The BJP Model for India “Vikas Purush” and Vinash Neeti Modi’s role in the 2002 genocide Volumes of material on the genocide in Gujarat bring out how minorities were subjected to, the bloodshed, arson, rape and loot, and how the law enforcement machinery of the Modi Government not only permitted a free run for the most rabid organisations of Sangh Parivar but actively connived with them in many places. For most people, the Gujarat pogrom of 2002 has become synonymous with horrifying images of charred bodies of Muslim men, women and children. Major findings of various independent citizens’ groups that bring out the details of the savagery are difficult to read beyond a few pages. One team attempted to assess the impact of merciless violence on children in Gujarat. In its report, the writer describes:-- “Eight-year-old Saddam described to this team how men attacked and “….Then they stripped my mother naked….usko nanga kar diya.” A nine-year-old volunteered to explain to another women’s team what balatkar (rape) means. “Balatkar ka matlab jab aurat ko nanga karte hain our phir use jala dete hain (Rape is when a woman is stripped naked and then burnt). And then looks fixedly at the floor.” The writer goes on to observe: “Only a child can tell it like it is. For this is what happened again and again in Naroda Patia – women were stripped, raped and burnt. Burning has now become an essential part of the meaning of rape”. (Page 117, Frontline, Jan. 3, 2003) During the carnage, from the beginning, the complicity of the state government was obvious. Narendra Modi reportedly gave instructions to top officials not to take action against the rampaging mobs already on the streets. Also, trained volunteers led these mobs and most of them knew they had political patronage. Since there was systematic erosion of the rule of law in maintaining state ‘neutrality’, the antiminority bias had become part of the state policy. While Modi propagated the fiction that the Godhra incident was a pre-planned act by terrorists, his Home Minister Gordhan Zadaphiya saw the hand of ‘enemy country’ Pakistan in the whole episode. This laid the base for the attack on Muslims, drawing an utterly perverse link between international terrorism, Pakistan and every Muslim. That the carnage, which has been termed an upsurge of Hindus by the VHP and other RSS affiliates, was not spontaneous is also proved by the fact that cranes, trucks and shovels were used extensively for the whole operation. Also the extensive use of gas cylinders, availability of lists of Muslim households and business enterprises in advance and the import of trucks of swords and dangerous chemicals also point to the fact of extensive planning which went into preparation of this pogrom. And yet neither the Chief Minister, the State Government nor the State agencies have been held accountable and punished. It is a matter of shame that the then Central Government under Atal Behari Vajpayee and all the allies at the time, kept silent while the great cover–up of the responsibility of the State Government was done. L.K. Advani was the prime mover as the country’s Home Minister in this cover up. The culpability of the Chief Minister and others is thus the core issue in bringing justice to the minorities in Gujarat to heal their wounds. New Evidence: Now new and unambiguous evidence is available in the records of the Special Investigation Team which pinpoints the role of Modi and top Government officials. The SIT was set up by the Supreme Court in April 2009 to reopen investigation into nine crucial cases including the Gulbarg Society massacre. Former Congress MP and leader Ehasan Jafri and 69 others were beaten and burnt alive in the Gulbarg Society massacre case. The SIT in spite of all the evidence gave a clean chit to Modi. This was in direct contrast to the report of the Amicus Curiae also appointed by the Supreme Court who on the basis of the same evidence available to the SIT, stated categorically that there was prima facie evidence to warrant inclusion of Modi’s role in the violence. He in particular mentioned the critical evidence of Sanjiv Bhatt then police officer who had attended a meeting in which Modi had neutralized the police and law enforcement agencies from taking action against the carnage. This evidence had been brushed aside by the SIT. On April 15, 2013, Ehasan Jafri’s courageous widow Mrs Zakia Ehsan Jafri filed a protest petition against the SIT’s clean chit, in an Ahmedabad court praying for the rejection in toto of the SIT’s final report dated February 8, 2012, making a cogent case for the chargesheeting of all 59 accused listed in her complaint dated June 8, 2006, beginning with Mr Modi, the Chief Minister of Gujarat and including other top Gujarat Ministers and officials. The protest petition goes into great detail, relying on documents from the investigation papers, on how the administration and police were deliberately paralysed and neutralised by the conspiracy hatched by Modi, the then Gujarat DGP K Chakravarti, then Ahmedabad Police Commissioner P C Pande, then additional chief secretary (Home) Ashok Narayan and other key members of the bureaucracy and police who connived in the conspiracy. The protest petition that runs into 514 pages also has three volumes of annexures and ten CDs. The Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP) led by Teesta Setalvad, with its entire legal team, assisted in this painstaking exercise which is also coming under attack by the State Government in many ways. The court accepted Ms. Jafri’s appeal to make all documents available to her and therefore all those documents which were kept secret by the SIT were brought into the public domain. They are a damning indictment of the Modi model of governance. Modi Model of Governance: On the terrible day of February 27 2002 the Sabarmati Express carrying karsevaks from Ayodhya was attacked just before the train reached Godhra station in Gujarat. 