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
Showing posts with label Matters of Facism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Matters of Facism. Show all posts
Monday, 10 September 2007
Thursday, 16 August 2007
Attack On Taslima:Love Of Islam Or Love Of Power?
It was shocking that three MLAs of Ittahidul Muslimin in Hyderabad gatecrashed into the book release function of her book Lajjai translated into Telugu on 9th August and tried to beat up Taslima and shouted slogans using unbecoming words, even using abusing language. And all this in the name of Islam as if Islam stands for such hooliganism.
The party leadership instead of condemning such wayward behaviour, approved of it and patted them on back. They were even given hero's welcome. One MLA even said that if Taslima comes to Hyderabad again, she will be beheaded. If elected representatives take law into their own hands, there cannot be greater tragedy. If they had done it without invoking Islam, it would have been a different story, though equally condemnable.
Was this for love of Islam? No way. It was love of power, pure and simple. The Party leadership thought it is good opportunity to strengthen and widen its electoral base. Human behaviour, especially political behaviour is extremely complex. Politicians, while acting in self-interest, invoke high ideals in order to cover up their utterly selfish motives.
Someone Imam even declared from Calcutta that he would pay Rs.50,000/- if anyone blackens Taslima's face. An Imam is supposed to be very respectable and responsible person who leads people in namaz (prayer) but also leads them in social and political matters. An Imam's behaviour should be highly restrained and responsible. I totally disagree with Taslima's views and think she is completely ignorant about Qur'anic teachings but that does not give anyone right to violently attack her or incite people to attack her.
Apart from the fact that such hooliganism is morally reprehensible it is unwise from the viewpoint of those who are opposed to Taslima's attacks on Islam.This gives her much more publicity that she deserves. Now this attack that took place in Hyderabad will give her worldwide publicity on one hand, and would make her celebrity in the eyes of those who are already hostile to Islam. Now reams and reams of papers will be blackened in her praise.
She would also be now much more hostile to Islam than ever before. She would really hate Islam because of hooliganism of some members of Ittihadul Muslimin. If we really love Islam than we should try to win her heart and soul through love and compassion. And that is what the Prophet of Islam did. It is well known story that a Jewish woman who hated the Prophet (PBUH) used to throw garbage on him whenever he passed from below her house. Once when she did not throw garbage on him, he inquired why she did not and was told she is sick. He immediately went to inquire about her health. She was so moved that immediately accepted Islam then and there.
What a contrast! Those who claim to love Prophet and Islam are attacking a woman and making her hate Islam more than before. This is madness, not wise behaviour and must be condemned as strongly as possible. These MLAs and crowd accompanied them have brought utter shame to Islam and Muslims. It is heartening that many religious leaders of Muslims and intellectuals have condemned it. Maulana Mustaqim of Jamiat –ul-Ulama-i-Hind, Shiah leader Maulana Ather Abbas Rizvi and several others have strongly condemned attack on Taslima Nasreen.
The book which was being released in Hyderabad had nothing to do with Islam. It was Telugu translation of her book on persecution of Hindu minority in Bangla Desh. After demolition of Babri Masjid like hooligans of Hindutva attacked Muslims all over India and engineered communal violence in number of cities and killed Muslims, the hooligans of Jamat-e-Islami of Bangla Desh attacked Hindus and demolished their temples and set fire to their houses. In Lajja (shame) she has condemned all this. Do we Muslims not heave sigh of relief when some fair-minded Hindus stand by Muslims when Hindu communal forces attack us? Should we not stand by fair-minded Muslims of Bangla Desh if they stand by Hindu minority?
It is true Taslima has written provocative articles on Islam. We must counter it by arguing on the basis of Qur'an rather than attacking her physically, and in very dignified language befitting a true Muslim. No one can cite a single verse of Qur'an or any hadith to support violence against others, even enemies, as long as they are peaceful. On the other hand we can cite several verses from the Qur'an, to support dignified behaviour.
The Qur'an says, " Call to the way of thy Lord with wisdom and goodly exhortation, and argue with them in the best manner" (16:125). Again what a contrast –the hooligans of Ittihadul Muslimin beat up a woman and other journalists and others present there. Also, Allah says in the Qur'an "..do not be aggressors, Allah does not love aggressors." (2:190). And even if a Muslim renounces Islam and becomes unbeliever, no one has right to punish him/her except Allah.
