Modi the Model?

Modi the Model?
December 11, 2007

The last time the state of Gujarat went to the polls, the Bharatiya Janata Party whipped up anti-Muslim sentiment to win re-election. Now, the BJP is running largely on a campaign of its core competency: economic reform. That's a far better model for the party to follow nationally.

Whether the BJP's reinvention will take root is another story, but the elections in Gujarat this week -- one of India's biggest states -- should provide a good guide. The current chief minister, Narendra Modi, is a controversial figure who played a role in the BJP's fall from grace nationally. As chief minister of Gujarat in 2002, his government stood idly by while more than 2,000 people died in ethnic violence.

That massacre was a key factor in voters ejecting the BJP from national office two years later -- a loss from which the party still hasn't recovered. But it didn't hurt Mr. Modi back home. He campaigned for re-election in Gujarat later that year by igniting anti-Muslim sentiment in a majority-Hindu state. Unusually for Indian state elections, where voters usually turf out incumbents, he won.

Mr. Modi has never fully addressed his government's mishandling of the massacre, which lasted for days while the police stood idly by. An October expose in Tehelka, an Indian magazine, even alleged that Mr. Modi was personally involved in the killings. Mr. Modi declined to comment on the piece. Whatever happened, Mr. Modi seems to have learned a political lesson from the 2002 riots. He spent the next five years playing down his Hindutva, or "Hinduness," streak and getting down to the business of running his state.

By and large, he's done an excellent job. Gujarat grew over 11% last year on the back of an influx of foreign investment and a robust manufacturing sector. In a country with subpar infrastructure, the Modi government has built roads, ensured a steady supply of electricity, eased labor restrictions and secured regular water supplies for rural areas, to name a few achievements.

That's put Mr. Modi in good stead for this week's election. The BJP holds 127 of its 182 seats in the state assembly and polls predict it will be returned to power. If he wins convincingly, Mr. Modi could emerge as a national leader for the BJP.

That might not be a bad thing, though Mr. Modi's history makes him a highly unlikely future prime minister. Mr. Modi achieved economic progress in Gujarat in large part because he wasn't afraid to tackle India's sacred cow: public-sector corruption. The chief minister put systems for public accountability of civil servants in place, installed more courts to work through a backlog of lawsuits and cut out whole layers of inefficient bureaucrats from decision-making processes.

That hasn't always won him friends within his party. A clutch of BJP members of Parliament have jumped ship to the Congress Party, which sees this election as a crucial vote that could boost its national power base. Mr. Modi has also lost support from two local castes, though the far-right Vishwa Hindu Parishad -- a Hindu group -- reluctantly pledged support this month.

Given that, you'd think that the Congress Party would feel emboldened to fight on core local issues, like education and health care. Instead, Congress Party leader Sonia Gandhi called Mr. Modi a "merchant of death" at a rally in Gujarat earlier this month, reigniting ethnic tensions. Mr. Modi fired back, calling Mrs. Gandhi a "guardian of terrorists." The Election Commission is investigating both of them.
Both parties know they're treading a fine line. No one wants to see a repeat of the 2002 riots, least of all Mr. Modi's BJP, which sorely needs an electorial win. Mr. Modi's record shows that the BJP's economic platform works. But if the party wants to achieve a national platform again, it needs to address its past. If it did that, even voters outside of Gujarat might give the BJP a second chance.

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How delightful to read the phrase "running dogs" again! I thought such language went out of fashion with Communism and the fall of the Berlin Wall....

Correct me, if I am wrong, but Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao - whose rule, I hope you will agree was brutal and ruthless, - were they neoliberals?

I don't want to resort to hyperbole here; suffice it to say that many investors would not like a government like Modi's. A government that maintains law and order by ignoring riots and public property, which fails to prosecute criminals, raises insurance costs for everyone, and adds the element of unpredictability in business, and is hardly liked the favorite of businesses. Narayana Murthy, Anu Agha, and Deepak Parekh are three among many people (others not well-known) from the private sector, who like economic liberalization, who don't have time for a leader like Modi. Modi claiming credit for industrial peace in Gujarat is a joke; the credit for that goes to the nearly century-old tradition built by Gandhi and his Majoor Mahajan, which is a pacifist, non-violent union (what else would one expect?), and Gujarati entrepreneural talent as well as industrial base are not Modi's gift to the state.

