[sacw] SACW #1 | 25 May 02

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire Dispatch #1 | 25 May 2002
http://www.mnet.fr

For information on Gujarat Carnage and After: http://www.onlinevolunteers.org/
__________________________

#1. The right to bigotry (Aakar Patel)
#2. The Vedic Taliban (Mukul Dube)
#3. Gujarat Violence: Meaning and Implications (Riaz Ahmad)

__________________________

#1.

Mid Day (Bombay)
May 24, 2002
OPINION

THE RIGHT TO BIGOTRY
Aakar Patel

Chief editor, News Media Group, Mid Day Multimedia Ltd, presents a 
first hand experience of the media bias in Gujarat
Article 19 clause 1 sub-clause (a) of the Constitution of India (a 
fine document which can never be read enough) tells us that all 
citizens have the right to Freedom of Expression, the cornerstone of 
democracy.
If, having read that, you choose not to move on but look at the 
footnotes, the following paragraph might interest you:
''Nothing in sub-clause (a) of clause (1) shall affect the operation 
of any existing law, or prevent the State from making any law, in so 
far as such law imposes reasonable restrictions on the exercise of 
the right conferred by the said sub-clause in the interests of the 
sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the State, 
friendly relations with foreign States, public order, decency or 
morality, or in relation to contempt of court, defamation or 
incitement to an offence.''
Right then, you have the right to say and publish and film and 
broadcast what you want as long as government and courts and police 
and diplomats and moralists approve of it (incidentally, the bit 
about 'sovereignty and integrity' was added in 1963, after Nehru's 
disastrous war against China).
The Editors Guild of India appointed a three-man fact-finding mission 
to go to Gujarat and probe allegations that there had been bias in 
the media.
Its mandate very broadly was, then, to find out whether this right to 
freedom of expression had been abused by its champions.
The team comprised of Dileep Padgaonkar, executive managing editor of 
the Times of India and B G Verghese, former editor of the Hindustan 
Times and adviser to Indira Gandhi, apart from myself.
I went to Gujarat as a strong believer in absolute freedom of 
expression including - these things are discussed at the Guild often 
- the freedom to name communities involved in rioting as perpetrators 
or victims.
Journalists are responsible, right? People have a conscience - when 
they're told what thugs are doing in their name, they will protest, 
governments will act.
Armed with this belief and my notepad, I sat at the Guild team's 
meeting with Mr Falgun Patel, owner-editor of Sandesh, the state's 
second-largest selling paper (ABC circulation 705,000).
''A vicious cycle began,'' Mr Patel said, after the Times of India 
reported an incident naming the victims, making it clear which 
community was involved. Following which, he explained, previously 
restrained newspapers (amongst which he presumably included his own) 
abandoned their no-naming policy.
''Nobody showed any norms or ethics after this,'' Mr Patel said.
''The English papers sided with the minorities'' (a word I 
particularly dislike: the only majority in a republic is a democratic 
one) while ''Gujarati papers backed Hinduism.''
The use of this word I found quite strange, because it assumed that 
English papers were anti-Hinduism, and that, to side against fanatics 
was the same as being against their faith.
He said that the paper editorialised its news pages and had a policy 
of not carrying clarifications.
Hindus never start anything on their own, Mr Patel said, it was 
always the Muslims who caused trouble. After this he took off.
Verghese, Padgaonkar and I asked questions and were taking down notes 
as he spoke.
''Hinduism ke naam per hum kuch bhi karenge,'' after ''the way these 
Muslims have behaved.'' Even Hindu women felt that this time, ''theek 
hai, saalon ko maro''.
''The hell with everything - principles of newspapers and all,'' he 
said, when asked what of restraint.
What about the innocents who would die because of such aggression? we 
asked. His reply was so atrocious that I looked up from my notes to 
see if he was aware that we were writing his statements. He was.
''When you target innocents, the message goes to the others to behave.''
Mr Patel's paper reflected his bigotry.
One day's lead story screamed that women at Godhra were raped and 
their breasts had been cut off. This was not true, Narendra Modi told 
us and a note had been issued in clarification.
Carrying this, of course, was against Sandesh's policy.
In its Bhavnagar edition, Sandesh said in a headline 'Hindus were 
burnt alive in Godhra and Bhavnagar's cowardly leaders did not even 
throw a stone'. Sandesh was not the only paper to hold and publish 
such views. Far from it. The number one paper, Gujarat Samachar (ABC 
810,000), ran front page articles on the phenomenon of the Hulladio 
Hanuman (riotous Hanuman), whose idols had been installed on razed 
mosques and dargahs.
A paper in Anand, Madhyantar, ran an eight-column front page 
commentary headlined: 'Muslims will have to prove they are full 
Indians'.
What was the effect of this poison on the state?
Narendra Modi, who told us that they felt the papers had gone 
overboard, sent a letter to Falgun Patel thanking him on the balanced 
and responsible coverage in Sandesh. He sent this letter to most 
papers in Gujarat, except one edited by a Muslim. The guilty papers 
were congratulated for the viciousness of their propaganda.
All the collectors and senior police officers we met told us that 
this recklessness to sweep up readers was severely damaging. Indeed, 
some of them said that violence that had been quelled with great 
difficulty, burst again into fire, immediately after such articles.
Communities should NOT be named in articles, they said time and 
again, begging us to tell our fellow editors this.
If it is true, and I believe it to be true, that news reports inflame 
us to violence, the makers and menders of the Constitution may well 
be justified in surreptitiously denying us the freedom of expression 
that is the right of all those who participate in democracy.
We are, simply put, unfit to have this freedom because we will misuse 
it. For murder.
Anybody have an opposing view?

