View on Regionalism! Case history-Maharashtra

Even after so many years of independence, I think we still are missing the cord of feeling like a nation. In each and every part of our country, now and then, the demon of fraction/partition appears. We can see the example of Maharashtra, Assam, Delhi, Orissa, Gujraat and many more places. Somewhere people were targeted as being minorities, somewhere being Bihari and somewhere for being Dalits. Women and children are the worst hit, I need not to say in all these occurances. So who were left. A handful of people! Who still want to dominant and rule on the society as they were doing since last thousands of years. Although they are spread over in all political outfits but they have a plateform of there own named RSS with its sister, doughter, brother and son organizations. The politics of hatred is not new for our country and till when it is going to be there. We will lag far behind as a nation in imperial experience.
And the causes are really bullshit. They claim that Biharis, Minorities are claiming there opportunities. But no body try to put his or her finger on the other communities who are in bussiness and intelligentia and they are really very powerful. They never touch a Marbadi or Bengali for that reason, who are spread over the country. Why only Bihari's and Minoritoies are on their Radar? This is a question we should ask to ourselfs first then to others. We will come on any possible solution only when we can satisfy ourselves with some answer first rather than just questioning others. Because its our lack of confidence too on these issues which gives them upper hand.
I hope, we will stay and think before questioning others for a possible solution, which lies in our active participation to save the real character of democrary and feel like a nation, as we are supposed to apart from cricket.

By

Mrityunjay Prabhakar

The Marked People

In today’s world, many things have been globalised. One of these is prejudice. In the name of the global war on terrorism, an entire community has been labelled and demonised. Terror attacks, whether in Washington, London or Madrid, are followed by paranoid surveillance, strip searches and prolonged detentions of large numbers of Muslim youth, often without even tenuous evidence or respect for their elementary human rights.
The latest to join this global assault on democratic rights — in the wake of the three bomb blasts that hit Hyderabad this year — is the Congress government in Andhra Pradesh. The state Minorities Commission has reported the abduction and illegal detention and torture by the police of a large number of Muslim youth within days of the blasts on August 25, 2007. I have heard from several terrified families of many youth who “disappeared” for several days without legal trace, chilling testimonies similar to those made by youth incarcerated in Cheraiapally Jail before the fact-finding committee established by the Commission. The committee comprised advocate Ravi Chandran, Professor of forensic sciences Mahender Reddy, and activists Nirmala Gopalakrishnan, K. Anuradha and Afsar.
What emerges is that tens of — it is feared hundreds — Muslim youth have been forcibly picked up from their homes, and more often while they are on way to work or the market or to worship, without legal arrest. These detentions have been forced by men in civilian clothes presumed to be policemen. Among those illegally arrested is an autorickshaw driver, an embroiderer, a medical student and a software engineer. Almost none have criminal records.
As they struggle against their abductors, they are bundled into vehicles without number plates, their eyes covered with blindfolds that they are not allowed to remove throughout their detention, their hands bound and their mouths gagged. They are then driven to unknown destinations, possibly farm houses in the periphery of the city. In these locations they, and other youth, are subjected to various forms of torture, including denial of food for long periods, electric shocks and beatings on the soles of their feet. Their eyes continuously masked, they lose track of night and day. They are driven every few days to new torture chambers, grilled about their role in the bomb blasts and coerced to agree about their alleged role in the blasts and their sympathies with international jehad. They are continuously battered with communally-charged taunts by the interrogating policemen. Some succumb by signing blank confession papers; others stoutly resist.
Their hapless families are, of course, not informed by the police about the detention. They are sometimes informed by witnesses of the police abduction. Many are poorly educated and impoverished, desperate, but unable to comprehend how to set about finding their loved ones. They contact the police, who deny any knowledge of the missing men. Others frantically contact lawyers and human rights organisations to file habeas corpus petitions in the high court. These are heard without urgency by the judges, and the police routinely deny, in court, that the missing men are in their custody. However, in a few days, they are indeed produced by the same police before magistrates, claiming that they were arrested just a day earlier. It is not possible that the habeas corpus petitions by the families of the youth could have been filed before their arrest by the police, in anticipation of their future arrest by the police.The fact-finding committee found “tell-tale signs of bodily abuse obviously not self inflicted” in the incarcerated youth, including “noticeable small scars of 1 cm diameter noted on external ears” and “1 mm to 2 mm scars noted around nipples indicative of electricity or needle entry”. Even jail records in three cases acknowledge injuries. They were visibly traumatised, some vomited blood, and others were severely dehydrated with swollen limbs and barely able to walk. The Commission observed that since these injuries “are not self inflicted, these obviously arose during police custody... [therefore] custodial atrocities on young detainees, all minority persons, stand proved”.
What is even more worrying is that the magistrates abdicated their duties by wantonly ignoring the visible signs of torture (some even noted later in jail records), when the detained youth were presented before them. Even the high court judges ignored Supreme Court guidelines by listing habeas corpus matters for hearing only once a week, unmindful of the imminent threats to the survival of the youth.
It is remarkable that even after legal production, following prolonged interrogation under torture, the police could still not charge most youth with involvement in the bomb blasts. Instead, the police alleged the youths’ support for international jehad been ‘proved’ by possession and propagation of ‘inflammatory’ CDs and pamphlets. The remand case diaries that I have in my possession describe these CDs as containing “Gujarat communal incidents like showing burnt bodies, damaged houses, the statements of victims as well as their relatives” and the other “clippings like shooting and beheading of… western forces by jehadis”. I possess and exhibit at least the former. Is that evidence to detain me for waging war against the State, in the way that these unfortunate youth have been charged?
The dazed families of the detained men live with their loss in intense social isolation. They are not just stigmatised by people of the ‘other’ community, even their neighbours, friends and relatives avoid contact with them, for fear that they too will be suspected by the authorities to harbour sympathies with terrorism. The larger community, especially poorer Muslims in the city, subsist with the daily cold dread that their own loved one may be the next target of the police.
An agonised young woman related to one of the detained youth cried out in a solidarity rally, “We are also Indians; we love India. Why are we seen as ISI agents and traitors?” Speaking from the heart, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh warned recently against the dangers of precisely such ‘labelling’ of communities as unpatriotic or violent. It is a warning that governments led by his own party, in Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Assam, do not seem to heed. He recalled that his own community of Sikhs was similarly labelled in the 1980s. What he did not mention was that thousands of youth were similarly abducted by the police in Punjab in those times, exterminated and cremated in mass graves. The story is hardly different for thousands of young people alleged to be Naxalites in Andhra, who are similarly abducted and eliminated.After terror incidents, a hamstrung police are under unbearable pressure to perform. But crippled by ramshackle intelligence, poor investigative skills, demoralised and untrained forces and the crumbling fibre of police leadership, it resorts to shortcuts like the illegal abductions and torture that Hyderabad has witnessed. As the advocate appointed by the Commission, Ravi Chandran, concludes, “What is at stake is not just the lives of 20 odd young boys living in resigned solitariness in a cell tucked away somewhere on the periphery of the modern city. What is at stake is the functioning of a healthy democracy. If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.”


