Forgiving Gujarat

Two ideas by Mike Ghouse and Ram Puniyani, November 26, 2007
My article is inspired by Mr. Puniyani's article, which follows;

Forgiving-Gujarat

Mike Ghouse, November 27, 2007

Indeed Mahatma Gandhi, Prophet Muhammad, Jesus Christ and several spiritual teachers have believed in the power of forgiveness. Jesus and Gandhi are quoted often; let me give the example of Prophet Muhammad.

When the Prophet was traveling from Mecca to Taif, he was pelted with stones to a point of excessive bleeding, it is said that he could not even remove his blood solidified shoes. His associates and Angel Gabriel were anxious to go out and punish the miscreants. The prophet stopped them and said something to this effect. Let's not punish them, it is not the answer; instead let's pray that God give them guidance and goodwill.

The wisdom is simple: there is hope that people will do better if we give them a break and appeal to their goodwill. Give them a chance to recognize their mistakes without demanding a pound of flesh.

In the tradition of the Prophet, I genuinely ask the People of Gujarat to forgive the perpetrators of the Crimes, it takes a big heart to do it, but when they do it, there is peace in it and hopefully an opportunity for the criminals do their Praischit (repentance) in their own way. We need to help them release from their pain, so all of us can work on living with good will. Let' not dig in our heels, let's step out and reach. Goodwill gives birth to goodwill.
This appeal goes out to both Hindu's and Muslims of Gujarat. The few, who are burning with revenge to go back and destroy each other, really don't care about themselves, Gujarat or India. The people of Gujarat are one family; no one can step on other's dead body and achieve personal, spiritual, business and moral success.

Why does it make sense to forgive?

Hate and revenge is binding, when you hate the other person, you cannot be good to yourselves as you are loaded with the poison called hate, then you cannot be good to your family, your community or your state. Useless you are tied down to the Khooti (anchor bolt for tying animals) called hate, every moment and at every turn, you are occupied with revenge. Why load yourselves with it? Not only that, you are also worried about being attacked by the other or the law reaching out to you someday, and without any doubt, the guilt that you carry around your neck, which makes you do weird things.

You simply cannot be happy with hate and anger eating you alive. Put that energy in forgiveness, it is liberating. Both the religions in this instance; Sanatana Dharma and Islam incessantly preach to achieve liberation. One speaks about the ultimate freedom human beings achieve with the stoppage of the cycle of birth in lower forms, the other talks about God sending you in to a state of eternal bliss. Both systems assure entrance to the kingdom of God, if you do good things to the others.

How would Justice be served?

Those who have committed the crimes must be given the chance to do their praischit and atonement. Put them to work for making the lives of others better for a period of five years or put them in the jail for a similar period of time. If Jai Prakash Narayan or Mahatma Gandhi were alive, they probably would have suggested the same.
Better yet, let it be open to the criminals to step forward and volunteer, let them have the chance to achieve the inner peace. Hate breeds hate, love breeds love. In hate no one will live in peace, in the other option they will. Mahatma Gandhi said, “An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind.” And the Qur’aan states,” the one who forgives is dearest to God”.

I appeal to the Muslims of Gujarat in particular to take that first step; there is a beautiful universal prayer that Muslims say after every prayer.

To paraphrase it:
Dear God, please forgive me, my parents, my teachers,
Those who bow to you, surrender to your guidance,
Please forgive the living and the dead,

Time for the healing process must begin and it is time now. The Hindus will follow it up. There is no way goodness does not produce results, you must have the patience, peace will come and every one will be better off in Gujarat, forgive we must.

May God bring peace to all.
Mike Ghouse

... and now Mr. Puniyani's article.

Gujarat Muslims - Way ahead

Ram Puniyani

Many a voices have emerged from a small section of Muslim community which is arguing that Muslims should unilaterally forgive the pain they suffered during the carnage of 2002. This section says that we should draw from the reality of Gujarat where the religious and other community leaders have refused to apologize for the crimes committed in the name of Ram. Also that the state apparatus is so communalized that chances of getting justice are bleak, and how long a community can live in such a state of pity and victim hood, it affects their self respect and dignity. This section does see that civil rights groups are fighting for the rights of Muslim minority against odds, irrespective of their religion.

One can appreciate the personal magnanimity of those who personally suffered serious losses due to violence against them, like Mrs. Gladys Stains who personally forgave the killers of her husband and children. Jesus and Gandhi urged the people to put another cheek forward when slapped on one. One has to see the difference between personal magnanimity and the political assault of a section of people to victimize the weak. One has to see that the communal violence is not just violence against person but is also a part of political agenda of some. The crimes against a person can not be forgiven in law, as justice is the basis of tranquility and peace in society. The question is, can such a position of individual/ individuals to forgive the crimes against them be acceptable to major sections of victims in Gujarat? Many a religious teaching do emphasize on forgiveness. Are such things applicable to the situation of those facing Gujarat Muslims?

There are many a precedents where the culprits have been forgiven. South Africa was the major experiment, where truth and reconciliation commission undertook a massive exercise in this direction. The starting point there was that the culprits confessed to their crimes. Reconciliation followed. Personally putting forward another cheek when someone slaps is based on the basic human understanding that the one slapping you has a potential for reforming, will have remorse of his actions and will feel apologetic about what he has done.

In Gujarat the things are very different. The communalization of society was going on from many decades. The demonization of Muslim minority went unhindered for a long time, and violence was used as a method of polarizing communities. Later Dalits, Adivasis were co-opted to unleash on the Muslim community by clever social engineering. The truth of this has been reconfirmed by Tehelka expose (Novemember 2007). Modi used the pretext of Godhra to unleash the genocide. The state machinery is totally communalized, no rehabilitation, no justice for victims, and there is a deliberate marginalization of Muslims to the status of second class citizens! Today in Gujarat not only are communities polarized, the partitions between communities are becoming worse and deeper by the day. No body is asking forgiveness as the criminals, Modi downwards, believe, that what they did was for their religion, was right, and was needed to teach 'them' (Muslims) a lesson. There is also an un-spelt understanding that they will anyway be protected by the mighty arm of the Hindu Rashtra of Gujarat. So whom are you going to forgive?

The problem is essentially that of violation of democratic rights and civil liberties. Problem is that Gandhi's Gujarat has been manipulated to become Godse-Modi's Gujarat. Modi, the mass murderer, is hero for large sections. He is acquiring a halo around him duly helped by a section of media. The alternative pole, the one of Congress is more interested in electoral arithmetic and so far has been behaving as B team of RSS combine. The defense of democracy and forthright stand for secular values has been put on the backburner.

One can understand the painful sigh of a section of Muslims, some of whom may be thinking on these lines. This section, seems to have accepted and internalized the second class status and seem to be willing to be on the bent knees to live in this Hindu Rashtra, where Indian constitution is present by its absence. Can there bee peace without justice? Can there be dignity and self respect if the injustice is inbuilt into the social system and is institutionalized to the core?

Are the civil rights groups working just for minority community? The work of civil rights groups is more a defense of democratic rights and civil liberties than just a defense of rights of this or that religious group. It is more a question of defending our constitution and not just the rights of minorities. Can we call it a democratic society if a large section has to reconcile its status as the one of a second class citizen? RSS combine is celebrating this relegation of minority rights, as now more and more villages of Gujarat are putting the hoarding of 'Welcome to so and so village Hindu Rahtra of Gujarat'.

While totally empathizing with this section of Muslims one has to turn the criticism to the larger democratic polity. What have we done to our democracy? How is the status of democracy judged? One of the parameters is to see as to how safe and secure the minorities are. At another level the acceptance of such position of Muslims is a sign of total surrender of democracy to the religious fascism, which is on ascendance more so in Gujarat. And this intimidation of minorities is just the beginning. As we witnessed in Germany, the same thing is being played here in the slow motion. Jews were the first target, followed by communists, trade unionists and later sections of Christian minorities. Here in India the order planned by RSS combine is Muslims, Christians, Secularists and other weaker sections of society, in that order.

When Gujarat is facing elections and many forecasters are talking of Modi's return, the time has come to put all our energies to save democracy there. The time that we get over the diffidence, that Modi is too clever to be defeated, that the polarization has gone too far to be repaired. These may be part of the deliberate propaganda of the well oiled machine which organized Gujarat pogrom. We need to reassert that there is no substitute for democracy. The treatment of ills of democracy is more democracy and more democracy. National integration means that we have the overarching national, Indian community in which any injustice to one is the injustice to all. Any undermining of the rights of one section tantamount to erosion of the values of our freedom movement and the principles as given in our Constitution, which these communal elements do not hold by.

Even today the chasm between the religious communities can be bridged by broadening the awareness about our syncretic traditions, Bhakti and Sufi. There is an urgent need to remind people that Hindus and Muslims have lived together for centuries. What has been propagated is opposite of this that there is a centuries old fight between Hindus and Muslims. Even today there is a need to remind people every where that freedom movement was the movement in which all communities participated equally. We need to remember that Hinduism of Gandhi and Islam of Maulana Abul Kalam unites people while Hinduism of Godse-Modi-RSS and Islam of Jinnah-Muslim League-Taliban divide the people.

