Let no one commit the mistake of thinking that Ramrajya means a rule of Hindus. My Ram is another name for Khuda or God. I want Khuda Raj which is the same thing as the Kingdom of God on Eart so said the man we named the Mahatma, men of all men on February 26, 1947.
It was this Ramrajya that not just Mahatma but two different men harked back to after the dark, bleak days of 2002. Gujarat still smouldered with the black smoke of hatred and violence. Prime minister Vajpayee, from the same mindset and political dispensation as Narendra Modi the man who had presided over the death and destruction, used this analogy to remind Modi of the duty to his people as he visited the Shah-e-Alam Camp at Ahmedabad. Seventeen months later the chief justice of the country justice VN Khare sharply rebuked the elected head of Gujarat (September 2003) in the first judicial reprimand to the genocidal carnage that had been unleashed in the name of Gandhi. Where is your Ramrajya? he asked. Khare was also speaking of both just governance and compassion.
I shudder to think of the depth of pain Gandhi would have responded if he had been alive to witness not just the blood and gore in the land of his birth but the brazen, and shameful lack of remorse of many silent participants and compliciters in the violence. Buxom Gujarati women roamed burnt streets of Ahmedabad scouring shops with empty bags to loot what remained of destroyed goods, ice creams in hands at a new invention of Gujarat’s latest form of recreation. Some ordinary Gujaratis, not all had been emboldened by the chest thumping of hindutva’s fuhrer. Modi who had not visited a single relief camp till Vajpayee visited the state had shown a deadpan lack of remorse to the rape. Death and destruction let loose by trained militias of men in 19 of Gujarat’s 25 districts that year.
Supremacy and violence were anathema to the Mahatma. It is no wonder then that this man fell to bullets in independent India’s first act of terror (read terrorism) on January 30, 1948 had his greatest enemies in the proponents of hindutva. Few know that there were five failed attempts on Gandhiji in and around Maharashra, all planned and executed by proponents of hindutva before the one that took his life. Why was this frail bespectacled man, who at 79, walked with the speed of his purpose such a threat to those who dreamed of a supremacist Hindu nation?
He threatened the carriers of hatred, division and dogma because he appealed to our reason, sense of justice but above all our compassion and toleration. His arguments were sharp and clear, his sense of purpose raw and courageous. His deep principles arose out of a life he had carved for himself. He reached out and appealed to you and me even when the dark fires of communal violence had tarnished our birth as an independent nation with fire, and blood.
An anguished couple who had their son killed by hate filled mobs during the violence at Noakhali turned to him to ask how they could live with their bitterness, loss, their hatred. His reply is one I have heard echoed in the words of grieving parents in the streets of Dharawi, Bombay to Pandharwada Gujarat. Adopt a Muslim child approximately the age of your lost child he told them. Bring him up in the faith of his borth but as your son. As your love and caring for this child will grow, hatred and revenge will dissolve into compassion and forgiveness.
Small individual tales of loss echo what Gandhiji said at Noakhali even today. For many victims of brute force and violence, revenge is not the answer. A simple acknowledgement, expression of remorse precedes forgiveness. What is absent from the organized perpetrator is any sense of loss, sorrow or remorse to what they had unleashed while the individual recoils within with what he has done.
The day after an organized mob, in full public eye of a willfully inactive paramilitary force allowed a four hundred year old mosque to be destroyed at Ayodhya (Faizabad) the front page edition of The Times of India carried a quarter page advertisement of a Hindu temple math in Nashik, Maharashtra. The message was simple. What happened at Faizabad was a blot on Hinduism and not an occasion for chest thumping celebration. In that simple message delivered through a paid advertisement we can understand how and why Gandhi remains such a threat to the forces of division.
Hindutva, the ideal of a militarized supremacist Hindu nation (where others live in economic social and physical subservience) was first coined by Savarkar in his book by that name though the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) founders in We and Our Nationshood Defined elaborated the concept sufficiently. Such thought processes are about 80-100 years old no patch or patch on the centuries old civilizational negotiation between communities, Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, Muslim and Sikh.
Gandhi in his modern, dhoti clad avatar, represented Indian modern thought at its best and most intense. Deeply spiritual (it’s a word I prefer to what ‘religious’ connotes), he drew his strength from a of scriptures of varied faiths. Deeply spiritual he refrained from using religious symbols for political mobilization. He appealed to our wisdom, reason and compassion, a potent unstoppable mix. He had millions with him in thought and deed. Six decades and more after his death he draws crowds to his samadhi still. Years ago, sitting after a public meeting eating delicious jhunka-bhakar in semi-rural Maharashtra I tried as I have so many times to understand from contemporary political activists their understanding of what lies behind the appeal of the Mahatma. The answer I received that night has stayed with me. Headgear, pagdis and topis varied in the heartland of India, more often than not connoting caste difference. The unifying spirit of Gandhi metatamorphosed into the Gandhi topi that now rural peasantry across India wear. Gandhi s capacity to draw strength from the unifying thread of rationality, faith and belief, varied faiths and beliefs poses the greatest threat to any contrary notion of association, existence and nationhood.
Violence, loss and pain shook Gandhi because humankind was at its worst here. For the votaries of Hindutva violence is the means, blood and gore a small price to pay for perennial and perpetual hatreds, divisions, insecurities and an absence of remorse. As significant, with all the limitations of perspective, Gandhi abhorred what the organized Hindu faith had done to twenty five per cent of its own. Call them untouchables, label them Dalit. On November 20, 1938 Gandhi wrote an erudite piece on the Middle East, Jews and Palestine While deeply empathetic to the centuries old suffering by the semitic races, he likened their plight to that of the untouchables in Hinduism. While opposing any truck with fascist Gemany he still remained clear and focused hen it came to dishousing or disempowering the Palestinians. Jews had their birthright in every nation and civilization of the world. But, despite Arab excesses to oust the Palestinians from their land and divest them of their rights was not acceptable to Gandhi.
It is this complexity of thought and narrative, rational and humane in its simpliciter logic that typified Gandhi. A lawyer turned writer he used the best tools of both trades to reason with logic and communicate with the power of clearly constructed thought and purity of language. He drew women and men to him humbled by his purity and passion. Industrialists contributed jewels and wealth to his movement and shed glamour for the austere robes of khadi. His followers at the Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad were silent when hell and havoc broke loose in their precious city. Gandhians all over Gujarat and Gandhian institutes that dot the state and country have been virtually mute spectators to the attempted take over or make over of Gandhi by the men and material that killed him.Today the Ashram has a 400 crore project of savvy modernization up its sleeve. Solitary in his defiance to this takeover bid, the man killed by the votaries of Hindutva grins at their bid to claim his as their own.
In life as in death he remains a threat to the both racist supreniscism (that is Hindutva) and naked greed and globalization (that is driving our adivasis to distraction and our government to launch a (sic) green hunt on them.
Modi and Gandhi?
Gandhi selling a designer watch that costs a few lakh rupees?