_____

#2.

Economic and Political Weekly (Bombay)
May 18, 2002
Commentary

THE VEDIC TALIBAN
The fact that Ustad Faiyaz Hussain Khan's composition is played in 
Hindu temples made no impression on those who destroyed his statue in 
Baroda. All that mattered was that he was a Muslim.
Mukul Dube

The events of February-March 2002 in Gujarat were, it has been 
argued, qualitatively different from anything that had happened there 
before, or which had happened elsewhere in the unedifying history of 
our land. They did not constitute 'just another communal riot', which 
we have learnt not to get worked up about, but genocide. So unusual 
were those events that many have been led to ask for a law 
specifically to deal with genocide, as that form and degree of murder 
cannot be taken care of by the existing laws, which apply only to the 
normal run of violence and killing.

Whether or not we accept that, Gujarat 2002 certainly was unusual in 
that it compelled people who would ordinarily have remained silent to 
speak out. They were all kinds of people, from all walks of life, 
from all regions, and they were published in many different organs: 
but their outrage and despair, most palpable, almost jumping off the 
page, were identical. Here was a large historical force acting in 
much the same way on a heterogeneous mass of people. First, none was 
willing to swallow the official line which sought to depict the 
affair as a communal riot of the common or garden variety. A riot, 
all said, was spontaneous and unthinking - but what had happened bore 
the imprint of long and meticulous planning, of systematic 
military-style organisation. Targets had been identified precisely 
and listed, and the manpower and materials of destruction had been 
moved in swiftly and efficiently. It was a demonstration of the 
logistics of war.

All writers noted that state forces at the very least looked the 
other way and sometimes were active participants in the butchery. At 
some places the police steered victims into the arms of the killers, 
at others they themselves stepped in to shoot those who could not be 
killed in the primary manner. Ministers were in the police control 
room and had mobile phones, as did the leaders of the "rioters". This 
is indeed a strange form of spontaneity. A distinction must be drawn 
between, on the one hand, those parts of the state which were 
politically and ideologically aligned with the butchers (or were 
themselves the butchers) and, on the other, the police and the civil 
administration, whose job it is to obey their political masters but 
who have also a duty to their services and their norms and rules, 
relating chiefly to the disobedience of illegal orders and to the 
prevention or punishment of all that is defined as criminal.

It has been said by many that the political leadership of Gujarat - 
but a branch of the larger Hindutva leadership - had for long been 
creating circumstances in which just such action could be taken 
against Muslims. Godhra happened, and it was convenient. Had the BJP 
been in power in other provinces, they too would have seen the same 
kind of carefully orchestrated massacres. Commentators have said that 
Gujarat was like a test case, an experiment, a rehearsal, a training 
ground for the executioners of the desired Final Solution.

The civil administration failed, it has been noted, because the 
political leadership suppressed and scattered it, moving inconvenient 
individuals to places where they could not rein in or even monitor 
the Hindutva lobby nor act against its goons when those worthies had 
swung into action. The IAS officers of the state could not find a 
hall in Ahmedabad in which to hold a meeting. Several police officers 
who did not cooperate, or who could not be counted on to cooperate, 
are reported to have been transferred both before and after the major 
violence.

