India, as a nation, has long been hostage to inept analyses and pseudo-solutions to prevailing problems, and the Justice Rajinder Sachar Committee has become a significant case in point, where a selective focus on particular data, within the context of the author's personal predilections and prejudices, has become a substitute for a realistic and productive assessment. The result is that, while little that is new has been added to public understanding or knowledge—the broad trends Mr Sachar underlines are well known, and the details have largely been missed out by his report—his recommendations fall into a pattern that reflects particular and unfortunate political positions, rather than anything that could provide the framework for a radical resolution to the problems of the minorities in India. This is certainly the case with Mr Sachar's analysis of the management of communal violence and the dubious role of the police in communal situations.