Careless Consciences

sadna:
I am in full agreement with you.
Still, I posted excerpt from Arvind Lavkare`s article to find out if his stats. were accurate, because I think that they do not seem to accurately reflect the picture as it was coming out from Gujarat at that time.

dost-mittar #223
The ruling party evidently decided to give its cadres free reign on Feb 28, a day on which VHP had pre-announced a bandh/protest.

And since then the Government`s actions and words have been clearly partisan. However inflamed a population is, the government can not take sides so blatantly.

The refusal to punish the guilty within the VHP/BJP, and the hate speech from members of the government before and after directed at Muslims indict the Modi government.

The pointed refusal to help Muslim victims of mob violence, arson and murder with anything but paltry amounts while declaring the Hindu affectees of Godhra as victims of terrorism, deserving of lakhs of rupees in compensation also indicts the Modi government.

No action against police personnel under whose watch violence took place has been reported. There has also been no reported action against Gujarati language newspapers which spread inflammatory false information, instead the English language media is bashed on every occasion.

People who speak up against the propagation of hatred like Mallika Sarabhai are being harassed for speaking up by VHP/BJP members/ supporters.

The Gujarat government has also shown no institutional interest in understanding the event comprehesively, administratively and sociologically and deriving lessons on how to prevent such incidents in future. The government prefers to put the onus for entire episode on the triggering event, the Godhra train burning. BJP/VHP has taken no action to tone down their cadres` free-wheeling anti-minority rhetoric.

In short, the absolute hollowness of the pious `all Indians are Hindus` rhetoric of Sanghis stands totally exposed. That Modi called out the Army on March 1 does not exonerate them.

ankit:
Francois Gauthier may be French but he is hardly an impartial observer. He is known for his glorification of hindus and hindu religion.

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Francois Gautier, a Delhi-based French journalist, wrote that subsequently there were 157 riots and that all of them were started by Muslim groups (India Today, June 24, 2002).

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this cannot be correct. muslims dont start the riots at all. after all, they just took it when they were being targetted in gujrat and that is why there were no hindus who were killed in gujrat.


state sposored, pogrom, genocide.. we are readign all kinds of spins. there have been attempts to make it look worse with passage of time. i am sure in a decade or so, we shall be teaching our childred that millions of muslims were killed. secular history, that is.

215 by jang

jang

i know what dealing with a daroga means. but the point is:
dealing of the nasty daroga in bihar is perfectly fine coz he is doing it in a secular manner while these secular guys will jum up and down about what goes on in ahmedabad. that is because they are ready to bear the crap as long as it fits their definition of secular.

I saw this article by a pro-bjp columnist on the Gujarat riots. Could someone please tell how much of is factual?

``Gujarat 2002 riots

Provocation: On the morning of February 27, at Godhra station, 58 Hindu passengers returning from a pilgrimage to Lord Ram`s Ayodhya were scorched alive by a Muslim mob.

Retaliation: While nothing much happened on February 27 itself, a mass vendetta commenced on February 28. For two days thereafter, Hindu groups indulged in arson and loot, raping and killing.

Counter-retaliation: Francois Gautier, a Delhi-based French journalist, wrote that subsequently there were 157 riots and that all of them were started by Muslim groups (India Today, June 24, 2002).

Victims: In the three months following the Godhra massacre, the official figure is 800 dead, of which a quarter were Hindus. Another estimate is 1,050 dead, of which Hindus were 250. Of the 98,000 persons sent to refugee camps, 10,000 were Hindus.

Government action: A five-man fact-finding committee of The Council for International Affairs and Human Rights headed by D S Tewatia, a former chief justice of the Calcutta and Punjab and Haryana high courts, reported that:–

By the afternoon of February 28, it was clear that the communal violence had spread widely and the situation had become so alarming that it was unlikely to be controlled by the police and paramilitary forces. Hence, at 4.30 pm that day, the chief minister announced at a press conference that the state government had decided to call the army to assist the civil administration. And by that evening the Union government had given instructions for the deployment of two brigades in Gujarat.
The Union defence minister flew to Ahmedabad at midnight and had a meeting with the chief minister to discuss deployment of the army. Troops needed to be withdrawn from the country`s border with Pakistan, where they were deployed in full strength in an eyeball-to-eyeball situation.
Within 24 hours, one brigade of the Indian Army had landed in Ahmedabad. In a meeting at 8 am in which the chief minister, defence minister, army generals, and civil officers participated, the formal plan for deployment of the army was approved. Magistrates needed to accompany the army were appointed and by 11 am on March 1 the actual deployment of the army at sensitive points had begun.
The second brigade was deputed to Rajkot and Vadodara on the night of March 1.
Columns allotted to Godhra reached there on the morning of March 2.
The army went back to the barracks on March 10.
What did the Gujarat police do? In the first 48 hours of the violence, they arrested 3,900 persons, of whom two-thirds were Hindus (Sanjoy Banerjee, `Indian Politics in this Age`, Indian Currents, June 2002). By April 5, 9,500 persons had been arrested, of whom two-thirds were Hindus. `The Gujarat police did try to restore law and order.` (Prem Shankar Jha, `Gujarat: A Sober Diary`, Outlook, April 22, 2002.) National Minorities Commission Chairman John Joseph noted, `As on April 6, 126 persons were killed in police firing, of whom 77 were Hindus.` (Kay Benedict, `Bad PR charge on Atal, Modi`, The Telegraph, April 21, 2002.) L K Advani, ex-home minister, publicly stated that the police fired 3,900 rounds of ammunition.