58 people including women and children were killed. It was a terrible and shocking crime. Subsequently over 100 Muslims were arrested. 31 have been convicted and the rest acquitted. However, as the evidence being argued before the Metropolitan Magistrate in the Ahmedabad Court shows, the police were informing the Chief Minister’s office from the beginning of February of the communal mobilizations going on to take groups of karsevaks for the Ayodhya Mahayagna for the building of the temple. These messages are dated from between 7-2-2002 till the return of the karsevaks on 27-2-2002, but the Modi Government deliberately ignored these messages. Communal and provocative anti-Muslim slogans were being shouted all along the way to Ayodhya and back, again no action was taken. At the time of the horrific attack on the train, Narendra Modi was the newly elected Chief Minister of Gujarat. Who were the people he was constant touch with on that day? The phone records quoted in Zakia Jafri’s protest petition show that even before Modi contacted officials, almost as soon as the information of the news reached him,he spoke to Jaideep Patil, the General Secretary of the Vishwa HinduParsihad who has been chargesheeted as a main accused in another case of the killings of eleven Muslims. At that time reports were reaching Modi’s office of the grossly provocative, communally rabidand bloodthirsty slogans being raised by crowds being mobilized by the VHP. It is known to any administrator in Gujarat that Godhra is a highly communally sensitive place where there have been several riots in the past but Modi refused to act on the stream of reports being sent by field operatives of the State Bureau of Intelligence. In the statement prepared by the Modi Government and read out in the Assembly which was in session, the Home Minister deliberately concealed the fact that both the District Magistrate of Godhra and the officer in-charge had repeatedly reported the communal slogans being shouted by the karsevaks. But when Modi arrived in Godhra later that evening, he held a minicabinet meeting which decided to hand over the bodies of the Godhra victims to the same Jaideep Patel, the leader of precisely that organization which had already started drumming up communal hatred through slogans and speeches. Shockingly, this criminal was himself present in the said meeting presided over by Modi, as testified by the Godhra district magistrate Jayanthi Ravi. Secondly while Modi himself was in Godhra, he permitted the postmortem of the Sabarmati train victims to be performed in the open on the railway platform in front of the growing frenzied crowds. This was an unprecedented action which stoked the flames of the communal fire. What was the result? The bodies were literally used to mobilize mobs all over Gujarat and to start the communal genocide. In Ahmedabad the motor cavalcade with the bodies was headed towards the Sola Civil Hospital. Even more damning, the Chief Minister held a meeting at his residence later that night in which the then senior police officer has given witness that the Chief Minister effectively neutralized any action the police should have taken.Was that good governance? Ignoring the Warnings: Here are some of the chilling police messages which were ignored: 12:30 pm on February 27: An SIB officer through fax no 525 communicated to the headquarters that there were reports that some dead bodies would be brought to Kalupur Station in Ahmedabad city. “So communal violence will occur in the city of Ahmedabad; so takepreventive action.” Another SIB message also warned about communal incidents if bodies were brought to Ahmedabad. “Communal violence will occur in the city. So take preventive action.” The same message said that karsevaks had given explosive interviews to a TV station at Godhra and threatened to unleash violence against the Muslims. At 1.51 hours and again at 1.59 hours on February 28, there were panic messages by wireless police vans positioned at Sola Hospital demanding immediate protection by Special Reserve Police platoonsand the presence of DCP Zone 1. A message at 11.55 am on February 28, 2002 said, “Sayyed Saheb, the Protocol Officer had informed Sola-1 that riots have started at Sola Civil Hospital at the High Court where the dead bodies were brought.” Again, there was another message, with no indication of time, stating that the officers and employees of the hospital had been surrounded by a 500 strong mob and they could not come out.” The message alsomade a demand for more security for the civil hospital at Sola. Another message (P 188, Annexure III, File XVIII) sent at 2038 hours on February 27, 2002, mentioned the following: “Dilip Trivedi, the general secretary of VHP, and joint secretary Dr Jaideep Patel and Kaushik Mehta in a joint statement issued by them have declared that innocent Ram Bhakts have been attacked and hence Gujarat Bandh has been declared. They have also stated that the attack on the Ramsevaks returning