In the modern state, religious power and temporal or political power 
occupy separate areas. What happened in Gujarat was that the people 
who gained political power had arrogated to themselves the status of 
leaders of one religion, a religion which was further dressed up as a 
kind of state or national religion. Many have observed that the 
Hindutva lobby does not represent the country's Hindus and cannot 
pretend to lead them or speak for them. It has merely anointed 
itself, just as it dispenses the attribute of holiness to the dubious 
ascetics on whom it frequently falls back.

A riot is necessarily spontaneous, it is blind fury. But what 
happened in Gujarat was far from blind. In addition to the killing of 
men, women, children and foetuses, it involved the destruction of 
property and of material and economic resources. It involved the 
isolation of Muslim professionals so that their means of livelihood 
were snatched away from them. Where adivasis were induced to attack 
Muslims, with whom they had economic ties and whom they did not 
physically harm, there was systematic destruction of economic 
resources. This can hardly be called blind fury. It is, instead, the 
time-honoured principle of "If you cannot kill them, starve them". 
Let us remember that starvation is not like a gun-shot, over in an 
instant. It lingers and lasts. Those who do the starving need great 
patience. It is not for the hot-headed.

The word 'pogrom' has been used to describe the massacre, and the 
expression 'ethnic cleansing'. Simply put, a bunch of less than 
semi-literate bigots, spouting hogwash they describe as ancient 
wisdom, as far removed from humanity as is possible, without a care 
for the law of the land, without a care for historical truth, decide 
that an entire religion - described most exactly with the word 
"Muslim" but consisting of a bewildering variety of individuals - is 
to be wiped out. That the bunch of bigots wishes to do it is its sole 
comprehensible justification.

In a moving piece recently published, Wole Soyinka writes that 
Israel's Sharon, needing to "place a name and a face on the invisible 
body of Satan", chose Arafat. Hindutva has been doing the same: the 
enemy may be Bihari or Kashmiri or Gujarati; s/he may be a tailor or 
a teacher or a shoemaker or a housewife or a police officer; s/he may 
be old or young, man or woman. Ignore the details and focus only on 
the fact that s/he is Muslim. Then proceed to exterminate all 
examples you can find of this most precise identification.

A statue of 'Aftab-e-Mausiqi' Ustad Faiyaz Hussain Khan was destroyed 
in Baroda, the city to which he brought much fame. Faiyaz Khan is the 
man whose 'Vande Nandakumaram...", a composition in raga Kafi, has 
been played in Krishna temples as an instance of devotion beautifully 
expressed. But was he a singer? Irrelevant. Did he know a lot about 
the shastras? Irrelevant. Was he a devotee of Krishna? Irrelevant. He 
was a Muslim. Wipe out all traces. He never existed. Muslims have no 
right to exist, therefore he cannot have existed. Wipe out the traces 
and so prove that he never existed. But did not Shrikrishna Narayan 
Ratanjankar learn his gayaki from Ustad Faiyaz Khan? Did he not go on 
to make hundreds of fine compositions, including many in praise of 
Ram? Irrelevant. Pandit Ratanjankar was not a Ram-bhakta like us. We 
neither know nor care about that kind, those who do not see the 
wiping out of Islam as their dharma. Pseudo-secularists.

And what might that mean? Should we know? Does it matter? All that 
matters is that we have been told to shout it. All that matters is 
that, as with everything else we shout, we make it a term of abuse. 
All that we have ever been taught is abuse. We are the Vedic Taliban. 
Jai Shri Ram! See?

______

#3.

Economic and Political Weekly (Bombay)
May 18, 2002
Commentary

GUJARAT VIOLENCE: MEANING AND IMPLICATIONS

For years to come, the recent communal violence in Gujarat is going 
to remain a reference point in identity narratives about the 'self' 
and the 'other'. Therefore, the different narratives of the violence 
discussed here, along with their internal nuances, will continue to 
shape and influence collective memories. In a sense, these 
narratives, in the larger context of the environmental factors, will 
influence the political orientations of the people.
Riaz Ahmad

