The Context Of The Violence In Gujarat

VI. TheContext Of The Violence In Gujarat

Communal violence against Muslims in Gujarat is intimately connected to a riseof Hindu nationalism in the country and the state, a phenomenon that is also responsible for attacks againstChristians over the last several years in the state and around the country. The following provides a briefoverview of the rise of Hindu nationalism and related attacks on minorities in the state.

The Sangh Parivar
The Hindu organizations considered most responsible for the violence in Gujaratare the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, the Bajrang Dal, and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, which along with theBharatiya Janata Party collectively form the sangh parivar. Portions of the following descriptions of thenature and missions of these organizations are taken from the September 1999 Human Rights Watch report PoliticsBy Other Means: Attacks Against Christians in India.¹⁶⁷

The RSS was founded in the city of Nagpur in 1925 by Keshav Baliram Hedgewarwith the mission of creating a Hindu state. Since its founding, it has propagated a militant form of Hindunationalism which it promotes as the sole basis for national identity in India. According to the RSS, theleaders of India's nationalist movement and those of post-independence India failed to create a nation basedon Hindu culture.¹⁶⁸ Western thought and civilizationare perceived as enemies of Hindu culture. Religions such as Islam and Christianity are depicted as alien toIndia, as they are seen as the religions of foreign invaders―the Mughals and the British.¹⁶⁹The RSS wanted "the entire gamut of social life" to be designed "on the rock bed of Hindunationalism," a goal that inspired the creation of RSS political, social, and educational wings, a familyof organizations that is now referred to collectively as the sangh parivar.¹⁷⁰

The VHP was formed in 1964 to cover the social aspects of RSS activities. TheVHP organizes and communicates the RSS message to Hindus living outside India and holds conferences for Hindureligious leaders from all over the country. The most publicized of the VHP's activities was its campaign tobuild a temple to the Hindu god Ram at the site of the Babri Masjid, a mosque in the city of Ayodhya in UttarPradesh. The VHP, along with the other sangh parivar organizations, claimed that the site of the mosque wasactually the birthplace of Ram and that a temple at that site had been destroyed in order to build the mosque.On December 6, 1992, the mosque was demolished by members of the VHP, the Bajrang Dal, and RSS-trained cadres.The police did not intervene. The incident sparked violence around the country in which thousands were killed.¹⁷¹Since then, the VHP has also organized a program to reconvert those who had converted from Hinduism to otherfaiths.

The Bajrang Dal is the militant youth wing of the VHP. It was formed in 1984during the Babri Masjid conflict, in order to mobilize youth for the Ayodhya campaign.¹⁷²A young women's association, the Durga Vahini, was also founded at this time. Unlike other organizationsaffiliated to the RSS, the Bajrang Dal is not directly controlled by the sangh parivar. With its looseorganizational structure, it initially operated under different names in different states. Its activists arebelieved to be involved in many acts of violence carried out by Hindutva organizations,¹⁷³including the spate of attacks against the Christian community in India that began in 1998.

The Jana Sangh Party was formed in 1951 as the political wing of the RSS. Itwas later replaced by the BJP in 1980. The BJP heads India's coalition government, along with twenty-one otherparties that collectively form the National Democratic Alliance. The BJP recently suffered electoral setbacksat the state level. The BJP now only controls the state legislatures in Gujarat, Orissa, Himachal Pradesh, andJharkand. The party was voted out of power during the February 2002 elections in Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal,and Punjab. The BJP also suffered a huge defeat in the Delhi municipal elections in March 2002, where they wononly seventeen out of 134 seats.¹⁷⁴

BJP president and home minister L. K. Advani and Uttar Pradesh chief ministerKalyan Singh were among the forty people accused by the Central Bureau of Investigation of the destruction ofthe mosque. Also on the list were Murli Manohar Joshi, the former chief minister of Maharashtra, and BalThackeray, the leader of the Shiv Sena. The CBI charged all of the accused with "criminal conspiracy,intentional destruction and defiling of a place of worship, criminal trespass and intimidation of publicservants on duty."¹⁷⁵ Advani and Joshi werepresent in Ayodhya when Hindu militants tore down the mosque.¹⁷⁶