Salil/Still in LatAm.

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Neoliberalism's darlings have quite often been brutal, ruthless
killers. Why are we surprised? From Suharto to Marcos to Fujimori the
record is legion. Brutish, ruthless, killers are often the most
effective, loyal, running dogs of imperialism. Modi's so-called
"record" on "development" is perhaps mouth-watering to the investor
class and a few beneficiaries in the middle class, but for the working
majority its a disaster. And of course, the brutality, hatred and
violent thuggishness this Sangh Parivarite Neanderthal brought to the
lives of Gujarati Muslims can never be forgotten, no matter how the
cheerleaders of capitalism try to gawk on about his alleged
"achievements." Shame on them for even considering whitewashing this
brute.

raja swamy
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It is surprising educated individuals end up making a mockery by only seeing the coin on one side, what human rights are you talking about? Terrorist given justice quicker then Indian courts taking their own merry time or getting rid of the nuisance ASAP!?? I'm obviously referring to the much hyped controversial encounter of Sorabuddin. "Other" states in India who harbour these nonsense at whole are falling short in showing results and its a proven fact, Narendra Modi proved otherwise because he has the support of people, those who voted him in. He has never fallen short in giving out to them, it is only certain section of colleagues from his party and the anti-modi brigade (majority of pseudo secular Media, NGOs, the so called human rights activists). For a start let us all come to the term with the reality of him being real and he being accepted even after "Gujarat 2002" (the way you term it!) by his people. Your worry is because you get feed in with a certain ideologues, articles, figures and statements time and again which gets floated by those who think they got left out in what he is cherishing today, the fruits of thriving economy and solid development base to see the state being number one in all sectors, be it social economic well being of Gujaratis or the local non-Gujarati residents, be it the foreign investments or Indian biggies investing full hearty... These were the words from Ratan Tata saying "If you are not in Gujarat you are stupid" during an investor summit during January, watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1a0TEfa74yk.

Lets face the fact, Narendra Modi is real and he is going to be there for a long time to come.

Nishant
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDPJ5dK1Lp4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pa7vJLNJjAo&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GMcowAYtSI&feature=related

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

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" 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

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

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.

Moditva To Sanity

Moving From Moditva To Sanity:
The Stakes In Gujarat
By Praful Bidwai - 29 October, 2007
Kashmir Times

When Mr Narendra Modi walked out of an interview
with the CNN-IBN television channel last week
after being questioned about the Gujarat communal
carnage of 2002, he probably didn't realise he
was inflicting grave damage upon his image. The
impact of the walkout, which showed Mr Modi as
confused, shaky, arrogant and unreasonable, has
since been magnified several-fold by Tehelka's
exposure of the gruesome violence planned and
encouraged by the Modi regime, whose barbarity
has shocked the nation.

"The two episodes have dented Mr Modi's contrived
image as a swashbuckling, super-confident leader
who can ride out any adversity," says
Ahmedabad-based activist-analyst Mukul Sinha.
"The man is nothing. His larger-than-life image
is everything. But he can longer maintain it. He
comes across as a criminally minded, viciously
communal leader."

As he readies himself for electoral battle in
December, Mr Modi is likely to find that his
deflated image extracts a high political price.
Five years after his Bharatiya Janata Party won
70 percent of all seats in the Assembly despite
(or is it because of?) the communal violence of
February/March 2002, it appears much more
vulnerable than at any time during its 12
continuous years in power in Gujarat. The
vote-share gap between it and the Congress
narrowed from 10 percentage-points to barely 3
between 2002 and 2004, and may now get reversed.
Gujarat's Assembly elections are likely to be a
national turning-point. If the BJP wins them
under Mr Modi's stewardship, the result will
greatly influence leadership succession within
the party and strengthen its hard- Hindutva
elements. More vitally, in conjunction with the
Assembly polls in Himachal Pradesh-also due in
December, in which the BJP is widely expected to
displace the Congress-it'll prove a major
morale-booster and help the party stem its losses
in the next Lok Sabha elections. (A recent poll
by NDTV-GfK-Mode forecasts a fall in the BJP's
national tally from 138 seats to 116.)
If, on the other hand, the BJP loses Gujarat,
it'll be a massive setback for it and a major
gain for the secular forces. That'll set the
stage for a long-overdue correction to the
ghastly trend that brought about the communal
violence of 2002, in which more than 2,000
Muslims were butchered, many more raped, and
150,000 rendered homeless. This could herald the
BJP's relegation to the margins of politics,
where it belonged until the Ram janmabhoomi
campaign clicked in the late 1980s. This could
transform Indian democracy qualitatively for the
better.

