The Pope half-heartedly apologized to the Muslims of the world for offending them by quoting a little known Byzantine emperor's take on Islam. More recently British Prime Minister Tony Blair apologized for Britain failing to come to Ireland's help during the potato famine 150 years ago.

The city of Liverpool apologized as its ships had been used for the slave trade to the Americas. Even the Church of England which had used this slave labour in its plantations in West Indies apologized early this year. In a brilliant article in The Times Ben Macintyre describes " an apology without some sense of responsibility, for events that
occurred far beyond living memory, is purely symbolic, an empty gesture."

Cut to the Indian scenario and we'll be shocked to find that Indian leaders rarely apologized for events of distant past or even recent past.

The Congress, which had exploited the 'martyrdom' of Indira and Rajiv, has till today not openly apologized for the progrom of Sikhs after Indira Gandhi's assassination. Rajiv again justified the massacre with the term "when a big tree falls the earth shakes." It was left to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to slip in a regret in Parliament last year. Till this day no one in the Gandhi family has said a sorry to the Sikh community or the affected Sikh families of Delhi for what happened in November 1984.

This reluctance of the Gandhis strikes a close parallel to the LTTE's refusal to even now regret the killing of Rajiv Gandhi and accept responsibility for it. Every time the LTTE came close to calling Rajiv's killing a mistake it retracted the very next day with a clarification that it had not meant exactly that.

For that matter if the LTTE one day decides to apologize it will have a long list running to pages – just the Tamil leaders from Sri Sabarathinam, Amirthalingham, Yogeswaran, Neelan Thiruchelvam and so on.

Look at the way the BJP and its leaders have been fuzzy about the demolition of the Babri Masjid. L.K. Advani's description of the event as the saddest day of his life is to be interpreted as an apology. Whenever Advani came up with that line some other leader in the BJP would assert that the party had no regrets for what happened on Dec 6, 1992. It's a clever act of orchestrated obfuscation, very similar to that of the LTTE, where the offender actually does not feel any regret but wants to paper it over with an apology of an apology.

Closer home Karunanidhi and Jayalalithaa can really heal old wounds if they deign to apologise for some of their past actions. Karunanidhi for a start can express regret for the physical assault of Jayalalitha in the Assembly in March 1989. Every time that issue crops up he only recalls that the provocation came from Jayalalitha who asked a deputy to snatch his budget papers.

Jayalalithaa too should unburden herself of that midnight arrest of Karunanidhi she ordered in June 2001 when the DMK veteran was bodily lifted and dragged to jail. Such apologies if they come from the heart can defuse the deep-rooted animosity these two leaders have nurtured and nursed during the past.

But then saying sorry from deep down your heart takes immense courage. First it requires realization that one had really erred. Then one should prepare for the ramifications of that regret. In the case of politicians a heartfelt apology could lead to even political isolation and decline rather than raproachment. Just a change of perception on Jinnah had Advani doing so many twists and turns.

Which is why politicians rarely apologise and even if they do the regret is qualified with so many conditions. And they sound like French footballer Zidaine, who after head butting Italian Materazzi in the World Cup finals, said, "What I did is unforgivable but I do not regret it."