By Syed Hassan Kazim,
Sometimes in one’s life there comes an event when he is shattered from within by seeing the agony of his fellow human beings and the feeling becomes sinking when he comes to know about the fact that the authorities and the people in charge of the well being of the people intentionally looked other way when they were supposed to do whatever could have been possible in their capacity to bring the damage level to the minimum.
Exactly a decade ago on 27th of February 2002, the year when I was planning to move out of my hometown in Bihar to Delhi, to study further (though I arrived in the capital 3 years after that), I suddenly got a news that a train bogey full of Kar Savaks returning from Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh in Sabarmati Express was burnt down at the Godhra railway station of Gujarat. Near about 58 people were killed in that highly condemnable act of arsoning and the blame was automatically put on the Muslims of Godhra (still the matter is sub-judice and there are various versions). But still the inhuman act of burning a train and killing innocents can never be justified, no matter who did it. It was the duty of the state and security agencies to knock them down and stop the further spreading of the inferno.
At that time, Narender Bhai Modi, who till a few years ago was a small time RSS pracharak and the spokesperson of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the party heading the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), ruling at the centre, was the CM of the state of Gandhi. He was the person at the helm of affairs and it was his constitutional duty to control the situation from getting bad to worse. But he gave a statement which was very much like the statement of Rajiv Gandhi during the anti-Sikh riots of Delhi in 1984 (When a big tree falls the earth is supposed to shake), by saying that according to Newton ‘there is always an equal and opposite reaction to every action’. That particular statement of Mr. Modi was in itself a signal to the anti-social elements to vent their anger against a particular community by killing innocents who were in no way involved in burning of the train.
Some of the events cast a horrific effect on a person’s life and Gujarat massacre did the same with me. My heart cries for the ones killed in the burning train and the ones who were killed after that while the state machinery under a powerful CM who kept on seeing the other way while for at least three days nearly each and every city of Gujarat had become a battle field in which women were raped (The leading light of socialist movement, George Fernandez, the then Defense Minister of India went to the extent of taking the violence against minority women in the stride by saying that rape is nothing new and it happens in such situations), children were killed, old men were butchered in the most brutal way they could have been. Houses were burnt while the police kept on stopping the people from escaping their burning houses.
In my home town of Muzaffarpur in Bihar which had never seen a communal violence ever, the situation was very tense. Since the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992, 2002 was the first time that Hindus and Muslims were not able to see into the eyes of each other. The same day I met a very good friend of mine, we talked about everything under the sky but not a single word was said about Gujarat and the atmosphere of communalism which was covering the whole nation. Not even a single time during our discussion we saw directly into the eyes of each other. There was something in us which was stopping us to be honest towards each other. That something was the sense of being lost somewhere in the air of communalism. The moronic figure of Modi had engulfed the whole nation. My friend just said, ‘Bhagwan hi is desh ka bhala kare’. And yes at that time of fear it was God only towards which a person could have turned. And still many a victims of that state sponsored riot are putting their hopes at the God’s door only because of being dejected from the state and the justice delivery system. After having an ample of proof against him and his men Narender Modi is still ruling the state of Gandhi while thumping his chest without a single word of remorse and repentance about the way he handled the riot and massacre of the people from a particular community.
But there is always a ray of hope against hope for the victims and their near and dear ones which only make their resolution strong to fight in a peaceful way till their last. The best example has been the judgement in the Sardarpura massacre.
Mrs Zakia Jafri, the wife of the late Mr. Ehsan Jafri, an ex–MP from Congress has been the flag bearer of the movement to bring justice for the ones who are living to see the perpetrators of one of the worst crimes of the post-independence India brought to justice. Mr Ehsan Jafri was also killed in the infamous Gulberg Society massacre in which nearly 70 people who tried to take refuge in his house were burnt to death by the mob which was let loose by the state machinery to gain unholy political mileage.
Some people always say that then PM, the Secular Mukhauta of the BJP, in the words of Govindacharya was himself very much hurt and angry by the acts of Modi and his administration, but still he did nothing to make the CM of Gujarat realize that he has made himself party to a crime. Except his speech of Raj Dharma Vajpayee did nothing. May be he was under the pressure from the Jhandewalan and party high command but being a PM he could have taken a towering and nail biting decision which certainly could have made him an unchallengeable ‘’Man of peace’’ which his party men always keep on talking about him. May be he was a good statesman but he kept quite when his statesmanship was needed most. He failed the whole nation just out of love of a person who had committed a heinous crime of being a party to the worst state led massacre in the History of independent India. I am sorry to say that even Pakistan which is much demonised for treating its minorities in a bad way hasn’t seen such a type of state led assault on its minorities since its independence. Writing an article in the Times of India just after the Gujarat massacre, G Parthasarthy asked, ‘How can I chant Saare jahan se achcha Hindustan hamara’’. Cutting across the religious and caste lines, the majority of the Indians, the ones who always loved the diversity of this wonderful country were anguished and disappointed about the state led Gujarat pogrom. The question was always being asked, “How can a person who orchestrated such a large scale massacre become a ‘Hindu Hridya Samrat’” as propagated by the Sangh Parivar.
Then, in the year 2011, Mr. Modi started his fasts for the so called ‘Sadhbhawna’. How funny it looks when in a greed to acquire the political centre stage (7RCR), a mass murderer suddenly transforms into a man of ‘peace’ (pieces). ‘A master divider’ (Cover page title given to Narender Modi by India Today in its 2002 yearly issue by none other than Prabhu Chawla) started to talk about ‘unity’.
The Gujarat of Gandhi is being regarded as the Gujarat of Godse not only because of a single incidence of riot but also because of a person, the CM of the state who slept like Nero (in the words of the honorable Supreme Court) while the whole Gujarat kept on burning in the fire of communal hatred. Most of the people who talk about the so called development should know that what matters most is the irreparable cost of human life and not the large expenditure that may be required to make repairs. Any development means nothing for the ones who have lost their near and dear ones just because the state failed to do its constitutional duty of not discriminating its citizens on the basis of caste and religion. In the words of Martin Luther King Jr, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere’’.
My salute goes to the people like Zakia Jafri, IPS officers Sanjiv Bhatt, Rahul Sharma, artist Mallika Sarabhai and many other unknown Gujaratis and Indians who have always been challenging Narender Modi to come clean.
(The author is journalist on a sabbatical and doing his masters in Peace and Conflict from Nelson Mandela Centre for Peace and Conflict, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi)