Forgotten
Citizens
Every bout
of mass crime, like Bombay 1992-1993 undoubtedly was leaves behind many
levels of destruction and denials in its wake. Lives and neighbourhoods
are torn apart. To change their characteristics forever.
Among those
attacked or killed, but who’s bodies are not identified or found, the
“Missing Persons” are often not legally recognised as dead for seven long
years. So not only do tragedies occur, but the necessary recompense or
reparation is denied. In the case of the survivors of Bombay 1992-1993 too
this happened. Sustained campaigns by different citizens groups kept the
issues alive and kept a check on the state callouness and administration.
Individual donors contributed to the education of Child Survivors of the
violence even as calibrated attempts to invoke rights bodies like the
National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and the National Foundation of
Communal Harmony) that paid educational dues until the age of 18,
continued.
A
government that had ridden to power on the promise of the implementation
of the Justice BN Srikrishna Commission report miserably failed when it
submitted an appalling affidavit on record before the Supreme Court of
India. Averments in the documents especially related to its moral intent
to prosecute the guilty was flayed a s as series of protests, including a
Public Hearing of the Survivors at the KC College (September 2000) jolted
a complicit government and administration.
While the
sustained protests did not necessarily lead to direct prosecutions the
spotlight shamed the government into paying many outstanding dues to
Survivors especially Child Survivors. The protests also helped focus on
cases like the Usman Suleman Bakery firing, the Hari Masjid firing and
cases involving accused politicians from the Shiv Sena including Gajanand
Kirtikar and Madhukar Sarpotdar of the Shiv Sena.