By Harsh Mander

Myth, History And Politics

Ever since Ayodhya became a disputed territory, Rama has been at the centre stage of the political mobilisation by Hindu communal forces. The incidents associated with the Rama Katha were invoked one after the other to appeal to the religious sentiments of Hindus. It began with a claim to the birthplace of Rama at Ayodhya, around which Hindu religious sentiments were so aroused as to lead to the destruction of the Babri Masjid. In the movement culminating in this vandalism, several symbols linked with Rama such as Rama Jyoti, Rama Paduka and Rama Shila were floated.

Yet, over the years, the political appeal of Rama has waned despite his strong presence in the religious life of believers. The temple issue was indeed kept alive through occasional religious assemblies and demonstrations. Nevertheless, Rama ceased to be of much emotional value that would provide political advantage to Hindu communal forces. In the elections of 2004, the Ram temple did not figure as an issue at all. This can be taken as an indication that believers were inclined to abandon the Sangh Parivar’s aggressive Rama and return to worshipping his benign image, looking upon Rama Katha, as they had for centuries, as an “allegory of the life of the spirit as it journeyed through the world”.

Rama was almost lost to the political Hindu and was being resurrected to his rightful place in the religious life of believers. It is in this context that the Ram Sethu project has come in handy for the Sangh Parivar, to revive the appeal of Rama in order to breathe some life into its sagging fortunes. Once again the Parivar is bracing up to claim Rama for the communal cause. In the process it is attempting to turn myth into history, blurring the distinction between the two, in order to gain legitimacy for its political project.

The question of whether the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) should have filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court denying the historical existence of Rama has led to differences of opinion. The government has hastened to disclaim the affidavit and withdraw it, obviously fearing a Hindu backlash. Unlike the Ayodhya issue, even the secular voice has been rather muted. However, implicit in the affidavit is an important question regarding our approach to the past: Is there a distinction between myth and history?

Mythic Character

The ASI, it appeared, was conscious of this distinction in projecting the mythological character of Rama. The distinction does not imply a counterposition of myth and history as false and true. Myth is a way in which the human mind comes to grips with reality, and therefore, it can be said that it refers to reality. Yet, myth in itself is not reality. What the ASI has tried to state is that Rama was not a historical figure but a mythic character.

Similarly, the Ramayana being a literary piece, which was not originally a religious text but only sacralised later, contains many events and incidents that are products of imagination. It would therefore be futile to try to correlate them with historical fact and establish their authenticity. Such a view is not in any way a denigration of Rama or a critical reflection on the Ramayana. The Ramayana’s literary quality, whether in the original Sanskrit or in regional languages, is well known. So are the ethical and moral values it foregrounds, which exercise considerable influence over the life of believers.

However, devotion to Rama and the influence of the epic have nothing to do with the historical veracity of Rama Katha. Devotees consider Rama an incarnation and do not test his deeds by the yardstick of historical truth. They are moved by their devotion and hardly approach the epic from a rational viewpoint or try to locate it historically. Whether the Ramayana is historically true or not is not a factor in their devotion. The Sangh Parivar has been trying for long to impute to incidents in the epic a historical quality to legitimise popular belief, under a false notion that belief would be reinforced by historical truth.

The panic reaction of the government in withdrawing the affidavit in effect endorses the Sangh Parivar’s attempt to equate myth with history. Like the Sangh Parivar, the government seems to subscribe to the view that ascribing mythic character to Rama and the Ramayana is to undermine their importance and to injure the sentiments of believers. It overlooks the fact that believers consider Rama an incarnation. Traditional religious sources represent him so. The Matsya Purana, for instance, gives the following account: “There is also the account of the pastimes of Lord Rama, spoken by Valmiki – an account originally related by Brahma in one billion verses. That Ramayana was later summarised by Narada and related by Valmiki, who then presented it to mankind.” What accounts for the devotion to Rama and the veneration of the Ramayana are not their historical veracity but their divinity.

Many Ramayanas

In an attempt to attribute historical authenticity to the epic and its protagonist, the Sangh Parivar has been striving to privilege one single version of the Ramayana. But the Ramayana has several versions. It is difficult to ascertain the exact number as all of them are not written but are orally transmitted, both in India as well as in other Asian countries. A.K. Ramanujan has argued that these different “tellings” – a term he prefers to versions or variants as these imply an invariant or original text – differ from one another. They are not mere divergences from Valmiki’s rendering but entirely different tellings.

Highlighting the multivocal existence of Rama Katha, Paula Richman has drawn attention to the many Ramayanas, of which Valmiki’s composition is one, Tulsi’s another, Kamban’s another, the Buddhist Jataka yet another and the Jaina tradition yet another. Along with them, there are also innumerable folk narratives, extant not only in India but also in almost all the countries of Asia. They were not Valmiki’s Ramayana adapted to local conditions but substantially different from one another, both in form and content. In the Buddhist version, Rama and Sita are originally brother and sister, a fact that once aroused the ire of the Sangh Parivar.