Mr Modi, the chhote sardar who looked invincible
just some months ago, now seems beset by
adversity and enemies-ironically, mainly from his
own sangh parivar . Not just Vishwa Hindu
Parishad sadhus and RSS cadres, but even
significant sections of the BJP, bitterly oppose
him.

They comprise at least 11 MLAs and two MPs,
including heavyweights like former Chief
Ministers Keshubhai Patel and Suresh Mehta,
former Union textiles Minister Kashiram Rana, and
state ex-Home Minister Goverdhan Zadaphiya. Some
of them are prepared to quit the BJP and work
with or through the Congress to defeat Mr Modi.
They have held about 80 anti-Modi rallies in
different parts of Gujarat, including an
unprecedented 300,000-strong one in Rajkot.
Beneath the leadership-level changes lie major
shifts in the BJP's social support-base. Two
large caste groups, the Kolis and Leuva Patils
(Patidars), have moved away from it. The OBC
Kolis are among the state's largest castes,
comprised largely of small and marginal farmers,
and landless labourers. Traditionally Congress
voters, the Kolis gravitated towards the BJP in
the mid-1990s and voted en masse for it in 2002.
By the 2004 Parliamentary elections, however, 55
percent of their vote went back to the Congress.
The prosperous Patidars dominate Gujarat's
agriculture, small and medium-scale industries,
and diamond polishing. Their vote is decisive in
one-third of all constituencies. They account for
37 of the BJP's total of 127 MLAs; its Koli MLAs
number 15. Both groups are upset with Mr Modi
because of his extremely abrasive style,
readiness to humiliate, refusal to share the
loaves and fishes of office, and his government's
failure to allow the fruits of growth to trickle
down.

No less significant is the anger among Gujarat's
tribal community and civil society organisations
(CSOs) with Mr Modi's rule. Adivasis comprise 15
percent of the population-among the highest
proportion in Indian states-and have 26 reserved
seats. Earlier, they would vote overwhelmingly
for the Congress, but in 2002, the Congress got
only 11 tribal seats to the BJP's 13. Now,
however, Lok Sangharsh Morcha, an Adivasi
organisation, has decided to take on the BJP and
contest seven Assembly seats.

Similarly, CSOs active among the victims of
violence are preparing to confront the BJP and
mobilise the Muslim community to go out and vote.
The 2002 carnage, followed by constant
harassment, persecution under anti-terrorism
laws, and social intimidation, economic boycott
and political marginalisation, ghettoised Muslims
and pulverised them into submissiveness. But
resistance to marginalisation is growing and
groups like the New Social Movement are planning
to put up solidly secular candidates.

All this offers the Congress and its allies a
great chance to defeat the BJP and vanquish
Moditva, that diabolical combination of rank
communalism, blatant violation of human rights,
and pursuit of extremely dualistic elitist
policies in the name of "development".
Mr Modi, who mouths the "Vibrant Gujarat" slogan,
boasts that the state is one big SEZ-where 'S'
stands for spirituality, 'E' for
entrepreneurship, and 'Z' for zing. India Today
magazine and the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of
Contemporary Studies have rated Gujarat a high
performing state with all-round growth and Mr
Modi India's most efficient Chief Minister.
In reality, Gujarat is a misgoverned state, with
unbalanced growth and warped development.
Eloquent proof for this comes from the fact that
74.3 percent of Gujarat's women and 46.3 percent
of its children are anaemic. Gujarat's
macro-economic indicators are unflattering. It
has a higher per capita debt-ratio than UP and
Bihar. Agrarian distress has driven more than 500
Gujarat farmers to suicide over the past four
years. Sweetheart deals for business groups have
sent the prices of basic services and inputs
rocketing. Despite high tariffs like Rs 5.32 a
unit, the power supply situation remains
pathetic. Gujarat continues to attract industrial
investment not because of its leaders' dynamism
or policies but because of a historical
accident-business groups invested there early on,
and there's a big petrochemicals cluster around
Baroda.

