Build-Up in Gujarat

Crime Against Humanity 
Volume 2 An inquiry into the carnage in Gujarat -- Findings And Recommendations by Concerned Citizens Tribunal -Gujarat 2002

Build-Up in Gujarat

2. Targeting the Minorities
3. Enforcing Ghettoisation
4. Encouraging the RSS
5. Discrimination Politics
6. Imposing Hindutva

1.1. In the past four years of BJP rule in Gujarat, several unconstitutional measureshave been initiated. Since February 1998, when the BJP was returned to power for asecond term, fundamental rights of citizens have been violated, the rule of law floutedand the security of the life and property of citizens, particularly the religious minori-ties and Dalits, consistently threatened. No action has been taken against the culprits.A plethora of outfits like the Hindu Jagran Manch and Dharam Raksha Samiti spawnedby the sangh parivar, have been engaged in the task of mobilisation for intimidation,threats, terrorisation and violence.

1.2. From the evidence placed before the Tribunal, it is evident that a full catalogueof the words and deeds of the sangh parivar in the last four years, and the BJP government’sunabashed support and encouragement to these on the one hand, and dogged refusal tobook the perpetrators of hatred and violence on the other, is itself an appropriate sub-ject for a separate report. Given below are mere examples to illustrate how the calcu-lated spreading poison has been systematic and sustained, especially since 1998.

2. Targeting the Minorities

2.1. The whole of 1998 and 1999 saw a spate of attacks on minorities, especiallyon Christian institutions and Christian religious persons in remote areas of Gujaratstate, as well as in cities like Rajkot and Ahmedabad. But no action was taken by thestate government against the offenders.

2.2. Around Christmas time in 1998, 17 churches were destroyed in Dangs in southGujarat in a concerted attack on the minority led by VHP leaders Janubhai Pawar andSwami Aseemanand.

2.3. During 1998, as part of the attacks on Christians by the BD, VHP, RSS, andBJP all over Gujarat, some incidents took place in Vadodara as well. One of themajor incidents was the attack on the five-day National Convention of Christians(Alpha Group). The gang, led by Shri Niraj Jain (VHP leader) and others allegedlybelonging to the VHP and Bajrang Dal, started threatening the participants to stopthe convention and quit as “they resorted to forcible conversions of Hindus to Christianity.” Policesupported them. Several people were beaten and one man suffered afracture of the hand. At midnight, the VHP men also attacked women delegates whowere staying at the Women’s Hostel in Fatehgunj.

2.4. In many parts of Gujarat, the police visited Christian institutions at Christmastime (1998) asking how many people attended Christmas mass. Should this be al-lowed in a country that calls itself both secular and democratic? Each act of violenceover the past four years was preceded by hate-mongering and vicious propagandathrough pamphlets signed by Janubhai Pawar of the Hindu Jagran Manch (VHP). Noaction was taken until a year later; in December 1999, he was arrested at Dangsbefore Christmas. (For details on the hate propaganda unleashed in Gujarat againstChristians and Muslims, see chapter on Hate Writing, Volume II).

2.5. A private members Bill, “to prevent conversion by coercion or force”, butwhich did not consider conversion to Hinduism an offence, was sought to be rushedthrough the state legislature in November-December 1999. It was ultimately heldback because of the outcry by local groups. The campaigners pointed out that existingprovisions within the Indian Constitution were adequate to prevent conversions byinducements and coercion and that the maximum number of conversions, post-Inde-pendence, have been of tribals to Hinduism.

2.6. In August 2000, Pakistan-trained terrorists shot down 33 Hindu pilgrims inKashmir and in the cross fire another 100 died. The VHP leader, Shri Praveen Togadia,took it upon his organisation to ‘avenge’ these deaths and targeted unsuspecting Mus-lims of Gujarat. At a press conference in Ahmedabad on August 1, 2000, he declared,“We will give a fitting reply to these killings here, in Gujarat.” For the next ten days,the law and order machinery was held to ransom, as gangs of the RSS/VHP/BD ledby elected representatives of the BJP destroyed Rs. 15 crore worth of Muslim prop-erty in Surat, Ahmedabad, Khhedbrahma, Lambadiya, Rajkot, Porbander and otherGujarat cities. Not a rupee in compensation was paid to any of the victims. Leadersand activists of RSS/VHP/BD figure in the FIRs of the police, yet no action hasbeen initiated against them.

In September 1999, police fired 80 rounds of bullets on Muslims from RajpuraniPole near Mandvi, in Vadodara to stop any Muslim who would come out on the roadto save his/her property or to protect the Jumma Masjid. Shri Nalin Bhatt, then aminister in the state government, personally directed the firing by the police. He evenmade the statement, “Muslims have no place in Hindustan. Either they go to Pakistanor Kabrastan (graveyard).” In the current riots, some BJP leaders and members ofviolent mobs made similar statements.

