Awaaz - South Asia Watch News
News and information provided in conjunction with South Asia Citizens Wire and other sources
Posts do not necessarily reflect the views of Awaaz
Saturday, July 12, 2003
Posted by: Awaaz / 7/12/2003 01:52:16 AMJustice Elusive in India Violence
Muslim Says She Testified Falsely Because of Hindus' Threats
By John Lancaster Washington Post Foreign Service
Washington Post (USA) July 10, 2003; Page A12
BOMBAY, July 9 -- Peering through a concrete trellis, Zahira Sheikh said, she watched a Hindu mob murder 14 relatives, neighbors and employees of her family's bakery during a night of anti-Muslim violence last year.
The 19-year-old became the star witness in one of the most high-profile trials to emerge from India's worst communal violence in a decade, but when the moment of truth arrived, she could not bring herself to speak it.
She testified -- falsely, she now says -- that she could not identify any of the attackers. The judge dismissed the charges against the 21 accused, citing insufficient evidence.
The outcome highlighted what human rights activists say is the failure of Indian authorities to hold accountable those responsible for the killings, which sullied the country's reputation as a secular democracy and left a deep reservoir of anger and fear among India's 140 million Muslims. Bloodshed in the state of Gujarat last year claimed the lives of between 1,000 and 2,000 people, most of them Muslims.
Now Sheikh, who went into hiding after her court appearance, is speaking out. At a news conference on Monday and in an interview at a hotel here this morning, she said she testified falsely after local Hindu politicians repeatedly threatened her family -- usually by calling her brother on his mobile phone -- and after concluding that prosecutors, who made no effort to meet with her before the trial, were not serious about gaining convictions.
"At this juncture, when I needed it most, there was no legal help, no moral help, and it was in that state of mind that I went to court that day," said Sheikh, a slender, strong-featured woman wearing a black robe and head scarf. "I could only see the faces of the people and the families of the people who had attacked our family."
"I was very, very scared," she recalled of her court appearance in May, when she contradicted her statements to police and human rights investigators in which she identified the attackers by name.
Like the central government, the state of Gujarat is dominated by Hindu nationalist politicians, some of whom have been accused of encouraging and even orchestrating the anti-Muslim violence, which began when a Muslim mob set fire to a train carrying Hindu nationalists on Feb. 27, 2002, killing at least 58 people.
Though many incidents of retaliatory bloodletting were witnessed by scores if not hundreds of people, the state government has yet to secure a conviction of a single accused Hindu, according to human rights groups. Muslims accused of involvement in the train attack, meanwhile, have been charged under an anti-terrorism law that has not been applied to Hindus.
"You got the feeling the judges are terrified," said Teesta Setalvad of Citizens for Justice and Peace, a human rights organization that has relocated Sheikh, her mother and two brothers to Bombay while it seeks to have the case retried in another state. "It is not a natural situation that prevails in the state of Gujarat."
Sheikh said she decided to go public with her story because she was angered by false accusations that she had been bribed to change her testimony.
State officials deny they are trying to protect Hindus from prosecution, citing, among other things, a state-level judicial inquiry into allegations of official complicity in the violence.
Following the train attack last year, retaliatory violence in Gujarat state quickly spread, and on the night of March 1 it reached a mostly Hindu neighborhood on the outskirts of the city of Vadodara, where Sheikh's family lived in a two-story house next door to their prosperous business, Best Bakery.
Around 8 p.m., she recalled today, a mob formed outside the bakery and tried to set it alight with bombs made from gasoline-filled plastic bags. Sheikh took refuge with other family members and neighbors on an upstairs terrace, but others -- including an uncle and an elder sister -- were trapped on the ground floor, where they were soon surrounded by attackers wielding swords and other crude weapons.
The besieged Muslims repeatedly called police, and an officer finally appeared around 9:30 p.m. But instead of coming to their aid, Sheikh recalled, "I heard him tell the mob, 'Whatever you have to do, finish it off at night, don't leave anything until morning.' "
Sheikh said she could clearly identify some of the attackers as they "set upon" her maternal uncle with an iron rod. The family had moved into the neighborhood six months before and Sheikh said she knew a number of the killers by name. "I never imagined they would attack me," she recalled. "The relations were quite cordial."
