By TCN Staff Correspondent
New Delhi: Human and civil rights activists and intellectuals expressed their concern at the amount of infiltration by the RSS and Hindutva elements in the machinery of the Gujarat government. The occasion was the day long convention, on “10 Years of Resistance,” marking the decade long struggle for justice by the Post-Godhra riot victims, organized in the national capital on Sunday.
The convention which was organized by ANHAD, Bhartiya Muslim Mahila Andolan, Janvikas and Siasat, saw the participation of 200 victims of the 2002 carnage along with political leaders, social activists, academics and other members of civil society.
“Gujarat was a laboratory for their ideology and they were successful. Karnataka is next. In fact they would have been a success there too if the corruption issue had not thrown them in the limelight,” said Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh while expressing concerns about the infiltration of the RSS into the judiciary, civil services and likened their ideology to Nazi Germany.
“When I first started talking about the Sangh outfits having bomb training, everybody called me a mad man but they have accepted that now. They have filed some defamation cases against me. I will give answers in court, not to those useless people,” Singh further added.
Former Chief Justice of India JS Verma emphasized on the “truth” of riots, saying unless the truth comes out, justice will not be done.
“People can forget and forgive the incident but the truth has to come out for reconciliation,” Verma said.
On this occasion, “Lest we forget,” a comprehensive book on the riots by P.G.J. Nampoothiri and Gagan Sethi was released along with “And miles to go,” an account of what the carnage, 10 years on, means to five Muslim Gujarati working women.
Speaking as a part of the panelist, Harsh Mander, the National Advisory Council member and the former IAS officer posted in Gujarat who resigned in the wake of post-Godhra riots talked about absence of any remorse and guilt on the part of the Gujarat government.
Mander said that instead of having remorse and a sense of guilt for what happened in 2002 with the minorities in the state, there is in fact a sense of arrogance and pride in the way Narendra Modi government was behaving and treating the Post-Godhra riot victims.
Sanjiv Bhatt, an IPS officer suspended by the Modi government after Bhatt “exposed”
Modi and testified against him for his alleged role in the riots, termed the period of 2002-2012 as “ten years of shame”.
He considered the riots and the aftermath as a complete failure of police, government and judiciary.
“It has been 10 years but I do not see any justice for these people. It is a matter of shame for the Gujarat police and the administration. The State is rushing towards fascism and any form of dissent is being crushed…the people in Gujarat have built a wall of silence where nobody speaks because they are too scared of the consequences,” Bhatt added.
The convention also saw the participation of the victims of the riots who narrated their fear and trauma during and after the riots and also about their struggle for justice.