Notwithstanding the politics of playing down the gravity of the 
unending violence in Gujarat by extending arguments that 
longer-duration violence is not new to the state1 and that loot, 
arson, killing and rape are common to many such cases,2 more than 
two-and-a-half months of continuing violence have sent shock-waves 
across the globe. Numerous individuals, groups and agencies in India 
and abroad have voiced serious concern about issues like human rights 
and citizenship rights, and the role of the state as an actor 
responsible for the protection of such rights as well as for the 
maintenance of law and order. What is not disputed is the fact that 
two coaches of Sabarmati Express were attacked and set afire by a mob 
at Godhra and that the violence ultimately led to the burning alive 
of 58 Hindu karsevaks who were returning from Ayodhya, most of the 
dead being women and children. It is also not disputed that in the 
following weeks Ahmedabad and Baroda and many villages and towns of 
Vadodhara, Panchmahals, Mahasana and Sabarkantha witnessed unusual 
mob frenzy. Even according to the official accounts, by now, the 
death toll crosses 900 whereas according to unofficial assessments it 
ranges from 2000-5000. Men, women and children have been killed 
mercilessly; many of them have been burnt alive. Property worth 
hundreds of crores has been destroyed. Dargahs and mosques have been 
destroyed; some of them have been converted to temples. Women have 
been sexually assaulted. And the madness goes on. There is no 
disagreement that the loss of every kind has mainly been suffered by 
the Muslims.

Narratives of Violence

In short, there appears to be no controversy about the victims and 
perpetrators of violence on and after February 27, 2002. 
Nevertheless, once we try to go beyond this, once we try to find out 
'who did what, and why?' we are faced with a multiplicity of 
responses marked by several controversies. In fact, dissemination of 
knowledge about all cases of collective violence is a function of 
narratives about them. And, construction of a narrative is, largely, 
an exercise in focalisation, contextualisation and representation of 
facts. Hence, there are strong possibilities that any narrative of 
collective violence may be subjective, presenting a jaundiced view of 
the whole truth. Nevertheless, it is the current or the future 
potential of such a narrative as a weapon in the struggle for power, 
which makes it an interesting subject of study.

It is with this perspective that one should approach the narratives 
of the ongoing violence in Gujarat. If we fail to do so, many of us 
may dismiss, for example, a particular narrative as being 
subjective and therefore unworthy of any serious attention. Such a 
rejection may obstruct a comprehensive view about future direction of 
Indian politics. I will, therefore, like to talk about different 
narratives of the current violence in Gujarat. Nevertheless, before 
doing so I will also like to argue that the great mass of Indians 
living at the margins of existence, have no active role in the 
construction of such narratives. They have neither the time nor the 
expertise required for undertaking such an exercise. Many of them may 
be the carriers of the knowledge disseminated through the narratives; 
the construction of the narratives remains a function performed by 
the elite, divided internally on various counts. Thus, a narrative 
is, generally, constructed by a small minority and seeks to influence 
the behaviour of more and more people.

As suggested earlier, the construction of a narrative is an exercise 
in focalisation, contextualisation and representation of facts. Any 
preconceptions about 'us' and 'them', about fears and suspicions, and 
about history, culture and politics may impact the processes of 
focalisation, contextualisation and representation of facts. It is 
primarily for these reasons that we discover dissimilar narratives of 
the 2002 violence in Gujarat.

A section of the Hindu elite focalises the Godhra incident, places it 
in the context of the perceived age-old Islamic fundamentalism and 
terrorism that allegedly came into sharp focus after the terrorist 
attacks in the US and India on September 11 and December 13, 2001 
respectively, and represents the Godhra carnage as an instance of 
Islamic terrorism planned and funded by Pakistan's ISI and 
implemented by their local agents. It sees the following violence as 
a natural and spontaneous reaction. Although the considerations of 
realpolitik prevent some of them to cross this line, others go on to 
justify the violence as a fitting reply: not merely an eye for an eye 
and a tooth for a tooth, but both eyes for an eye and the whole jaw 
for a tooth. The gory violence is represented as spontaneous and 
quick justice, which also establishes the Hindu manliness beyond 
doubt. This narrative argues that the violence reached such 
proportions because of the failure of the Muslims and the opposition 
parties to condemn the Godhra carnage and due to the role of the 
media, which publicised one-sided stories.

