Faceless, voiceless protest

While survivors of the Naroda Patiya massacre were deposing before an inquiry commission in Ahmedabad, the prime accused in the case was hol...

While survivors of the Naroda Patiya massacre were deposing before an inquiry commission in Ahmedabad, the prime accused in the case was holding forth outside. Muslims, this Bajrang Dal leader declared, were like diabetes: We have to live with them but keep them in control. Social pathologists like him do not require proof that in Gujarat, the Modi government is doing this well. It8217;s there for all to see. Even so, last week8217;s bandh in the Muslim neighbourhoods of Ahmedabad must have provided him reassurance.

Some regarded it as a powerful statement of united protest. But, in fact, the bandh brought home the extent to which the government has subdued not only Muslims in the state but all those who speak for open society.

The Muslims were protesting against illegal detentions. People complain that more than 100 men have been picked up and held for days on end without formal arrest. They say approaching the courts has not helped: Police show detainees as having been arrested a couple of days before. Some are promptly booked under anti-terrorist law. And those who are released clam up.

It is nobody8217;s case that those picked up are all innocent. But anywhere else, any group repressed in such a manner would have taken to free and open protest. Support would have arrived 8212; again, free and open.

But Gujarat today being what Modi has made it, the Muslims 8212; alone and wary of outside help 8212; took recourse to what goes by the name of janata curfew in the Dariapur and Shahpur areas, from which most of the men were picked up. It is an annual feature on the bylanes of these areas during the Rath Yatra. Residents quietly turn their back on the procession to avoid any provocation from either side. Shops keep their shutters down, and people stay indoors. But the choice of the local peace committees 8212; to welcome the procession or to declare janata curfew 8212; was made openly, and announced in advance.

Last week8217;s bandh was different. It came unannounced. It spread to all Muslim areas of the city. And no organisation claimed responsibility for it.

The furtiveness with which the bandh was called reflects the oppression the community feels. Bandh leaflets were anonymous. The words on them, in refined Gujarati, seemed chosen with care to avoid exciting passions.

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After Godhra, its aftermath, and the way riot cases have gone, the Muslim community in Gujarat is like a victim of multiple fractures, cautious about its slightest movements. And the level of distrust the community feels for the police and the other democratic institutions is so high that it prefers to avoid any contact with them.

Hence the choice of faceless and voiceless protest.

The shame in Gujarat is that, for one community, even peaceful protest 8212; refined on this soil by the Mahatma 8212; has to wear the cloak of anonymity, the favoured garb of the anarchist and the terrorist. This bizarre reversal is surely not lost on Modi. Perhaps this is how he wants the Muslim to be. Modi may not have heard of the diabetes metaphor. But he surely seems to know the politics of its control, dangerous though it may be.