We are in no position to assess the accuracy to whatever degree or otherwise of what is being said quite openly by both the victims of the communal holocaust in the capital and elsewhere, and many others. Prejudices and partisan considerations easily come into play in such situations. As a people we Indians tend to exaggerate and even to invent. Some of us have been known to have “seen” things which have never existed. That is one reason why rumours spread so easily. Many of us have a predisposition to believe what we are told and to circulate these things. These tendencies can, indeed often do, get emphasized among the victims ofthe kind of the disaster we have witnessed in Delhi and over 100 other towns and cities in the country. So it is with the greatest reluctance that we have decided to take note of the widespread charge that some members of the Youth Congress have been involved in the carnage in the wake of Indira Gandhi’s brutal assassination.
We continue to take the view that anger had been building up all over the country against the activities of the Akali extremists since they started killing innocent people in Punjab; that, as it happens almost invariably in such cases, the bitterness blurred the distinction between the extremists and ordinary Sikhs and that Indira Gandhi’s assassination by two Sikh members of her own security guard acted as a catalyst which converted the pent-up anger into an orgy of loot, arson and murder. But that cannot and does not dispose of the question whether or not some Youth Congress activists have encouraged and, as the allegations go, even instigated the mobs on the rampage. In the capital at least, the victims name names. The Delhi police officials, finally pushed into doing their duty by all citizens with no regard to their religion and politics by the new Prime Minister, Mr. Rajiv Gandhi, are said to be complaining against interference by Congress councillors and MPs. We do not regard these private statements and news reports as conclusive evidence. But we cannot ignore either. The stakes are too high to permit us to do so.
It does not need to be established that the Youth Congress contains lumpens who recognise no moral law and tend to go berserk at the slightest opportunity. Their recent misdeeds on the way to Nagpur, in Nagpur and the way back home from Nagpur speak for themselves. This makes it tempting to believe that they have been guilty of the charges that are being levelled against them and demand immediate and drastic action against them. We have not yielded to this temptation and would not like others to yield to it either. To harass women and loot shops is something quite different from murdering and immolating fellow citizens. In psychological terms the dividing line exists, though it is obviously not possible for us to say that the line has not been crossed by some individuals in this bloody orgy. This is the heart of the matter. We fear that the charge is likely to stick and that it will hurt Mr. Rajiv Gandhi unless he pre-empts it. Not by a flat denial but by a quick inquiry and drastic action if the inquiry reveals that the Youth Congress activists have been involved in the carnage. Indira Gandhi blurred the issue at Nagpur. In view of the enormous capital she had built over the years, she could afford to do so. Mr. Rajiv Gandhi cannot risk the impression that some of those who speak and act in his name are not only criminals by inclination but have behaved as such.
We are not unaware of the possible complications. We are aware that Mr. Rajiv Gandhi cannot wish to start his tenure as Prime Minister with an admission that a wing of his party harbours not just ordinary criminals but instigators of a communal holocaust. Action against such people, if they exist, will embarrass him but only temporarily. He has to send out a message, by deed and not by word alone, that he is Prime Minister of all Indians, that he will not allow gangsters to seek asylum in his party, that he has the courage to take action against them, that he will not allow politicians, including Congressmen, to meddle with the enforcement of law and order. And he can shirk it only at considerable risk to himself – which is not all that important, but also to the country – which is important. India is truly at the crossroads and her future will depend on the road on which Mr. Rajiv Gandhi decides to lead it.