March 11, 2002	Monday	Zilhaj 26, 1422

NEW DELHI: India’s civil society, based on the basic premises of pluralism and secularism, is facing a grave threat. While communal violence has not been unknown in independent India, what the cash-rich western Indian state of Gujarat has just experienced is unprecedented in recent times.

On Feb 27, a train carrying activists of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP or World Hindu Council) was allegedly attacked by a 2,000- strong Muslim crowd minutes after it had pulled out of the station in a small town called Godhara.

This was followed by widespread rioting in Gujarat’s commercial centre Ahmedabad and other parts of the state. Muslim shops, commercial establishments, factories and houses were targeted with merciless precision and destroyed. Entire families were burnt to death as their houses were torched. Mosques were demolished.

Unofficial accounts put the death toll at more than 2,000 while the state government admits of a little over 500.

What has shaken the nation is the fact that during the first three days of the ferocious communal rioting, both the state and federal governments refused to stir into action to play their constitutional role of protecting the citizen’s lives and property.

The state chief minister Narendra Modi in fact justified the retaliatory violence. “Every action,” he said, “produces a reaction.” He said he had expected more violence as the Godhara incident had angered the Hindus of Gujarat. At a time when the death toll was mounting, he patted the people of Gujarat for showing restraint.

In a curious game of nomenclature, Modi dubbed the Godhara incident as an instance of “communal violence” while he described the revenge killings by Hindu mobs as “secular violence”.

Making clear where his sympathy lay, he granted a compensation of Rs 200,000 to the kith and kin of Godhara victims and Rs 100,000 to those whose relatives were killed in the subsequent violence.

In New Delhi, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee cancelled his trip to Australia to attend the Commonwealth summit but sat passively for two days before ordering the army to move in on Feb 29.

Later, he blamed the media for grossly exaggerating the violence. Vajpayee was more concerned about the fact that India’s image had been tarnished in the eyes of the international community. The riots, he declared, were “a blot on the nation” that had “lowered India’s prestige in the world”.

The Ayodhya campaign also severely undermines the secular and pluralistic character of the Indian society and polity. But Gujarat is by no means the first such instance of failure of the state in India.

Fortunately, the mindless communal violence has not been able to cloud everybody’s good sense. In the middle of the rioting, which spread swiftly, several incidents were reported where Hindus and Muslims saved each other. In one instance in the eastern state of Bihar, local Hindu residents stopped militant Hindus from destroying a mosque by forming a ring around it before chasing the rioters away.

Journalists, artists, writers, teachers, and political and social activists have taken a stand against the state-inspired communal violence. Hundreds of rallies have taken place all over India where ordinary Hindus and Muslims have marched side by side.

At a protest demonstration held in New Delhi on March 4, it was reassuring to see octogenarian writer and journalist Khushwant Singh walking along with other processionists such the celebrated novelist Arundhati Roy and eminent journalists Dileep Padgaonkar and N. Ram.

It went to prove that the mindlessness of the rioters and the inaction of the state have not been able to muffle the voices of reason. —Dawn/Gemini News Service.