Gandhihi’s chuckle would be marred by a lone tear that hints at the travesty. And tragedy.
Teesta Setalvad
Co editor Communalism Combat
For Matrubhumi Annual Issue 2010, released in Allappuzha, March 13 2010
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Peace Begins in the Mind of the Child
(a collaborative and reflective article based on the KHOJ experience)
Textbooks that dismiss the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi in one sentence or fail to mention this first, post independent India’s act of terror, or condense the upheaval of the Partition to just four paragraphs represent an education system in denial. Caste and its evil systems of discriminations are carefully evaded though in the seventies we studied them under their ‘merits’ and ‘demerits’. Frontier Gandhi, Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan, who led the north west frontier province into non-violent satyagraha was a figure known to Indian children until he mysteriously vanished with the hate filled years since the mid eighteen hundreds.
The Indian classroom within the Indian school is a space that can successfully nurture healthy notions of diversity pluralism critical reasoning dissent and even handle conflict. Instead, burdened with a feudal notion of civic organisation, privilege, family, society and growth we have wasted that space. Hatred and violence that has grown in our midst has manipulated this space negatively.
Ask a child what he means by the word “Hindu” and the answers fit a type. Extend the questions further to what he or she understands of the word “Dalit” or “Christian” or “Muslim” or “Sikh” or “Zoroastrian” or “ Brahmin” and fifteen years and the analysis of over twelve thousand children’s reactions later, other types or stereotypes get formed. In the slow but steady way our public sphere has been dominated by the majoritarian notion of what culture is or should be, defying several hundred years of practiced pluralism when rulers both Hindu and Muslim encouraged a syncretic culture that is uniquely sub-continental to emerge, language, phrases and the air in the classroom have got permeated by notions of ‘us’ and ‘them’. Notions of what it means to be patriotic and good have also slowly changed with time. If Gandhi embodied these ideals at their peaceful non-violent best, India’s young search thirstily for an icon that breathes hope and courage into them.
Decades of our experience with democracy, our peculiar version of it, has not preserved its essence that was articulated so well by the man today hailed as father of the nation,
“ In matters of conscience the majority has no place”. His own simple and profound life gave words life and meaning. What he was speaking of what was the right to stand apart, stand alone, to dissent.
It is this value, that privileges matters of conscience, the right and duty to dissent, be they in association, negotiation, dialogue, growth, development, citizenry and politics that is absent from our education system and classroom ethos. Fast track growth in the IT sector could not have been possible without our very own brilliant computer heads. India’s IITs and IIMs and the topnotch global packages that they command prove our national commitment to individual achievement whoever be the evaluator. What then ails our civic national psyche from creating a public culture of inclusiveness and reason ?
Somewhere the fault lies in the challenges thrown at growing minds in the classroom. The privileged among us, even the middle classes have created and survived on institutions deteriorating in quality and commitment. Two years ago when a central government tried to ensure that medical students commit to one year of their lives to rural India they had to hastily backtrack on a decision imperative if we want to infuse some humane concern back into our national, public life.
Are our schools those that care and share? With each other, within the neighbourhood? What are the field trips that we organize. Of late Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore schools take the children to waterparks for one more day of fun at a price.
Instead, we try and tell schools and teachers to experiment with the field trip. Another legacy of the past two decades is increasingly segregrated cities and towns, a direct byproduct of brute violence. The result is a deepening of barriers as the buffer provided by daily interactions and the breakdown of stereotype are denied. Where the outcaste was excluded at first today the exclusion extends to religion and other linguistic identities. The urban and rural is probably the most insurmountable. But there too religion based segregation has made its ugly influence.
Have our schools and our teachers ever tried to use the field trip, once or twice a year to engage with this distressing social reality? Of segregation, denial. Privileging and othering? Have we tried to get our children to spend a day or two in a village? Visit a Muslim mohalla ? Spend a day at a durgah which is being ‘reclaimed’ by some?
We have. And the result is electric.
The KHOJ Field Trip.
Ten minutes away from one of the schools where our project was on in Mumbai, is a predominantly Muslim locality where we took our children. The visit was planned with the collaboration of Awami Idara, a community organisation that runs a library and conducts literacy classes. Due to their efforts, we were able to visit two mosques, with the Imam (head priest) of one even explaining the practised rituals of prayer to each child.
The warmth of our welcome overwhelmed even the most sceptical among us. Seventeen little girls studying at the centre welcomed us each with a rose, while banners and placards proclaiming intra-community camaraderie made an impression on the children’s mind. Warmly sung songs by a local choir began an experience that is bound to have made some impression on each child. While many children also butchers in their follow-up exercises, it was the sense of curiosity about another religion and culture (many, including the teacher accompanying us could not believe we’d be entering the inside of a mosque) that won the day.
The spontaneity of personal experience is the best antidote to stereotype and prejudice. As we entered the two mosques, a few children could not help exclaiming, “But it’s so very clean!”
How much we help close our children’s minds by denying them the benefits of first hand experiences.
A few weeks later we engaged all the children in a reflective exercise about the trip. The interlude was because of the Diwali vacation.
During this exercise, one student while depicting very positive images of the trip, unconsciously drew both an Indian and Pakistani flag.
Why the Pakistani flag when we were depicting a visit to an area barely fifteen minutes away from the school? Did not all Muslims originate from Pakistan? was the perplexed question asked back.
It is now seventeen years since Bombay (now Mumbai) was racked by brute anti minority violence following the demolition of the Babri Masjid at Ayodhya. This in turn was the result of a systematic campaign by political and far right religio-political groupings that polarised Indian society and state as never before. Gestures of harmony and tolerance have in the intervening years been few and far between. Worse, we’ve had the rupture caused by the genocidal carnage in Gujarat in 2002 and violence against poor Christian tribals and Dalits to make it worse.
Our field trip has continued but that first one years ago (1998) showed how the urge for peace and harmony was so much greater for the minorities who are the victims, whereas voices from the majority were few and far between.A humbling thought, once more brought home to us by the spirit of our welcome at Agripada that year. Does this concern not govern the consciousness of the majority? A difficult question to answer but one that is crucial to raise.
A Teachers Ringside view1
An unfortunate side effect of education in a “good” school may be an isolation of the students from the society of which they are a part. Opportunities seldom arise where children are enable to see and observe beyond their own families, friends and school mates. Verbal explanations and audio-visual aids do help in portraying various aspects, but not as effectively as direct exposure. This trip was therefore a welcome one.
I had the luxury of being an observer (apart from the odd check now and then) and was able to see and note the reactions of both groups of children. The spontaneous welcome of the host group and the initially hesitant response of the guests which quickly turned to one of interest, was obvious. Nothing like a spot of music to get things going -- and this is precisely what happened. It was a pleasure to see some of my prim, self conscious girls joining in with gusto. At that moment, watching all the children singing together, one saw harmony in all the sense of the word.
