SACW | Oct. 30 - Nov 1, 2007 | Pakistan: Tariq Ali Interview / Nepal Human rights / India: Inaction in Face of Tehelka Expose on Gujarat 2002 Killings

Harsh Kapoor aiindex at mnet.fr
Wed Oct 31 22:07:18 CDT 2007


South Asia Citizens Wire | October 30 - November 
1, 2007 | Dispatch No. 2466 - Year 10 running

[1] Pakistan: Tariq Ali Interview (Aoun Abbas)
[2]  OHCHR in Nepal: An early warning for NGOs
[3]  India: Outraged Citizens Speak Up For Action 
To Bring To Book The Killers Of Gujarat
   (i) Prominent Citizens Public Statement 
following Tehelka expose of the "Gujarat riots" 
of 2002
   (ii) Citizens For Peace Press Statement - 26th October 2007
  (iii) AID Statement on Tehelka exposé on Gujarat violence
[4] India and Gujarat 
  (i) Silence of the lambs (Shoma Chaudhury)
  (ii) Lawyer Bhushan says Tehelka expose 'fit 
case' to dismiss CM Modi (Iftikhar Gilani)
  (iii) Narendra Modi And Indian Democracy: The 
Two Cannot Coexist (Daya Varma and Vinod Mubayi)
[5] India: The Displaced of Ahmedabad (Neera 
Chandhoke, Praveen Priyadarshi, Silky Tyagi, Neha 
Khanna)
[6] Announcements:
  (i) Dharna [sit-in]- Justice for victims of 
Gujarat Carnage 2002 (Ahmedabad, 1 November 2007)
   (ii) Compelling Conversations: Reporting from 
the Front Lines of Terror (Karachi, 1 November 
2007)
   (iii) Free Binayak Sen Website Launched

______


[1]

Newsline
October 2007

"JUDGES SPRING FROM THE SAME MILIEU AS THE RULERS"

Interview: Tariq Ali
Writer-activist

by Aoun Abbas

[. . .]

           Newsline interviewed Tariq Ali at his 
house in Lahore, during his recent visit to 
Pakistan.

           Q: How significant was Chief Justice 
Iftikhar Chaudhry's decision to fight back?

             A: The struggle to insist on the 
separation of powers between the judiciary and 
the state, which has been very weak in this 
country, is very important. Judges have been 
cajoled, they have been bullied, and they have 
been fired from 1958 onwards. I remember Justice 
Kiyani who took a very brave step against the 
first military dictatorship in this country, 
going around universities, addressing students, 
speaking in a very subtle way, but encouraging us 
to think.

           It is a fact that, by and large, judges 
in our country spring from the same milieu as the 
other rulers of the country. So that is why the 
decision of this chief justice to fight back was 
extremely important.

           You know the whole world thinks that 
Pakistan consists of just military people, 
corrupt politicians and bearded lunatics. That is 
the image of Pakistan in the West. This 
particular struggle to reinstate the chief 
justice gave a completely different impression of 
Pakistan.

           Q: Can the rise of the judiciary help democracy in Pakistan?

           A: This struggle has revived hope in 
the country, but judges only interpret the law. 
It's the politicians who make laws. So the 
judiciary is structurally limited.

            Q: Would you comment on the relatively 
cool response to Nawaz Sharif's return?

            A: If he was hoping that there would 
be lakhs of people out to welcome him, he was 
wrong. Money can buy you votes, but not popular 
affection. In fact, the masses were indifferent. 
People are not as stupid as politicians imagine. 
Everyone knows that the country was looted

           Q: How do you see a deal between Musharraf and Benazir?

            A: This deal, pushed through by 
Washington, will sink both parties in the end. 
Bhutto's opportunism is disgraceful.

           Q: Which political party has the 
capacity to put Pakistan on the right track?

             A: Judging by what Nawaz Sharif and 
Benazir Bhutto did when they were in power 
previously, it is extremely unlikely that they 
are going to be different this time around. 
Politics has become a mechanism of making money 
in this country. Musharraf's martial law also 
ended up ganging up with a bunch of corrupt 
politicians and trying to run the country.

           Q: What then is the future of democracy in Pakistan?

             A: All they did was to grow rich 
themselves. In my opinion none of the major 
political parties offer any hope. They are 
bankrupt gangs trying to enhance themselves and 
their wealth. They can never change the fate of 
this country. When you have three groups of 
corrupt politicians - the Chaudhrys, the Sharif 
Brothers and Benazir Bhutto lining up for power, 
or power-sharing, one has to despair. None of 
them did anything for the poor when they were in 
power.

           Q: Did this country ever have a chance to move forward?

             A: The one big chance Pakistan had of 
making a new start was at the time of the 
break-up of the country, which was very brutal 
for the population of then East Pakistan. But 
nonetheless, Pakistan had an opportunity to make 
a new start under Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. People 
were filled with hope, and expectations were 
high. But very little happened. The regime talked 
a lot, there was a lot of rhetoric; some things 
did get done, but on the question facing the 
country, the institutionalisation of democratic 
rule - destroying, once and for all, the power of 
the landed gentry, setting up and establishing a 
solid education and health system, cutting down 
the size of the army and reducing the military 
budget - it did not happen.

           When it did not happen you had the 
military coming back in again, and then General 
Zia-ul-Haq, on the authorisation of the US, 
executed the country's elected prime minister, 
Zulifikar Ali Bhutto. Then began the worst period 
in Pakistani history. The country's entire 
political culture was brutalised. Many of the 
things we are seeing now were seeded then.

           Q:How would you compare General Musharraf with Zia?

            A: The main similarity between the two 
regimes is that they both do Washington's bidding 
in Afghanistan. Zia did so when the US favoured a 
jihad against the communists, and Musharraf is 
fighting for 'global human rights' against the 
jihadis who are now the enemy. Zia helped create 
the MQM, and Musharraf used it against the chief 
justice.

           Q:The Left has failed to leave any impact on Pakistani politics.

            A: The Leftist movement was never 
strong in Pakistan. The bulk of the Left in this 
part of the world went to India after Partition. 
Punjab, in particular, was probably the most 
reactionary and conservative province in British 
India. In the NWFP, you had a progressive 
nationalism led by Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan and 
the Khudai Khidmatgars who fought the British 
politically and non-violently. The NWFP had a 
strong, secular, progressive force, but it wasn't 
a radical left-wing movement as such. In 
Balochistan, Sardars dominated the society, so if 
two Sardars became left-wing, people thought 
Balochistan was very radical. But the basic 
institutional structure remained the same. Sindh 
was not a very radical place at all.

           The tiny communist party that existed 
here in trade unions and the peasant movement 
made a big mistake by linking up with 
nationalists inside the army and trying to 
organise a half-baked coup in 1951. The Pakistan 
Labour Party, in a very modest way, in the recent 
movement to reinstate the chief justice was good. 
Left groups can play a good role in society if 
they are linked to it. If they are not linked to 
it, then it's a joke.

           Q:What are the reasons behind the 
success of Leftist movements in Latin America?

             A: These movements have won because 
they have struggled for the last 20 to 25 years. 
These are not movements which suddenly sprang out 
of the air. In Venezuela, in Bolivia, in Ecuador, 
there have been electoral victories recently. 
They are the result of social movements that have 
been struggling and working with the people, 
giving them an alternative.