It is never too late to counter the negativity injected by communal forces and bring back the humane values ingrained in our plural history to ensure that the process of remorse, reconciliation and justice comes to the fore, and Muslims feel as much at home as any one else. That a section of our society is made to think that one sided forgiveness is the only way out just shows that our system is deeply infected and needs to be cleansed by the spirit of Indian ness. And that's where all the conscientious and aware citizens believing in democracy have to stick together, for getting justice for all and to soothe the wounds of those thinking of unsolicited, unilateral forgiveness.

http://gujaratjustice.blogspot.com/2007/11/forgiving-gujarat.html

Your comments: http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=2888477267724926792&postID=2469043351020210901
Mike Ghouse

Gujarat Muslims: Way Ahead

Gujarat Muslims: The Way Ahead
Ram Puniyani, November 26, 2007

Mr. Puniyani's article follows Moderator's comments;

Dear Mr. Puniyani, I appreciate this idea of forgiveness, indeed, Mahatma Gandhi, Prophet Muhammad, Jesus Christ and several spiritual teachers have believed in the power of forgiveness. You have quoted Jesus and Gandhi; let me give the example of Prophet Muhammad.

When the Prophet was traveling form Mecca to Taif, he was pelted with stones to a point of excessive bleeding, it is said that he could not even remove his blood solidified shoes. His associates and Angel Gabriel were anxious to go out and punish the miscreants. The prophet stopped them and said something to this effect. Let's not punish them, it is not the answer; instead let's pray that God give them guidance and goodwill.

The wisdom is simple: there is hope that people will do better if we give them a break and appeal to their goodwill. Give them a chance to recognize their mistakes without demanding a pound of flesh.

In the tradition of the Prophet, I genuinely ask the Muslims of Gujarat to forgive the perpetrators of the Crimes, it takes a big heart to do it, but when they do it, there is peace in it and hopefully an opportunity for the criminals do their Praischit (repentence) in their own way. We need to help them release from their pain, so all of us can work on living with good will. Let' not dig in our heels, let's step out and reach. Goodwill gives birth to goodwill.

I appeal to the Muslims of Gujarat in particular to take that first step; there is a beautiful universal prayer that Muslims say after every prayer.

To paraphrase it:
Dear God, please forgive me, my parents, my teachers,
Those who bow to you, surrender to your guidance,
Please forgive the living and the dead,

Time for the healing process must begin and it is time now. Thanks for writing this thoughtful healing piece of information and I request all people to give it a currency.

May God bring peace to all.

Mike Ghouse
http://www.worldmuslimcongress.com/
http://www.foundationforpluralism.com/

... and now Mr. Puniyani's article.

Many a voices have emerged from a small section of Muslim community which is arguing that Muslims should unilaterally forgive the pain they suffered during the carnage of 2002. This section says that we should draw from the reality of Gujarat where the religious and other community leaders have refused to apologize for the crimes committed in the name of Ram. Also that the state apparatus is so communalized that chances of getting justice are bleak, and how long a community can live in such a state of pity and victim hood, it affects their self respect and dignity. This section does see that civil rights groups are fighting for the rights of Muslim minority against odds, irrespective of their religion.


One can appreciate the personal magnanimity of those who personally suffered serious losses due to violence against them, like Mrs. Gladys Stains who personally forgave the killers of her husband and children. Jesus and Gandhi urged the people to put another cheek forward when slapped on one. One has to see the difference between personal magnanimity and the political assault of a section of people to victimize the weak. One has to see that the communal violence is not just violence against person but is also a part of political agenda of some. The crimes against a person can not be forgiven in law, as justice is the basis of tranquility and peace in society. The question is, can such a position of individual/ individuals to forgive the crimes against them be acceptable to major sections of victims in Gujarat? Many a religious teaching do emphasize on forgiveness. Are such things applicable to the situation of those facing Gujarat Muslims?

There are many a precedents where the culprits have been forgiven. South Africa was the major experiment, where truth and reconciliation commission undertook a massive exercise in this direction. The starting point there was that the culprits confessed to their crimes. Reconciliation followed. Personally putting forward another cheek when someone slaps is based on the basic human understanding that the one slapping you has a potential for reforming, will have remorse of his actions and will feel apologetic about what he has done.

In Gujarat the things are very different. The communalization of society was going on from many decades. The demonization of Muslim minority went unhindered for a long time, and violence was used as a method of polarizing communities. Later Dalits, Adivasis were co-opted to unleash on the Muslim community by clever social engineering. The truth of this has been reconfirmed by Tehelka expose (Novemember 2007). Modi used the pretext of Godhra to unleash the genocide. The state machinery is totally communalized, no rehabilitation, no justice for victims, and there is a deliberate marginalization of Muslims to the status of second class citizens! Today in Gujarat not only are communities polarized, the partitions between communities are becoming worse and deeper by the day. No body is asking forgiveness as the criminals, Modi downwards, believe, that what they did was for their religion, was right, and was needed to teach 'them' (Muslims) a lesson. There is also an un-spelt understanding that they will anyway be protected by the mighty arm of the Hindu Rashtra of Gujarat. So whom are you going to forgive?

The problem is essentially that of violation of democratic rights and civil liberties. Problem is that Gandhi's Gujarat has been manipulated to become Godse-Modi's Gujarat. Modi, the mass murderer, is hero for large sections. He is acquiring a halo around him duly helped by a section of media. The alternative pole, the one of Congress is more interested in electoral arithmetic and so far has been behaving as B team of RSS combine. The defense of democracy and forthright stand for secular values has been put on the backburner.

One can understand the painful sigh of a section of Muslims, some of whom may be thinking on these lines. This section, seems to have accepted and internalized the second class status and seem to be willing to be on the bent knees to live in this Hindu Rashtra, where Indian constitution is present by its absence. Can there bee peace without justice? Can there be dignity and self respect if the injustice is inbuilt into the social system and is institutionalized to the core?

Are the civil rights groups working just for minority community? The work of civil rights groups is more a defense of democratic rights and civil liberties than just a defense of rights of this or that religious group. It is more a question of defending our constitution and not just the rights of minorities. Can we call it a democratic society if a large section has to reconcile its status as the one of a second class citizen? RSS combine is celebrating this relegation of minority rights, as now more and more villages of Gujarat are putting the hoarding of 'Welcome to so and so village Hindu Rahtra of Gujarat'.

While totally empathizing with this section of Muslims one has to turn the criticism to the larger democratic polity. What have we done to our democracy? How is the status of democracy judged? One of the parameters is to see as to how safe and secure the minorities are. At another level the acceptance of such position of Muslims is a sign of total surrender of democracy to the religious fascism, which is on ascendance more so in Gujarat. And this intimidation of minorities is just the beginning. As we witnessed in Germany, the same thing is being played here in the slow motion. Jews were the first target, followed by communists, trade unionists and later sections of Christian minorities. Here in India the order planned by RSS combine is Muslims, Christians, Secularists and other weaker sections of society, in that order.

When Gujarat is facing elections and many forecasters are talking of Modi's return, the time has come to put all our energies to save democracy there. The time that we get over the diffidence, that Modi is too clever to be defeated, that the polarization has gone too far to be repaired. These may be part of the deliberate propaganda of the well oiled machine which organized Gujarat pogrom. We need to reassert that there is no substitute for democracy. The treatment of ills of democracy is more democracy and more democracy. National integration means that we have the overarching national, Indian community in which any injustice to one is the injustice to all. Any undermining of the rights of one section tantamount to erosion of the values of our freedom movement and the principles as given in our Constitution, which these communal elements do not hold by.

Even today the chasm between the religious communities can be bridged by broadening the awareness about our syncretic traditions, Bhakti and Sufi. There is an urgent need to remind people that Hindus and Muslims have lived together for centuries. What has been propagated is opposite of this that there is a centuries old fight between Hindus and Muslims. Even today there is a need to remind people every where that freedom movement was the movement in which all communities participated equally. We need to remember that Hinduism of Gandhi and Islam of Maulana Abul Kalam unites people while Hinduism of Godse-Modi-RSS and Islam of Jinnah-Muslim League-Taliban divide the people.

It is never too late to counter the negativity injected by communal forces and bring back the humane values ingrained in our plural history to ensure that the process of remorse, reconciliation and justice comes to the fore, and Muslims feel as much at home as any one else. That a section of our society is made to think that one sided forgiveness is the only way out just shows that our system is deeply infected and needs to be cleansed by the spirit of Indian ness. And that's where all the conscientious and aware citizens believing in democracy have to stick together, for getting justice for all and to soothe the wounds of those thinking of unsolicited, unilateral forgiveness.

http://gujaratjustice.blogspot.com/2007/11/gujarat-muslims-way-ahead.html

Your comments: https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=2888477267724926792&postID=3606756544876132369

Modi-fying victory

Modi-fying victory

Hitler had duplicates, Saddam Hussein had a few

and who is having duplicates now?

BJP workers wearing masks of Gujarat

Chief Minister Narendra Modi campaign ahead of the

state assembly elections in Ahmedabad. (TOI Photo)

Parallels can be drawn between Hitler and Modi. Both of them had an Iron clad grip on some of their people, both of them brought economic prosperity while one was annihilating Jews, the other was tacitly letting Muslims be butchered. The ones who were/are reaping the benefits of the unprecedented economic prosperity considered both the men as their God given leaders; their word was the final word to them. However deep down, any soul should feel the intense pain and suffering of the victims, after all without such feeling, one cannot be called a human. Adharma is a bigger killer of a civil society than any weapons of mass destruction.

