Kunan Poshpora Revelations- Conscience Or Connivance?

Coming more than two decades after the Kunanposhpora mass rape incident, the public apology by Minister for External Affairs Salman Khurshid and the revelation  by the Chairman, National Commission for Minorities, Wajahat Habibullah that the  government had ‘deleted’ important portions of his confidential report on this incident is indeed intriguing.  And while these inordinately belated admissions provide no answers, they do raise more questions, and that too extremely disturbing ones.

While Wajahat Habibullah is an honourable man with impeccable credentials, why did he choose to maintain a stoic silence on what was clearly an attempt by the government to ‘sabotage’ a fair inquiry, is inexplicable.  Being from the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Habibullah would certainly have been aware that while the government is well within its rights not agree with the recommendations of any report of inquiry, it has no authority to delete portions of the same. And mentioning that “When the report came out in the public, I did protest. I called up the Governor (G C Saxena). But I was already posted out of Kashmir by then,” is certainly too weak a line of defence coming from an elite IAS officer!

Carrying the ‘baggage of the past’ has never been the forte of career administrators in India and so, Habibullah cannot be faulted for not raising his voice against the Kunanposhpora ‘cover-up’ once he left Kashmir. However, by doing so now, he has unnecessarily courted a controversy that does not behoove the post of Chairman National Commission for Minorities, which he is now holding. His justification that “I found the allegations of mass rape exaggerated because the women of the entire village were saying they were raped. But I did not say nothing has happened,” is in itself a classical case of contradiction. And his contention that, “I thought perhaps the entire village had decided to say they were raped so that the victims do not have to live alone with this blot,” is far from convincing and appears to be more of an excuse cooked up in retrospect, merely to substantiate his specific finding that the “allegations of mass rape (were) exaggerated.”What would have been the outcome of the inquiry into the Kunanposhpora incident, had Wajahat Habibullah been more assertive once he found that crucial recommendations made by him in the capacity of Divisional Commissioner had been deleted, is now a matter of mere conjecture. However, given the fact that this incident had attracted international attention, had Habibullah heeded to his voice of conscience, it would certainly have made it difficult for New Delhi to have remained in a ‘state of denial’. Yet, even after the Press Council of India investigation panel under B.G. Verghese, not only gave a clean chit to the security forces, but also accused the women of fabricating the story, Habibulah opted to remain silent all these years, knowing very well that his silence was perverting the natural course of justice!

The response of New Delhi too has been most unfortunate as it treats the whole episode as a minor incident that merits no more than a mere apology. And by stating that, “What can I say? I can only say that I am ashamed that it happened in my country. I am apologetic and appalled that it has happened in my country,” the Minister for External Affairs Salman Khurshid has conveyed what everyone long suspected – that the government knew the truth all along and the official stance taken by it on this incident was an intentional ‘cover-up’. And this makes the whole episode all the more murkier as it raises serious doubts on the credibility of the legislature.

Now that the Kunanposhpora case has been re-opened, there are renewed hopes that justice will finally be done. And the ‘admission cum apology’ tendered by a Union Minister alongwith the revelation by Wajahat Habibullah that crucial recommendations of his confidential report on the incident were ‘edited’ will help in unraveling the truth. However, a lot of water has flown down the Chenab in 22 years and so identification of the culprits may be well nigh impossible.

Whatever the outcome of the case, one unanswered question will always remain: was it a belated awakening of New Delhi’s and Wajahat Habibullah’s conscience that prompted them to break their two decade old silence, or was it the fear of their complicity through silence being exposed in courts that has now forced them to squeal.

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