Gujarat’s blindspot

Earlier I did not find any protest against the case which was initiated against Nafisa Ali, a Delhi-based social activist. In the long list of men and women from the world of films, media and academics who sent a joint letter to the president of India on the immediate withdrawal of the case against Nafisa Ali, I did not find the name of anyone living in Gujarat. It seems as if the Gujaratis have been brainwashed by Modi to believe that the country is oblivious to their sensitivities. They have to fend for themselves. And even for a small incident they are held responsible because they are always in the dock.

Fear of Modi’s annoyance may also be the reason for the silence of the people of the state. It is like the emergency days when the mere mention of Indira Gandhi was enough to spell terror. Yet Gujaratis must remember that, as Martin Luther King has said, “The day we see the truth and cease to speak is the day we begin to die”. It is sad that the same Gujaratis who had once responded to the refrain of “Ishwar Allah tere nam” in the song that India’s tallest man — Mahatma Gandhi — liked so much, now flare up at the suggestion of Hindu-Muslim amity. Gandhi was a Gujarati and he said at the height of rioting between Hindus and Muslims in the wake of Partition: “Hindus and Muslims are my two eyes”.

There is a smouldering hatred which is consuming the best in Gujaratis. Many believe they have not got the recognition that is due to them. Parochialism is not what they like but this is something that has been imposed on them. And Modi keeps stoking the fires. What happened at Godhra was unforgivable. But the pre-meditated reprisal in several parts of the state was no less beastly and brutal. I do not want to go over the story of murder and worse, and of men and women migrating from their places with bundles on their heads and fear-stricken children trailing behind.

Time should have been a healer. But even 18 months after the tragedy, the process of reconciliation has not begun. The rehabilitation is a farce because the state has washed its hands of the task. How much of the prime minister’s special grant has been spent on rehabilitation is anybody’s guess. I wonder if the PMO has ever sent Modi a query regarding this.

Certainly I have not heard anything about the PM admonishing the Sangh Parivar activists for their behaviour towards Zakia Jaffrey. I do not, of course, expect Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani and BJP President Venkaiah Naidu to express regret because they are cast in a different mould. But somehow I go on indulging in wishful thinking about Vajpayee and imagine that he will at some point of time speak out to condemn the saffron crowd for having humiliated Zakia Jaffrey.

In this instance, too, the police behaved in the same manner as it did during the carnage. They stood by as spectators when the Sangh Parivar activists mobbed Zakia and kicked her car. Despite this, the police continued to stay uninvolved. This is of a piece with what happened during the Gujarat massacre: Even then, the government machinery, including the police, was largely on the side of the mob. The Concerned Citizens Tribunal has confirmed this in a two-volume report.

It should not, therefore, come as a surprise when the court throws out the Best Bakery case because of lack of evidence. What the National Human Rights Commission went through to get a copy of the court’s judgment is a story of the Gujarat government’s deliberate policy of withholding anything related to the carnage.

A copy of the judgement was sent after many reminders and that, too, in Gujarati, without the English translation. The Supreme Court is yet to decide whether to order a retrial in the Best Bakery Case or to transfer the cases arising out of the carnage to courts outside Gujarat.

The important thing is how to stop witnesses changing their testimony under pressure. Probably one way to do so is to record the evidence on an audio-visual tape. The real problem that confronts the nation is how to ensure justice to the victims in Gujarat. More than that, how to make Muslims feel at home in the state. The administration is not cooperating. The Centre is not evincing any interest because Modi is the BJP mascot for the coming elections. There is no use demanding President’s rule since the governor is from the RSS.

There is, then, no option other than making an appeal to the Gujarati community. Some among them should assert themselves — poor Mallika Sarabhai did so at the cost of losing many of her friends — to see how the blot on the nation can be removed. Gujarat is still thrown at you wherever you go abroad. I am disappointed that Vajpayee did not do anything although he kept calling the carnage “a shame”. Party interests have crowded out human considerations. The poison of communalism, which is the politics of hatred and division, will take us down the road to disaster. The Gujaratis should know that.

Shamefully, some Muslims have come to believe that they must avenge the killing of their brethren wherever it takes place. They have formed groups of terrorists. The Mumbai bomb blasts were their handiwork. They do not realise the harm they are doing to their own community. They cannot afford to indulge in violence. They are playing into the hands of Hindu fanatics who only want to divide society on the lines of religion. The battle against communalism cannot be fought through communalism. Coming together as a pluralistic nation is the only way out.