As the official Human Development Report (2004)
points out, " Gujarat has reached only 48 percent
of the goals set for human development". It lags
behind in this thanks to "several distortions in
[its] growth path", including agricultural
stagnation. Its gains in literacy, education,
health, nutrition, welfare and social security
are much lower than its GDP growth. Recent
"deceleration in [its] achievements", it says, is
cause for "serious concern."

Gujarat's human development and gender
empowerment ranks actually fell during the 1990s.
Although it's Number 4 among all states in per
capita income (down from Number 2), it has fallen
to Number 6 in education, 9 in health, and Number
12 in participation.

Gujarat's indices of patriarchy are frightening.
The sex-ratio is an abysmal 487:1000 in the 0-4
age-group and 571 in the 5-9 group (national
averages, 515 and 632 respectively). Gujarat's
health indices have since dropped relative to
other states and are barely higher than Orissa's,
HDR co-author Darshini Mahadevia told me. In
social sector spending as a proportion of total
public expenditure, Gujarat ranks a lowly 19
among India's 21 major states.

The industries that have flourished the most in
Gujarat are all highly hazardous or polluting:
poisonous chemicals-Vapi is the world's fourth
most toxic hub-, textile dyeing, shipbreaking,
and diamond polishing, which turns people blind
in their thirties. Gujarat hasn't still recovered
from the de-industrialisation of the 1980s and
1990s with its mill industry's wholesale closure.
In Gujarat, labour rights are virtually
nonexistent. On minimum wages, Gujarat ranks
eighth among Indian states.

As for the claim that Gujarat is
well-administered, its legislature's Public
Accounts Committee has severely indicted the
government for awarding contracts in the Sujalam
Sufalam scheme without tenders, causing a loss of
hundreds of crores. Tax breaks and shady deals
have cost Gujarat some Rs 15,000 crores.
"Hindutva laboratory" Gujarat's law-and-order
situation is appalling. Its religious minorities
and Dalits suffer extreme discrimination and
exclusion. Like Muslims, its Christians face
persecution. More than 100 Dalits were murdered
in Gujarat over the past three years. The
harassment of hundreds of Muslims originally
arrested under TADA and POTA continues
unabated-although these laws stand repealed. The
absence of the rule of law means a hollowing out
of democracy.

The Congress has a historic chance to inflict a
stinging defeat on the BJP. To do this, it must
offer an alternative vision, take a strongly
secular line, build alliances with other
anti-communal parties/groups, and run a spirited
campaign with a wise choice of candidates, while
keeping the BJP dissidents at an arm's length.
The fight is winnable-and certainly worth winning.

Modi And Indian Democracy

Narendra Modi And Indian Democracy

They Two Cannot Coexist
By Daya Varma & Vinod Mubayi
01 November, 2007 - INSAF Bulletin

The Tehelka exposure of the crimes of Hindutva
fascists led by Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra
Modi only proves what was already well known. Yet
proof is important because legal action against
any one requires proof. The crimes committed by
the ruffians of Sangh Parivar in 2002 are
horrendous. They cannot happen unpunished in a
civilized society and the fact they happened in
India and the criminals remain scot-free simply
reveals not only the cultural degeneration of
Indian society but also the sham and incompetent
nature of Indian democracy.

There are lots of Asians, Arabs, Africans and
Latinos in Western countries. There is racism
here too. And yet any overt racial slur or
arbitrary harassment of visible minority people
does lead to consequences, which may be delayed,
unevenly applied, or insufficient, but which also
include retribution, enquiry and often enough
dismissal of the media person or police official.
In this sense, even the aftermath of 9/11,
horrible as it was for the hundreds of mainly
Muslim immigrants who were harassed, detained,
and deported, was not allowed to go out of
control a la Gujarat, nor was the bomb blast in
the London underground or riots in the Paris
suburbs. Bourgeois democracy just cannot afford
to violate certain norms.