Women’s folksongs from Andhra Pradesh challenge the accepted values of a male-dominated society by questioning the integrity of Rama and foregrounding the theme of the suffering that husbandly neglect causes a wife. Thus, the Rama Katha prevalent in different communities is vastly different and defies any attempt to identify a universally applicable text. All of them draw upon locally specific cultural traits, which impart to them a distinct character. Recent studies on different Rama Katha traditions demonstrate the different tellings of Rama’s story that vary with regional literary tradition, social location, gender, religious affiliation, colonial context, intended audience, and so on.

K.R. Srinivasa Iyengar’s edited work highlights the Asian variations of the Ramayana, and the essays in the volume edited by Avadesh Kumar Singh focus on the way the epic has found expression in regional languages. The many Ramayanas connote that the events and incidents in the different versions of the epic are not historical facts but mythical representations or literary imaginations. The debate on whether the Ramayana is a true story or whether Rama is a historical figure is, therefore, off the mark.

The issue of Ram Sethu requires to be situated in the general context of the mythological character of the Ramayana. The Sethu Bandhan encapsulates within it several qualities of Rama and the character of the epic. Sethu Bandhan was a humanly impossible task that was made possible only by the divine powers of Rama. The description of Sethu Bandhan in one version of the Ramayana is as follows: “During the first day of construction, monkeys laid a hundred and twenty miles of rocks, which floated upon the ocean. They worked very swiftly, and were happy to see the bridge take shape. The second day, they set down a hundred and sixty miles of rocks; the third day, a hundred and sixty-eight miles; and the fourth day, their strength increasing, they completed a hundred and seventy-six miles. On the fifth and final day, the monkeys constructed a hundred and eighty-four miles of bridge, up to Mount Suvala on the northern shore of Lanka. Thus when the bridge was finished, it was eighty miles wide and eight hundred miles long.”

Obviously, a vanar sena would not have achieved this feat. The question, however, is not its possibility or impossibility but how it enriches the mythical and divine quality of Rama. Obviously Sethu Bandhan is a myth.

But then, when myths become part of the belief system, they can be put to use for different purposes. Nobody in India has understood this better than the Sangh Parivar as is evident from the manner in which they have manipulated the myth and history of Ayodhya. Ram Sethu is an opportunity they are unlikely to let go of easily.

The distinction between history and myth is well recognised. Myths are in a way the opposite of historical facts, in the sense that, unlike historical facts, what constitutes a myth is not verifiable. Despite this, myths and history cannot be counterpoised as true and false.

In fact, myths also represent reality but represent it symbolically and metaphorically. Yet, myth masks reality. Therefore, myths are illusory representations of man and his world. Given their illusory nature, myths may not help to unravel the historicity of an event. Most myths are in a way timeless. Nevertheless, myths being a reflection of reality constitute a source of historical reconstruction and a means to understanding reality. Given this overlap, myths are used for a variety of purposes. They often serve as an agency of legitimisation, as in the case of Parasurama reclaiming land from the sea. They may also be employed for explaining a natural phenomenon, as in the case of Helios’ chariot in Greek mythology.

The use of myths has been integral to the politics of the Sangh Parivar. Beginning with the movement for the construction of the temple at Ayodhya, the Sangh Parivar has been engaged in providing authenticity to various myths surrounding the life of Rama. The central issue of the Ayodhya movement was the identification of the exact birthplace of Rama, which was difficult to ascertain owing to the lack of evidence. Local tradition identifies Ayodhya through a popular myth, which runs as follows: “After Treta Yuga when Ram was supposed to have been born Ayodhya could not be located. While Vikramaditya was looking for Ayodhya, a saint told him to leave a calf loose and the place at which the calf secreted milk would be the place where Ayodhya was located. Vikramaditya did as he was told, and where the calf secreted milk he located Ayodhya.” This mythical story became the basis for the identification of Ayodhya as well as the birthplace of Rama.

In the accounts given by leaders of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), the place of birth becomes an indisputable fact of history. Following this identification, the VHP accorded historical status to a series of myths. These include the existence of the Ram temple at the site of the Babri Masjid and the attempts by Hindus to reclaim the temple through 77 battles against the Muslims in which 300,000 sacrificed their lives. These myths have now become authentic histories; not only are they paraded as historical facts, they have found place in textbooks as authentic history. Over a period of time, many of these facts could become part of popular history also.

The politics of the Sangh Parivar is essentially irrational. The attempt to turn myth into history and to use it for political advantage is rooted in irrationality. Now that Ayodhya is no more a potent force, Ram Sethu has emerged as a possible alternative. The Sangh Parivar is gearing up to exploit it. Would the ruling establishment take a rational and scientific stand and not succumb to the fear of the irrational?


By K.N.Panikkar
(K.N. Panikkar, a former professor of history at Jawaharlal Nehru University and a former vice-chancellor of Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit, is currently the chairman of the Kerala Council for Historical Research.)
Copyright © 2007, Frontline

