US dismayed at Gujarat violence: 3 killed in Maharashtra as violence spreads
NEW DELHI, April 10: In the strongest words used so far by any Western government to publicly condemn the anti-Muslim pogroms in Gujarat, the United States on Wednesday said it was dismayed by what had occurred in India’s border state over the last six weeks and expressed the hope that New Delhi would take steps to end the violence quickly.
The remarks by the visiting US Assistant Secretary of State Christina Rocca at a news conference came as Hindu-Muslim skirmishes broke out in the neighbouring Maharashtra state where three people were killed in a copycat religious violence on Wednesday. Gujarat is ruled by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s Bharatiya Janata Party while the opposition Congress Party heads a fragile coalition in Maharashtra.
“The events in Gujarat are really horrible,” Rocca said in response to a question by Dawn. “We are deeply saddened by this and we hope that we find a way to move forward out of this,” she said.
Asked if she had raised the issue with the Indian government during her meetings with senior officials including External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh, she said they had not discussed India’s internal affairs.
Rocca’s comment came in response to a question whether the global war against terrorism was not taking too heavy a toll in collateral damage, killing more innocent Muslims than civilians, from Afghanistan, to Gujarat to Palestine.
“We have always stressed that our war is not against Muslims who we have deep respect for,” Rocca said, echoing Washington’s well-known refrain on the issue.
Rocca’s criticizm of the Gujarat violence was not the only one by foreign diplomats. There have been reports of serious questions raised by foreign governments, including Arab states, about the reported state complicity towards the tardy handling of the violence by rightwing Hindu mobs.
Former foreign secretary and former ambassador to Pakistan Mani Dixit said in an article in The Hindustan Times on Wednesday that two non-Muslim diplomats had expressed deep anguish to him personally.
“One of them remarked: ‘I am heartbroken about what is happening in India and the manner in which it is eroding India’s credibility and respected image in the international community.’ The emotional content of this heart being broken about India is perhaps the result of his having served in India before in other capacities in his embassy,” Dixit wrote.
The second envoy’s reaction was rooted in concerned realism, according to the respected analyst. The envoy said: “It should be realised that the level of violence against Christian and Muslim minorities is now a part of a sequential record in perception in foreign governments and among outsiders. Don’t you think the governments in India — both at the Centre and in states — should be aware of the negative, and more importantly, economic consequences of this continuing violence of which events in Gujarat are a major culminating point, like the destruction of the Babri mosque a decade ago?”
Dixit said neither of these ambassadors was Muslim or represented any Muslim country. “Despite the deployment of the police and army and the imposition of curfew, violence has continued in most urban centres in Gujarat, which has spread to cities like Akola in Maharashtra. Communal tensions have reached a level where Hindu and Muslim colonies have organized their vigilante groups against potential attacks. The government seems to have abdicated its role in maintaining law and order and communal harmony,” the former envoy said.
The Press Trust of India said from Mumbai that curfew was imposed in the riot-hit neighbouring Kalyan in Thane district on Wednesday morning following group clashes on Tuesday night in which two people were stabbed to death and one died of shock, police said.
It said curfew was clamped in the Bazaarpeth police station area, which covers almost half of Kalyan, police said in Thane. The situation is “tense but under control”, they said.
The Gujarat massacres will be the theme for the opposition during the parliament session due to resume next week, with the government suffering a jolt from its allies.
A day after Shambhu Srivastava resigned as the Samata Party General Secretary and spokesperson, senior party leader George Fernandes suggested that Srivastava had spoken out of turn by demanding the resignation of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. “We have never said that Modi’s resignation would solve the problem there,” said Fernandes before leaving for Moscow on an official visit.
Vajpayee’s National Democratic Alliance partners are keeping up the pressure over the issue of the removal of the Narendra Modi government in Gujarat. The Lok Jan Shakti leader, Ram Vilas Paswan, has again demanded imposition of President’s rule in the state.
“As allies of the NDA government, we have made our stand clear. Now it’s up to the BJP to decide what to do with Narendra Modi,” Paswan said.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh has also demanded the removal of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, in the wake of the ongoing violence in neighbouring Gujarat.—JN
NEW DELHI, April 10: In the strongest words used so far by any Western government to publicly condemn the anti-Muslim pogroms in Gujarat, the United States on Wednesday said it was dismayed by what had occurred in India’s border state over the last six weeks and expressed the hope that New Delhi would take steps to end the violence quickly.