The killing went on all night, and when it was over, 14 people were dead, including Sheikh's sister, her uncle and four neighborhood children. Some of the victims had been burned to death. Three Hindu employees of the bakery had their stomachs slit open, Sheikh told human rights investigators.
That morning, the attackers finally got their hands on Sheikh, her mother and another sister, marching them into a nearby field. "Let's rape these women before we burn them," Sheikh recalled one of the men saying.
But the men finally ran off when they spotted police nearby. Bleeding from a head wound, Sheikh was taken to a hospital, where she identified seven of the attackers by name. Her brother, who had been beaten unconscious, subsequently corroborated her statement and added other names.
Sheikh repeated her story in numerous appearances before human rights panels and the news media. But several weeks before her trial appearance on May 17 of this year, she said, her brother began receiving threatening phone calls from two local politicians.
She said the men threatened to interfere with her family's efforts to sell the burned-out bakery and intimated that the family could be in danger if she and her brother did not change their stories. Her brother followed the advice, falsely telling the court on May 7 that he had not recognized any of the attackers because it was too dark, Sheikh said.
In interviews, both politicians denied threatening Sheikh or any other family members.
Sheikh said she was also influenced to change her story by the indifference of prosecutors who made no effort to contact her before the trial, even though she was the most important witness.
"What should I do?" she recalled thinking. "Should I stick to my testimony or should I save my family's lives by saying something different?"
In the end, she chose the latter. Neither the prosecutor nor the judge asked why she changed her account.
Special correspondent Rama Lakshmi in New Delhi contributed to this report.
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
ENDS.
Statement released by the Citizens for Justice and Peace at a packed press conference in Mumbai on July 7, 2003.
Zahira Habibullah Shaikh and the entire Habibullah family have approached the Citizens for Justice and Peace for legal aid to jointly ask for a re-trial in the BEST Bakery Massacre. In this petition to be filed jointly, the petitioners will also urge the higher Court to order the location of the re-trial outside Gujarat as a consistent atmosphere of threat pervades there under the current political dispensation. The additional sessions judge in Vadodara had about a week ago acquitted all the accused in the massacre who had been consistently named by key witness, Zahira Shaikh in her statements before the police, the NHRC and the Concerned Citizens Tribunal (Crimes Against Humanity, 2002).
Lack of moral and legal support through the court hearings, coupled with an atmosphere of direct threat and intimidation, had led her and family members to deny recognition of the accused sitting in court the day she was summoned for deposition - May 17, 2003. She and her family had been directly threatened that they would all be killed by the key accused and their mentors from the Hanuman Tekri area in Vadodara.
Substantive evidence was also not led in the course of the trial. Therefore, today, given the strength and support of Mumbai-based CJP they strongly wish to ask for a re-trial. The petition in the BEST bakery case asking for a re-trial is likely to be filed later this week.
The BEST Bakery carnage in which 14 persons were brutally massacred over a period of 12 hours on March 1, 2002, like 18 other brutal incidents in that period in Gujarat, epitomised the abject failure of the state administration and law and order machinery to protect the lives and properties of innocent citizens. Though the NHRC recommended over a year ago that such cases be handed over to the CBI for non-partisan investigation, and citizens approached the Supreme Court making this plea, the apex court is still hearing this matter.
Meanwhile, the various trials carry on within Gujarat with the legal and constitutional processes being subverted through inadequate legal aid from the state for victims, coupled with intimidation and threat by the accused. Petitions praying for compensation from the state government are still pending before the Gujarat High Court. We hope that the example of the BEST Bakery trial brings alive the issue of subverted constitutional norms and delayed justice that is the lived reality in the state of Gujarat today, to other democratic institutions in the country.
Secretary Citizens for Justice and Peace
ENDS.