           Q:How can the agenda of imperialistic forces be defied in South Asia?

             A: Only a leadership with vision can 
do it, and at present we don't have any. We have 
politicians in South Asia and the Arab world who 
are permanently on their knees before the US. 
Now, the Arabs have so much oil they don't need 
to be on their knees before anyone. But they are 
because in most cases these are unrepresentative 
regimes. They need US military backing to stay in 
power. If we look at the situation in Pakistan 
and India, I feel we need a European Union-style 
structure in South Asia. Pakistan, India, 
Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka need to form a 
South Asian union which can later be expanded 
within this framework.

           Q:But is it possible to achieve this 
without solving problems like Kashmir?

             A: Since both Pakistan and India are 
nuclear states, a new war to me is unthinkable. I 
think Kargil was a foolish adventure by the 
Pakistani military for which they paid the price 
as a large number of Pakistani soldiers were 
killed there. If they do anything like that 
again, they will threaten the existence of this 
country. Kashmir cannot be solved in the present 
framework, we need a long-term solution. It can 
only be solved by an overall deal either directly 
with India, or within a South Asian framework. 
There is no other solution. And Kashmiris would 
also accept a unified, autonomous Kashmir within 
a broader union with its autonomy guaranteed by 
all the South Asian powers.

           Q:Terrorism and extremism are two big 
problems Pakistan faces. How can these be 
addressed?

             A: A series of radical social reforms 
is the answer to religious extremism. The country 
needs an excellent educational system, free for 
the poor. At present you cannot get proper 
education in Pakistan unless you have proper 
money. The level of education is abysmal - and I 
am not interested in the government's figures of 
enrollment because there are no teachers and 
infrastructure. I feel there is no military 
solution, only a political solution, both 
internally and externally. The problem is 
deep-rooted in our history and has to be solved.

           Q:Some people believe that US-led 
western forces are justified in the occupation of 
Afghanistan to combat terrorism. Is this the 
right approach?

           A: I am one of those people who don't 
believe that big powers occupying small countries 
solve any problem, even if they have good 
intentions. The Soviet intervention of 
Afghanistan created a mess which the Americans 
fully utilised to drive them out. If you accept, 
on principle, the right of the West to start 
occupying countries on the basis of extremism or 
terrorism, are you in favour of Pakistan being 
occupied? Many people in the West regard Pakistan 
as a failed state and name it as a base camp of 
terrorists and terrorism. What if they come and 
occupy Pakistan? They will find lots of figures 
like Hamid Karzai ready to work with them, but 
the overwhelming majority of the population 
wouldn't be in favour of it.

           To me, the Afghanistan issue can only 
be solved first by pulling western troops out, 
and then organising a summit of regional powers, 
including Pakistan, India, Russia and Iran, to 
discuss a joint deal to stabilise Afghanistan as 
a federation.

           Q:Are you in favour of a world without nuclear weapons?

           A: I have always been against nuclear 
weapons, but I do not believe that the US should 
determine who should or should not have nuclear 
weapons. If France and Britain, tiny little 
countries on the world map, can have nuclear 
weapons, why not India or Pakistan, and why not 
Iran? It's the so-called monopoly of the West to 
have them that I don't accept.


______

[2]

OHCHR IN NEPAL: AN EARLY WARNING FOR NGOS
http://www.achrweb.org/Review/2007/191-07.html

______


[3]  [CITIZENS SPEAK UP FOR ACTION TO BRING TO BOOK THE KILLERS OF GUJARAT]

(i)

PROMINENT CITIZENS PUBLIC STATEMENT FOLLOWING 
TEHELKA EXPOSE OF THE "GUJARAT RIOTS" OF 2002


The recent Tehelka expose of the "Gujarat riots" 
of 2002, demonstrates very starkly that these 
were neither "spontaneous" nor "riots", but were 
in fact mass murder, loot and mayhem orchestrated 
and organized by the top echelons of the Gujarat 
units of the VHP, the Bajrang Dal, and the BJP 
with the full connivance and complicity of the 
Gujarat government headed by Narendra Modi. The 
Tehelka tapes show senior functionaries of these 
organizations and of the government bragging and 
confessing to their having committed and 
participated in committing heinous crimes like 
brutal mass murder, rape, burning, looting etc. 
Many of them claim and boast about how Narendra 
Modi explicitly encouraged the carnage and told 
the killers and rioters that they were being 
given a free rein of three days. These people 
also claim how several senior police officials 
not only aided and abetted these killers by their 
actions and inaction but in many cases themselves 
participated in the carnage.

These senior functionaries who boast about having 
committed these crimes also claim how Modi 
provided shelter to these people and even got 
inconvenient judges changed to ensure that these 
mass murderers got out on bail. They also boast 
about having successfully subverted the integrity 
of the Nanavati Commission. In short, the tapes 
reveal a horrific state of affairs in Gujarat, 
which seems to have gone beyond the pale of the 
rule of law, and the most basic norms of 
humanity. And that it has become a state where 
the government is not being carried on in 
accordance with the Constitution.

It has become imperative that a special 
investigating team be immediately constituted to 
investigate the involvement of Narendra Modi and 
other senior functionaries in his government and 
the police in the killings, their abetment and 
the shelter and help given to the criminals. This 
SIT can be constituted by the Supreme Court and 
should be monitored on a regular basis and asked 
to compete their investigation within a few 
months. This would be one of the most important 
investigations ever undertaken in this country.

But most immediately, the persons shown on tape 
confessing to having committed crimes must be 
immediately arrested and those of them who are 
serving officials, must be placed under 
suspension. If the state government shows any 
hesitation in doing this, that will only 
reinforce the overwhelming evidence of their 
complicity in the Carnage.

The pending cases of Naroda Patia, Gulbarga 
society etc. which have been stayed by the 
Supreme Court, pending hearing of the 
applications for their transfer outside Gujarat 
for the last 4 years, must be immediately taken 
up by the court, ordered to be expeditiously 
reinvestigated by an independent agency and cases 
tried expeditiously.

We therefore call upon the central government and 
the Supreme Court, whose duty it is to enforce 
the rule of law and protect the Constitution, to 
immediately take the above steps. We also call 
upon all right thinking people of Gujarat to come 
out in support of these demands. What is at stake 
is not merely the survival of Constitutional 
values and the rule of law but the survival of 
civilisation itself in this country.