"Those who believe", says Qur'an, "then disbelieve, again believe and again disbelieve, then increase in disbelief, Allah is not referring to any punishment for those who repeatedly believe and disbelieve and increase in disbelief, let alone human beings punishing them of their own. Even if Taslima has ceased to believe and has increased in her disbelief, no one has any right among human beings to punish her. It is matter of her conscience. All one can do is to dialogue with her in dignified way and then leave it to her conscience
II
Democracies in socially backward countries like India face an acute dilemma. The entire functioning of democracy depends on rights of people and freedom of conscience and right to believe or disbelieve. Both individual and collective rights are sacred in democracy. However, politicians greedy for votes of illiterate masses, and even educated middle class people, try to incite religious feelings and get their votes. Most of the politicians find this easy way to legislative assemblies or Parliament. They emerge as champions of this or that religion and grab their votes.
This is what the Sangh Parivar did by launching an aggressive movement for Ramjanambhoomi and demolished Babri Masjid and took pride in that act of lawlessness and destruction. The Sangh leaders launched not only aggressive campaign but Sangh leaders like Uma Bharti and Sadhvi Rithambara used abusive language against Muslims and the Government did nothing. They allowed hate campaign to go on.
If the authorities had taken stiff action against Uma Bharti and Rithambara, it would have sent a strong signal to all others that they cannot get away with such aggressive campaigns against all norms of democracy. Democracy cannot succeed without following rule of law. If Uma Bharti and Rithambara had been punished, MLAs of Ittihadul Muslimin would not have dared to indulge in this hooliganism.
However, as the Swedish scholar who wrote Asian Drama observed India's is the soft government and refuses to act until all damage is done. Taslima Nasreen's attackers also got away with symbolic arrest and were released on bail immediately thereafter. It speaks volumes about our indifferent approach and also fear of votes.
So many communal riots take place because no guilty in the riots is ever punished. All of them know this and have nothing to care for consequences. And riots keep on taking place. Mumbai riots more than 800 persons were killed, many of them most brutally, and yet state is extremely reluctant to act lest Shiv Sena may not approve of it. Can this ever be the reason for not acting at all for a democratic government?
This is indeed bad omen for Indian democracy. The people involved in such public crimes must be severely punished to send strong message that hooliganism will not be tolerated in any case. Rule of law must be applied under any circumstances. Politicians should not be allowed to incite people publicly to indulge in mayhem and murder. This is repeatedly happening in our democracy.
It is heartening sign that many religious personalities among Muslims and secular intellectuals among them have come out strongly condemning this attack on Taslima Nasreen. Still many columnists, even waiting for a day started demanding where are those Muslims and secularists who immediately condemn Hindutvawadis but keep quiet when some Muslim fanatics indulge in such extremist action. Many such columnists will come out with many such articles and further aggravate feelings in majority community.
We are not a mature democracy and should come out against any act of hooliganism and violence whosoever perpetrates it, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs or Christians. We must promote zero tolerance towards any act of violence. It should be our litmus test. If we want to enjoy fruits of secular democracy we must shed all forms of partisan feelings. Politicisation of religion in our democracy has already done enough damage. How much more damage we want to inflict?
Is any one listening?
By Asghar Ali Engineer
The party leadership instead of condemning such wayward behaviour, approved of it and patted them on back. They were even given hero's welcome. One MLA even said that if Taslima comes to Hyderabad again, she will be beheaded. If elected representatives take law into their own hands, there cannot be greater tragedy. If they had done it without invoking Islam, it would have been a different story, though equally condemnable.
Was this for love of Islam? No way. It was love of power, pure and simple. The Party leadership thought it is good opportunity to strengthen and widen its electoral base. Human behaviour, especially political behaviour is extremely complex. Politicians, while acting in self-interest, invoke high ideals in order to cover up their utterly selfish motives.
Someone Imam even declared from Calcutta that he would pay Rs.50,000/- if anyone blackens Taslima's face. An Imam is supposed to be very respectable and responsible person who leads people in namaz (prayer) but also leads them in social and political matters. An Imam's behaviour should be highly restrained and responsible. I totally disagree with Taslima's views and think she is completely ignorant about Qur'anic teachings but that does not give anyone right to violently attack her or incite people to attack her.