Thursday, July 10, 2003
Posted by: Awaaz / 7/10/2003 09:59:53 AMThe minorities in our midst
Hafizur Rahman
Dawn (Pakistan)
2 July 2003
A NEWS report quotes the decision of a minorities' organisation of Rawalpindi to launch a campaign to oppose the adoption of the Shariat in the Frontier and its likely follow-up elsewhere in the country. I must say it is brave of them to do so in face of an overwhelming and rather intolerant majority. While in a truly Islamic state, which Pakistan is not (nor is it likely to be with so much hypocrisy around) the ummah is supposed to be the protector of non-Muslims, one is heartened by the courage shown by the Christian minority. I warn them that this is not going to be taken lightly by the ultra-religious elements among the Muslims and might involve a recoil. As for the other significant minority, the Ahmedis, they don't count. They are not even second class citizens but something much lower, yet to be properly categorised. Quite apart from the blasphemy law which covers everyone, Christians in Pakistan do not appreciate how much we love them. For example, if a Christian pins the Muslim kalima on his breast, we'll make much of him and exhibit him as "an honorary Muslim." But if a Qadiani has the temerity to do that, we trot him off to jail for a year or two. Similarly all Christians use the salutation Assalam-o-alaikum even among themselves, but if a Qadiani does so it is a crime in the eyes of General Zia's law and duly punishable. He can say Namaste or Sat Siri Akal but never the Salam which only means "Peace be upon you," and is hardly a religious expression. That is why I say that our Christians don't count their blessings which they are exhorted to do by their faith. Qadianis have been prosecuted for writing Bismillah on a wedding card. And that is why, when talking to foreigners, the Pakistan government always swears by the Constitution that there is no discrimination against the minorities. A study of press statements of government leaders reveals that Pakistan and its Muslim population have given unprecedented concessions and allowances to the minorities. Though if you ask those leaders to enumerate even one of these concessions they are at a loss to do so. As for our religious gentry, they think it is more than a generosity to let the minorities live in peace in the Muslim homeland. So what more do they want? The whole atmosphere in the country as regards the attitude towards non-Muslims, as also the attitude of the adherents of one sect towards the followers of other sects, is so vitiated with intolerance that one now really marvels at what the Quaid-i- Azam did on Sunday, 17th August 1947. Readers may recall Ardeshir Cowasjee's column describing how on that day the Quaid and Miss Fatima Jinnah attended a special service in Karachi's Saint Patrick's Church. After the religious service, which was dedicated to the strength and welfare of the new state, Mr Jinnah reiterated his resolve that there would be absolutely no discrimination between Muslims and non-Muslims in Pakistan. Elderly Christians and Parsis of Karachi recall his words fondly and remember how he assured them that Pakistan was as much their country as a new homeland for Muslims. Today they must be wondering which Pakistan the Quaid was talking about. Can you imagine a prime minister of Pakistan attending a Christian religious service in a church today? Even General Pervez Musharraf with all his bravado wouldn't dare. The maulvis would tear such leaders to shreds, and they would have to spend the rest of their life in Makkah and Madina trying to prove that they were genuine Muslims. The masses are exhorted by these leaders on every occasion to follow in the footsteps of the Quaid? Are there different sets of footsteps, one for the people and one for the leaders? Why don't they emulate his example and attend a special service in a church to instil confidence among the Christians? It would do more to assure them of the government's good faith and the state's impartiality than empty rhetoric and hollow slogans. In the present state of affairs which, without doubt, has been brought about over the years by our own political and religious leaders, the most important requirement is that the minorities should feel safe, protected and even privileged. Of course there is no defence against stray cases of fanaticism, but the government and the nation as a whole should never allow themselves to fall below a certain level of civilized behaviour. Unfortunately the steps taken to reinforce society through Islamic principles have tended towards making fanatics of the entire Muslim population. Six years ago there was Shantinagar, the Christian village in southern Punjab, which was raided by Muslim zealots fed on false rumours set afloat by certain fanatics. They behaved like the Huns and laid the village waste. I have kept a tab on the matter and can say without fear of contradiction that nothing was done by Mian Nawaz Sharif's government to either restore the confidence of the victims or bring the culprits to book. What price civilised behaviour inspired by the tenets of Islam and our much-vaunted tolerance of other faiths? That apart, the abduction of Hindu girls in Sindh is going on all the time. When a hue and cry is raised the girl is made to state in a court of law that she went away of her own accord, that she married a Muslim of her own accord and that she embraced Islam of her own accord. Then, a few years ago, there was the kidnapping of about a hundred Hindu haris, men, women and children, in a part of the province. If minority leaders, and a few good Muslims, had not raised the alarm, nothing would have been heard of the affair. On the strength of these events it can be safely averred that today the most privileged individual in Pakistan whom no one can touch is the Sindhi wadera. I refuse to believe that he is afraid of God. I sometimes wonder if our minorities truly consider themselves 100 per cent Pakistanis, though I have never been gauche enough to ask this from the dearest of my non-Muslim friends. In fact the question should be, "Do we, the Muslims, make them feel by our attitude that they are Pakistanis?" The question is not irrelevant. The atmosphere pervading the entire country is so completely Muslim in its spirit and impact that a non-Muslim appears to be something alien and out of place. Two years ago I had quoted from a letter written by a Christian woman to an Urdu newspaper columnist. I shall not recount her complaints against Muslim bias but I do want to repeat just one sentence from it. She had said, "Brother, let me share a private thought with you. I honestly feel that it is the prayers of us Christians that are sustaining Pakistan, otherwise you people would have finished it long ago by killing one another and anyone else who disagrees with you." Ominous words, I must say.