from Ayodhya was pre-planned by the Muslims. Innocent ladies were molested and compartments were set on fire and Ramsevaks were burnt alive.” This joint statement issued by the three senior-most office bearers of Gujarat VHP’s unit was clearly designed to stoke communal passion. A reasonable response would have been an immediate government clampdown on such public utterances and if required, putting all these trouble makers under preventive detention. But no such action was taken. The VHP called for a bandh on the February 28 and the BJP, the ruling party, openly supported the bandh call. The state, instead of clamping down on the bandh call, gave the VHP leaders and its cadres a free reign and a license to kill. In all this period not a single message from the Chief Minister appealing for peace or warning against violence was given or aired. On the contrary he along with fellow conspirators, namely top police and Government officials, all named in the petition filed by Zakia Jafri, ignited the flames that engulfed the State. Recently BJP spokespersons have tried to counter the evidence by saying that over 200 Hindus were killed in police firing which showed that the Government under Modi had acted. What is the truth? The Government itself informed the courts that 93 Muslims and 77 Hindus were killed in police firing. Others were killed in clashes. No Police Intervention: There was no police intervention to stop the already rampaging mobs. The next morning Jafri’s house was surrounded. In spite of repeated requests from him, no police force was sent. In contrast to the refusal to send forces in spite of the repeated messages from the police and SIB, the PCR records — which the SIT was trying hard to conceal — also reveal that the Government had enough forces to escort a VHP leader known for his inciting slogans, Acharya Giriraj Kishore, from the airport to the Sola Civil Hospital to accompany the processionists, shouting filthy hate speeches and murderous slogans. But they did not have enough forces to send to Naroda Patiya where 96 persons were massacred in broad daylight (chargesheet figures in the Naroda Patiya case, though more deaths have been recorded) and 69 persons at Gulberg Society the same day and around the same time aggressive processions were being allowed. Modi, allowing and openly supporting the bandh and neutralising his administration, decided to give the RSS-VHP-BD mobs a free run of the Gujarat streets to massacre innocents. These are only a few examples. But what they show is that either there was gross dereliction of duty by Modi and his officers which blows the myth of good governance or there was a deliberate plan, as most people following the Gujarat developments believe, of a coldblooded conspiracy to teach the ‘Muslims a lesson” the favouritepastime of communal bigots spawned by the RSS and its frontorganizations. The Supreme Court in the Best Bakery case had rightly remarked, “The modern day ‘Neros’ were looking elsewhere when Best Bakery and innocent children and women were burning, and were probably deliberating how the perpetrators of the crime can be saved or protected.” It further observed, “the fanatics who spread violence in the name of religion are worse than terrorists and more dangerous than an alien enemy.” Put Modi on Trial: In the light of this clear evidence, the CPI(M) has reiterated its demand that Modi’s name be added to the chargesheet at present before the court and that he should be tried for his leading role in the conspiracy of the worst communal carnage this country has seen. 1984 and 2002: Defenders of the BJP and Narendra Modi cite the 1984 carnage against the Sikh community led by Congress leaders following the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi as a deflection from the role of their leader. The BJP defence is that two wrongs make a right. They say why target Modi when no action was taken against the killers of Sikhs. It is true that shamefully the Congress and its Governments all through these years have shielded the main Congress leaders involved including Sajjan Kumar. The CPI(M) both inside and outside has been unequivocal and unambiguous about demanding justice for the victims’ families and conviction of the leaders and officials involved. The public apology of the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his expressions of regret for the 1984 massacre would have had more meaning if strong action had been taken against the top leaders involved instead of giving them party tickets. Modi of course has not expressed a word of regret leave alone an apology for the 2002 genocide. Even today he flaunts Ministers involved in the killings as his closest aides. His close aide and former Minister Maya Kodnani was given a ministerial berth after the carnage in spite of her role (perhaps as a reward) in the killings in Naroda Patiya. It is only the court which has brought justice by convicting her and giving a sentence of life imprisonment. The issues go beyond this or that political party, whether Congress or BJP and their venal justifications for the mass killings of innocents whether it be in 1984 or 2002. What is at stake is the secular character of the Republic and the right of every Indian, irrespective of religion, to live without the fear of violence and discrimination. Buteven today Modi and the BJP have learnt no lessons.
Posted on: Fri, 20 Sep 2013 18:33:04 +0000
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