The Srikrishna Commission was established in response to the notorious1992-1993 Bombay riots that claimed more than seven hundred lives, mostly Muslims, in the aftermath of themosque's destruction. The report's findings were presented to the government of Maharashtra on February 16,1998, more than five years after the riots took place. The report determined that the riots were the result ofa deliberate and systematic effort to incite violence against Muslims and singled out Shiv Sena leader BalThackeray and Chief Minister Manohar Joshi as responsible. Despite widespread calls by the politicalopposition, human rights groups, women's rights groups, and other community groups, for the prosecution of theperpetrators, the-then Shiv Sena-BJP government refused to adopt the commission's recommendations, and insteadlabeled the report "anti-Hindu."¹⁷⁷ On July14, 2000, the Maharashtra state government announced its intention to prosecute Thackeray for his role ininciting the Bombay riots. On July 25, amid rioting by Shiv Sena supporters, Thackeray was arrested only to bereleased a few hours later, after a judge ordered the case closed on the grounds that the statute oflimitations relating to the incitement charges had expired.¹⁷⁸

The BJP and its allies continue at the national level and in various states toimplement an agenda for the "Hinduization" of education, mandating Hindu prayers in certainstate-sponsored schools and revising history books to include what amounted to propaganda against Islamic and Christian communities.¹⁷⁹

The continuing campaign to construct a Ram temple on the site of the BabriMasjid that was destroyed in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh continues to raise the spectre of further violence in thecountry. The recent revival of the campaign, corresponding to BJP election losses in key states, centered onthe March 15, 2002 deadline set by the VHP to bring stone pillars to the site in order to begin constructionof the temple. In the weeks preceding the violence in Gujarat, Hindu activists had been traveling to and fromAyodha, including on the Sabarmati Express that was attacked in Godhra on February 27. A Supreme Court orderissued two days before the March 15 deadline stopped the planned construction.¹⁸⁰Nevertheless, VHP activists held a "symbolic" religious ceremony outside the dispute area and stonepillars were handed over to and accepted by a representative of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.¹⁸¹

Gujarat: A Hindutva Laboratory
Gujarat, one of few remaining Indian states still led by the BJP, has earned thedubious reputation of being a laboratory for the Hindutva agenda. The National Human Rights Commission'srecommendation that the state's worst incidents of violence be investigated by the CBI reveals thecommission's lack of faith that the state is capable of conducting an impartial investigation into theattacks. The apprehension, widely shared by Indian human rights organizations, stems from the intricate nexusbetween the BJP and its social wing, the VHP in the state. Since first assuming power in 1995, the state hasstacked its inner ranks with VHP and RSS members and others that shared and would actively promote sanghparivar's policies and programs.

Then-chief minister Keshubhai Patel, according to press reports,"disbanded most of the advisory committees in the districts and talukas, as well as the State-ownedBoards and Corporations and packed the bodies with people from the Sangh Parivar."¹⁸²The process stalled under Chief Minister Suresh Mehta, considered a moderate, and was briefly reversed underChief Minister Shankarsinh Waghela who stepped in with outside support from the Congress (I) party. Patel'sreturn to power in 1998 revived in full swing what has been termed the state's "saffronisation"process:

Importance was given to the cadres from the Sangh Parivar to dominate thenumerous advisory committees at the district and taluka levels, including the Police Advisory Committee, theSocial Justice Committee and others wielding enormous powers in the appointment and transfer of Governmentofficials. The recruitment of teachers at the village level, launched by the Waghela administration, was usedby the Patel Government to "infiltrate" the villages. Most of the 20,000 "vidya sahayaks"recruited to man the schools in the villages were picked from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. The VishwaHindu Parishad was encouraged to open schools in remote villages. The syllabus in the schools was often subtlychanged to suit the saffron ideology.¹⁸³

A retired bureaucrat who worked under the Patel administration explained tothe Hindu that, "it would be difficult to assess how many Government employees still keep incontact with the RSS to please their political bosses."¹⁸⁴The article adds, "It may not be a coincidence that barring one person, no District Collector ordevelopment officers come from the minority community. And among senior police officers, those belonging tothe minority community have been mostly sidelined."¹⁸⁵

