May 24^th, 2002

 

          Headlines:

 

·       No repentance in Gujarat: Gill  (Times Of India)

·       When humanity won the communal battle  (Times Of India)

·       Army withdrawal: Minorities tense but supportive (Hindustan Times)

·       The missing are dead, Gujarat toll may go up  (Hindustan Times)

·       Normalcy propels refugees out of camps (Deccan Herald)

·       No mention of ISI in Godhra chargesheet  (Hindustan Times)

·       Chargesheet filed against 101 Godhra accused (Indian Express)

·       Eye-witnesses relive horror (Times Of India)

·       Wedding bells at Gujarat riot camps (Times Of India)

·       The Gujarat crime Modi referred to CBI: ‘malicious, misleading’ e-mail (Indian Express)

 

Opinion:

 

·       Gujarat’s Jobless: Idle Hands As Devil’s Workshop (By Darryl D’Monte, Times Of India)

·       Our capacity to care (By Harsh Mander, Hindustan Times)

·       Modi, India’s Milosevic (By Gulam k. Noon, Hindustan Times)

·       Farewell to Rajdharma: Centre’s Record of Shame in Gujarat (B.G.Verghese, Times Of India)

No repentance in Gujarat: Gill
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
[ WEDNESDAY, MAY 22, 2002 11:54:19 PM ]

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=10699885
 
Gandhinagar: Calling it a ‘Kalinga effect’, where a
remorseful Emperor Ashok became a messiah of peace
seeing the death and destruction caused by war,
supercop K.P.S. Gill regrets that he has not seen such
a trend in Gujarat after all the violence.

‘‘I do not see this happening here. Ordinarily, this
happens in society within 10 days. Even two and a half
months later, this is yet to begin,’’ he told
reporters here.

Gill said in bewilderment: ‘‘Generally, there is a
sense of repentance after violence. Unfortunately, I
do not find that here.’’

Gill ruled out any possibility of home-bred terrorists
emerging in Gujarat. ‘‘There may be attacks from
outside, but not within,’’ he said.


Even while asserting that the Central decision to
withdraw the armed forces from the state would not
adversely affect efforts to restore normalcy in
Gujarat, Gill said: ‘‘The wounds are still there, they
would need to be healed.’’ Gill claimed that communal
violence in Gujarat had already been contained. ‘‘One
cannot now roam about freely with a dagger in hand on
any Ahmedabad street,’’ he remarked.


Answering a question on whether he had come to Gujarat
under Article 355, providing for Central intervention
in specified areas, Gill preferred to be vague. He
said: ‘‘As an IPS officer, I had read the
Constitution. I will write about what it has meant to
me in my memoirs.’’ He, however, ruled out any
possibility of Article 356 (President’s rule) being
imposed. ‘‘Do you think it is needed any more?’’ he
asked.

With his policing job of stopping violence more or
less achieved, he now wishes to venture in creating
bridges among divided communities. ‘‘Peace is a
long-term goal. The role of the police cannot go
beyond controlling violence. Communities must come
together for that,’’ he said.

He brushed aside the suggestion that he is not an
expert in this, saying he had successfully brought
about communal amity in worse conditions during his
tenure in Assam.

Copyright © 2002 Times Internet Limited. All rights
reserved.

When humanity won the communal battle
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
[ THURSDAY, MAY 23, 2002 2:14:59 AM ]
Sachin Sharma

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=10709669

 
HALOL: Ten-year-old Mustufa still shudders with fear
as he remembers the night of March 1. He remained
huddled with his brother and four cousins at a farm in
Derol after losing his relatives and an angry mob hot
on their trail. It was during those anxious moments
that one of the kids cried out in hunger and thirst.
And, he thought it would spell their doom.

But, humanity won the battle that night when an
Adivasi woman heard the voice and picked up all the
six children, hungry and shivering with fear, and
provided them shelter and warmth. When many in
Panchmahals were on a killing spree this March, this
old Adivasi woman and her husband risked their lives
to save the kids.

Mustufa, his brother Siraj and four cousins had fled
their homes in Limkheda on March 1 morning after a mob
attacked their families. And, tragedy struck them and
a group of 20 people from his village once again when
they alighted from a train at Derol station. They were
attacked by a mob and Mustufa was on the run again
along with his brother and cousins.

Presently staying at a relief camp in Halol, these
children fondly remember Bhailakaka and his wife for
not just saving their lives but also the love and care
that the couple showered on them.

According to Mustufa, 10 of his relatives were killed
by the mob. "Nine of our family members escaped the
carnage. My uncle, aunt and cousin managed to survive,
but got lost amidst the confusion. We six children,
however, managed to stick together," he recalls.


"The couple was very caring and looked after all our
needs. Not even once did they make us feel that we
were outsiders. They treated us like guests," Mustufa
said. Along with Mustufa and Siraj, their cousins -
Ayub, Sikandar, Farzana and Mohsin - too found a
second home till the couple felt it was not safe
anymore for the kids to stay with them. The children,
aged between seven and 10 years, stayed with
Bhailakaka for a week. And, they provided them the
best of care - from food to milk to new clothes and "a
healing touch to the bruised minds".

Then Bhailakaka dressed them up as tribals and took
three brothers on his bicycle to Pandu, several
kilometres from Derol, to drop them at their
relative's house. The police was then informed and the
other three were escorted to Pandu later.

The only surviving sister of theirs, Rehana Kaderbhai,
has come forward to adopt the brothers. "I am the only
elder member of our family to survive and will take
care of the children from now on. I know it is going
to be difficult, but I shall manage," she says.

Copyright © 2002 Times Internet Limited. All rights
reserved.