ENDS.
Silencing the Music in Pakistan Campaign targets 'un-Islamic' culture
By Dan Morrison SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
Newsday (USA) July 1, 2003
Peshawar, Pakistan - There was a time when Maulana Mahaz Khan liked nothing better than to weave his young voice into the tapestry of melodies that floated from the windows of his neighborhood, the musicians' bazaar of Peshawar. Drawn to the bands of Pashtun folk singers who have entertained wedding parties and road-weary travelers for more than 200 years, the boy risked the wrath of his father, a cleric, to sit with the musicians. "I liked singing with them," says Khan, who says he is 35 but appears much older. "It was a good feeling." Now, Khan counts the days before he can shutter the bazaar and silence its 2,000 troubadours because of a widely held belief in this conservative region that music and dancing are an affront to God. "I don't want to give this dirty example to the next generation," said Khan, who is a ward leader for the Muttahida Majlis-e-Ammal, an alliance of Islamic religious parties that took control of Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province after a landslide election victory in October. Emboldened by its new political might - the alliance is the leading opposition bloc in Pakistan's parliament - the movement aims to remake Pakistan as a radical Islamic state. Its growing strength has raised alarm among civil rights advocates and security officials. The religious parties oppose President Pervez Musharraf for his cooperation with the U.S. war on terrorism, and they sided with the Taliban against U.S. forces during the 2001 war there. To erase signs of "un-Islamic" culture in this border province, police and religious students have arrested, threatened and beaten musicians and music shop owners, defaced billboards and trashed merchandise. The campaign has spread to other cities, from conservative Quetta to cosmopolitan Lahore. On June 4, the assembly here approved making Sharia, or Islamic law, the writ of the province. Public employees are required to pray five times a day, spectators have been banned from girls' sporting events and boys at public schools are barred from wearing Western clothes. Those with more moderate views of Islam fear that the radicalization of civic life is only beginning. They note a legislative proposal for a new public body "to advocate virtue." A copy of the bill, which has not been made public, called for the creation of an office to investigate and prosecute claims of un-Islamic behavior. "It is more or less like the Taliban," said Salma Anwar, chairwoman of the International Women's Organization in Peshawar. "They want to separate the sexes. How is that going to bring jobs and clean drinking water?" Musharraf recently assailed attempts to "Talibanize" Pakistan, and replaced the North-West Frontier Province's top police official and chief secretary for failing to quell vandalism in Peshawar. But fear lingers in the musician's bazaar; Khayal Gul worked the keys of his harmonium, a valise-sized hand-organ, and sang a defiant reply to Khan and the other mullahs. "Oh sheik, oh bearded man, "You are a fool. "My lord is my God. "I will ask of him and not of you." "A year ago, we were without fear," Gul said. "Now, we are in fear. We are under stress." Abdul Raouf, who owns a record company and music shop nearby, said the inspector general of police had ordered him to remove a poster of a female singer. "Twenty days ago they arrested more than 100 shopkeepers and charged them with obscenity," Raouf said. Since Musharraf's June 10 speech decrying "backward and intolerant" interpretations of Islam, the police stop by only once a week, he said. The province's chief minister, Akram Durrani, said such claims are meant to provoke Musharraf into dismissing the provincial government. "There is no ban" on music, Durrani said. Rather, he said, his opponents had "bribed the musicians to say these things." Sounding more like a Western liberal than a member of Pakistan's leading Islamic religious party, he said his government's priorities are health, education and welfare. "We are more in favor of women's rights than anyone," Durrani said, describing plans to build a women-only medical college and primary schools for girls, and to oppose traditions such as exorbitant marriage dowries and "honor killings" of women accused of transgressing social mores. Durrani, a veteran politician who had to grow a beard before party leaders would allow his appointment as chief minister, rejected comparisons of his agenda with that of Afghanistan's deposed Taliban. "We have won through the ballot," Durrani said. "The Taliban assumed power through bullets." He said the legislative bill for an agency to promote virtue would not create a religious police force but rather a system to arbitrate local disputes, bringing "cheap and easy access to justice for the poor." Back at the musician's bazaar, Khan said his childhood love for music ended when "I got the feeling that this was a very dirty thing." Now, he said, he will soon close the music bazaar for good. "I will do jihad against them," Khan said of the musicians. "All the street is with me. Because of the political situation - the government is having some problems at the moment - I will do it at the right time. Just watch."
