The Hindu
February 28, 2007
There is no violence but the atmosphere of fear
and prejudice still prevails. Gujarat is a society
divided - where minorities are segregated and
face social and economic boycotts. Muslims have
been pushed into ghettos.
FOR SOME of us, camping is a relaxing outdoor
getaway. For Mehdi Husain Vanjara, it is a way
of life. He has been living in a tent in a relief
camp on the outskirts of Modasa town in north
Gujarat for five years. His entire family of
eight is crammed into this tiny tent on a dusty
plot of land.
"There's not even a light here. We burn
diyas at night," says Mehdi from Kau-Amlai
village. "My three daughters wash dishes
and earn Rs.200 each a month. That's how we
survive." When 62 homes in his village
were burned during the communal carnage of 2002,
Mehdi had to flee to Modasa, the nearest town,
for shelter. Since then, he hasn't been able
to return home. Local Muslim charities have
built tiny 10x10 feet rooms for refugees here.
Mehdi is still waiting for his allotment. For
five years, he has been camping in the darkness.
There are still 81 relief camps with around
30,000 refugees across Gujarat. The campsites
do not have basic amenities like water or electricity,
even though its residents are paying municipal
taxes. In Modasa, refugees pay Rs.30 a month
for water from a local contractor. "There
are no gutters, no place to wash clothes, so
fights break out often. But at least we are
safe," Mumtazben Sheikh, a widow, told
me. Safety is the only thing this campsite has
to offer. But for those who have survived the
carnage of 2002, it is a top priority.
On February 27, 2002, 59 passengers died in
a fire inside the Sabarmati Express when it
halted at Godhra station. The reason for the
fire is still disputed. While the Railway Ministry
reports say it was an accident, the Gujarat
police insist that it was a terrorist conspiracy
to kill several kar sevaks on board the train
who had been sent by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad
(VHP) to the site of the Ram temple in Ayodhya
for a Maha Yagna. Within hours of the Godhra
tragedy, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi
declared it was a terrorist attack. The call
went out: `Blood for Blood.' The next day, Muslims
across the State were targeted in a pogrom that
lasted more than two months, killed more than
1,000 people, and left more than 200,000 homeless.
Five years later, there is no violence but the
atmosphere of fear and prejudice still prevails.
After the attacks, the minorities have been
`taught a lesson.' They must now live as `second
class citizens' in Gujarat, the `Hindutva laboratory'
to build the `Hindu Rashtra.' Gujarat is a society
divided where minorities are segregated, face
social and economic boycotts, and constantly
fear for their safety. Muslims have been pushed
into ghettos. Juhapura, Ahmedabad's biggest
ghetto, has a population of over 300,000 people
but no civic amenities. Only recently, it was
made part of the city's municipal area. Many
elite Muslims - judges, doctors, lawyers, businessmen
- have been forced to move to Juhapura. No one
in a `Hindu area' will sell a flat to a Muslim,
even if he or she is willing to pay a premium.
There is not a single bank in Juhapura, not
a single State transport bus passes through
here.
After the 2002 violence, many other mini-ghettos
emerged in cities and even small towns like
Modasa. Places where refugees have been settled
are now growing into Muslim colonies. In Ahmedabad,
some survivors of the worst massacres of 2002
live on the edge of the city's dumping ground.
They are living on the margins amid the
smoke from smouldering garbage, crows circling
above, and fumes from the small workshops nearby.
Ironically, this new ghetto is called `Citizen
Nagar.' The aggressors are in power; the victims
have been jailed. For instance, Babu Bajrangi
is an accused in the Naroda Patiya case, the
worst massacre in which there were inhuman atrocities
against women and children. Today he is a self-styled
missionary who forcibly brings back Patel girls
who marry outside their community; he boasted
to me that he has `rescued' more than 706 girls
so far. Recently, Gujarat's theatre owners refused
to screen the film Parzania because he had threatened
violence if they did.