Apart from the fact that such hooliganism is morally reprehensible it is unwise from the viewpoint of those who are opposed to Taslima's attacks on Islam.This gives her much more publicity that she deserves. Now this attack that took place in Hyderabad will give her worldwide publicity on one hand, and would make her celebrity in the eyes of those who are already hostile to Islam. Now reams and reams of papers will be blackened in her praise.
She would also be now much more hostile to Islam than ever before. She would really hate Islam because of hooliganism of some members of Ittihadul Muslimin. If we really love Islam than we should try to win her heart and soul through love and compassion. And that is what the Prophet of Islam did. It is well known story that a Jewish woman who hated the Prophet (PBUH) used to throw garbage on him whenever he passed from below her house. Once when she did not throw garbage on him, he inquired why she did not and was told she is sick. He immediately went to inquire about her health. She was so moved that immediately accepted Islam then and there.
What a contrast! Those who claim to love Prophet and Islam are attacking a woman and making her hate Islam more than before. This is madness, not wise behaviour and must be condemned as strongly as possible. These MLAs and crowd accompanied them have brought utter shame to Islam and Muslims. It is heartening that many religious leaders of Muslims and intellectuals have condemned it. Maulana Mustaqim of Jamiat –ul-Ulama-i-Hind, Shiah leader Maulana Ather Abbas Rizvi and several others have strongly condemned attack on Taslima Nasreen.
The book which was being released in Hyderabad had nothing to do with Islam. It was Telugu translation of her book on persecution of Hindu minority in Bangla Desh. After demolition of Babri Masjid like hooligans of Hindutva attacked Muslims all over India and engineered communal violence in number of cities and killed Muslims, the hooligans of Jamat-e-Islami of Bangla Desh attacked Hindus and demolished their temples and set fire to their houses. In Lajja (shame) she has condemned all this. Do we Muslims not heave sigh of relief when some fair-minded Hindus stand by Muslims when Hindu communal forces attack us? Should we not stand by fair-minded Muslims of Bangla Desh if they stand by Hindu minority?
It is true Taslima has written provocative articles on Islam. We must counter it by arguing on the basis of Qur'an rather than attacking her physically, and in very dignified language befitting a true Muslim. No one can cite a single verse of Qur'an or any hadith to support violence against others, even enemies, as long as they are peaceful. On the other hand we can cite several verses from the Qur'an, to support dignified behaviour.
The Qur'an says, " Call to the way of thy Lord with wisdom and goodly exhortation, and argue with them in the best manner" (16:125). Again what a contrast –the hooligans of Ittihadul Muslimin beat up a woman and other journalists and others present there. Also, Allah says in the Qur'an "..do not be aggressors, Allah does not love aggressors." (2:190). And even if a Muslim renounces Islam and becomes unbeliever, no one has right to punish him/her except Allah.
"Those who believe", says Qur'an, "then disbelieve, again believe and again disbelieve, then increase in disbelief, Allah is not referring to any punishment for those who repeatedly believe and disbelieve and increase in disbelief, let alone human beings punishing them of their own. Even if Taslima has ceased to believe and has increased in her disbelief, no one has any right among human beings to punish her. It is matter of her conscience. All one can do is to dialogue with her in dignified way and then leave it to her conscience
II
Democracies in socially backward countries like India face an acute dilemma. The entire functioning of democracy depends on rights of people and freedom of conscience and right to believe or disbelieve. Both individual and collective rights are sacred in democracy. However, politicians greedy for votes of illiterate masses, and even educated middle class people, try to incite religious feelings and get their votes. Most of the politicians find this easy way to legislative assemblies or Parliament. They emerge as champions of this or that religion and grab their votes.
This is what the Sangh Parivar did by launching an aggressive movement for Ramjanambhoomi and demolished Babri Masjid and took pride in that act of lawlessness and destruction. The Sangh leaders launched not only aggressive campaign but Sangh leaders like Uma Bharti and Sadhvi Rithambara used abusive language against Muslims and the Government did nothing. They allowed hate campaign to go on.
If the authorities had taken stiff action against Uma Bharti and Rithambara, it would have sent a strong signal to all others that they cannot get away with such aggressive campaigns against all norms of democracy. Democracy cannot succeed without following rule of law. If Uma Bharti and Rithambara had been punished, MLAs of Ittihadul Muslimin would not have dared to indulge in this hooliganism.
