The concocted ‘provocations’

As Vir Sanghvi says- Some versions have it that karsevaks shouted anti-Muslim slogans, others that they taunted and harassed Muslim passengers. In the first place, this too is completely wrong, since there is not an iota of evidence to support any of these claims. But despite this, the TV channels and most of the print media concocted such myths. This was only the detailed part of the provocations. Most of them treated the Godhra massacre as a response to the VHP’s Ram temple agitation. The Ayodhya movement itself was held as a provocation for this massacre.

Weeklies like India Today, The Week, Frontline and Outlook also published white lies on this subject by concocting imaginary provocations such as altercations between karsevaks and the Muslim tea-vendors on the Godhra railway station, or kidnapping of a Muslim girl by the karsevaks at the station, or any number of imaginary details.

Despite knowing fully well that Godhra was a well-planned conspiracy the Indian media forcibly did seeking of provocations to defend it as deed done on the spur of the moment. Vir Sanghvi’s The Hindustan Times carried a front-paged headline on Godhra on 28 February 2002 titled, “Gujarat hit by Ayodhya backlash” i.e. it held that the Ayodhya movement was the main and the biggest cause of the Godhra massacre. So much so that the headline ignored the act and simply reported the ‘provocation’, which too was altogether imaginary. The Hindustan Times did not even bother to have the headline like- “ 58 karsevaks burnt to death in a ghastly attack in Godhra” or something of the sort.

What follows is the editorial of The Hindu dated 1^st March 2002 on the issue:

“ Deadly spiral

THE GRISLY GODHRA (Gujarat) episode of arson on Wednesday that left 50-odd passengers of the Sabarmati Express dead — most of them Kar Sevaks returning from Ayodhya — and the backlash of mindless violence it had triggered elsewhere in the State, as rampaging mobs have in a series of reprisals hit back at the minority community and its properties, are clear, disturbing pointers to the explosive communal buildup across the country as a direct consequence of the VHP’s provocative and destructive campaign for the construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya. What happened in Godhra, about which there are different and conflicting versions, is a dastardly act and it deserves to be condemned unequivocally and in the strongest of terms, and no provocation can even remotely be brought in to justify the slaughter of innocent people. No effort should be spared by the Government to track down the culprits and bring them to justice at the earliest, even as quick measures are taken to ensure that the vicious spiral of violence does not get out of hand and a sense of security is restored among the people.

This said, one cannot but pinpoint the harsh reality that events such as the horror of Godhra were tragically predictable as a result of the wounding and aggressive communal campaign of the VHP. It has been ruthlessly pursuing its agenda of commencing the temple construction on March 15, “come-what-may”, and whipping up communal passions through mass mobilisation of Ram Sevaks — some one million of them — across the country. The whole buildup, which started gaining momentum about a month ago — with the VHP and its `sant parivar’ giving an ultimatum to the Vajpayee Government to hand over the so-called `undisputed’ part of the acquired land — has been typical of the much-too-familiar strategy of the Sangh Parivar, providing an ominous throwback to the run up to the Babri Masjid demolition on December 6, 1992. As a consequence of the audaciously provocative ways of the Ram temple proponents — as evidenced by their determination to start moving the carved stone pillars to the building site from March 15 and the regular convergence of frenzied Kar Sevak contingents on Ayodhya from different parts of the country daily since February 24 — the situation on the communal front rapidly deteriorated, with sharp polarisation of the majority and minority community, becoming explosive by the day. The dangerous implications of such a trend for a State like Gujarat — known for its high vulnerability to communal riots and its perceived status as a laboratory of Hindutva political doctrines — are alarming. In many respects, the evolving milieu resembles what obtained during L. K. Advani’s rath yatra, an event that generated communal disturbance all along its route…”

What follows a report of a foreign newspaper, The Independent (England), on Godhra:

By Peter Popham
20 March 2002

“ …What happened in car S/6 was the hideous finale. The story began nearly 36 hours earlier.

