Absolute absolution or a sham amnesty?

Justice Jain’s reports appear to suffer from the incurable habit of getting leaked before being tabled. The learned Judge of course claims that he has nothing to do with the leaks, but the final report in which he has reportedly pleaded innocence about the earlier leak has also found its way into the hands of the media. You may call it Jain Jinx, but there it is on the front pages, again, even as quite a few politicians claim that they knew about the contents long back. Everyone, except Jain seems to be sure what Jain is upto.

If the previous leak by a weekly magazine was exhaustive, the present leak certainly appears to be selective. The prompt response by the CM to the daily concerned, which is more of a thanksgiving to the concern of the daily, is in itself a betrayal of this selectivity. The newspaper, apparently in its zeal to exonerate the CM, for reasons best known to itself, clearly glosses over the contents of the interim report that might have also found a place in the final report. These relate to Jain’s earlier indictment of the DMK regime of 1989-91 which allowed a free run for the LTTE militants which ultimately paved the way for the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. Neither the daily which had published the ‘highlights’ nor the politicians who claim to have prior knowledge of the report have bothered to clarify whether Jain had withdrawn the findings made by him on the DMK’s dalliance with the LTTE, when it was in power. The newspaper just makes an innocuous reference to this aspect when it says that ”However, Jain maintains that the DMK did indeed have ‘close links’ with the LTTE”, but significantly fails to elaborate what Jain had said of these close links. Probably, it requires another leak to bring out these facts, naturally by another newspaper, which may not be so charitably inclined towards the DMK.

What is before us now is what has been ‘exposed’ by the newspaper. Taken at face value, the report plainly states that Jain has exonerated Karunanidhi from any complicity in Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination and seeks to give the impression that Jain has made a volte face. But the point is, Jain never made any such allegation in the interim report, in the first place. In fact, the entire interim report, the leaked and the tabled version included, harps singularly on the DMK’s open abetment of the LTTE during its short-lived tenure of two years, and presents in graphic detail the various ways in which the Karunanidhi regime pampered the militants, that ultimately paved the way for the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. No doubt there were allegations that Karunanidhi had prior knowledge of the assassination, but Jain had not touched upon this aspect in the interim report.

And, in the final report, he has rejected the charge for want of conclusive evidence which obviously carries the hint that there was some suggestive evidence, but which could not be sustained for want of clinching evidence. This is all the more significant in the light of Jain’s reported naming of Subbulakshmi Jagadeesan for allegedly harbouring some LTTE members in her farmhouse and also for allegedly arranging for the ‘escape of Sivarasan’. The Commission has even recommended further investigation. Now we wonder, if this is not tantamount to indictment of the DMK regime, what else is? Subbulakshmi Jagadeesan was a DMK Minister when this farmhouse episode took place. Sivarasan was a wanted man when the lady gave him asylum. Even the friendly daily says that Jain has reiterated his allegations of the DMK’s close links with the LTTE. Now we ask, where is the exoneration? On this the CM simply says he has to wait for the final report. He did not bother to wait for the final report and instead sought to proclaim his innocence post haste, just based on the leak. But such political promiscuity is the quintessence of their breed.

All along, it appears now, the DMK and its chums in Sathyamurthy Bhavan had been worried that there ‘might’ be something that may link the DMK to the assassination, and they are now visibly relieved that such a thing ‘could not’ be proved. The apprehensions were there, even among the co-borns and the allies; it was only the evidence that was lacking. But then, there is certainly a telling distinction between absolute absolution, which is acquittal beyond all reasonable doubt and being let-off for want of ‘conclusive evidence’. Legally, both have the same effect, but morally there is a fine dividing line that makes all the difference between apparent guilt and intrinsic guilt. Law goes by fingerprints. An invisible scheming, criminal mastermind can neither be fingerprinted nor hanged.

But the minimum one could have done is not to hand over to them the reins of power again, so that such intrusions by the underworld into the tranquil land do not become a regular feature. But alas, we have not learnt our lessons and we are once again paying for believing that the tiger would have changed its stripes. If one misses the similarity of intent: that is evident between the DMK’s acquiescence of the LTTE and the present Nelson’s eye to the Al-Umma brand of ‘secularists’ who bombarded Kovai, he should be either endowed with a moon-calf-simplicity or must certainly be an ally of the DMK. It is indeed a strange coincidence that the DMK governments tend to fall asleep whenever criminal elements choose the State for their nefarious activities. Perhaps, that precisely is the reason for the outlaws to zero in on Tamilnadu, whenever they think up some project for destruction. Where else do they get such a free run for their guns and bombs, a congenial climate for survival and a friendly regime that not only clears the hurdles in the way but also offers all patronage through a single window, variously described at different times as ethnicity, amnesty, secularism etc, etc?

Let us ask ourselves a straight question. Would the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi been possible in the way and location it took place but for the fact that the LTTE had been ‘allowed’ to operate with impunity and without check? And again, would the fundamentalist outfits, whose intentions and activities were no secret to the government, have been able to kill at will and build up such an arsenal of deadly explosives if only the rulers had taken certain elementary precautions? In both cases the DMK’s fingerprints were not found. Agreed. But was it not the party at the helm, with the bounden duty to protect the citizens, especially when it was adequately fore-warned about the devious designs of the militants, then and now? Instead was it not guilty of letting loose all these unseemly elements into our midst, with full knowledge of their potential for leaving a trail of disaster in their path? Was not this dereliction of duty and the willing patronage, either through overt support as in the case of f LTTE, or covert acquiescence, as in the present, more a criminal offence than the real killings? Militants are expected to kill and they kill. But when a government which is expected to protect, itself allows the people to become sitting ducks, does it not amount to murder by proxy and betrayal of faith at its worst manifestation?

Where is the exoneration? The memories of Rajiv’s shattered corpse and the mangled remains of the sixty innocent people at Kovai would stand as permanent testimonies to a consistent criminal inaction on the part of the rulers that is unlikely to be forgiven in the people’s court. Here, to establish the truth it is the intent that matters, not the evidence.

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