Permanent Target

Tehelka Magazine, November 22, 2008

A Target Forever
 Acquitted by the Supreme Court, but suspected by people everywhere

AT 11.30 AM on November 6, 2008, I reached the Arts Faculty of Delhi University to chair a seminar on ‘Communalism, Fascism and Democracy: Rhetoric and Reality’. As I took my seat, I hardly knew that in just a few minutes I would be the focus of a brazen fascist attack. Barely had I sat down that a student approached me pretending to want to speak to me. But instead, he spat on me. Immediately, all hell broke loose. Members of the ABVP/RSS in the audience and outside the hall started screaming, and breaking furniture and windowpanes. Undeterred by the large police presence, they abused not just me but the entire Muslim community. For a moment, I was shocked. But as the man who spat on me raised slogans, I realised that he was from the RSS-BJP culture. These are the people who murdered Prof. Sabherwal in Ujjain and, very recently, demonstrated this behaviour in Orissa and in Karnataka.

This is the fascism of those who claim to represent Indian culture. A wrong message goes out to the world that violence represents Indian culture. I have seen this fascism all the while since I was arrested as an accused in December 2001 in the Parliament attack case and even after I was acquitted in 2005.

Indeed, life after acquittal has been very difficult not just for me but also for my family. It’s a long story. I have been identified as a target; anything can happen any moment. In 2005, there was an assassination attempt on me. I got six bullets. Doctors gave up hope but I miraculously survived. A year earlier, I had given an affidavit to the Supreme Court saying there was a danger to my life. There have been several other attempts. I know there is danger around me.

I avoid accompanying my wife and my children anywhere as I don’t want them identified with me. I tried to go shopping with them once or twice but it became impossible and we came back quickly. Earlier, when I was in prison, no Delhi school would admit my son (now in the 7th standard) and daughter (now in the 11th standard). I had to send them to Kashmir to study. Despite the Supreme Court acquitting me, no landlord would rent me his house.

Once, after my acquittal, my family and I were traveling to Jammu by train. A politician was travelling in the same coach. The next morning, one of his security personnel complained to me, “Geelanisaheb, you didn’t let us sleep last night.†Apparently, the politician was so scared of my being in the coach that he sat up the night and forced his security men to stay awake, too. Another time I was travelling by Shatabdi Express to Lucknow from Delhi to attend a meeting at the invitation of Magsaysay Award winner Sandeep Pandey. During the journey, I went to the washroom. When I returned everyone was on tenterhooks about my luggage. Once I was attending a meeting at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi in 2004 when RSS activists surrounded it and began stoning it.

But some good things, too, have happened. Earlier this year, I was invited to deliver a lecture at IIT Kanpur on the issue of Kashmir. Those attending included some Hindu boys from Gujarat. My speech was roundly applauded. Later, at tea break, this group of Gujarati boys came up to me and began apologising. I said: I have never met you, so why apologise? It so happened that when the death sentence on Parliament attack accused, Afzal Guru, was upheld, I had led a sit-in at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi. Uma Bharti had organised a counter sit-in there, which these boys had joined. “We abused you that day,†they said. “We said a lot of things we are ashamed of now.â€

The media has played a highly dubious role in turning the people against me. I remember the first time I was paraded before the media on December 16, 2001. Every TV channel and newspaper was there. It was like walking the ramp. I shouted: we are being framed. But no one reported what I said. Instead, their banner headlines said a university professor had led the terrorists. Throughout the trial, the media ignored the defence and only reported the police version.

After I was released from prison, I was aghast to see that every newspaper had — falsely — blown up my alleged role in terrorism, claiming that I had masterminded the Parliament attack. Many in the media had even equated me with Osama bin Laden.

A Hindi newspaper claimed I was running a terrorist network from England to Aligarh, a city I have never visited. Another report said I had recruited Omar Sheikh (who the then foreign minister, Jaswant Singh, had handed over to the Taliban in Kandahar) while he was studying at the London School of Economics — where I’ve never studied.

A prominent Hindi TV news network made a film portraying me as the mastermind of not just the Parliament attack but of the entire militancy in Kashmir!

Finally, the High Court and then the Supreme Court acquitted me of all charges. In fact, the High Court found that the police had forged documents and fabricated the evidence. But the media portrayed a picture that is now stuck in the peoples’ minds. This is true for others, too.

In Hyderabad, a court last week acquitted some Muslim youth held for the Mecca Masjid blast. The media hasn’t bothered to report this. In Mumbai, a court had acquitted all the accused of bombing a bus in 2003. No one reported it.

I HAVE SEEN the intelligence agencies very closely. Sitting with them, I never felt I was in a government office of a democratic country. Instead, it felt like the RSS headquarters. These agencies are highly communalised. Unfortunately, there is a lot of embedded journalism going on. The intelligence agencies plant stories through many journalists, who happily publish them.

Most importantly, however, it is the people of India who have forgotten to question their government. I repeatedly ask people: do you know who actually attacked Parliament on December 13, 2001? Nobody knows and nobody has asked. That is why, at the moment, things look bad. Prejudice rules. The democratic space is shrinking. We must resolve to suffer to preserve the open democratic space so that our future generations benefit.

Because I talk about the rights of the Kashmiri people I am a clear target. But that again is the government’s fault. If the Indian government had given the people a true picture of the Kashmir issue there would not have been these kinds of difficulties for us, or even for the government of India and Pakistan to resolve it. But there is so much false propaganda and misinformation that people don’t know what really is the Kashmir problem.