Army withdrawal: Minorities tense but supportive
PTI

(Ahmedabad)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.hindustantimes.com/nonfram/230502

Leaders of the minority community here on Wednesday
appreciated the government's "compulsions" in
withdrawing army from violence-ravaged Gujarat, though
a large number of inmates and relief workers in
make-shift camps say the action could affect the
confidence of the people.
"Army withdrawal may not have any adverse effect ...It
is for local police to deliver the goods, " Maulvi
Shabir Siddiqqui, imam of the city's Jama Masjid,
said.

He said with the arrival of K P S Gill, security
advisor to the Chief Minister, "things have moved in
right direction and there hasd been no incident since
last one week".

©Hindustan Times Ltd. 1997.

The missing are dead, Gujarat toll may go up
Raveen Thukral
Hindustan Times,
(Ahmedabad, May 23)

http://www.hindustantimes.com/nonfram/240502/detNAT11.asp
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Gujarat government is considering upgrading the
official death toll in the recent communal riots. The
statewide toll is currently put at around 950.
More than 400 additional deaths may be declared in
Ahmedabad alone, said sources in the state's social
welfare and rehabilitation department. Three hundred
of these people were among the 850 reported missing
since the Godhra carnage of February 27. One hundred
and two unidentified bodies that are still lying in
morgues will be counted too, pushing up the toll in
the city to 830 from the present figure of 427.

The official number of deaths in police firing too, is
likely to go up, sources said. Of the present 427
people declared dead in Ahmedabad, 105 were killed by
the police. Seventy-five of these were Muslims. But
the real numbers - both of those killed by police, and
of those who were Muslims among them - are probably
likely to be far larger: major manipulations are
alleged to have been done at the stage of carrying out
autopsies on the bodies.

Commenting on the large number of deaths in police
action, a senior official said the policemen, in most
cases, had come between violently clashing mobs, and
had really had little option but to open fire.

The official, however, had no answer when asked how it
had been that policemen firing ostensibly in self
defence had managed to hit and kill more Muslims than
Hindus.

Throughout the rioting, victims and eyewitnesses had
alleged that the police had deliberately turned their
guns on Muslims.

Officials said that the government's decision to
declare additional deaths had been taken to facilitate
compensation and insurance payments to victim's
families. "Without declaration of their death, the
families would not even get insurance and other PF
payments from their personal accounts," said an
official. He added that similar methods had been
adopted during the devastating quake as well.

©Hindustan Times Ltd. 1997.

Normalcy propels refugees out of camps
AHMEDABAD, May 23 (PTI)
Deccan Herald

http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/may24/n5.htm
 
A large number of battered minority inmates have
started moving out of relief camps, with hardly any
incident of violence reported during the last one week
and normalcy returning fast in riot-hit Gujarat.
According to camp inmates and relief workers, the
confidence building measures taken by Chief Minister's
Security Advisor KPS Gill have brought in “sea change”
in policing and also given confidence to them.
“From a staggeringly high 7,600 number of inmates, the
figure during the last week has dropped to 3,602 in
Dariyakhan Ghummat camp,” Ataullah Pathan, camp
coordinator, told PTI.
“Gill's arrival and subsequent decisions like transfer
of erring officials have given minority people the
confidence that the Super Cop means business,” he
says.
During the last one week people have left for their
“old and new shelters” in Mahakali Mandir, Dharmi
Society, Devjipura, Kazi Mia Ke Chhapre and Mirwali
Chawli and in Shahibaugh and adjoining areas, he said.
“Bas ab toh jo biswas Gill ne jagaya hai, woh rahena
chahiye (The confidence Gill has created should
continue),” says Pathan.
Similar mood was evident even in Bakarshaka Roza camp
in Gomtipur, which faced the communal carnage during
the second phase of violence.
According to Lalabhai, coordinator of the Bakarshaka
Roza camp, “the process has begun to help inmates
shift to place they think are safer”.
“If they have confidence and there are one or two CRPF
units in the area that the minorities are moving, we
do not mind,” he says adding, a list will be prepared
within “two days” for those who move out of the camps.
Other voluntary agencies like the apex Gujarat
Sarvajanik Relief Committee, which has undertaken
relief and rehabilitation work on war footing, also
has now shifted priortities “more to rehabilitation
than relief works”.
Shakeel Ahmed, a senior member of the Committee, says
on the outskirts of Ahmedabad city, shelterless
minority people are “moving in large numbers to
Guptanagar area adjacent to minority-stronghold
Juhapura”.
“At least 400 families have moved in and we are also
giving priority to reconstruct the Guptanagar colony,”
he says adding, similar movement of people have been
reported from various camps in Sabarkantha and
Panchmahal districts and the now infamous Godhra town
also.
However, he says “there should not be any forced
movement of the inmates. If they do not have
confidence about security, they should not move out”.
Agrees Ataullah Khan Pathan of Dariyakhan Ghummat
relief camp. He alleged that in Mahakali Mandir area
“though 38 minority houses as against only three
others were burnt during the carnage, police have
launched a witchhunt against us and 17 cases filed
against minorities while no single majority community
arsonist has been charged”.
The general refrain of minority people is that they do
not have faith in state police.
Similar mood was found even among those who returned
to Saraspur area. Here, minority community leaders say
they were returning because of “BSF and other central
forces”.
In this context, Maulvi Shabir Sidiqqui, Imam of
city-based Jama Masjid, says “in fact, from the very
beginning our demand has been that CRPF, RAF and BSF
should be given free hand. We do not have any faith in
state police”.
Sidiqqui and other minority leaders say the role of
central forces have become “all the more important
because army has been withdrawn”.
In fact, some inmates in Dariyakhan camp proposing to
move out from the shelter have “postponed” their
decision by a day or two.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

© Copyright, 1999 The Printers (Mysore)Ltd.