However, as the Swedish scholar who wrote Asian Drama observed India's is the soft government and refuses to act until all damage is done. Taslima Nasreen's attackers also got away with symbolic arrest and were released on bail immediately thereafter. It speaks volumes about our indifferent approach and also fear of votes.
So many communal riots take place because no guilty in the riots is ever punished. All of them know this and have nothing to care for consequences. And riots keep on taking place. Mumbai riots more than 800 persons were killed, many of them most brutally, and yet state is extremely reluctant to act lest Shiv Sena may not approve of it. Can this ever be the reason for not acting at all for a democratic government?
This is indeed bad omen for Indian democracy. The people involved in such public crimes must be severely punished to send strong message that hooliganism will not be tolerated in any case. Rule of law must be applied under any circumstances. Politicians should not be allowed to incite people publicly to indulge in mayhem and murder. This is repeatedly happening in our democracy.
It is heartening sign that many religious personalities among Muslims and secular intellectuals among them have come out strongly condemning this attack on Taslima Nasreen. Still many columnists, even waiting for a day started demanding where are those Muslims and secularists who immediately condemn Hindutvawadis but keep quiet when some Muslim fanatics indulge in such extremist action. Many such columnists will come out with many such articles and further aggravate feelings in majority community.
We are not a mature democracy and should come out against any act of hooliganism and violence whosoever perpetrates it, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs or Christians. We must promote zero tolerance towards any act of violence. It should be our litmus test. If we want to enjoy fruits of secular democracy we must shed all forms of partisan feelings. Politicisation of religion in our democracy has already done enough damage. How much more damage we want to inflict?
Is any one listening?
By Asghar Ali Engineer
Wednesday, 25 July 2007
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.
---
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.
---
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.”
---
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?
---
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
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.
---
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.
---
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.”
---
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?
---
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
Tuesday, 5 June 2007
Connect The Dots Of Those Who Are Connected
Start connecting the dots at the very beginning.
On the 27th of February 1933, the Reichstag (German parliament) caught fire. Hitler described the fire as a "beacon from heaven". History shows that it removed many obstacles to the Nazi power grab and led directly to the rise of Hitler and the brutal killing spree that followed. Communists were blamed, and many were rounded up and imprisoned, but evidence shows the Nazi’s were responsible for the fire. "You are now witnessing the beginning of a great epoch in German history...This fire is the beginning," Hitler told a news reporter at the scene. What followed was death, destruction, and horror. The Bush family is all too well acquainted with that part of history as Prescott Bush (GW’s grandfather) was instrumental in bringing Hitler to power. One former US Nazi war crimes prosecutor insisted that Prescott Bush should have been prosecuted for, "giving aid and comfort to the enemy."
(I can not believe that the Republican Party of Connecticut still has the annual Prescott Bush honor dinner.)
Shortly after George Bush was inaugurated on January 20, 2001, the US stock market seemed to be crumbling. The 171.32-point drop on August 30, 2001 left the Dow down more than 500 points for that week alone. Markets the world over caught the jitters and showed signs of crashing. Close to $5 trillion in paper wealth was wiped out. Personal debt, caused by credit card and ballooning mortgages was rising by an average of 8.2% a month. Thousands of workers were being laid off. Americans were unhappy. They did not feel that they had elected GW Bush, but that the election was stolen and Bush was appointed by a stacked Supreme Court. He had no mandate from the people. There was an American mind lock and a yawning void waiting to be filled by a political explosion. The explosion came on September 11, 2001.
There were people who knew a way to save Bush and the empire. Names jump at you. Larry Silverstien. Rupert Murdoch, Frank Lowy, Lewis Eisenberg, among others.
There is nothing really new here. It has all been written about before, but facts are piling up and now that the big payoff has occurred on May 24,2007 and the money trail becomes more visible, it all must be brought before the world again, and again and again. We must not allow 9/11/01 to simply pass into history. Those who suffered the unspeakable crimes that followed scream for justice.
As the reign of the Bush family comes to an end and the empire shudders and shakes, perhaps a new Nuremberg Tribunal will mete out punishment for those responsible for the tens of thousands who died and the suffering of millions of others as a result of that awful Tuesday 9/11/01.
