The politics of the apology

It is a healthy trend if politicians and parties reflect on their journey and own up to their mistakes

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Speaking at Brown University, US, in late April, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said that "as far as mistakes of the Congress party are concerned, a lot of those mistakes happened when I was not there, but I am more than happy to take responsibility for everything that the Congress has ever done wrong".

In the specific case of the anti-Sikh riots, Rahul Gandhi said what happened in 1984 was wrong. The leader of the Opposition's assumption of ownership of his party's past actions is welcome, of course; because politicians rarely own up to their (or their party's) mistakes in public; most of them hope for Father Time to heal the wounds or cause people to forget and escape accountability for their actions.