Babubhai is free but several witnesses face
daily danger to their lives. They are threatened
and told to turn hostile in court, to `compromise.'
And they have nowhere to turn. If they dare
to go to the police, they face the risk of being
put behind bars. Several witnesses in the Naroda
Patiya case who named top Hindutva leaders in
their police testimonies were framed in a murder
case and jailed for over six months. There are
several others like them. Despite the intimidation
and a daily struggle to survive, it is amazing
how witnesses have shown the strength and courage
to fight for justice.
The Best Bakery case, which received the most
media attention, ironically ended up with a
sad outcome. After several twists and turns,
the local accused were jailed, but so was Zaheera
Sheikh, the main eyewitness. She was punished
for perjury. Zaheera turned hostile in the Vadodara
district court. Later, she appealed to the Supreme
Court saying that she lied in court because
a BJP MLA had threatened her family into a compromise
settlement. Yet, when she turned hostile again
during the re-trial, she was jailed for perjury.
So far no investigation has been ordered into
the MLA's alleged role in Zaheera's second U-turn.
The big fish always get away.
The Supreme Court criticised the government
for "fiddling while Gujarat burned."
Yet none of the big guns has been punished.
Zakia Jafri, wife of the former MP, Ahsan Jafri,
has filed a case against the Chief Minister
and 62 others. But the police complaint lies
in cold storage in the Gandhinagar police station,
a stone's throw from Mr. Modi's residence.
It is a rocky road to justice in Gujarat. In
district courts, the accused pass lewd comments
while women testify about how they were raped.
When refugees in Lunawada dug up the mass graves
where the police buried their relatives, the
cops filed a case against them. You really cannot
rely on the Gujarat police, unless you are blessed
by politicians in power. Of the 4,252 communal
violence cases filed during the pogrom, the
Gujarat police closed more than half of them
as `true but undetected.' They said that there
was not enough evidence to file a charge-sheet.
In fact, the police suppressed or buried a lot
of the proof. They refused to take down eyewitness
complaints. The Supreme Court ordered the Gujarat
police to review these cases again. Since they
did not do this, human rights groups filed a
legal notice. Last year, the police re-opened
most of the 2000-plus cases that they had closed.
But no one has been punished for closing the
cases and scuttling the process of justice.
In Gujarat these events are supposed to be too
`sensitive' to talk about; they should be forgotten
and people should move on, is the refrain. The
people who would most want to forget are the
victims of the carnage, but they are not allowed
to. There can be no peace and reconciliation
without justice and the rule of law. People
are still living through the nightmare. Raising
such uncomfortable questions disturbs `Gujarati
Asmita' (pride). It is an excuse to suppress
important questions like human rights abuses
or who will really benefit from the Narmada
dam. The Gujarati middle class has been fed
so much propaganda that it is intolerant to
any alternative view. That is why the Narmada
Bachao Andolan office is often ransacked and
Medha Patkar is physically attacked if she steps
into Gujarat. And cinema owners are too scared
to screen a film like Parzania that may anger
the Bajrang Dal because they have no confidence
that the police will protect them. It is selective
democracy.
What else can we expect from a political formation
that draws ideological inspiration from M.S.
Golwalkar who wrote in We, Our Nationhood Defined,
1939: "The foreign races in Hindusthan
must entertain no idea but those of the glorification
of the Hindu race and culture, i.e. of the Hindu
nation, and must lose their separate existence
to merge in the Hindu race, or [they] may stay
in the country, wholly subordinated to the Hindu
nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges,
far less any preferential treatment - not even
citizen's rights." Gujarat is today's laboratory
for testing and realising not Mahatma Gandhi's
vision of Hindu-Muslim amity and communal harmony
but Golwalkar's 1939 vision. The Sangh Parivar
organisations make no bones about this. Across
the State, they have put up boards saying: `Welcome
to the Hindu Rashtra.' It is understood that
not all are welcome. Some are still camping
in the darkness, waiting for the light.