The extent of police involvement in the attacks indeed raises key questionsabout police recruitment and training in Gujarat. Since retaking power in the state in 1998, Gujarat's BJPgovernment has systematically been keeping minority community officers away from the field and bound to thedesk. According to an article in the Telegraph, as a result:

not a single IPS [Indian Police Service] officer from the minority communityis now on a "field posting".... All eight IPS officers in the state from the minority community...are working in insignificant "support systems" and not engaged in "active policing"....[Of] the 65 minority community officers of the rank of inspector in Gujarat, only two are handling field jobs.Most minority community officers below the rank of superintendent have been relegated to the CID [CrimeInvestigation Department]. According to norms, when an IPS officer is promoted, he is given a field posting.However, in Gujarat, when an IPS officer from the minority community is promoted, he is sent to the computersection or given charge of police housing.¹⁸⁶

The article also asserts that "as many as 27 police officers who hadtaken action against rioters have been transferred."¹⁸⁷Gujarat Director General of Police A.K. Chakravarty's letter of protest at the transfer of senior policeofficers who had acted to halt the pogroms is discussed below.

The campaign to build a Ram temple at the site of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya-whichwas hugely successful in cultivating a national Hindu vote bank-helped catapult the BJP into power in theearly 1990s. The BJP's recent electoral losses may have fueled a resurgence of the temple constructioncampaign and in its wake, the violence in Gujarat (see above). The tragic events of Godhra provide fertileground for the BJP in Gujarat to recapture some of the party's lost ground as it heads into assembly electionsscheduled for February 2003.¹⁸⁸ An article in Frontlinemagazine described the significance of the assembly elections:

In less than 12 months, Gujarat's Hindu Right will face Assembly elections.Discredited by its record on the economic front, and its less-than-creditable handling of the 2001 Kutchearthquake, few people had given the Bharatiya Janata Party a serious chance to retain power. Now, afterFebruary 28, the Hindu Right is again on a roll. It has learned the lessons of the 1998 Lok Sabha electionswhen a string of attacks on Christians and Muslims in south Gujarat helped the BJP wrest key seats, includingGodhra, from the Congress (I). Tragically, Chief Minister Narendra Modi has become something of a hero formany Hindus because he presided over this pogrom.¹⁸⁹

Narendra Modi's own appointment as chief minister, succeeding Kashubhai Patelin October 2001 was considered a huge victory for the RSS.¹⁹⁰Modi, who served as BJP general-secretary for the six years before taking the post, is also an RSS pracharak(volunteer), the first-ever to become chief minister.¹⁹¹Pracharaks function as full-time publicists or propagandists for the RSS, "spreading the message of Hindufundamentalism."¹⁹²

That the state's Hindu and Muslim communities are deeply divided on theirfeelings on Chief Minister Modi was readily apparent during Modi's visits to violence-torn sites in Ahmedabadin the first week of March. As Modi's convoy drove into Naroda Patia, the site of a major Muslim massacre onFebruary 28, a crowd of thousands greeted his arrival chanting "Bharat mata ki jai," [Praise MotherIndia] and "Narendra Modi Zindabad" [Long live Narendra Modi].¹⁹³

On April 12, 2002, Chief Minister Narendra Modi offered to resign from hispost, in what some opposition parties viewed as a political ploy.¹⁹⁴The BJP leadership rejected Modi's resignation and instead proposed that Modi dissolve the state assembly andhold early elections in Gujarat to "seek the [people's] verdict."¹⁹⁵Early elections in the aftermath of the attacks may favor the Hindu nationalist vote in the state, therebyensuring Modi's continued tenure as chief minister.¹⁹⁶The Telegu Desam Party (TDP), a key alliance partner of the fragile BJP-led central government coalition,along with other opposition groups, vigorously opposed holding "snap" elections in Gujarat, viewingthem as tantamount to reelecting the government in place. In a statement the TDP accused the BJP of"trying to make political capital out of a human tragedy."¹⁹⁷

Opposition parties began disrupting the national parliamentary sessions duringthe week of April 15, in protest at the call for early elections in Gujarat, calling again for Modi's removal,and demanding a parliamentary debate on the violence in Gujarat and a vote to censure the national government.¹⁹⁸On April 17, the Gujarat cabinet deferred dissolving the state assembly, and the BJP was reported to havedropped the call for an early election.¹⁹⁹

Protests in Parliament continued, however, and as this report went to press,the leadership of the Lok Sabha (House of the People) allowed a motion by opposition parties to allow thedebate on the violence and a possible censuring of the national government.²⁰⁰The debate was scheduled for April 30. The Rajya Sabha (Council of States) also passed a similarly wordedagreement scheduling their own debate for May 2.²⁰¹

