The apathy of Muslims in confronting genocide in Gujarat 2002 Ominous parallels

Most meticulously preplanned genocide of Muslims in Gujarat 2002 passed into history by sheer apathy of Muslims of India. Their benighted leadership and self indulgent ignorant community made no headway. They could not make Sonia Gandhi, president of Congress party, to even privately meet the Ahsan Jafri family in their despair and loss. The slain Member of Parliament was from her party. The BJP despicably ignored him by refusing any mention any regret let alone a motion of mourning on his death. All this happened due to the rudderless community floating in stormy sea of communalism. What was more aggravating: the defiant and cruel rule in the state of Gujarat which used its state machinery to conduct the genocide thanks to the brazen and complicit role of the chief Minister, Narender Modi, was left unbridled by the central government. Furthermore, Modi had the temerity to muster hard core elements in his party to virtually brow beat the prime minister in the Goa conclave into toeing their line of let alone sacking him as chief minister but applauding him and retorting Muslims for their wont for not living with their neighbours in peace and tolerance. This kind of Nazi like behavior along with the pogroms of 2002 needs an exhaustive analysis of what caused the genocide and what really happened, the guilty and how the evil deeds have continued as examples pile up from post Modi scenario in the state of Gujarat, confirming Shakespeare’s dictum that the evil men do lives after them and continues to cast ominous shadows hereafter. There has been enough genocide in the world. They corroborate what the victims suffered at whose hands and for what. Writing on one such Leonard Peikoff observes in his book The Ominous Parallels “We dare not brush aside un-explained a horror such as Nazism.” Unfortunately against the background of the ascendance of Modi as PM writing about the genocide is not in “today’s mainstream. They will be part of tomorrow’s”. These words of Ayn Rand are part of the parallel to the rise of neo Nazism of after the World War Second but holds truth for Gujarat and the country under Modi. [1] There have been two genocides in India, Sikh genocide of 1984 and that of Gujarat 2002. The second was modeled on the first among the most corroborative evidence is the stipulated three days of the second in emulation of the first. The Muslims were entrenched in terrorism cases ascribed to them while it was the work of the Hindutva. Implicating innocent Muslims in such cases including the notorious fake encounters of Gujarat overwhelmed the minority community. In contrast the Sikhs were not besieged after the genocide of 1984. They retaliated more martially in the Khalistan movement of Sant Bhindranwale. But their resources were intact and there was no boycott against them. After lapse of 30 years they have not left the matter to oblivion by reaching the august portals of the UNO by their report covering: “pre-planned and deliberate killings of the Sikh community in 19 States of India, eyewash investigations by the successive governments, zero convictions and the failure of the Supreme Court to take cognisance of thousands of deaths during the first week of November 1984.” [2] Ominous parallels between the gas chambers of Auschwitz and the black hole of Naroda Patia or the inferno of Sardarpura are comparable. In the gas chambers of Nazis there were mushroom-shaped lids of vents through which they poured the amethyst-blue crystals of hydrogen cyanide upon the 2000 victims packed like sardines in the chamber. The fatal gas slowly started “delousing” them or “bathing” them. They were lured into believing that they would be bathed and cleaned and freshened. The Jews “piled up in one blue clammy blood-spattered pyramid, clawing and mauling each other even in death.” [3] But there are obvious differences. In the dry well of Naroda Patia the Muslims were forced to gather at the dry well at the point of gun by Babu Bajrangi-Maya Kodnani gangs of murderers. Then the petrol they had obtained from the State Transport Bus Workshop was poured on them. The Muslims hugged each other and then raised their arms to heaven for His mercy and knowing that their extinction was at hand they embraced each other and had a fiery funeral. There were some 800 of them. There were so many killed at Naroda Patia that the Commissioner of Police PC Pandey ordered the corps to be scattered to other places to lessen the casualty figure. In Sardarpura Muslims were decoyed by the Patels into believing that they would be sheltered. They were then locked into a single hall and a live electric wire attached to a rod was thrown into it. More than 30 were burnt alive. There was no electricity pole or connection there earlier. It was procured urgently on February 27, 2002 specifically for what would happen on the following day. In the case of the Sikhs