Copyright © 2003, Newsday, Inc.
ENDS.
Blah, blah, blood by Rajmohan Gandhi
The Hindustan Times (India)
July 4, 2003
The following is an account, gathered from eyewitnesses and published in Communalism Combat of a VHP meeting held on April 16 in Roha in the Konkan region of western Maharashtra, attended by about 1,500-2,000 young men and women at the grounds of a college:
"The backdrop was a huge picture of the projected Ram mandir at Ayodhya flanked by a larger-than-life poster of the encounter between Shivaji and Afzal Khan in all its gory detail with steel claws, daggers and blood. Smaller colour posters of the Shivaji-Afzal encounter were distributed free to all those who attended.
"The primary message of speeches by Acharya Dharmendra and his colleagues was that the holy duty of Hindu youths was to kill and finish off the Muslims scattered across the Konkan region and elsewhere, 'the offspring of the traitor Afzal Khan'.
"Muslims breed like rabbits and their population would soon overtake that of the Hindus. Until now, we Hindus had been moderate in our demands but now we will be demanding all the 30,000 masjids."
Acharya Dharmendra said: "Muslims can continue to live here only provided they all become Hindus. In this land of Shivaji, we should all follow Shivaji's example and finish off all the descendants of Afzal Khan just as Shivaji did."
It was in January that I had first read in Navbharat Times of the VHP's plan to use the Shivaji-Afzal Khan picture as a weapon. One of its UP organisers, Mr Sachan, had declared that the colour picture would be distributed in lakhs at VHP rallies in the state, especially in areas where Muslims lived in large numbers. Obviously, the plan is not only to hold up the Afzal Khan killing as an inspiring example of what Hindus should be doing, but also to provoke Muslim violence which would serve as a pretext for a pogrom of the post-Godhra kind.
Also billed as a speaker for the Roha rally was Praveen Togadia. Though he did not turn up, this is what he had said in Mumbai on March 16: "Remember Bhagwan Krishna. He told Arjuna to kill Karna [unfairly]. Did anyone till Krishna that he had followed a path of adharma?" Togadia added: "Do you know how we even killed Bheeshma, using tricks, how we killed Duryodhana? I remember all that with my proud Hindu heart. This is my proud Hindu heritage."
One symbol can sometimes capture the essence of a large enterprise. The Shivaji-Afzal Khan picture and the words that precede and follow it tell us everything about the VHP's strategy. Portray the Muslim as a traitor. Ask for his blood. Glorify trickery as the means to get it. Frighten Muslims. Provoke them into violence. At an apt moment, unleash a pogrom.
The ennobling of trickery is most revealing. When it becomes safe to do so, the demolition of the Babri masjid will be publicly claimed as a historic example of successful deception. Today, of course, the demolition is explained as a spontaneous and even 'unfortunate' eruption.
Flooding India with the gory picture defames Shivaji even as it pretends to glorify him. One debatable incident from his life, occurring when he was young, is selected; the essence of a remarkable hero is reduced to a single act of successful deception. Left out are all his exhortations for equality and for the good treatment of Muslim women. Left out are the Muslims who soldiered for him and the Hindus who fought against him. Left out is his challenging word to Aurangzeb that god was the god of all, Hindus and Muslims.
