Posted by By Sajeda Haider in Kolkata: from The Muslim News on April 21, 19102 at 01:44:29:
The dance of death that took place in the Gujarat, a state in western India at the end of February and early March, leaving about 1,000 people dead was anything but religious rioting, as described by most, but an anti-Muslim pogrom (organised massacre).
Rioting between two groups conveys images of mobs of equally strong opposition parties coming out on to the streets spontaneously and engaging in a pitched battle. What happened in the cities and villages of Gujarat did not resemble this in any way. Instead it was organised mobs of youths, mostly belonging to the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council) and its affiliates, carefully picking out Muslim homes and businesses, murdering their inhabitants and looting and burning the premises. They did not even spare women and children. The aim was to pulverise the weaker opponent (Muslims) physically, economically and emotionally. The pogrom had the tacit consent of both the state BJP Government and the Central BJP-led Government which stood by and did nothing to stop the carnage.
In one week 670 Muslims were killed across the state according to official figures, the unofficial toll is well over a thousand as many of the cases in smaller towns and villages were not even reported, and millions of rupees worth of property damaged. At least 150 Muslim owned hotels and restaurants, 120 in Ahmedabad alone, were burnt down. Hundreds of shops, houses and even blocks of apartments owned by, or inhabited by Muslims were simply doused with petrol and set on fire, while the neighbouring Hindu premises went unscathed.
The frenzy of violence started on February 27, when a carriage of the Sabarmati Express carrying Hindu karsevaks (militant activists) was burnt at Godhra Station killing 58 people. The karsevaks were returning from the temple town of Ayodhya in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh (UP), where the VHP is carrying out a political agitation in favour of building a huge Ram temple on the site where the Babri Mosque stood till 1992 when it was torn down brick by brick by thousands of karsevaks. This round of the agitation was timed to coincide with the state elections in UP, hoping to help the BJP return to power. But the BJP lost in UP, coming in third and frustrating their cadre-based supporters.
The allegation was that a 2,000 strong mob of Muslims attacked the train carriage and burnt it with the 58 passengers still inside. There has been little or no evidence to prove that those who burnt the carriage were indeed Muslims. Instead eyewitnesses have said that some karsevaks had got into a fight with stall owners at Godhra station when they stole and snatched food and other items from the various stalls and refused to pay. The fight led to the burning of the carriage.
Instead of finding those really responsible for the heinous crime, the VHP used the incident as an excuse to murder innocent Muslims throughout the state. By the evening of 27th reprisal attacks against Muslims in Godhra had already begun with shops being looted and burnt. On the 27th the VHP announced a bandh (strike) for the following day, and the ruling BJP gave their support signalling the go ahead to the VHP storm troopers to take action.
The next few days saw some of the worst examples of barbaric violence Gujarat has witnessed since the partition of India. Mobs took to the streets murdering, looting, pillaging and burning anything that was remotely Muslim. Ahmedabad, the commercial capital of Gujarat, was one of the worst cities to be affected. Muslim owned shops, restaurants, business, houses and even blocks of apartments were systematically sought out, looted and burnt. If humans got in their path then they too were treated like their belongings and burnt alive.
Desperate pleas of help to the police fell on deaf ears. According to reports in the Indian newspapers the Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, a hardcore member of the RSS/VHP who was instrumental in the BJP’s Ayodhya movement, had given the VHP cadre 24 hours to wreak havoc on the Muslim community, and told the police that they were not to answer any calls. The reports are given credence when the police simply stood by and watched as the Muslims pleaded for their lives and in some instances the police actively participated in the pogrom. The Police Commissioner P C Pande of Ahmedabad justified the police’s partisan inaction with “if something is happening in society you cannot expect the police to remain indifferent to it”.
But the violence continued even beyond the 24 hours, and for three days both the State Government and the Federal Government at the Centre watched as Muslims continued to be massacred before sending the army in. The Gujarat Government’s tacit consent of the violence went one step further when eyewitnesses said they could recognise ministers leading mobs as they attacked Muslims.
The violence consumed both the rich and the poor alike. Even influential Muslims were not spared. Ehsan Jafri, a former member of the Indian Parliament was dragged out of his house with other members of his family and burnt alive. “He made more than 200 frantic calls to police, bureaucrats and politicians whom he knew so well. He banked upon them to save the life of 90 to 100 persons gathered at our residence from the neighbourhood thinking they would be safe with us. But no one helped,” recalls his widow Zakia Nasim Jafri, who is now staying with her relatives.
Ehsan Jafri was the epitome of secularism. He had joined the Congress Party when he was in his teens and was first elected to Parliament in 1977. He had built the Gulmarg Housing Society where Hindus and Muslims lived together as a symbol to his enduring faith in Indian secularism. He was burnt alive in the very colony he so lovingly created.
Even the most influential Muslims like judges, both sitting and retired, and senior police officers, had to run for cover from the marauders. Justice M H Kadri, a sitting judge of the Gujarat High Court had to flee his home when his calls for more armed guards to both the Director General of Police (the top police officer in the state) and the Additional Chief Secretary (home) were ignored. Another respected judge of the city, Justice Akbar N Divecha was also rendered homeless when his home in Kazmi apartments in the heart of the city was attacked and burnt down. Justice Divecha managed to escape just in the nick of time.
A I Saiyed, Special Inspector General of Police and one of the senior most officers in the state was saved by the presence of mind of his driver. He was doing his duty and driving around the city in full uniform, thinking that was protection enough when his car was stopped by a mob. The hoodlums spotted his nametag and turned on him, but his driver and bodyguard quickly bundled him back into his vehicle and sped away. If a police officer in uniform was not safe during the carnage then what hope did ordinary Muslims have?
The modus operandi of the Gujarat pogrom follows similar massacres that took place in Bombay in 1992, just after the demolition of the Babri Mosque. Then too, gangs of Shiv Sena and VHP cadre had gone from one area to another burning down Muslim homes and businesses. In one incident, Indian cricketer Sunil Gavaskar had to come out on to the street to stop mobs from attacking Muslim homes in his block of apartments. 3,000 people were killed during the 1992 riots.
That the massacres were premeditated was admitted to by Kaushik Mehta, a joint General Secretary of the VHP in Gujarat when talking to the Indian newspaper The Telegraph.
“It was decided there should be a model for reprisals. It was important to teach a lesson that could be emulated…,” said Mehta. When asked if violence would not beget violence, he replied: “We hope not. We hope that after what has happened, a lesson will have been learnt.”