Whole of the BJP is debased

The whole of the BJP is debased
Shailendra Pandey, Nove 14, 2007
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main35.asp?filename=Ne171107THE_HOLE.asp

.
" True, a lot of Muslims were killed; but the real murder happening here is that of Hinduism, of the liberal face of Hinduism. Ordinary Hindus do like the glorification of Hinduism and Hindus, but when it embraces such visceral violence, it disturbs them."

“Don’t think you will be spared because you take shelter in Gandhi’s ashram. We will detonate bombs here and unleash terror as long as these Muslims are with you.”

Swami Agnivesh tells S. ANAND about Gujarat during the riots, and about Hindutva’s assault on Hinduism. Swami Agnivesh, who has been called ‘a Marxist in ochre robes’, is the president of the World Council of Arya Samaj. He pioneered the liberation of bonded labourers through the Bandhua Mukti Morcha, an organisation he established.

You worked in Gujarat after the 2002 pogrom. There seems to be a lack of outrage over a genocide of such magnitude.

To an extent, I witnessed this genocide. I visited Gujarat between April 1 and 5, 2002 as part of a group. Rear Admiral Ramdas, Nirmala Deshpande, Valson Thampu, Father Dominic Immanuel, the Maulanas of Jamait-e-Islami and Jamait-e- Ulema-e-Hind, and others were part of the group. We were on a healing mission. On the second day, we were to stay for the night at a place called Eshwar Bhavan in the Ahmedabad’s Navrangpura area. There, we were accosted by a group of well-dressed Hindu fundamentalists. They told us, point blank, that we were most welcome to stay in the Bhavan but our Muslim colleagues must go stay in a masjid. We said, “We are all together, we are here just to ask everyone to stop this madness.” They simply insisted that Muslims must be separated from the rest. When we said this was not acceptable, they warned us that if the Muslims stayed they would blast bombs at the site.

Which Hindutva outfit did they represent?

They seemed to be from the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. After they left — it was about 9 in the evening — we decided to go to Gandhi’s Sabarmati Asharm on the outskirts of the city. On reaching there, we realised the goons had followed us in their cars. They reiterated their demand. They said, “Don’t think you will be spared because you take shelter in Gandhi’s ashram. We will detonate bombs here and unleash terror as long as these Muslims are with you.” Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee was to arrive the next day, and so we reasoned with them that such violence would be send an inappropriate message. Their reply was, “This has nothing to do with Vajpayee or Modi. This is dharma yudh and we do not want Muslims around.” Ramdas and Nirmala then contacted the Army in Gandhinagar and they gave us protection.

The state machinery was paralysed. TEHELKA offered proof of this.
What I saw on TV and read in TEHELKA gave me goose bumps. A man is boasting how he slit a pregnant woman’s womb; men are talking about hoisting a dead pig atop a mosque. And these men are roaming free. This genocide, and the state’s total complicity… we had sensed all this. But still there was reason to give [them] the benefit of doubt. But after the TEHELKA report, I am beginning to feel that Godhra itself was staged.

TEHELKA’s dissection of Godhra and the fire in Sabarmati Express, does raise some disturbing questions.

About the same time, along with Inder Gujral, Harsh Mander and others, I met Vajpayee at Panchvati. I requested Vajpayee for a white paper on Godhra. I said, find out exactly who was responsible for Godhra. The PM just laughed and said the inquiry was on. Early in April, when the rioting was at its peak, Vajpayee had expressed regret over the carnage, and had famously wondered how he would face the world. He had admonished Modi in this speech and reminded him of his raj dharma (duty as the chief minister). Our esteem for Vajpayee went up. We thought he was one truthful person. We thought he would remove Modi from the chief ministership. Nothing happened. Later, in Goa, Vajpayee took a U-turn, and began to praise Modi. After that statement he was totally exposed.

But Vajpayee has always maintained he was a Sanghi.

After the 2002 election and Modi’s victory, Vajpayee was once asked by a reporter if they would repeat the Gujarat experiment in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan which were going to the polls. Vajpayee’s reply was dangerous and irresponsible. As PM, he asked, “Will Godhra be repeated?” No prime minister has made such a dirty statement. Without waiting for what the inquiry said, he had made up his mind on who was behind Godhra and justified the genocide. That’s when we realised this entire party is debased. On our return to Delhi, Nirmala Deshpande, Nafisa Ali and I filed a case in the High Court seeking BJP’s de-recognition as a political party under the Representation of the People (PR) Act. Our contention was that the RSS, VHP, Ba-.jrang Dal and BJP are all one. These different names and different leaders are just for show; their identity is one. If all of them are violent, communal and have participated in genocide, the BJP as the political wing of the Sangh Parivar should necessarily be de-recognised under the RP Act. The judgment on the case is not yet out.

But what is the alternative to the BJP? The Congress behaves like its B-team. Take their role in the 1984 pogrom.

What is the alternative in Gujarat? We only have the Congress occupying the opposition space. When Sonia Gandhi visited Ahmedabad, we were hoping that she would visit Ehsan Jafri’s home and offer solace to his widow. But no, the Congress was afraid of the “Hindu reaction”. So Sonia did not visit her own party MP’s house. Modi’s victory in 2002 was dangerous. More dangerous was Congress’ admission that he had won. This is wrong. Hitler too had used democracy and elections to promote Nazism. How is Modi different? He used a similar model and made Gujarat a laboratory. Is this democracy or fascism? How can we even recognise him as a democratically elected chief minister? This is democracy’s biggest weakness. Modi manipulated these votes through mobs and frenzy. Which is why I think we should de-recognise this party. There’s no scope for such parties to exist under the PR Act.

What about the reaction of most Hindus, the civil society and the media? They seem to offer tacit support by their silence.

There are many who feel strongly about this, but their revulsion is not being channelled properly. Elections have been announced, and people expect the Congress to react. While Laloo Yadav speaks strongly, Jayanthi Natarajan soft pedals the issue. Why? In this depressing scenario, there’s one ray of hope. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar called me and said he was shocked by what he saw on TV.

The general impression is that Ravi Shankar is pro-Hindutva?

That’s true. During the 2004 general election, it was said that Ravi Shankar had sent bulk SMSes canvassing votes for Atal and Advani. The entire Congress lobby believes Ravi Shankar is a representative of Hindutva. It is therefore especially significant that he called me after seeing the TEHELKA exposé. Which is when I suggested that he draft a statement. Valson Thampu and I co-signed it.

Most of the responses have talked about the timing of the exposé and its impact on elections.
This is the height of perversion. Truth in itself is most important. One cannot think of the consequences and then tell the truth. If the truth has to be uttered at a chosen time, it cannot be the truth.

What we call Hinduism encompasses such a variety of philosophies and traditions, that we do not know what we are dealing with. And the violence in Gujarat happens in the name of Hinduism.

Hinduism is amorphous. You are a Hindu and yet need not be one. This is both Hinduism’s strength and weakness. Hence it is difficult to be a fundamentalist in Hinduism. The most violent face of Hinduism is the caste system, where you view a fellow human with hatred that even an enemy does not deserve.

But Hindutva is pitting Adivasis (like the Chharas) and Dalits against Muslims.
This is dangerous. The four Vedas, the 11 Upanishads and the 18 Puranas never mention Hindu or Hinduism. Neither the Ramayana and Mahabharata nor the Gita use these categories. In fact, Islam’s position on god comes close to the Vedic-Upanishadic position that doesn’t assign a bodily form to god.

All this doesn’t take away from what is happening on the ground.
Yes, a majority of the “liberals” in the country identify themselves as Hindu today. True, a lot of Muslims were killed; but the real murder happening here is that of Hinduism, of the liberal face of Hinduism. Ordinary Hindus do like the glorification of Hinduism and Hindus, but when it embraces such visceral violence, it disturbs them.

Tehelka Magazine, Vol 4, Issue 44, Dated Nov 17, 2007

Modi must be punished

Modi must be punished
Kuldip Nayar, November 13, 2007

http://www.asianage.com/presentation/columnisthome/kuldip-nayar-/modi-must-be-punished-.aspx

Some serious-minded secularists feel that the sting operation showing Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi's foot soldiers boasting about conducting the Gujarat pogrom with state support should not have been publicised. The point being made is that this would polarise society and help consolidate the Hindu vote in Modi's favour. I do not understand how gloating about the killing of innocent Muslims will increase Modi's votes. Assuming this is true, should the crime be suppressed? That would be like a cover-up of a murder on the ground that the perpetrator would be lionised. The issue is not whether the sting operation benefits Modi, but whether the confession of murder is something to be made public when it is reconfirmed.

It is a coincidence that the killers' admission came after Assembly elections were announced in Gujarat. Would the publicity have been justified if the killers had spoken earlier? We have seen on television screens the perpetrators of the crime describing how "execution squads were formed, composed of the dedicated cadre of Hindu organisations like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the Bajrang Dal, the Kisan Sangh, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad and the Bharatiya Janata Party," and how "the idea was to harm as many Muslims as possible, burn them, kill them."