A Campaign of Hate
The rise of the BJP in Gujarat has paralleled and even been attributed to theincreasing activity of the broader coalition of Hindu nationalist groups in the state. A campaign of hateagainst the state's minority Christian and Muslim communities began years before the 2002 attacks. A 1999Human Rights Watch report documented the August 1998 distribution of fliers by RSS and Hindu Jagran Manch (HJM)-anoffshoot of the sangh parivar consisting of people who belong to the Bajrang Dal-in Dangs district insoutheastern Gujarat, site of a ten-day spate of violent and premeditated attacks on Christian communities andinstitutions between December 25, 1998, and January 3, 1999.

The fliers proclaimed, "India is a country of Hindus.... Our religion ofRama and Krishna is pious. To convert [or] leave it is a sin." Another flier by the VHP in Bardoli,Gujarat, warned, "Caution Hindus! Beware of inhuman deeds of Muslims.... Muslims are destroying HinduCommunity by slaughter houses, slaughtering cows and making Hindu girls elope. Crime, drugs, terrorism areMuslim's empire."²⁰² A flier produced by theBajrang Dal and VHP in November 1998 described the Bajrang Dal as a "wide organisation of youth,""working under the Vishwa Hindu Parishad," with the objectives of "protect[ing] motherIndia," "rais[ing] a loud voice against people who ignore Hindu Sabha [assembly]," raisingpeople's awareness against the "trapping of Hindu girls by Muslims and anti-national activities ofChristian missionaries," and working for the "protection of religion and culture."²⁰³A parallel anti-Christian campaign was supported by the Gujarati-language press that printed false reports ofHindu temples being destroyed, cited an increase in the percentage of Christians in the area, printedannouncements for upcoming rallies, and repeatedly branded Christians as the main instigators of violence inDecember 1998 and January 1999.²⁰⁴

Several fact-finding missions to southeastern Gujarat by local and nationalhuman rights organizations attributed the increase in violence against Christians to the growing presence andactivities of sangh parivar groups in these areas. According to an October 1998 joint report by the Committeeto Protect Democratic Rights and the Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee:

A well planned strategy is being operated by the Hinduvata forces in Gujaratand it aims at communalising society at the grass root level. Youngsters belonging to the age group of fifteento twenty-five are being recruited as activists of the Bajrang Dal for this purpose. They are taught to carryout operations covertly and deny any knowledge of those incidents where communal flare-ups do take place....The VHP has also intensified its activities all over Gujarat. Activities such as the distribution of the idolsof Hindu Gods, revival of Hindu festivals, conducting of "Artis" [prayer ceremonies] etc., are onthe increase in recent months.... A well planned program to "Hinduvise" the tribals is in full swingin the entire tribal belt of South Gujarat. The founding of the units of the VHP and the BD [Bajrang Dal] ineach tribal locality, the regular visits and preaching of Swamis, the construction of temples for tribals,etc. are being pursued vigourously. The attack on Christian churches, disruption of prayer meetings, physicalassaults on Christians, etc. are part [of] and the result of this programme.²⁰⁵

Economic Boycotts and Hate Propaganda
A pamphlet calling for the economic boycott of Muslims has resurfaced in thestate since the March 2002 attacks. The pamphlet was issued in the name of the VHP's office in Raanip localitythough its origins have yet to be traced.²⁰⁶

The pamphlet-the text of which is included in the appendix to this report-refers to Muslims as "anti-national elements" who molestHindus' sisters and daughters and who use money earned from Hindus to buy arms. It calls on its readers toinstitute a complete boycott of goods and services proffered by Muslims, adding that Muslims should not behired in Hindu establishments and should not be allowed to rent property. It also cautions Hindus to be"alert to ensure that [Hindus'] sisters-daughters do not fall into the `love-trap' of Muslim boys"and calls on Hindus to vote, but "only for him who will protect the Hindu nation."²⁰⁷

