It could still be a terrorist act. The conspiracy angle may still apply. What do we know about the dead kar sevaks? While it is clear who was behind the riots that followed in Gujarat, there has always been ambiguity about the Godhra deaths of 59 people. It is important to look into this.

Why should we wait and trust the yet-to-be-tabled Nanavati Report when the Committee was set up by the then ruling party whose state government was an active participant in the riots?

If the kar sevaks could be said to have died on the job, then who had employed them? On what basis did the VHP state unit general secretary Dilipbhai Trivedi write to Narendra Modi saying, “The kar sevaks are not dependent on government sops”?

These sevaks were shouting religious slogans and were obviously motivated. Has the possibility of them being a suicide squad not occurred to anyone? Could they not have been terrorists out to create trouble?

“The Muslim society is not divided over the Godhra issue. The Banerjee report will now divide Hindus, and that is for the better.” (Mukul Sinha, an Ahmedabad-based lawyer, who has been cross-examining witnesses before the Nanavati Commission)

They are now behaving like cats on a hot tin roof. Their ‘every action has a reaction’ theory – an uncivilised way of justifying carnage, to begin with – has been turned to smithereens. If the Justice U. C. Banerjee report, which says “the fire in the S-6 coach of the Sabarmati Express can at this stage be ascribed as an accidental fire”, is all bunkum, then why are they not treating it with disdain? Arun Jaitley, the BJP party general secretary, reacted with a, “Our worst fears have come true. This report is a disgraceful and unfortunate attempt to trivialise one of the worst offences and crimes which began a series of unfortunate incidents in February 2002.”

Even if Godhra was not an accident, he could refer to a terrorist act as a “crime”, but he has no business to reduce Establishment-buffered riots in which hundreds died as “a series of unfortunate incidents”.The saffron parties have every right not to agree with the Banerjee report. But for them to talk about it being extra-Constitutional is precious; when have they ever followed Constitutional norms?

Since the Hindutva parties do not have any intellectual ammunition left, save for a few trishuls and many myths, they rake up issues that end up making them look like fools.

Where is the Election Commission? they ask. Right. Where was it when pictures of the damaged Godhra train were distributed in Gujarat during the polls? Where was it when leaflets in Gujarati were asking people to boycott the minority community and do worse?

Where is it when the state government in Gujarat is burning news reports carrying the Banerjee report details right now?

Where is it when in Bihar the BJP’s Shahnawaz Hussein is asking voters, “Ai Mussalman, BJP se nahi, Khuda se dar. Aur Khuda se darega to zaalim ka saath nahin dega.”

One would imagine that Bihar is teeming with non god-fearing Muslims who have been on the side of zaalims, the cruel, and it is now their great opportunity to prove that they are not Laloo’s “rakhails”.

Where is the EC? Why is the BJP getting away with such pressure tactics and insulting a community by referring to them as the mistresses of a politician? And then they accuse Yadav of politicising.

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Why are the Hindutva groupies not even willing to look at the findings on merit? Why is it making them so insecure and petulant if their hands are clean?

One accusation against the interim report is that it was set up by the railway ministry. The incident happened in a train. All evidence of that bogey was destroyed. It was the business of the then railway minister to have instituted an enquiry; instead, the ruling party whose hoodlums created the reactionary mayhem set up a committee. The railway ministry has every reason to get involved because the railway tribunal paid compensation.

According to one account less than a year after the incident, “The immediate kin of 25 victims were given away cheques amounting to Rs 1 crore as compensation. The tribunal had ordered the Railways to pay a compensation of Rs 4 lakh to the relatives of each victim. The amount has been given away along with the interest at the rate of nine per cent, payable from the date of application to the date of disbursement. Calculating the interest, the amount comes to around Rs 4.5 lakh which is in addition to the sum of Rs 15,000. This was paid as ex-gratia by the Railways, immediately after the massacre.”

Narendra Modi justified the alacrity of the move because “it was a terrorist-related incident”. If Godhra did not happen as more than an accident, then should the families of those who died in the train return the compensation they have received? A lot has been said about the political dimensions of this report. I would like to now concentrate on the nature of compensation and the politics involved in this.

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All of us are potential victims of rail/air/road accidents, therefore it must be realised that one is not being insensitive but the fact is that demanding of compensation is not our birthright. By dying in a state-owned mode of transport, how does a life become more precious? If a person dies on the job, the employers are expected to compensate the family as per his/her earning capacity for the remaining years of their life. In the case of accidents, no such considerations are taken into account - it could be a housewife, children, a wealthy person, or even “bekarsevaks”, as one police officer referred to those in the Godhra train. The way things function in our country it often gives rise to a circle of bribery, corruption and deviousness. But as long as we get our ‘due’, how does it matter?

Does the VHP-Bajrang Dal-RSS combine that shows solidarity against “pseudo secularists” and takes off on yatras to promote their version of religion march to government hospitals to express their concern for the hundreds of patients who die because they are not admitted into hospitals? Do they fight for better traffic control, better roads? It took the death of Bal Thackeray’s son on the Bombay-Pune Highway to get that stretch fixed.

By encouraging the culture of compensation we are encouraging the government machinery to absolve itself of blame and from the responsibility of making itself accountable.

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Is this contention not proved true when we find that while governments are quick to announce ex-gratia payments for accidents, those affected during riots, floods, epidemics, police atrocities, or due to medical negligence or undertrials in jails, have to wait for years for any justice to come their way?

Why did the government not bother about the 104 relief camps in Gujarat that gave refuge to 1,11,176 people all due to what happened with the connivance of the State? One woman whose husband was badly injured due to beatings and burns has been told that she will not get any compensation because he died after the riots were over.

If it is conclusively proved that Godhra was a rail accident, then who do we hold responsible?

If it was human error, then how does the government come into the picture? Did they know the people in the train? Were they set up? Was it proper for the government to have got involved at all? 78 Muslims were arrested after the incident under POTA. The police made up false cases against them. Who will bear the onus of such carelessness?

Besides, by the prevalent compensation logic, the government would also have to compensate every unemployed youth who commits suicide, every person in the public sector who dies due to stress, every parent who kills a girl child due to fear of the future or an infant due to poverty.

Is compensation money going to end disasters and terrorism? It is only a convenient way to get governments to make us into passive observers. Criminals like Modi continue to be in power.

Paying off the selective dead in such cases becomes a parody of the living.