Godhra, a year later
By Jyoti Punwani
One year after the Sabarmati Express was burnt outside Godhra railway station, the town has come full circle — almost. At that time, Hindus and Muslims would not even enter each other's areas. Today, the physical barrier no longer exists, but emotionally, the two communities are back to square one.
The arrest of Godhra's chief maulvi has nullified months of peace efforts in the ultra-sensitive town. The allegation that Maulana Hussein Umerji was the "mastermind" behind the burning of the Sabarmati Express on February 27, 2002 and his alleged admissions during police interrogation appear to have convinced most Hindus in Godhra that the BJP's portrayal of Muslims as "jehadi terrorists financed by Pakistan and other Islamic countries" is absolutely correct. Everyday, leading Gujarati newspapers carry banner headlines about the Maulvi's "confessions", including the one regarding his `links' with "the world's most wanted terrorist", Afghanistan's Mullah Omar. These "admissions" are seen as reason enough to apply POTA to the Maulvi and the other accused.
The fact that the town's chief maulvi was named by one of his own community has made the case against him foolproof for the town's Hindus. That the man who named him is a criminal, that not one of the 75-odd others arrested for burning the train, including those labelled by the police as part of the "core group", had named the maulvi in the past 12 months, has not dented the credibility of the accusations against Maulana Umerji. And neither the Gujarati newspapers, nor their Hindu readers, question the value of the statements made during police interrogation.
Anywhere else, civil rights activists would be raising these questions. But in Godhra, Hindus and Muslims who have been in the forefront of peace and communal harmony efforts over the last one year — ironically, Maulana Umerji was foremost among them — do not want to risk being branded by probing too much. As for Godhra's larger Muslim community, the arrest of the man who had kept them in check over the last 12 months, conveyed their grievances to the highest authorities, including the Prime Minister, and controlled relief efforts in the town, has crushed them.
After a five-day bandh restricted to their own areas, they are at a loss at what to do, and there's no one to guide them. Despite being the flashpoint of the violence in Gujarat last year, Godhra itself saw no "retaliation". Within six weeks of the burning of the Sabarmati Express, peace marches were being taken out through the town under the leadership of the then Collector. Before her promotion in August, Jayanthi Ravi, had given the peace and communal harmony initiative in Godhra and the surrounding villages a momentum, which enabled it to be carried forward by citizens even after she left the town.
But the first setback to these efforts came with the one-point Hindu v Muslim election campaign in November. Even those influential Hindus who had kept their `boys' on a leash, and gone so far as to invite their Muslim counterparts back to their areas to set up shop once again, campaigned enthusiastically for the BJP.
On the other side, Maulana Umerji was in the forefront of the campaign for the Congress. Significantly, the Congress has not said a word against his arrest, and in private too, there are no indications that it will help get him out.
Today the town stands polarised, but a revival of the communal harmony initiative is nowhere on the agenda of its new MLA and Bajrang Dal leader, Harish Bhatt. His theory, as expounded to this writer, is this: the two estranged communities will automatically start living together in harmony, once fear is removed from both sides. A powerful force is needed which can, by its very presence, send the message to wrongdoers that their mischief won't be tolerated. Once they mend their ways, they will realise that the other community has no problem with them. Then their fear too will vanish. Narendra Modi represents this force in Gujarat, concluded Mr. Bhatt. In Godhra, many Hindus feel Mr. Bhatt does so. That really is the crux of the change in mood in Godhra a year after the Sabarmati Express was burnt. At that time, Hindus were seething that those who actually burnt the train, their town's Muslims, hadn't been punished. Neither had the police fired on them on the spot, nor had the VHP `taken revenge'. The details of the barbaric violence all over Gujarat against other Muslims reached them only through a section of the media which was discredited as being `anti-Hindu'.
At any rate, they argued, there was bound to be some reaction to the ghastly train incident. At the same time, there was a certain uneasiness about confronting the increasing reports of misbehaviour by the VHP activists with the Muslims at Godhra station.
Most of Godhra's Muslims were also seething. Their fellow Muslims were then pouring into the town's relief camps, bringing stories of horrific atrocities inflicted on them by the adivasis — who had till then been dependant on them — incited by local BJP leaders.
But somewhere in the majority of Godhra's Muslims, the consciousness that members of their own community had burnt alive 58 persons in the Sabarmati Express came through. Most of Godhra's Muslims did not have the defeated and hunted look of riot victims who have been targeted for no fault of their own. Of course, they had not themselves been targeted. But they knew some among them had done their own share of targeting. Indeed, the attitude of some of the town's most educated Muslims was one of sorrow at what had happened in Godhra. Maulana Umerji had even apologised on behalf of his community at the Collector's peace meetings.
Today, the ambiguity on both sides is gone. The Hindus are gloating. The allegations against the Maulana have confirmed to them that all the talk about a girl being molested or a tea vendor not being paid at Godhra railway station were just concoctions of the Muslims lapped up by the English media. The burning of the train was indeed the jehadi plot they had always suspected it to be. During the Mumbai riots of 1992-93, the Shiv Sena had coined the slogan: "In the Shiv Sena's terror alone, lies the Hindus' guarantee of security." Mr. Harish Bhatt is a living example of this attitude. And Godhra's Hindus are cheering him on.
On the other hand, Godhra's Muslims are demoralised. The sight of their most revered leader being treated like a common criminal and reviled in the Gujarati press has been the last straw.
Residents of Signal Falia, who even in those days boasted about outwitting the police raids every night, could actually talk about packing their bags on February 27. At the height of the violence in Gujarat, Godhra's relief camp had become the focus of international attention. Today, Godhra's Muslims have been left to themselves.
Far away from all this are the victims of the train burning incident. For some, the loss of a son, or a wife, has meant a steady descent into gloom, emotionally and materially. Barring the first few weeks, the VHP or the BJP, for whom the burning train became an election symbol, have not been around to share this gloom, let alone arrest it. Others have realised the VHP's political ambitions, and have been quickly dumped by the latter. One year after Godhra, there's no good news to report.