Though the VHP has denied authorship of the pamphlet, it is already achievingits intended effect.²⁰⁸ According to an organizer ofthe Chartoda Kabristan camp in Ahmedabad: "The Hindus are not selling their wares to Muslims. A certainboycott is in effect."²⁰⁹ An article in the WashingtonPost also notes the difficulties relief camp residents in Ahmedabad are facing returning to their jobs forfear of attack, or because their employers have hired Hindus in their place.²¹⁰A report issued by the Vadodara branch of the People's Union for Civil Liberties and Shanti Abhiyan also notedthat pamphlets calling for an economic boycott against Muslims were being distributed in and around the cityof Vadodara, Gujarat.²¹¹ The forced isolation ofMuslim community members afraid to leave ghetto neighborhoods that have become affected, has also resulted inreports of acute food shortages and starvation in Ahmedabad.²¹²

Communal Violence and Attacks Against Christiansin Gujarat
Communal violence is not new to Gujarat. Successive episodes of Hindu-Muslimviolence (in 1969, 1985, 1989, and 1992) have resulted in the increasing ghettoization of the state's Muslimcommunity, a pattern that promises to reinforce itself as Muslim residents once again look for safety innumbers and refuse to return to what is left of their residences alongside Hindu neighbors. After theexperience of earlier riots, many Muslim establishments had also taken Hindu names.²¹³Those too were selectively targeted for attacks using lists prepared in advance. The current climate alsocannot be divorced from heightened conflict in Kashmir, India's deteriorating relations with Pakistan, and theVHP's ongoing temple construction campaign in Ayodhya.²¹⁴

Hindu nationalist groups were also directly responsible for the spate ofviolence against the state's Christian community in 1998 and 1999. As documented in the 1999 Human RightsWatch report, Politics By Other Means: Attacks Against Christians in India, anti-Christian violence inthe state of Gujarat reached its peak during Christmas week 1998 when a local extremist Hindu group obtainedpermission to hold a rally on December 25 in Ahwa town in the state's southeastern Dangs district. Over 4,000people participated in the rally, shouting anti-Christian slogans while the police stood by and watched. Afterthe rally, Hindu groups began to attack Christian places of worship, schools run by missionaries, and shopsowned by Christians and Muslims. Between December 25, 1998, and January 3, 1999, churches and prayer hallswere damaged, attacked, or burned down in at least twenty-five villages in the state. Scores of individualswere physically assaulted, and in some cases tied up, beaten, and robbed of their belongings while angry mobsinvaded and damaged their homes. Thousands of Christian tribal community members in the region were alsoforced to undergo conversions to Hinduism.²¹⁵

The current spate of attacks appears to be unparalleled in the history of thestate since the independence partition, both because of the extent of state involvement in the violence andthe participation of and impact on all classes of society:

The underclass was supported in the looting by the middle and upper middleclasses, including women. They not only indulged in pillaging but openly celebrated the destruction andmounting death toll.... New areas joined the sectarian frenzy. Implicit in this participation was anexpectation of tacit, if not overt support, from the state Government. As Maheshbhai, an entrepreneur, says,"For the first time we have had a chief minister who has stood up. The Muslims have been the aggressorsfor the past 50 years. This time it was different."²¹⁶

Muslims from all sections of the population were affected, "from slumdwellers to businessmen and white collar professionals and senior government bureaucrats."²¹⁷High court judges and Muslim police officers were also attacked.²¹⁸Muslim policemen have since sought special permission to be on duty without their name tags.²¹⁹

A history of communal violence has left its mark. Over one hundred areas inGujarat have long been declared "sensitive" or violence-prone by state authorities, yet few, if any,of the state's many guidelines on preventive measures to address communal violence at the first sign oftrouble were implemented following the Godhra attack.²²⁰As a senior retired police officer commented in an article in the Hindu: "[T]he sky is the limitfor taking preventive measures," though none were implemented "in the 24 hours it [theadministration] had at its disposal between Godhra and the bandh [shutdown]."²²¹

¹⁶⁷ See section onthe sangh parivar in Human Rights Watch, "Politics By Other Means: Attacks Against Christians inIndia," A Human Rights Watch Report, vol. 11, no. 6, September 1999, chapter III  (accessed April 15, 2002).

¹⁶⁸ Tapio Tamminen,"Hindu Revivalism and the HindutvaMovement,"  (accessed April 15, 2002).

¹⁶⁹ RashtriyaSwayamsevak Sangh, "Sangh-Inspired Organisations," in Widening Horizons, http://www.rss.org/books/wideninghorizons/ch7.html.Both Islam and Christianity were introduced to India long before Mughal and British rule.

