(The account published here is penned by Dr. N. K. Bhattacharyya, Convenor, Jan Hastakshep, Delhi. He had visited Gujarat along with 17 other social activists and political workers from various parts of India. They had visited different parts of Gujarat during 10th April, 2002 & 14th April, 2002 dividing themselves into two teams.-Editor)

Gujarat and Maharashtra were competing with each other to attract more and more investment in the manufacturing sector.  The share of Maharashtra and Gujarat in total manufacturing investment in India was 17.6 percent and 10.3 percent respectively in 1980s and it increased to 18.9 percent and 15.7 percent respectively in the 1990s. The main industry, which supports Gujarat’s economy, is chemicals based on petroleum by-products. Industrial economy of Gujarat is being destroyed by a group of Hindu fundamentalists who are more uncivilised and conservative than those Talibans of Afghanistan. Among total Non Resident Indians settled throughout the world, Gujaratis, both Hindu and Muslims, are in significant numbers. Majority of the people of Gujarat who are settled in rest of the country are all engaged in trade and industry and are economically well to do. State sponsored calculated killing of only Muslims and destruction of their residential properties and business establishments in all parts of Gujarat since 28.2.02 is of extreme concern not only to Gujaratis throughout the world in particular but of all concerned people in the world. There should be trial as per established laws and guilty should be brought to book.

The Prime Minister of India, who himself is a RSS follower, argues that burning alive of 58 passengers of coach no. S-6 of Sabarmati Express Train on 27.2.02 at Godhra railway station in Gujarat was the main cause of subsequent genocide: live-burning of Muslim males, females and children, rape of young and old females in the presence of their own children, destruction of well built houses, shops, hotels, restaurants and trucks, looting of crores of rupees property of only Muslim citizens in all parts of Gujarat—both rural and urban. That worthless criminal Chief Minister of Gujarat quoted the same lame excuse on the same day of Godhra mishap. He did not explain what his intelligence agencies were doing to predict the incident and why he failed to stop that S-6 coach devastation from happening. Any Chief Minister worth his salt should have submitted his resignation before the dead bodies were dispatched for Ahmedabad from Godhra for that big exhibition! He is unfit to be a member even of any local body.  From 27.2.02 he has amply demonstrated that there was no civilized constitutional Govt. in Gujarat.

What happened at Godhra is also the responsibility of Central as well as of the State Govt.  Who were those anti social lumpen elements called ‘Kar-Sewaks’ (volunteers for building of Ram Temple) travelling free of cost in thousands every day since the beginning of February 2002, in Indian Railways in reserved coaches and creating unbearable nuisance for bonafide passengers? What the Railway authorities were doing to check this? What does the Prime Minister have to say? Who financed these so called Kar Sewaks to undertake journeys to Ayodhya and back?  We were told that each Kar Sewak was paid around Rs 2000 for each trip but they never even paid for the items purchased from the hapless vendors. They always misbehaved with Muslim bonafide passengers and vendors in the train and outside at railway platforms. Not a single Kar-Sewak was ever booked by any railway staff. The vendors, both in various stations as well as within the train, were not interested to sell anything to them.

It is reported that Kar-sewaks in that ill fated Sabarmati Express were in hundreds and they created problems at stations like Ratlam and Dahod and finally at Godhra railway station when the train arrived on 27th Feb. some hours late around 7.30 in the morning. Kar-sewaks were fully equipped with hockey sticks, sharp daggers, swords and lathis. When they started looting stalls at Godhra station as on previous occasions, that day stall owners retaliated with stones and fight between two groups went out of control. At that moment there were only very small number of Railway Protection Force jawans with hardly 2 Rifles and they also were waiting for the next batch to take over. There was not a single General Railway Police, an additional police arrangement, at the station compound. However, there was some temporary truce, the train left the station but the incomplete fight again started only some distance way from the outer signal, well within the sight of the railway station authorities.

So what happened at Godhra railway station with the passengers of Sabarmati Express on 27th February was due to total mismanagement of the Railway authorities and utter irresponsible behaviour of the railway officials manning the station. On that fateful morning when Sabarmati Express entered Godhra station some hours late, the railway authorities knew that these anti-social elements had already created problems at almost all the stations on their journey from Faizabad, but situations at Ratlam and Dahood stations were very violent.

