The Deadly Reach of Rumor

An investigation in India of the 2002 burning of a railroad car filled with Hindu pilgrims has found that the fire may have been an accident aboard the train and not the work of a Muslim mob. The horrible significance of this alternative explanation is that 50 deaths in the train fire triggered the revenge slaughter of more than 1,000 of India’s minority Muslims in a wave of religious fanaticism. An even harsher light is now cast on the government’s response at the time.

In February 2002, Hindu nationalists controlled the federal and Gujarat state governments. Their responses to the train fire and subsequent violence were slow or nonexistent, their investigations essentially worthless.

When voters returned the opposition Congress Party and its allies to office last year, the new national rulers appointed a retired Supreme Court judge, U.C. Banerjee, to investigate the fire. Last week, Banerjee issued a report saying there was no evidence to show the fire had been caused by Muslims pouring gasoline onto the train and lighting it. An independent group of engineers concurred, saying the fire appeared to have been started by a passenger’s cigarette or flames from a cooking stove.

The Banerjee commission is due to issue a final report within weeks. If it credibly sticks to the conclusion that the fire was an accident, the findings should be discussed not just in federal cabinet meetings but in village councils and schools, to amend a sorry period in the nation that prides itself on being the world’s most populous democracy.

India’s Supreme Court can pride itself on demanding investigations and trials when state officials initially tried to avoid doing anything. Each passing month makes it more difficult to find the ringleaders of the riots and put them on trial, but truth is itself a partial form of justice.

If the fire aboard the Sabarmati Express as it stopped in the town of Godhra was an accident, politicians should use the report as a cautionary tale about sectarian grievances. Wild rumors are deadly, and it is up to government to search for the truth and protect those most at risk.