A section of the Muslim elite, on the other hand, constructs a 
qualitatively different narrative of the same events. It focalises 
death, destruction and humiliation suffered by the Muslims and places 
it in the larger context of a perceived conspiracy against Islam and 
the Muslims. A few of them see the continuing violence as an outcome 
of an international conspiracy of targeting Islam and the Muslims 
throughout the world: a manifestation of the theory of the clash of 
civilisations. Nevertheless, many of them see it as a conspiracy of 
the Hindutva forces to wipe out or enslave 20 crore Indian Muslims as 
a revenge for 1,000 years of the Muslim rule. The Ayodhya movement is 
also seen in the same context. It is argued that the tension built up 
due to this movement in February 2002, the misbehaviour of the 
karsevaks returning from Ayodhya on and before the day of the Godhra 
carnage, and particularly the misbehaviour of the karsevaks 
travelling in the coaches that were attacked and burnt instigated the 
violence against them. They believe that the Godhra incident was then 
used as an excuse to execute violence that was planned much in 
advance. They argue that even if the Godhra carnage had not taken 
place, the Muslims would have been targeted on some other pretext. 
The state itself is viewed as a sponsor and a partner of the crime 
that includes four-pronged attack against the Muslims' lives, 
economic status, self-respect, and religious and cultural identity.

One notes that each of the above two narratives has shades of 
differences of opinion on certain points. Nevertheless, the total 
impact of each as well as both of them remains a hate campaign and 
thus communal polarisation. However, a section of the Indian elite 
coming from different religious backgrounds is reading the Gujarat 
violence in a third way. Treating the Indian Muslims as citizens of 
India, it focalises the violation of citizenship rights and human 
rights along with the role played by the state of Gujarat and the 
Indian state in this regard. It places the issue of violation of 
rights and the role of the state in the context of national politics. 
It represents the violence as a consequence of identity politics 
based on religio-cultural nationalism, and as a serious challenge to 
India's constitution, secularism and democracy.

The convergence of these narratives has implications for the 
direction of the Indian politics. I will return to such implications 
later. At this stage, I want to make some broad observations about 
the current violence, trying to compare the same with the Ahmedabad 
riots of 1969.

Understanding the Current Collective Violence

The current violence in Gujarat should be seen in the context of the 
total crisis sweeping through the Indian political system. The 
political and economic crisis is both a cause and consequence of the 
processes of globalisation, authoritarianism and communalism. 
Globalisation has not merely opened up new economic avenues; it has 
also made the economic crisis worse. The political crisis emanating 
from inadequate responsiveness of the political system has 
contributed to greater authoritarian tendencies that have further 
distanced the people and the state, thus making the crisis even more 
serious. The economic and political contradictions have been 
manipulated to promote communalism so that it serves as an escape 
route for the brewing tensions among people, provides a breathing 
space to certain sections of the ruling elite and ensures the victory 
of some of them in the number game of electoral politics. Deeper 
penetration of communalism in the Indian society has serious 
long-term implications for the values of peace, pluralism and 
secularism here.

The current Gujarat violence is a glimpse of the ugly face of the 
convergence of the processes of globalisation, authoritarianism and 
communalism. Over the last two decades, deepening economic crisis, 
further accentuated by the globalisation process during the 1990s, 
has led to the closure of over 50 textile mills only in Ahmedabad, 
resulting in at least one lakh workers becoming unemployed (Jan 
Breman, 'Communal Upheaval as Resurgence of Social Darwinism', 
Economic and Political Weekly, April 20, 2002). Their struggle for 
survival has made them dependent on casual work. With no regular 
source of income and without any regular job, they, exceptions apart, 
have been swept by a wave of lumpenisation. This aspect of the 
globalisation process is not restricted to Ahmedabad.

Gujarat state symbolises the authoritarian tendencies of the Indian 
nation-state that have time and again been reflected in its response 
to various peoples' rights movements as well as in its love for 
draconian laws like Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) 
Act (TADA) and Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA). Gujarat is, after 
all, said to have earned the dubious distinction of making the 
largest number of arrests under TADA during the 1980's and the 
1990's. The manner TADA was generally used has contributed to the 
projection of the Muslims as a bunch of criminals and terrorists, 
simultaneously promoting among sections of Muslims a feeling of being 
discriminated against by the state and thus alienating them from the 
system. What better example can be cited to prove the point than to 
make a mention of the Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi's urge to 
invoke Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance (POTO) only for the culprits 
of the Godhra carnage and not for those involved in the following 
violence. It was only after a backlash of protest that the Gujarat 
state surrendered its discriminatory intentions in this case and 
decided against using POTO.