… Many were also drunk or stoned, or equipped to get that way: flexible, tolerant Hinduism has no hard and fast rules about such things. And they were coming back to Gujarat, the only state in the Indian union that is still “dry”. All the more reason to have a bottle or two tucked away.

… The train was late: after a day and a half, it was running four and a half hours behind schedule. That’s why it arrived in Godhra not at 2.55am, as scheduled, but at 7.15am. By this time, the karsevaks were much the worse for wear.

Trouble had started at Dahod station, nearly one hour and 75km up the tracks. The train had reached Dahod around 6am, and a number of karsevaks got out of compartment S/6 to have tea and snacks at a stall on the platform. Already they were drunk and unruly. An argument broke out between the Hindus and the Muslim man running the tea stall – according to one account, they refused to pay unless he chanted “Jai Shri Ram”, the chant of Lord Ram’s devotees. He refused to oblige, and they started to smash up his stall, before climbing back into the carriage. The stallholder filed a complaint with the railway police.

At Godhra, a similar scene ensued. The karsevaks, now noisily drunk, poured on to the platform, ordered more tea and snacks, consumed them, and then made difficulties. Exactly what transpired between the bearded Muslim stallholder and the travellers varies from one account to another. But all witness accounts seen by The Independent agree that there was a row. “They argued with the old man on purpose,” one witness said, on condition of anonymity. “They pulled his beard and beat him up… They kept repeating the slogan ‘mandir ki nirmaan karo, Babar ki aulad ko bahar karo’.” (“Build the temple and throw out the Muslims…”)

Suddenly the row took a dangerous new turn: the karsevaks grabbed hold of a Muslim woman. Her identity, and how she became involved, remain ambiguous, but four different witnesses mention this event. One says it was the 16-year-old daughter of the abused tea-seller. She “came forward and tried to save her father”. Another mentions a woman washing clothes by the railway line being hauled away. A third describes how a Muslim girl wearing a burqa and taking a shortcut to school through the station platform was pounced on and dragged into the carriage. All agree that a Muslim woman was hauled into the carriage by the karsevaks, who slammed the door and would not let her go. Refusing to be quoted by name, a local policeman confirms the story.

And suddenly, what had been just an ugly little fracas, a drunken pantomime of power and subjugation, became something far more explosive.

The karsevaks were too drunk for their own good, or they would have chosen a different station at which to pull such a stunt. Because now the social geography of Godhra came into play.

…Godhra station, to the regret of the Hindus, is located in an area that is now entirely Muslim. And a huddle of Muslim-owned businesses sprang up in shacks alongside the tracks, many of them motor-repair yards. This little slum, known as Signal Fadia, has all the material a riot could require: stacks of bricks, petrol, and paraffin and calor gas cylinders. But it also had the necessary human material: a community impoverished and bitter and surviving on the margins of criminality.

The woman seized by the karsevaks was dragged into compartment S/6, and word of what had happened began to spread. “The girl began screaming for help,” said Ahmed, a wood dealer who was waiting for a train going the other way. “Muslims who were travelling on the train got off. People began pouring on to the platform to try to rescue her. I ran home – I could see trouble was brewing…”

The train moved off, and the gathering crowd began pelting the carriage with bricks. Inside the train, someone pulled the emergency cord; the train stopped, then moved off again; the cord was pulled again 1km out of the station, and this time the train stopped and stayed stopped. “People in the vicinity… started to gather near the train,” says one witness. “The mob… requested that the karsevaks return the girl. But instead of returning the girl, they started closing their windows. This infuriated the mob…”

The brawl had become a battle, with the karsevaks piling in with their swords and sticks, and a crowd now said to be 1,000-strong streaming in from the slum, bringing petrol, gas, rags – anything that would burn. Their gas cylinders broke the bars on the windows and exploded inside; the petrol bombs flew through and set the upholstery and the people trapped inside on fire. By the time that the police arrived in strength one hour later, there was nothing to be saved…”

The reason why The Independent stooped to such unimaginable levels is because of the Indian media. The behavior of the Indian media of repeated insults to the dead karsevaks and defence of Muslim communalism prompts the foreigner authors to write like this. Does this author think that 14 children were also drunk? For this author’s information, Graham Staines had it coming because he indulged in conversion of innocent Hindus and ignored repeated warnings to stop conversions. But still, because this insults the dead, we avoid criticizing him.