KHOJ was able to organise a trip into two mosques. The children removed their shoes and with curiosity and with respect went in and looked around with great interest. They asked a great number of questions that ranged from questions regarding Islamic beliefs to the reasons for fish in the water tank.
The bus ride and the walk through areas of Bombay to areas of Bombay to which they had never really gone, was an eye-opener. They threaded their way through narrow, crowded lanes, stepping over open drains and even peered into squalid dwellings. “Do people really have to live here? was the astonished response .
At the end of the day, the students came away overwhelmed with the warmth of the response, taken aback by the poverty and squalor, buzzing with the details they had heard and seen inside the Mosques. The hospitality and the warmth extended to us superseded other aspects of the children’s minds. The single rose given to us, the careful arrangement of seats for us, the sung -- the overall delight in having us there -- were the real highlights of the day.
Its difficult to tell exactly what the qualitative result of such trips are. Nor can a trip like this in isolation achieve anything from a single experience. But as a teacher of social studies, I have become growingly aware of the inadequacies of our systems of imparting information that detaches our children so completely. Knowledge is compartmentalised and relationships and connections rarely made between real life experiences and people.
Renu Koshy was the English and social teacher who prefers to teach middle school children because of their receptivity: she is also recipient of the Varki Best Teacher (among ICSE schools) a few years ago. l
TINY STEPS ..... TOWARDS UBDERSTANDING AND INTEGRATION
“We have never had the benefit of such an experience before. Non - Muslim children coming into our locality, spending time with us, trying to understand what we are about. This has never happened before .
Ironically this visit created beneficial ripples even within the community. We had intimated the trustees of both mosques about the proposed programme beforehand. But on that day, as the children were visiting the mosque, some persons went and complained to the Imam that girls in skirts had entered the mosque, so there was some discussion on this after your visit. It was very interesting. The matter was discussed again by the Trustees. And do you know what their response was? “This shariat (that makes the rules for dress for Muslim girls within the Mosque ) applies to Muslims alone , and here was an initiative where for the first time on our knowledge we had received such a visit from non - Muslim children. How can we burden them with our rules ? “ .
For us, the whole experiences thanks to KHOJ, was a welcome gesture of solidarity with our children (The organisers gave a write - up of the visit to Urdu Times, an Urdu daily titled Nanhe Kadam, kaumi Ekjaise ki taraf -- Tiny steps, towards national integration ) and such exchanges must be encouraged.
The Maulana who teaches Arabic to our children was the one who explained Islamic ritual and practice to our little visitors. He found their avid interest ( in every detail including the clocks that display the times for prayers to the tiny fish present in the water tank available for washing up before prayers ) heart-warming and their questions keen. Even he expressed the opinion that such visits should be encouraged.
Like a visit to the zoo or any other filed trip, if children visit each other’s areas it will be beneficial. They will see how Muslims live, how they behave amongst each other, how Muslims behave with them. That will be a memory that will stay. They may not then so easily believe that Muslims are bad word or a blot on society and so many people, unfortunately believe. Such initiatives must continue. They are unusual and educative.
Mrs. Parveen, from the local Mahila Jagruti Kendra (womens’ organisation ) who helped organise the welcome was emotional about the whole effort. She told us that the visit for her and the 17 girls was unexpected, “we felt so one with these children, and were thrilled at the fact that children from another school could visit us. Or such an endearing trip could be thought off. Such efforts must continue.”
(As to told to Khoj by Comrade Maqsood Ansari, President Awami Idara)
Apart from involving equality and social justice principles of democracy, school years should generate in children a sense of respect for work, she said.
The activist, who is editor of ‘Communalism Combat,’ also called for a healthy exposure to the role of religion in civil society and the core values of various faiths from the school level.
Advocating that religious leaders should boldly engage in public discourses on social evils such as female foeticide and dowry deaths, Ms. Setalvad said it was wrong to regard religion as a “non-evolutionary” entity. “Religious beliefs must be as much about reformative aspect of faiths.”
She spelt out as a critical task negotiating an equation between religion and civil society within the framework of democracy.
Teesta Setalvad
(a collaborative and reflective article based on the KHOJ experience)
Textbooks that dismiss the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi in one sentence or fail to mention this first, post independent India’s act of terror, or condense the upheaval of the Partition to just four paragraphs represent an education system in denial. Caste and its evil systems of discriminations are carefully evaded though in the seventies we studied them under their ‘merits’ and ‘demerits’. Frontier Gandhi, Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan, who led the north west frontier province into non-violent satyagraha was a figure known to Indian children until he mysteriously vanished with the hate filled years since the mid eighteen hundreds.
The Indian classroom within the Indian school is a space that can successfully nurture healthy notions of diversity pluralism critical reasoning dissent and even handle conflict. Instead, burdened with a feudal notion of civic organisation, privilege, family, society and growth we have wasted that space. Hatred and violence that has grown in our midst has manipulated this space negatively.
Ask a child what he means by the word “Hindu” and the answers fit a type. Extend the questions further to what he or she understands of the word “Dalit” or “Christian” or “Muslim” or “Sikh” or “Zoroastrian” or “ Brahmin” and fifteen years and the analysis of over twelve thousand children’s reactions later, other types or stereotypes get formed. In the slow but steady way our public sphere has been dominated by the majoritarian notion of what culture is or should be, defying several hundred years of practiced pluralism when rulers both Hindu and Muslim encouraged a syncretic culture that is uniquely sub-continental to emerge, language, phrases and the air in the classroom have got permeated by notions of ‘us’ and ‘them’. Notions of what it means to be patriotic and good have also slowly changed with time. If Gandhi embodied these ideals at their peaceful non-violent best, India’s young search thirstily for an icon that breathes hope and courage into them.
Decades of our experience with democracy, our peculiar version of it, has not preserved its essence that was articulated so well by the man today hailed as father of the nation,
“ In matters of conscience the majority has no place”. His own simple and profound life gave words life and meaning. What he was speaking of what was the right to stand apart, stand alone, to dissent.
It is this value, that privileges matters of conscience, the right and duty to dissent, be they in association, negotiation, dialogue, growth, development, citizenry and politics that is absent from our education system and classroom ethos. Fast track growth in the IT sector could not have been possible without our very own brilliant computer heads. India’s IITs and IIMs and the topnotch global packages that they command prove our national commitment to individual achievement whoever be the evaluator. What then ails our civic national psyche from creating a public culture of inclusiveness and reason ?
Somewhere the fault lies in the challenges thrown at growing minds in the classroom. The privileged among us, even the middle classes have created and survived on institutions deteriorating in quality and commitment. Two years ago when a central government tried to ensure that medical students commit to one year of their lives to rural India they had to hastily backtrack on a decision imperative if we want to infuse some humane concern back into our national, public life.
Are our schools those that care and share? With each other, within the neighbourhood? What are the field trips that we organize. Of late Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore schools take the children to waterparks for one more day of fun at a price.