However, the case in India is in stark contrast
to what is expected of a democracy. First the
Muslim community was brutalized under the
rationale articulated by Modi that the fire on
the railway train at Godhra station was an
"action" calling for a "reaction." Leaving aside
the question of whether there was any Muslim mob
that allegedly set fire to the train - all the
evidence gathered by agencies not directly
connected to the Gujarat government indicates
that the fire was an accident caused by kerosene
fuel cookers carried illegally in the train
carriage - no civilized society would allow a
general lawlessness to prevail against an entire
community, which ultimately resulted in a
horrendous pogrom. The laxity shown by the NDA
government towards the hordes of the Sangh
Parivar led by Narendra Modi was shameful but
understandable. It was a question of solidarity
within a mafia family.

But the hesitation of the UPA government, which
survives with the support of the left parties, on
the Gujarat genocide is beyond comprehension.
This marriage between parliamentary democracy and
feudal highhandedness must be broken if India is
to emerge as a modern democratic society. Herein
lays the challenge for the Left and Democratic
forces of India - to mount a massive protest to
force the UPA government to immediately dismiss
Narendra Modi's government, place all those
accused in their own words by the Tehelka
evidence in jail and try them all for crimes
against humanity. In the meantime, President's
rule should be declared and a central policing
authority should be placed in charge of Gujarat.

Modi A Psychic Killer

Modi A Psychic Killer

By Yoginder Sikand
http://countercurrents.org/sikand051107.htm
05 November, 2007, Countercurrents.org

Interview of Vithalbhai Pandya by Yoginder Sikand

Q: What do you feel about the recent judgment by the POTA court in the Haren Pandya murder case?

A: I firmly believe that my son Haren Pandya was killed at Modi's behest through D.G. Vanjara, head of Gujarat's Anti-Terrorist Squad and Modi's blue-eyed boy. This was because Haren was a transparent and efficient man, whom Modi thought of as a threat to his power. Haren was opposed to the worship of any individual, and so became a thorn in Modi's flesh. He was the only BJP MLA in Gujarat who did not act according to Modi's will. When the train coach was set alight in Godhra, Haren told Modi to confine the incident to Godhra itself and not to spread violence in the rest of Gujarat, as that would tear apart the fabric of our society and cause irreparable economic, besides human, destruction. But, yet, Modi went ahead, and organized a meeting in Sabarkantha where he plotted the genocide of Muslims throughout the state. These were state-sponsored massacres. I am saying this in the capacity of the father of the then Gujarat Home Minister, because I knew this from Haren himself.

I have leveled specific charges against Modi but the CBI did not interrogate him. Under stiff pressure from Modi and his mentor, Lal Krishen Advani, then Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister of India, the CBI did not conduct a proper probe. Modi, Advani and Vanjara are all criminals. It is the height of tragedy that the criminals I have pointed to have not been interrogated and punished and key witnesses have not been called to court. Advani and Modi must be arrested and sentenced for their anti-national activities, for spreading communal hatred and violence and thereby tearing apart our country and destroying its unity and integrity.

From the very beginning I have been arguing that Modi was not killed in his Maruti car outside the Law Gardens in Ahmedabad, contrary to what the CBI claims in order to pass the blame on to the arrested Muslim youth. A team of top forensic scientists who studied the matter also concurred with me on this. No blood drops were found in the car, nor was there any residue of the bullets. Haren was shot at in the scrotum and the bullet traveled vertically from there, which would not have been possible if he had been shot at in the car. Since the data in the form of investigation is wrong, how can the judgment be right? The court did not consider the opinion of the forensic experts due to political interference in the case. I demanded that Modi be first removed from the post of Chief Minister of Gujarat and then let the CBI conduct its probe if it is to be fair and impartial, but, sadly, this did not happen, for obvious political reasons.

Q: Have you appealed in the court to present your case?

A: I applied to the court to file my appeal. I wanted to appear as a party in person but I did not get any reply from the court. I then wrote to the Supreme Court, but from there, too, I got no response. I also appealed to the President of India, the Prime Minister, the Chief Justice and leaders of various political parties to take up the case, but no one showed any sincere interest. I sent letters to BJP and RSS letters, but they, too, did not reply, despite the fact that my son was a top BJP leader, the Home Minister of Gujarat.