Muslims In Gujarat: Victims Of A conspiring State

Nafisa Bi lost her eyesight three years back after three of her sons were arrested under the notorious Prevention of Atrocities & Terrorist Act (POTA) after the Sabarmati Express, was burnt by the miscreants in Godhara railway station in February 2002. Today, Nafisa, 60 is completely blinded in her isolated home, which used to have a bakery. There are 11 such families living in Rehmat Nagar area of Godhara who have lost everything after their male members were arrested and kept in prison. Charges have not been framed yet, said Rehana Bi whose husband Shabir Hussein was a conductor in a private bus and was randomly arrested along with other 'conspirators' for their alleged role in the incident. The meager earning were not enough to sustain their family of four. Her younger daughter Shamim Bano was not born yet and has not seen her father so far. Rehana does not have any other members to support and is earning her livelihood through domesticated work at the houses of nearby Muslim locality of Boharas. " I go at 8 in the morning and return at 12 pm. They give me the left over food, which I eat and bring for my children. In cash, I just get Rs 250/-. My husband was getting Rs 1,200/- as monthly salary. How can my family survive in a meager Rs 250/-, she asks. No body comes here to ask us about our problems. A few social work organizations were here for some year but now they too have left leaving us in lurch. We have no clue about when our people will be released from the jail, despite the fact that we are informed that Supreme Court has ordered them bail, she explains. Gujarat has witnessed systematic isolation of the Muslims in the past 10 years. Their movements are traced and livelihood shattered. It is very difficult for them to get even the work in the Hindu households. Even if the community wants to restart its life forgetting the past, there is no certainty whether the product that they make would sale in the market or not. Efforts were made by many NGOs, which failed because of the un written economic blockade by the powerful group of the Hindutva brigade. In fact, the tribal and Dalits face the same wrath in the village if they ally with any likeminded organizations which talks of their identity and rights.
The pain of Nafisa bi needs to be understood in terms of the ailing Gujarati society and the crisis Muslim women face in Gujarat. With most of the male members gone behind the bar, these women today face the uphill task of reviving their lives in a deeply polarized and hostile atmosphere. Rehmat Nagar area reflects the mood of the state government and their zeal to isolate Muslim further. There is no activity in the area, which is completely cut off from the main high way. No link road and if it rains then perhaps it would become nearly impossible for these women to go to earn. Most of the women are surviving on the alms which their employer give them apart from a salary of Rs 250/- per family per month.
Activists come and promise that our people would be released soon as the Supreme Court has ordered, said Rehana Bi. But Nafisa Bi seems to be resigned to her fate. 'It is more than three years that I saw my sons. Now even if they come, I would not be able to see them.' Neighbors inform that Nafisa weeps all the time. Her husband divorced her long back without caring their children. Fortunately, her sons were hardworking and earned their livelihood well to take care of her. Today, she is thoroughly dejected at the plight of her sons who she alleges were beaten up mercilessly in the police lock up. Her son Shabir Anwar Ansari have three sons and one daughter while Alauddin, the other son got married the same year. The locality is about 5 kilometers away from the railway station where the Sabarmati Express's coach were burnt. ' The police came in the evening with their face covered and asked the male members to accompany them to their bosses office', say Rehana. She further added that there were no women police personnel when they came. They were all men showering the choices abuse on us.
Fakharuddin Yusuf was a Bus driver. He was arrested as soon as he returned from his trip. He was put in Sabarmati jail where he died one year later. He was beaten up mercilessly in the police lock up. Obviously, the Gujarat police whose track record is worst while tackling with the minorities cannot escape the blame. Many young children who were born after their father was arrested often ask their mothers when would their father return.
The police and administration has become so nasty that it does not even allow the detainees to meet their ailing parents even when they were waiting for a peaceful death. Rehana's mother in law died weeping and crying to see her son who could not come to see her before her death. Payroll was granted to Rehana's husband three days later after his mother was cremated. Mother and son did not see each other for three years says Rehana wiping her moisted eyes. When the Gujarat police come here they do not bring any women constables and on our defiance we are beaten up. She was arrested for one day. Rehana is outspoken when I ask about who burnt the train. " we did not know about the burning of train before the police came and started arresting the people. They informed that all the male members would be required to go to SP sahib but once they were put in the police vehicles they never returned and families only came to know about the whereabouts of their male members about three months later when they started writing to them.
' I too was arrested but they released me the very next day but my father was kept up in the lock up for six days', she says. Her moist eyes narrate the innocence inside her ', we do not burn even the dead, why would we burnt people alive?'
A total of nearly 100 families are charged under POTA in Godhara. The eleven families whose male wards have been arrested immediately after the train was burnt hail from this locality of Rehmat Nagar which is located on right hand side of the Godhara-Badodara high way. There is no connectivity road to this locality and one has to take off from the vehicle to reach here. The narrow muddy lane is the only way for you to reach the place. None of the man in the area has any work. In fact, they do not get any work outside. Tragedy is that Nafisa and like her many women's pains and agonies are compounded with the fact that with in their own community they have lot of resistance. When there is no work, man have no work to do and mere domesticated work in nearby locality of the Bohras cannot make them survive. It is ironical that many of the women are being pushed in the flash trade since there is virtually a crisis of survival. Immediately after the riots, many NGOs started working among the victims but two-three years after the incident when they are faced with a hostile state administration which is hell bent on keeping the Muslims in particular and minorities in general out of the mainstream, organizations winded up their charity work. Of course, some of them are still working creating awareness in an otherwise thoroughly communalized atmosphere of Gujarat.
The Modi government kept quiet and even the press has not been able to follow up all the cases. How long the select few would come every day to expose a government, which has been corrupted at every level. The water in Rehmat Nagar area is totally contaminated, as there are factories in the area, which release chemical waste every day and therefore have turned the ground water totally undrinkable. The families go to fetch water from high way, nearly half a kilometer away from the area. Most of the families, which lived here before February 27 th, 2002, have now left for other areas leaving 11 of the families here in complete isolation.
Rehana's mother in law died. When she was on bed, her husband applied for a payroll but was denied. He came to see his mother three days after her death. That is the tragedy of the entire incident. Says Rehana,' Narendra Modi is not a married man. Had he been married and had some children, he would have been sensitive to the issues of family, pain of a mother or anguish of a wife or cry of the children who miss their father. How would he explain to a mother who died crying without seeing her son?
In the global war on terror, it is very clear that it is the educated elite, which is now becoming a tool in the hands of the deeply religious fanatics. Poor were actually never were part of it. They might be looked down upon as 'fundamentalists' but never as 'terrorists'. In this age when war are psychological as well as more so on modern techniques, a look at the profile of 11 POTA victims would tell how government was hell bent on making the innocent as terrorists.
