One question that keeps haunting concerning the riots in Ahmedabad in particular and in Gujarat in general is the role of the Congress as of all. Opposition parties and the indifference, if not total cowardice, they showed during all those grim hours of wanton killing. Many questions remain unanswered. What, for example, is the nature of the Muslim psyche in Godhra? Since independence there have been at least four major communal riots in this town; it is believed to be a strong Islamic centre. It has a centre for Islamic studies the funding of which remains a mystery.
According to reports, the Muslim community is divided in Godhra and as recently as December 2001 there were apparently clashes between the liberal and reactionary elements among the Muslims leading to some deaths. Reactionary Muslim elements apparently again', have made Godhra their home and no doubt the burning of Sabarmati Express coaches was at their instigation. As of the moment no newspaper has considered it worth its while to make a study of Godhra in all its ramifications. Such a study is called for, for a proper understanding of the events that followed the Godhra burnings.
A similar study is called for of the mind-set of Hindus in Ahmedabad vis-a-vis Muslims; why is it that Ahmedabad is so prone to communal riots? Are we to believe that it is only after the BJP came to power that communal rioting became fashionable? And would it be correct to say that only Hindus belonging to the Sangh Parivar took to the streets in an orgy of burning, looting and killing? What, one would like to know, were Hindus who are politically with the Congress and other Opposition parties doing when the killings were going on? Why did they remain silent? After all those Hindus allegedly belonging to the Sangh Parivar surely are drawn from the same economic class as Congress or CPM Hindus? Why didn't these Hindus rush to the streets to stop the rioting? Why didn't-they get out of the comforts of their homes, go marching in the streets and say for all to hear: "Kill us before you kill anyone else?' Gujarat's Chief Minister Narendra Modi is being pilloried for not calling for Armed Forces assistance within minutes of being informed of the rioting. But couldn't the local Congress Party have summoned all Congress Hindus to come out and defend Muslims? Is that too much to ask? And what was Congress President Sonia Gandhi doing? Couldn't she have put in a phone call to the Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee chief and ordered him to send every Congress MLA and every Municipal Corporator to march unitedly to the riot-prone area in an effort to restore peace and goodwill? Additionally every Congress MP - not to mention every Opposition MP - should have made an immediate beeline lo Ahmedabad to defend, Muslims against allegedly Sangh Parivar onslaught. Sonia Gandhi should have arranged it at short notice. MPs do not have to stand in line to buy airline tickets. Even if tickets were not available, surely upon a request made to it, the Government of India would have known how to rush some four hundred Congress and Opposition MPs to Ahmedabad at short notice so that unitedly they could parade Ahmedabad's riot-prone streets in order to stop the carnage? Why do we always have to depend upon the Army?
Can't Congressmen in Ahmedabad come forward to right the rioters if they are so noble-minded? Fancy what a terrific impact it would have made had some four hundred Congress and Opposition MPs, along with their MLA counterparts marched hand-in-hand determined to, face the rioters and to shame them into good behaviour! Narendra Modi has been accused of wavering; the charge is that the wavered deliberately. But Couldn't Sonia Gandhi have sent her battalion of Congress MPs to Ahmedabad in a show of moral force? What is the point in mocking at Gujaratis for taking to violence in Gandhi's Gujarat? And where were Gandhian Congress Hindus when the killings and arson were going on in the city? What kind of Gandhian spirit did they exhibit? If one Gandhi could march through Noakhali - Lord Mountbatten called him his One-Man Force - to restore peace there, surely there must be at least a few hundred Congress Gandhians who could have braved the wrath of the rioters in Ahmedabad? If no one else would have dared to, shouldn't at least Sonia Gandhi have flown to Ahmedabad to organise resistance to the rioters? What stopped her from doing so? The truth is that all these years the Congress and the Englishspeaking chatterati - have refused to acknowledge that such a thing as minority communalism exists; it is easier to blame the Sangh Parivar than to do something to counter it.
