Genocide is not irrelevant today

A healthy democracy is also sound in morality. What is happening in India makes it the shell of democracy. Within it there is rot all around. Though the largest democracy in the world, it does not automatically make India a morally vibrant one. There are many issues like corruption, land grabbing, violation of human rights, pogroms perpetrated on minorities, miscarriage of justice, etc. Startling disclosures instead of making people and their leaders introspect their deeds prompts them to persist in the same venal path as usual as if nothing has happened. Some years ago a senior journalist Seema Mustafa had investigated the torture innocent Muslims had undergone at the hands of the police in Hyderabad in Mecca mosque blast case. She was overwhelmed by her findings and suggested that LK Advani as leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha should take the initiative of taking up the cause of the innocents framed in terror charges. It fell on deaf ears. The revelations in the book Kashmir—the Vajpayee Years purportedly shows that PM Vajpayee in 2002 did some introspection and was of the opinion of dismissing Narendra Modi over the pogroms of Muslims in Gujarat. In 2004 election BJP lost and Vajpayee was stupefied by the loss. However he thought over and said it was on account of the events in Gujarat. He did not use the word pogroms because using such word of English and western culture was anathema to him and his party. AS Dulat was chief of Intelligence Bureau then and noted that the prime minister was sad when he called the post Godhra carnage as a mistake. A not maverick senior journalist and for years in Parliament showed lack of introspection when he defended Modi as the spokesman of BJP. “I think time as well as all that has happened has made that question completely irrelevant. Congress has used every method and every strata of the administration, as well as the courts and every court, including Supreme Court, has done 10 years or more of the most thorough investigation… and found nothing against the present honourable Prime Minister. In fact, Congress should apologise for raising questions about his integrity.” [1] Akbar’s defense is on two counts. One, what he thinks. What a minority member thinks and what he says on behalf of a Hindu party are two different things. He is generally dubbed a sarkari Musalman, a sycophant for his split personality. Even if we respect him on account of his seniority and as a journalist the fact does not change. He hobnobbed with the likes of LK Advani and a man is known by the company he keeps. Advani’s rath yatra did not make Akbar realize the abysmal horrifying Dark Age sort of bloodbath it left in its wake. It left a trail of riots in every town and city it traversed. It is a serious matter that Akbar wrote books on riot after riot and failed to diagnose the architect of them. Is he blind to the architect of the genocide in Gujarat whom he calls honourable PM. If the honorific is only a traditional then it is ok. After all ours is hollow democracy where only 31 % voters can make a majority. Modi chooses not to respond to sensitive matters of unity and integrity of the country while the Parliamentary democracy makes it imperative for him to explain all this. There are glaring instances of Modi subverting the judicial processes and destroying the phone records. He used his advocate general Tushar Mehta to sabotage the cases from within. He used judge Akshay Mehta to get Babu Bjrangi bail after harbouring him in the Mount Abu guest house of Gujarat Government. He allowed his police to not intervene when the Hindu mobs would take revenge against Muslims for three days February 28, March 1, 2, 2002. He worked in a pack consisting of his bureaucracy, police and the backing of the central government under his party. He ordered payment from SBI to corrupt the lawyers employed by Malika Sarabhai defending Naroda Patiya victims. His police refused Ahsan Jafri’s widow to register a police complaint against him. She then knocked doors of High Court and Supreme Court. There are still numerous cases pending in the courts and the courts do not make a speedy trial of them. If special investigation teams have given clean chit it in no way means he is cleared of all the allegations. Furthermore, genocide cases need an International Criminal Court of justice because Muslims as a community were denied justice. Supreme Court of India also has given judgment in cases and it has called him modern day Nero. So when the remaining cases like that of the widow of Ahsan Jafri, Zakia Jafri and others come up and tried they would reveal truth of Modi’s