Riot wrong: Nothing happens to the big guys

The Central government has promised to probe Jagdish Tytler's role in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots." If you thought that's good news, read between the lines.

It's been 21 years since over 3,000 people were murdered on the streets of the capital of India while the government watched. And the government has promised to probe, every time a commission of inquiry has recommended so. And people get another commission. Or another inquiry.

The government has not promised to drop Jagdish Tytler from the Union ministry, a step essential to an impartial inquiry.

This is the story of all riots in India. The best the law does in punish some minions. Sixteen years after the Bhagalpur riots, some people were handed out life imprisonment. None of them of any consequential political clout. Even the then chief minister of the Congress party has accepted the fact that the Congress politicians were responsible for the riots that went on for weeks.

In Gujarat, the process has taken the same old road. Blame it on the puppets, while the powerful puppeteers are let off. In Mumbai, in Meerut, in wherever, it's the same story with a morale for the puppeteers: Nothing will happen.