3. Enforcing Ghettoisation

3.1. On February 8, 2000, a horde of people ransacked the homes of Muslim fami-lies who had bought homes in Paldi, a posh and predominantly Hindu inhabited local-ity of Ahmedabad. The families who had just bought a flat there were terrorised, theirbelongings destroyed. Two municipal corporators of the BJP led the mob, shouting, ‘Jai Sri Ram!’ One senior VHP leader was also present. The motive was to terrorise Mus-lims to move out of a pre-dominantly Hindu locality. (The Asian Age, February 9, 2000).

3.2. What happened in Paldi is becoming more and more common all over Gujaratstate. This violates Article 14 (Equality before the law), Article 15 (Non-Discriminationon grounds of religion, race, gender, caste), Article 16 (Equality of opportunity in mattersof employment), Article 19 (Protection of the freedom of speech, expression and move-ment), Article 21 (Protection of life and personal liberty), Article 22 (Protection againstarrest and detention), Article 25 (Freedom of conscience and freedom of religion).This was not an isolated incident. Social and economic boycott enforced throughterror and violence is happening every other day in BJP-ruled Gujarat, where the writof the RSS runs large.

4. Encouraging the RSS

4.1. In early December 2000, the then CM Keshubhai Patel took the lead in lifting theban on government servants from joining the RSS. In response to a national outcry withinand outside the Indian Parliament, on December 15, 2000, the Prime Minister, ShriVajpayee, assured the Indian Parliament that there was no question of army or govern-ment officials being allowed to join the RSS. On February 6, 2000, Shri Vajpayee an-nounced that he saw nothing wrong in the move since the RSS was a cultural organisation.However, the BJP government in Gujarat was forced to rescind its earlier directive follow-ing relentless pressure from the opposition parties and even some of the BJP’s NDA allies.

4.2. Soon after the Gujarat government announced its no ban on government ser-vants from joining the RSS policy; it played the role of a generous host at a nationalmeet of the RSS, an organisation that openly espouses its goal of a Hindu State.Photographs of the then union home minister, Shri LK Advani, standing alongsidethe then chief minister Shri Keshubhai Patel (the latter donned in the trademarkkhaki shorts of the RSS), at the head of the rally, were published by major nationalnewspapers throughout the country. On January 11, 2000, following its convention,the RSS heaped lavish praise on the state government for the “free services” it pro-vided to the three-day ‘Sankalp Shibir’. Pucca roads were laid overnight especially forthe event and free drinking water and sanitation services provided. The Gujarat StateRoad Transport Corporation stationed 260 new buses at the venue to facilitate trans-portation of participants. This amounted to a blatant misuse of government and semi-government machinery. Billboards put up by the VHP all over Gujarat since 1998,proudly proclaim: ‘Welcome to Hindu Rashtra’. (‘Welcome to a Hindu State’).

5. Discrimination Politics

5.1. The Gujarat government has also taken a series of administrative measuresthat directly violate the Constitution. These are:

• A selective census specially directed at Christians and Muslims in the state.
• A selective census of SCs and STs initiated to ascertain ‘when they converted to Islam orChristianity.’ 
• A directive to the state police asking them to ‘investigate’ every case of inter-religious marriage.This followed spurious propaganda by the RSS-VHP-Hindu Jagran Manch combine that Muslims were abducting andmarrying Hindu girls in order to convert them to Islam, while Christians were guilty of forced conversion.
  
  Inter-community marriages between couples are frowned upon by the state. In 1998, the government directedthe police to set up a special cell to investigate every case of inter-community marriage. Recently aChristian groom was forced to convertto Hinduism even after his marriage to a Hindu girl took place in a civil ceremony before the courts.

6. Imposing Hindutva

6.1. Muslim children have had to sit for exams on Id day. A few years ago, the Gujarat government alsotried to remove Good Friday from its list of public holidays.A volley of protests from the Christians forced them to shelve the plan.

6.2. In January 2001, the education department of the Gujarat government issueda circular, directing all schools in the state to subscribe to the RSS mouthpiece, Sadhana.The directive was allowed to lapse thanks to widespread criticism and protest.

6.3. In January 2002¸ the Gujarat state’s education department ordered that allgrant-in-aid schools must perform dharti poojan on January 26, the day on which akiller earthquake had devastated Gujarat a year ago. The fact that such activity iscontrary to the practice of religious minorities was deliberately ignored. A govern-ment circular issued earlier this year, informed tribal welfare institutions receivinggrants from the government that a part of the sanctioned amount this time would bepaid to them in kind – copies of Hindu scriptures.