Shabbir Hussain was bus conductor with a happily married life with children has been arrested. Shabbir Anwar Ansari and Alauddin Ansari were brothers with their families. Both were with their mother and running a bakery shop. Sadiq Khan Sultan Khan was a painter. Shamsher Khan is brother of Sadiq Khan. Yusuf Khan used to make bamboo Pinjara while Feroj Khan was working with Yasin Habib in a hotel. Feroj Khan was working in a steal company and Jabir Binyamin was working with a dairy. Fakhruddin Yusuf was working as a driver and was not even in the town. He returned in the evening only. The work profile of all these people may not suggest whether they had time to conspire against people. He has six daughters and 2 sons. Now all of them have left this place, as there was no security of life and livelihood for them. Jabir's wife Jainab informs how her two children miss their father. Daughter Saima Bano 4 and son Shehjad 5 have not got their fathers live as he is in jail. In fact Saima was born after her father was in jail.
Jabir's brother Ramjani was a rikshawpullar with a school. He was arrested from school where he was taking school children. Ramjani has six children with the eldest daughter Naseem Bano aged 12 and the youngest son Sarfaraj aged 5. Another brother Habib is also arrested. He has two children Shamir and Ferhan. The families are virtually living in despair and starvation. All the women are working as domestic servants in the relatively middle class Muslim households and get a maximum of Rs 250/- added with left over food. Irony is that the children are looked after at home by the neighbors or elders like Nafisa bi and other elderly women who cannot work. Some of the children go to a nearby school but majority of them dropped out.
Now Gujarat will face elections and the government of Narendra Modi has started divising methods, which can create communal wage. Dalits are being charged in false cases. Inter caste and inter religious marriages are being blown out of proportion. The state administration is thoroughly Hinduised. Even inside the booking windows of the railway stations one can find the pictures of Hindu Gods and Goddesses, which is against our secular ethics. Cases are not registered for Muslims. Take the case of Jatun Bibi whose house was burnt by the rioters in village Mirapuri which is about 13 kilometer from Godhara. They have a total of 12 acres of land in the family of six yet even 5 years after the riots Jatun can not go back to her village. She now stays in the slums of Rehmat Nagar on a rented house along with her husband. Jatun Bibi filed a case against Sarpanch and won at the session court. The case was challenged in the high court where she lost. She does not even know about the case and files. It was never challenged later. Her husband says that they will never go back to the village as the village Sarpanch and his goons would kill them. Today, Jatun Bibi lives on rent in a small one-room house at Rehmat Nagar. She pays Rs 200/- per month as rent. Her husband is a labour. She used to own a Kirana shop in the village. Both husband and wife worked on the shop and had a big house for them along with others in the family. The three relatives (brothers and sisters) lived together but now they are not ready to return. Her husband expresses his fears that if they return to village, the Sarpanch would kill them. Police does not help in these matters. In fact, a BJP MLA has been supporting the sarpanch.
Jatun Bibi lost her mother in the childhood. She has four sisters and one brother. The one brother, according to her, has turned out to be an anti social element who would not share his parental property with the sisters. Tragically, Jatun Bibi has no sources to challenge the high court order. One does not know what her lawyers are doing at the moment. The condition of rule of law in Gujarat is that Muslims do not come out in open; you have to prove to them that you really care for their issues. Such things may shock people outside Gujarat but this unjust peace in Gujarat must be opposed. Peace building groups are roaming around but how can there be peace in Gujarat if the second majority of Gujarat lives in abject poverty, isolation and complete fear. Can such peace be supported which prohibit people to speak against injustice?
It is not that only Muslims are being targeted in Gujarat. The Dalits and tribals are used against the Muslims and are intimidated if they do not cooperate. Recently, a tribal leader of a social movement who was fighting for the forest rights of the tribals was barred from entering into four districts by the administration. The wife of a well respected Muslim doctor in Godhara was disturbed so much in the aftermath of Godhara that she shifted from Gujarat along with her children as safety of the children was paramount to her.
Gujarat is on the verge of history today. Gujarati's enjoyed the fruits of globalisation. People greeted them everywhere from Africa to America and England where they went for their business and succeeded. Today, the same Gujarati's particularly the Non-resident Indian variety are conspicuously silent on the functioning of the governance, which want to weed the fellow Gujarati Muslims out from the state. Often, Gujarati's use Mahatma Gandhi and his message of social reconciliation for their own benefits abroad particularly in Africa, it is time, they realize that Bapu's dream of reconciliation hold true for their own state also. In the so-called war against terror we should not forget that it also call for a just government. It also calls for justice against those who are terrorists but not Muslims. They too are terrorists who kill innocent people, rape their women and publicly support killing and humiliation of human being who happens to be Muslims. War against terror should not only be against the terrorists who happen to be Muslims but all those also who kill Muslim selectively. If this so-called war has to be won against the evil designs of all those then those in power or those who wish to come to power must show their resolve in providing governance and protecting all those who are citizens of state. One hope our governments in the Center and states listen to those cries of the victims of the mass killing in Mumbai after the demolition of Babari Masjid or those killed in Hashimpura, Bhagalpur, Kanpur and elsewhere. Not only war against terror, we will need to define genocide in present day term and its linkages to fundamentalist ideologies supported by the state. All those ideological dictators need to be brought to book for abetting the riots, supporting the killing or threatening them with dire consequences. Unfortunately, deeply prejudiced mindset cannot change. Gujarat needs a strong civil society as well as a strong rainbow coalition of the Dalits, Adivasis, Muslims, Christians and OBCs to tackle fascist onslaught on people's right and livelihood. The real target of the saffron forces in Gujarat is actually not Muslims but Dalits and Adivasis as we only talks of Gujarat issue in terms of Muslims but not in terms of socio political issues, which have threatened the very basis of this government. Adivasis are threatened from their livelihood as Modi goes abroad inviting big industrialists to suck the blood of poor Adivasis and Dalits. All Dalits and Adivasis who are trying to assert are boycotted and pitched against Muslims and Christians. Public land in Gujarat is being given to private companies and nothing has been done to eliminate poverty. The only thing Gujarat has these days is rabid Hinduisation or I would simply say, brahminsation process. It is sickening to see such ritualistic symbols present in everyday life from posters in railway stations to Panchayat Bhavans, you will find not one or two Gods but large number of Godmen. Nowhere, in India such naked neglect of the secular laws of the country. Why should railways allow a picture of Hanuman in its reservation counters or why should the schools and Panchayat buildings have Asha Ram Bapu or Murari Bapu. If you love so much your Gods please do allow the other gods also. And definitely, then will have to put a Mao and a Marx also to satisfy the nonbelievers. This hypocrisy must be challenged. Gujarat is communalized very systematically and the disease is spreading like a virus.
The answer lies in strong ties of real Gujaratis who do not have golden plates in their homes or who do not have NRIs in their family. Yes, Gujarat could be saved by a strong people's movement involving every segment of the marginalized sections of our society including Muslims and all those victims of Narendra Modi's rabid anti Dalit, anti tribal and anti farmer policies. It is also time to take these religious lunatics head on otherwise they will deny every one a right to live with dignity and freedom to express.

