India, Feb. 16 -- Humans tend to forget history's harsh lessons quickly. Today those fanning communal tensions conveniently overlook the fact that such attempts in the past ended in devastation. Last Wednesday, another court indictment of former Congress Member of Parliament (MP) from Delhi, Sajjan Kumar, not only brought back the memories of the 1984 riots following the assassination of Indira Gandhi but forced us once again to reflect on our present-day world.

The court found Sajjan Kumar guilty last week in the murder of Jaswant Singh and his son. This was the result of a long, lonely and agonising struggle by Jaswant Singh's widow. During her decades-long travails, a time came when the police even filed a closure report in the case. ...