No mention of ISI in Godhra chargesheet
Rathin Das
Hindustan Times,
(Gandhinagar, May 23)

 

http://www.hindustantimes.com/nonfram/240502/detNAT13.asp
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The chargesheet filed in the Sabarmati Express
torching case make no mention of the involvement of
Pakistan or the ISI. The Government Railway Police
(GRP) filed the chargesheet before first class
judicial magistrate P.C. Joshi at the Godhra railway
court on Wednesday evening.
On the absence of the "ISI angle" in the chargesheet,
an officer connected with the investigation said no
proof of a foreign hand could be immediately found.
"It (the ISI conspiracy theory) needs further
investigation."

Within hours of the gruesome murders of 58 kar sevaks
on board the Ahmedabad-bound Sabarmati Express on
February 27, several Sangh parivar leaders had accused
the ISI of hatching a terrorist plot.

The chargesheet has named 101 people, who have been
accused of arson, rioting, murder and conspiracy.
Fifty-four of these people are already in custody,
including former Godhra Municipality chief Mohammed
Hussain Kalota, and independent councillor Haji Bilal.
They were arrested in March following a joint
operation by the Anti-Terrorist Squad, Godhra district
police and GRP.

Forty-four accused are absconding. Three minors named
in the chargesheet were earlier released on bail.

In a related chargesheet, 11 people were accused of
throwing stones at the police near Godhra station on
February 27, a few hours after the torching of the
train. Ten of them are in custody; the eleventh, a
minor, is out on bail, GRP sources said.

©Hindustan Times Ltd. 1997.

Chargesheet filed against 101 Godhra accused
Express News Service

http://www.indian-express.com/full_story.php?content_id=3225

Ahmedabad, May 23: CID (Crime) on Wednesday evening
filed an interim chargesheet against 101 people for
Godhra’s Sabarmati Express attack, in which 58
passengers were burnt alive on February 27.

Another interim chargesheet was filed against 11
people for attacking the police after the incident.
Both chargesheets were filed at Godhra’s Railway
Court.

Contrary to initial theories of terrorist or ISI hand
— which many BJP leaders had propagated — the
chargesheet hints at a local conspiracy behind the
train attack. Former municipality chief Mohammad
Kalota and member Haji Bilal have been named the main
accused.

ADGP (CID-Crime) A.K. Bhargav said: ‘‘These are
interim chargesheets; investigations are still under
way. As the deadline of 90 days was about to get over,
we filed the chargesheets.’’

According to Special Public Prosecutor J.M. Panchal,
57 of the accused in the main case have been arrested
though 44 others are absconding. All 11 accused in the
attack on policemen have been arrested and booked for
criminal conspiracy to kill, murder, arson and
rioting, Panchal said.

According to the chargesheet, the accused attacked S-6
coach of Sabarmati Express on February 27 morning with
prior knowledge and planning and with the intention to
kill. It says the manner in which the coach was
attacked and set ablaze could not be done at short
notice; the accused had made prior preparations.

The attack on policemen at the railway station after
the coach was set on fire intended to harm them and
get the accused freed from police custody. The police
had opened fire, killing two.

An investigating police officer said the chargesheet
provides circumstantial and forensic evidence to
support the charge of conspiracy. He said the use of
over 100 litres of ‘‘petrol-like inflammable liquid’’
to burn the coach and the presence of a 2,000-strong
mob early in the morning point to a conspiracy.
According to him, the conspiracy was hatched to ‘‘give
a reply’’ to the alleged harassment of Muslims by kar
sevaks at the station and on the train.

The investigators recorded statements of the accused —
many of whom confessed their involvement in the crime
— and of about 200 witnesses, who included survivors,
he said.

Apart from Panchal, three more lawyers — S.G. Thakur,
J.G. Pathak and Bhaskar Trivedi — have been appointed
to assist the prosecution in the case.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1 main accused granted bail

AHMEDABAD: Before the chargesheets were filed, one of
the accused in the main case, Anwar Rashid Abdul
Rashid Ansari, was granted bail by the Railway Court
at Godhra on Tuesday. Ansari was set free on a
personal surety of Rs 25,000 after the investigating
agency failed to prove his prima facie involvement,
Special Public Prosecutor J.M. Panchal said.

Ansari was arrested from his UP village after a
statement by Hasib Raza, who was caught at the Howrah
railway station in a case under the Explosives Act and
lodged in Kanpur jail. Raza said that Ansari had on
February 27 called his (Raza’s) sister and told her
that ‘‘a happy incident’’ had occurred at Godhra, and
she should read the next day’s newspaper.

When Raza’s sister asked for the details, Ansari said
a train had been burnt in Godhra, Raza said in his
statement to the police. Based on this, the police
arrested Ansari on April 11 but failed to find any
evidence of his involvement. He was an active SIMI
member. When Ansari’s bail application came up for
hearing, Panchal said as there was no evidence to
connect the accused to the incident, he could be
granted bail, but on strict conditions.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

70,000 have gone home, claims Modi

AHMEDABAD: Gujarat CM Narendra Modi said on Thursday
that about 70,000 people in relief camps have left for
their homes after riots abated. Modi was speaking at a
seminar here. He said Rs 32 lakh was being spent on an
average daily on relief camps. The monetary assistance
for household kits to violence-hit families has been
revised to Rs 2,500 from Rs 1,250, an official release
said. According to Modi, all those who suffered,
including trade and industry, would be provided
economic support without discrimination.
(PTI)

© 2002: Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd. All
rights reserved throughout the world.

Eye-witnesses relive horror
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
[ THURSDAY, MAY 23, 2002 2:25:56 AM ]
Sourav Mukherjee

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=10710428
 
AHMEDABAD: An aged Jehana Bibi, relying heavily on her
walking stick, was the last to climb on to a truck
that waited outside the Shah-e-Alam Roza relief camp.

The truck, flanked by police escorts of the crime
branch, consisted of riot victims headed for
Naroda-Patia. Passers-by and locals scarcely spared a
glance at these riot-victims who were, very
reluctantly, going back to their destroyed homes.