¹⁷⁰ Ibid.; RashtriyaSwayamsevak Sangh, "Sangh's March," in Widening Horizons,  (accessed September 1999).

¹⁷¹ See Human RightsWatch, "India: Communal Violence and the Denial of Justice."

¹⁷² N. K. Singh andU. Mahurkar, "Bajrang Dal: Loonies at Large," India Today, February 8, 1999.

¹⁷³ Ibid.

¹⁷⁴ Ashok Damodaran,"BJP: The Party is Over," India Today, April 15, 2002.

¹⁷⁵ "Top BJPleaders accused of razing medieval mosque," Inter Press Service, October 6, 1993.

¹⁷⁶ "IndiaArrests 5 Over Mosque Demolition," Reuters, April 8, 1993.

¹⁷⁷ "Srikrishnareport indicts Thackeray, Joshi," Indian Express, August 7, 1998.

¹⁷⁸ Human RightsWatch, World Report 2001, p. 198.

¹⁷⁹ Human RightsWatch, "India Human Rights Press Backgrounder."

¹⁸⁰ Uttara Choudhury,"India's Supreme Court bans religious ceremony in Ayodhya," Agence-Press France, March 13, 2002.

¹⁸¹ Myra MacDonald,Terry Friel, "India's hardline Hindu prayer ceremony peaceful," Reuters, March 15, 2002.

¹⁸² Manas Dasgupta,"NHRC indictment shocks Gujarat," Hindu, April 3, 2002.

¹⁸³ Ibid. In 2000,the state government of Gujarat lifted a ban on civil servants joining the RSS. Severely criticized byopposition parties and secular groups, the decision was later reversed. Human Rights Watch, World Report2001, p. 198; and Ravish Mishra, "BJP backs off, withdraws RSS circular," Indian Express,March 8, 2002.

¹⁸⁴ Dasgupta, "NHRCindictment shocks Gujarat."

¹⁸⁵ Ibid.

¹⁸⁶ Rawat,"Minority hole in Gujarat policeforce."  (accessed April 9, 2002).

¹⁸⁷ Ibid.

¹⁸⁸ Dasgupta, "Saffronisedpolce show their colour."

¹⁸⁹ Swami,"Saffron Terror."

¹⁹⁰ "New chiefminister for Gujarat," BBC News, October 4, 2001 (accessed April 10, 2002).

¹⁹¹ V. Venkatesan,"A pracharak as Chief Minister," Frontline, October 13 - 26, 2001.

¹⁹² Kuldip Nayar,"Dilli's Gang of Four," Indian Express, October 23, 2001,  (accessed April 17, 2002).

¹⁹³ "Modi hearsonly `Bharat mata ki jai,'" Times of India, March 6, 2002.

¹⁹⁴ "India'sopposition turns up the heat," BBC News, April 16, 2002, (accessed April 24, 2002).

¹⁹⁵ "Modi'sresignation offer rejected, asked to seek fresh mandate," Outlook, April 12, 2002,  (accessed April 24, 2002).

¹⁹⁶ "Uproar overriot-hit Indian state halts parliament," Reuters, April 15, 2002.

¹⁹⁷ "Indiancoalition ally condemns early election call," Reuters, April 13, 2002.

¹⁹⁸ "Indianopposition keeps up heat on government over riots," Reuters, April 16, 2002.

¹⁹⁹ "GujaratCabinet defers decision on dissolution of assembly," rediff.com, April 17, 2002, (accessed April 24, 2002); "Gujarat assembly not to be dissolved before Presidential poll," Outlook,April 23, 2002,  (accessed April 24, 2002).

²⁰⁰ "Oppositioncensure motion on Gujarat violence admitted in Lok Sabha," Outlook, April 24, 2002,  

²⁰¹ "Rajya Sabhatoo will debate and vote on Gujarat," Times of India, April 24, 2002.

²⁰² In towns outsideof Dangs, members of the Muslim community also came under attack. In several districts, inter-religiousmarriages between Muslim men and Hindu women were being depicted as incidents of "the abduction ofgirls." The government of Gujarat has also announced that it would "probe into all such marriages,that too, only when the bridegrooms are Muslim." "Attacks on Religious Minorities in SouthGujarat," A Report by the Combined Fact Finding Team of CPDR and APCLC, October 1998, p. 7.