The Sangh parivar has treated Gujarat as its laboratory since the 
1980s, experimenting with its saffronisation project. The systematic 
and planned penetration of the Gujarati society by the sangh parivar 
has had far- reaching implications. Movements for women's rights, 
tribal autonomy, workers' rights, civil liberties and human rights 
have been swept gradually by the rising tide of anti-Muslim and anti- 
Christian campaign. Systematic mobilisation of the tribals, middle 
classes and women and their induction into the Hindutva fold, 
methodical social engineering directed at achieving communal 
polarisation through a propaganda for religio-cultural nationalism 
and a related hate campaign against the Muslims and the Christians, 
and gradual penetration of the Hindutva forces and their sympathisers 
in government, administration and police, are symptomatic of the 
level of communal divide experienced by the Gujarati society during 
the last two decades, simultaneously sounding alarm bells about the 
future of peace, pluralism, secularism and constitutional democracy 
in the state.

Notwithstanding innumerable islands of hope promoting the cause of 
people's rights, peace, pluralism, secularism and constitutional 
democracy, thousands of lumpenised youth's willingness to indulge in 
collective violence, simultaneous authoritarianism and 
communalisation of the state in Gujarat along with a general 
communalisation of the Gujarati society, all converged to produce the 
atrocious violence being witnessed in Gujarat. One may therefore 
argue that the ongoing Gujarat violence presents a synoptic view of 
the convergence of the processes of globalisation, authoritarianism 
and communalism.

Let me make one more point about the present case of the Gujarat 
violence. The madness that followed the brutal Godhra incident was 
not, for many weeks, a riot; it was a planned, one-sided, 
state-sponsored violence against the Muslims. If the gruesome 
convergence of globalisation, authoritarianism and communalism is not 
stalled and reversed, the Gujarat experiment may be repeated and 
replicated by the vested interests in other parts of the country too. 
Such developments may have implications for the theory of state in 
the third world. Gujarat, during the early phase of violence seemed 
to have lost its relative autonomy; it appeared to have been 
controlled by the Sangh parivar. It was much later that group clashes 
started. The violence taking place now appropriately fits the 
definition of communal clashes between the Hindus and the Muslims. It 
follows, therefore, that the Gujarat violence has passed through 
different phases. The initial phase stands out for the reasons cited 
above and overshadows the discourse on Gujarat violence.

A comparison of the current violence with the 1969 riots brings out 
similarities and dissimilarities between the two cases. Both, like 
all other cases of collective violence, are examples of failure of 
the civil society and the state to foresee and forestall violence. 
The point involved is this: there are no sudden riots. A 
developmental cycle constitutes the internal structure of a riot. It 
is the convergence of various elements like vitiation of atmosphere, 
aggravation of communal tensions, a trigger incident, mass violence, 
rumors before and during collective violence, and relief and 
rehabilitation that goes into the making of a riot. I am trying to 
argue that any incident of a communal nature cannot spark 
off violence if the atmosphere is not communally vitiated and if the 
communal tensions are not aggravated to a bursting point. Therefore, 
before mass violence takes place, there is sufficient time to foresee 
and avert its possibilities. Actual collective violence is indicative 
of the fact that it has caught both the civil society and state 
napping.

Planned Violence

Even though there were a few allegations of planned targeting of the 
Muslim lives and properties during the 1969 riots, by and large the 
violence then appeared to be spontaneous. In sharp contrast, the 
current violence stands out for its planning. (Kamal Mitra Chenoy, S 
P Shukla, K S Subramanium and Achin Vanaik, Gujarat Carnage 2002: A 
Report to the Nation by an Independent Fact Finding Mission.) Writing 
more than a decade ago I likened Ahmedabad riots of 1969 to a drama 
that passed through a series of stages: a prelude, various acts, and 
then a drop scene. Having followed the current violence quite 
closely, I still feel that the collective violence has unfolded 
itself like a drama. However, as the initial phase of this violence 
indicates, it is more a case of a well scripted, well directed, and 
meticulously planned drama. The selective targeting of the Muslim 
families and their business establishments, the large-scale use of 
cooking gas cylinders to set buildings ablaze, and the use of 
vehicles to bring armed rioters who had water bottles are indicative 
of the execution of a planned operation.