The deadly dust had not yet settled when the drums of war began to beat. Murdoch’s pro Israel New York paper, (New York Post, 9/12/01) headlined "Kill THE BASTARDS. An editorial stated, "The response to this unimaginable 21st-century Pearl Harbor should be as simple as it is swift-- kill the bastards. A gunshot between the eyes, blow them to smithereens, poison them if you have to. As for cities or countries that host these worms, bomb them into basketball courts."
That kind of inciting gutter, journalism was poured into the eyes and ears of people the world over via the Murdoch Media Empire and there was no letup for years. The Muslim community was astounded by the hate of Fox news and other Murdoch outlets. Murdoch’s unabashed support of Bush and his own devotion to Israel made him a well-known figure to those who took control of the World Trade Center shortly before its destruction.
Larry Silverstein and Frank Lowy, who leased the WTC property six weeks before 9/11, insisted on the unusual insurance coverage under Terrorist acts, added to the contract. Port Authority Chairman Lewis M. Eisenberg approved the transfer of the leases. One has to wonder how that all came down.
On March 19.2001, Lewis M. Eisenberg released this statement, " re: Net Lease of World Trade Center.
"In connection with the net lease of the World Trade Center, on February 22, 2001, the Port Authority entered into an exclusive negotiating period with Vornado Realty Trust. During this period, Port Authority staff and its advisors, JP Morgan, Cushman & Wakefield and Milstein Brothers Realty Advisors have worked with representatives of Vornado to complete the contract and associated transactional documents.
In view of the lack of a final agreement at this time, the Port Authority's Board of Commissioners has instructed staff and our advisors to engage in exclusive negotiations with Silverstein Properties and Westfield America to conclude a 99-year net lease transaction."
In February of 2002 Silverstein Properties were granted a $861 million settlement from Industrial Risk Insurers to rebuild on the site of WTC 7. Silverstein Properties investment in WTC 7 was approximately $386 million. Silverstein Properties gained almost half a billion. More litigation was to follow.
It is well known that Murdoch, Silverstein and Eisenberg were members and supporters of many right wing Zionist organizations. It is also well known that Ariel Sharon, the man responsible for the massacre at Sabra and Shatila, and Murdoch were friends and Sharon looked to Murdoch for support. Murdoch was also a friend and supporter of Benjamin Netanyahu who said on the day of the 9-11 attacks, "It's very good (for American and Israeli relations)…Well, it's not good, but it will generate immediate sympathy (for Israel)."
As soon as I heard about the Mossad agents being present and taking pictures across from the twin towers on 9/11/01 I immediately thought of The Lavon affair in 1954. The Israeli secret service set up a spy ring in Egypt with the purpose of blowing up US and British targets. The operation was code-named "Susanah." The terrorist hits were to be blamed on the regime of Egyptian President Gamal Abdul Nasser, with the purpose of alienating the US and Britain from Egypt and Nasser. A bomb exploded prematurely and the ring was discovered. Israel denied knowledge and kept the information from its own citizens until the secret could be kept no longer.
On 9/11/01 police received several calls from angry New Jersey residents claiming "middle-eastern" men with a white van were videotaping the disaster with shouts of joy and mockery. The men in the white van were stopped and arrested in East Rutherford NJ.
On 9/12/01, The New York Times reported that a group of five men had set up video cameras aimed at the Twin Towers prior to the attack on Tuesday, and were seen congratulating one another afterwards. The Jewish weekly The Forward reported that the FBI finally concluded that at least two of the detained Israelis were agents working for the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, and that Urban Moving Systems, the ostensible employer of the five Israelis, was a front operation. Two former CIA officers confirmed this, and they noted that movers' vans are a common intelligence cover. The Israelis were held in custody for 71 days before being quietly released. If by their own admission, "they were there to document the event" does that not mean, to any intelligent person, that they knew in advance what was going to happen?
After 9/11 on a PBS documentary Silverstien admitted that he made the decision to have the building WTC 7 "pulled." meaning he planned to have it taken down well before the disaster. Not Silverstein himself or his daughter who normally would be in the building were present on 9/11/01.
On May 24, 2007 an AP story stated, "The builders of the World Trade Center site and seven insurers have reached a $2 billion settlement that ends all outstanding legal battles over its multibillion-dollar policy, state officials said Wednesday."