The brutality of a pogrom is not lessened if it is hidden from the nation. Exposing a crime is not linked to electoral strategy, but to the value system. I believe, a person begins to die the day he sees an act of injustice being committed but keeps quiet. The Congress is not coming out openly because its approach is political. It is not sure how the Gujarati Hindus would react to it. The party would have reacted differently if it had realised that murder was murder, whatever the fallout of its exposure. As for the BJP, it is hoodwinking the people because it knows that both Modi and the party have been thoroughly exposed. The complicity of the Congress in the death of 3,000 Sikhs in Delhi does not justify the Gujarat killings. In both cases, those who committed the crime should have been punished.

Also, it is the Gujaratis who are now being tested. I do not think that the state's economic growth which is a result of their own enterprise and hard work can make them soft towards Modi's crimes which are now told in black and white. Peace cannot be built on the dead bodies of innocent people. Hitler too gave peace to Germany for 15 years. But we know at what price, we also know how the state of Germany just crumbled when the truth was known. No citizen can forget or forgive the pogrom because status quo will be disturbed. Today, Gujarat is a fractured society. It is vertically divided. This, I am sure, must be bothering the people in the state, and I have no doubt that they will assert themselves to see that the guilty are brought to book. Till today the Germans have not forgiven themselves for overlooking what Hitler did in the name of the purity of the German race. Sometime later, if not today, Gujaratis will also realise that Modi misled them by converting his communal approach into Gujarati self-respect. The people who were killed were also Gujaratis. Whenever he is accused of planning and executing all that happened in the wake of the Godhra train burning, Modi plays on Gujarati sentiment and argues that in reality it is they who are being run down. This is how he has got away with murder. Gujaratis do not deserve a chief minister who builds his reputation at their cost and polarises society to escape its wrath.

Modi even makes a mockery of Mahatma Gandhi's ideals of pluralism. Modi's style of functioning is authoritarian and parochial. So much so, that a revered state leader like Keshubhai Patel feels humiliated and is maintaining a distance from the BJP, the party he has served for decades, for it has put up Modi as the candidate for the chief minister's post once again.

Had the Nanavati-Shah Commission which was set up to ascertain the truth, submitted its report, Modi would have probably been exposed by this time. But even after five years the inquiry committee is still conducting its investigation. It seems as if the judges are extending their job after retirement. The commission is turning out to be another Liberhan Commission which was set up in the wake of the Babri Masjid demolition in 1992. The committee has had as many as 84 extensions, costing nearly Rs 8 crores. It has not submitted even an interim report in the last 15 years. I think the Chief Justice of India should look into the working of such inquiry committees, because the way in which some extend their tenure, brings a bad name to the judiciary. There should be a time frame and no inquiry committee should last beyond three years.

Modi's defence by the BJP spokesman does not surprise me. The party, because of L.K. Advani's increasing influence and Atal Behari Vajpayee's waning say because of ill-health, is most vociferously communal when it projects Modi. The BJP's thinking is that if it loses the Assembly election in Gujarat, it will lose in the general election. It might do so even otherwise if it continues to back Modi. True, the process of election has begun in the state and it cannot be stopped till the polls take place. But surely Modi can be hauled up for his crime. The Centre lacks that kind of courage, not because it cannot muster enough of it to take action, but because it is afraid of the BJP's hostile reaction.

To say that we all are to blame is to rationalise the crime. No doubt, the nation is not as secular as it should have been after 60 years of independence. But this is because we have not really worked for a pluralistic society. The belief that the communal bias will go away with the departure of the British who divided us to rule, has not turned out to be correct. The communalism which had taken root in the 150-year-rule of the British needed to be fought relentlessly.

It is a tragedy that the Congress which has ruled the country for the first 45 years did very little to change the parochial attitude of our society. It did not even punish those whose names were mentioned in the inquiry committees set up after riots. School and colleges were allowed to be the breeding ground for communalism. Books written were either too superficial or too sophisticated and went over children's heads. Then there was the growth of some political parties which thrived in misleading the people in the name of religion and caste. The situation is deteriorating, not improving.

Godhra Tak, the movie

Godhra Tak, the movie

Godhra fire was not a pre-planned conspiracy:

Shubhradeep Chakravorty, November 8th, 2007

Delhi-based freelance journalist Shubhradeep Chakravorty is the director of ‘Godhra Tak’, a documentary film on the burning of the train coach in February 2002 at Godhra, that set of a wave of murderous attacks on Muslims in Gujarat. In this interview with Yoginder Sikand he talks about his film and the reactions that it has evoked.

YS: What made you decide to make ‘Godhra Tak’?

SC: When the Godhra incident in February 2002 happened what struck me was the contradictory theories that Hindutva leaders and government officials were putting out. Some said it was a conspiracy hatched by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence. Some others said the Students’ Islamic Movement of India or a Kashmiri militant group was behind it. Yet others said it was a result of a conspiracy of local Muslims in Godhra. These contradictory theories puzzled me and so I decided to investigate the incident for myself.

So, I began visiting Godhra in May 2002. It was not possible for me to go there earlier as the whole town was under a sort of siege. I had to visit Godhra seventeen times before I could start using my camera because it was obviously difficult to gain the confidence of the people for them to talk to me. The local Muslims were naturally too scared to speak out, fearing that they might be harassed for whatever they said. Many Hindus and Muslims were also suspicious of my intentions. But finally I got down to filming in December 2002, and after months of work finished the documentary.

YS: Basically, what exactly is your film all about?

SC: The film focuses only on the burning of coach S-6 of the Sabarmati Express at Godhra, which was then used by Hindutva groups to launch murderous riots against Muslims in Gujarat. Piecing together evidence from local people, survivors of the incident, social activists and forensic experts I have tried to show that, in all probability, the coach was not set on fire from the outside by a Muslim mob, as the Hindutva-walas claim, an argument that they deployed to justify the mass killings of Muslims in Gujarat. Rather, it seems, given the evidence that the film highlights, that in all likelihood the fire started from inside the train itself. Hence, to claim that it was the handiwork of the Muslims seems to me to be completely false.

YS: If, as you say, the fire started from inside, what could have set it off?

SC: We can only speculate on this, of course. One possibility is that there was petrol or some other inflammable substance being carried by the Hindutva activists in the compartment. Some say that that maybe they were carrying stoves to cook food, and these may have caused the fire. A forensic expert I interviewed in Gujarat said that he had seen a television programme in which a girl who was travelling in S-6 revealed that when she was crossing into S-7 she felt a cold liquid on the floor of the compartment. This may have been petrol, which may have been carried inside the train, rather than having been thrown from the outside. Another theory, which, again, is only speculative, is that the coach may have been deliberately set on fire by someone travelling in the coach, who might thereafter have escaped or else died in the fire, in order to set off a wave of attacks on Muslims. Who knows?

YS: But your film does not explore the possibility of this theory.

SC: No, it doesn’t. I deliberately left that out as I did not want to be seen as biased or be branded as an ‘anti-Hindu’ communist or a ‘pseudo-secularist’ or whatever. I did not want to step into the realm of the speculative. I wanted to highlight only the confirmed evidence that I could gather, because otherwise ‘soft’ Hindus whom I wanted to reach out to would have dismissed the film as ‘propagandistic’ and ‘anti-Hindu’. After all, I didn’t want to preach to the already converted, to those Hindus and others who are already opposed to Hindutva or communalism.

YS: Your film has been used as evidence before the Banerjee Committee that is investigating the Godhra incident. What are your views about the Committee?

SC: Yes, the film has been used as evidence before the Committee, and the members of the Committee have watched it. I myself deposed before the Committee in December 2004. Although the Committee has its merits, I feel that it is toothless. Being a Committee, and not a Commission, it has no judicial powers to call people to depose before it. I am also pained at the way the interim report of the Committee has been politicised. It was used by Laloo Prasad Yadav in his election campaigns to garner Muslim votes. This is as bad as the BJP using the Godhra incident to get Hindu votes in Gujarat and elsewhere. I really am opposed to this use of dead people, whether the Hindu victims in Godhra or of the Muslims killed elsewhere in Gujarat, for political purposes.

YS: What has been the response to your film?

SC: The film has been screened in different places in India and abroad, and the response, on the whole, has been very encouraging. As a friend of mine put it, if a neutral or a ‘soft’ Hindu sees the film he would probably be convinced that the fire was not pre-planned or engineered by a Muslim mob outside, and if a hardcore Hindutva-wala watches it he would be confused. This is because, as I said, I deliberately focussed on the available evidence that seems to be difficult to refute.

I have been travelling across the country to screen the film and to organise press conferences to discuss it. We organised two such screenings in Gujarat as well, one with NGOs and the other with the press. As you can imagine, it was really difficult to do this, and I was even attacked by some VHP activists in Ahmedabad for this. NGOs in other parts of the country have invited me to show the film and address press conferences, and so far I have visited seventeen state capitals to do this. The purpose of the press conferences is to get the press to send out the message that the Godhra fire was not a pre-planned conspiracy. If they can do at least this, it’s enough for me, as that is really what the film is all about.