Signed by:
Admiral R.H.Tahiliani (Former Navy Chief, 
Chairman Transparency International, India)
S.P. Shukla (Former Finance Secy, GOI)
Shanti Bhushan (Former Law Minister)
Muchkund Dubey (Former Foreign Secretary, GOI)
Ramaswamy Iyer (Former Water Resources Secy, GOI)
E.A.S. Sarma (Former Power Secretary, GOI)
B. George Verghese (Senior Journalist)
Madhu Bhaduri (Former Ambassador, GOI)
Medha Patkar (Social Activist)
Aruna Roy (Social Activist, Former member NAC)
Arundhati Roy (Writer, Social Activist)
Arvind Kejriwal (RTI Activist, Magsaysay awardee)
Sandeep Pande (Social Activist, Magsaysay awardee)
Major Gen. S.G. Vombatkere (Retd. Mysore)
Prof. Amit Bhaduri (Former Professor of Economics, JNU)
Prof. K.M.Shrimali (Department of History, Delhi University)
Arun Kumar (Professor Economics, JNU)
Prof. Girijesh Pant (School of International Studies, JNU)
Prof. Pramod Yadava (Professor, Dean, School of Life Sciences JNU)
Prof. Sujata Patel (Dept. of Sociology, University of Pune)
Prof. Achin Vinayak (Professor, Third World Academy)
Nasir Tayabji (Director, Centre for Jawaharlal Nehru Studies, Jamia
Milia Islamia)
Jean Dreze (Visiting Professor, Allahabad University)
Arshad Alam (Centre for Jawaharlal Nehru Studies, Jamia Milia Islamia)
Shailesh Gandhi (Convenor, NCPRI)
Vikram Lal (Director, Common Cause)
Shabnam Hashmi (Social Activist, ANHAD)
Dunu Roy (Social Activist and Director, Hazard Centre)
Ravi Chopra (Director, People's Science Institute)
N. Bhaskar Rao (Director, Centre for media studies)
Dr. Ajay Mehra (Director, Centre for public affairs)
Manoj Mitta (Journalist)
Sundeep Dougal (Journalist)
Ajit Bhattacharjee (Journalist)
Sudhirendra Sharma (Journalist)
Smitu Kothari (Dir. Centre for Intercultural Resources, Co-Founder Lokayan)
Himanshu Thakkar (Centre for Water Policy)
Nandini Oza (Social Activist, M.P.)
Ashish Kothari (Founder Member Kalpavriksh)
Vinod Raina (Founder Eklavya)
Rohit Prajapati (Social Activist, Baroda)
Trupti Shah (Social Activist, Baroda)
S. Srinivasan (Baroda)
Sanjay Kak (Filmmaker)
Arshad Amanullah (Documentary Filmmaker)
Nikhil Dey (Social Activist)
Ashok Rao (Secy. National Confederation of Officers Association)
Kamini Jaiswal (Lawyer)
Prashant Bhushan (Public Interest Lawyer)


(ii)

CITIZENS FOR PEACE

PRESS STATEMENT - 26TH OCTOBER 2007

The expose showing perpetrators of the 2002 
carnage in Gujarat boasting about their crimes is 
an open challenge to all citizens of India. It is 
an urgent reminder that we must renew efforts to 
prosecute those who commit such crimes against 
humanity.

We, Citizens for Peace, in particular appeal to 
the people of Gujarat to break silence and oppose 
the politics of hatred and terror. It is possible 
that many residents of Gujarat may have been 
unaware of the enormity of crimes committed in 
their state with open state support in 2002. 
Others may have hesitated to confront a truth so 
bizarre. Now, after the confessions, silence is 
equal to endorsement of the chilling crimes.

Justice delayed is better than justice denied 
altogether. It will make a difference if citizens 
from all walks of life, across India, stand 
emphatically opposed to the continuing 
miscarriage of justice in Gujarat.

We urge all citizens to:

1. Write to the Prime Minister and Union Home 
Minister demanding that they take immediate steps 
to prosecute the culprits of the carnage.

2. Write to all national political parties in 
India asking how and why the constitutional 
crisis, of a dysfunctional judicial system in 
Gujarat, is allowed to persist and urging them to 
address this grave threat to the idea of India 
with utmost urgency.

3. Write to the BJP, impressing on them that this 
is their chance to dissociate themselves from 
those responsible for these crimes, and to help 
this country make a new beginning towards justice 
for all.

For the text of our letters please see these posts on our website.

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil 
is for good men to do nothing."

Citizens for Peace is a Mumbai based non-party 
group of volunteers committed to working for 
communal harmony and a vibrant secular polity. 
The Trustees of CFP are: Julio Rebiero, 
B.G.Deshmukh, Titoo Ahluwalia, Rina Kamath, Tariq 
Ansari, Dolly Thakore and Cyrus Guzder. The 
Managing Committee consists of: Titoo Ahluwalia, 
Tariq Ansari, Dolly Thakore, Dilip D'Souza, Gulan 
Kripalani, Pervin Varma, Rajni Bakshi and Devieka 
Bhojwani.

(iii)

Association for India's Development (AID)
Contacts:
Aniruddha Vaidya (Bay Area): 650-996-8249
Prof. Mohan Bhagat (College Park): 301-345-5308
Nirveek Bhattacharjee (Baltimore): 410-627-7679

E-mail Contact:  <mailto:info at aidindia.org>info at aidindia.org
Web: <http://aidindia.org/>aidindia.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

College Park, MD.
Oct 31, 2007.
AID STATEMENT ON TEHELKA EXPOSÉ ON GUJARAT VIOLENCE

The Association for India's Development (AID) 
views with great concern the various revelations 
in the Tehelka exposé of October 25th 2007 
regarding the planning and execution of the 
Gujarat pogrom in 2002 and how a systematic 
effort is going on to deny justice to the victims 
and survivors of these violent events in which 
over 2000 people were killed according to human 
rights organizations.

The tapes reveal several prima-facie 
incriminating statements by the perpetrators 
themselves of how the pogrom in Gujarat was 
planned, how administrative cover was provided by 
the state, confessions of brutality, rape and 
murder; statements to the effect that they will 
murder again if opportunity arises; statements 
indicating subversion of law by law officers such 
as by a prosecutor and another person 
representing the State of Gujarat in front of 
judicial commission investigating the violence; 
and bragging by a Gujarat MLA about how bombs 
were made at a place in his control and arms 
procured and distributed.
The tapes provide fresh evidence implicating 
those involved in the Gujarat government at the 
highest levels of the political establishment, 
administration and law enforcement who colluded 
with the key perpetrators of the violence. The 
tapes also correlate with various statements 
regarding the scale and the nature of violence as 
well as attempts to subvert justice previously 
made by various human-rights organizations in 
India, and by eminent persons and activists who 
were in Gujarat in the immediate aftermath of the 
violence in 2002 to independently investigate and 
provide relief and assistance to the survivors.
The violations of law and order recorded by 
Tehelka are heinous in the extreme and cast a 
most egregious blot on the very core of civic 
society. Every effort must be made to immediately 
bring the perpetrators and their supporters to 
justice. Such crimes should not go unpunished for 
such lengths of time by the judicial system, if 
we are to ensure that they don't ever repeat in 
Gujarat or elsewhere, and that people's faith in 
the rule of law is restored. It is shocking to be 
reminded that some of the most egregious violent 
incidents such as the Naroda Patiya and Gulbarga 
Society are still pending hearing for the past 4 
years, not the least because of the way the state 
government handled the prosecution.
Following the exposé, the administration in 
Gujarat has responded by ordering a media 
black-out of the Tehelka tapes in that state. 
This goes against the Constitutional right of 
freedom of speech and expression and the 
fundamental tenets of the RTI Act of 2005 that 
says in its preamble:  "democracy requires an 
informed citizenry and transparency of 
information which are vital to its functioning."
We demand that new evidence brought to light by 
the Tehelka exposé be rapidly looked at and 
action taken to arrest and bring to justice those 
who perpetrated, aided and abetted the violence; 
and that the pending cases be heard and resolved 
by the Courts in an expedited manner. Further, 
all Constitutional means should be considered to 
ensure that the Gujarat administration does not 
continue to subvert the rule of law in delivering 
justice to the victims. All the survivors and 
families affected in Gujarat in 2002 should be 
adequately compensated and rehabilitated, and 
clear steps taken to end the isolation and 
ghettoization of the communities affected by the 
riots. We also demand that the media black-out of 
Tehelka Tapes on televisions in Gujarat be lifted 
immediately.
We appeal to the people of Gujarat to maintain 
public order and peace as they look at the 
evidence and demand that the Indian law 
enforcement and judicial system bring to justice 
all those who are implicated.