Gov. Eliot Spitzer and state Insurance Superintendent Eric Dinallo announced the settlement after leading two months of talks with the insurers, trade center developer Larry Silverstein and the site's owner, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
The $2 billion, added to $2.55 billion already paid out since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that destroyed the trade center, is about $130 million less than the amount awarded to rebuild the site after the trial in 2004.
So those connected all got what they wanted. Silverstein got his money. He will rebuild and hold a 99-year lease. Murdoch sold a lot of papers and got the hate Palestinians propaganda into high gear. The Israelis got millions more of American taxpayers dollars and as Benjamin Netanyahu said, "a lot of sympathy".
Bush became the ‘war’ President and The Commander in Chief.
No one except a seemingly deranged man (Zacarias Moussaoui) went to jail.
Tens of thousands have died in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the oil barons are running amuck. Murdoch’s media still controls the minds of millions of people. Realists are wondering are the people going to allow the 9/11 commission report to stand? Should we not be demanding a new investigation? Do we not owe that to the children of Iraq and the millions of other suffering people including Americans?
By David Truskoff
www.erols.com/suttonbear
On the 27th of February 1933, the Reichstag (German parliament) caught fire. Hitler described the fire as a "beacon from heaven". History shows that it removed many obstacles to the Nazi power grab and led directly to the rise of Hitler and the brutal killing spree that followed. Communists were blamed, and many were rounded up and imprisoned, but evidence shows the Nazi’s were responsible for the fire. "You are now witnessing the beginning of a great epoch in German history...This fire is the beginning," Hitler told a news reporter at the scene. What followed was death, destruction, and horror. The Bush family is all too well acquainted with that part of history as Prescott Bush (GW’s grandfather) was instrumental in bringing Hitler to power. One former US Nazi war crimes prosecutor insisted that Prescott Bush should have been prosecuted for, "giving aid and comfort to the enemy."
(I can not believe that the Republican Party of Connecticut still has the annual Prescott Bush honor dinner.)
Shortly after George Bush was inaugurated on January 20, 2001, the US stock market seemed to be crumbling. The 171.32-point drop on August 30, 2001 left the Dow down more than 500 points for that week alone. Markets the world over caught the jitters and showed signs of crashing. Close to $5 trillion in paper wealth was wiped out. Personal debt, caused by credit card and ballooning mortgages was rising by an average of 8.2% a month. Thousands of workers were being laid off. Americans were unhappy. They did not feel that they had elected GW Bush, but that the election was stolen and Bush was appointed by a stacked Supreme Court. He had no mandate from the people. There was an American mind lock and a yawning void waiting to be filled by a political explosion. The explosion came on September 11, 2001.
There were people who knew a way to save Bush and the empire. Names jump at you. Larry Silverstien. Rupert Murdoch, Frank Lowy, Lewis Eisenberg, among others.
There is nothing really new here. It has all been written about before, but facts are piling up and now that the big payoff has occurred on May 24,2007 and the money trail becomes more visible, it all must be brought before the world again, and again and again. We must not allow 9/11/01 to simply pass into history. Those who suffered the unspeakable crimes that followed scream for justice.
As the reign of the Bush family comes to an end and the empire shudders and shakes, perhaps a new Nuremberg Tribunal will mete out punishment for those responsible for the tens of thousands who died and the suffering of millions of others as a result of that awful Tuesday 9/11/01.
The deadly dust had not yet settled when the drums of war began to beat. Murdoch’s pro Israel New York paper, (New York Post, 9/12/01) headlined "Kill THE BASTARDS. An editorial stated, "The response to this unimaginable 21st-century Pearl Harbor should be as simple as it is swift-- kill the bastards. A gunshot between the eyes, blow them to smithereens, poison them if you have to. As for cities or countries that host these worms, bomb them into basketball courts."
That kind of inciting gutter, journalism was poured into the eyes and ears of people the world over via the Murdoch Media Empire and there was no letup for years. The Muslim community was astounded by the hate of Fox news and other Murdoch outlets. Murdoch’s unabashed support of Bush and his own devotion to Israel made him a well-known figure to those who took control of the World Trade Center shortly before its destruction.
Larry Silverstein and Frank Lowy, who leased the WTC property six weeks before 9/11, insisted on the unusual insurance coverage under Terrorist acts, added to the contract. Port Authority Chairman Lewis M. Eisenberg approved the transfer of the leases. One has to wonder how that all came down.
