TODAY: FIFTEEN YEARS AGO!
-Fr. Cedric Prakash sj*
It’s
fifteen years today! How soon the years fly by. Some things however, are never
forgotten. The memories are still fresh. The pain, the suffering, the trauma –
though not visible – still lingers on. Only those who have gone through it know
deep down, what it means to lose a loved one. That too through such inhuman
brutality.Rupa and Dara Mody still wait for their only son Azhar, who went
missing on February 28th 2002, to come home. The nightmare for many
continue. The masterminds: the main culprits still roam with impunity and
immunity. It was, indeed one of the bloodiest chapters of post-independent
India. Certainly, the only one presided over and engineered by those
responsible for protecting the lives and property of ordinary citizens. Sadly,
it is still not a closed chapter. It was no ordinary riot: it was the Gujarat
Genocide of 2002!
Today
after fifteen years, many may agree that there must be healing; but for that to
take place, the victim-survivors have to experience the triumph of truth and
justice. A painful reality can never be swept under the carpet. The wheels of
justice have moved in some cases but the judiciary has still to prove that it
serves the cause of justice alone; a good section of the media in India has
been bought up and compromised and can no longer be impartial and objective.
Fatigue does set.Moreover, (as we see in Delhi University today), the fascist
and fundamentalist forces responsible for what happened in 2002 and are still
blatantly at work in the country. True there
have been several convictions, thanks to the dogged determination of human
rights stalwarts like Teesta Setalvad and others.
Very
ironically, the one who presided over the Gujarat Genocide, ‘rules’ the country
today. That is a sad and bitter truth. The
mayhem and murder of innocent men, women and children; rapes, arson, loot, displacement
and denigration of thousands of Muslims- just does not seem to have mattered.
It all seemed part of a game in which one scores brownie points. Your dastardly
deeds gain legitimacy through the ballot box. After all, Hitler succeeded
immensely because of the lies, myths and half-truths dished out by Goebbels,
his Propaganda Minister. Tragically, a similar story here!
It
was certainly very unfortunate that fifty-nine persons lost their lives when
the S-G coach of the Sabarmati Express caught fire on February 27th 2002,
just outside the Godhra Railway Station. The whole truth on what caused the
fire is still not out. Nothing else happened for more than twenty-four hours
after that; not in Gujarat, not anywhere else in India. Sadly, enough from the
afternoon of February 28th, began those dark and violent days, which
would make any human being to squirm and to hang one’s head down in shame.
In December 2003, the then Chief Justice of India V.N. Khare
presiding over a Divisional Bench of the Supreme Court criticized the
Government of Gujarat saying, “I have no faith left in the prosecution and
the Gujarat Government. I am not saying Article 356. You have to protect people
and punish the guilty. What else is raj dharma? You quit if you cannot
prosecute the guilty. “Some years later in
February 2012 in a landmark ruling, the Acting Chief Justice of Gujarat
Bhaskar Bhattacharya, very emphatically stated, “Gujarat government’s inadequate response and
inaction (to contain the riots) resulted in an anarchic situation which continued
unabated for days on…the state cannot shirk from its responsibilities”.
In the context of the many cases and
the fact that several fingers were pointing to the connivance of the Modi
Government, the Supreme Court of India appointed a Special Investigation Team
(SIT) to look into certain cases, very specially a complaint made by Zakia Jafri
with regard to the murder of her husband, the former Member of Parliament Ehsan
Jafri and several others. It is common knowledge that the SIT played a very
dubious and partisan role in key cases. The SITs Final Report was also challenged. It had just
too many grey areas with gaping loopholes. It went all out to protect the masterminds
of this carnage. Whatever that Report said or did not say, the complicity and
the culpability of the powerful and of certain vested interests, has never ever
been doubted.
There have been numerous efforts to consign Gujarat 2002 to the
fires of history. Efforts have been made, by the most powerful in the land to
buy up people and to coopt others, to denigrate those who fought relentlessly
for justice on behalf of the victim survivors.There are certainly the loud,
shrill voices, who try to legitimize what happened in those bloody days. They
provide all kinds of justification(however, weak) “2002 was just
an aberration in fact a distraction”; “look at the way, we have progressed
since; the roads, the shopping malls, the riverfront, the flyovers...in fact
all the industrialists want to come only to Gujarat”; “didn’t they deserve it,
after all, they are but terrorists”; “why is the same importance not being given to the massacre of the Sikhs
in 1984 and for that matter, to the Hindu pundits in Kashmir?”; “We Muslims need to move on…” The
rationalisations are typical. They come
from the unaffected, the ‘educated’ elite and from those who are afraid to deal
with the past. Statements like these are often enveloped in a fear, which
stills rules the roost. There are reprisals, there is revenge, and the powers
stop at nothing. Remember the murder of former minister Haren Pandya, who
testified before the ‘Citizens Tribunal’? A sizeable section of the population
is terribly afraid of the plain truth. Many also suffer from selective amnesia!
However, Gujarat
2002 is not forgotten
Human Rights Defenders, who have taken up cudgels on
behalf of the victim-survivors and take a stand for truth and justice – have
been hounded and harassed no end. What is still happening to Teesta Setalvad
and her husband Javed Anand is a case in point. False cases are foisted; all
kinds of lies and half-truths are fabricated. Teesta however, has been relentless.
Last month her memoirs, ‘Foot Solider of the Constitution’- was
published. It makes compelling reading: of how one woman in the pursuit of
justice and truth has taken on the might of the State. It is a must-read for
all wish to preserve and promote the sanctity of our Constitution
In New Delhi today several concerned
citizens gathered together as a REMEMBERANCE of 15 Years of the Gujarat
Genocide. Zakia Jafri and her daughter Nishrin were there –reliving painful
memories; Teesta Setalvad and Shabnam Hashmi; Harsh Mander and Apoorvanand;
Manoj Jha and several others who have stood resolute in their struggle for
justice.
One thing is clear, that the resilience of several
victim-survivors and the heartaches and cries of strong women like Zakiaben and
Rupaben will never go unheard! They will be vindicated! Fifteen years to date;
but history has proved that however slow things are, truth, is always a non-negotiable!
Above all, it is not for nothing our national motto is ‘Satyameva Jayate!’
Truth will triumph!
28th February 2017
* (Fr Cedric Prakash sj is a human rights activist. He is
currently based in Lebanon, engaged with the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS)
in the Middle East on advocacy and
communications. Contact: cedricprakash@gmail.com)
No comments:
Post a Comment