(Deccan Herald
4 March 2007)
Editorial
Divide remains
No steps have been taken to address politics of hate.
Five years after mobs led by activists of the Sangh Parivar unleashed violence on Gujarat’s Muslims, justice is yet to be done to the victims and their families. Only a handful of those who participated in the riots have been convicted. Most of the guilty continue to roam free and none of the major conspirators has been brought before the courts. The Gujarat government had turned a blind eye to the violence in 2002. It had also subsequently done everything to keep the truth suppressed. The police refused to register cases filed by the victims and witnesses were intimidated. The terror that gripped Gujarat’s Muslims in those fateful days in March 2002 remains undiminished. An extreme culture of intolerance has taken root in Gujarat. The victims have not been compensated. According to activists, over 80 per cent of the victims have not received even the meagre sum of Rs 50,000 granted for every home, which was destroyed in the riots. Rehabilitation too has been neglected. Tens of thousands of Muslims displaced in 2002 continue to live in camps.
What is worrying is that the Gujarat riots are not an event from the past. Little has been done to prevent such violence from recurring. With the guilty not being taken to task, the government has sent out the dangerous message that such actions would be tolerated should they occur again. Nothing has been done to bridge the communal divide and mechanisms to prevent such violence from breaking out have not been put in place. Both the ruling BJP and the opposition Congress in Gujarat have sought to milk the riots for votes. They have kept the communal divide alive. Shamefully those who supported and even directed the pogrom have even been lionised and made icons by some sections in the country. And with elections to the state assembly due this year, parties can be expected to fish in Gujarat’s troubled waters.
The communal violence that Gujarat suffered in 2002 is a terrible stain on India’s secular democracy. This will not be easy to erase. But it is possible for us to prevent such incidents from happening. Steps must be taken to put in place an impartial police force and judiciary. The experience over the past five years indicates that even the first steps towards addressing the politics of hate in Gujarat have not been taken.
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