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat
Visit his blog atwww.manukhsi.blogspot.com

Gujarat: Encounters Of A Different Kind

“When you teach a man to hate and fear his brother…when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies, to be met not with cooperation but with conquest; to be subjugated and mastered.”
Robert F. Kennedy said that in 1968 following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (1). But he could well have been describing the alarming ascendancy of hate and fear in Indian politics, especially in states like Gujarat.
I’m back in Gujarat talking to community leaders and voluntary organizations about inter-communal relations, more than five years after the Godhra train carnage and the ensuing anti-Muslim pogroms seemed to rip this society apart.
I see signs of economic boom everywhere: world-class highways; upscale office buildings and hotels; trendy shopping malls competing with the best of Delhi and Bangalore; and construction cranes announcing many more of the same. The upbeat mood of the middle class is palpable -– cocky, some might even say.
Yet, as far as the Muslims are concerned, the state has not only failed to heal the wounds of 2002, but it seems to have largely succeeded in invisibilizing the community.
Thankfully, there are still a handful of activists here who refuse to throw in the towel in their David and Goliath encounters with institutionalized intolerance. This is their story.
The “normal” Gujarat
“Shanti j che!” Gujarat is absolutely peaceful and is on the march, declare its leaders as they attribute all negative news on the social front to a secularist conspiracy to defame the state. But behind the veneer of “Vibrant Gujarat” barely hides the menacing face of Hindutva, which often spills over into public space, as it did during my visit:
A Bajrang Dal man, who ought to be behind bars for participating in the 2002 violence (2), has set himself up as a “marriage breaker,” kidnapping and forcibly separating dozens of young couples who have dared to fall in love across the communal divide (3).
A BJP leader and his cohorts barge into a university campus to assault an award-winning fine arts student for “offending religious sentiments” with his sketches (4). The police arrest the student for promoting enmity, but the gate-crashers go scot free. (Note A)
Three senior police officers are arrested for staging a fake encounter in 2005 to gun down a common criminal, who’s deliberately tagged as a terrorist on his way to assassinate the Chief Minister (5). Days later, the state admits that the police may have also killed the victim’s wife and burned her body! There are persistent reports that this may have been just one of several encounters staged by the Gujarat police.
Such unconscionable acts encouraged or condoned by a democratically elected government elsewhere might have seriously threatened its right to govern. Not so in the laboratory of Hindutva. Quite the contrary, the state’s PR machinery is in full swing trying to turn those very acts into a badge of honor (6), betraying the dismal depths to which politics here has sunk.
In the mean time, the government in Delhi, preoccupied with coalition politics and the latest growth statistics, doesn’t seem terribly concerned about the continuing dehumanization, leaving it to various commissions and the judiciary to occasionally offer a glimmer of hope to the victims.
Invisibilizing a community
Widows from Delol now in a Kalol camp. Their husbands werepulled from a Tempo and hacked to death in 2002 (2007)Five years on, the state has yet to express any remorse for its acts of commission and omission; instead, it often invokes Newton (action-reaction) to justify violence and to withhold aid from uprooted families, whose very existence it denies (7). And, in stark contrast to dozens of Muslims incarcerated without trial for the Godhra train fire, hundreds of accused Hindus roam free under the benevolent shadow of the state. (Note B)
Muslim leaders say that it isn’t anymore a question of if societal odds are stacked against their community; but whether, faced with social boycotts and threats of renewed violence, the community is resigning itself to second-class citizenship:
Dr. Hanif Lakdawala of Sanchetana, which works for social justice for the urban poor, says that discrimination is so blatant that otherwise nice people find creative ways to package them: In 2002, many schools sent away Muslim children citing “safety concerns” (8). But nowadays, they tell parents that their child may not feel comfortable being among mostly Hindu children. The travesty, he says, is that they are wont to offer the same pretext to turn back the next Muslim child who comes along…and the next.
If ghettoization started years ago (Note C), the pogroms only seem to have accelerated the process: It is now virtually impossible for Muslims to purchase homes in most parts of the city, except in predominantly Muslim neighborhoods (“negative areas” in local parlance) (9). Even Sanchetna was unable to lease office space in the suburbs under Lakdawala’s name and had to fall back on a Hindu trustee’s name.
Dr. Shakil Ahmad of the Islamic Relief Committee (IRC), who lives in Juhapura, tells me that the area has minimal civic amenities and woefully inadequate schools (10). Many residents complain that they find it difficult to obtain utility connections and bank loans -– my auto-rickshaw driver was literally kicked out by a State Bank manager who told him that he doesn’t advance loans to Muslims!
If there are some here who take the trouble to couch their prejudices, there are many others who behave as if the state’s gaurav (pride) hinges directly on humiliating the minorities:
During an earlier trip, Dr. J.S. Bandukwala, a professor and social activist, had shown me a letter from a self-styled Hindutva historian taunting him to convert back to Hinduism. A young social worker had told me that a well-known NGO asked him in a job interview if he knew how to make bombs! And Muslims were expressing fears that concerted efforts were underway to push them out of their traditional livelihoods.
Bandukwala now not only receives threats from Hindutva activists, but he is also blacklisted by his own community for daring to advocate reforms. Many of the new shopping malls are reportedly reluctant to employ Muslims. And, as predicted, only Hindu-owned automobile garages have been allowed back in some of the riot-torn areas.In rural Gujarat, Muslims have been kept out of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), which was designed to provide a safety net for poor families (11). And, in the town of Godhra, a prominent doctor says that he was forced to withdraw from a public tender, after provocative leaflets started appearing across town naming him as an undesirable competitor.
And so the list goes on, leaving little doubt that an insidious campaign has been underway, with the active collusion of state and civil society, to invisibilize Muslims; so much so, that a casual visitor would hardly suspect that anything was amiss.