in 1984 they were caught and their turbans and hair were doused with petrol and then burnt killing the hapless gruesomely. The militant Sikhs assassinated Indira Gandhi and General Vaidya. The Muslims did nothing of the sort. The allegation that the Muslims in the refugee camps like Juhapura would turn to terrorism proved to be false. It was this stasis in one sided suffering that generated the anguish of Akrabuddin Oweisi of AIMIM when he spoke of his helplessness in the face of untold suffering in his own Hyderbad. “I was hit by three bullets. One of them is still in my body. I was stabbed 70 times on my stomach; I was struck 40 times on my hand. My liver was punctured. My intestine came out of the stomach, 15 feet in length was cut to only 5 feet. I have trouble in eating. There is no iron in my blood. As a result there is dark before my eyes and I have instances of fit occasionally and I faint and fall.” All this happened to him in communal violence. Referring to violence perpetrated on Muslims and the boycott against them is enforced, he says “my heart feels it, it is disturbed and I feel anger at it and want to take it out on those who cause this. But when will the time come when we can avenge this?” Twenty five cror Muslims of the country are unsuccessful to sensitize the others about their plight. [4]This is placed in the context of Modi calling Muslims as puppies who come under the car and get killed and Praveen Togadia calling Akbaruddeen Oweisi as a dog of Hyderabad as well as how Muslims were targeted by bomb attacks in Malegaon and they alone were blamed for what they suffered. Like Slobodan Milosevic, Modi in April aroused the passions of extremists in Assam by threatening to expel the ‘illegal’ Bengali Muslims settled there while he did not bother about the Hindu refugees settled there. In 2011 the then chief minister Tarun Gogoi of Assam won election in Barak valley by declaring refugee status to Bangladeshi Hindus. Modi went beyond in his speech when he accused Mamta Banerjee and Congress: “You are concerned about infiltrators and not your own people ... they must go back, they are robbing the youths of India of their livelihood.” [5] That was on May 4, 2014 when Modi justified killing of 50 Muslims in Assam that started on May 1. This was in sequence to his speeches in April. The so called ‘illegal’ migrant Muslims have their valid papers and even then the pogroms were carried out. The NDFB militants slaughtered Muslims for supporting a non Bodo candidate in Lok Sabha election. In Kokrajhar, Chirag, Baksa and Udalguri. The other districts of Assam have also been witness to killing of Muslims: Dhubri, Barpeta, Bongaigaon 698 rioting in 2013 in Dhubri, 236 cases of rioting in Barpeta in February and August 2013, in Cachar 226, etc. In the May 2014 election according to Bhavdev Goswai had remarked that the NDFB rebels had supported BJP. The Congress leader Piush Hazarika had said that BJP “ will now use other terror outfits to execute its communal agenda in the state.”[6] In India the distinction between riots and genocide and terrorist attack is slurred for those involved in genocide are also terrorists known for their role and have been also involved in riots. For those involved in terrorist attacks on Ajmer shrine were also behind the attack on the Best Bakery in Baroda in 2002. It is due to the hate ideology of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh which is committed to terminate all the Muslims unless they accept Hindu religion. During the genocide Modi had visited Naroda Patia and exhorted the Charra community that they should continue their extermination juggernaut the next day and the day after that. His lieutenants like Bajrangi and others averred that they ceased their work of mass massacre on the stipulated third day. [7]Naroda Patia too had its hermetically sealed gas chamber. The killers had busy action at the dry well and around. In the evening they returned to their areas where they discovered that some Muslims had hidden in the sewer. They rolled heavy boulders on the gutter and sealed it so that they would be suffocated by the poisonous gases. Next day their corpses were recovered. Samantha Power was very active in the first election campaign of President Barak Obama. She had seriously criticized America for supporting those regimes that were tainted with crimes against humanity and genocide. Power was slated to take a very important portfolio after election but she stood by her belief and left the campaign. Her grouse was that the US policy was for safeguarding the right to life and other human rights across the world and yet next day the US representative would vote for the countries and their rulers who were involved in genocide. India was against the genocide of the refugee camps of Palestinians in Sabra and Chatilla in Lebanon where defense minister Ariel Sharon had allowed the Israeli army to encircle the camps and slaughter the