V. ROLE OF ARMY
Our enquires made at various quarters ranging from the affected localities toarmy sources led us to two questions. First, why was there a delay in callingout the troops? Second, even when the army was called in, why were they noteffective in imposing a curfew and curbing the violence?
The authorities at the top, including the four Ministers and senior officials ofthe Delhi Adminstration were repeatedly informed about the exact situation inthe city and its outskirts from the evening of October 31st. prominent citizens,VIP's and members of the Opposition parties and people from affected localitiesboth phoned and personally went and informed these authorities. Yet during sevenvaluable hours, between the time of the assassination and the time of the newsof the death was made public, no security measures were taken.
As a senior government servant put it there are standing instructions on dealingwith such situations. The SP and DC's have powers under the Criminal ProcedureCode (Section 130-131) to call in the armed forces in aid to civil power.Further, the para-military troops, including the Delhi Armed Force CRPF arealways available for such a situation. According to our information one brigadewas available at Delhi which could have been requisitioned immediately.
Advertisement
WHO CAN CALL IN THE ARMY ?
Section 130. Use of armed forces to disperse assembly:
(1) If any such assembly cannot be otherwise dispersed, and if it is necessaryfor the public security that it should be dispersed, the Executive Magistrate ofthe highest rank who is present may cause it to be dispersed by the armedforces.
(2) Such Magistrate may require any officer in command of any group of personsbelonging to the armed forces to disperse the assembly with the help of thearmed forces under his command, and to arrest and confine such persons formingpart of it as the Magistrate may direct, or as it may be necessary to arrest andconfine in order to disperse the assembly or to have them punished according tolaw.
(3) Every such officer of the armed forces shall obey such requisition in suchmanner as he thinks fit, but in so doing he shall use as little force, and do aslittle injury to person and property, as may be consistent with dispersing theassembly and arresting and detaining such persons.
Section 131. Power of certain armed forces officers to disperse assembly.When the public security is manifestly endangered by any such assembly and noExecutive Magistrate can be communicated with, any commissioned or gazettedofficer of the armed forces under his command, and many arrest and confine anyperson forming part of it, in order to disperse such assembly or that they maybe punished according to law; but if, while he is acting under this section, itbecomes practicable for him to communicate with an Executive Magistrate, heshall do so, and shall thenceforward obey the instructions of the Magistrate, asto whether he shall or shall not continue such action.
Advertisement
--The Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973
The troops were alerted on the afternoon of the 31st. This means that withina few hours brigades from Meerut and Agra could have arrived at Delhi by thenight of the 31st. As senior army officers put it, it is not the numericalstrength of troops that is the crucial factor for imposing curfew. The crucialfactor is clarity of intent and firm and clear instructions.
Despite announcements in the papers, AIR and Doordarshan about shoot at sightorders and imposition of curfew the troops were left without specificinformation from the police on the exact locations of the riots. No jointcontrol from was set up.
In contrast, only a few days later, the authorities did not find any difficultyin moving a full brigade of the Indian Army consisting of 3000 men and another1000 personnel from the Navy and the Air Force to line up the route if Mrs.Gandhi's funeral. The procedure to call in troops is simple. The Lt. Governorhas to inform the Home Minister (Mr. Narasimha Rao) of the law and ordersituation and the later informs the Defence Minister (the Prime Minister RajivGandhi was holding this portfolio) who gets in touch with the Army to call inthe troops.
An essential ingredient for successful joint army-civilian administrationoperation is the setting up of a joint control room. During 1947 riots, whenLord Mountbatten was requested by Jawaharlal Nehru to control the communalsituation, the former set up a joint control room at Rashtrapati Bhavan in orderto coordinate the efforts of the civil administration and the armed forces. Thisprecedent was quoted to Narasimha Rao - by an elderly resident of Delhi, who iswell-versed in army operations.
Yet from October 31 to November 4 (the peak period of the riots which accordingto old timers were reminiscent of the 1947 riots in Delhi) no effort was made toset up a joint control room. The Commissioner of Police was operating from hisoffice at ITO Police headquarters. The Army area commander was at the DhaulaKuan cantonment, and the Lt. Governor was at Raj Nivas. As a result, even afterthe deployment of troops, army people constantly complained about lack ofinformation and cooperation from the police regarding the areas of tension. Evenwith the imposition of curfew, there were no authorities to implement it. Anarmy major complained to a Delhi news reporter on November 4 that his men werenot only getting no cooperation from the Shakarpur police station, but wereoften being deliberately misled by the police. The same reporter during a tourof the city of November 2, came across army personnel ranging from JCOs tomajors, roaming around pathetically, after having lost touch either withheadquarters or with their formations.