______


[3]

(i)

Hindustan Times
October 31, 2007

SILENCE OF THE LAMBS

by Shoma Chaudhury

We are all tempted to forget. Tempted to shake 
our heads at 'mind-numbing' horror and get sucked 
back into the urgencies of our own day.  Tempted 
to impute sinister motives or just look the other 
way. We are tempted, but we must not give in. 
Because what Tehelka's investigation last week 
showed is not just about Narendra Modi and some 
lumpen Hindus. It's about you and me and who we 
are as people.

It is true that 'Operation Kalank' is about 
things we already knew: mass murder, rape and 
barbarous cruelty, all planned and executed by 
the unforgivable sanction of the State. But the 
unthinkable has happened. What was earlier 
allegation by victims and their defenders has now 
been corroborated by the perpetrators themselves. 
And what is our response? Nothing.

Operation Kalank cannot be dismissed as the empty 
bragging of anonymous men. The men caught in the 
eye of the camera range from the Advocate General 
of Gujarat to BJP MLAs, senior functionaries of 
the VHP and RSS, influential lawyers and the 
actual foot-soldiers of hate: not the bit players 
cheering from the outer circle, but the hacksaws 
themselves. And what the TV channels have shown 
is only the broadstrokes. Tehelka documents an 
even vaster and more detailed nightmare world of 
thwarted justice and failed institutions, 
including the fire on the Sabarmati Express.

Yet, in the face of all this, our story has only 
been met by empty counter-arguments and 
conspiracy theories. Why was the story timed for 
now? Is Tehelka a Congress front? And even more 
ludicrously, has Modi paid Tehelka to do the 
story to consolidate the Hindu vote ahead of 
elections? As one of the founder members of 
Tehelka, these theories bring an exhausting sense 
of déjà vu. We have been here before. Six years 
ago, when Tehelka broke Operation Westend, the 
investigation about corruption in defence 
procurement, the same fantastic theories had 
greeted us, each contradicting the other. But the 
truth outlived it all.

Now it's happening again. Journalistic stories of 
this nature can never be timed. Operation Kalank 
began by sheer accident - we did not set out to 
do it - and it took six months to nail down. If 
it had taken three, we would have released it in 
August; if it had taken ten, we would have 
released it in January, post the election. 
Imagine what conspiracy theories that would have 
yielded.

Duck the truth and look for some new depravity to 
explain it away: that's become our habitual 
response as a people. We think it makes us 
worldly and knowing. We think it makes us 
sagacious. But in truth, it displays our fallen 
nature. It displays the bankruptcy of our 
emotions and the poverty of our conscience. We no 
longer believe anyone can do anything without a 
motive. The fact that cynical backroom games are 
more easy to believe in than purity of intention 
says something enormously disturbing about where 
we have reached as a society. We can be shown a 
man gloating over a foetus ripped out of a 
mother's womb, but we would rather embroider why 
we are being shown this than react with honest 
emotion to the fact.

But what is far worse is the unremorseful 
responses of the BJP and people who state that 
the genocide is no longer an issue because it is 
five years old and Modi has been voted back to 
power since then. As if a mere assertion of 
majority can nullify the fundamental cry for 
human justice. What is far worse also are the 
people who are trapped in the suicidal dialectic 
of Godhra and Gujarat - action and reaction: 
Muslim provocation and Hindu retribution. As if 
Death leaves its aching footprint in shades of 
green and saffron, one less painful than the 
other.

It seems so simple to understand - crime has no 
communal colour. The State should have identified 
and arrested the Muslims who were in the mob at 
Godhra and punished them instead of unleashing a 
pogrom against innocents. Why engineer a communal 
death embrace that neither community can ever 
loosen itself from?

But of all the responses, what is by far the 
worst is that everybody seems unperturbed by the 
fact that Gujarat is a failed state. Modi may 
have been re-elected post-2002, but Operation 
Kalank is proof that every fundamental 
institution that underpins the idea of a 
democratic and civil society has been subverted 
there: the police, the judiciary and the 
political establishment. And yet we are all 
content to continue with the charade of treating 
Gujarat as a democratic state facing an on-coming 
election.

Nations are built by the words men use to 
describe it. Societies are shaped by the 
collective rules men agree to live by. The India 
we inherited, the India in which we all have a 
right to life, liberty, livelihood, expression 
and religion is not some self-perpetuating magic 
State. It's a State that was articulated by the 
heroic imagination of our founding fathers, a 
State we all have to struggle and fight to 
retain. If we are faced with something like 
Operation Kalank and do nothing, we will turn a 
dangerous corner as a nation. Our certitudes will 
slip away from us. We will become morally 
rudderless.

For me then, the most frightening thing about 
Tehelka's investigation is not Narendra Modi and 
his cold, unalloyed evil. It is not even the 
animal violence of his henchmen. It is the 
X-factor that seems to have paralysed everybody: 
the fear of the 'Hindu vote'. This fear and the 
unquestioning acceptance that it will blow in 
Modi's favour if anybody speaks out against his 
depraved state has made a mockery of every check 
and balance that lies at the heart of a 
democracy. It has made the media cautious. And it 
has made timid marionettes of the Congress. 
Neither the Prime Minister, nor the Home 
Minister, nor any senior minister has spoken out. 
Is Gujarat no longer a part of India? Doesn't the 
same Constitution apply? Are we doomed to have 
leaders whose heads are only trapped in the 
abacus of electoral numbers?

The real faultline in India today is not between 
Hindus and Muslims. It is between Hindus and 
Hindus. If the Hindus of Gujarat are going to 
re-elect Modi after being confronted with visual 
proof of what he stands for, we have to 
aggressively reclaim what being Hindu means. The 
problem is too few people seem to have a stomach 
for that fight. It is not a fight that can be won 
by burning and slashing. Or ducking. It requires 
words and eloquence and conviction. The Hindu 
vote in Gujarat could swing both ways in the 
years to come because the curious thing about 
human beings is that they are always willing to 
thrum to a nobler note. Someone just has to have 
the courage to sound it.

Shoma Chaudhury is Editor, Features, Tehelka.



(ii)

Daily Times
November 01, 2007

MUSLIMS IN GUJARAT BEING HUNTED LIKE RABBITS: TEHELKA ED
LAWYER BHUSHAN SAYS TEHELKA EXPOSE 'FIT CASE' TO DISMISS CM MODI

by Iftikhar Gilani

NEW DELHI: The editor of Tehelka magazine said on 
Wednesday Muslims in India's western state of 
Gujarat were being "hunted like rabbits".

Hindu extremists had killed around 2,000 Muslims 
in three days after Sabarmati Express, a train 
carrying Hindu pilgrims, was allegedly set on 
fire by Muslims at Godhra Railway Station.

Tehelka sting tapes have shown some hardliner 
Hindus admitting that they and their men had 
killed Muslims in Naroda Patiya in the Godhra 
riots.