Time was when the Congress had a volunteer organisation called the Rashtra Seva Dal (RSD). Volunteers of the RSD were always available to control massive crowds that came to hear Congress leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Vallabhbhai Patel and Jawaharlal Nehru. The RSD, a disciplined organisation and its volunteers, had a vision: the liberation of the country. Following independence the RSD went into disarray and now has practically vanished. Why hasn't the Congress made any effort to resurrect it? Could it be that the Congress knows that such a body would attract no one from among the youth? There reportedly is a Congress' youth association. If it exists, shouldn't its members have been rushed to Ahmedabad to fight the rioters? Non-violently'? Is there any law that say that non-violent resisters bent on restoring peace should not parade up and down riot-prone streets? What is a youth organisation for if it cannot function at a time when its services are desperately wanted?
Whom is the congress - and other opposition parties - fooling? The English media obviously is not aware of the fact, that there is growing resentment against it among substantial sections of Hindus transcending party lines. When Hindus - not just the Sangh Parivar - is attacked day in and day out by the English-speaking chatterati that control the English media tension builds up, not just among the 'parivar' but among all Hindus, irrespective of their political affiliation. It is manifestly wrong to presume that those who went rioting in the streets belong only to the Sangh parivar.
According to knowledgeable sources
the rioters were from all classes and parties. Our secularists are only
fooling themselves if they believe that all the sinners belong to the parivar.
The damage unwittingly being done to the Hindu psyche by the so-called
secularists needs to be understood. It has so far gone unchallenged. The
majority of the Hindus feels assaulted from all sides. The silent Hindu
Majority is quivering with anger at the writings of some of our English
national dailies and some of the television channels. A letter recently
published in the Free Press Journal (26 March) by one Maunal Gandhi can
truly be said to represent majority Hindu opinion. A foreign writer, Koenraad
Elst has described this tendency among Hindus in India as 'negationism'.
The Hindus revel in self-flagellation. It results in two developments:
One, it encourages Muslims to extremism and unwillingness to compromise
and two, it further deepens Hindu resentment against Muslims. We know with
what disastrous consequences. It is very noble on the part of educated
Hindus to take on all the blame for any rioting on themselves. But these
educated Hindus rightly described as the chatterati totally divorced from
reality - do something truly sinister they look down on those less fortunate
than themselves attacking their religiosity in ways 'totally unbecoming.
Here is an instance of action and reaction: the more the chatterati look
down on the hurt feelings of those who strongly believe in their religion'
and their gods, the greater is the reaction of the latter and the vicious
cycle steadily gets enlarged until emotions explode in unmitigated fury.
The letter-writer to the Free Press Journal may have been exaggerating
but in a meaningful way he represents the sentiments of his fellow Hindus.
This is not to suggest that Hindu communalism should be condoned but one
wonders whether this would have reached the depths it has, had, it not
been the feeling that for fifty years in free India Muslims have been pampered
beyond limits. The media focus has been almost entirely on so-called Hindu
communalism, which one national paper has been pleased to dismiss airily
as majoritarianism. It is as if in India it is a crime to belong to the
majority religion. On the Ayodhya issue, for instance, the national press
has been uniformly hostile towards the, VHP which has only served to strengthen
the. VHP resolve to right more bitterly than ever. Meanwhile, the question
of helping all those who have suffered grievous losses during the Gujarat
riots needs to be addressed to. Every Member of Parliament gets about Rs.
2 crore each year for spending in his constituency. The amount due to all
Gujarat MPs must now be diverted to the relief and welfare of the riot
victims. Indeed, if MLAs get similar benefits from the Gujarat Legislative
Assembly, those allowances, too, should fully be diverted to aid the riot
victims. That is the least that one can do to help them get on to their
feet. Meanwhile it would do the country a tot of good if the shrill anti-VHP
hate campaign is toned down by those who indulge in it. Enough, as it is
said, is enough.