Army officers complained that they were not provided with scouts by the policeto lead them to the trouble spots. In one instance a major who was asking fordirections was carrying a map dated 1974, where the resettlement colonies (wherethe violence reached its peak during the period under survey) did not figure.
One army source told our team members that the deployment of troops followed astrange pattern. They were deployed by the civil authorities in stages, and inalmost every case they were deployed after houses in the trouble spots had beenburnt to cinders and the massacre was over. This explains the limited number ofarmy figures (12) and casualities from army firings (2 deaths and 4 injured)during the entire period. (re: Major Gen. J.S. Jamwal's statement of November 7,Indian Express November 8) The deployment reached full strength only after the3,000 troops and vehicles reserved for the funeral were made available to curbthe violence.
The entire nature of using the army as revealed from the above sequence ofevents compels us to suspect whether or not a deliberate design to keep the armyineffective even after it was called in - and that too following a long intervalduring which the arson, looting and massacre were allowed to continue sometimeswith the direct connivance of the local police Force.
Whatever might have been the motive for such a curious manner of utilising thearmy and whoever might have been responsible for reducing it to an importantobserver, the effects of such a policy have been quite disastrous for the moraleof the army. Every army person we talked to expressed anger over the way thatthe army's authority was being undermined. The 6th report of the National PoliceCommission has stated: "We note with concern the growing tendency on thepart of the district authorities to seek instructions from higher quarters wherenone are necessary." It appears that the civilian administrators in Delhialthough armed adequately with powers under the law to use the army to suppressdisturbances, did not care to use those powers. The omission stands out in sharpcontrast with their use of the army in coping with Hindu-Muslim riots orinsurgency in the north-east.
The question that needs to be probed into is: why did the civil administrationbetray a set pattern of acts of omission, marked by a consistent failure to takesteps against erring policemen and a stubborn refusal to deploy the armyproperly? Further an analysis of the role of the army during the period undersurvey leaves us with a few questions that need to be answered by the people inpositions of authority. According to the procedure laid down under the law, theLt. Governor can request the Home Minister who in turn can ask the DefenceMinister for army deployment. On October 31, the new cabinet had already beensworn in with Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi himself in charge of Defence andNarasimha Rao, as the Home Minister. We want to know whether, with the growingdeterioration in the law and order situation in Delhi, when by November 1 thelocal police machinery had proved its failure to control the situation - eitherthrough negligence or connivance with the rioters - the Lt. Governor requestedthe Home Ministry for army aid. Even if he did not was it not his responsibilityto deploy the army as soon as he realised that the police bad failed (which wasquite evident by November 1)? By removing a few civilian administrators (likeMr. Gavai) or police officers (like the Delhi Police Commissioner, Mr. SubhashTandon) how can the government at the centre absolve itself if the blame ofneglecting its obligations to the citizens and its responsibility to maintainlaw and order - and this, inspite of several warnings to the effect that aHindu-Sikh riot bound to take place?
The experience of our team members gives rise to the suspicion that both theadministration and the Cabinet might have abdicated their responsibility andthat extra-administrative forces were steering the deployment and operation oftroops. On November 3, a group of concerned citizens visited Trilokpuri wherethey were requested by panic-stricken survivors of a widespread holocaust(described later) to intervene on their behalf and seek army protection. Theytried to get in touch with various people both in the administration and theCabinet to convey to them the request of the Trilokpuri victims. No one wasavailable, either in their offices or homes.
Hoping that Opposition MPs might have a better access to the authorities thegroup approached Mr. Biju Patnaik, Mr. George Fernandes, Mr. Chandra Shekhar andMr. Madhu Dandavate among others - all of whom told them that their repeatedattempts to contact Ministers and officials have yielded no results. In a finaldesperate move accompanied by Mr. Dandavate, they went to 1, Safdarjung Road,the Prime Minister's official residence, and managed to meet a Congress (I) MP -Mr. Arun Nehru. When the group conveyed to him the request of the Trilokpuriresidents, he said that he would sent a "wireless message" for armydeployment. Only after this, were troops sent to Trilokpuri - but that alsoagain merely for patrolling.
