How One Man Has Changed Gujarat
By Kuldip Nayar
Dawn,Pakistan
09 September 2003What is the difference between dictatorship and democracy? In the
first, one man changes the people; in the second, the people change
him. When I read about the treatment meted out to Mrs. Zakia after
she had deposed before the Nanavati-Shah Commission at Ahmedabad on
the killing of her husband, former MP Ehsan Jafferey, I wondered how
one man, Chief Minister Narendra Modi, had changed the people in
Gujarat.
True, those who mobbed Mrs. Zakia and the media men interviewing her
were the Sangh Parivar activists. But I know of no person of
substance in Gujarat who has condemned the incident. Even earlier I
did not find any protest against the case which was initiated against
Nafisa Ali, a social activist, who went to Ahmedabad from Delhi to
talk about communal harmony.
In the long list of men and women from the world of film, media and
academic who have sent a joint letter to the President of India on
the immediate withdrawal of the case against Nafisa, I did not find
the name of anyone living in Gujarat. It seems as if the Gujaratis
have been brainwashed by Modi to believe that the country is
oblivious to their sensitivities. They have to fend for themselves.
And even for a small incident they are held responsible because they
are always in the dock.
Fear of Modi's annoyance may also be the reason for the Gujaratis'
silence. It is like the emergency days when the mere mention of Mrs.
Indira Gandhi's name would cast terror. Yet the Gujaratis must
remember that, as Martin Luther King has said: "The day we see the
truth and cease to speak is the day we begin to die." It is sad that
the same Gujaratis who responded to the refrain of 'Ishwar Allah Tere
Nam' in the song that India's tallest man, Mahatma Gandhi, liked,
flare up at the suggestion of Hindu-Muslim amity.
Gandhi was a Gujarati and he said at the height of rioting between
Hindus and Muslims in the wake of partition: "Hindus and Muslims are
my two eyes." Instead, the BJP workers decorated the other day
Gandhi's statute by tying saffron bands on the hands and in the neck.
The occasion was to celebrate the return of ashes of Shyamji Krishna
Verma from London. The effort of Modi, who brought the ashes, was
probably to find an icon other than secular Gandhi to make them feel
better.
There is a smouldering hatred which is consuming the best in the
Gujaratis. Many believe they have not got the recognition which is
due to them. Parochialism is not what they like but this is something
that has been imposed on them. Modi keeps stoking fires. What
happened at Godhara was unforgivable. But the pre-meditated reprisal
in several parts of the state was no less beastly and brutal.
I do not want to go over the story of murder and worse, and of men
and women migrating from their places with bundles on their heads and
the fear-stricken children trailing behind. Time should have been a
healer. But even after 18 months of the tragedy, the process of
conciliation has not begun.
Many victims wanting to return to their villages have been stopped.
They have been told first to take back their FIRs they had filed to
narrate what the mob had done to them and their family. The
rehabilitation is a farce because the state has washed its hands off
the task. How much of the prime minister's special grant has been
spent on putting back the affected on their legs is anybody's guess.
I wonder if the PMO has ever sent a query.
Surely, I have not seen anything by the PM on the behaviour of the
Sangh Parivar activists towards Mrs. Zakia. I do not expect Deputy
Prime Minister L.K.Advani and BJP president Venkaiah Naidu expressing
regret because they are cast in a different mould. But somehow I go
on indulging in wishful thinking, like many others in the middle
class, that Vajpayee will speak out to condemn the saffron crowd for
having humiliated Mrs. Zakia.
Once again the police behaved in the same manner as it did during the
carnage. The force stood as spectators when Mrs.Zakia was mobbed by
the Sangh Parivar activists. Her car was kicked. Still the police
stayed distant. This fitted into the description of the accounts
published on the Gujarat massacre: Even then, most of the government
machinery, including the police, was on the side of the mob.
The Concerned Citizens Tribunal confirmed this in a two-volume
report: "Despite the mass crimes committed against large sections of
the population of Gujarat, the police response to the crimes was such
that justice was not done. This is evident from the fact that mass
FIRs were filed, often even panchnamas were not recorded and an
investigation of forensic evidence was not undertaken."
It should not, therefore, come as a surprise when the court throws
out the Best Bakery case because of lack of evidence. What the
National Human Rights Commission went through to get a copy of the
court's judgment is a story of Gujarat government's deliberate policy
to withhold anything relating to the carnage. The judgment was sent
after many reminders and that too in Gujrati, without the English
translation.
The Supreme Court is yet to decide whether to order a retrial in the
Best Bakery Case or to transfer the cases arising out of the carnage
to courts outside Gujarat. The important thing is how to stop
witnesses changing their testimony under pressure. Probably one way
to do so is to record the evidence on an audio-visual tape.
The real problem that confronts the nation is how to ensure justice
to the victims in Gujarat. More than that, how to make the Muslims
feel at home in the state. The administration is not cooperating. The
Centre is not evincing any interest because Modi is the BJP mascot
for the coming elections. There is no use demanding President's rule
since the governor is from the RSS.
There is no option other than making an appeal to the Gujarati
community. Some among them should assert themselves - poor Malika
Sarabai did so at the cost of making her friends strangers - to see
how the "blot on the nation" can be removed. Gujarat is still thrown
at you wherever you go abroad. I am disappointed that Vajpayee did
not do anything although he went on calling the carnage "a shame."
The party interests pushed out human considerations.
The poison of communalism, which is the politics of hatred and
division will take us to the road to disaster. The Gujaratis should
know that.
Shamefully, some Muslims have come to believe that they must avenge
the killing of their brethren wherever it takes place. They have
formed groups of terrorists. The Mumbai bomb blasts were their
handiwork. They do not realize the harm they are doing to their own
community. They cannot afford to indulge in violence. They are
playing into the hands of Hindu fanatics who are dividing the society
on the lines of religion. The battle against communalism cannot be
fought through communalism. Pluralistic approach is the only way out.
The writer is a freelance columnist based in New Delhi.