But the reputation of Shivaji is the last thing on the VHP's mind. When what you want to see is blood and fire on the Indian landscape, you care a whit for Shivaji, or Asoka, or the Taj Mahal. Or for temples.
Let us note some other elements in Togadia's March 16 speech. (Communalism Combat, May 2003, carries the full text). For a start, he called for the silencing of secularists: "The secular madrasa's name is the Jawaharlal Nehru University. Lock it up, close it down."
Next, he asked Hindus to nurse a persecution complex: "In this country, there are human rights for dogs, for donkeys, for cats, for Muslims, but no human rights for Hindus.
We have no right to live. My mother, travelling in a local train in Mumbai, she has no rights to return safely, alive.
"Imagine that a Bin Laden emerges. What will happen to us? To our women? 'Accept Islam or we will cut you up.' And Hindu women will be distributed among them. There is a real danger of this happening."
Finally, he sought to terrify - terrorise - Muslims: "Oh my Muslim brothers, remember Narasimha Rao could not save Babri masjid. He promised to rebuild it. Has he done it? He has not. He could not do it. Sonia Gandhi is your beloved. If she were to promise rebuilding of the masjid, will she do it? Is Mulayam Singh promising this to you? Oh Muslims, name one leader to me who can promise this to you? Is anyone promising this?
"Muslims, you are orphans, you are alone. I challenged Sonia Gandhi: Name a single village in Gujarat where during communal violence a Congress worker has saved the life of Muslims. In Karnavati [Ahmedabad], there must be at least 10,000 Congress workers. Ahsan Jaffrey was phoning all Congress workers desperately. How many Congress workers came to protect him? Not even one.
"Who will come to protect you? Babur and Ghazni? If Ghazni comes, we will crush him beneath our feet. The politics of reconciliation embodied in Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru no longer survives. We dictate the politics in this land now. This is the land of the pure Ganga and Yamuna.
"And you place bombs here and there? If I can perform the last rites for my father as a Hindu son, and cremate him by the flames of agni, I can set fire to this entire dharti." As another example of what Hindus were capable of, Togadia spoke of the burning of Lanka by Hanuman.
More conscious of the children, women and men living around them, others are less enamoured of blood and flames. Long ago, in May 1947, three months before Partition and shortly after several Hindus and Sikhs had been killed in his beloved Frontier province, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan spoke in the village of Shabqadar, not far from his Charsadda home:
"We are passing through critical times. Some people mislead you in the name of Islam. I feel it is my duty to warn you against future dangers so that I may justify myself before man and god on the Day of Judgment.
"What gains will Islam and the Muslims reap from these riots and the slaughter of children, women and the aged? And how are the Pakhtuns going to be benefited? These happenings are against the tenets of the Holy Koran and the sayings of the Prophet. To lay hands on an innocent poor man goes also against Pakhtun tradition.
"The other day an old Sikh pedlar was murdered on the road in spite of his willingness to embrace Islam. Is it done for the sake of Islam? I warn the Muslim League brethren that the fire they kindle will spread in wild blaze and consume everything in its way."
A similar warning is in order today in India. And profound concern, too, for Messrs Vajpayee and Advani have shown no inclination to put out of business, or even to rebuke, allies of theirs calling for blood and fire across the land. Competing with Messrs Togadia and Dharmendra are people like Vinay Katiyar of the BJP and the Bajrang Dal, who hurtles across UP to identify one mosque after another that should be 'handed over'. There are others.
Vajpayee has given indications of some interest in what history may say of him. We must assume that Advani too would like to justify himself to posterity. Can they credibly ask Musharraf and Jamali to eliminate terrorism from Pakistan if they are unwilling to put down its Indian version?
ENDS.
'Seeking Truth' in Hindu Rashtra laboratory
Ram Puniyani
From Milligazette (India) July 1-15
Lately Justice Nanavati Commission and the official inquiry commission of Gujarat are very much in the news. Initially Justice Nanavati went onto state that there was no serious lapse in controlling the communal clashes. He went on to state that there is no evidence against the Bajarang Dal and VHP workers in participating and instigating riots. There were news items that Best bakery core witnesses have turned hostile, some poor Muslims were made to depose in camera and also in heavy presence of police officials praising the role of police in protecting them, of PUCL-Vadodara Shanti Abhiyan boycotting the commission and a delegation led by senior Gujarat journalist and Human Rights activist Digant Oza submitting a memorandum drawing the attention of NHRC to the gross violation of Human rights of minorities in Gujarat and of the need to restrain the Gujarat Govt. in its acts of commission and omission in the violations of the very elementary democratic rights of minority communities.