But they were not here to salvage goods that had
survived the unchecked looting and arson. This visit
was to help the police reconstruct the scene of
massacre, that had claimed 86 lives, down to the
minutest detail.

And all this, because justice, in the aftermath of the
recent communal riots, hangs in balance on the
eye-witness account of those who had managed to escape
the communal carnage.

The city crime branch, since May 1, is relying heavily
on 'reconstruction' of the 44 'sensitive' riot-cases
that include Naroda-Patia (death toll: 86) and Gulbarg
society (death toll: 41) massacres for getting to the
bottom of the truth.

A senior official told TNN, "Reconstructing the scenes
of crime through eye-witness accounts will help
prepare air-tight cases against the accused named in
the half-baked FIRs that have been handed over to us
more than two months after the violence. This exercise
may be time-taking but is crucial for our
investigations, as any laxity at this juncture would
ensure that the culprits go free."

Tears ran down their cheeks, as the victims lamented
their tryst with death and threw fearful glances
around, half expecting a 'tola' (mob) to reappear at
the horizon as they relived, for the sake of
investigations, those painful moments of February 28 .


Walking past their looted and burnt homes and
especially those sites where their friends and dear
ones were cut to pieces and then set ablaze, the
victims' descriptions became more and more graphic and
life-like.

Fingers pointed towards the empty expanse of farmland
beyond Naroda-Patia. One of the victims narrated:
"That's where the mob was waiting for us. We were
driven out of our homes by the deafening roar let out
by another 15,000-strong mob menacingly approaching us
from the Naroda-Narol highway. We hid into the homes
of our Hindu neighbours but were soon driven out under
pressure. Some ran towards the highway while others
tried to escape through the farmland..."

"There are mismatches even between these eye-witness
accounts. We have to hammer out the discrepancies and
arrive at what had truly happened at these sites
between February 28 and March 3. Once the 'real'
eye-witnesses are established and correlated with the
clues and evidences that we have gathered, only then
we can go for more arrests," affirmed a police source.
The crime branch has arrested 45 persons in connection
with the 44 cases that it is handling.

Newly-appointed additional commissioner of police
(crime) PP Pande said, "Arrests will be made but at
the right time when we have concrete evidence against
the accused. Overnight developments cannot be expected
as investigations have to be meticulous and evidence
have to be such that they can bear the scrutiny of any
court of law."

Copyright © 2002 Times Internet Limited. All rights
reserved.

Wedding bells at Gujarat riot camps
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
[ THURSDAY, MAY 23, 2002 2:17:42 AM ]
Prerna Shah

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=10709857

 
AHMEDABAD: On Monday morning, the Dariakhan and
Juhapura riot refugee camps came alive with wedding
songs. Soon enough, a groom from Juhapura with his
barat landed at the Dariakhan relief camp and all the
people present there broke into cheers. The 25 baratis
sang and danced while curious children swarmed around
the groom’s flower-bedecked car.

This was an occasion for celebration as Sonal Yusuf of
the Dariakhan camp got married to Raju Babubhai
Mansuri of the Juhapura relief camp under rather
unusual circumstances. Sonal and Raju were engaged
about five years ago and were planning to get married
next year. Both had started saving up for their
marriage but the riots almost dashed their plans.

Rajubhai said: ‘‘I had not imagined that something
like this would happen. I have to look after my two
younger sisters and a brother. To add to my woes I
lost everything, my savings, my job, and my house too
has been burnt down. I had to bring my bride to a
relief camp. The only silver lining is that we are
together today.’’

Yusufbhai Ibrahim, the bride’s father said: ‘‘I was
not prepared to arrange the wedding under these
circumstances. But I think my daughter will be safe
with her husband. However, I am sad that she is going
from one relief camp to another.’’ His wife could only
muster: ‘‘I hope Allah keeps her happy.’’

Sharifa is now surrounded by women and children at the
Juhapura camp which is now her new ‘home’. Young girls
want to see the henna designs on her hands and feet.
The women are eager to see her wedding gifts. Sharifa
smiles shyly as she talks about her wedding. She says:
‘‘The riots have instilled a sense of fear in me. I am
happy to be here with my husband and his family.
Besides, my parents have to marry two of my sisters.
At least I am safe and secure with my husband.’’

She adds: ‘‘Although we have lost everything, my
parents, friends and Iraqibhai (the camp manager)
managed to arrange for my wedding dress.’’ She proudly
shows off her red wedding sari, her new sandals,
make-up kit and jewellery.

Copyright © 2002 Times Internet Limited. All rights
reserved.

The Gujarat crime Modi referred to CBI: ‘malicious,
misleading’ e-mail

Dalip Singh
Indian Express

 

http://www.indian-express.com/full_story.php?content_id=3238

New Delhi, May 23: Chief Minister Narendra Modi did
not think it necessary to let CBI probe the darkest
moments in Gujarat’s orgy of death. But the contents
of an unauthenticated internet report, attributed to
two Godhra scribes, left Modi so upset that he
promptly approached the Centre with a request for a
CBI investigation under new cyber laws. It is another
matter though that the CBI saw no merit in the case.

It all began when someone posted on the internet an
e-mail report — its supposed authors have denied
putting out any such story — under the headline ‘What
triggered the Orgy of Death in Gujarat!! A hard fact.’
The provocative story was attributed to two
freelancers based in Godhra, Anil Soni and Neelam
Soni.

Outraged by its contents, Modi filed a written
complaint with Home Minister L K Advani when he came
visiting New Delhi in March. A senior Home Ministry
official said that Modi, in a signed letter to Advani,
stated that ‘‘there is a deliberate attempt to malign
the image of the state government’’ by circulating
such a report.

Calling it a a cyber crime, Modi asked Advani for
‘‘appropriate action to avoid recurrence of such
misleading and objectionable messages through the
internet media.’’

