Opinion: The futility of apology

By M H Ahssan

Last Monday, when the Supreme Court asked the special investigation team to probe Narendra Modi's role in the Gujarat violence of 2002, his political rivals were quick to demand his resignation or apology, or both. Why not ask for the moon when you know you win either way? If Modi obliges, you have achieved your political goal of getting him to eat crow. If he doesn't, you have proved that maybe he has something to hide.

Modi did not oblige. A sensible decision, for political apologies make no sense unless you are prepared to confess to everything and accept the relevant legal consequences. You can apologise if you are personally keen to turn over a new leaf. Doing it out of political expediency is not only insincere, but foolish.

Apologies work best at the individual level. If I have wronged you and say sorry, you may forgive me. Even if you don't, I can feel better for having been honest with myself.

In contrast, political apologies -- whether they are demanded or given -- serve only a political purpose. They don't assuage the feelings of those affected by your actions or guarantee non-repetition of the sins committed. Worse, often they don't serve the political purpose for which they were intended.

In the case of the Babri Masjid, LK Advani said its destruction was the saddest day of his life. Now you may not believe this constitutes an apology, or even that it is an adequate expression of contrition, but he did say it quite soon after the event. Did it do him any good? His reputation as a Hindutva hardliner remains. The secular mafia continues to condemn him, and the Sangh parivar looks at him with suspicion. The apology only served to leave him politically isolated.

Next came Manmohan Singh's apology for the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. But look at it closely: who apologised for whose crime? A Sikh PM who had nothing to do with the riots said sorry while his party continued to live in denial. The party invested faith in the same people who were the prime accused in the rioting -- Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar -- till Sikh anger erupted again. The apology was probably given because Manmohan Singh could not have served as a Sikh PM in a party that killed Sikhs by the thousand. But has it served any purpose beyond that?

The key question is: what exactly are you apologising for? Did the Congress apologise for aiding and abetting the murder of over 3,000 Sikhs or just that such a sad thing happened during its watch? If it's the former, many Congressmen should be in jail, and Rajiv Gandhi should have been publicly censured for his insensitive comments in this case.

Back to Modi: what should he apologise for? Inability to control the bloodletting? Or standing by, and possibly covertly supporting, the massacre of Muslims by Hindu mobs infuriated by the Godhra train fire? Saying sorry for the first crime displays ineptitude which no politician in Modi's position would do. A mea culpa uttered for the second should land him in jail -- if that's what he has done. Demanding an apology from him is thus a political trap.

The history of public apologies suggests that politicians say sorry only when they don't have to pay a huge price for it. Nixon didn't say sorry, and when he resigned, his successor Gerald Ford immediately pardoned him for Watergate. Barack Obama said sorry for the CIA's tortures, but he has ensured that no American will face the International Court of Justice for flouting conventions on torture. French politicians, who are believed to have looked the other way when the Hutus massacred the Tutsis in Rwanda in the 1990s, are unlikely to express regrets. The Israelis will not apologise or pay a price for atrocities against the Palestinians, who, they believe, are plotting to exterminate the Jews.

Emperor Ashoka, author of the Kalinga genocide, may seem to be the exception to this rule, but is he? He went unpunished for his crimes. He may have sincerely regretted his actions, but would he have done so publicly if there were a possibility of his being tried and hanged by the Kalingas for his atrocities? Victors do sometimes apologise, but only when they need not fear retribution.

Apologies by those in power rarely satisfy anybody for they do not often come from within. When they do, it's because there is no downside to it. (Ashoka is the best example.) Most politicians who have sins on their conscience go in for a real apology only when they have no option or when they do not care: they may be too old or about to retire.

The best apology one can expect from those in power is a gradual shift in their political emphasis. Both Advani and Modi have shifted their politics away from pure Hindutva. Both are talking development. It is the secular mafia that keeps pushing them back into their communal shells by refusing to forget or forgive. They have no right to demand an apology from anybody.