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The Truth of the 2002 riots

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Myth 14: Sangh Parivar organisations like VHP organized the riots

Posted on May 24, 2009June 3, 2012 by admin

Fact: Out of Gujarat’s 18,600 villages, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) had units in 10,000 villages at the time of the riots of 2002. If it had wanted, it could have easily organized retaliatory riots in many of these 10,000 villages. Instead, only 40 out of the state’s 18,600 villages saw riots. VHP General Secretary Dr Praveen Togadia is a Patel and hails from Saurashtra region of Gujarat- just like Keshubhai Patel. And yet, no riots happened in Saurashtra at all- even in the first 3 days!

On the other hand, the scale of the riots on February 28 in Ahmedabad was so large, that no organisation or group of organisations, like the Sangh Parivar could have done it alone. It was a spontaneous mass reaction to the Godhra killings.

Many people have asked-“On one hand you say nothing happened-hardly 40 villages saw riots. On the other hand you say that the riots were so enormous that they could not have been organized by anyone”.

Both these things are simultaneously true. On February 28 in Ahmedabad- there were 17,000 people attacking Muslims in Naroda Patiya area- as per the report of the then Police Inspector of the area- K.K. Mysorewala. India Today weekly also reports in its issue dated 18 March 2002 that the Charas had attacked in Naroda Patiya leading 3 mobs of at least 4 to 5 thousand each. At one point of time in Ahmedabad there were at least 25,000 people targeting Muslim localities. The mob outside Ehsan Jafri’s house was 10,000 strong. The police force of 6,000 for Ahmedabad out of which only 1500 were armed and the Rapid Action Force and the CRPF jawans could not control the violence. The Hindu also reported the next day that the situation seemed to slip out of control. Ahmedabad Police received 3,500 calls instead of the normal 200. It was beyond the means of the Sangh Parivar- or anybody to organise mobs on such a large scale in Ahmedabad within 24 hours.

However, the VHP could have easily organised riots in many of the 10,000 villages in Gujarat where it had units, either on February 28, or days after that.

On February 27 occurred the Godhra massacre. That same day the RSS gave a statement saying- “RSS condemns the killings and calls for restraint”. The Hindu also reported in its report on Feb 28 that the “RSS appealed to the people to exercise restraint”.

The then RSS Joint General Secretary Madan Das Devi said-“Now is the test of the patience of the Hindu society…These killings are a ploy of the terrorists to create riots…”. This was reported in weekly Organiser, the weekly mouthpiece of the RSS, in its issue dated 10 March 2002, which covered events till 27 February.  In the 10 March 2002 issue itself, two RSS leaders- Madan Das Devi and Mohan Bhagwat gave statement’s asking the Hindu society to maintain peace. The Telegraph reported on 28th February 2002-

“The RSS rallied behind the Prime Minister, pleading for restraint. Joint general secretary Madan Das Devi said: “The tolerance of the Hindu society is a litmus test. Instead of taking the law into their hands, people should cooperate with the state government in dealing with the serious situation.”

See link:

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1020228/front_pa.htm#head1

See the statement by Madan Das Devi in the topic- “Nation faces trial by fire” 9th paragraph from the top. 

The VHP also appealed for peace. The Times of India reported on 28 February 2002 even before a single major riot had taken place: “VHP international Vice-President Acharya Giriraj Kishore told reporters here at Sola Civil Hospital, where 54 out of the 58 bodies of the train attack victims were brought, that: “Hindus should maintain calm and keep patience. I appeal to Muslim brethren to condemn the attack and ask them not to put Hindus’ patience to test. Hindus are keeping a restraint but if such incidents do not stop, there can be a counter reaction which may be uncontrollable”.”

http://www.timesofindia.com/articleshow.asp?art_ID=2347298

On 2nd March 2002- www.rediff.com reported quoting Agencies:

“RSS,VHP appeal for peace in Gujarat

In the wake of mounting violence in Gujarat, the RSS and VHP on Saturday appealed to their volunteers to avoid any action that would disturb peace in the country and expressed hope that ‘good sense will prevail’.

“I appeal to all RSS volunteers, sympathisers and friends who have faith in Hindutva to do their utmost in preventing any activity – like sloganeering and stone-pelting – that would disrupt peace, keeping in view the disturbed situation in the country for it would only strengthen the hands of anti-national terrorist elements,” RSS general secretary Mohan Bhagwat said in a statement in Delhi.