It fell on Joint Secretary (Centre-State) R K Singh to
forward Modi’s complaint to the CBI on March 28. But
two months later, the MHA has been told there is no
case.

‘‘The CBI has informed us that they cannot probe this
episode because the complaint is devoid of specifics.
The name of the person to whom it was forwarded is
missing as are the internet protocol address and the
header which helps identify the source of the mail,’’
an MHA official said.

Anil Soni, who had been named as one of the authors of
the report, told The Indian Express he had never
scripted any such report.

‘‘I’m tired of the same reply. I’m in no way connected
with the story. I have received so many calls, all
inquiring whether the story was true. Someone known to
me has done it. Otherwise, how could anyone put out my
mobile and land phone numbers. It has to be someone
from Godhra,’’ he said.

He has already lodged a complaint with the
Superintendent of Police and District Magistrate,
seeking a thorough probe. Soni said he was not aware
of Modi’s complaint to Advani in the matter.

The CBI, he said, never contacted him.

© 2002: Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd. All
rights reserved throughout the world.

           

 

OPINION

 

Gujarat’s Jobless: Idle Hands As Devil’s Workshop
Times News Network
[THURSDAY, MAY 23, 2002 11:49:57 PM ]
DARRYL D’MONTE

http://www1.timesofindia.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=13799647

 
The appeal in newspapers by prominent Gujarat
citizens, calling for an end to the communal
conflagration, betrays anguish that such terrible
events could be taking place in a state known for its
zest for business.

However, Gujarat has become increasingly communalised
in the last two decades and Ahmedabad is a riot-prone
city. There was even greater shock when “cosmopolitan”
Mumbai erupted in the wake of the destruction of the
Babri masjid 10 years ago.

Surprising though it may seem, there is at least one
common thread that links the violence in these two
cities (which once belonged to an undivided Bombay
state).

This is the rapid decline of formal employment. It is
not common knowledge that it was Ahmedabad, rather
than Mumbai, which was the “Manchester of the East”.

The cotton mills played an even more important part in
this city’s life than in Mumbai, which had the port
and related activities. According to the Dutch
sociologist Jan Breman, who has been studying Gujarat
for years, there were some 1,60,000 workers engaged in
64 textile mills in the late 1970s. In the first wave
of closures in the early 1980s, 40,000 labourers lost
their jobs.

The new industrial policy of 1985 claimed even more
jobs. By 1997, the workforce had shrunk to 25,000;
towards the end of the 20th century, as many as 52
mills had closed. Breman records that while the first
wave of deindustrialisation aroused indignation in the
Capital, politicians and the media lost interest in
subsequent rounds.


The irony is all the greater because unlike Mumbai,
Ahmedabad had a pliant mill union, which was prepared
to cooperate with owners in selling their land, but
this never happened for complex reasons.

These workers have now joined the “informal” economy,
which means that they pick up casual jobs, work longer
hours for less pay with no security. Breman cites how
such workers have employment for hardly 15 or 20 days
a month and most of them have been forced to engage
their families, including young children, in
supplementing incomes.

The story has been repeated in Mumbai, except that
there are more informal jobs in the industrial and
commercial capital of the country.

While this has resulted in pauperisation of the
working class, the unseen impact has been the rampant
communalisation. In economic distress, when entire
sections of the society lose their security, young men
demonise “the other” and imagine them to be the source
of their misfortunes.

It was no accident that in Mumbai in 1992, it was
youth from both communities that came out on to the
streets. In Ahmedabad, it is clear that there was a
well-oiled machinery with which the pogrom against
Muslims has been conducted and this betrays more
insidious forces at work. But there is no question
that the closure of the mills has been at least one of
the sparks that have set off the attacks.

The media has reported that half the Ahmedabad mill
workers were Muslims and Dalits, which sounds
difficult to believe, given the antagonism towards
both. At best, this may have been the proportion among
badli workers: even at the peak, 30 per cent of the
labourers were temporary.

Interestingly, Breman records how the first-ever
strike in the city’s mills took place late in the 19th
century when Dalit workers started tea stalls. As a
rule, nothing does more to promote communal harmony
than people working cheek by jowl; close down mass
workplaces and you have a sure scenario for conflict.

What the closures have achieved in these last two
decades is to ghettoise Ahmedabad. During the first
round, the ghettos were formed within the
neighbourhood itself. A Muslim former jobber in a
textile mill who lived in Gomtipur told Breman that he
had been tipped off by a Hindu friend about the
impending trouble this time.

In the second wave, Muslims were hounded out of areas
where they had lived for generations. He cites how
Juhapara, on the right bank of the river, has emerged
as a huge enclave and now come to be known as ‘mini
Pakistan’. Due to such ghettoisation, Muslims have
come to be identified as “an anti-social, criminal
underclass”. Only the other day, newspapers mentioned
how flats in a Muslim neighbourhood, which had
otherwise lain empty, were now in great demand and
their prices have risen sharply.

There was less ghettoisation in Mumbai nine years ago.
It was the Shiv Sena which was then on the rampage,
wreaking violence for imagined wrongs inflicted by the
‘other’. The Sena also draws in youth from the
Parel-Lalbaug industrial area and from former mill
families, who now face a bleak future.

Its MP, Mohan Rawale, hails from such a family himself
and has been elected from Mumbai South-Central, like
Datta Samant before him. The deindustrialisation of
Mumbai has also led to its criminalisation, with gang
leader Arun Gawli’s den virtually in the shadow of a
mill chimney.

These are all indications of the price that society
has paid, and will continue to pay, for the decline in
jobs in the organised sector.

Copyright © 2002 Times Internet Limited. All rights
reserved.