During the 1969 riots also the performance of the state government 
did not come up to the expectations. Curfew was not imposed in time. 
For 36 hours, the police and administration failed to control the 
ongoing loot, arson and murder, but the army was not given a free 
hand. There were allegations of communal prejudice against them. 
However, the current violence tells a completely different story. The 
state government does not merely appear to be guilty of complacency, 
inefficiency or occasional connivance with the rioters. It seems to 
be the main sponsor (see Chenoy 2002) of and partner in the planned 
massacre, loot and arson. Far from making any efforts to control the 
tensions generated by the Godhra carnage, the political leadership of 
the state went on to circulate unfounded theories of ISI-planned and 
financed terrorist attack on the karsevaks. When violence started 
against the Muslims, it was described as a natural reaction as if to 
justify the same. In the evening of February 28, after many hours of 
anti-Muslim violence, a senior vice president of the Vishva Hindu 
Parishad appeared on a news channel to justify the Bharat Bandh call 
for March 1 and said that the anger against the Godhra killings had 
not been released properly. All this explains the mood of the 
political leadership of the state and of the leaders of their larger 
parivar. Reports say that the Muslim settlements were attacked by 
mobs that were accompanied by the police. In places where Muslim mobs 
resisted, the police fired on them to break their resistance. Once 
this was done, the attacking mobs indulged in unhindered violence of 
all kind. The story of the gruesome murder of Ehsan Jafry also 
indicates the role of the state in violence. It is also reported that 
ministers in state government and senior leaders of the local BJP 
monitored the situation from police stations and control rooms.

The cases of 1969 and 2002 are distinguishable from another angle 
too. Gujarat 2002 looks a glaring example of a place having, what 
Paul Brass (Theft of an Idol. Calcutta: Seagull Books, 1998.) calls, 
an institutionalised riot system. Gujarat having the reputation of 
being a Hindutva laboratory has forces that continue to tend communal 
fire, in order to keep the situation ready for a communal flare up 
when required. It follows from what has been mentioned a bit earlier 
that this violence has seen actors who played a crucial role in 
converting the communal incident of Godhra into a large-scale 
communal flare up. It is also clear local as well as national level 
sangh parivar leaders and politicians interpreted the trigger 
incident communally and in fact desired the violence to take place. 
That the leaders of the rioting mobs had detailed information about 
the homes and business establishments of the Muslims, that they had 
mobile phones to contact one another as well as their leaders, that 
the BJP, the VHP and the Bajrang Dal leaders were constantly 
monitoring the situation, all point to an informal organisational 
network of persons and forces, suggesting the existence of an 
institutionalised riot system. In an institutionalised riot system, 
there are experts for playing specialised roles. During the current 
violence truckloads of slogan-shouters came and went away. Truckloads 
of rioters came who indulged in violence. Use of cooking gas to set 
buildings ablaze also required expertise. Local papers like Sandesh 
and Gujarat Samachar excelled in rumour-mongering. Inflammatory 
pamphlets were circulated. It follows there were some who specialised 
in writing them, some others in printing them, and still others in 
distributing them. The examples of actors playing specialised roles 
can be multiplied. Nevertheless, it is important to understand that 
an institutionalised riot system, despite the specialised performance 
of roles, leaves scope for the role of extras in the drama of a riot. 
The current violence, therefore, also witnessed the people joining in 
without any special role assigned to them. It was their presence at 
the scenes of violence that could make it look spontaneous, at least 
superficially.

The character of participants in violence in Gujarat also appears to 
have changed overtime. Sexual subjugation of the female body as a 
weapon to humiliate a whole community was seen in 1969 as well as 
2002. In fact, unfortunately, women do have to bear a lot of pain and 
torture in almost all cases of collective violence. But what 
distinguishes the current case from the 1969 riots is a strikingly 
different role, a surprisingly new 'avtaar' of the women. Some of 
them participated in the perpetration of violence and the looting of 
goods. Similarly, the participation of apparently well-to-do middle 
class individuals in violence and loot was a new feature, absent in 
the 1969 riots. Extensive mobilisation of tribals for the sake of 
violence against Muslim lives and properties is yet another new 
feature which distinguishes the present one from the 1969 case.

Commitment to Gandhian values also appears to be declining. The 1969 
riots witnessed Morarji Desai and Indulal Yagnik undertaking 
indefinite fast and Ravi Shankar Maharaj, a Sarvodya leader of 
Gujarat, going on a 'padyatra' for the sake of normalcy and peace. In 
the present case, although some of the leaders awoke to the need of 
peace-marches in Gujarat, nobody has undertaken an indefinite fast 
for the sake of peace there. Gujarat has the dubious distinction of 
being the scene of the first large-scale riots in the post 
independence period. The 1969 riots were unparalleled in scale and 
magnitude. The state has once again earned this dubious distinction 
for being the scene of the first large-scale violence in the age of 
satellite television. Perhaps it was and it is the depiction of 
images of victims and consequences of violence that has contributed 
to sending shock waves through the country and abroad.