When tense situation started at Godhra platform and stone throwing was going on, the Station Superintendent should have handed over these illegal unauthorised passengers (Kar-Sewaks) to police as per railway rules and save the lives of innocent authorised stall-owners and bonafide passengers.  When they failed to follow the rules, the station authorities should have sent the few available RPF jawans with rifles into coach no S-6. What happened at Godhra Railway station was due to utter negligence and lack of administration of Indian Railway system and the Centre is  directly accountable for this mishap.

The burning of S-6 and killing of 58 Kar-Sewaks therein by a mob at Godhra Railway compound cannot be visualised in a civilized society and even in extreme provocation even hard criminals can’t think of destroying human beings in such a ghastly manner. Definitely Godhra incident gave the pretext and encouragements to the Hindu fundamentalists for their murderous campaign from 28th February. We are interested to know the truth through CBI enquiry- why Godhra killings took place and who was behind them?

Sixty days have passed, the Railway Ministry is busy spending public money to celebrate 150 years of Indian Railway but it has forgotten to inform the people what happened at Godhra Railway Station on 27th morning. A CBI enquiry has to be made and guilty railway officials should be booked. Station Superintendent and RPF at Godhra must have submitted their respective observations to their higher authorities on the incident. Let the public be informed of those reports, as they are public documents. It appears that the Prime Minister of India has forgotten that Indian Railway management is the responsibility of the Centre and the ‘people’ for whom he sheds so many crocodile tears every day without fail, have a right to know why Railways failed in discharging its responsibility.

Godhra genocide occurred in a reserved compartment in the premises of Indian Railway Authorities and Indian Parliament has yet to appoint a Parliamentary Enquiry Commission to find out the guilty. It was shocking to hear that criminal and mad Chief Minister of Gujarat order carrying of the mutilated bodies of dead passengers to Ahmedabad where they were displayed in public to instigate further trouble.

Well planned scientific Genocide

At Godhra station, coach no S-6’s burning took place on the morning of 27.2.02 and burning of Muslims and their properties started exactly between 9 p.m. and 11 p.m. from 28.2.02 in all the districts of Gujarat, both in the urban and rural areas.  Look how exact the killers were! Some time back these religious fanatics spread the rumour that one of the idols- Lord Ganesha made of either stone or mud or metal – was drinking milk and people in utter madness went to temples in India with milk and came back fully satisfied that Ganesha was drinking milk. So these fascists have perfected their communication system and they started killing Muslims as per their well-planned programme. In the rural areas destruction, killing, rape and looting was mainly organised by the local villagers after they held meetings in the temples. Most of the houses, both in the cities and villages were burnt with the help of gas cylinders, which were made available in enough quantity with each gang of destroyers.

In most of the villages police never turned up for the first 3 days. If they were there, they rather helped the village goondas and anti-social elements. In one old village in Anand district we were shown how out of 27 members of a Muslim family living in a 3 storied building, 23 were killed and subsequently the 3-story building was brought down by bulldozers. The dead bodies are still lying under the debris. This building was on the main road and behind it there is a huge palatial building of some Patel. Now the Patel’s palace is without any obstruction; its front has direct access to the road. This village is an example of how only Muslims houses were specifically targeted and Hindu houses were left untouched. The Kabarstan’s boundary wall was lying demolished and neighbouring Patels are interested to encroach upon the land of Kabarstan. People who fled from this village are now sheltered in an adjoining Muslim village called Sureli village where 2 Hindu families who used to live with them before 27th Feb. are still living in peace with majority Muslim families. 

In the urban areas, Muslim tenants were killed after their goods were looted. The Hindu buildings were not touched, but Muslim houses were burnt with inmates inside the building. There were stories that these ‘genocide’ team of Gujarat Chief Minister had with them electoral lists and municipal records to show Muslim shops and houses. We were told that during the past 6 months, organized teams were moving from one lane to another to locate Muslim shops and houses. Therefore, the argument of Prime Minister on Godhra is not tenable. This was planned by his own party long back and everyone knew that this small time grocer turned politician- ‘Modi’, was brought in only for this religious cleansing.  RSS requires ruthless barbaric short term politicians like Modi to establish its extra constitutional authority on constitutionally formed Govts.

What is the police and paramilitary doing while Gujarat is burning since end of February?