Instead, we try and tell schools and teachers to experiment with the field trip. Another legacy of the past two decades is increasingly segregrated cities and towns, a direct byproduct of brute violence. The result is a deepening of barriers as the buffer provided by daily interactions and the breakdown of stereotype are denied. Where the outcaste was excluded at first today the exclusion extends to religion and other linguistic identities. The urban and rural is probably the most insurmountable. But there too religion based segregation has made its ugly influence.
Have our schools and our teachers ever tried to use the field trip, once or twice a year to engage with this distressing social reality? Of segregation, denial. Privileging and othering? Have we tried to get our children to spend a day or two in a village? Visit a Muslim mohalla ? Spend a day at a durgah which is being ‘reclaimed’ by some?
We have. And the result is electric.
The KHOJ Field Trip.
Ten minutes away from one of the schools where our project was on in Mumbai, is a predominantly Muslim locality where we took our children. The visit was planned with the collaboration of Awami Idara, a community organisation that runs a library and conducts literacy classes. Due to their efforts, we were able to visit two mosques, with the Imam (head priest) of one even explaining the practised rituals of prayer to each child.
The warmth of our welcome overwhelmed even the most sceptical among us. Seventeen little girls studying at the centre welcomed us each with a rose, while banners and placards proclaiming intra-community camaraderie made an impression on the children’s mind. Warmly sung songs by a local choir began an experience that is bound to have made some impression on each child. While many children also butchers in their follow-up exercises, it was the sense of curiosity about another religion and culture (many, including the teacher accompanying us could not believe we’d be entering the inside of a mosque) that won the day.
The spontaneity of personal experience is the best antidote to stereotype and prejudice. As we entered the two mosques, a few children could not help exclaiming, “But it’s so very clean!”
How much we help close our children’s minds by denying them the benefits of first hand experiences.
A few weeks later we engaged all the children in a reflective exercise about the trip. The interlude was because of the Diwali vacation.
During this exercise, one student while depicting very positive images of the trip, unconsciously drew both an Indian and Pakistani flag.
Why the Pakistani flag when we were depicting a visit to an area barely fifteen minutes away from the school? Did not all Muslims originate from Pakistan? was the perplexed question asked back.
It is now seventeen years since Bombay (now Mumbai) was racked by brute anti minority violence following the demolition of the Babri Masjid at Ayodhya. This in turn was the result of a systematic campaign by political and far right religio-political groupings that polarised Indian society and state as never before. Gestures of harmony and tolerance have in the intervening years been few and far between. Worse, we’ve had the rupture caused by the genocidal carnage in Gujarat in 2002 and violence against poor Christian tribals and Dalits to make it worse.
Our field trip has continued but that first one years ago (1998) showed how the urge for peace and harmony was so much greater for the minorities who are the victims, whereas voices from the majority were few and far between.A humbling thought, once more brought home to us by the spirit of our welcome at Agripada that year. Does this concern not govern the consciousness of the majority? A difficult question to answer but one that is crucial to raise.
A Teachers Ringside view1
An unfortunate side effect of education in a “good” school may be an isolation of the students from the society of which they are a part. Opportunities seldom arise where children are enable to see and observe beyond their own families, friends and school mates. Verbal explanations and audio-visual aids do help in portraying various aspects, but not as effectively as direct exposure. This trip was therefore a welcome one.
I had the luxury of being an observer (apart from the odd check now and then) and was able to see and note the reactions of both groups of children. The spontaneous welcome of the host group and the initially hesitant response of the guests which quickly turned to one of interest, was obvious. Nothing like a spot of music to get things going -- and this is precisely what happened. It was a pleasure to see some of my prim, self conscious girls joining in with gusto. At that moment, watching all the children singing together, one saw harmony in all the sense of the word.
KHOJ was able to organise a trip into two mosques. The children removed their shoes and with curiosity and with respect went in and looked around with great interest. They asked a great number of questions that ranged from questions regarding Islamic beliefs to the reasons for fish in the water tank.
The bus ride and the walk through areas of Bombay to areas of Bombay to which they had never really gone, was an eye-opener. They threaded their way through narrow, crowded lanes, stepping over open drains and even peered into squalid dwellings. “Do people really have to live here? was the astonished response .
At the end of the day, the students came away overwhelmed with the warmth of the response, taken aback by the poverty and squalor, buzzing with the details they had heard and seen inside the Mosques. The hospitality and the warmth extended to us superseded other aspects of the children’s minds. The single rose given to us, the careful arrangement of seats for us, the sung -- the overall delight in having us there -- were the real highlights of the day.
Its difficult to tell exactly what the qualitative result of such trips are. Nor can a trip like this in isolation achieve anything from a single experience. But as a teacher of social studies, I have become growingly aware of the inadequacies of our systems of imparting information that detaches our children so completely. Knowledge is compartmentalised and relationships and connections rarely made between real life experiences and people.
Renu Koshy was the English and social teacher who prefers to teach middle school children because of their receptivity: she is also recipient of the Varki Best Teacher (among ICSE schools) a few years ago. l
TINY STEPS ..... TOWARDS UBDERSTANDING AND INTEGRATION
“We have never had the benefit of such an experience before. Non - Muslim children coming into our locality, spending time with us, trying to understand what we are about. This has never happened before .
Ironically this visit created beneficial ripples even within the community. We had intimated the trustees of both mosques about the proposed programme beforehand. But on that day, as the children were visiting the mosque, some persons went and complained to the Imam that girls in skirts had entered the mosque, so there was some discussion on this after your visit. It was very interesting. The matter was discussed again by the Trustees. And do you know what their response was? “This shariat (that makes the rules for dress for Muslim girls within the Mosque ) applies to Muslims alone , and here was an initiative where for the first time on our knowledge we had received such a visit from non - Muslim children. How can we burden them with our rules ? “ .
For us, the whole experiences thanks to KHOJ, was a welcome gesture of solidarity with our children (The organisers gave a write - up of the visit to Urdu Times, an Urdu daily titled Nanhe Kadam, kaumi Ekjaise ki taraf -- Tiny steps, towards national integration ) and such exchanges must be encouraged.
The Maulana who teaches Arabic to our children was the one who explained Islamic ritual and practice to our little visitors. He found their avid interest ( in every detail including the clocks that display the times for prayers to the tiny fish present in the water tank available for washing up before prayers ) heart-warming and their questions keen. Even he expressed the opinion that such visits should be encouraged.
Like a visit to the zoo or any other filed trip, if children visit each other’s areas it will be beneficial. They will see how Muslims live, how they behave amongst each other, how Muslims behave with them. That will be a memory that will stay. They may not then so easily believe that Muslims are bad word or a blot on society and so many people, unfortunately believe. Such initiatives must continue. They are unusual and educative.
Mrs. Parveen, from the local Mahila Jagruti Kendra (womens’ organisation ) who helped organise the welcome was emotional about the whole effort. She told us that the visit for her and the 17 girls was unexpected, “we felt so one with these children, and were thrilled at the fact that children from another school could visit us. Or such an endearing trip could be thought off. Such efforts must continue.”
