The resurgence of communal violence in Vadodara is, indeed, ominous. This brings back memories of the gruesome State-sponsored communal genocide that took place in Gujarat in 2002. So far, in Vadodara, five people have died and over a score seriously injured.
The issue that sparked the communal violence centres around an ancient dargah of a Sufi saint, Syed Rashiuddin Chishti. The Vadodara Municipal Corporation decreed that this dargah was an encroachment and was obstructing the widening of roads under the new city development plan. On the contrary, it has been pointed out that the dargah was at least 385 years old, recorded in the first city survey carried out by Sayajirao Maharaj of Baroda in 1912. The daily diya and daily expenditure at the shrine were borne by the Hindus.
Notwithstanding this, in every communal riot in the city since 1969, this shrine has been targeted. Termed as a ‘mini Babri masjid’, many attempts were made to demolish in the past. On this occasion, the municipal corporation simply razed it to the ground citing a Gujarat High Court judgment calling for the demolition of all encroachments. Unless motivated, it is impossible to believe that an ancient place of worship could be considered an encroachment.
Hamid Ansari of the National Minorities Commission has, on record, stated that the chief secretary of Gujarat had assured him that a compromise formula was being worked out. In fact, the BJP’s prominent Muslim face in Vadodara, Gani Qureshi, has gone on record to the media stating, “The demolition of this dargah is a very well-planned conspiracy. The municipal corporation authorities had promised us that it would not be demolished. We were working upon a compromise formula but they backed out and simply razed it.”
{{/usCountry}}Hamid Ansari of the National Minorities Commission has, on record, stated that the chief secretary of Gujarat had assured him that a compromise formula was being worked out. In fact, the BJP’s prominent Muslim face in Vadodara, Gani Qureshi, has gone on record to the media stating, “The demolition of this dargah is a very well-planned conspiracy. The municipal corporation authorities had promised us that it would not be demolished. We were working upon a compromise formula but they backed out and simply razed it.”
{{/usCountry}}The reaction of Gujarat police, in tune with its unfortunate record, to those who had gathered to protest the demolition, was simply to open fire. Two died on the spot. In the tension that followed, three more lives were claimed. In an incendiary fashion, one was burnt alive in his car by a mob in a curfew-bound area.
What is ominous is not merely the incident and the continuing tensions but the response of the state administration and police, which is disturbingly reminiscent of the 2002 riots. This incident has happened days after P.C. Pande was appointed as Gujarat Director-General of Police. Noted social activist Teesta
Setalvad has moved the Supreme Court questioning his appointment, stating that as Ahmedabad Commissioner of Police during the 2002 riots, Pande was at least partially responsible for the riots continuing. The petition states that in the case of the Gulberg Society holocaust, in which more than 34 persons, including former MP Ehsan Jafri, were burnt alive, it was on record that Pande had visited the place in the morning and promised reinforcements. But he did not do so and turned a blind eye to the murders.
I had occasion to sit an entire night in Pande’s office in Ahmedabad on March 1, 2002. Amar Singh, Raj Babbar, Shabana Azmi and I had rushed to Ahmedabad in a delegation of the People’s Front on hearing of the large-scale communal violence. We were kept sitting in the office of the police commissioner, and were not allowed to visit any area. We were, in fact, told (read: threatened) that since our faces were known, as also our views, it would be better if we did not move about. This, however, did not deter us from doing the little that we could. The official justification that allowed the gruesome mayhem to take place, at least on that night
in Ahmedabad, was that a lesson should be taught in retaliation for what had happened in Godhra the day before. What followed in Gujarat is a blot in Independent India’s history. Pande, however, was promoted as Additional Director, CBI, by L.K. Advani’s Home Ministry. When the Supreme Court ordered CBI investigations into some of the more gruesome of incidents, it had to order that Pande would not, in anyway, be associated with such investigations. Three of the seven investigations, in respect of which the National Human Rights Commission gave this recommendation, pertain to the incidents in Ahmedabad then.
It is the recurrence of this pattern that is foreboding for the future. Many, justifiably, see this as a curtain-raiser to the forthcoming 2007 assembly elections in Gujarat. That the 2002 communal holocaust yielded a polarisation favourable to communal forces is there for all to see. A similar polarisation is what is being sought. Even today, more than three years later, justice is denied to victims while the guilty move scot-free. The Best Bakery trial and the conviction of the prime witness, Zahira Sheikh, of perjury demonstrates how the Gujarat administration and the justice delivery system is being manipulated to deny justice and protect the guilty.
These disturbing developments in Gujarat fit into the larger picture of the RSS/BJP’s decision to return to their basics in order to rejuvenate their fast-declining political position. Facing a serious disarray, given the conflicting pronouncements made by their leaders on various issues and the accompanied infighting, the return to the politics of rousing communal passions and consequent polarisation seems to be their declared fall-back option. The recent rath yatras by their leaders have focused on the core communal issues, including that of building the temple at Ayodhya. Having razed the dargah of ‘Wali Gujarati’ in the 2002 riots, they have now repeated a similar thing in Vadodara. In faraway Chikmagalur in Karnataka, tensions are being whipped up around the Sufi shrine of Baba Budangiri.
Surely, the UPA government at the Centre cannot remain a mute witness to these developments in Gujarat. The Communal Violence Bill, designed to meet such situations, is currently under discussion in the parliamentary standing committee of the Home Ministry. As a member of this committee, we were discussing two contentious issues. Law and order is a state subject under our Constitution. Can such situations be dealt with by the central government without encroaching upon the state’s rights? Second, can the deployment of central forces be done independently or at the request of the state government and, in any case, can such forces act independently or do they act under the command of the state government?
The rights of the states should not be encroached upon; on the contrary, they must be strengthened. But it is urgently required that in the name of protecting the rights of the states, the country cannot allow such communal conflagrations to go unattended. While Parliament will discuss and decide on this matter at the earliest, the central government, in this particular instance, cannot remain silent. The UPA government must take all measures to ensure that there is no repeat of 2002 in Gujarat.
More importantly, it is for us, the people of India, to ensure that such naked vote bank politics of consolidating the vote of the majority community at the expense of death and mayhem is not allowed to repeat in Gujarat. Or, for that matter, anywhere in India.
The writer is a Rajya Sabha MP and Member, CPI(M) Politburo