The National Human Rights Commission and the Minorities Commission `accepted the Gujarat government`s contention that it did foresee trouble and took precautionary steps to check it, but was caught by surprise and overwhelmed by the mob fury erupting on February 28.`

The billion-dollar question: So was Gujarat 2002 `state-sponsored` genocide against Muslims? Was it at all genocide or a pogrom against Muslims? Or was it a case of any number of sandbags not enough to stem the Brahmaputra floods?``

url:http://www.sulekha.com/redirectnh.asp?cid=337962

Farzana, I did think Omar was coming to your rescue because from his point of view, he felt sorry for you.

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#217 by sadna on June 22, 2004 2:32pm PT
``Re Vajpayee. If he wanted to listen to his inner voice, the correct time to have done it was during or in the aftermath of the Gujarat riots. Then it was a matter of life and death and he did not take a stand then. ``

its clear now that Vajpayee used the most recent ``inner-voice`` to tell modi and the gang that he is still the Alpha Male in the party. ABV is a politician, and smart politicians use all available tools at disposal. ABV used his inner voice to establish his position in the party.

farzana writes:

``And just FYI, the social ills that beset women cannot be restricted merely to one community. Look in our own backyard before talking about other societies, imperfect as they are. Read the papers. The inside pages. ``

This is what I knew you would say. Because there is crime in this world,
every damn thing is justfied. For your information, if there is just one law
in India that discriminates against you because you are a woman, I will be the
first one to fight to repeal it! It is simply not justifiable to treat humans differently.
Criminals are always present to break the law no matter what laws you make.
But dont hide behind them and make criminals of everyone!

Re Vajpayee. If he wanted to listen to his inner voice, the correct time to have done it was during or in the aftermath of the Gujarat riots. Then it was a matter of life and death and he did not take a stand then.

If he could not do it then, the only reason he is even bringing up the subject NOW is perhaps a last ditch attempt to salvage some `legacy` points and to assert his POV over those dissenters in the party, who might have gone against his judgement on Modi, on timing of elections and on the theme of the election campaign.


As for dismissing Modi for whatever reason, it might be relevant to point out at least two instances when the Vajpayee-led government has refused to dismiss state governments of its political opponents to appease its allies in government.

In the first instance, the second Vajpayee-led government lost office in March/April 1999 and midterm Lok Sabha elections had to be called because the Vajpayee government refused to dismiss Tamil Nadu`s DMK government of Karunanidhi at the say-so of NDA ally Jayalalitha, who got angry and withdrew support. That was the time when the Vajpayee government was only caretaker government but had to deal with Kargil, remember.


The second instance was when George Fernandes`s Samata party and others wanted the Laloo/Rabri government to be dismissed after many episodes of violence/lawlessness. The BJP leadership finally refused to accede to the demand, though this created trouble in the alliance. It was possible(I don`t remember) that the Congress was in two minds and might have helped NDA in that instance, but still they refused to dismiss that government.

Agreed in the Gujarat case, it is more a change of CM and pushing Modi into background in the party vs not, not dismissal of government and dissolving of assembly, but the examples are still relevant to some extent. It might be worth understanding better what really lies behind BJP`s resistance to dismissal of state governments or change of CM.

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#91

Jang, you are confusing the Madras Regiment with the Madras Sappers. The former is an infantry regiment.

#214 by ankit on June 22, 2004 11:41am PT

heh heh.. ankit, wait till you have to deal with a daroga..and then dont go squaling (aap ko pata hai mera baap kaun hai). i personally am scared of the police BIG time and have no intentions of letting down my guard. you should be too if you have any sense.

the way the self styled seculars are jumping up and down about killing of people, who at the least had dubios links with terrorists and at the worst could have been planning terrorist activities themselves, is really amazing. gangsters, who are less dangerous than terrorists in the sense that they dont cause bomb blasts and kill dozens, are routinely killed in encounters and nobody gives a damn. in fact, it is acknowledged as a way around the law machinery which drags the case for years!

contrast this with the reaction we got when families of security personnel were killed in jammu and the secular cm of jammu and kashmir refused to visit the victims.