role. Police officers like RB Sreekumar and Sanjive Bhatt have also filed cases and they have not come up for trial. The extremists who killed Muslims were from RSS, Bajrang Dal and VHP. That RSS is a terrorist organization is on record. Its cadres were in the forefront of the attacks. Modi himself was a pracharak of RSS. To examine such huge matters of involvement needs courts whose legal power also should be comprehensive. For example who is the grey beard that gave order to the black beard to go ahead and kill Ishrat Jahan and others? Such a cogent cognizable chain of command is such Gordon’s knot that our judiciary sweeps it under the carpet of only euphemism whose denotation is not their concern. Second part of Akbar’s defense of Modi is all that has happened since Modi was CM and now PM. Modi dehyderated and terminated an interview by Kiran Thappar who asked him why he does not improve his image of being named a mass murderer. If he was not a mass murderer what was he doing in Naroda Patia in the evening of February 28 when he was blessing the women of Chhara community whose men had slaughtered hundreds of Muslims? Why did he ask them to continue the next day and not slacken? It was all on account of the burning of the train. The collector of Godhra had maintained till Modi changed it as a terrorist attack; that, the Sabarmati express fire was an accident when a stove burst into flames as the kar sevaks were cooking breakfast in the compartment that they had bolted and heavily barricade from within. Even the railway ministry commission found it to be so. Therefore what evidence could Modi give then for he had not given any proof when he called it terrorism? All these matters and more accrued over the years when Akbar had a Rip Vank Winle sleep. When he woke up the Modi sarkar was on the cusp of becoming. What is still not fully inquired is the preparedness for the pogroms. What about the surveys Modi government had conducted of the houses and commercial establishments of Muslims in Gujarat? Why were arms stocked well ahead of it? Why were more arms imported from far off states during curfew hours? Vajpayee did attempt to remind Modi to do his rajdharm, duty to govern, which he parried by his automation reply that he was doing. The PM knew the import of the retort. All this factored in the mournful silence Vajpayee descended into when Dulat left him: "I said: Sir, Yeh kya hua( defeat in 2004 election)? So he laughed heartily and said: Unko (Congress) bhi nahi maloom yeh kya hua! He said even Congress has been taken by surprise, not just us. And then along the way, Vajpayee said: Shayad hamare se Gujarat mein galati ho gayi. And then he got a bit serious and sad. I did not ask him anything further."[2] Among other matters that require scrutiny is that Sonia Gandhi was aware of the evil deeds of what she called maut ka saudagar, trader in dead bodies. Why did she not ask her government to file appeal in the court? Modi did order the killing in fake encounters. When he boasted and challenged her to arrest her why did she not take action in 2007? Modi’s utterance amounted to self confessed cognizable crime of homicide. All those accused in Sohrabuddin case have been discharged from jail and rehabilitated. Does such a thing happen outside India, in a democracy? President KR Narayanan had written letters to PM Vajpayee about the killings of Muslims. Why did not the PM question Modi? Ahsan Jafri had called on Sonia Gandhi also to save life. She did nothing and not even visited Zakia Jafri even once for condolence over the deaths. Congress party and government did nothing to help the bereaved Muslims. BJP did more, it allowed boycott of Muslims even after the horrendous murder, rape and killings. Congress party in Gujarat was demoralized and had evaporated. So Akbar’s questioning the Congress party’s manipulation to bring Modi to book is a figment of his imagination. Congress did nothing of the sort. Muslims of India are still in the agony of loss of their brethren, their sources of livelihood, the apartheid of Modi regime. But those wallowing in their coveted profit of office lapse of more than ten years the matter of genocide is irrelevant. They are wrong because there are still people like Dulat who though not Muslims have the conscience which is not the collective conscience of a party or people. Their own. They share the suffering. ----- [1] http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/47930996.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst [2] http://www.firstpost.com/india/vajpayees-regret-on-2002-gujarat-riots-to-flubbed-ic-814-hijacking-ex-raw-chief-dulat-reveals-all-in-new-book-2324842.html