Dear Friends
On Dec 28 morning from 10 to 12.30 pm, workers, friends and supporters of the Nyaygrah campaign for legal justice and reconciliation in Gujarat will gather at Ahmedabad. On this morning, Indira Jaisingh has kindly agreed to release the legal manual prepared by Lawyers Collective and Aman Biradari, and Ram Kumar Narayan will release the report of the survey of the latest condition in all 81 relief colonies.
We are on this occasion going to invite all the justice workers, as well as affected people who have resisted, fought fear and boycott, spoken the truth in courts under very adverse circumstances, and shown extraordinary compassion and courage. It would be great if it is possible for you to kindly join us at Ahmedabad on this occasion.
Gandhiji spoke of Satyagraha as a people's struggle for truth. In the context of continued injustice, impunity and economic blockade faced by people in Gujarat only because they follow a different faith, a people's campaign for justice and equal rights guaranteed under the constitution, peace and reconciliation in under way in Gujarat called Nyayagrah.
Nyayagrah's efforts for legal justice is founded on the strategy of mass community based lawyering. Most organisations decided to focus all their attention and resources on selected major 'test cases', where there was a great deal of loss of life, and to fight these with the best legal talent, and considerable resources and efforts for witness protection and support. The outcome of these efforts has been very salutary.
Nyayagrah attempts to complement and support these major efforts for justice. Despite the very important wider impact of the legal efforts focussed on a few major cases, in a practical sense an estimated 80 to 90 percent of the victims still had to struggle on their own to fight their legal cases. This would be a formidable human rights challenge even in more 'normal' circumstances, but it can be devastating both for justice and people's morale in the situation of massive unprecedented state subversion of justice. This is compounded further by the atmosphere and intimidation, in which large numbers of people are being coerced to concede to humiliating 'compromises' of agreeing to withhold or even reverse their evidence that can bring the guilty to book.
Legal justice for the victims of 2002 is the core of our work but we are also committed to working towards building trust and peace between the two communities. The fundamental philosophy underpinning the campaign is that justice is a prerequisite to peace and work of building trust between the two communities has to be on terms which are fair and grounded on values of equality, respect and care for the other. We therefore are against compromises that were reached under coercive and unjust circumstances. We have heard of Muslim citizens being denied the right to legal justice as a precondition to returning to their village homes. We are resolutely against any reconciliation based on such unjust foundations.
The Nyayagrah team is a mix of Hindus/Muslims, men/women, middle class/working class, believers/non-believers who are drawn together by their commitment to the ideal of equal citizenship rights for all Gujaratis irrespective of their religion, class or gender. We are committed to pursuing our aims within certain ethical parameters, to struggle to pursue the path of truth and justice by striving to follow a truthful and just path. We are clear in our advice and guidance to nyaypathiks not to offer any inducements to victims and witnesses to fight their cases and not to make their willingness to fight a condition of our support. The battle for justice and healing will be a long drawn out one.
The campaign is presently primarily working in the four districts of Ahmedabad, Sabarkantha, Kheda and Anand. One major part of our efforts for legal justice has focussed on the Supreme Court. Nyaygrah with Lawyers' Collective fought a long battle in the Supreme Court to challenge the closure without trial of more than 2000 cases registered after the carnage. The historic order from the Supreme Court in September 2004 to re-examine all cases that were summarily closed or acquitted opened up the opportunity to secure justice for thousands of survivors of the Gujarat carnage. We persisted with our efforts in the Supreme Court. An enormous success of Nyayagrah is that the Gujarat government in January 2006 has finally had to bow down to the repeated pressures in the Supreme Court as well as on the ground, and ordered the reopening of all but 22 of the closed cases. This means that the opportunity t! o secure justice has been successfully reclaimed for thousands of the victims of the massacre. But we realised that now the battle has to be strengthened on the ground, directly with the survivors who live each day with fear and hate.
Overall, we have now contacted affected persons/families in 844 cases in the four districts. This indicates a progress of 627 further contacts since February. It is estimated that about 50% of the affected people are internally displaced. The justice activists have to make many visits before they are able to win the confidence and trust of the victims to start discussing the details of their individual cases and ascertain what the problems in each particular case are. Taken across the four districts, we have managed to convince affected persons in 334 out of 844 cases which translates to about 4 in every 10 case
contacted so far has agreed to fight his/her /their case. It is important to remember that because of the phenomenon of omnibus FIRs (First Investigation Report) where entire villages, sometimes 2-3 villages were included in a single FIR. The result is that a case may easily have 30-40 victims/witnesses and the justice activists in such cases have to contact numerous people and call group meetings to inform and advise the people about their legal rights and the nature of support Nyayagrah can give them to fight for justice.
It would be wonderful if you can make the time to join us at Ahmedabad on the morning of 28 Dec, for the release of the legal manual and report on colonies, to reflect and share in the on-going work for justice and reconciliation, to meet the justice workers and survivors, and to celebrate their courage, compassion and humanity.
Thank you for your on-going solidarity.
Warm regards,
Harsh Mander
Darkness can never drive out darkness. Only light can do that.
Martin Luther King Jr.
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Aman Biradari
R-38/A, Second Floor, South Extension Part II,
New Delhi 110 049
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