In order to protect its growing industrial superstructure, Gujarat had one of the most efficient law and order enforcing machinery. Here the role of the police is to protect the interests of the rich industrialists, businessmen and landowners. In this state one never had seen any form of labour struggle, rather most of the trade unions are simply working in league with the managements to negotiate for economic benefits for the workers, employers are respected rather as well wishers and not as exploiters of labour. So when in Along, a centre for dangerous shipbreaking industry which is highly polluted, labourers suffered due to highly toxic poisonous acids, there was no trade union to fight for these hapless migrant workers.

All the rivers of Gujarat are highly polluted due to dumping of poisonous chemicals from the chemical factories, but no one fought to save the river water except some environmentalists. No one taught organised and unorganised labour to stand up and challenge the anti-labour policies of both Indian and foreign business houses in Gujarat. Till today workers are depending on the benevolence of their blood sucking employers. In the absence of a strong workers’ movement in Gujarat, it is all the more easy for the rich and powerful to create religious divide and continue with violence among the poor workers belonging to both Hindu and Muslim communities. In the past, whenever such man made artificial riots were started by the vested interests, if police was allowed to act on its own, they could easily bring normalcy in no time. But this time in almost all the places- both in urban and rural areas, police had specific instructions not to help any Muslim sufferer, rather if any one  has to be booked it should be Muslims only. This started in Godhra and all arrests made 27 Feb. onwards were under POTA, which was later dropped. Initially Police, as a matter of policy was not accepting any FIR where specific names were mentioned, rather they insisted that “a mob of so many people” should be written. Later on organizations were preparing FIRs and filed them as per law. The beauty is, if any self-respecting police official took action as per rules against any Hindu criminal and politician, he was immediately sent to the barrack. Police control rooms throughout the state were run by BJP criminal ministers themselves.

We were shown Home Guards recruited by the State who belonged to the cadre of fascist organisations like VHP and Bajrang Dal. What the Central Home Minister, who represent Gujarat in Parliament and started Rath Yatra in the early 90s, is doing when Police in Gujarat were not allowed to discharge their legal responsibilities? It is narrated how that ex-Congress MP from Ahmedabad was murdered by BJP’s goons though the Police Commissioner of Ahmedabad himself assured him that nothing would happen to him. We were told that some one charged Police Commissioner of Vadodra in the very presence of Justice J.S.Verma, Chairman National Human Rights Commission for ignoring mass killing and destruction in Vadodra and as soon the Commission left the town the man was sent to jail on some fabricated charges.

Regarding army the less said the better. Vajpayee and Modi claim that ‘action’ started on 27th February morning, and ‘reaction and counter action’ started from 28th February and Central Cabinet  (National Security Council) decided to deploy army on 28 th Feb. itself. But for various reasons (!) army’s deployment was willingly delayed to give enough opportunity for the religious cleansing. Otherwise, for deployment of army in riot affected spots we don’t require either armoured tanks or artillery guns or airforce planes. If both Central and State Govts. were interested to save the life and property of the Muslims, this deployment could be made from the various cantonments on 27th itself and army was not needed from the forward areas as claimed by the shameless Defence Minister.  So it is not Modi alone; the Centre is also an active partner in this game of genocide.  To find out the truth about who are these people who aided and abetted this genocide, the President of India has to appoint a group of Supreme Court Judges. Killing of innocent people in thousands (Govt.’s figure of total dead is only 850 or 1000 but unofficial figure is more than 2000) should not go unpunished. It is high time each politician should be taught that accepting ministerial jobs and taking oath under Indian Constitution to protect lives of the citizens are not matters of formality only.

Relief and Rehabilitation

All the one hundred and odd relief camps giving shelter to more than one and half lakh destitutes in different parts of Gujarat even after more than 60 days of well-planned human killing show deplorable inhuman conditions. The large number of relief or rahat camps that we saw had hardly any roof over head to save people from scorching sun or rain, or bed sheets to take rest There were no separate arrangements for sick, male and female. Most of the people were loitering around with expectation that something would be done for their safe rehabilitation. Majority of them doesn’t have any faith on their Hindu neighbours. All the camps were organised and managed by NGOs and the bureaucracy failed here too, they demanded documentary evidences to prove that the inmates of the camps were bonafide residents of that district. Thus Govt. avoided providing relief to all the victims of this human massacre.

