Politicisation of Violence: A Story on Gujarat Pogrom

What are your recollections of Gujarat 2002? Images of a burning train in which about 60 people were burnt to death? The violence that followed for several days killing a thousand people and rendering some 150,000 homeless? The picture of Qutubuddin Ansari with his hands folded pleading for mercy, flashed across the country and beyond over TV and newspapers may be fresh in the minds of many. The gruesome incident of a pregnant woman's belly being slit open to pick up the unborn child, and mother and child being thrown into the fire may be haunting others. The many trials of the notorious Best Bakery case and the twists and turns of its chief witness, Zaheera Sheik, keep memories alive.

Were these isolated instances or crazy manifestations of mass fury? Neither, says Dionne Bunsha, the award-winning author of this book. The happenings in Gujarat in 2002, according to Bunsha were experiments with violence in India's Hindutva laboratory. The theme is worth pursuing.

Politicisation

Gujarat, it will be recalled, became the first State in the country to have a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government with a clear majority. But soon the BJP's position there appeared to be shaky. Shankarsinh Waghela, the BJP's strong man left the party and formed a party of his own first, and later merged it with the Congress. In the local body elections in 2000, this combined force routed the BJP in many parts of the State, especially central Gujarat. The BJP decided on a change in leadership, removing Keshubhai Patel and bringing in Narendra Modi from the party office in Delhi as the new Chief Minister in 2001.

Modi, the staunch Rashtriya Swayam Sevak (RSS) pracharak, fully committed to the Hindutva ideology, was eager to make Gujarat the vanguard for converting the country into a `Hindu Rashtra'. Dealing with the State's less than 10 per cent Muslim population was crucial to the goal, and Modi set out with firm determination, giving active support to the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Bajrang Dal in their anti-Muslim campaigns. In mid-February 2002, at a VHP meeting, its leaders spoke about the need to remove Muslims from the predominantly Hindu villages and swore to `break their necks'.

The carnage

Then Godhra happened on February 27, 2002. Till today it is not clear how compartment S6 of the Sabarmati Express in which many kar sevaks were travelling caught fire just a few minutes after it left Godhra station. To be sure, during its four minutes' stay at the station there was a fight between the kar sevaks and a Muslim tea vendor. That was enough for Chief minister Modi to state within a few hours of the tragedy that "it [the burning of the train] was a pre-planned act. The culprits will have to pay for it... It was a violent, one-sided collective terrorist attack by only one community." The Chief Minister instructed the police to "let the Hindus vent their frustration" and warned, "the police should not come in the way of the Hindu backlash."

And so started the carnage. It was not only mob violence targeting Muslims. The Chief Minister permitted and encouraged it. His ministers sat in the police control room overseeing whole scale slaughter. It was an organised and institutionalised terror meant to complete the well-designed programme of marginalising the minorities.

Modi went a step further. He decided to convert his victory in the `field' to an electoral victory too, and so dissolved the Legislative Assembly prematurely to hold elections. His campaign was sharp and shrill: "It is not an election for MLAs or choosing a Chief Minister. It is an election related to religion." "This is a fight which will decide who is the protector of Hindus." "This is a deciding moment... Come out in large numbers and kick the jehadis and fundamentalists out."

And the BJP under Modi won the December 2002 state elections decisively with 126 of 181 seats, improving on its previous tally of 117 seats. Its vote percentage increased from 44.8 in 1998 to 49.8. In central Gujarat where the worst carnage occurred, the BJP's performance was particularly impressive.

The issues

So, did the experiments with violence in the Hindutva laboratory succeed? What has been happening to the people of Gujarat, especially those who were pushed out of their homes and localities? What is the nature of politics in Gujarat today? How is it likely to affect the rest of the country? What about another experiment which was also taking place even during those mad days of violence and murder — of Hindus at great personal costs to themselves for protecting their Muslims neighbours against the atrocities of the mob; of young people standing firm to marry from hostile communities because of love and personal commitment that transcended communal barriers? Which of these two experiments will prove successful in the days to come?

If you are interested in these issues it is unlikely that you can get anything better than Dionne Bunsha's account which is meticulous, moving, sensitive, thought-provoking — and, yes, even disturbing in places.

By C.T. Kurien (www.thehindu.com)