But for an average Muslim family still smarting from the 2002 pogroms, “normalcy” seems to be merely the absence of overt violence.
Secularists who won’t go away
Backdrop at a street play by Nishant Natya Manch (2004)
“You can fit all the secularists in Gujarat in the back of two trucks,” my friends used to wryly joke last time I was here. The latest version has the Chief Minister’s office opining that one truck would do, as half of them will disappear the moment they sense danger!
But those on the “back of the truck” are in no mood to acquiesce to institutionalized bigotry: Some of them doggedly pursue court cases, believing that without a modicum of justice, there can be no reconciliation. (Note D) Some pursue youth initiatives cutting across religion and gender as a pathway to reconciliation. Others focus on primary education as the only long term hope for ridding the society of communalism. And, there is near unanimity that working with the poor on issues that they care most about -- jobs, housing, education, water, and public services -- is a more effective way to build bridges than to lecture them on communal harmony.
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Janvikas was thrust into massive relief and rehabilitation work in the aftermath of the 2001 earthquake. It had barely returned to its grassroots developmental work, when the 2002 violence sucked it once again into the eye of the storm. Before rushing in to help, says Gagan Sethi its outgoing Managing Trustee, they had to first look in the mirror: What was their own record on inter-community relations? How many Muslims did they have in their organization?
The answers weren’t pretty -- they were shocked to hear some of their own staff say that Muslims had it coming! And it took a great deal of introspection before the organization resolved that it could not remain silent on the issue of communalism.
Janvikas hasn’t looked back ever since and has devoted a considerable part of its energy to fighting intolerance, at several levels:
On the legal front, Center for Social Justice (CSJ) provides legal aid to the victims, including to Bilkis Bano, whose gang-rape case was transferred to Mumbai by the Supreme Court. It also supports the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), many of whose post-Godhra rulings were based on CSJ’s field investigations.
Harmony sculpture by Yuvshakti, Halol (2005)
Janvikas spear-heads efforts to draw national attention to internally displaced families who still can’t return to their villages: In a direct challenge to the state’s shameful assertion that there are no such people (12), 5,000 families came together last year under the umbrella of Antarik Visthapit Hak Rakshak Samiti. Their formal report elicited a strong notice to the Gujarat government from NHRC. And a Supreme Court committee found these families living under “difficult and pathetic conditions” (13).
The idea of bringing together Hindu and Muslim youth, including some who had taken part in the violence, sounded far-fetched when Gagan first mentioned it to me. But the idea has blossomed into Yuvshakti, whose first major project was Cricket-for-Peace, which saw religiously-mixed teams from several talukas compete in a friendly but serious tournament in 2005. The youth movement now works across Panchmahals on community-specific issues. (Note E)
Dhanraj Pillay, Deep Sethi, Sunil Gavaskar, and P.T. Ushawatching mixed women’s cricket finals, Halol (2005)
The idea of secular NGOs working closely with Islamic organizations was also unimaginable in 2002. But, today, even as others go on about the need for madraasa reforms, Janvikas has already taken a baby step -– the first of its kind, I believe -– to bring the teaching of science, mathematics, and Gujarati to some of the maktabs in the Kutch, in partnership with Jami’at-ul-Ulama-i-Hind. Deepika Singh, who runs the program, is optimistic that the pilot will be eventually scaled up by the Jami’at, bringing positive change to elementary education in remote Muslim communities.
As I bid goodbye to Yuvshakti volunteers in Halol, they inform me that local authorities won’t let them use their grounds for cricket anymore and that the harmony sculpture unveiled by Sunil Gavaskar in the town square during my last visit is gathering dust in the municipal office!
Presumably, a friendly game of cricket reaching out to Muslim youth is a serious threat to this state of intolerance.
---Renowned danseuse and social activist Mallika Sarabhai has paid a heavy price for challenging the state in the Supreme Court for its handling of the 2002 pogroms. Her decision to risk her career and personal safety to help a community in distress had stood in stark contrast with the deafening silence of other prominent artists: In a tragic illustration of majoritarianism at work, one well-known Muslim musician reportedly lamented that he was unable to take a public stand on Gujarat as “it takes just one phone call from the PM to destroy a career.”
Last time I was here, Mallika was still fighting the government’s attempt to pin an absurd human trafficking case against her. The charge was eventually dropped; but, in a bit of irony, a BJP MP, reportedly close to Gandhinagar, has just been caught red-handed in a real human trafficking case.
As I catch up with Mallika at the Darpana Academy, she asks me if I had encountered any protestors on the streets burning her effigy! The CM is apparently miffed at Doordarshan for agreeing to broadcast Darpana’s path-breaking TV series, SAT-Television For Change, and he has been leaning on the Planning Commission to pull the plug. The series, billed as “high quality stuff” by Doordarshan, is an “unprecedented development communications move,” Mallika asserts, which will set the standard for social programming at the national level.
Despite the intervention of the nation’s highest court, Gujarat seems to miss no opportunity to hound activists like Mallika, who is any day a more fitting ambassador of Hindu culture and values than those who would accuse her of being “anti-Hindu.” Unfazed, she continues to use her art form to address critical social issues and to send a message of universal peace and harmony. (Note F)
It would be a shame if she were driven out of Gujarat by a vindictive government.
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Dr. Mukul Sinha of Jan Sangharsh Manch (JSM) strongly believes that pursuit of justice must be grounded in grassroots work among the affected people. He cites JSM’s legal support to dozens of Muslims held under POTA, on the one hand; and their Public Interest Litigation on behalf of Sanklit Nagar, on the other, which resulted in a court order forcing the municipality to service the area.
