- Jamil Chughtai
The incumbent Prime Minister of India Mr Narendra Modi has remained the Chief Minister of Gujarat from the year 2001 to 2012. On 27 February 2002 at Godhra station in Gujarat a fire broke out in a train carrying Hindu pilgrims returning from Ayodhya, which resulted in death of 59 Hindu yatris. As a standard knee-jerk reaction, the furious Hindu gangs, blaming Muslims for the blaze, rampaged through Muslim neighborhoods to avenge the deaths of Hindu pilgrims. During three days of bloodshed that originally ignited in Gujarat and later spilled over to other major cities of India, thousands of Muslims were killed by the Hindu rioters spearheaded by karsevaks (activists) of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) being directly marshaled by Chief Minister’s office in Gujarat.
While the masses from all the religious communities of India felt highly aggrieved over the sad incident, the RSS leaders, including CM Modi himself, found it convenient to deliver provocative speeches to Hindu processions agitating them further by terming the incident as an act of retaliation from Muslims for demolition of Babri Mosque in Ayodhya from where the Hindu pilgrims were coming back on the fatal train. Hence, Hindu hooligans freely hounded Muslims in Ahmedabad and surroundings, during which they not only slaughtered men but also raped Muslim women, poured kerosene down the throats of women as well as children and threw lit matches at them. Over 800 Muslims were killed in three-day riots, 223 people went missing and 2,500 others were badly injured. The worst bloodbath was enacted in predominantly Muslim Gulberg Society on 28 February, which was attacked by rioters who after scaling the boundary wall of the complex, dragged people out and burned them alive besides setting their houses ablaze. Another big massacre during these riots was carried out in Naroda Patiya suburb causing over hundred killings. Gujarat violence left 200,000 Muslims homeless, majority of them never returned. Since it was done under CM Modi’s close supervision, eyewitness reports established that police directed rioters towards Muslim homes and also turned fleeing victims back to their killers-on-hot-pursuit. Throughout his tenure as CM Gujarat spanned over ten long years and last five years as PM India, Mr Modi never felt ashamed over the carnage of Muslims perpetrated by Sangh Parivars in the very state where nothing could go right or wrong without Modi’s expressed consent.
In the same context, however, recently an Indian Army veteran Lt Gen Zameer Uddin Shah in his book titled “The Sarkari Mussalman” has spilled the beans on how the planned carnage of the Muslims was carried out in the state of Gujarat in 2002 following the Godhra train incident. The book indicates that when public pressure increased over this deliberate letting of the communal riots to get out of control, he (Gen Zameer) was given assignment on 28 February to restore law and order situation in Gujarat being epicenter of the unrest. General disclosed in the book that his 3000 strong troops were airlifted to Gujarat immediately, but after landing in Gujarat the state administration kept them stuck-up at airfield by not providing transport for the next 24 hours on the pretext that they were “making the necessary arrangements”. As per plan, in the meantime the Hindu hoodlums were afforded exclusive time to play hell with the lives of Muslims in every town, village and street of Gujarat and other cities in the vicinity.
Equally shocking were the revelations by a senior police officer Sanjiv Bhatt who, in his sworn statement to Indian Supreme Court, maintained that the then Gujarat CM Narendra Modi deliberately allowed anti-Muslim riots in the state. Sanjiv affirmed that his position in the Gujarat intelligence bureau allowed him access to sensitive information both before and during the violence, besides availing the opportunity to observe the actions of the concerned senior officials. Based thereon he divulged that he attended a high level meeting a night before the riots where Mr Modi had commented “Hindus should be allowed to vent their anger” and that because of the alleged attack on train carrying Hindu pilgrims the “Muslim community needed to be taught a lesson”. Accordingly, as per Modi’s long-standing wish, and under his very auspices, the vicious game plan was enacted in subsequent days without any hindrance.
In fact, it was not the only gory incident in the history of ‘shining India’; numerous other episodes of Muslims’ killing were perpetrated in India by RSS karsevaks in not-so-secret collusion with state agencies. Similar riots engulfed Ayodhya in December 1992 when Babri Masjid was demolished by RSS goons and again the incident was thankfully utilized by Hindu rioters to kill and crush Muslims protesters in Uttar Pradesh. Likewise, unbridled bloodshed was unleashed at Mazaffarnagar in August-September 2013 that helped eliminate hundreds of Muslims besides displacing 50,000 of them from the area. Currently, however, another mode of Muslim eradication is being employed in India through “Bhartiya Gau Raksha Dal” which functions under the patronage of RSS-BJP government being run by same Mr Modi who allowed slaughter of Muslims in Gujarat as Chief Minister seventeen years ago. Thanks to free-hand from the PM office, the ‘gau rakshaks’ have now become brave enough to force their way into any Muslim house and give them brutal thrashing, even do not hesitate burning the inmates alive on fake tip-offs about cow-slaughter or beef consumption.
In fact a well-planned genocide of the Muslims is on-the-go in India since long. On top of it, the surge of Hindu fundamentalism has provided a fertile ground for Modi-breed of RSS to create more Hindutva fanatics with ideology of ‘Hindu, Hindi, Hindustan’, who ardently look for excuses and opportunities to quench their chronic animosity against the Indian Muslims. Every now and then, they are able to find aberrant ways of satiating their frustration by breeding controversies from non-issues to exact vengeance on the Muslims who opted to stay back in India at the time of partition.
Rest assure, however, that the ongoing aggressive Hindutva campaign would not remain limited to Indian Mussalmans only, it bears all the potential to spread against other minorities of India, including low-caste Dalits, Christians, and eventually the Sikhs. Hindu fundamentalist want an India exclusively dwelled by ‘high-caste Hindus’ only; and they are working on the very agenda consistently. Slaughter of Muslims in Gujarat on 27 February 2002 – and similar gory incidents in the years that followed – bears a documented fact that by now the extremist Hindu elements under RSS have fully assumed the state’s affairs forcing it to do away with even the pseudo-secularism that India had used so long for deceiving the world at large.
