http://pd.cpim.org/2006/0507/05072006_nalini.htm
People's Democracy
Vol. XXX No. 19 May 07, 2006
Gujarat: When Will The UPA Govt Wake Up?
Nalini Taneja
A 300 YEAR old dargah was demolished in Vadodara on May 1, 2006, ostensibly
for purposes of broadening the road, leading to protests from Muslims,
followed by police firing in which four people were killed and curfew
imposed in 13 police station areas in the city. The dargah on the Fatehpur-
Champaner road was of a sufi saint, Syed Rashiuddin Chishti, and has been
targeted in all the Œriots¹ since 1969. It was demolished by the municipal
corporation under the direct supervision and in the presence of all the
local BJP leaders of the city, including the city BJP president and BJP
councillors. The reactions to the incidents, which have since resulted in
more rioting and deaths, tell their own story of the situation in Gujarat.
It may be remembered that around 300 places of worship were destroyed all
over Gujarat in 2002, including the tomb of Wali Mohammad in covering up
which with a metalled road, the municipal corporator (of the Congress
incidentally) had shown remarkable efficiency and speed of action.
ROADS ENCROACHMENT ON 300 YEAR OLD DARGAH
In reporting this latest demolition, the Indian Express says that ³it stood
in the middle of the road² (May 2, 2006), which makes one wonder that if it
was 300 years old, did the dargah encroach on the road, or the road on the
dargah! Its report of May 3, 2006, p. 9, does a balancing act on the matter
by asserting that ³the Muslim leaders, honed on the 2002 riots experience,
however, failed to evolve a response that could have avoided violence or the
contentious build up to the situation. The leadership also seems to be
unable to contain its restive youthŠ.² And again, ³The BJP stand is short of
gleeful joy as they have been handed on a platter their acclaimed avowal to
development at all costs, hindered apparently by an immature Muslim
rhetoric.²
And yet again, that ³Even before the demolition of the dargah, the Muslims
who resisted and petitioned against its removal knew, as did everyone else
in the city, that there would be trouble in the city. The implication is
that the Hindutva forces should be allowed to do what they want if the
administration and police remain on the side of the Hindutva goons, so as to
avoid violence on themselves and in the city in general. The question is
never asked as to why Muslims are forced into taking matters into their own
hands, or as to why the administration and the police are discriminatory and
actively act on the side of Hindutva goons. The collusion of the state on
the side of Hindutva forces is the overriding factor in contributing to
violence on all sides is something that needs to be emphasised again and
again..
Further, some papers have also reported that this is part of a larger drive
against encroachments in which some Hindu temples too have been broken, with
the consent and co-operation of Hindu leaders. But what is not mentioned is
that those were in fact recent encroachments while the dargah is 300 years
old and therefore a historical monument, and that the Muslim leaders had
also co-operated in the removal of a smaller dargah in the Danteshwar area
(this one fact is mentioned in IE alone), or that even in this case the
Muslim leaders had agreed to part breaking of the structure to allow for the
road but that the municipal corporator and the BJP leadership of the area
showed undue zeal in demolishing the entire structure and with undue haste.
The fact that it has been targeted in all the communal flare ups since 1969
shows that there is more than a question of a road involved here,
particularly in the context of the Places of Worship (Special provisions)
Act, 1991, which ensures status quo to religious places built before 1947.
The administration seems to have responded to this plea by stating that it
is not a ³protected monument² and that the Muslim community has ³no papers
of possession². Again the question is not asked as to why the old monument
was not granted the status of a protected monument in the first place, and
whether the BJP or the Congress governments in the state can ever be
expected to declare ŒMuslim¹ monuments¹ as protected. The Gujarat High Court
has directed the state government to issue immediate instructions to the
police department to provide full protection to demolition squads, that
encroachment on public space by religious places should not be permitted or
tolerated ³even for a minute², which the BJP government is happy to
interpret as endorsement of its demolition of the 300 year old dargah, and
to designate it as encroachment and hindrance to its plans for Œdeveloping
the area. A very convenient tool to accomplish taking over of land and
attacking the places of worship belonging to the minorities!
PANDEY'S APPOINTMENT AS STATE POLICE CHIEF
Let it also be noted that the recently appointed state police chief by Modi
is none other than P C Pandey, who presided over the Œriots¹ of 2002 as
chief of police in Ahmedabad city, and suffered important bouts of amnesia
during the inquiries of the Nanavati-Shah commission. He is making the same
wishy-washy statements not with regard to why the police should have had to
fire such that there are head injuries, why only Muslims have been killed in
police firing, or why the police failed to protect the funeral procession of
those killed in firing from attacks of Hindutva goons and so on. He has of
course precise details on how the Muslim crowd got restive and violent when
the dargah was being demolished.
UPA GOVT'S INDIFFERENT ATTITUDE
While all this is going on, all that the UPA government has to say is:
"Enough caution was not taken by the district administration which decided
to remove the dargah on the pretext of clearing illegal encroachment. More
caution should have been taken," minister of state for home Sriprakash
Jaiswal said.
This incident also needs to be seen in the context of the recent attempts by
the Supreme Court to ensure justice for the victim survivors of the 2002
massacres of Muslims in Gujarat. The situation is more than a matter of
simple neglect in rehabilitation, it is clear. The Gujarat police and the
state administration have been actively colluding with each other since 2002
and continue to victimise the victims and those who tried to help them. They
have been browbeating survivors into maintaining silence: at Kuha village in
Ahmedabad district, where several Muslim houses were set on fire and
property looted in 2002, Muslim vegetable vendors and traders in other
commodities are getting no buyers because they signed testimonies against
Hindu attackers during the riots. This was one of the cases reopened on
Supreme Court orders. In Panchmahals district, on the outskirts of Lunawada
town, the police, guilty of illegal mass burying of bodies of those
massacred, has now filed a case against five persons for digging out the
remains of their relatives from an open ground and also against CJP State
unit convenor Rais Khan, who was present during the incident on December 27
last. The Lunawada police filed the case after the victim-survivors obtained
an order from the High Court for transferring the investigation to the CBI
and taking samples for the DNA test of the skulls and bones recovered. (The
Hindu, April 24, 2006). The non-bailable arrest warrants have been issued
against the victim survivors.
There has not been a single statement from the prime minister or any senior
leader of the Congress expressing concern at the blatant infringement of the
constitutional and fundamental rights of citizens belonging to minority
religious groups. A party that has been least sensitive to federalism has
suddenly woken up to usefulness of autonomy of states on issues of
secularism and minority rights. In Gujarat, thousands of Muslims have
neither been compensated nor allowed to return to their homes and livelihood
since the genocide of 2002. The UPA government seems to have reconciled
itself to this and has not even expressed cognizance of the situation. It is
complicit in the second class status of the Muslims and Christians in BJP
ruled states like Gujarat and Rajasthan: Prime minister Manmohan Singh took
great care to apologise for 1984, and rightly so, but has not bothered with
the continuing siege of Muslims in Gujarat, or Muslims and Christians in
Rajasthan. What more is required to happen before the UPA government, to
wake up to take some action? Or at least take notice?