Q: What, then, do you think of the RSS and the BJP?

A: The BJP is today not a genuine political party at all. It is a gang of a few sophisticated ruffians. These people are hungry for money and power. Their speech and their actions do not match. They want to spread communal hatred in the name of Hinduism and thereby climb to power. According to the noted scholar Ashish Nandy, Modi shows all signs of being a psychopathic dictator. He, Advani and their likes have worked against the unity and integrity of this great nation. For their anti-national and anti-Constitutional crimes they must be arrested and jailed.

People are losing faith in the RSS. Modi has created a vertical split in the RSS, and many RSS leaders tell me that they dislike him. He has also put aside the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), and is, instead, patronizing a bunch of sadhus who constantly flatter him. Ambitious, selfish people have taken control of the RSS and the VHP. Look at Modi's ministry—it contains so many criminals and ruffians. Modi's government in Gujarat is being run on jhoot (lies), julm (oppression) and jasusi (spying). Modi has his spies in every office. And Gujarat is now engulfed in crime, in riots.

RSS and VHP leaders have amassed vast amounts of money in the name of destroying the Babri Masjid and building a temple in Ayodhya. Some time ago, Gauri Advani, Lal Krishen Advani's daughter-in-law came out with a statement that Advani was not a true Hindu, that he was misusing the name of Rama. Such is the state of the BJP.

Q: So, do you feel that the Muslims arrested and sentenced in the Haren Pandya case are actually innocent?

A: I am concerned with the actual motivator of the murder, who, I say, is Narendra Modi. The Muslims who were arrested are poor and illiterate, and such people can be used. Modi is worse than Hitler. He will use all means to protect himself, including threats and enticements.

Q: But what about the Muslims arrested? Do you think they are innocent and have been wrongly framed?

A: Maybe they are innocent. This is something that should be properly investigated. How can I cite my own opinion? I am in touch with the families of these Muslim men. They respect me greatly. They have told me that their sons were not at all involved in Haren's murder. It may be that the CBI has fabricated the whole story about these Muslims in order to save Modi.

Q: So, are you saying that you think that these Muslims were not involved in the killing?

A: They were not involved. They did not kill Haren. They had no role in his murder. But, still, this is a matter for the court, so what can I say? The court should have been impartial but it was not. Key witnesses, such as myself and Haren's secretary, have not been examined. I believe Vanjara arranged for Haren's murder to please Modi in order to get a promotion, and the story of these innocent Muslims being involved was concocted in order to further fan Hindu emotions while getting rid of a major rival to Modi. One man, Mufti Sufiyan, who was under constant police vigil, was allowed to cross over to Pakistan so that witnesses could be made hostile and Modi could escape conviction.

Further, efforts were made to destroy all possible evidence. All the telephone numbers on Haren's mobile phone of calls made on the 25th and 26th of March, that is the day before and the day of his murder, were later deleted. The Hutch company may have been bribed or led astray or put under pressure to do so. Had the numbers not been deleted, it could easily have been ascertained who it was who had called him the morning he was murdered, because it was after getting this call that he left home in haste, shortly after which he was killed. Obviously, that person must have been very familiar to him, otherwise he would not have rushed out like that. And then when he reached the place which he must have mentioned to this caller, he must have been surrounded by the killers, who pushed him on the ground, because of which some gravel got lodged in his knees. They must have shot him there, then put him in his car and taken it and his corpse to the Law Gardens. The fact of the gravel in his knees clearly indicates that he was not shot inside the car, but that he was killed elsewhere.

I have clear-cut evidence to prove that Modi was responsible for Haren's murder. It is as good as a dying declaration. Some two or three months before Haren's murder, Modi asked the President of the Gujarat unit of the BJP to issue Haren a show-cause notice, because he felt that Haren was emerging as a powerful challenge to him. Haren said that he feared that he might fall a victim to Modi's ego, vendetta and revenge. Haren did not follow Modi's whims, and so Modi arranged for this show-cause notice to be issued. The President of the BJP state unit had to do as Modi had told him, although he held Haren in great respect, and was literally in tears when he informed Haren about the notice.