(As to told to Khoj by Comrade Maqsood Ansari, President Awami Idara)
Apart from involving equality and social justice principles of democracy, school years should generate in children a sense of respect for work, she said.
The activist, who is editor of ‘Communalism Combat,’ also called for a healthy exposure to the role of religion in civil society and the core values of various faiths from the school level.
Advocating that religious leaders should boldly engage in public discourses on social evils such as female foeticide and dowry deaths, Ms. Setalvad said it was wrong to regard religion as a “non-evolutionary” entity. “Religious beliefs must be as much about reformative aspect of faiths.”
She spelt out as a critical task negotiating an equation between religion and civil society within the framework of democracy.
Teesta Setalvad
Bearing Witness
FOR AN ART INSTALLATION
TEESTA SETALVAD, MUMBAI AND GUJARAT
SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2009
IN 1984 IT WAS THE STORY OF A NEIGHBOURHOOD KHALLA ( MAUSI, MOTHER’S SISTER) WHO, COME WHAT MAY SHEPHERDED THE BASTI’S CHILDREN TO SCHOOL. THOUGH HATRED BLAZED THROUGH HOMES AND STREETS AROUND HER, HER DAILY ROUNDS PERFORMED FOR NO MORE NOBLE A MOTIVE THAN EARNING AN HONEST LIVING, ENSURING LITTLE MUSLIM AND LITTLE HINDU HANDS SAFE PASSAGE DOGGEDLY CONTINUED. HER STOIC COMMITMENT TO THIS NORMAL WAY OF BEING AND LIVING
STOOD OUT TRANSFORMED NOW INTO LASTING HOPE AND MEMORY. THE NEIGHBOURHOOD WAS JOGESHWARI ON THE WESTERN RAIL ROUTE OF BOMBAY. 25 YEARS AGO HATE HAD NOT BECOME FASHIONABLE, INTERNET WAS YET A PIPE DREAM. BOMBAY STILL WORE ITS WORKING CLASS AND PROFESSIONAL CLOAK WITH SOME PRIDE. THE LAXMAN REKHA OF THE HAVES AND HAVE-NOTS WAS MAINTAINED DURING THE BLOOD LETTING, ALL THE VIOLENCE WAS EAST OF THE WESTERN RAILWAYLINE.
THIS FRONT WAS WELL AND TRULY BREACHED BY 1992-1993. MAHIM TO COLABA, TARDEO TO NANA CHOWK TO LOWER PAREL AND WORLI, ANDHERI TO MALAD, THE AGGRESSOR MARKED HIS TERRITORY WELL. THROUGH THE LENGTH AND BREADTH OF BOMBAY A MUSLIM WAS A MUSLIM. AS AGAIN THE FIRES RAGED, BLOOD SPLATTERED A CORPSE WAS THROWN IN COLD DISREGARD TO LIE MANGLED MID STREET, STORIES WERE TOLD AND RE-TOLD. ONE AMONG MANY BEARS REMEMBRANCE. A STREET IN KURLA CENTRAL BOMBAY. A SIDE STREET OFF THE MAIN STREET WHERE A SOLITARY SEVEN-STOREY BUILDING WAS MARKED OUT FOR A MIDNIGHT ATTACK. CHILDREN, THEIR MOTHERS AND FATHERS, BROTHERS AND SISTERS, ALL COWERED IN COLD SWEAT WHEN A BLOODTHIRSTY MOB LED BY A LOCAL SHIV SAINIK BAYED FOR THEIR BLOOD. STOUT BUXOM VIMLATAI KHAONEKAR MOTHER OF THE MOB LEADER, DRESSED IN A TRADITIONAL NINE YARD SAREE, CHARGED FORWARD AND AMBUSHED THE AGGRESSORS. IN A MOMENT FIT TO BE IMMORTALIZED IN BOLLYWOOD KITSCH SHE DARED HER SON TO COMMIT HIS MACABRE DEEDS OVER HER DEAD BODY. THE BLOODIED FRENZY WAS BROKEN BY THIS VALIANT RECALL OF THE MATRIARCH. CONFRONTED OBSTRUCTED STARED IN THE EYE, THE MESMERIA OF BLOODLUST BROKE. SHEEPISH AND SULKY SONS SLUNK AWAY.
RAEESA HAS BEEN SCARRED FOR EVER FROM THAT TIME. A WOMAN WITH A NOBLE ATTRACTIVE FACE SHE LOOKS TWENTY YEARS OLDER THAN HER YEARS, ASTHAMA RACKING HER SOUL. A DISTURBED HOME LIFE MADE WORSE BY PERIODIC BATTERING FROM THE TAXI DIVER HUSBAND HASN’T HELPED. THE ELDEST SISTER SHE GREW UP IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD WHERE HER MOTHER AND THEE BROTHERS WERE SLAUGHTERED BIT BY BIT, IN THE HEAT AND BLOOD OF JANUARY 1993. SHE LIVED NOT TOO FAR AWAY. BUT THE FLAMES OF HATRED HAD ENGULFED BOTH ANTOP HILL WHERE SHE LIVES AND BANDRA WHERE HR MOTHER AND BROTHERS WERE SLAUGHTERED. LEENA SHINDE S SON WAS FOURTEEN DAYS OLD WHEN HER HUSBAND WENT TO MALAD TO INVITE RELATIVES FOR THE BARSA (CHRISTENING) CEREMONY, ALSO IN JANUARY 1993. HE NEVER RETURNED. HIS IS AMONG THE LIVES CLASSIFIED AS “MISSING”. A SINGLE MOTHER SHE HAS STRUGGLED TO RAISE AND EDUCATE HER SON. THE STATE PAID HER COMPENSATION FOR THE LIFE LOST ONLY AFTER SEVEN LONG YEARS HAD PASSED.
BOMBAY HAS BECOME MUMBAI SINCE THEN. IT TOOK A GOVERNMENT THAT RODE TO POWER ON THE SPOILS OF 1992-1993 TO EFFECT THE CHANGE. BOMBAY ‘S HAD SO MANY NAMES OVER TIME AND ONE MORE CHANGE NEED NOT MATTER. IT’S THE HOW AND THE WHEREFORE AND WHO MADE IT HAPPEN. JUST LIKE THE HISTORY OF BOMBAY’S SPACE AND GROWTH. A COMPLEX CONSTRUCT, HISTORICALLY NO SINGLE LANGUAGE OR COMMUNITY CLAIMING SOLE HERITAGE. THAT CHANGED WITH THE DE-CLASSED VIOLENCE OF 1992-1993. NOTHING HAS BEEN THE SAME AGAIN. BOMBAY’S REAL ESTATE IS MEAT FOR THE PREDATOR. AMONG THE ORIGINAL INHABITANTS ARE THE FISHER FOLK AND THE NARIYALWALLAH, MIGRANTS FROM KERALA WHO SERVED FRESH COCONUT WATER ON JUHU BEACH. IN THE RATHER COLD, COSMETIC BOULEVARD STYLE REDEVELOPMENT EFFECTED ON JUHU CHOWPATTY A CALLOUS CASUALTY HAS BEEN THESE FAMILIES WHO LIVED AND SERVED ON THIS SPACE FOR GENERATIONS.