Tehelka editors here on Wednesday were at pains 
to explain that their undercover operation was 
not linked to the assembly elections in Gujarat, 
which were scheduled for December.

Refuting allegations that they had set the 
timings of the expose to help a particular 
political party, magazine Editor Tarun Tejpal 
told a seminar here that the hard work done by 
their reporters for over five months "by chance" 
coincided with the announcement of elections. 
Praising his reporter Asish Khetan, who worked 
undercover, Tejpal said he had been originally 
deputed to report on the attacks on artists at 
the Baroda University. He termed Khetan's 
revelations on the Godhra train burning as most 
critical and demanded attention from courts and 
prosecution.

Booker prize winner author Arundhati Roy said the 
society in Gujarat had been deeply communalised. 
"It is a fact that a majority of Gujaratis voted 
for Narindra Modi after the 2002 holocaust," she 
said. She wondered whether Gujarat was a part of 
India or not, "where an average Hindu does not 
feel remorseful for what happed in 2002". She 
lamented that neither the government nor the 
courts took suo motu notice of the Tehelka tapes.

Expose 'fit case': Noted lawyer Shanti Bhushan 
said the Tehelka expose was "a fit case" to 
impose Article 356 and dismiss Chief Minister 
Narindra Modi. He said the central government and 
Congress lacked spine to take on the BJP and the 
communalists in Gujarat. "In fact the Congress is 
competing with the BJP to coax communalists," he 
said.

He said it had become imperative to set up a 
special investigating team to investigate the 
involvement of Narendra Modi and other senior 
functionaries in his government. "But most 
immediately, the people shown on the tape 
confessing to having committed crime must be 
immediately arrested and those of them who are 
serving officials must be placed under 
suspension," he said.

Former Delhi High Court chief justice Rajinder 
Sachhar called for a political fight against 
Narindra Modi. "Dismissal of Modi is a small 
thing. We need to reach to Gujarat people and 
de-link them from marauders and rapists," he 
said, adding that the 2002 programme and the hate 
against Muslims were disgusting and a slur to 
Hinduism, "which boasts of being a most liberal 
religion in the world".


(iii)

INSAF Bulletin
November 2007

NARENDRA MODI AND INDIAN DEMOCRACY: THE TWO CANNOT COEXIST

by Daya Varma and Vinod Mubayi

The Tehelka exposure of the crimes of Hindutva 
fascists led by Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra 
Modi only proves what was already well known. Yet 
proof is important because legal action against 
any one requires proof. The crimes committed by 
the ruffians of Sangh Parivar in 2002 are 
horrendous. They cannot happen unpunished in a 
civilized society and the fact they happened in 
India and the criminals remain scot-free simply 
reveals not only the cultural degeneration of 
Indian society but also the sham and incompetent 
nature of Indian democracy.

There are lots of Asians, Arabs, Africans and 
Latinos in Western countries. There is racism 
here too. And yet any overt racial slur or 
arbitrary harassment of visible minority people 
does lead to consequences, which may be delayed, 
unevenly applied, or insufficient, but which also 
include retribution, enquiry and often enough 
dismissal of the media person or police official. 
In this sense, even the aftermath of 9/11, 
horrible as it was for the hundreds of mainly 
Muslim immigrants who were harassed, detained, 
and deported, was not allowed to go out of 
control a la Gujarat, nor was the bomb blast in 
the London underground or riots in the Paris 
suburbs. Bourgeois democracy just cannot afford 
to violate certain norms.

However, the case in India is in stark contrast 
to what is expected of a democracy. First the 
Muslim community was brutalized under the 
rationale articulated by Modi that the fire on 
the railway train at Godhra station was an 
"action" calling for a "reaction." Leaving aside 
the question of whether there was any Muslim mob 
that allegedly set fire to the train - all the 
evidence gathered by agencies not directly 
connected to the Gujarat government indicates 
that the fire was an accident caused by kerosene 
fuel cookers carried illegally in the train 
carriage - no civilized society would allow a 
general lawlessness to prevail against an entire 
community, which ultimately resulted in a 
horrendous pogrom. The laxity shown by the NDA 
government towards the hordes of the Sangh 
Parivar led by Narendra Modi was shameful but 
understandable. It was a question of solidarity 
within a mafia family.

But the hesitation of the UPA government, which 
survives with the support of the left parties, on 
the Gujarat genocide is beyond comprehension. 
This marriage between parliamentary democracy and 
feudal highhandedness must be broken if India is 
to emerge as a modern democratic society. Herein 
lays the challenge for the Left and Democratic 
forces of India - to mount a massive protest to 
force the UPA government to immediately dismiss 
Narendra Modi's government, place all those 
accused in their own words by the Tehelka 
evidence in jail and try them all for crimes 
against humanity. In the meantime, President's 
rule should be declared and a central policing 
authority should be placed in charge of Gujarat. 


______


[4]

Economic & Political Weekly - October 27, 2007

THE DISPLACED OF AHMEDABAD

by Neera Chandhoke, Praveen Priyadarshi, Silky Tyagi, Neha Khanna

Elections draw near in Gujarat but the survivors 
of the 2002 pogrom continue to live a miserable 
life, belying the claims of a "Vibrant Gujarat" 
by chief minister Narendra Modi who has embarked 
upon a re-election campaign emphasising the 
future over the shameful past. The plight of the 
riot victims raises questions about the state of 
democracy in Gujarat.

In his pre-election speeches, chief minister 
Narendra Modi repeatedly makes two firm 
statements. The first of these statements codes 
the suggestion that any comment or criticism, 
which conti nues to harp on the communal  carnage 
that was visited upon the heads of the Muslim 
community in 2002 by mem- bers of his party, the 
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and other allied 
organisations of the Hindutva brigade, should be 
aban- doned. These comments/criticisms, alleges 
Modi, remain far too preoccupied with the past. 
Apparently the past, for Modi, is another 
country. Observers of the Gujarat scene, he pro 
poses, should rather look to the future, which 
promises to be a luminous one for an already 
"Vibrant Gujarat", provided he is elected to 
power once again.

At stake here is a rather barefaced denial of 
history, particularly of the history of 
communalism in the state. This is simply bad 
politics, because as any first year student of 
political science knows, good politics is always 
constructed upon an awareness of history. Does 
Gujarat really want to hand over its future to a 
man who has such a lamentably short memory?  The 
second of Modi's comments com- pletely denies the 
existence of a rather deep Hindu-Muslim divide in 
the state.  Modi insists that he himself speaks 
for, and represents all people in the state of 
Gujarat. However, "representation" happens to be 
a deeply problematic concept, and Modi who is in 
the business of politics, should be conscious of 
this. We as citizens of India, of which Gujarat 
is a part, must ask this question: can Modi even 
begin to represent the interests, or more 
precisely the pressing needs of that category of 
the population which his govern ment has re- 
fused to recognise, or cater to - Muslim families 
who were displaced by communal violence in 2002? 
Are these interests fated to be unrepresented 
just because they do not fit into the 
self-representations that have been formulated 
and disseminated by Modi and his ilk for 
electoral pur poses?  In effect, Modi not only 
wants people to forget that the communal carnage 
of 2002 ever happened, he does not want to 
acknowledge that five years after the po- grom, 
the victims of violence still con- tinue to 
suffer through the production and reproduction of 
different sorts of vi- olence. Surely this is not 
the section of society that he represents, 
because if he was representing this section of 
society, as the chief minister of a state that 
ranks first in the country in terms of per capita 
income, he would have done something to 
ameliorate the terrible and inhuman con- ditions 
that these people live in.

