Teesta Setalvad
Identity Politics has a way of dividing
men, women, ideas, cultures and societies. So when we kill and maim in the name
of a faith, when communalism dominates our political worldview, there is a real
danger of every reaction, every initiative being looked at in the name of
faith. Nothing could be more short-sighted or dangerous.
Over the past ten days, one more
milestone in the struggle for justice for the Survivors of 2002 was marked
when a former Ahmedabad city court judge Himanshu Trivedi recounted,
publicly the anti-Muslim sentiment expressed by lawyers and judges after the
2002 communal violence, and why he supported our actions. In 2011, he had got
in touch with me privately but last week he went public through a facebook post
in my support.
In a phone interview with media
outlets like Scroll.in, Citizen.In and the Wire, Trivedi, now
living in Auckland, New Zealand, revealed details about his experiences during
and after the communal violence that shook his faith in the justice system: he
not only witnessed police complicity in the attack on Muslims, but also saw
lawyers and judges display extremely prejudiced opinions.“I have been saying
all of this for ten years, but there were no listeners earlier,” said Trivedi,
who is happy that his attempt to reach out to Setalvad has drawn attention to
his story and the issue of compromised justice in the case of the Gujarat
riots. “I have supported Teesta because I believe in supporting anyone working
for humanity.”
Trivedi was a judge who
resigned from Ahmedabad’s City Civil and Sessions Court in 2003 and now lives
in New Zealand. In the recent interviews he has elaborated on the state of
affairs there. “The state of Gujarat wanted us (the judges and the judiciary of
Gujarat) to be acting against the minority community (albeit with no written
orders but definitely communicated in loud and clear messages to us)”.
One of Trivedi’s reasons for quitting
the judiciary, he says, was because he was “sworn to the Constitution of India”
and could not in good faith participate in these actions. Trivedi was a
colleague of Jyotsna Yagnik, the special court judge who in 2012 convicted
Gujarati minister Maya Kodnani and Bajrang Dal leader Babu Bajrangi for
violence during the riots. Since then, she has received several threatening
letters and menacing phone calls. Trivedi describes Yagnik as a “wonderful
human being” who believed in always being “legal and righteous”.
I saw the police hand out inflammable material’ he has said in these recent explosive interviews. “The riots of 2002 began on February 28, one day after the Godhra train burning incident that killed 59 people. On the morning of the riots, Trivedi’s family heard some noises from the street outside their building. He went with his young daughter to the balcony and witnessed a mob of around 40 people attacking a small dhobi shop run by a Muslim.
“It was the only shop targeted in our area, and the crowd first looted it," said Trivedi. "Then I saw a police jeep approach and officers in uniform distributed inflammable material to the crowd. Then the shop was burnt.” He felt helpless, but didn’t figure out the implications of what he saw till a couple of weeks later, when one of his friends came to visit him.
“My friend and I were sitting on my terrace, talking about the riots and how society was suffering, when he suddenly started crying,” said Trivedi. “Everyone knew that I had always been politically unaffiliated, but that day my friend told me for the first time that he was the president of VHP chapter in a suburb of Ahmedabad.” Trivedi’s friend – whom he did not wish to name – said that on the day of the riots, he was part of crowd that torched a Muslim-run restaurant opposite the High Court judges’ bungalows area. “He told me that they knew it was run by Muslims because three months before the violence, lists were distributed detailing who works where and who lives where,” said Trivedi.
I saw the police hand out inflammable material’ he has said in these recent explosive interviews. “The riots of 2002 began on February 28, one day after the Godhra train burning incident that killed 59 people. On the morning of the riots, Trivedi’s family heard some noises from the street outside their building. He went with his young daughter to the balcony and witnessed a mob of around 40 people attacking a small dhobi shop run by a Muslim.
“It was the only shop targeted in our area, and the crowd first looted it," said Trivedi. "Then I saw a police jeep approach and officers in uniform distributed inflammable material to the crowd. Then the shop was burnt.” He felt helpless, but didn’t figure out the implications of what he saw till a couple of weeks later, when one of his friends came to visit him.
“My friend and I were sitting on my terrace, talking about the riots and how society was suffering, when he suddenly started crying,” said Trivedi. “Everyone knew that I had always been politically unaffiliated, but that day my friend told me for the first time that he was the president of VHP chapter in a suburb of Ahmedabad.” Trivedi’s friend – whom he did not wish to name – said that on the day of the riots, he was part of crowd that torched a Muslim-run restaurant opposite the High Court judges’ bungalows area. “He told me that they knew it was run by Muslims because three months before the violence, lists were distributed detailing who works where and who lives where,” said Trivedi.
Trivedi’s is a fascinating, wrenching
tale. An observation that my dear friend and lawyer, Mihir Desai
made when he read the interview was, “One thing that bugs the Regime about this
struggle for justice is that people like Trivedi, you, Teesta and I, Mihir are
Gujaratis!”. While this observation is bang on and true, it brought home the
fact, again to me, how all of us begin to see issues and struggles through the
prism of identity.
In next door Bangladesh, days after
Trivedi’s revelations, following the murders of Rajeeb Haider, Avijit Roy,
Washiqur Rahmna, and Ananta Bijoy Das, just a few days back, , the Mukto-Mona
writer, blogger, and activist Niloy Neel has been hacked to death. He wrote in
Mutko-Mona as well as in Istishon, and Facebook under the name of “Niloy Neel”
(twitter: #NiloyNeel). In addition to writing, Niloy Neel was involved in
various social justice movements and was the founder of the Bangladesh Science
and Rationalists Association.
Ansar Al Islam, the Bangladesh branch
of Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) has claimed responsibility for
murdering Niloy Neel in his own home, in front of his family, because of his writing.
The fundamentalists continue in their tradition of responding to the pen with
machetes; the government of Bangladesh continues to supply the fundamentalists
with all that is necessary to keep their machetes honed. One by one the
enlightened, the freethinking writers, and activists of Bangladesh, are being
brutally murdered. Their only crime is taking a stand against injustice, and
superstitions prevalent in society. A machete may kill, in a cowardly manner, a
human being of flesh and bone; it cannot kill their ideology. Our fight will
continue. With all our strength we will continue to speak our minds, our
dreams. For as long as there is even a single member of the freethinking
community alive; for as long as a single sentence written by freethinking
writers survives.
Who spoke out against this killing here
in ‘secular’ India? I first got the news from dear comrade in arms Shamsul
Islam, who despite his name may not even be considered Muslim enough due to his
firm principled stands on issues of faith and reason. Few other organisations
in India, Hindu or Muslim or Others, all of whom, draw their survival from
identity politics have raised their voices against this brutal attack.
What happens in India today has an
implication for the entire sub-continent, for South Asia. Which is why the
ideological moorings of the current regime spell danger for a peaceful,
democratic and secular South Asia? But if we, similarly see hideous and
dangerous tendencies growing in Bangladesh, Sri lank, Myanmaar or Pakistan, can
we afford to be silent?
To our own peril.
Ends