2002 GUJARAT. IT WAS HORRID TO SEE IT COMING. WAS IT WHAT HAPPENED TO MY SPACE, BOMBAY IN 1992 1993 THAT AFFORDED THIS BURDENSOME PRESCIENCE?
THE CRIES WERE EVEN MORE CHILLING IN 2002. MORE SO BECAUSE THEY HAD TO SCREAM REAL LOUD TO BE HEARD.
IRFAN WHO HAD SEEN UNMENTIONABLES HAPPEN TO HIS MOTHER AND SISTER. NARODA. …WHERE IS HE NOW ??
RESHMA WHO HAD SEEN KAUSERBI’S WOMB SLIT OPEN. SHE HAD FLED TO SAFETY TAKING THREE NEIGHBOURS’ CHILDREN WITH HER. SHE WAS REUNITED WITH HER OWN FAMILY ONLY DAYS LATER. SHE IS A SURVIVOR.
AMEENABIBI, STILL MOURNS FOR HER LOST SON. HER ANGUISH IS SHARPER BECAUSE HIS MORTAL REMAINS HAVE NOT BEEN RETURNED TO HER BY THE COURTS. SHE HAS NO COMFORT, NEITHER FROM RITUAL NOR SPACE. NO PLACE TO REST HER FOREHEAD AND WEEP. SHE IS BOTH A VICTIM AND A SURVIVOR. HER PLEA REBUFFED BY THE HIGHEST COURT, SHE BEARS WITNESS STILL…
SALIMBHAI AND SAIRABEN’S ONLY SON WAS ALSO SLAUGHTERED THAT DAY AT GULBERG SOCIETY. A SECOND YEAR LAW STUDENT, HE HAD PLEDGED HIS EYES IN DONATION TO AN EYE BANK. DEATH WAS NOT KIND. HIS END WAS SO BRUTAL AND MACABRE THAT HIS REMAINS WERE UNRECOGNISEABLE. SALIMBHAI AND SAIRABEHN AWAIT THEIR DATE OF TESTIMONY AND JUDGEMENT. IT COULD HAPPEN ANY DAY NOW….
19 OF GUJARAT’S 25 DISTRICTS WERE TAINTED BY THE MACABRE DANCE OF DEATH. FEBRUARY 27-MARCH 2, 2002. SEVENTY TWO HOURS….
58 LIVES BURNT TO DEATH IN THE SABARMATI EXPRESS WERE THE SACRIFICIAL LAMBS ON THE ALTAR OF HATE. MANY OF THE VICTIMS, INNOCENT PASSENGERS TO A WIDER DESIGN, SOME RETURNING FROM A DARSHAN AT AYODHYA. LITTLE DID THEY KNOW THAT THEIR CORPSES WOULD BE THE FODDER FOR AN EDIFICE OF FALSEHOOD THAT HAS COME APART ONLY BIT BY BIT….
THE BATTLE THOUGH IS STILL ON. A REAL LIFE TUG OF WAR, NO HOLES BARRED. BETWEEN PERPETRATOR AND SURVIVOR? GOOD AND EVIL?
MANY QUESTION OUR COLLECTIVE AND INSTITUTIONAL CAPACITY TO BEAR TRUE WITNESS. DO WE HAVE THE MORAL STRENGTH TO PRONOUNCE THE FINAL JUDGEMENT? A JUDGEMENT THAT IS AS INDICTING AS IT IS UNEQUIVOCAL ?
BEARING WITNESS HAS ITSELF BEEN A CATHARSIS AND A STRANGE LEVELER. IN THE WORDS AND IN THE NAME OF THE VICTIM AND SURVIVOR. WITH THE DEFENDER STANDING BY HER SIDE.
ZAHIRA HABIBULLAH SHAIKH MADE JUDICIAL HISTORY.
THE PERPETRATORS WHO PAID HER HARD CASH TO CHANGE HER TESTIMONY ESCAPED PUNISHMENT THOUGH SHE SERVED TERM FOR PERJURY, BUT ALSO BEING A PAWN IN A SINISTER LARGER GAME.
ZAKIA AHSAN JAFRI HAS TAKEN THE BATTLE TO THE HIGHEST OF PLANES. SHE HAS DARED, WITH ME, TO ACCUSE THE HIGHEST IN MODILAND OF PREMEDITATED MASS MURDER. GENOCIDE. SIXTY TWO MEN AND WOMEN, POLITICIANS, BUREAUCRATS, POLICEMEN. FOR ALLOWING THOSE BLOODTHIRSTY IN POWER TO USE VIOLENCE AS A METHOD AND VALID MEANS. AND GET AWAY WITH IT. LIVING WITH THE DAILY GUILT OF SURVIVING HER HUSBAND HIS BRUTAL FATE, SHE HAS COMMITTED HERSELF TO DO BATTLE. BY ALLOWING HERSELF TO BE AT THE FOREFRONT OF THIS, THE MOST HISTORIC TUG OF WAR BETWEEN PERPETRATOR AND VICTIM, SHE HAS ALREADY EMERGED AS THE MORAL VICTOR.
TEESTA SETALVAD, MUMBAI AND GUJARAT
SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2009
IN 1984 IT WAS THE STORY OF A NEIGHBOURHOOD KHALLA ( MAUSI, MOTHER’S SISTER) WHO, COME WHAT MAY SHEPHERDED THE BASTI’S CHILDREN TO SCHOOL. THOUGH HATRED BLAZED THROUGH HOMES AND STREETS AROUND HER, HER DAILY ROUNDS PERFORMED FOR NO MORE NOBLE A MOTIVE THAN EARNING AN HONEST LIVING, ENSURING LITTLE MUSLIM AND LITTLE HINDU HANDS SAFE PASSAGE DOGGEDLY CONTINUED. HER STOIC COMMITMENT TO THIS NORMAL WAY OF BEING AND LIVING
STOOD OUT TRANSFORMED NOW INTO LASTING HOPE AND MEMORY. THE NEIGHBOURHOOD WAS JOGESHWARI ON THE WESTERN RAIL ROUTE OF BOMBAY. 25 YEARS AGO HATE HAD NOT BECOME FASHIONABLE, INTERNET WAS YET A PIPE DREAM. BOMBAY STILL WORE ITS WORKING CLASS AND PROFESSIONAL CLOAK WITH SOME PRIDE. THE LAXMAN REKHA OF THE HAVES AND HAVE-NOTS WAS MAINTAINED DURING THE BLOOD LETTING, ALL THE VIOLENCE WAS EAST OF THE WESTERN RAILWAYLINE.