Such grassroots work has generated unprecedented solidarity among poorer Hindus and Muslims, he asserts, even prompting joint action against slum demolitions. (Lakdawala mentions similar solidarity in Sabarmati Nagrik Manch, which is protesting the Sabarmati river front development.)
Women in Sanklit Nagar, Juhapura and their destroyed home elsewhere (2003)
When some of us met Sinha back in Sep 2002, he firmly believed in the principle of Occam’s razor: The simplest explanation for the Godhra train fire –- accidental or caused by a miscreant -- was most likely the right one. He has since become widely known for his success at the Nanavati-Shah commission hearings in discrediting the state’s constantly changing conspiracy theories (14).
“Aren’t you legitimizing a body widely seen as a cover for the ruling elite?” I ask. By staying engaged, he responds confidently, JSM has not only been able to access the state’s “evidence,” but it has also been able to garner the attention of even the notoriously communal Gujarati media, which is beginning to question the government’s credibility. “They don’t know whether to keep us in or to kick us out. With us in, they risk continuing exposure of the state; but without us, they lose the only legitimacy they have.”
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When I first met Rajendra Joshi of Saath, the group was working predominantly in Hindu slum areas of Ahmedabad. The 2002 violence drew it deeper into Muslim areas, where it has been helping some of the victims with support from NRI groups.
Tehera, whose destroyed home was rebuilt by IRC, receiveslivelihood assistance from Saath (2007)
As Rajubhai updates me on Saath’s work, I’m particularly intrigued by their pilot project to convince the local power company that despite all the fearsome myths surrounding Juhapura, there were profits to be made here. (“It’s a dangerous place, a mini-Pakistan, where men walk around with AK-47’s,” a reporter had sought to educate me in 2002!) Thanks to Saath’s work supported by USAID, and parallel efforts by IRC and other community based organizations, the initial fee for a power connection has dropped from a high of Rs. 12,000 to about Rs. 2,500. And the company has even set up an office in the area, cutting out exploitative middlemen.
Saath also trains unemployed youth for service jobs in the mushrooming retail sector, with support from the American India Foundation (AIF). “What about reports of discrimination against Muslims?” I ask. “With the entry of many non-Gujarati companies,” Rajubhai responds, “some employers just don’t care what religion one belongs to.”
This, the first optimistic note I hear during my trip, gives me pause: Does the much-talked about shortage of labor in the service sector promise a “business solution” to communal harmony -- by taking unemployed youth off the streets of cities like Ahmedabad?
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RFK’s rousing 1968 speech, On the Mindless Menace of Violence, (featured in the movie Bobby) is still ringing in my ears as I get ready to depart Gujarat after an all-too-brief a visit: “Some look for scapegoats, others look for conspiracies, but this much is clear: violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation, and only a cleansing of our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul….Yet we know what we must do. It is to achieve true justice among our fellow citizens.”
I’m immensely grateful that despite threats to their personal safety, there are a few activists here who are determined to bring justice to their fellow citizens and persevere in their struggle to cleanse the society of the politics of hate and violence.
What happens in Gujarat, many believe, presages the future of a secular India. But, fortunately -– as recent elections have shown –- a vast majority of poorer Indians, regardless of their religion and caste, sense a shared destiny and are demanding that politicians respond to their basic human development needs first: Recent images of Muslim groups leading protests against the proposed Special Economic Zone in Nandigram should be an eye-opener.
It’s only a matter of time before a majority of Gujaratis too conclude that a government that is single-mindedly pursuing the politics of exclusion and conquest can’t possibly serve the long-term interests of their state. When they finally manage to put the Hindutva genie back in the bottle, it will have been in no small measure due to the sacrifices of those few activists on the back of that truck.
Acknowledgements:
In addition to those mentioned earlier, I am grateful for the insights of Martin Macwan, who speaks passionately of the shared destiny of poorer Muslims and Dalits, and who now devotes full time to the education of Dalit children and youth; Mukhtar Mohammed, a businessman turned community activist at Kalol, whose relentless efforts to seek justice for the riot victims secured some of the earliest convictions in a local court; Shri P.G.J. Nampoothiri, former Director General of police, Gujarat, and until recently NHRC’s Special Rapporteur, who played a critical role in NHRC’s Gujarat interventions; Rohit Prajapati (an ex-RSS man) and his colleagues at PUCL, who remain the last line of defense against communal forces in Vadodara; Father Cedric Prakash, who co-facilitated the Concerned Citizens Tribunal, which came closest to a “Truth Commission” on the 2002 violence; and K. Stalin of Drishti Media, who brought the plight of India’s Dalits to international attention through his award-winning film, “Lesser Humans.”Notes:
A. The Dean of the Fine Arts Department at M.S. University, Vadodara, Dr. Shivaji Panikkar, who was a victim of the campus violence, was recently attacked in Ahmedabad by a hostile Hindutva mob.
B. Former IAS officer Harsh Mander successfully petitioned the Supreme Court to reopen more than 2,000 riot cases that the Gujarat police had summarily closed. His Nyayagarh initiative is pursuing 512 of those cases, resulting in the arrest of over 200 people to date.
C. e.g. Nafisa Barot of Uthaan, which works on women’s and water issues, says that her family was forced to shift homes half a dozen times in the 70’s to escape harassment by neighbors.
D. Per Tehelka, 13 riot cases have lead to convictions so far. Small as this is in relation to the extent of the crimes, even this would have been impossible without the tenacity of a few activists from Gujarat and elsewhere, as already noted. In addition, efforts by Teesta Setalvad in successfully pursuing the Best Bakery case, despite numerous personal threats and witness tampering, are well known.
E. Delhi-based Anhad, convened by activist Shabnam Hashmi, recently organized a youth convention, which brought together 350 delegates from across the state. Anhad was the first to defy the unofficial ban on the film Parzania, which it screened unopposed while I was in Gujarat.
F. Mallika’s latest theater project on India’s “Unheard Voices,” Unsuni, based on Harsh Mander’s book, is reportedly facing the heat of Gujarat’s censors.


By Raju Rajagopal