The film has also been screened by NRI activist groups in Europe and America in different universities. It was also screened at the South Asian Film Festival in Kathmandu and will be taken by them to various countries.

YS: Do you have any other films in the pipeline?

SC: Having worked to promote this film for the last almost two years, I think I am ready to do another one. My next film would seek to explore the rise of right-wing groups in India and the multiple ways in which people from different classes, castes and communities are seeking, in their own ways, to challenge the politics of communalism and fascism

http://www.twocircles.net/2007nov08/godhra_fire_was_not_pre_planned_conspiracy_shubhradeep_chakravorty.html

Courting injustice

Courting injustice
by Priya Pillai, November 8, 2007
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2007/11/end-impunity-of-perpetrators-and.html
End impunity of perpetrators and the horrors of genocidal hatred-Hindustan Times

With the recent revelations by Tehelka alleging high-level State complicity in the pogrom in Gujarat in 2002, the need of the hour is an effective law that will tackle the impunity of perpetrators and the horrors of genocidal hatred. We need to examine India’s international legal obligations. International law proscribes the commission of genocide in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 1948 (Genocide Convention), which India signed as early as in 1959. As per this international treaty, which has been signed by 137 States, there is a positive obligation on States to prevent the commission of genocide, as well as to punish the perpetrators of any such acts. Surely, this make it incumbent on the Indian-State to formulate an appropriate legislation?
The Genocide Convention, in Article II, defines genocide as “any of the acts with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group”. it goes on to define the acts which include, among others, killing or causing serious bodily or mental harm to group members, deliberately inflicting conditions of life and the imposition of measures intended to prevent births within the group.

Among the obligations the Convention places on countries is the enactment of legislation to not only prevent and punish genocide, but also designate a tribunal for the trial of those charged. More significantly, the Convention includes in its list of punishable individuals “constitutionally responsible rulers” and “public officials”. This clearly means those involved in State-sponsored genocide.

Genocide is one of those international crimes that has been recognised as a jus cogens norm. This means that derogation from it is not permitted under any circumstance, even if the State is not a signatory. The State is still obliged to prevent and punish genocide.

Recently, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) rendered its judgment on February 26, 2007, in the case on the Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Bosnia and Herzegovina vs Serbia and Montenegro). Elaborating on the onus on the State, the ICJ held that the “serious risk of genocide” was to be taken into account when assessing State responsibility, which would involve assessing knowledge or awareness of acts of genocide that were about to take place. In this case, the ICJ held that Serbia neglected to prevent genocide. The court held that for the purposes of the obligation to punish genocide, there needs to be a territorial link, i.e. the acts are committed on the territory of the State. Clearly, when there is such a link, as there is in the case of India, there exists State liability for the lack of punishment for genocide.

In such a situation, it is troubling that successive governments have never bothered to legislate this criminal behaviour into domestic law, even after 50 years from the time of signing the treaty. Article 51(c) of the Constitution of India emphasises the respect for international treaties, and Article 253 places the onus on Parliament to legislate in respect of any international treaty or agreement. Clearly, in this case, there has been a failure to comply with the constitutional mandate as well as with provisions of an international treaty.
This failure to comply with international legal norms, while clearly signalling the intention and the willingness to do so, is of grave concern. This is especially so in the case of mass crimes, where the ability of the Indian criminal justice system to dispense justice is in grave doubt.

Further, the ability of a domestic system to conceptualise and legislate on mass crimes is limited. There is, thus, a need to look to comparative and international jurisprudence, so that Indian law can meet the need of the times. In keeping with these international obligations, as many as 83 countries have enacted domestic legislations for the punishment of genocide. However, in the Indian scenario, there is no legal definition of the crime of genocide, despite occurrences that can be categorised as such.

It is time to look at meaningful legal redress for victims of mass crimes. An important step in that process is for India to fulfil its international obligations to safeguard the human rights of its own citizens, at the national level.

Priya Pillai is a lawyer and has worked at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal on war crimes and genocide issues.

Does Anything Matter?

Does Anything Matter?
by Tarun Tejpal
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2007/11/on-shameless-silence-of-congress-party.html

On the Shameless Silence of the Congress Party after the Tehelka Expose. Tehelka Magazine, Vol 4, Issue 44, Dated Nov 17, 2007

THE LAST time we broke a story that rumbled the jungle that is Delhi’s power elite, we were condemned to a three-year walk over burning coals. The story, peration West End, an exposé of the rampant corruption in arms procurements, was first aired in March 2001, and almost immediately two things happened. The first was a groundswell of public applause and affection that did not abate for a long time. The second, fairly predictable — though not in its ferocity and longevity — was an immoral and unconstitutional assault on our work and lives. That too did not abate for a long time — not till the state’s entire ammunition was spent, and there was nothing more to throw at us.

At the time, six years ago, we were, in succession, accused of being Congress stooges, agents of Dawood Ibrahim, on the payroll of the Hindujas, connected to the ISI of Pakistan, responsible for crashing the stock market, and in possession of hundreds of crores in payoffs. The estimates varied from twenty to two hundred. Narendra Modi — yes the same one — was at the time I think a general secretary in the BJP, and I will never forget a television interview in which both of us were doing phone-ins and he was spewing lies with the stentorian voice of a Supreme Court judge. A day later he was to issue printed pamphlets with ten facts about me. The first and most crucial was that I was the son of a contractor who was a close aide of veteran Congress leader Arjun Singh from Madhya Pradesh.

Delhi’s perennially skewed elite — a relic of the Mughal durbar, pathologically fixated on its positioning on the social and power chessboard — relished every floating accusation and relayed it with embellishments. Even friends and acquaintances whispered. They had never seen anyone do anything but for a sweet personal reason. It was fair to assume that, similarly, we had many or at least one. Now that the state was hunting us with all its hounds it was only a matter of time before the truth was out. Having said that — a great job still, much needed, and most courageous!

As it were I had never met any of the Hindujas.

As it were I had never bought or sold a single share on the stock market.

As it were I’d never had anything to do with the Congress, never having been a political reporter in my career. (For record’s sake let it be said TEHELKA must be the only company in India which has three CBI cases — all trumped up and lodged during the time of the NDA government — still going on against it, three years after the UPA came to power. We routinely go to court to seek bail on them.)

As it were we were not in possession of a single illicit rupee, else the hounds of the state that were panting after us around the clock would have locked us up and thrown away the keys. At the time there were just four of us left, down from 120, officed in a small borrowed room in the village behind South Extension. The money we borrowed then, running into tens of lakhs, to wage our legal and public battle, much of it from luminous Indian names, is still being repayed.

And of course, as it were — despite our exposé on cricket matchfixing, which badly hurt the underworld — none of us had ever met Dawood Ibrahim or any of the star-struck bhais.
Illustration: Anand Naorem


More absurdly still, leave alone my father I too had never met Arjun Singh at the time. Not to add that my father far from being a contractor had spent his life in the Indian army, wearing olive, and fighting in the two Indo-Pak wars of 1965 and 1971. Yet Modi had thought nothing of throwing a blatant untruth into the public space, amid all the others listed above that were being flung about. And the media — more giddy than the Sensex — had refused to clarify and rebut.

And unrebutted and unclarified lies — like an unpoliced Sensex — have the ability to swell to dangerous proportions, deforming reality and ushering in chaos. The core fascist axiom is a cliché: the whisper campaign of lies that soon becomes the truth or at least drowns it out. We saw that in 1984 as the Sikhs were put to the sword, and we saw it in 2002 as Gujarat was set to burn with a mishmash of false information and ill-intent. Mostly the media relayed unchecked versions, but sometimes it unearthed the truth. But truth by then had ceased to be a factor. The strategy of those exposed was to ratchet up the public noise till everything was drowned — good, bad, true, false. With our present exposé it has been: but why have you left out Godhra? Whereas the truth is we haven’t. In fact 30 pages of our issue were devoted only to the Godhra investigation!

Noise as strategy when faced with serious charges may be smart if deplorable political tactics, but what is mystifying is the Indian elite’s penchant for the conspiracy theory. It smacks of a self-serving culture where the greater good is seen as no motive at all. Over the years I have had the bizarre and nauseating experience of the well-heeled casting aspersions on the financial integrity of fantastic public warriors like Medha Patkar and Arundhati Roy. To differ in thought is one thing, but to automatically assume corruption of those who take up public causes says grim things about the kind of people we are. Some of this deformity may have to do with our colonial past: the desperate urge to please the white master engendering corrosive emotions of envy, cunning, plotting, backbiting and betrayal.

This time — with our investigation into the Gujarat pogrom of 2002 — the conspiracy-seekers scaled new heights. While the BJP attacked us for working for the Congress, the Congress spread the word that we were working for the BJP! Clearly we were doing something right. In all this the battle for the idea of India was left to Laloo Yadav, Mayawati and the Left. The Congress one presumes knows the phrase — since its forebears literally coined it — but they can’t anymore seem to remember what it means.

It’s extraordinary that more than a week after the Gujarat massacre exposé, the prime minister and the home minister had not made a single statement. For the first time in the history of journalism, mass murderers were on camera telling us how they killed, why they killed, and with whose permission they did it. Nor were these just petty criminals; these were fanatics, ideologically driven, working the most dangerous faultline of the subcontinent, revealing the truth of a perilous rupture fully capable of tearing this country apart. But that was clearly not enough for the good man of Race Course Road. Had the CII burped loudly, the PMO would have issued a clarification. Had they then organised a seminar on the untimely burp, the prime minister would have addressed it.