²⁰³ Citizens'Commission on persecution of Christians in Gujarat, Violence in Gujarat: test case for a largerfundamentalist agenda (National Alliance of Women, 1999), p. 45. In early September 1999, on the eve ofnational parliamentary elections in Gujarat, the VHP distributed inflammatory pamphlets in the slum areas ofAhmedabad. Among the many attacks on minorities contained in the pamphlets was the charge that Muslim men weretrapping Hindu girls into marriage. The pamphlets also said that the populations of Christians and Muslims inthe country since independence have increased at a far greater rate than the population of Hindus, and thatvoters should think twice before handing the country back to a Christian foreigner-namely Italian-bornCongress Party president Sonia Gandhi. "VHP unleashes pamphlet attack on Sonia, minorities," Timesof India , September 3, 1999.

²⁰⁴ "Details ofthe incidents that have taken place on 25.12.98 (daytime) in Ahwa, Dangs District, S. Gujarat," ASouth Gujarat Tribal Christian Welfare Council Report, December 29, 1998.

²⁰⁵ "Attacks onReligious Minorities in South Gujarat," A Report by the Combined Fact Finding Team of CPDR and APCLC,October 1998, p. 7.

²⁰⁶ "Pamphletcalling for boycott of Muslims causing concern in Ahmedabad," rediff.com, March 12, 2002, (accessed April 10, 2002).

²⁰⁷ The spread ofhate propaganda in Gujarat is not unlike the propaganda against Tutsis in the years preceding the genocide inRwanda where through the written press and radio, extremists taught that the Hutu and Tutsi were differentpeoples. Simplifying and distorting history, the propagandists insisted that the Tutsi were foreign conquerorswho had ruthlessly dominated the majority Hutu. The propaganda also warned Hutu men to beware of Tutsi women,not unlike propaganda in Gujarat that warns Hindus to protect their daughters from Muslim men. The targeteduse of sexual violence against Tutsi women during the genocide was fueled by the propagation of both ethnicand gender stereotypes. See Human Rights Watch, "Shattered Lives: Sexual Violence during the RwandanGenocide and its Aftermath," A Human Rights Watch report, September 1996,  (accessed April 15, 2002).

²⁰⁸ Malekar,"Silence of the Lambs," The Week.

²⁰⁹ Human RightsWatch interview, Chartoda Kabristan camp organizer, Ahmedabad, March 23, 2002.

²¹⁰ Rama Lakshmi,"Sectarian Violence Haunts Indian City: Hindu Militants Bar Muslims From Work," Washington Post,April 8, 2002.

²¹¹ The report alsocited a confidential letter from the RSS calling for the boycott of all minority secular programs. People'sUnion for Civil Liberties, "An Interim Report to the National Human Rights Commission."

²¹² "Threat ofstarvation looms large in Ahmedabad areas," Press Trust of India, April 6, 2002.

²¹³ Bose,"Ethnic Cleansing in Ahmedabad."

²¹⁴ V. Shankar Aiyarand Uday Mahurkar, "Gujarat: Losing Faith," India Today, March 18, 2002.

²¹⁵ See Human RightsWatch, "Politics By Other Means." More incidents of violence against India's Christian communitywere recorded in 1998 and 1999 than in all the years since independence. Attacks occurred primarily in thetribal regions of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Orissa, as well as the state of Maharashtra. Activistsbelonging to militant Hindu extremist groups, including the Bajrang Dal and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad wereoften blamed for the violence. While the central government officially condemned the attacks, spokespersonsfor the BJP characterized the surge in violence as a reaction to a conversion campaign by Christianmissionaries in the country. Sporadic violence continues to this day.

²¹⁶ Mahurkar,"Gujarat: Losing Faith," India Today.

²¹⁷ Bose,"Ethnic Cleansing in Ahmedabad."

²¹⁸ Justice M.H.Kadri, a sitting Gujarat High Court judge, for example, found himself having to retreat to an undisclosedlocation when large crowds began gathering near his house. Bhushan, "Thy Hand, Great Anarch."

²¹⁹ "Muslimpolicemen scared to wear name tags in Gujarat," Asian Age, March 24, 2002.

²²⁰ Aiyar,"Gujarat: Losing Faith."

²²¹ "Callousness...after the carnage," Hindu, March 31, 2002.