October 14, 2007
Open Letter
Is the Congress Willing to Admit Mass Murderers? What a Cynical Eid Gift for India's Largest Minority!!!
To,
Smt Sonia Gandhi
President
Congress (I)
Dear Smt Gandhi,
We the undersigned write this letter with anguish and concern. It also reiterates our earlier concerns express at the time, in Maharashtra, not so long ago, that your party cheerfully welcomed the vanguard of hate and divisive politics in the personas of Sanjay Nirupam and thereafter, Narayan Rane. We had also written to you at that time.
Ma'am, the repeated efforts of some senior Congressmen to exact a win in Gujarat by not standing for any ideology of the erstwhile Congress but to resort to cheap short term gains by admitting even those men who served Shri Modi well in 2002 in leading the communal carnage against the state's Muslims. (Senior Congress leaders have reportedly stated that since hard core Shiv Sainiks have been welcomed with open arms in Maharashtra why cannot the Congress not open its arms to mass murderers like Shri Gordhan Zadaphiya?) . Mr Zadaphiya was at the forefront of the mass carnages against minorities in the city of Ahmedabad and as home minister responsible for the shameful state complicity in the genocidal carnage all over the state.
We the undersigned do not believe that you, the seasoned politician that you are, have not been aware of these brazen moves even within high levels of the Congress party. We hope and wish to believe that you personally at least do not share this rather opportunistic brand of politics. We urge that you speak out, unequivocally on this issue secularism and moral principle just as strongly as y ou have on others. We would not like to believe that secularism is a private concern that can only be voiced behind closed doors. It needs to find centre stage on the campaign arena in Gujarat.
In hope, and in anticipation,
Teesta Setalvad, Vijay Tendulkar, Prasad Chacko, Fr Cedric Prakash, Alyque Padamsee, Rahul Bose, Hanif Lakdawala, Javed Anand, Persis Ginwalla, Avinash Kumar, Rakesh Sharma, Jimmy C. Dabhi, S.J., Anand Patwardhan, Harsh Mander, Ajay Bhatt, Avani Parekh-Bhatt, Akhil Paul, Ashok Gupta, Jitesh Odedra, Wilfred D'Costa, Ram Punyani, Kiran Chhokar, Anand Mazgaonkar, Swati Desai, Sheba George, Vijay Parmar, Vijayprakash Jani, Javed Ameer, Navdeep Mathur, Shruti Upadhyaya, Atul Raval, Ashfaq Mohammed, Bharat Jhalla, Sushila Prajapati, Bharat Parmar, Khalid Chaudhary, Beena Jadav, Rais Khan Pathan
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