Victims of Violence

Though a considerable amount of research has gone 
into documenting and analysing the communal 
carnage in Gujarat in  2002, little work has been 
done on what happened to the people who survived. 
Where did they go? How have they  reconstructed 
their lives? With the help of which agency? What 
has the state done for them? These are some of 
the anxiety ridden questions that our research 
team has sought to address, through an investi- 
gation of the resettlement colonies of Ahmedabad 
into which the victims of the 2002 violence have 
been herded. The  answer to the last question is 
easy to nego- tiate. The government of Gujarat 
has done practically nothing for the people who 
might have managed to survive the  pogrom, but 
who lost their family mem- bers, livelihoods, 
hearths, and their homes in the process.

That the victims of violence were herd- ed into 
poorly funded and grossly inade- quate relief 
camps is well known. In a short time, these camps 
were rapidly wound up, and the inhabitants, after 
be- ing given pathe tically inadequate funds as 
"compen sation"; funds sometimes as low as Rs 
1,200, were now on their own, thrown onto the 
mercy of a society that had proved complicit in 
the carnage, either actively or through studied 
silence.

The state government, recognising neither the 
plight, nor the needs of the victims of communal 
violence, simply refused to take any action which 
would help these people to rebuild their 
shattered lives.  At this point a few civil 
society organi- sations, predominantly the 
Islamic relief committee, stepped in to help 
people relo- cate and resettle. Some land was 
acquired on the outskirts of the city, and the 
victims were resettled in four pockets - Juha 
pura,  Ramol, Vatva and Dani Limda. All of  these 
"colonies" are on the periphery of Ahmedabad, and 
are poorly connected to the city where most of 
the jobs are gener- ated. The 729 households that 
have been relocated in 15 such colonies in 
Ahmeda- bad have been displaced mainly from 
eastern Ahmedabad, from areas such as Naroda 
Patia, Gomtipur, Daria Pur, Gomti Pur, Saraspur, 
Bapu Nagar Jamal Pur,  Rakhial, and other inner 
city areas that have repeatedly suffered from 
periodic outbursts of communal violence right 
since 1969.

But the legal status of the land upon which these 
shanty towns have been constructed is contested, 
because much of it is agricultural land. This has 
instilled dread among the residents that they 
still live in temporary settlements, which can be 
eas- ily mowed down by the bull dozers of the 
Ahmedabad municipal corporation (AMC).  Not only 
are most resettlement colonies remotely located 
from the city where jobs are to be found; they 
are far away from schools and health clinics that 
are an in- dispensable prerequisite of living a 
life free of oppression. In sum these displaced 
Muslim families are fated to remain out- side the 
reach of all the amenities that a vibrant Gujarat 
might perchance offer to those who form an 
integral part of society and the polity.

It is clear that for the present govern- ment 
these families just do not form an integral part 
of Gujarati society and poli- tics; they have 
been expelled both spatial- ly and socially to 
the margins of the city.  In these bare, stark, 
inhospitable areas, civil society organisations 
constructed rickety one room tenements, without 
water supply, without electricity, without access 
to internal roads because there were none, and 
without sanitation and sewerage for families. And 
it is here, in these barren spaces, that the 
victims of the carnage in Ahmedabad have been 
set- tled, and expected to begin their life anew, 
amidst even more deprivation that they faced in 
their original habitats.

Shabby existence

Many of these families still own some land * 
where once houses that were burnt down by the 
Hindutva goons stood - in their original 
habitats. But even as bitter memo- ries of the 
brutal violence that was inflic ted upon them and 
their families and commu- nity haunts collective 
psyches, people fear going back to their homes. 
They prefer to live in these desolate, ugly, and 
rundown one-room tenements, which house as many 
as five members of a family. But this is not the 
major problem that confronts refugees. Other and 
much more serious problems stalk the everyday 
life of the in- habitants of these settlements.

For instance, in the resettlement colony 
ironically called the "Citizens Nagar" in Dani 
Limda, families who once lived in the most 
communally hit area of Ahmeda- bad; Naroda Patia, 
have been resettled.  This particular "citizen's" 
colony has been built literally in the shadow of 
a massive mountain. The only problem is that this 
mountain has been constructed by human  beings, 
out of the garbage collected from every part of 
Ahmedabad that is dumped here every morning. The 
mountain of gar- bage dominates the collective 
life of the inhabitants. The stench that emanates 
from this rubbish dump overwhelms both sense and 
sensibilities of people who live not only in the 
colony, but also in the  surrounding areas. More 
critically, during the monsoons, the garbage 
overflows the mountain sized dump, runs through 
what passes for roads within the colony, and 
enters homes. The garbage, which is  highly 
toxic, has penetrated the groundwater.  Since the 
inhabitants of the colony do not have access to 
clean drinking water, they are forced to consume 
this contaminated groundwater. This yellow, 
grimy, and filthy water is so polluted that it 
cannot be but the harbinger of disease. Not 
surpris- ingly, gastronomical diseases are 
rampant in this locality.

Despite repeated representations, the AMC has 
made no attempt to look for an alternate site for 
the dumping of the garbage of the city. To make 
matters worse, residents complain that AMC often 
deposits carcasses of dead animals around the 
colonies, and the revolting odour makes the place 
simply unlivable. The plight of the residents who 
have been sub- jected to involuntary displacement 
does not end there. When the AMC begins to burn 
the garbage in the dump once in a while, the 
pollutant ridden smoke which manages to pervade 
every pore of the body leads to all kinds of 
health problems, particularly respiratory 
diseases. But the AMC, which is responsible for 
providing services to citizens, has refused to 
take notice of the deplorable condition of this 
colony, or of the appalling lives that the 
victims who live there, lead.

Dreadful Housing

Built as they were in a hurry, these  so-called 
houses are in dreadful condi- tion, water seeps 
into the rooms during the monsoons, and rubbish 
flows along what passes for internal roads. These 
houses have low roofs, no ventilation, and have 
been provided with temporary and unsafe 
electrical wiring. The land these houses are 
built in is generally low lying, and therefore 
water logging is common.  The situation is 
worsened by the fact that there is absolutely no 
drainage system, no 'pucca' pavements, or street 
lighting in the so-called colony. Vulnerable and 
insecure as the families already are; the highly 
uncongenial and sorry surroundings in which they 
are forced to live, leads to deep feelings of 
helplessness and alienation.  These feelings are 
exacerbated by the fact that no aid from the 
government to make these colonies habitable, to 
build schools, and health clinics, or provide for 
transpor- tation to the city where people can 
work, is forthcoming.

The legitimacy of a democratically elected 
government rests upon its ability to take care of 
the worse off in society. In Ahmedabad as in the 
rest of the state, the government does not even 
acknowledge these responsibilities. Similar 
problems attend other resettlement colonies. 
Since most of these colonies are on the outskirts 
of the city, they are surrounded by indus- tries 
spewing pollutants, all of which makes the areas 
hazardous for human habitation. In Sundaram Nagar 
in Bapu Nagar, for example, cotton dust emana- 
ting twice a day from the burning of in- dustrial 
waste, makes breathing difficult for the 
residents. The children and the adults that we 
met have developed lung related diseases.