Our capacity to care
Harsh Mander
Hindustan Times,
may 23, 2002.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/nonfram/230502/detide01.asp
 
The carnage that has convulsed Gujarat since February
27, 2002 has left in its wake a profound human tragedy
that does not heal or abate, only mounts with every
passing day. The unremitting agony of the survivors of
the mass violence can be assuaged only by a colossal
national enterprise of caring and healing, in which
the governments and people of our land resolutely join
hands. Tragically, there is little evidence so far of
this happening.

Even two months after the catastrophe began to unfold,
the conditions of more than two lakh people who
continue in relief camps, condemned to live as
internal refugees in their own land, remain abysmal.
It is indeed tragic that such large numbers of
citizens are forced to subsist in camps, reminiscent
of Partition, for extended periods.

The residents are forced to live without work or
personal spaces, in very austere physical conditions,
and long to return to normalcy. But they can be
expected to do so, only if they feel secure and have
the resources for rebuilding their lives. The neglect
of these will prolong their agony, but to force the
pace of their exit from the camps without this will
threaten their very survival. Disturbing reports that
relief camps are already being disbanded in the
Gujarat countryside have created a mood of uncertainty
and panic.

In any natural and human-made disaster, including
riots, the state government is the primary agency
responsible to provide relief, succour, security and
rehabilitation to the victims of such disasters. It
may seek the assistance of NGOs, but it cannot be
allowed to abdicate its own central responsibility.
State authorities maintain that it is the culture of
Gujarat that NGOs establish and run relief efforts. It
is euphemistic to describe the support for most relief
camps as coming from NGOs, because like the
government, the majority of mainstream NGOs which were
so active in the relief and reconstruction work after
the killer earthquake in 2001, have chosen to distance
themselves from this far more politically volatile
human tragedy. The result is that in practice, camps
are running substantially on the strength of valiant
self-help efforts of the affected communities.

Around ten days after the violence, state authorities
commenced the supply of basic rations to camps. The
food is prepared and served in orderly shifts by
volunteers from among the camp residents. However,
resources are required for much more than just food,
in running such populous relief camps of devastated
people. The State is responsible for the safety,
shelter protection from the extremes of climate,
health, psycho-social support, drinking water,
sanitation, education and rehabilitation of all the
women, men and children housed in the camps. Tomorrow,
for instance, if epidemics break out in the camps,
state authorities rather than the camp managers, would
be liable.

Camps, temporary homes to several thousand children,
women and men, are organised mainly in dargahs,
schools or even graveyards. The majority of residents
have lived for over 10 weeks in open shamianas with
tattered canvas covers, often amidst graves. In most
camps, the number of available toilets and bathing
places is negligible. The Shah-e-Alam Camp, housing
some 1,200 people, has no more than 18 toilets and
baths. Whereas this compromises the privacy of the
residents, especially women, an even far more serious
worry is that failures in sanitation, particularly
after the rains break out, have the potential of
causing epidemics.

With the onset of scorching summer temperatures which
push beyond 45°C, the most immediate need is of
semi-temporary structures to house the camps. This
must be the direct responsibility of state
authorities, not of camp managers. The residents,
especially children, need to be protected from the hot
summer sun, otherwise we may have deaths due to
sun-stroke.

There seems little prospect that most camps can be
humanely disbanded prior to the monsoons, therefore,
there is a special urgency that state authorities
immediately plan for rain-proof structures. There must
also be toilets and baths for every 50 residents.
State authorities need also to take direct
responsibility for ensuring health services including
mental health services for all camp residents.

The payment of compensation is also terminally tangled
so far in red tape and apathy. A major problem with
the payment of death compensations is that the
majority of the victims were so badly burned that they
could not be identified. The unidentified dead are
being legally treated only as ‘missing persons’, which
would mean in effect that the survivors would be
eligible for compensations after the lapse of maybe
seven years. Another problem is that unlike in the
past, medical expenses for survivors battling with
burn injuries are not being reimbursed on the grounds
that only permanent disabilities will be compensated.

The underlying principle of rehabilitation must be
that it is the state government’s responsibility to
ensure that victims of riots are restored to a
situation that is as close as possible to that which
obtained prior to the mass violence.

Once again, the fine print in government circulars is
denying affected persons any real succour. For
instance, new state government instructions provide
for assistance up to Rs 10,000 based on actual damage
of moveable and immovable earning properties, but for
the first time, the relief explicitly debars the riot
victim from seeking loans and subsidies under other
schemes. Similarly, the prime minister announced a
relief of Rs 50,000 for each damaged house. The state
government instructions provide instead for assistance
up to Rs 50,000, and sample surveys by the
Ahmedabad-based organisation, Citizens Initiative,
have revealed that even fully damaged houses have
received niggardly compensation of Rs 2,000 to 5,000.

The reconstruction of homes and livelihoods would be
possible only if there is a massive mobilisation of
resources of the central and state governments,
international and national financial institutions and
donor agencies, and a single-widow access to their
soft loans organised within the camps themselves; but
there are no significant efforts in such a direction.

In major disasters of the past, ordinary people have
raised funds, in high profile drives organised by
schools, offices, celebrities and the media. Our
failure to do so for the devastated survivors of
Gujarat only heightens their sense of isolation.
Collectively, we seem to have drawn borders even on
ordinary human compassion.

Is it that we are too busy, or frightened, or
prejudiced to reach out and heal? In this vast land,
can the governments and the people not find the moral
and financial resources to assuage the agony of tens
of thousands of innocent women and men, girls and
boys, utterly traumatised and rendered destitute? Can
we together rebuild not only their shelters and
livelihoods but also their trust, spirit and hope? Is
the suffering of some people less important because
they are children of a lesser god? Or is it that we
have lost our capacity to care? If so, the crisis in
our country is even deeper than we imagined.

©Hindustan Times Ltd. 1997.