It may be unfair to pillory the prime minister, a man given responsibility without power, the honest man sitting atop a dishonest hillock. Let us then look at the grand strategists of the Congress who cannot win an election themselves but know the secret of winning elections for the many. On their perverse abacus, exposing Modi’s hand in bestial murders and rapes was designed to convince the Gujarati Hindu that this is precisely the kind of leadership it wanted! It never struck them that they could use the evidence of violence to shape a stirring dialogue against it.

THE FACT is the Congress is today run by petty strategists who no longer know what it is to do the right thing. They possess neither the illuminations of history, nor a vision for the future. They fail to see that once great men sutured a hundred fault-lines — of caste, religion, race, language, class — to create the idea of India out of a diverse, colonised, feudal subcontinent. Foolishly they preside over the reopening of these fault-lines, unable to see the chaos that will ensue. They do not know how to wield morality as a weapon in politics, and they lack the courage to walk any high road. At best they are vote accountants who waver between the profit and the loss of various elections.

The present Congress brings grief to the liberal, secular, democratic Indian who needs a political umbrella under which to wage the civilisational battle for India’s soul. By not saying the right thing, by not doing the right thing, it weakens the resolve of the decent Indian, who lacks the stomach for conflict and seeks affirmation of his decency. The vacated space is then colonised by poisonous ideologies based on exclusion and a garbled — pseudo-religious, pseudo-historic — hunt for identity.

And all this is happening while the elite Indian behaves like the elite American during the gilded age, the 1920s — glitz, glam, champagne times — even as the ground shifts beneath its feet. The latest statistics show the numbers living in abject poverty are actually growing in five major states. In 30 percent of India’s districts Naxalite insurrections, rising from crushing poverty, are on the upswing. Can Manhattan and sub-Saharan Africa exist in the same space endlessly without some resulting cataclysm? The fact is India needs not just economic tinkering but great political vision. And there are no signs of it. The apathy of Gujarat tells us that the most complex country in the world faces its most complex challenges ever.

Cowards Who Caved In

Cowards Who Caved In
Does this society have the nerve nerve to confront the beast exposed by the Tehelka expose ?
by Prashant Bhushan
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2007/11/does-this-society-have-nerve-nerve-to.html

That's how history and future generations will remember us if we as a society do not show the nerve to confront, contain and exorcise the beast exposed by the recent Tehelka expose. ......

The recent Tehelka expose of the "Gujarat riots" of 2002, demonstrate very starkly that these were neither "spontaneous" nor "riots", but were in fact mass murder, loot and mayhem orchestrated and organized by the top echelons of the VHP, the Bajrang Dal, and the BJP with the full connivance and complicity of the Gujarat government headed by Narendra Modi. The Tehelka tapes show senior functionaries of these organizations and the government bragging and confessing to their having committed and participated in committing heinous crimes like brutal mass murder, rape, burning, looting etc. Many of them claim and boast about how Narendra Modi explicitly encouraged the carnage and told the killers and rioters that they were being given a free rein of three days.

These people also claim how several senior police officials not only abetted these killers by their actions and inaction, but in many cases, themselves participated in the carnage. They also claim how Modi provided shelter to these people and even got inconvenient judges changed to ensure that these mass murderers got out on bail. They also claim that the integrity of the Nanavati commission has been subverted.

What is even more disturbing is that none of these people display the slightest remorse for the horrific and inhuman violence that they perpetrated on innocent human beings, on women and children, on an entire community. In fact they continue to take pride and boast about their barbaric actions. They go about in Gujarat, supremely confident that they will enjoy total impunity and will not be brought to book. In his brilliant edit on this expose titled Read and be afraid", Tarun Tejpal has written how the expose shows that Gujarat seems to be losing the very notion that India was created as a secular country where its many ethnic and linguistic communities would enjoy equal rights.

In short, the tapes reveal a frightening state of affairs in Gujarat, which seems to have gone beyond the pale of the rule of law, and the most basic norms of humanity. It shows most clearly that it has become a state where the government cannot be carried on in accordance with the Constitution.

All this has happened in Gujarat primarily because for the last 10 years, it has had a government which is openly and brazenly communal and fascist, which has methodically stoked communal feelings and encouraged and eulogized violence against minorities as being a sign of manliness and indeed heroism. That is why Modi's men repeatedly say in their interviews while boasting about the Muslims that they have killed, that they are also macho men who do not eat "khichri". This eulogizing of violence against minorities has been systematically done, not merely by using all instrumentalities of the state to perpetrate violence against them, to protect and harbour those who do it, but also by using the education system, the media and all instrumentalities of propoganda. The closing down of the broadcast by Aaj Tak, CNN-IBN etc. in Gujarat who were showing the Tehelka expose is another example of how Modi's government has systematically used state power to subvert the media for its communal fascist purposes. Similarly the education system has been used to poison young minds with hate propaganda against the minorities. Modi thus takes great pride in having accomplished in Gujarat what Hitler had accomplished in Nazi Germany. Modi's VHP goons like Hitler's "storm troopers" enjoy total protection from the State when they go about their carnage against Minorities.

There are many ordinary and decent Hindus in Gujarat and elsewhere who have been influenced by Modi's propaganda and who believe that there is nothing wrong in killing Muslims, who they have been taught to believe are essentially terrorists.

Such a cavalier contempt for the basic norms of humanity, for every principle held dear by our Constitution, is bound to lead to a dehumanized, lawless and violent society. It will eventually lead to a complete breakdown of civilization and the creation of a monstrous and sick society.

In order to get Gujarat back within the pale of law and the Constitution, it has become imperative to dismiss the Modi government and bring Gujarat under President's rule. All the institutions of the ruling establishment in Gujarat must be purged of those who have allowed the systematic subversion of the rule of law in Gujarat. This might require the postponement of elections in Gujarat. But this would be a small price to pay for healing the still open wounds that have tormented Gujarat for the last 5 years, for delivering justice to an entire community which have been denied to it in Gujarat. This must be done not merely for their sake, but for the sake of humanity itself and all the values that we hold dear.

Certain other things need to be done. A special investigating team must be immediately constituted to investigate the involvement of Narendra Modi and other senior functionaries in his government and the police in the killings and their abetment. This SIT can be constituted by the Supreme Court and should be monitored on a regular basis and asked to compete their investigation within a few months. This would be one of the most important investigations ever undertaken in this country.

But most immediately, the persons shown on tape confessing to having committed crimes must be immediately arrested and those of them who are serving officials, must be placed under suspension. If the State government shows any hesitation in doing this, that will only reinforce the overwhelming evidence of their complicity in the Carnage.

Again we stand at a crossroad of history. Gujarat, which Modi has made the laboratory of Hindutva, is the leading edge of the onslaught of communal fascism in this country. If we as a society do not show the nerve to confront, contain and exorcise this beast, history and future generations will remember us as cowards who caved in and squandered away a nation which had been so painstakingly built by the struggle of many led by the Mahatma.

No less than mass murder

No less than mass murder

A pogrom does not lessen in brutality if it is hidden from the nation
by Kuldip Nayar, November 9, 2007
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2007/11/pogrom-does-not-lessen-in-brutality-if.html

SOME serious-minded secular persons are heatedly arguing that the sting operation showing Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s foot soldiers boasting about carrying out the killings with state support should not have been publicised.

The point made is that all this would polarise society and help consolidate the Hindu vote in his favour. It is not understandable how gloating over the killing of innocent Muslims will increase Modi’s votes.

Assuming this is true, should the crime be suppressed? It would be like a cover-up of murders on the ground that the perpetrator would be lionised. The issue is not whether the sting operation benefits Modi but whether the confession of murder is something to be made public when it is reconfirmed.

It is a coincidence that the admission by the killers came after the announcement of elections. Would the publicity have been justified if the killers had spoken earlier?

We have seen on TV screens, the perpetrators of crime telling “how execution squads were formed, composed of the dedicated cadre of Hindu organisations — the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the Bajrang Dal, the Kisan Sangh, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad and the Bharatiya Janata Party” and “how the idea was to harm as many Muslims as possible, burn them, kill them”.

A pogrom does not lessen in brutality if it is hidden from the nation. The exposure of crime is not linked to the strategy of election but to a value system. The day a person sees an act of injustice and keeps quiet is the day when he begins to die. The Congress is not coming out openly because its approach is political.

It is not sure how the Gujarati Hindus would react. The party would have reacted differently if it had realised that murder was murder, whatever the fallout of its exposure.

The BJP is only hoodwinking the people because it knows that both Modi and the party have been thoroughly exposed. The complicity of the Congress in the killing of 3,000 Sikhs in Delhi does not condone the Gujarat killings. In both cases, those who committed the crime should have been punished.

The Gujaratis are facing a test. I do not think that the state’s economic growth, which is due to their own enterprise and hard work, will make them soft towards Modi’s crimes which are now being viewed in black and white. The Gujaratis cannot afford state peace to be built on the skulls of the innocent. Hitler, too, gave peace for 15 years.