The residents of most of these resettle- ment 
colonies eke out a bare existence without any 
basic amenities, be it drink- ing water, 
sanitation, drainage, health- care, education for 
children, or approach roads and modes of 
transportation. Chil- dren have been forced to 
drop out of school and take to daily wage labour, 
because it is too expensive to hire rick- shaws 
to take the children to school. A few colonies 
have now been given anganwadi centres more than 
five years after they were established, but no 
schools for children have been provided. 
Residents of Ekta Nagar complained that they have 
to pay Rs 12 daily to send their children to the 
nearest school, and since they cannot af- ford 
this, the children have dropped out of school. 
Most families are terrified of sen- ding their 
daughters to school outside the neighbourhood, 
after the sexual violence that Muslim girls had 
been subjected to in 2002. Resultantly, an entire 
gene ration of children of Muslim families, who 
are less educated than their parents, is growing 
up in the city. Is this not a denial of the right 
of every child to education? Healthcare for the 
victims of the com munal violence is equally 
deplorable. There are barely any healthcare 
facilities available for these colonies. There 
have been instances when due to absence of health 
facilities, patients have died on the way to 
remote hospitals, and babies have often been 
delivered on the road.

Decline in Income

One major consequence of the way in which 
resettlement has been carried out by private 
organisations in spatially iso- lated areas is 
that people have been forced to abandon their 
previous vocations and look for alternative 
employment. Most of them now work in informal and 
petty jobs, and are known as 'chhuttak mazdoors'. 
Whereas most of the men work as auto and cycle 
rickshaw pullers, petty vendors, and casual 
workers in nearby neighbour- hoods, women work 
mostly as domestic help. Consequently there has 
been a  universal decline in income, which has 
dropped to less than half to what people used to 
earn before the violence and relo- cation. The 
drop in income has not only led to extreme 
pauperisation, the ramifi- cations of poverty are 
seen in a new wave of child labour, and the 
growth of a gener- ation of illiterate and 
unskilled youth.

State apathy

The response of the state government to the 
needs, the grievances, and the woes of the 
victims of communal violence has been negligent 
at best and vicious at worst.  Five years after 
the pogrom, many of the relocated families are 
still awaiting their voters' identity cards and 
BPL ration cards.  Earlier this year, after a 
large meeting of the internally displaced, the 
Election Com- mission has taken measures to 
ensure that the displaced are able to cast their 
votes in the forthcoming assembly elections, but 
the attitude of local state functionaries is that 
of sheer indifference. When it comes to below the 
poverty line (BPL) and Antyodaya cards, the case 
is no different.  Since these documents are 
crucial for citizens if they want to access 
ongoing social protection schemes, most of the 
victims living in these colonies are not able to 
do so. Ironically, residents of New Fazal Nagar, 
one of the relocated colonies, have been served a 
notice to pay Rs 8,000 as house tax; even though 
these houses simply lie outside the pale of the 
government, or of the corporation.  role of nGos 
Since the state government continues to be in the 
denial mode, non-governmental and other civil 
society organisations have stepped in to support 
the victims of com- munal violence. Notably 
whereas a small group of such organisations has 
done a commendable job in resettling victims of 
communal violence, and it is because of their 
concerted effort that these people have been able 
to survive, a majority of civil society 
organisations have proved in- different to the 
cause. The cloud of  Hindutva obviously hangs 
heavily on civil society organisations.  Post 
carnage, the relief work was carried out 
predominantly with the help of the resources of 
the Islamic Relief Committee (IRC) along with few 
more agencies such as Action Aid.  The role 
played by some of the civil society organisations 
has been highly commendable, and the victims are 
all praise for them. Organi sations like Aman 
Biradri and Jan Vikas, for example, have waged a 
long battle against the indifferent attitude of 
the state agencies towards the victims of 
communal violence, and the issue of the 
relocation of these victims.  The documentation 
carried out by some of these organisations has 
gone a long way in exposing the callous attitude 
of the state towards victims of violence, and in 
fixing responsibility. It is with the help of 
these organisations that displaced families have 
been able to press for their rights, and put 
their demands before the government at the local 
level. That the plight of these victims has not 
been sub- sumed completely in the state-sponsored 
din about "Vibrant Gujarat" and the benefits of 
globalisation is due entirely to these 
organisations. 

For instance, on February 1, 2007, the Antarik 
Visthapit Haq Rakshak Samiti, Centre for Social 
Justice and ANHAD, along with some other 
organisations con- ducted the "Convention of the 
Internally Displaced" in Gujarat. Thousands of 
inter- nally displaced households gathered in the 
convention, and demanded "recognition, reparation 
and rehabilitation". Discussions on several 
issues and problems such as livelihood of the 
internally displaced, dis- crimination, 
exclusion, and economic boy- cotts, police 
intimidation, the problems of the children, youth 
and women of this cat- egory highlighted several 
crucial issues.  The convention was successful in 
expos- ing the lie of the state government's 
claim that the rehabilitation of "riot" victims 
had been accomplished. The convention also 
provided the victims with a forum where they 
could share their troubles and come together to 
fight these predicaments. Apart from the demand 
for the provision of basic amenities and 
livelihood, the convention suggested forcefully 
that there should be a national policy for 
rehabilitation for peo- ple displaced due to 
communal violence.  One positive outcome of this 
convention was that the Election Commission 
recog- nised that the inhabitants of these 
colonies should get election cards even though 
they could not establish residence, simply 
because they have not been given the re- quired 
documents by the agencies that have relocated 
them. The second positive outcome is that there 
is hope that these families will be given BPL 
ration cards, even though they cannot render 
proof of residence, such as sale deeds, rental 
receipts or electricity bills.  no Substitute 
However, private initiatives in resettling such 
massive numbers of the displaced cannot 
substitute for state action. For one, given the 
limited resources at the disposal of these 
agencies, relocation has been par- tial and 
insufficient, and falls well short of the 
requirements of the residents. Neither the poorly 
constructed houses, nor the pathetic state of 
facilities and services, can give the victims a 
sense of security, or a feeling that they are 
being compensated for a major lapse of justice. 
Secondly, since the colonies are a product of 
initiatives by non-governmental organisations, 
they are  obviously not in accordance with the 
"city plan". The victims of communal violence 
continue to pay for the sins committed by others 
in 2002, because the status of these colonies as 
unplanned or unauthorised, gives the civic agency 
a pretext to deny  basic amenities to the 
inhabitants. Thirdly, the land on which colonies 
are construc ted is privately bought, in most of 
the cases by the Islamic Relief Committee. This 
does not help either. According to city autho 
rities these lands are "not for residential pur- 
poses", and purchase of this land for resi- 
dential use is not legal. This breeds trepi- 
dation and uncertainty among people, who have 
lived amidst fear most of their lives.  Two more 
consequences should be not- ed here because these 
are of some import.  One, the manner in which the 
victims of violence were relocated, and the non- 
response of the state when it came to the 
pressing problem of looking after citizens who 
have been rendered jobless and homeless for no 
fault of their own,  has led to new kinds of 
conflicts and tensions within colonies. 
Bagh-e-Aman in Vatva area is witness to one such 
tension. Here 12 families were relocated from 
various parts of the city which had witnessed 
intense violence. Rehabilitation was ac- 
complished through the collective efforts of the 
Islamic Relief Committee, private initiatives, 
and the people themselves. However, some people 
who belonged to this area had rebuilt their lives 
after the communal violence, mostly on their own, 
and without any external support. Now they face 
the odd problem of not being recognised as 
"relocated" in the same way as the 12 families, 
which have been reha-bilitated with outside help. 
Even as the state agencies have been forced to 
take cognisance of the 12 relocated families 
because of litigation in various courts, they 
refuse to recognise other affected households as 
displaced. As a result about 100 households are 
deprived of government schemes or compensation. 
Consequently these households do not even have 
voter identity cards. troubling Development