THIS FRONT WAS WELL AND TRULY BREACHED BY 1992-1993. MAHIM TO COLABA, TARDEO TO NANA CHOWK TO LOWER PAREL AND WORLI, ANDHERI TO MALAD, THE AGGRESSOR MARKED HIS TERRITORY WELL. THROUGH THE LENGTH AND BREADTH OF BOMBAY A MUSLIM WAS A MUSLIM. AS AGAIN THE FIRES RAGED, BLOOD SPLATTERED A CORPSE WAS THROWN IN COLD DISREGARD TO LIE MANGLED MID STREET, STORIES WERE TOLD AND RE-TOLD. ONE AMONG MANY BEARS REMEMBRANCE. A STREET IN KURLA CENTRAL BOMBAY. A SIDE STREET OFF THE MAIN STREET WHERE A SOLITARY SEVEN-STOREY BUILDING WAS MARKED OUT FOR A MIDNIGHT ATTACK. CHILDREN, THEIR MOTHERS AND FATHERS, BROTHERS AND SISTERS, ALL COWERED IN COLD SWEAT WHEN A BLOODTHIRSTY MOB LED BY A LOCAL SHIV SAINIK BAYED FOR THEIR BLOOD. STOUT BUXOM VIMLATAI KHAONEKAR MOTHER OF THE MOB LEADER, DRESSED IN A TRADITIONAL NINE YARD SAREE, CHARGED FORWARD AND AMBUSHED THE AGGRESSORS. IN A MOMENT FIT TO BE IMMORTALIZED IN BOLLYWOOD KITSCH SHE DARED HER SON TO COMMIT HIS MACABRE DEEDS OVER HER DEAD BODY. THE BLOODIED FRENZY WAS BROKEN BY THIS VALIANT RECALL OF THE MATRIARCH. CONFRONTED OBSTRUCTED STARED IN THE EYE, THE MESMERIA OF BLOODLUST BROKE. SHEEPISH AND SULKY SONS SLUNK AWAY.
RAEESA HAS BEEN SCARRED FOR EVER FROM THAT TIME. A WOMAN WITH A NOBLE ATTRACTIVE FACE SHE LOOKS TWENTY YEARS OLDER THAN HER YEARS, ASTHAMA RACKING HER SOUL. A DISTURBED HOME LIFE MADE WORSE BY PERIODIC BATTERING FROM THE TAXI DIVER HUSBAND HASN’T HELPED. THE ELDEST SISTER SHE GREW UP IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD WHERE HER MOTHER AND THEE BROTHERS WERE SLAUGHTERED BIT BY BIT, IN THE HEAT AND BLOOD OF JANUARY 1993. SHE LIVED NOT TOO FAR AWAY. BUT THE FLAMES OF HATRED HAD ENGULFED BOTH ANTOP HILL WHERE SHE LIVES AND BANDRA WHERE HR MOTHER AND BROTHERS WERE SLAUGHTERED. LEENA SHINDE S SON WAS FOURTEEN DAYS OLD WHEN HER HUSBAND WENT TO MALAD TO INVITE RELATIVES FOR THE BARSA (CHRISTENING) CEREMONY, ALSO IN JANUARY 1993. HE NEVER RETURNED. HIS IS AMONG THE LIVES CLASSIFIED AS “MISSING”. A SINGLE MOTHER SHE HAS STRUGGLED TO RAISE AND EDUCATE HER SON. THE STATE PAID HER COMPENSATION FOR THE LIFE LOST ONLY AFTER SEVEN LONG YEARS HAD PASSED.
BOMBAY HAS BECOME MUMBAI SINCE THEN. IT TOOK A GOVERNMENT THAT RODE TO POWER ON THE SPOILS OF 1992-1993 TO EFFECT THE CHANGE. BOMBAY ‘S HAD SO MANY NAMES OVER TIME AND ONE MORE CHANGE NEED NOT MATTER. IT’S THE HOW AND THE WHEREFORE AND WHO MADE IT HAPPEN. JUST LIKE THE HISTORY OF BOMBAY’S SPACE AND GROWTH. A COMPLEX CONSTRUCT, HISTORICALLY NO SINGLE LANGUAGE OR COMMUNITY CLAIMING SOLE HERITAGE. THAT CHANGED WITH THE DE-CLASSED VIOLENCE OF 1992-1993. NOTHING HAS BEEN THE SAME AGAIN. BOMBAY’S REAL ESTATE IS MEAT FOR THE PREDATOR. AMONG THE ORIGINAL INHABITANTS ARE THE FISHER FOLK AND THE NARIYALWALLAH, MIGRANTS FROM KERALA WHO SERVED FRESH COCONUT WATER ON JUHU BEACH. IN THE RATHER COLD, COSMETIC BOULEVARD STYLE REDEVELOPMENT EFFECTED ON JUHU CHOWPATTY A CALLOUS CASUALTY HAS BEEN THESE FAMILIES WHO LIVED AND SERVED ON THIS SPACE FOR GENERATIONS.
2002 GUJARAT. IT WAS HORRID TO SEE IT COMING. WAS IT WHAT HAPPENED TO MY SPACE, BOMBAY IN 1992 1993 THAT AFFORDED THIS BURDENSOME PRESCIENCE?
THE CRIES WERE EVEN MORE CHILLING IN 2002. MORE SO BECAUSE THEY HAD TO SCREAM REAL LOUD TO BE HEARD.
IRFAN WHO HAD SEEN UNMENTIONABLES HAPPEN TO HIS MOTHER AND SISTER. NARODA. …WHERE IS HE NOW ??
RESHMA WHO HAD SEEN KAUSERBI’S WOMB SLIT OPEN. SHE HAD FLED TO SAFETY TAKING THREE NEIGHBOURS’ CHILDREN WITH HER. SHE WAS REUNITED WITH HER OWN FAMILY ONLY DAYS LATER. SHE IS A SURVIVOR.
AMEENABIBI, STILL MOURNS FOR HER LOST SON. HER ANGUISH IS SHARPER BECAUSE HIS MORTAL REMAINS HAVE NOT BEEN RETURNED TO HER BY THE COURTS. SHE HAS NO COMFORT, NEITHER FROM RITUAL NOR SPACE. NO PLACE TO REST HER FOREHEAD AND WEEP. SHE IS BOTH A VICTIM AND A SURVIVOR. HER PLEA REBUFFED BY THE HIGHEST COURT, SHE BEARS WITNESS STILL…
SALIMBHAI AND SAIRABEN’S ONLY SON WAS ALSO SLAUGHTERED THAT DAY AT GULBERG SOCIETY. A SECOND YEAR LAW STUDENT, HE HAD PLEDGED HIS EYES IN DONATION TO AN EYE BANK. DEATH WAS NOT KIND. HIS END WAS SO BRUTAL AND MACABRE THAT HIS REMAINS WERE UNRECOGNISEABLE. SALIMBHAI AND SAIRABEHN AWAIT THEIR DATE OF TESTIMONY AND JUDGEMENT. IT COULD HAPPEN ANY DAY NOW….