On March 19.2001, Lewis M. Eisenberg released this statement, " re: Net Lease of World Trade Center.
"In connection with the net lease of the World Trade Center, on February 22, 2001, the Port Authority entered into an exclusive negotiating period with Vornado Realty Trust. During this period, Port Authority staff and its advisors, JP Morgan, Cushman & Wakefield and Milstein Brothers Realty Advisors have worked with representatives of Vornado to complete the contract and associated transactional documents.
In view of the lack of a final agreement at this time, the Port Authority's Board of Commissioners has instructed staff and our advisors to engage in exclusive negotiations with Silverstein Properties and Westfield America to conclude a 99-year net lease transaction."
In February of 2002 Silverstein Properties were granted a $861 million settlement from Industrial Risk Insurers to rebuild on the site of WTC 7. Silverstein Properties investment in WTC 7 was approximately $386 million. Silverstein Properties gained almost half a billion. More litigation was to follow.
It is well known that Murdoch, Silverstein and Eisenberg were members and supporters of many right wing Zionist organizations. It is also well known that Ariel Sharon, the man responsible for the massacre at Sabra and Shatila, and Murdoch were friends and Sharon looked to Murdoch for support. Murdoch was also a friend and supporter of Benjamin Netanyahu who said on the day of the 9-11 attacks, "It's very good (for American and Israeli relations)…Well, it's not good, but it will generate immediate sympathy (for Israel)."
As soon as I heard about the Mossad agents being present and taking pictures across from the twin towers on 9/11/01 I immediately thought of The Lavon affair in 1954. The Israeli secret service set up a spy ring in Egypt with the purpose of blowing up US and British targets. The operation was code-named "Susanah." The terrorist hits were to be blamed on the regime of Egyptian President Gamal Abdul Nasser, with the purpose of alienating the US and Britain from Egypt and Nasser. A bomb exploded prematurely and the ring was discovered. Israel denied knowledge and kept the information from its own citizens until the secret could be kept no longer.
On 9/11/01 police received several calls from angry New Jersey residents claiming "middle-eastern" men with a white van were videotaping the disaster with shouts of joy and mockery. The men in the white van were stopped and arrested in East Rutherford NJ.
On 9/12/01, The New York Times reported that a group of five men had set up video cameras aimed at the Twin Towers prior to the attack on Tuesday, and were seen congratulating one another afterwards. The Jewish weekly The Forward reported that the FBI finally concluded that at least two of the detained Israelis were agents working for the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, and that Urban Moving Systems, the ostensible employer of the five Israelis, was a front operation. Two former CIA officers confirmed this, and they noted that movers' vans are a common intelligence cover. The Israelis were held in custody for 71 days before being quietly released. If by their own admission, "they were there to document the event" does that not mean, to any intelligent person, that they knew in advance what was going to happen?
After 9/11 on a PBS documentary Silverstien admitted that he made the decision to have the building WTC 7 "pulled." meaning he planned to have it taken down well before the disaster. Not Silverstein himself or his daughter who normally would be in the building were present on 9/11/01.
On May 24, 2007 an AP story stated, "The builders of the World Trade Center site and seven insurers have reached a $2 billion settlement that ends all outstanding legal battles over its multibillion-dollar policy, state officials said Wednesday."
Gov. Eliot Spitzer and state Insurance Superintendent Eric Dinallo announced the settlement after leading two months of talks with the insurers, trade center developer Larry Silverstein and the site's owner, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
The $2 billion, added to $2.55 billion already paid out since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that destroyed the trade center, is about $130 million less than the amount awarded to rebuild the site after the trial in 2004.
So those connected all got what they wanted. Silverstein got his money. He will rebuild and hold a 99-year lease. Murdoch sold a lot of papers and got the hate Palestinians propaganda into high gear. The Israelis got millions more of American taxpayers dollars and as Benjamin Netanyahu said, "a lot of sympathy".
Bush became the ‘war’ President and The Commander in Chief.
No one except a seemingly deranged man (Zacarias Moussaoui) went to jail.
Tens of thousands have died in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the oil barons are running amuck. Murdoch’s media still controls the minds of millions of people. Realists are wondering are the people going to allow the 9/11 commission report to stand? Should we not be demanding a new investigation? Do we not owe that to the children of Iraq and the millions of other suffering people including Americans?
By David Truskoff
www.erols.com/suttonbear
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