link to find the other miscreants.

But, instead, the judge has chosen to give a clean chit to the BJP and the “mainstream” Sangh Parivar organisations although he acknowledges that the culprits may have “mistakenly presumed that they will be protected by the party in power”. Such a presumption is suggested of at least a tenuous connection between the attackers and the saffron outfits although the commission has categorically ruled out any direct or even indirect links. However, his advice that organisations like the Bajrang Dal require “legal control” is not without significance.