He urged followers of other faiths not to fall prey to the instigation of terrorist elements and ‘to conduct themselves as children of India along with their Hindu brethren’.(This statement of Mohan Bhagwat was reported in weekly Organiser in the 10 March 2002 issue. This statement was given on 27 Feb itself).

Meanwhile, the VHP also made an appeal to put an end to the ongoing violence in Gujarat, saying ‘any kind of violence against anyone’ was a matter of concern.

Talking to reporters in Delhi, VHP spokesman Veereshwar Dwivedi said: “The Godhra incident and the violence that followed was tragic. Any kind of violence against anyone is a matter of concern.”

Calling for an end to the ongoing carnage in Gujarat, he said: “Good sense must prevail soon.”

Dwivedi also condoled the deaths and expressed sympathies for those affected by the violence in the state.

He, however, regretted that opposition parties had decided to send a delegation to Gujarat to assess the situation but did not consider it appropriate to do so after the Godhra killings.

Dwivedi said this was being done taking vote bank politics into consideration.

Agencies”

The URL for this is:

http://www.rediff.com/news/2002/mar/02train10.htm

17 thoughts on “Myth 14: Sangh Parivar organisations like VHP organized the riots”

  1. Vivek says:
    July 20, 2009 at 10:41 AM

    Only,I can say
    “JAI SRI RAM”

    Reply
  2. bushcoli says:
    September 5, 2009 at 10:24 PM

    i had attended lots of shaka classes held by sangh.. but now i quit, you know why.. they always talks about unity , but only by showing a target ,point out an enemy, create a big lie , all forced to belive me that islam and christian are our enemies.. made be intolerant and i did great mistakes under sangh cover…but later i realized that they are the real culprits .. i read history of india… and hinduism is far from what sangh taught me.. they tarnish the real hinduism.. tthe best “ismm” in india is secularismm.. islam is a beautiful religion, but their followers may be wrong.. for that reason why should i hate them.. i saw the real face of sangh during gujarat riots. they killed innocent peple including children.thats a fact, bcz i saw that by my raw eyes. being a common man my mind shattered .. muslims also have the right to live there..what gujjus did in 2002 is historical mistake..,
    one thing i want to remind u is that “akhand bharat” is wrong concept, not possible in secular india, the more u try for that the more u become defamed, , the more u loose people like me , like what happpenned in gujurat.
    work together for the glory of india, unite by the thoughts of proud india…
    ..

    Reply
  3. Shashank Swami says:
    September 6, 2009 at 7:03 AM

    To Bushcoli,

    You have taken the things wrongly…..
    Sangh dosen’t consider Muslims and Christians as their enemies…..

    It is Muslims and Christian’s mindset only which is considering Sangh as enemy!!

    Sangh on other hand dosen’t discriminate people on the basis of the caste…..

    It is their mindset which Sangh wants to purify !!

    Coming to that you said sangh cutting innocent people…

    WERE YOUR EYES BLIND WHEN KARSEVAKS WERE BURNT ALIVE AND WERE PUSHED INTO THE BURNING TRAIN WITH STICKS WHEN THEY TRIED TO ESCAPE??

    You are getting wrong view ……

    WAKE UP FROM YOUR SLEEP..

    This secularism will obviously hold your neck one day….

    SECULARISM IS A SLOW POISON FOR THE NATIONS INTEGRITY, UNITY AND HARMONY ….
    “AKHAND BHARAT” is the only way to keep INDIA united ….

    Hope you will recover your sensibility

    Secularism seems to have weekend your balanced thinkng….

    Hope you will know that soon !!!!

    JAI SRI RAM !!

    JAI HIND!!

    Reply
  4. Deepak says:
    September 21, 2009 at 1:03 AM

    VHP, a band of saffronite thugs

    The bloodletting story of the VHP is not new. Don’t talk of the Babri Masjid demolition alone. Its name has surfaced in innumerable cases of targetting different minorities in the country, including Christians and Sikhs. In fact just around this time last year, it were Christians who were the target of this bunch of hoodlums. These thugs don’t hide their intentions. They talk openly about their heinous plans and there is no one to keep a tab on these criminals.