Secondly, our research team discerned a rather 
troubling development in these colonies. Since 
the state has refused to step in to 
rehabilitatethe displaced, Isla mic organisations 
have provided the major chunk of resources for 
the purpose. For example, the land on which 
victims have been relocated was mostly purchased 
by these Islamic organisations. But the land 
deeds remain with the IRC, even after families 
have started to live in these colonies. As no 
land entitlement has been given to the victims, 
people believe with good reason that they live in 
semi-perma- nent relief camps, that they are 
dependent upon other agencies, and that they have 
not really been rehabilitated. There have also 
been instances where the IRC has put its own set 
of conditionalities on people, if they want to 
live in these colonies.  Most of these problems 
emanate from the conflict of priorities of the 
victims and civil society organisations on the 
one hand, and the IRC on the other. Residents 
told us that the IRC prefers the construction of 
mosques to health clinics, madrasas to schools, 
and that the organisation insists on dress codes 
for women, read purdah.  The residents, on the 
other hand, are more concerned about incomes, 
health, and education for their children. In 
general, there is some evidence that the IRC has 
been trying to influence people to abandon their 
traditional life practices, and follow rigid and 
doctrinaire versions of Islam.  This is the 
natural outcome of state funda- mentalism and 
neglect of religious minori- ties; for when 
religious civil society organ- isations step into 
the vacuum, they are likely to extort their own 
price for helping people. Fundamentalism always 
breeds counter-fundamentalism, and it is the 
lives and the futures of ordinary people that are 
at risk here.

Vibrant Gujarat, For Whom?

The plight of riot victims in Ahmedabad, and in 
Gujarat in general, raises some very critical 
questions about the state of democracy in 
Gujarat, and the capacity of the present 
leadership to represent the concerns of the 
ordinary people, irrespective of their religious 
denomination. As the state prepares for yet 
another assembly election, the pathetic condition 
of the majority of people who were hit by 
communal violence in 2002 begs many questions. 
For one,can Narendra Modi speak of a "Vibrant 
Gujarat" when a substantial numbers of its 
citizens live in want and despair? Secondly, why 
have political parties such as the Congress not 
taken up this issue? Is this due to the fear that 
they will lose the "Hindu" vote? Will  the 
Congress Party that proclaims  copyright over 
secularism really make common cause with BJP 
leaders who led the communally charged mobs in 
2002?

And if so where do people who have been wronged 
for no fault of their own, go? Do any of the 
political parties who are contending for power in 
Gujarat, but who are supremely indiffer ent to 
the plight of minorities, have an answer? It is 
election time in Gujarat, and elections are meant 
to hold the ruling classes  accountable for their 
acts of omission. It is time that the electorate 
in the state judges the government for what it 
has not done for the marginal sections of 
society, and not what for it has done for the 
already privileged.

[This study forms part of the Cities Component of 
the Crisis States Programme of the London School 
of Economics and Political Science.]


______


[5]    ANNOUNCEMENTS:

(i)

Subject: DHARNA (THURSDAY NOVEMBER 1ST 2007) - 
JUSTICE FOR VICTIMS OF GUJARAT CARNAGE 
2002....JOIN IN LARGE NUMBERS ... SPREAD THE WORD 
AROUND
Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2007 14:16:45 +0530

Dear Friends,

The need of the hour is to publicly register 
moral outrage and shock at the disclosures 
contained in the Tehelka- AajTak expose on the 
Gujarat Carnage of 2002 and to intensify the 
demand for justice and rehabilitation for the 
victims.

A  PUBLIC PROTEST  is to be held in Ahmedabad for 
this purpose. We strongly urge you to come and 
join this and register your solidarity with the 
victims of Gujarat 2002 and press the government 
to do justice to them.

                                         Date:   Thursday, 1st November 2007
                                         Time:   3.30 p.m.
                                         Venue: 
Income Tax Circle, Ashram Road, Ahmedabad

Please circulate widely. Those individuals or 
organisations wishing to endorse the public 
meeting may add their names to the list below and 
mark a copy to  persis_ginwalla at yahoo.co.in


Come with your banners, posters ...  demanding 
justice for Gujarat Carnage 2002.

Hiren Gandhi              Fr. Cedric Prakash sj 
Persis Ginwalla             Saroop Dhruv
Samir Khan                Jayesh Patel 
 Waqar Qazi                  Jayesh Solanki
Bhavik Raja                Bharat Parmar 
Meera Rafi                   Gaurang Raval
Bharat Jhalla              Javed Ameer       

 
and several others.......
_____


(ii)

Friends,

Please visit the <http://www.t2f.biz/karachi> 
<http://www.t2f.biz/karachi>Reclaim 
Karachi website (<http://www.t2f.biz/karachi> 
http://www.t2f.biz/karachi) for information about 
a citizen-led campaign to take back our city.

<http://www.t2f.biz/karachi>

COMPELLING CONVERSATIONS: REPORTING FROM THE FRONT LINES OF TERROR

Join us at T2F this Thursday to hear a young 
reporter's experiences of Oct 18th 2007.  Urooj 
Zia will talk about the "job" of reporting, 
political rallies, the "gullible" masses, and the 
fact that we have nothing to lose but our chains.

Date: Thursday, 1st November 2007
Time: 7:00 pm
Minimum Donation: Whatever you like

Venue: The Second Floor
6-C, Prime Point Building, Phase 7, Khayaban-e-Ittehad, DHA, Karachi
Phone: 538-9273 | 0300-823-0276 | <mailto:info at t2f.biz>info at t2f.biz
Map: <http://www.t2f.biz/location>http://www.t2f.biz/location

Seats are limited and will be available on a 
'first come, first served' basis. No reservations.



_____


(iii)

FREE BINAYAK SEN WEBSITE (http://www.freebinayaksen.org/)

It is now almost five months since the arrest of 
Dr. Binayak Sen, National Vice-President of 
People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), on 
flimsy, trumped-up charges The case of Dr. Sen is 
not an isolated one. All over India, we are 
seeing a situation where human rights defenders 
are being targeted under draconian legislations.

There is considerable material on Dr. Sen 
available from various sources, but it is 
necessary to bring all this material together in 
one place where it can be easily accessed by 
those concerned about the issue and campaigning 
for his release. The website 
http://www.freebinayaksen.org/ is a step in this 
direction. At a later stage, this website will be 
expanded to cover the cases of other human rights 
activists who have been arrested on trumped-up 
charges.


_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
Asia. SACW is an independent & non-profit
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Asia Citizens Web: www.sacw.net/
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