But we know at what price and how the state of Germany crumbled when the truth was known. No citizen can forget or forgive killing on the ground that the status quo may be disturbed.

Gujarat is a fractured society today and it is divided vertically. This must be bothering people in the state, and I have no doubt that they will assert themselves to see that the guilty are brought to book. Till today the Germans have not forgiven themselves for not having seen through what Hitler did in the name of purity of the German race. Some time, if not today, the Gujaratis will also realise that Modi misled them by converting his communal approach into the Gujaratis’ self-respect. Those killed were also Gujaratis.

When Modi is accused of planning and executing all that happened in the wake of the Godhra train burning, he plays on the sentiments of the Gujaratis and argues that in reality they are being run down. This is how he has got away with the murders.

The Gujaratis do not deserve a chief minister who builds up his reputation at their cost and polarises society to escape its wrath.

Modi even makes a mockery of Mahatma Gandhi’s ideals of pluralism. Modi’s style of functioning is authoritarian and parochial. So much so that a revered state leader like Keshubhai Patel has felt so humiliated that he has kept his distance from the BJP, the party he served for decades, because it has put up Modi as the next chief minister.

Had the Nanavati-Shah commission, which was set up to ascertain the truth, submitted its report, Modi would have probably been exposed by this time. But its inquiry has been going on and on for the last five years. It looks as if the judges are extending their job after retirement.

The commission is turning out to be another Liberhan inquiry committee which was set up in the wake of the Babri mosque demolition in 1992. The committee has had as many as 84 extensions, costing nearly Rs80m. It has not yet submitted even an interim report in the last 15 years.

The chief justice of India should look into the working of such inquiry committees because the ways in which some extend their tenure bring a bad name to the judiciary. There should be a timeframe and no inquiry committee should last beyond three years.

Modi’s defence by the BJP spokesman is not surprising. The party, because of L.K. Advani’s increasing influence and Vajpayee’s waning say, is most vociferously communal when it projects Modi. The BJP’s thinking is that if it loses the assembly election in Gujarat, it would lose in the general election. It might even otherwise do so if it continues to back Modi.

True, the process of election has begun in the state and it cannot be stopped until the polls. But surely, Modi can be hauled up for his crime. The centre lacks that kind of courage, not because it cannot muster enough of it to take action but because it is afraid of the BJP’s hostile reaction.

To say that we are all to blame is to rationalise the crime. No doubt, the nation is not as secular as it should have been after 60 years of independence.

But this is because we have not really worked for a pluralistic society. The belief that communal bias would go away with the departure of the British who divided us in order to rule, has not turned out to be correct.

The communalism which took root in almost two centuries of British rule needs to be fought relentlessly. The Congress, which ruled the country for the first 45 years, did very little to change the parochial attitude of society.

It did not even punish those whose names were mentioned in the inquiry committees set up after riots.School and colleges were allowed to breed communalism. Books written were either too superficial or too sophisticated and went over the heads of the children.

Then there was the growth of some political parties which thrived in misleading the people in the name of religion and caste. The situation is deteriorating, not improving.

The writer is a senior columnist based in New Delhi.
Labels: commission of enquiry, communal violence, Gujarat 2002 riots, Tehelka expose

Time to speak up

Time to Speak up.

Mahesh Puri, November 7, 2007
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2007/11/time-of-speak-up-after-tehelka-sting.html

Time of speak up after the Tehelka sting
(outlookindia.com - Web only feature November 7, 2007)

Time To Speak Up

The response that the Tehelka sting has evoked from some among us is both shameful and dangerous. I have read Chandan Mitra and I am constrained to say that I am happy not to have ever known or met him. ......

by Mahesh Peri

Being the publisher of a large magazine is a blessing as well as a curse. You are in an enviable position to be a social change agent. However, you are supposed to treat all other media -- including good journalism -- as competition and treat them with suspicion.

Post the Tehelka sting, planned and executed at Tehelka's offices and later aired on Aaj Tak and Headlines Today as a joint operation, many media-watchers have asked me a very common but sinister question: "Why now? Don't you think it is motivated?" Every questioner was looking at an answer that wanted me to ignore the content and focus on the motives behind the operation. And motives, we know, can always be insinuated, even imputed.

I have known Tarun and Aniruddha Bahal (now operating CobraPost, which has aired many exposes on many other channels), the founders of Tehelka, for long. As their publisher when they were at Outlook, I used to be both excited and fearful of their exploits, but never saw any reason to doubt their motives. At Outlook, we believe in following a story and putting it in the public domain, without bothering about the after-effects. Even at the cost of sounding immodest, I implicitly assume that the people groomed at Outlook continue to follow the same philosophy. And, even if I hadn't ever known Tarun or Tehelka, I would still go with the contents of the sting and not look at excuses to rubbish the operation.

And lastly, if they have tried to recover some of their costs by selling it to any television channel, and that too a channel as big as Aaj Tak, I don't have a problem. Tehelka is a commercial enterprise whose survival depends as much on making their work viable as on credible journalism. And let's remember the power of television which is important in reaching a larger number of people.

However, the response that the sting has evoked from some among us is both shameful and dangerous. And when it comes from leaders -- the so-called intellectuals and especially editors who are supposed to mould public opinion -- it is despicable. I have read Chandan Mitra and I am constrained to say that I am happy not to have ever known or met him. I think I am freer than him because I can see, hear and process everything that is said on camera not through the prism of my own magazine, organisation or people.

Mr Mitra wants you to investigate Godhra and the 1984 riots before the current operation is taken at face value. Just because the infamous Delhi schoolteacher sting was a contrived operation, he would have you rubbish this sting as well. He wants you to justify the timing of the operation before the contents are accepted at face value.

It just doesn't end there. Elected representatives and public officials seem to be excused on the grounds of being 'braggarts' (and no, I will not say anything about his research at Oxford University) -- 'small-time, small town politicians who are known to exaggerate their importance given half a chance'. He seems more bothered about the money that Aaj Tak paid Tehelka and the money made by mobile phone operators than the contents of the sting operation.

Both the BJP and the Congress are spreading the word about the sting operation having been done at the other party's behest. No one wants to take the issue further; it is vote bank politics at the worst. Even a statesman that our prime minister is supposed to be has not uttered a single word condemning the contents of the expose.

Under the Press and Registration of Books Act (which regulates the publishing industry in India), as a publisher you are responsible for everything that is printed in your publication. At the same time, following the basic tenets of editorial freedom, I get to know about all the stories published in Outlook along with millions of our readers. And no matter what the laws say, that is how it ought to be and I am proud to be working in such an environment.

Being a publisher with tens of cases filed by Raja Bhayyas and Narendra Modis, I have become immune to cases filed by certain kinds of people, especially politicians. So perhaps I should not be too concerned by their reactions to the Tehelka expose. But when I see people becoming immune to tragedy, death and human suffering, I think it is time for the average Indian to speak out.

Have we as a country fallen to such a state that murders, rapes, wrenching the foetus out of a pregnant woman, hacking a person bit by bit and then burning him alive have all become part of 'bragging'? If this is the country that Mr Mitra thinks he represents as a parliamentarian, then our leaders have failed us in creating a civil society and on that charge alone, they must be driven away.

Have we fallen to such a state that every political party in this country -- the stung included -- would benefit out of a systematic dehumanising of our collective conscience? Can't we as a country prevent people from benefiting out of mass rapes and murders? Do we need to see even the most despicable things that happen around us through a prism of caste, creed, religion, political parties, competition, business, sex, region, and so on?

The political compulsions are such that the stung party that should be ashamed seems smug and even jubilant whereas the opposition Congress, that should have been creating a hue and cry, looks visibly shaken and most unhappy. A day after the contents were aired, we had a union minister belonging to the Congress claiming it to be a Bharatiya Janata Party operation to 'encash the sentiments of the people through an overexposed Godhra episode'.

Sting in its social context

The sting in its social and ethical context
Vidya Subrahmaniam, November 7, 2007
http://www.hindu.com/2007/11/07/stories/2007110756821200.htm

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The Tehelka sting on Gujarat 2002 is a credible effort. Yet it is difficult not to question its timing and the exploitative manner of its presentation.
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One of the ironies of the Tehelka sting on the 2002 anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat is the way it has been received. Narendra Modi’s supporters, though denouncing it as a “Congress-secular conspiracy,” seem nonetheless convinced that it will strengthen him before a crucial election.

In the case of Mr. Modi’s detractors, the logic works in reverse: They worry that images of the riots, made worse by the insensitive manner of their presentation, will revive the raw passion of 2002, helping to seal the widening cracks in Mr. Modi’s Hindutva vote bank. Civil rights activists find the reaction unfathomable and are distraught that so courageous and spectacular an investigation should be measured for its immediate, rather than long term, impact.

In one sense the activists are right. For years those who felt revulsion at the 2002 pogrom had fretted about the apparent hopelessness of it all. In Mr. Modi’s Gujarat, the calendar might have stopped at Godhra 2002, judging by the prevailing notions of justice and injustice. In this narrative, the horror aboard the Sabarmati Express was injustice but not the horror that followed it. Consequently, the victims were always those killed on the train, never the thousands brutally, revengefully killed in the aftermath.