Palestinians. But after LK Advani let Moshe Dayan visit India and open its embassy things took a dramatic turn. In the aftermath of 9/11 the US made no efforts to criticize the genocide in Gujarat. During Modi’s three day visit President Barak Obama met him three times and even issued a joint editorial of Washington Post which reads: "The true potential of our relationship has yet to be fully realized. The advent of a new government in India is a natural opportunity to broaden and deepen our relationship. With a reinvigorated level of ambition and greater confidence, we can go beyond modest and conventional goals. It is time to set a new agenda, one that realizes concrete benefits for our citizens." “While our shared efforts will benefit our own people, our partnership aspires to be larger than merely the sum of its parts. As nations, as people, we aspire to a better future for all; one in which our strategic partnership also produces benefits for the world at large.” The new catch phrase: “Chalein Saath Saath” enshrined in the vision statement has become a repeated election slogan all over India with the addition of Modi’s name: Chalo chalein Moid key saath.” Such bonding of the two administrations is a slap in the face of Samantha Power. Ayn Rand and Leonard Peikoff were alarmed by the neo Nazism. It would be rather incorrect to say that Americans are not. Their refusal to visa to Modi was in right direction but there are other trends. One is that the US is a close ally of Israel and the Jewry in America has enormous control of the government. Furthermore the events of West Asia have repercussion on India. The concern for the Islamic States of Iraq and Syria is current theatre of war. Modi and his national security advisor Ajit Doval do not want the Americans to leave Afghanistan for the obvious reason that it would fall into the hands of the Talibans. So the Jewish lobby and the financial clout of the Gujarati diaspora have much in common to gain. Sonal Shah was also closely associated with the incoming administration of Obama in the first election campaign. She was dropped from an important post because of the huge amount of cash sent to India in 2002which had financed the genocide through VHP. The growing collaboration between Modi and Obama administration is ominous because they may produce weapons, export missile technology and other such joint ventures including sharing of nuclear technology which would make existing conflicts sustained for profit motive. Muslim countries do not figure in this let alone the Indian Muslims. However Modi is attempting too much. In the midst of this the refrain of protest in America cannot let the ghost of Modi rest: "Modi, Modi, you can't hide, you committed genocide!"[8] As India has chosen to align with the US it will now have the acquired syndrome of interpreting its own acts as has the US and other rich countries been doing. Noarm Chomsky in the 2002 Introduction of his book Pirates and Emperors, International Terrorism in the World remarks that the interpretation of 9/11 will “depend substantially on how the rich and powerful interpret this dramatic demonstration that they are no longer immune from atrocities of the kind they routinely inflict on others, and how they choose to react.” India was already doing it in 2002. It refused to consider 2002 genocide either as act of terrorism or genocide or holocaust. Till today it does not consider 1984 to be either just that. Modi is anyway fond of the crown of an emperor and always holding swords in his hands. A man is known by not only the company he keeps but the things he surrounds himself with. The failure of Muslims is that they could not gather enough support within or outside the country to have the UNO of International Criminal Court take cognizance of that. Two US citizens of Muslim origin in America lost their mother and grandmother in the genocide in Gujarat 2002. They have filed a case against Modi in the US courts. There is no sign that they would have the clouts to get the case heard at international fora. On the other hand VHP (America) has had enough to fund genocide and also resources to defend it and whitewash the pogroms.(9) Chilean President Augusto Pinochet and Slobodan Milosevic belong to other spheres of influence. [1] The Ominous Parallels, Leonard Piekoff Meridian 1993. Introduction. [2] http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/world/us-group-to-submit-1984-riots-report-to-un/article6amid489935.ece [3] William Shirer The Rise and Fall of the third Reich New York: Simeon and Shuster 1960 pp969-70 [4] Daily Tajuman –e- Urdu September 27, 2014 [5] http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/05/04/modi-assam-muslims-immigrant-congress-idINKBN0DK0FQ20140504 Modi rails against illegal immigrants after Muslim killings [6] India Today September 29, 2014 [7] Tehelka November 3, 2007 [8]http://www.asiantribune.com/node/85631 [9] http://stopfundinghate.org/