Why is one trying to ensure that truth comes out through the official inquiry commission? We already know of the many a well-done citizen’s inquiries, which have brought out the truth about the Gujarat carnage. Also we know the fate of inquiry commissions. By and large so far most of the inquiry commissions have been kept in the cold storage and different Governments have found the ways to put a lid on them. In post independent India many a serious riots have broken out and many a path breaking inquiry commissions have established the role of Sangh Parivar in spreading communal venom, in coordinating the process of violence. Some of this has been well summed up in “Who Casts the First Stone?� by Teesta Setalvad (Communalism Combat, March 1998). The inquiry commissions of Jagmohan Reddy, Madon, Vythyathil, Bhaglpur have brought the truth behind the riots and these commissions also give an indication about the anatomy of the communal violence. Contrary to the popular notion that it is Muslims who start the riots and than Hindus retaliate most of the inquiry commissions have brought forward the fact that the organizations linked to RSS generally create a situation in which minorities are cornered to throw the first stone. The Shrikrishna commission report, which probably is one amongst the best of the inquiry commission reports brings forward the role of Shiv Sena an BJP ally, another outfit operating in the name of Hindutva. Shiv Sena not only initiated the riot but also coordinated the ongoing violence, which went on and on till the bomb blasts took place.
Shrikrishna Commission indisputably showed that the incidents began with the victory procession by Shiv Sena even as the demolition was going on, was the first provocative act. These were followed by the murder of Mathadi workers and later burning of Bane family. Following the burning of Bane family Mr. Thackeray gave call to Hindus to be aggressive. Later investigations showed that the Muslim youth who were implicated in the burning case were exonerated by the court as the evidence was neither sufficient neither fool proof. In a way it was a cooked up case, it was a pretext to unleash the violence. Gujarat is different cup of poison by now. The Godhra incident, there is no evidence what so ever as to who did it, was used as a pretext to unleash the anti-Muslim pogrom. Multiple factors contributed to Modi’s project of butchery. The communalization of state apparatus being done by BJP govt and the communalization of society being done by VHP, Bajrang Dal, Vanvasi Kalyan ashram is by and large total by now. The hatred for minorities is complete, and their ghettoisation and intimidation has crossed the boundaries of comfortable survival in a civic society. It is nobody’s case that a proper investigation would solve the problem. But the whole process of investigation shows the deep fascisisation of society in Gujarat. Immediately after the riots, and even during the riots, the police refused to act as per the norms of democracy and administration. It refused to file the FIRs. In Gujarat we saw for the first time that riot could go to the abominable levels, as there was not a single check on the state machinery. Right from the state home Minister to state Chief Minister to the state Governor to the central home minister to the Prime Minister all were trained swayamsevaks of RSS. Each was doing their own bit in ensuring that the polarization needed for BJP to win the next elections is supported and that’s how this became the worst ever riot in Independent India. Than came the role of police in general, which participated in the process abandoning all the norms of decency and duty.
After the riots the local people put the condition to the Muslims that they will be allowed to return to their homes if they withdrew the FIRs in case they have been filed and with an undertaking not to file the FIRs. The civic groups and citizens tribunal showed without any doubt about the role of state machinery and police in aiding and abetting the riots. It was a state sponsored riot so to say. As the state is totally in the grip of Sangh Parivar, the wall of hatred is sealing the borders between the two communities and boycott of Muslims in employment and trade is being close to total. It is in this situation that police finds it easy to tutor the witnesses. Best Bakery witness turning back on their earlier statement may be a result of multiple factors. To begin with a simple realization that in such a ghettoized atmosphere it may not be possible to socially survive while giving the witness against the authorities and the political elements. Second may be a more direct threat from different sources to keep shut. The Vadodra episode where police has taken the witnesses to depose needs no explanation. The ultimate reality is that of survival. Compromising with hostile forces is the compulsion of the socially weak and deprived sections. Modi Govt. is taking full advantage of its grip on the mechanisms of civic society to ensure the suppression of truth. So far at least truth used to come out after the riots. Now even the unearthing, rather recording of truth has also become impossibility.