On 24th March, two days before he was killed, Haren, referring to Modi, told me, 'Take it from me, this Ghanchi (oil-presser, the caste to which Modi belongs) may be rusticated from Gujarat within 15 days, by around the 10th of April, otherwise I am not a Brahmin.' And that matter leaked out. Haren may have told the same thing to someone else, who might have informed Modi, and then became the apple of Modi's eye.

Q: And who is that person?

A: Oh, let that person go to hell. As I said, Haren might have told some friends of his the same thing that he told me. It may have been a very big builder in Ahmedabad, who might have told this to Advani, and maybe Modi came to know of this through him. That is why Modi might have conspired to have him killed. Haren wanted to drive Modi out of Gujarat using constitutional means. He disliked Modi's attitude, his arrogance and his unconstitutional deeds.

Q: What do you feel about the burning of the coach of the Sabarmati Express at Godhra, which was then used by Modi to engineer a genocide of Muslims across Gujarat?

A: I think it was a pre-planned strategy of Modi to use the Hindutva card to keep himself in power at any cost.

Q: So, are you saying that you think that the train was set alight on Modi's instructions?

A: Yes.

Q: Not by some Muslims in Godhra?

A: No, no, no.

Q: So are you saying that you believe that Modi was involved in the burning of the coach?

A: Definitely.

Q: Did Haren Pandya tell you that?

A: He told me that Modi would certainly do something (Modi zaroor kuch na kuch karega).

Q: But did he explicitly tell you that Modi had planned the burning of the coach?

A: No, he did not tell me this. But I believe that the Muslims of Godhra were not responsible for the burning of the coach. The karesevaks returning from Ayodhya in the train were absolutely frenzied and then this happened.

Q: But do you mean to say that you think the coach was burnt at Modi's instigation?

A: Definitely. Definitely. Definitely.

Q: Since you believe that the Gujarat High Court's judgmnent is wrong, have you demanded a reinvestigation into the Haren Pandya murder case?

A: Yes, yes. I have sent numerous letters to leaders of the country demanding a reinvestigation. I wrote to the President of India, the Chief Justice and also delivered a letter to Sonia Gandhi in person. However, I have got no response at all. Maybe there is some pressure not to go ahead with the reinvestigation. I've been moving heaven and earth to get at the truth but as long as Modi and Advani are not punished justice will elude me.

Q: What do you feel about Modi's chances of winning in the coming elections in Gujarat?

A: He is feeding the people with sleeping pills, fanning communal hatred. But this time I don't think he will be elected. Who knows, prior to that he might be behind bars? I wish I could file a suit against him to disqualify him, but I am an ordinary middle-class man and cannot afford the exorbitant cost that this would entail. And then, only a lawyer who will not succumb to Modi's tactics—bribes and intimdation—can take him on.

But I will continue my struggle against Modi. It is not a struggle for my son, but for Gujarat, for justice and democracy, for humanity, for the victims of those thousands of innocent Muslims who Modi arranged to have massacred. I am 80 years-old, and now at the fag end of my life. I am doing what I can to see that Modi and Advani and their likes are brought to justice. I send off letters to various leaders demanding justice. I cannot even remember the number of these letters. I have yet to get any positive response, even from the Congress. But still I shall continue to raise my voice. Otherwise, what is the use of living? I don't want to live like an inert corpse.

Modi behaves like the monarch of all he surveys. But I know in my heart that God will not let him go unpunished. He will die a dog's death. These are the words of a Brahmin.

Truth Of Gujarat Carnage

The Truth Of Gujarat Carnage
By Ram Puniyani

05 November, 2007, Countercurrents.org
http://countercurrents.org/puniyani051107.htm

Tehelka sting operation, Kalank, brought forward the
truth of Godhra and Gujarat violence. This
investigation reinforced the findings known earlier.
Most of the reports by human rights activists had
unearthed the same facts, the complicity of state with
RSS combine to unleash a pogrom, to launch violence
against Muslims, burning their properties and
destroying their dargahas etc. What was new was that
we all could see in live the perpetrators of the crime
gloating over their shameful acts, from opening the
womb of Kausar bano to hacking to death of Ahsan
Jaffri!