The headline in The Times of India dated 28th Feb. read: “MOB ATTACKS GUJARAT TRAIN, 55 DIE”

The writer of this report is Sajjad Shaikh. While identifying the reasons for the Godhra massacre, he writes, “Kar Sevaks in the train misbehaved with some washerwomen of Signal Falia”. Besides, he also cites “the rumour of an attack on a religious place in Dahod” as one of the reasons for the Godhra incident. Here, he wants to suggest that though it is not pardonable to burn alive 55 persons, due to the reasons cited by him, it is not objectionable.

This primary lead news report focussed the blame on the Kar Sevaks from the very initial stages and did not attempt to investigate how the train was stopped at Signal Falia where a mob of a thousand was already waiting with sticks, petrol bombs, missiles and stones.

In the 1st March issue of The Times of India, Siddhartha Varadarajan, a reporter, writes, “While official enquiry will establish the extent to which the attack on the Sabarmati Express was pre-meditated, there can be no doubt about the planned nature of the violence directed against Gujarat’s Muslims on Thursday”. The double standards are evident from his report, which differentiates the incidents of 27th February from the incidents of 28th February. While examining the pre-meditation behind the Godhra attacks on the 27th February, he says that it is “official enquiry” which will decide whether the attack on Kar Sevaks was pre-meditated or not. But when it comes to violent reaction of Hindus on the 28th February, he takes it in his own hands to pass a judgement that the attacks by the Hindus on Gujarat‘s Muslims were “pre-planned” in nature. Obviously, what had been a heinous crime was rationalized and what had been a spontaneous reaction was condemned as a ‘pre-planned’ one.

This news report was carried just two days after the Godhra carnage. The gruesome murders of the Kar Sevaks is mentioned only once in the 450 plus word report and rest of the report is full of gory descriptions of how the Muslims are being brutally killed in the aftermath.

The Hindu has reported the incidents of 27th February as follows:

“57 killed as a mob torches train in Gujarat” in its issue of 28th February. The writer of this report, Manas Sengupta, states that “Eye-witnesses said that about 1,200 Ram Sevaks were travelling in the train. The local people in the Muslim dominated Godhra town had been “irritated” by the abusive language used by the Ram Sevaks while they were going to Ayodhya by the same train a few days ago. They had reportedly raised slogans as the train approached Godhra on the return journey this morning.”

(Source: M G Vaidya’s article in Marathi daily ‘Tarun Bharat’ in July 2002, translated into English by Shri Madhu Deolekar, reproduced by www.hvk.org)

Luckily, the newsmen in India did not go to the extent that The Independent went. But The Independent report simply showed the true face of the Indian mediamen. They also reported in much the same way, the difference was only in the extent. Ignoring what the foreign media said, Sanghvi’s second observation is equally important. Did any of the ‘secularists’ of the Indian media bother to give any attention to the ‘provocations’ after the September 11 episode? As a matter of fact, at that time many warnings were given before September 11 to the Americans by Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda to change its policy its towards Muslims or face the consequences. And the consequences they had to face. But nobody bothered to even remember the warnings given by Al Qaeda or question the USA’s policies on Muslims, after the September 11 attack. It was infact, only a condemnation of the Islamic terrorism of the Al Qaeda and a concern about the danger the world faces because of it.

After Godhra, however, the VHP and the Sangh Parivar were bashed continuously and held guilty of the Godhra carnage even after Godhra. This tirade against the Sangh Parivar was noticed by Vir Sanghvi in his article’s last paragraph- “Have we become such prisoners of our own rhetoric that even a horrific massacre becomes nothing more than occasion for Sangh Parivar bashing? Another of Vir Sanghvi’s statement is equally important, “Why have we dehumanized these karsevaks to such an extent that we don’t even see the incidence as a tragedy which it undoubtedly was and treat it as just another consequence of the VHP’s fundamentalist policies?”

