When the government finally discloses the contents of the Justice Liberhan Commission report there will predictably be a hue-and-cry in the media and heated debates in Parliament and outside. But I am fairly certain that nothing substantial will actually emerge out of the whole long-winded exercise, spanning over 17 years. Invariably our commissions of inquiry begin with a bang and end in a whimper.

One has only to look into the history of past commissions to understand how they as Shakespeare would say, are full of sound and fury; signifying nothing. Take, for example, the Jain Commission, set up to inquire into the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in 1991. (This is not to be confused with the parallel CBI inquiry in which arrests, charge sheets and convictions were successfully made.) Arjun Singh used the commission as a weapon in his intra-party squabble with then-Prime Minister Narasimha Rao. Leaks of the commission’s findings regularly embarrassed many, from the not-so-godly godman Chandraswami to the DMK, which was part of the United Front government. It led to the fall of the Gujral government in 1997 after the Congress withdrew support citing the report. Finally, a multiple-disciplinary monitoring agency was formed in 1998 to look into the conclusions of the seven-year-old commission. Eleven years later, the MDMA is finally being wound up, with little to show for its efforts. No fresh insight has emerged even into the money trail behind the assassination.

A commission which disappeared midway was the Venkataswamy Commission on the Tehelka tapes. It was constituted during the NDA government to silence the opposition, which was baying for George Fernandes’s blood. K. Venkataswamy resigned from the commission — after it came to light that he already headed two other commissions. He was replaced by S.N. Phukan, who submitted Part One of his report. But before he could submit the crucial Part Two, the Congress was voted back to power. Then-Law Minister H.R. Bhardwaj unceremoniously wound up the commission, although Phukan protested that he wanted no more extensions and was ready to submit Part Two.

... contd.