02 March 2010
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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