    The latest carnage of Muslims in Gujarat is not a spontaneous reaction of what happened at Godhra railway station, it seems a well thought out plan to eliminate Muslims from the state. The VHP and its offshoot Bajrang Dal had been forming their armies of Kar Sevaks and providing martial arts and firearms training to them in different parts of the country. Gujarat, with their own government at the saddle, was their main target. It has been touted as the laboratory of the Sangh. It was only last year when the VHP had announced to create a band of about 1 million militant cadres with the trishul (trident), committed to build the Ram temple at Ayodhya by this time of the year. The Bajrang Dal chief, Surendra Jain at that time had said the aim of building a cadre-base of about three million didn’t have any political connotation. Their oath would be limited to building the Ram temple at the disputed site. The first batch of about 11,000 was administered the oath and given the trishul in January last year.

    No body seemed to be concerned over these announcements and as to why they were announcing to form their own armies and providing arms training to their cadres. People were amazed over the repeated announcements being made by these people but thought that all this was a publicity stunt. But we have been repeatedly warning the government on what is going to happen if these people are allowed to raise their own armies. The temple construction needed architectural expertise and not firearms training.

    Our warnings seemed to be true. It seems to be a fact that these hoodlums who are now on the prowl in Ahmedabad, Surat, Baroda, Godhra, Rajkot and all other cities and villages in Gujarat are the same people who were provided with arms training by the VHP, Bajrang Dal and other Sangh outfits. It is not far from comprehension that these armies were raised to do what they are doing now. Killing and maiming people. And shamelessly their leaders have been justifying the killings of thousands of men, women and children, and torching of their houses and business establishments.

    And the VHP is not alone in this business. It is doing what the RSS always tried to do. The VHP, the BJP and Bajrang Dal and numerous other organizations are just parts of the RSS and these are out to fulfill its agenda. Though they claim to have separate set-ups, they all are with the RSS, be it the BJP or the VHP or anyone of its offshoots for that reason. Uma Bharati, who is a BJP MP and a cabinet minister in the central government now, was an active member of the VHP till a few years back. The infamous Vinay Katiyar, BJP’s MP from Faizabad was a RSS parcharak during 1980-83. He later, from instructions of the VHP leaders founded the Bajrang Dal, another platform for hoodlums in 1984. Jaibhan Singh Pawaiya, a BJP MP from Gwalior joined RSS in 1973, became secretary of the VHP, Madhya Pradesh in 1983. He was general secretary of Bajrang Dal in 1993 and in 1995 he became its president. The line is blurred. And there is no difference between any of these organizations. These are formed to accomplish the task of the RSS.

    The VHP was launched by the RSS in 1964 and it was the RSS cadres who were handed over to the VHP. Its sole aim has been to arouse majority Hindus’ sentiments against Christian missionaries and Muslims. It has always come to the rescue of the BJP and the RSS when they needed it. It formed its own Dharm Sansad bypassing the traditional Hindu clergy consisting of Shankaracharyas of four peeths. The four shankaracharyas have resented the formation of the Dharm Sansad and have been opposing it ever since. When the four Shankaracharyas of Sringeri, Dwarka and Badri, Kanchi and Govardhan Peeth, Puri met in April 1994 to establish a trust to oversee the construction of Ram temple at Ayodhya, the VHP went all out to get its own shankaracharya, who was not recognized by the four, into the proposed trust. The idea of such a trust had set alarm bells in the VHP which had repeatedly claimed that the right to construct the temple lay only with Nyas, a trust formed by the VHP. This trust has collected unaccounted money from within the country and without for the construction of the Ram temple.

    Nonetheless, the VHP has not budged and it continues to flaunt its Dharm Sansad. Backed by the RSS, the VHP has extended its area of functioning beyond India. This Sangh Parivar outfit now wields considerable influence over home-sick Hindus settled abroad and has built a fortune over the issue of construction of Ram Temple at Ayodhya.

    It always comes to the rescue of the BJP whenever its political graph seems to be plummeting. It is perceived that the dates of starting construction of Ram temple at the Babri Masjid site from 12 March were announced by its Dharm Sansad keeping in mind the elections in UP. But the Election Commission disturbed this apple-cart when it advanced the elections, thus thrashing their plan to reap the fruits of communal frenzy. The BJP has done immensely bad and has been relegated to third spot in the absence of a temple hype at the time of elections. There were news that claimed that the VHP will postpone the Ram temple campaign if a BJP government comes to power in the state and will intensify it if a non-BJP government takes the charge.

    It is the reason as to why the government has not taken a serious stand on the one sided killing of Muslims in Gujarat and why the BJP chief minister, a former RSS pracharak Narendra Modi, instead of trying to control the situation and condemn the killings has time and again tried to justify the dance macabre of these hoodlums. His statements justifying the carnage seem to have bolstered the rampaging VHP mobs and given a clear direction to the police as to what they should do. The already saffronized police force in the state has been given instructions not to act against these thugs. These riots too are going to help the VHP in the assembly elections slated to be held next year.