Modi, India’s Milosevic
Gulam K. Noon
Hindustan times,
May 23, 2002.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/nonfram/240502/detide01.asp
 

It was nothing but a pogrom in Mahatma Gandhi’s home
state of Gujarat. Hindu-Muslim riots are not new to
India but what is new is State-sponsored terrorism.
Narendra Modi’s government is guilty of ethnic
cleansing. Modi is India's Milosevic.

It is no longer merely a breakdown of law and order
but the total absence of law.

An 11-year-old boy testified to the National Human
Rights Commission how his family ran to the State
Reserve Police post to escape the mob but were told to
go back or be shot (by the police). He then saw his
mother and sister being stabbed to death.

A mother who had given birth to a baby at 10 pm was
forced to run with her baby at 11 am the next morning
when the mobs came. She escaped but her husband was
killed and their house burnt down.

A nine-year-old boy watched a mob rape and kill his
20-year-old sister.

There are several similar cases of abject savagery.
There are hundreds of traumatised orphans in the
refugee camps. About 100,000 people languish in those
camps, mainly women and children. Their breadwinners
are dead. Their homes have been burnt to discourage
them from going back. In one incident in Ahmedabad, 50
abandoned Muslim homes were burnt down. The
calculation is that they will leave Gujarat.

The massacre was sparked off by the horrific incident
on February 28 when kar sewaks were returning by train
from the disputed mosque/temple site at Ayodhya. The
struggle over Ayodhya has raged for 10 years and Hindu
militants, including politicians now in power, have
built their political fortunes on it; but in the
process they have polarised the country.

On February 28, rabid Muslims surrounded a bogey and
burnt it in Godhra. Nothing can justify this killing
of 58 people. Their murderers should be brought to
justice and dealt with severely. Such criminals cannot
call themselves either Hindu or Muslim. God does not
condone murder.

Retribution was swift and deadly. Muslims were
systematically hunted down and killed. These were not
spontaneous revenge killings. The mobs were provided
copies of electoral rolls to help them identify Muslim
localities and businesses. Modi’s ministers were
sitting in police stations to direct operations. All
this has been well documented by the Indian press.

The police turned partisan and refused to register
cases of rape and murder of Muslims. Decent officers,
who did their duty and protected the people, were
promptly transferred. The administrative service
abdicated its responsibility — it takes only one
district magistrate to bring a riot under control in a
few hours if he does his job. Sixty-three days later,
the killings were going on.

Modi took over as Gujarat chief minister at a time
when the BJP’s electoral fortune was waning. Modi
appears to have seized upon the Godhra incident as an
excuse to massacre Muslims in order to swing the
majority Hindu votes in his favour. State elections
are not due in Gujarat for another year but Modi
wishes to bring the date forward and go to the polls
now. His disgraceful move to gain political capital
from the carnage was supported by Atal Bihari Vajpayee
and L.K. Advani. Only the hue and cry raised by the
press has temporarily stalled the plan.

One of the biggest disappointments has been Vajpayee.
He was given credit for being a secular, liberal man
who believed in a pluralistic, democratic society. No
longer. That mask was torn off in Goa on April 12 when
his rhetoric was that of an RSS pracharak rather than

of a responsible leader of a mixed electorate.
Vajpayee has lost the moral authority to govern. The
BJP can no longer pretend to be a political party that
believes in pluralism and democracy.

Politicians have meddled for so long with the
judiciary, the administrative services and the police
force that the steel framework of which India was once
so proud has turned to straw in Gujarat. Veteran
police chief Julio Riberio said

that Gujarat has made him feel ashamed of having once
belonged to the police force. He also recommended that
the police and Indian Administrative Service in
Gujarat be abolished because Modi and his ministers
have taken all powers into their own hands.

Indian Muslims must take their share of the blame for
the conflict. They remain amongst the most
ill-educated, poor and unemployed. Self-styled leaders
such as Imam Bukhari of Delhi — whose claim to
represent all Indian Muslims is as bogus as the claim
of the Hindu militants to represent all Hindus — have
encouraged the community to remain backward. It is a
type of colonialism. The Babri mosque dispute is a
good case in point.

The mosque was a disused building in 1991 and had been
locked up for over 50 years. Some Hindus claim that
site as the birthplace of Lord Rama. Since the mosque
was a disused one, the question should have been
peacefully resolved with Muslims accommodating the
demands of the majority community. A sensible Muslim
leadership would have done that and not make an issue
out of it.

The Saudi government, for example, has destroyed
dozens of mosques to build roads. In Britain, a
disused church has been turned into a Hindu cultural
centre, the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. During the Bosnia
conflict, 1,242 mosques were destroyed by the Serbs.

Instead, the Ayodhya conflict has raged for 10 years.
Militant Hindus politicised the issue and rode to
power on it. Thousands of poor people have died (it is
always the poor who die). How many more innocent lives
must be lost before there is a sensible resolution?

Muslims, who chose to live in the country after 1947,
as did my family, owe their first allegiance to India.
It is the Prophet’s command that a good Muslim obeys
the laws of the country where he lives.

The Congress has done virtually nothing in Gujarat. We
have seen no mass mobilisation of people, no sustained
opposition to Modi on the streets. There was a
similar, shameful incident in 1984 when

the Congress under Rajiv Gandhi presided over the
massacre of Sikhs in Delhi that went un-checked for
three days. Then, as now, Congressmen led mobs armed
with electoral lists and burnt and looted Sikh homes.
None of them has been brought to justice.

The naked pursuit of power in India has stripped
politics of any meaningful issues. Education,
employment, housing or medical benefits are not on the
agenda. Instead, the issues are caste, religion and
money. Votes are counted in blocks — the Hindu/Muslim
block vote, the Dalit vote, the Sikh vote etc.
Organised conflict is often the method of scaring the
votes into your corner. The greatest disservice the
BJP has done is to misrepresent the catholic nature of
Hinduism and try turn it into a dogmatic body

of beliefs. The politics of hate is threatening to
tear India apart.