For years, those despairing of the situation had waited for just the kind of clinching, incontrovertible evidence that Tehelka produced to establish the macabre truth of that time — a truth known to everybody, documented previously, acknowledged by the apex court, and yet unfailingly dismissed as so much fabrication by the Modi administration and the Chief Minister’s legion of admirers. Now finally it was out in all its gory detail — told by the perpetrators themselves in their own words. With frame after chilling frame of the pogrom dramatically unspooling before them, those claiming to be “politically conscientious” ought to have rushed to embrace the Tehelka team. Instead, they reacted in dismay. The questions, “why now?” and “why like this?” soared above the audio-video effect of the sting, undercutting what was billed by Tehelka as “the most important story of our time.”

Rights activists feel let down by the reaction. Yet there are aspects to the sting that are discomfiting. For those of us in the media who go by the label “pseudo-secularists,” the Tehelka scoop was a difficult moment to confront. The swirl of emotions we were caught in spawned questions and counter-questions, all springing from within, each with its own unclear answer. Surely, the dilemma underscored the complexity of a problem that was inseparable from its political and ethical dimensions.

Overused phrase

Tehelka unveiled its latest sting at a time when the phrase was in bad odour from overuse. Too many fake stings had damaged way too many reputations, and it was with some trepidation that viewers approached the latest script, theatrically narrated television-style. By the end of it, though, there was no doubt that the investigation was first-rate; the footage was the end product of a search that led from one gut-wrenching story to another, each unashamedly told to a camera candidly capturing the depravations of that time.

The journalist behind the veil was the anti-thesis of the high-flier, armed, as he was to recollect later, “with nothing more than a couple of spycams and some daredevilry.” Ashish Khetan had been part of several of Tehelka’s operations, yet few knew him. He put his anonymity to good use, spending six tortuous months under cover, fearing all the while that the lid would be blown off his impersonation of a Hindutva sympathiser. What started as an aimless quest turned into a most astonishing discovery, as quarry after quarry turned up to speak to the camera — from the Bajrang Dal, from the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, from the State Government’s legal department.. The men were unrestrained, almost garrulous, as they narrated how cold bloodedly they committed their crimes.

Some of us watched this incredulously. Why would anyone go this far to implicate himself? But then strange things happened in Gujarat. In an environment where support for the 2002 pogrom was treated as a given, confessions of this kind were presumably quite in order. Asked about this, the Bharatiya Janata Party did not allege the tapes were doctored. The spokesperson dismissed the evidence as “bragging.” This prompted a journalist to ask: “What sort of people do you harbour that brag and boast about committing heinous crimes?”

The unease about the Tehelka sting does not stem from doubts about its credibility. It stems from the timing of its release, and the exploitative manner of its presentation. The Tehelka tapes hit the television screens just when Mr. Modi’s Hindutva base appeared to be splintering. Five years after the pogrom, the parivar’s disillusionment with the man, once beloved of them all, seemed near-complete. In 2002, the VHP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh hailed Mr. Modi as a hero, and conferred upon him the title, “Hindu hriday samrat.” The same parivar now threatened to boycott him, led by the VHP’s fire-breathing Pravin Togadia, and joined in by a myriad other saffron outfits, all accusing Mr. Modi of straying from the Hindutva path, and issuing daily bulletins on his misdemeanours.

The anti-Modi rebellion in Saurashtra, previously made up of a handful of BJP malcontents, and therefore easily containable, was now a full-blown threat to Mr. Modi, having become the focus of any and all discontentment in the region. The rebels, always blessed by the former Chief Minister, Keshubhai Patel, and now fortified by the entry into their fold of veteran Suresh Mehta, were in the middle of evolving a joint strategy with the Congress, when Tehelka aired the sting.

Operation Kalank revisited the wounds of 2002 and in the process held up a mirror to the Congress which had taken the rebels in its embrace, forgetting the role they played in the riots. The sting unarguably saved the Congress from a major folly: Gordhan Zadaphia, Minister of State for Home in 2002, and leader of the BJP rebels, was among those expected to join the Congress. He retreated. But the sting also closed the window of opportunity provided by the division in the saffron ranks. In 2007 Gujarat, the only way to undermine Mr. Modi was to separate him from his post-Godhra image. Indeed, the parivar’s annoyance with Mr. Modi flowed from his perceived departure from the path he had himself shown in 2002. In reviving the memories of 2002, Tehelka revived the memories of saffron togetherness forged on a felt need to fight Muslims. The sting clubbed the guilt of Mr. Modi with that of the VHP and the Bajrang Dal at a time of debilitating tension between the Chief Minister and his ideological family.

Flawed argument

Undoubtedly, this line of argument is repugnant to the very notion of justice. This amounted to consciously, premeditatedly excluding Muslims and the injury done to them from the election debate. There was another pertinent question: if people rushed to vote for Mr. Modi, enthused by images of extreme violence done to one community, what sort of a people were they? The Tehelka team made a persuasive case to view the sting from a larger perspective: the aim of any investigation was to bring out the truth, and this truth could not be sacrificed at the altar of electoral calculations. Yet others said if the sting strengthened Mr. Modi, enabling his re-election, it had also caused long-term damage to his national and international image.

Perfect reasoning. However, it was also in some sense lofty and removed from the reality of Gujarat — where Muslims faced the prospect of five more years in isolation. Of what use was a journalistic investigation that brilliantly captured their suffering yet expected them to endure it in their own alleged interest?

Finally, there is the matter of how the sting was presented. The television channels chose the thriller format for a footage that was so graphic in itself that it required no further embellishment.

Yet in the hand of its exploitative anchors, the gore and death became a voyeuristic melodrama, complete with teaser-trailers that promised more and commercial breaks that stretched on and on — in evident admission that somebody’s misery was somebody else’s bottomline.

Perhaps the sting will make no impact. Perhaps the rebellion against Mr. Modi was illusory anyway. Nonetheless, there is no getting away from the singular important question the sting has posed: can you separate an investigation, however important, from its social and ethical context?

Global Fundamentalist Wars

Global Fundamentalist Wars
By Gary Corseri - 19 March, 2007
Countercurrents.org

A review of The Gujarat Genocide. Garda Ghista, Author House, Bloomington, Indiana, U.S.A. 175 pages

Garda Ghista dedicates The Gujarat Genocide to “the innocent victims of fundamentalist and communal violence everywhere.” The fundamentalisms that beset our over-trodden world today take many forms, including corporatism, militant “democracy,” Zionism, Islamic jihadism, Evangelicalism. Ms. Ghista, a long-time resident of India, now in the United States, focuses upon an extremism she has observed closely: that of right-wing Hindus; in particular, her book accounts and analyzes the horrific events of February and March, 2002 when riotous mobs in the state of Gujarat, spurred by leaders of the Sangh Parivar nationalist Hindu party, slaughtered between 2,000 and 5,000 Muslims. An additional 150,000 Muslims were rendered homeless and destitute. “Even after the initial 72 hours, the violence continued with the active support and collaboration of local police,” Ms. Ghista notes. About that time, Arundhati Roy wrote: “We’re sipping from a poisoned chalice—a flawed democracy laced with religious fascism … Gujarat has been the petri dish in which Hindu fascism has been fomenting an elaborate political experiment.”

The massacre was precipitated by the burning of a train in Gujarat returning from the demolished Babri Masjid site where Hindu volunteers had gone to help construct a temple on top of a demolished Muslim mosque. “Fifty-nine men and women perished in the fire,” Ghista writes. It was not known how the fire started, nor by whom. Despite the lack of evidence, within hours, Muslim communities across Gujarat were under assault. The Hindu mobs were well armed with trishuls (tridents), inflammable fuel, gas cylinders and acidic powders, and thoroughly indoctrinated with the xenophobic racism and other-hatred of Sangh Parivar.

How has our "modern" world come to such a fix in which tribal hatreds festering for centuries or millennia explode with virulence upon a canvas of hope and progress? Hope and progress were themes sounded briefly at the end of the Cold War when George H.W. Bush spoke beneficently of a “peace dividend” for the world. Hope and progress are catchwords in articles on India in recent issues of the Financial Times, Time or Newsweek magazines, etc. The Indian miracle is touted daily, second only to the Chinese miracle, but we read little about the dark side of the transformations taking place in both of these ancient, miraculous lands. Ghista’s book is a sensible corrective for restoring a fuller perspective.

And the book will not only better our understanding of Mother India, but help us to put our own struggles into high relief. As Ghista writes, “With the rise of Jewish and Islamic fundamentalism in the Middle East and Christian fundamentalism in the US, the Gujarat genocide looms large in a scenario of global fundamentalist wars. It is a story that reverberates in every corner of the globe where the wolves of religious fundamentalism howl at the gates of power. How are we to face this juggernaut of religious fascism, presently manifest in all major world religions?” Ghista aims her book at “those who cherish human freedom from dogma and hatred.” It is well-aimed.

Garda Ghista created World Prout Assembly to educate people to fight for economic democracy. She can be reached at editor@worldproutassembly.org.

Gary Corseri's work has appeared at CounterCurrents, ThomasPaine'sCorner, Dissident Voice, CounterPunch, CommonDreams and elsewhere. He can be contacted at corseri@verizon.net.