Can the boycott of this commission help the matters? One realizes boycott of the commission is an act of frustration and an act of helplessness. Can something more proactive be undertaken to ensure that the first step of “punish the guilty�, the unearthing of truth is accomplished? National Human Rights commission can intervene probably. Also since Justice Nanavati is acting more as a handmaiden of the butchers of Gujarat, it may be better to dissolve this commission and appoint another one with the advice of NHRC? This is again a utopian thought. The central Govt., which can provide check and balance, itself is fully backing Modi and his administration in burning the truth. Can we look forward to the President to provide some sane step in this direction? Can the Supreme Court step in response to Public Interest Litigation or Suo motto to ensure that the present commission, which is a blot on the judicial process is suspended and more objective judges put in the commission.
But what about the restraint on the police and Sangh Parivar ? Can they be restrained? It is close to unthinkable at least in Gujarat, which is the First Laboratory of Hindu Rashtra. This Laboratory has a furnace to burn the concept of Human Rights to the ashes! Here can one think of civic intervention, legal intervention at social level? Legal activism to protect the very existence of weaker sections of society is as much needed as the intervention from the top to set the things right. But it is a tall order. Can legal brains pool together their energies to protect the civilians? Does the concept make sense? In the bleak and dismal scenario the hope may come from the social movements and protests from all over the country and the globe to bring in the process of law and civic sense in the state where communal divide is threatening the very existence of democratic norms. Along with short-term measures we also have to think of long-term measures to overcome the stifling hold of sectarian political ideology, which has been at the root of social discord.
ENDS.
Back to top of page
About Awaaz
Projects and Campaigns
Latest News
Press and Media Reports
Resources and Links
Contact Awaaz
Supporting Organizations
Frequently Asked Questions
Archives
12/26/1999 - 01/01/2000 05/18/2003 - 05/24/2003 06/01/2003 - 06/07/2003 06/08/2003 - 06/14/2003 06/15/2003 - 06/21/2003 06/22/2003 - 06/28/2003 06/29/2003 - 07/05/2003 07/06/2003 - 07/12/2003 08/10/2003 - 08/16/2003 08/17/2003 - 08/23/2003 08/24/2003 - 08/30/2003 08/31/2003 - 09/06/2003 09/14/2003 - 09/20/2003 09/21/2003 - 09/27/2003 09/28/2003 - 10/04/2003 11/09/2003 - 11/15/2003 11/23/2003 - 11/29/2003 12/07/2003 - 12/13/2003 01/04/2004 - 01/10/2004 02/29/2004 - 03/06/2004 04/04/2004 - 04/10/2004 06/27/2004 - 07/03/2004 07/18/2004 - 07/24/2004 07/25/2004 - 07/31/2004 08/08/2004 - 08/14/2004 08/15/2004 - 08/21/2004 09/05/2004 - 09/11/2004 09/19/2004 - 09/25/2004 09/26/2004 - 10/02/2004 10/17/2004 - 10/23/2004 10/24/2004 - 10/30/2004 11/14/2004 - 11/20/2004 11/21/2004 - 11/27/2004 11/28/2004 - 12/04/2004 12/05/2004 - 12/11/2004 12/12/2004 - 12/18/2004 12/19/2004 - 12/25/2004 01/02/2005 - 01/08/2005 01/09/2005 - 01/15/2005 01/16/2005 - 01/22/2005 01/23/2005 - 01/29/2005 01/30/2005 - 02/05/2005 06/05/2005 - 06/11/2005 06/12/2005 - 06/18/2005 07/03/2005 - 07/09/2005 07/10/2005 - 07/16/2005 07/17/2005 - 07/23/2005 07/24/2005 - 07/30/2005 07/31/2005 - 08/06/2005 08/07/2005 - 08/13/2005 02/05/2006 - 02/11/2006 03/19/2006 - 03/25/2006 04/16/2006 - 04/22/2006 04/23/2006 - 04/29/2006 04/30/2006 - 05/06/2006 05/07/2006 - 05/13/2006 05/14/2006 - 05/20/2006 05/21/2006 - 05/27/2006 05/28/2006 - 06/03/2006