In view of the earlier arguments relating to planning and execution 
of violence and the role of the political leaders and other members 
of the Hindutva parivar in the same, and in view of the BJP's poor 
performance in many of the recently concluded elections, the 
forthcoming national and state elections, the polarisation being 
achieved by the violence and the possibilities of a favourable impact 
of this polarisation on the BJP's prospects in the forthcoming 
elections, I conclude that the current violence is a case of 
continuation of politics through unconventional means. I do not place 
the 1969 riots under the same category.

Implications for the Indian Politics

I now return to the issue of implications of the current violence for 
the direction of Indian politics. For years to come, it is going to 
remain a reference point in the identity narratives about the 'self' 
and the 'other'. Therefore, its three narratives discussed earlier, 
along with their internal nuances, will continue to shape and 
influence collective memories. In a sense, these narratives, in the 
larger context of the environmental factors, will influence the 
political orientations of the people. Since the narratives are 
essentially different, the resultant political orientations will also 
be different. The direction of Indian politics will therefore be 
marked by complexity.

First, we may see greater communal polarisation. We may witness a 
more aggressive Hindu religio-cultural nationalism in search of 
political power. Second, a Muslim political party may be floated. 
But, if the present political scenario serves as a guide, the 
overwhelming majority of Muslims will not support it. Nevertheless, 
it may prove a source of more communal polarisation, thus serving the 
political ends of Hindu religio-cultural nationalism. Third, Muslims 
in general will continue to support political parties that look 
capable of defeating the BJP in elections. Fourth, in view of the 
erosion of the legitimacy of the state, many Indians may withdraw 
from the political process, thereby leaving a scope for the 
continuation in power of forces responsible for such erosion. Fifth, 
in the face of alienation some Muslims may get involved in political 
violence including terrorism, which too will be counter-productive. 
Nevertheless, the fact that despite dramatic depiction of death, 
destruction and humiliation of their co-religionists by the print and 
visual media, the Muslims in other parts of the country, in general, 
refrained from violent reactions shows that vocal and visible protest 
by the secular forces including the mass media moderated their anger 
and anguish and gave them hope in such a critical time. Many of them 
may now lend support to strengthen democratic politics. Therefore, 
sixthly, the coming years may see a resurgence of new politics: 
pressure groups, people's rights movements, NGOs etc. working towards 
the protection of civil rights, human rights, rights of the 
minorities, dalits and the deprived sections. We may even see a 
networking of such groups. Lastly, a realignment of political forces 
may take place.

In the end, I will very briefly touch upon the issue of preventing 
communal violence. There are structural roots of communal violence in 
India; and unless far-reaching structural changes take place conflict 
situations will keep on emerging again and again. Also, in the given 
conditions, those who hope to gain from communal polarisation and 
violence will continue with their game plan. The situation therefore 
calls for meaningful interventions by peace-loving secular and 
democratic forces. People's rights movements involving struggle for 
procedural as well as substantial democracy may provide an answer to 
the problem of communal violence. Participation in these movements 
may carve out such identities for people that may have potential to 
ultimately scuttle the politics of communal mobilisation. These 
movements may draw people from different religious background. They 
may thus get an opportunity of obtaining a personal experience and 
knowledge about one another. This may serve to change the communal 
mind-set.

Serious attention needs to be paid to the argument that the 
developmental cycle of a riot can be disturbed through outside 
intervention. This makes a strong case for a constant watch of the 
communal situation and its management by the state and the civil 
society. The peace-loving forces in the civil society may develop 
grass- root resistance to violence. They may contribute to build 
bridges between communities partially isolated from each other. 
Lastly, Gujarat is also a reminder that every one of us does some 
introspection to find out the depth and strength of our faith in 
secular values.

Notes

1 The 1969 riots in Gujarat continued for over three months.
2 India's defence minister George Fernandes is reported to have 
followed the same line in his speech delivered on 30 April 2002 in 
the Lok Sabha. He said, 'Stories are being told about Gujarat 
violence as if it was happening for the first time.' Reported in the 
Times of India, May 1, 2002.

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