This is the most important revelation. Dehumanization. This approach of the media of dehumanizing the dead karsevaks including 14 children angered the entire nation. More so Gujarat, in which is Godhra situated.

The people of Gujarat were used to this policy of the TV channels and the print media. They were used to the continuous bashing of the Hindutva ideology, of the karsevaks, of the Ayodhya movement, of the VHP and the continuous defence of the Muslims. But the people thought that the Godhra massacre was just a bit too much. At least in such a horrifying massacre of innocent people including 14 children will make the hearts of the anti-Hindu ‘secularists’ bleed. Atleast in such a huge tragedy will the media stop insulting the karsevaks and abusing the VHP and the Ramjanmabhoomi movement. At least now, will the media condemn the fundamentalist Muslims and call them ‘Jehadis’ and criticize them for the unprovoked massacre.

But nothing of the sort happened. The media continued its usual ways. And Vir Sanghvi’s fear of a Hindu backlash became a terrifying reality.

But after the ‘backlash’ of the first three days, Vir Sanghvi forgot his own words which he uttered before the Hindu retaliation. He himself had warned his secularist brothers that their attitude was aggravating the Hindus. He himself warned of a retaliation and anger in the Hindus but forgot it while condemning the post-Godhra riots and calling Narendra Modi a ‘mass murderer’ many times in his newspaper’s editorial page.

This Hindu anger continued not just until the riots but until much later. This continued until atleast December 2002. On December 12 were held the Gujarat Assembly elections. The BJP won a huge majority of 127 out of the 182 seats with the Indian National Congress (INC) winning just 51. Not only that, the BJP’s popular vote reached a dizzying 50 %, a huge 11 % more than the Congress’ 39 % . Saurashtra and Kutch which did not see any riots even in the first three days after Godhra, also saw the BJP winning, and not just winning, but winning ‘hands down’. As per weekly ‘India Today’ dated 30 Decemeber 2002, out of the 102 riot affected seats the BJP won 79 seats. These numbers are also dubious. But let us assume that they are true. That means the BJP won 48 out of the remaining 80 non-riot affected seats which is still a majority with 60 % of the seats. 60 % is still a huge majority nonetheless considering that the BJP was in power in the state from 1995, with 2 terms. Despite anti-incumbency, this performance of the party was due to the Hindu anger after Godhra and the ‘secularist’ brigade’s reaction to it.

This Left-liberal-secular brigade also did another wrong. They tried to keep the number of attackers i.e. Muslims at the railway station at Godhra as less as they could. Kuldip Nayar gave it 500 in his column in an English daily ‘The Hitavada’ published from Nagpur. ‘India Today’ weekly in its issue dated 11 March 2002 also gave the number of attckers as 500. On Godhra Kuldip Nayar wrote, “If there was no Godhra then he (Narendra Modi) would have created a Godhra. The tragedy is that some Muslims played into his hands.” Others kept reducing the figure to 1,000 while some gave it 1,500. But the true figure is infact more than 2,000 as given by Vir Sanghvi. This figure is not important. It doesn’t really matter whether it is 2,000 or 1,500. But it simply discloses the attitude of the ‘secularists’ in dealing with the situation.

And they try to keep increasing the number of Muslims killed in the Gujarat riots, ignoring, ofcourse, the hundreds of Hindus also killed in the riots. When the UPA government (With Sonia Gandhi as its chairperson) and Leftists as outside supporters gave the figures of 790 Muslims and 254 Hindus killed in the riots (see details later in Chapter 7) what do they get by increasing the number of Muslims killed to 1,000 or 2,000 or 3,000 and lie that “Thousands of Muslims were killed in ‘genocide’, ‘pogrom’ or ‘massacre’” sponsored by the state government?