Looking at Gujarat Beyond 2007

The situation in Gujarat has become so volatile and fluid that there is a need to take stock of the situation. One must not overlook the fact that there are more important things involved there than meets the eye in the flux of things. As much of the focus is not on development but the chief minister’s headstrong views on Sohrabuddin in particular and by implication Muslims in general there is need for strategic depth in understanding.

First of all we must address juristic scope of culpability of Narendra Modi in the crimes against humanity, for that is what he brought about to happen subsequent to the events of February 27, 2002. The collector of Godhra had described the burning incident of Sabarmati express as accident. This was the stand taken by the administration until Modi changed it at 7 pm and made it into an attack on Hindus by Muslims. In the meeting at his residence that night he also ordered the police and the administration in the presence of the DGP and the police commissioner of Ahemdabad “Hinduon ka gussa uttarne do teen din tak.” (Let the Hindus vent their ire for three days).” This was despite the fact that the collector had opposed carrying the dead bodies to Ahemdabad and displaying them. Such an act would incite mob violence against Muslims was crystal clear. He visited worst areas affected by massacres of Muslims during the three days he had asked for the Hindus to vent their anger and applauded them for the crimes against the Muslims including rape, murder and arson. He harboured murderers and rapists by using the position and power of his office so that they escape the law of the land he was sworn to keep. He misused the judiciary to shield the murderers.

The UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide says that genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (A)Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group’ (C) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.(D) Imposing measure intended to prevent births within the group.

In the light of the above convention Modi is clearly responsible for the genocide of the Muslims. He was equally heinous in closing down the relief camps. It was another step in genocide. The refugees had the bleakest prospect of survival before them.

The systematic boycott of the Muslims. Who brought about this collateral calamity for the whole community? Was it not a link in the overall strategy of punishing the Muslims and making their survival impossible after the horrendous crimes of rape, murder, loot and arson?

The prevention of Muslim survivors from returning to their houses, farms, shops, and other commercial establishments and jobs, or whatever little was still left. is genocidal. They are reduced to grim scenario of extinction en mass.

Subversion, systematic and premeditated, of the judiciary process by misusing official position involves the CM in genocidal juggernaut of the state machinery.

These are “a group of crimes that the international community of nations has declared to be criminal offences against the whole human race because they shock the conscience of all humankind and are an affront to humanity…The international criminal norms known as ‘crimes against humanity’ create international responsibility of individuals under international law for certain horrendous acts of violence against human beings.”

These issues remain to be addressed and redressed irrespective of who wins the election 2007. This must not be partisan matter, left to either of the two main parties contesting there. Non governmental organizations, human rights chapters, civil liberty groups must mount fresh and concerted efforts to get full justice to the victims of the genocide as well as any other victim of crime that may be different.


Determining the quantum of criminal acts must begin with the use of international law as crime against humanity is violation of international law. First of all who is a perpetrator? “A person or state who commits human rights violation. The term is sometimes used to describe one who causes such violation to occur through others.” Thus Modi asking his police and administrators to let the Hindus vent their anger for three days constitutes him as a perpetrator.

Modi is fully accountable for what happened in 2002. It was his constitutional duty to protect the lives of all the people. He not only caused the mass murder of Muslims but he asked his police and officers to let it happen and then subverted the judicial system to protect the murderers, rapists, arsonists and looters. Accountability is basic human rights law and implies that nobody is above law or immune from it. An example of the legal procedure is the trial of Lieutenant William Calley of the US army for the My Lai genocide in the Viet Nam, of Slobodan Milosevic in the massacre of Muslims in the former Yugoslavia.

But of course, there is also the urgency of what to make of what he said on December 4, 2007: “They want me to answer why I killed Sohrabuddin?. Sohrabuddin was a notorious criminal who had links with Pakistan and from whose farm house AK 47s were recovered. So what should I have done with him? Pooja? Or should I have called up Sonia Behen before he was killed? I am thumping my chest and declaring that Sohrabuddin ‘s encounter had taken place on the dharti of Gujarat. If I have done something wrong, hang me.”

People committing crimes against humanity can be tried internationally, not necessarily in the country where they have committed them. Modi taunted “Why not a court in Pakistan?” In the famous case Soering v. United Kingdom, the European Court of Human Rights had transferred it to the US because of the long death row ordeal there.