Male, female and children; old and young; rich and poor have reached these camps after they escaped from the attacks of the goondas. There were large number of young and old ladies who were raped by gangs known to them and worst is some of these girls were 2/3 months’ pregnant. They narrated their experiences and mentioned names of the criminals who raped them but as usual initially police refused to record FIRs. In some cases medical test was carried  out when they reached the camps.  We were shocked to hear 10/11 year old children narrating vividly how their parents were killed and young sisters were raped in front of them. They also mentioned the names of those criminals. We were told that in some case police escort parties were provided to the villagers of the various camps to go to their villages to recover some of their left over belongings. We saw some of them beaten up mercilessly in the very presence of the police escort party for reaching villages and police, instead of protecting them, were instigating the villagers to take revenge on them. We were shown some villagers with broken plastered limbs. This is the Raj Dharma of Gujarat Chief Minister and he is proud as a pracharak of RSS. There are countless young and old widows and young orphans less than 3 years old were lying in the dust of the camps; no one can promise what will be their future! When any angry Muslim youth promises to take revenge, we had to advise him to keep cool and not to take any action that may be used against the community. Are they going to forgive Modis and Vajpayees, who are a disgrace to this country?

Govt’s promises are  only in their files. Those who fled from the homes to save their lives were supposed to carry with them documentary evidences to prove their bonafide, otherwise they would be denied relief paid out of people’s taxes. Many don’t want to go back to their native villages amongst the same goons who perpetrated this inhuman massacre. In one village where only NRIs are settled there was only one Muslim family and even that family was washed out during this cleansing process and that village was adjacent to the village of India’s first Home Minister, Sardar Vhallav Bhai Patel. So what Atalji, Advaniji wanted, Modiji did in 72 hours as planned beforehand and then only army was allowed to be deployed by India’s talkative Defence Minister. Now Modi wants these camps wound up because here the Muslims are feeling secure, they are filing FIRs against Modi’s killing squads and they want nothing less than complete human rehabilitation. If the camps are dissolved as the VHP and Bajrang Dal are demanding, they may once again be victims of these religious blood hounds. Here one should mention that the local language press, specially ‘Gujarat Samachar’ and ‘Sandesh’, were helping the murderers by giving fabricated reports and creating all the situations to make Hindus fully against Muslims. On the other hand National Press has done a balanced act. Press Council should take up this matter without much delay.

The Govt. has started 5 star peace marches by those who have never suffered at the hands of goondas, but is keeping the ‘rehabilitation’ issue completely vague.  Muslims know what happened during the earthquake rehabilitation programme only last year. Muslims were denied and discriminated against by the State but the then Chief Minister amassed huge personal wealth.  On the other hand there is an attempt now to clean the Sabarmati riverside slums by destroying them during this carnage and handing over the area to builders’ Mafia. So BJP as a political party knows only how to enrich the richer section of society. How long it will take to organise the poor and put a massive challenge to the accumulators of wealth?

Conclusion

Indians are not in the habit of tolerating  for long such fascist idiots like RSS pracharaks in the form of political masters.  Hitler or Mussolini could not survive long on Indian soil. It is unfortunate that these fascist liliputs are allowed to do whatever they want in the name of democracy cocktailed with religion. They quote results of so called Panchayat election held simultaneously with mass killing to prove that people approve of this genocide. They also want a snap poll to prove their public acceptability. They pretend to construct a temple for Ram (!), knowing fully well that the longer it takes that will give them more and more foreign funding for a 5 star life style for the promoters. They refuse to tell peace loving Gujaratis that what they did in Gujarat during the last 60 days was a mini war against Muslims as part of global ‘war against terrorism’ paid and dictated by international imperialist forces. This is the real face of our ‘nationalist’ BJP!

Gujarat has never allowed any type of protest movement to develop. Here politics is mainly to make rich richer; those who have some wealth, they were given all help to accumulate more. On the construction of Sardar Sarovar Dam they have already spent millions of US dollars without a drop of Narmada water flowing along the big canals and every politician and bureaucrat is simply living on commission income from big dam construction companies.  RSS has collected tons of dollars for safeguarding Hindu religion and such genocide was required to collect more foreign funding to prove their bonafide as true Hindus. Ten years before this they had demolished Babri Masjid. But Hindu fundamentalism cannot take for granted the entire one billion Indians in their cruel game of Talibanization. Gujarati ruling class politicians may refuse to kill even an insect in public but it is quite a different matter to kill Muslims. Thus the destruction of great civilised Gujarat can not be handed over on a plate to the Mirjafars of Indian politics. It requires united fight to finish this social evil.