What message has Gujarat given to the rest of the
world?

That India is unsafe. Who would want to invest in a
country that cannot guarantee security of life and
property? India will miss out on opportunities thrown
up by the globalisation of the economy. London-based
industries that could have located their auxiliary
factories in India have chosen to go to China where
labour is equally cheap but security is guaranteed.

Overseas Indians are an emotional lot and would like
to invest in India — but who can risk having their
business burnt down one fine day? Such blatant
lawlessness as witnessed in Gujarat will deter all
except the most foolhardy.

Deepak Parekh, chairman of India’s leading housing
finance firm, HDFC, said: “What is a government
elected for? If they cannot protect innocent lives,
they should go. What kind of government allows the
killing of women and children?”

At the very least, Narendra Modi should be asked to
resign or be dismissed.

The writer is an industrialist and President of the
London Chamber of Commerce & Industry. These are his
personal views

©Hindustan Times Ltd. 1997.

 

Farewell to Rajdharma: Centre’s Record of Shame in
Gujarat
Times Of India
B G VERGHESE
[ WEDNESDAY, MAY 22, 2002 11:44:23 PM ]

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=10699777

 
L K Advani has hailed the twin debates on Gujarat in
Parliament as a “victory”. For whom? Not for India.
For if there is one statement that stands out above
all the self-serving and hideously justificatory
rhetoric from the treasury benches, it was a remark
made by the Prime Minister in reply to the debate in
the Rajya Sabha on May 6.

Atal Behari Vajpayee confessed that he went to Goa
determined to remove Narendra Modi. But once there, he
reversed his decision.

The Prime Minister implicitly told the Rajya Sabha
that if the chief minister, hailed by many as a
conquering hero, was removed, there would be a strong
backlash in Gujarat. From whom? Not from the battered
minority community but presumably from disciplined
party and parivar advocates of the action-reaction,
provoker-provoked school of vicarious liability.

Not long ago, Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray had
warned anyone listening that Mumbai would burn if he
was so much as touched. The Prime Minister, no less,
has now announced that he has decided to place the
diktat of the mob above his oath of office.

Every Union minister on assuming office is pledged to
“faithfully and conscientiously discharge (his/her)
duties ... and do right to all manner of people in
accordance with the Constitution’’. But here the prime
minister pathetically tells Parliament, trustee of the
sovereign Indian people, that he is unable and
unwilling to act against the mob.

Farewell to Rajdharma. The country is up for blackmail
by every fascist thug or criminal. And the emperor has
no clothes, stripped of the last shred of moral
authority.

Much subtlety has been displayed by many in debating
whether it is Article 356 or 355 that should apply to
Gujarat. The governor, exhausted by his strenuous
exertions in favour of Article 356 in Bihar not so
long ago, has maintained a stoic silence. While
Article 356 speaks of “failure of the constitutional
machinery” in a state, Article 355 enjoins on Union...
‘‘to ensure that the governance of every state is
carried on in accordance with the provisions of this
Constitution”.

But was the Constitution violated in Gujarat? Examine
the evidence. FIRs regarding murder, arson and rape
were systematically rejected. Specific names and
details were replaced by vague non-actionable
references to “mob” violence.

Mr Modi, broadcasting over Doordarshan, said, “If
raising issues related to justice or injustice adds
fuel to the fire, we will have to observe restraint
and invoke peace”. So victims were being advised not
to add fuel to the fire and peace was “invoked” to
prevent filing of “provocative” FIRs.

According to Ahmedabad’s police commissioner, curfew
was openly and blatantly violated by armed mobs, who
also sparked fresh violence by spreading rumours. Two
Muslim sitting high court judges were forced to flee
their homes, one of which was torched. Hindu judges
who sheltered them were threatened.

Ahmedabad’s IG police and other Muslim officers were
attacked and had themselves to seek protection.
Dargahs, mosques and other shrines were systematically
desecrated and destroyed, as were Muslim homes,
mohallas, shops, establishments and factories; these
were selectively targeted.

Unsourced posters, pamphlets and handbills inciting
hatred, violence and economic and social boycott of
Muslims were freely distributed at street corners;
other poisonous material, including inflammatory
photographs, was circulated by the VHP. Ministers
repeatedly pressed the administration to shut down
relief camps in which over 100,000 hapless victims of
violence had taken shelter in Ahmedabad alone.

Certain local newspapers that wantonly published
totally unfounded and incendiary reports and hate
stories were honoured with personal letters of
appreciation from the chief minister.

The Baroda police commissioner’s plea for action
against these papers went unheeded. The NHRC and
minorities commissions found themselves against a
wall. Mr Modi said at one stage that peace would not
return as long as Parliament was in session. But the
Union government, ostrich-like, buried its head in the
sand, citing dubious statistics for dubious ends.

What happened in Godhra was certainly outrageous.
Whatever the cause or alleged provocation, the
criminals responsible must be punished.

One expected the prime minister, any prime minister,
to show leadership and statesmanship. I wrote to Mr
Vajpayee on March 4 stating that like countless other
Indians, I had been “deeply shocked, saddened, shamed
and troubled by the appalling holocaust in Gujarat”.

It’s not enough, I added, that the guilty be
discovered and punished after due inquiry. More than
that, if we are to hold together and move into the
21st century as a civilised nation, “we will have to
restore confidence, trust and amity in our plural yet
obviously fractured society whose genius has been
accommodation and tolerance”.


What we see today is the bitter fruit of the
dragon-seed of hate assiduously sown and nurtured by
the party and parivar over the past decade. The enemy
is within. It will not succeed. India’s silent
majority, now awakening, will prevail. But in the end
there has to be reconciliation, not strife. For this,
truth and justice are a necessary precondition. Now.

(The author toured Gujarat as a member of the Editors’
Guild)

Copyright © 2002 Times Internet Limited. All rights
reserved.