In any civilized society this would have been a reason
enough for the central govt to dismiss the Modi Govt
and to launch the cases against those who are
confessing in front of camera. But what do we see? The
top leadership of Congress kept mum as if some minor
incident is being reported by Tehelka. From the UPA
Govt only Lalu Yadav demanded the arrest of Modi, the
main person responsible for this mass murder. The
response of BJP was more revealing. While its top
leadership kept quiet, its spokespersons tried to
raise the fingers of doubt about the motives of
Tehelka sting, the timing, the powers behind the
expose and all that. The central point of the crime
being committed by their supporters was dodged,
bypassed and defended indirectly. What is all this a
symbol of? How low a section of society has stooped
while pursuing the games of power? Now, even the
gloating of the killers is being accepted and
defended, the rule of law seems have given way to the
communal fascism, the real label for the politics of
Hindutva, a blot to the values of saint tradition of
Hinduism, as represented by people like Kabir and
Gandhi.

It has given the identity of its politics with Hindu
religion and that's the worst abuse for the humane
values of many a rich Hindu traditions. The RSS
combine has deliberately associated their social
agenda with the word Hindu so that they can get away
with their crimes under the cloak of faith, so that
they can polarize the society along religious lines,
intimidate the society as a whole and do away with the
concept of human rights, paving the way for
suppression of the rights of weaker sections of
society, dalits, adivasis, women and workers, while
demonizing and attacking the minorities, Muslims and
Christians.

Why this silence of Congress leadership? The fear of
Hindu votes? Can we keep measuring the social
phenomena of such tragic proportions in the terms of
electoral gains? Does the human tragedy, violation of
law, trampling of human rights, the plight of
minorities not matter to us in the first place?
Communal forces have brought in religious divides in
the society. We do not have time to think that what
would the leaders of our national movement, have done
in a situation like this. Imagine Mahatma Gandhi
seeing the tapes and keeping quiet for the fear that
he may loose the position of power! Imagine Jawaharlal
Nehru looking the other way around when Babu Bajrangi
is proudly describing his crimes? Imagine him
exonerating Modi for giving three days to the RSS
goons to unleash mayhem of his magnitude which took
place in Gujarat?

As such the erosion of secular values has taken place
at various levels. The communalization of mind, the
institutionalization of biases against minorities,
relegation of minorities to second class citizenship
has gone on through various mechanisms. Pundit Nehru's
warning to Congress that the communal elements have
entered Congress and are a threat to the values which
Congress should uphold seems to have fallen on deaf
ears. That seems to be the reason as to why the
Congress coalition elected twice in Maharashtra, on
the promise that Shrikrishna Commission will be
implemented, has shamelessly kept the report in cold
storage.

The issue is not just of defense of minorities, the
issue is the overall system of democracy and its
accompanying values. The erosion of rule of law in the
state machinery overall, affecting all its wings is
what has to be addressed urgently. The misuse of
religious identity for political purpose by the RSS
and its affiliates has to be countered properly, if we
want to bring back the ethos of freedom movement. The
argument that minorities should forget the past and
get on with life is too simplistic. Can there be peace
without justice? When section of minorities start
saying that they no longer want to look back at the
past, it is not that they have over come the grief and
sense of injustice, it only means that they are
surrendering to the politics of the dominant sections,
they are realizing that they cannot live here as equal
citizens. The test of democracy is that even the
tiniest minority can live here with as much dignity
and honor as any one else. While the leadership in
Maharashtra is too 'shrewd' and has been avoiding the
implementation of the Shrikrishna report despite the
promises, the likes of Modi will try to distract the
whole issue and consolidate their vote bank by
instilling a sense of fear amongst majority community.

Time has come that we face the truth head on, punish
the guilty and protect the innocent irrespective of
religion and caste. In Gujarat if state Govt has
failed to prosecute the guilty, that's a breach of the
oath taken by political leadership and it has to be
dealt with like that, i.e. violation of constitutional
obligations by state Govt. The state officials who
were aiding, abetting and participating in the crime
must be dealt with as criminals. The judiciary and
central govt has to devise a mechanism so that rule of
law is brought back in Gujarat. If the Congress
coalition in Maharashtra just wants to buy time and
play with words, while sleeping over the
implementation of Shrkrishna commission, time that a
mass satyagrah is launched to get justice for the
victims of the carnage.