But there’s yet another concern. Events like the Babri demolition — and the Gujarat and Bombay riots, and the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi — need to be followed by fact-finding, by sifting the rumours from the truth, by a mechanism of accountability that prevents people’s characters being mauled by the Chinese whispers of gossip as well as ensuring that those who bear responsibility can’t get away by saying “If there was evidence, wouldn’t I have been indicted?” Since the Shah Commission probed the Emergency of 30 years ago — and had its final report “restricted” such that, possibly, no complete version survives — India’s commissions of inquiry have failed at this basic function. But on the strength of its unprecedented half-century of extensions, the one-man Liberhan Commission stands head and shoulders above the rest of this constellation of failures. Regardless of the report, the Liberhan Commission has already failed at its job, and failed miserably.