19 OF GUJARAT’S 25 DISTRICTS WERE TAINTED BY THE MACABRE DANCE OF DEATH. FEBRUARY 27-MARCH 2, 2002. SEVENTY TWO HOURS….
58 LIVES BURNT TO DEATH IN THE SABARMATI EXPRESS WERE THE SACRIFICIAL LAMBS ON THE ALTAR OF HATE. MANY OF THE VICTIMS, INNOCENT PASSENGERS TO A WIDER DESIGN, SOME RETURNING FROM A DARSHAN AT AYODHYA. LITTLE DID THEY KNOW THAT THEIR CORPSES WOULD BE THE FODDER FOR AN EDIFICE OF FALSEHOOD THAT HAS COME APART ONLY BIT BY BIT….
THE BATTLE THOUGH IS STILL ON. A REAL LIFE TUG OF WAR, NO HOLES BARRED. BETWEEN PERPETRATOR AND SURVIVOR? GOOD AND EVIL?
MANY QUESTION OUR COLLECTIVE AND INSTITUTIONAL CAPACITY TO BEAR TRUE WITNESS. DO WE HAVE THE MORAL STRENGTH TO PRONOUNCE THE FINAL JUDGEMENT? A JUDGEMENT THAT IS AS INDICTING AS IT IS UNEQUIVOCAL ?
BEARING WITNESS HAS ITSELF BEEN A CATHARSIS AND A STRANGE LEVELER. IN THE WORDS AND IN THE NAME OF THE VICTIM AND SURVIVOR. WITH THE DEFENDER STANDING BY HER SIDE.
ZAHIRA HABIBULLAH SHAIKH MADE JUDICIAL HISTORY.
THE PERPETRATORS WHO PAID HER HARD CASH TO CHANGE HER TESTIMONY ESCAPED PUNISHMENT THOUGH SHE SERVED TERM FOR PERJURY, BUT ALSO BEING A PAWN IN A SINISTER LARGER GAME.
ZAKIA AHSAN JAFRI HAS TAKEN THE BATTLE TO THE HIGHEST OF PLANES. SHE HAS DARED, WITH ME, TO ACCUSE THE HIGHEST IN MODILAND OF PREMEDITATED MASS MURDER. GENOCIDE. SIXTY TWO MEN AND WOMEN, POLITICIANS, BUREAUCRATS, POLICEMEN. FOR ALLOWING THOSE BLOODTHIRSTY IN POWER TO USE VIOLENCE AS A METHOD AND VALID MEANS. AND GET AWAY WITH IT. LIVING WITH THE DAILY GUILT OF SURVIVING HER HUSBAND HIS BRUTAL FATE, SHE HAS COMMITTED HERSELF TO DO BATTLE. BY ALLOWING HERSELF TO BE AT THE FOREFRONT OF THIS, THE MOST HISTORIC TUG OF WAR BETWEEN PERPETRATOR AND VICTIM, SHE HAS ALREADY EMERGED AS THE MORAL VICTOR.
The end of impunity
The end of impunity
Teesta Setalvad
The struggle of man (or woman) against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting. — Milan Kundera
It was not simply the number of lives lost, though the number — perhaps 2,500 — is not insignificant. It was the cold-blooded manner in which they were taken. It was not simply that 19 of Gujarat’s 25 districts burned while Neros watched, fiddled and smirked but the sinister similarity in the way they were set alight. Militias were armed with deadly training, weapons, technology and equipment; with a lethal brew of deadly intent, inspired by constructed tales of hate, using the February 28, 2002 edition of a leading Gujarati daily that urged revenge; all combined with a deadly white chemical powder that seared to burn and destroy already killed bodies. And, of course, truckloads of gas cylinders, in short supply for cooking, were used instead to blast mosques and homes. Mobile phones and motorcycles made communications easy and movement swift.
Part of the plan was to humiliate, destroy and then kill. Another was to economically cripple. But at heart the desire was to construct a reality whereby a whole ten per cent of the population lives (and a few even prosper) as carefully whipped into shape, second-class citizens. Most incidents that racked the state, except the famed Best Bakery incident, took place in the glare of the day, not the stealth of the night. Critical to the plan to mutilate and humiliate was to subject women and girls to the worst kind of sexual violence. Tehelka’s “Operation Kalank” records victorious testimonies of rapists and murderers who claim to have received personal approbations from the man at the helm. Over 1,200 highway hotels were destroyed, more than 23,000 homes gutted, 350 large businesses seriously damaged (and are still unable to recover) and 12,000 street businesses demolished.
Genocide is about economic crippling as much as death and humiliation. The Concerned Citizens Tribunal — Crimes Against Humanity 2002 called the happenings in Gujarat a genocide, because of the systematic singling out of a group through widely distributed hate writing and demonisation, the economic destruction, the sexual violence and also because over 270 masjids and dargahs were razed to the ground. The bandh calls on February 28 and March 1 by rabid outfits and supported by the party in power enabled mobs free access to the streets while successfully warding off the ordinary citizen.
Eight years on, it is this level and extent of complicity that is under high-level scrutiny. The involvement of high functionaries of the state in Gujarat did not begin, and has not stopped, with the violence. It has extended to destruction of evidence that continues until today, the faulty registration of criminal complaints, the deliberate exclusion of powerful accused and, worst of all, the utter and complete subversion of the criminal justice system by appointment of public prosecutors who were not wedded to fair play, justice and the Constitution — but were and are lapdogs of the ruling party and its raid affiliates. The proceedings in the Best Bakery case in the Supreme Court and the judgment of April 12, 2004 strips our legal system, especially lawyers, of the dignity of their office.
The hasty granting of bail to those involved in the post-Godhra carnage remains a scandal. While over seven dozen of those accused of the Godhra train arson have been in jail, without bail for eight years — and today face trial within the precincts of the Sabarmati jail — powerful men, patronised by the state’s political hierarchy who are accused of multiple rapes and murders roam free in “vibrant Gujarat” even as the trials have resumed. The few that are in jail — ten of the 64 accused in the Gulberg society carnage, eight of the 64 accused in Naroda Patia massacre, two of the 89 in the Naroda Gaam killing, eight of the 73 in the Sardroura massacres (all the 84 accused of the massacre at Deepda Darwaza roam free on bail) are those with no political godfathers. A vast majority have lived in freedom even after committing unspeakable crimes. All this and more is being investigated under the orders of our apex court on a petition filed by Zakia Ahsan Jafri and the Citizens for Justice and Peace. For the first time in our history criminal conspiracy and mass murder are the charges, the chief minister and 61 others the accused. Will the wealth of evidence be matched by the rigour of investigation? Will the will to prosecute surmount political considerations? Will the Indian system throw a spotlight on what surely must be its darkest hour? As we stood, remembered and prayed in painful memorial, with lit candles at the Gulbarg Society this Sunday we did so in both faith and hope.
The writer is the secretary of |Citizens for Justice and Peace
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