    There is very thin line if any, differentiating between different Sangh Parivar organizations. And these too get blurred every now and then. The VHP is the most wild of all these. But others too are not far behind.

    Reply
  5. JACK says:
    September 29, 2009 at 4:10 AM

    There is a

    Reply
  6. Harsh sehgal says:
    June 18, 2010 at 2:36 PM

    Ek hi sapna hindurashtra ho apna

    Reply
  7. Ak says:
    June 30, 2010 at 3:10 AM

    bushcoli Is Really Correct !
    one thing i want to remind u is that “akhand bharat” is wrong concept, not possible in secular india, the more u try for that the more u become defamed, , the more u loose people like me , like what happpenned in gujurat.
    work together for the glory of india, unite by the thoughts of proud india…

    Reply
  8. SRINIVASAN says:
    July 28, 2010 at 10:38 AM

    iam sangh person.now iam a mukiyaa sikshak.our determination is aganda bharath
    but it will not happen at now or feature at any cost.bcz now a days v csnnot
    compramise the goverment or islamic & christian activities.it will be done aat 1970,s when we missed at that time we cant achieve.instead of closing the sangh just we can run the sangh thats all.bcz now days shaka is decrease and the running shaka also sankya is decrease.what is the people cannot want to give time in current life style.

    Reply
  9. Daz says:
    December 30, 2010 at 8:39 PM

    Bushcoli, u are truly a fool if you indeed think that Islam is a beautiful religion and that RSS has hijacked Hindusim. wake up son.

    Reply
  10. Daz says:
    December 30, 2010 at 8:40 PM

    Hindustan for Hindus!

    Reply
  11. kirtan says:
    January 2, 2011 at 7:12 PM

    bushcoil- u never attended any RSS classes.Had u done so,u wud have been in awe of RSS.The poison dripping in ur sentences is the direct fruit of a bible or a kuran reading guy.And I personally dont even care to bother about people like you.

    Every action has an equal reaction.Muslims suffered caused they burned hindus.Christians suffered cause they convert hindus by force.

    Reply
  12. Dipesh patel says:
    December 4, 2011 at 1:55 PM

    Hey bushcoli,,u seems to be brainwashed by some muslim clerics or fanatics.,u r talking about hindu targetting muslims,where were u when kashmiri pandits were butchered by muslims,go to google n scan the history howmuch hindus (80 millions so far) have been massacred by muslims…u r anti hindu like tahelka news who always portraiting hindus as criminal n muslim an innocent..n why do u forget that nearly 300 hindus were killed in 2002 gujrat riots…

    Reply
  13. pradip says:
    February 13, 2012 at 5:00 PM

    muze lagta hey ki hame hamesha tayyar rahena chaye ,q ki ye muslim kabhi bhi koi bhi sabar mati jala sakti hey, or koi bhi kasab ko bula sakte hey, esi liye jagte raho, sadhavi pradhya sing je ki jay

    Reply
  14. rupika says:
    February 16, 2012 at 1:35 AM

    @pradip its really shamefull to see that people like are really spoiling the community.hindus muslim like divisions are created by these bloody politicians SITTING AT YOUR HOME SOMEWHERE IN UK AND POSTING BULLSHIT COMMENTS wont change the truth that thounsands of lives were lost including children irresepective of riligion everybody was killed first go and learn some respect for human being LIVNING SOMEWHERE ELSE AND TALKING ITS QUITE TOO EASY. AND regarding the true story??? nobody knows yet f***king politicians getting CLEAN CHITS on this issue.

    Reply
  15. pradip says:
    February 16, 2012 at 1:38 PM

    dear rupika , darasal bat yeh hey ki ,a.c mey baith kar comunity or yekta key bate karna asan hey, agar tumhe kuch malum nahi hey to bakvas mat karo, agar aj pure hindustan mey kahi bhi riots hote hey ,to tum dekho ge key muslim logonke pas ,petrol key bom tayyar honge , revolver milenge , kaha se aye ye? or etni jaldi kese mile tumko? , are dosto enke ghar mey hey, ye sub,

    Reply
  16. Ak says:
    February 23, 2012 at 5:05 PM

    Ek Hi sapna Shand sundar Bharat aapna basssssssssssssss…Baaki sab desh me jhagde lagane waalo bhaaaaaaaad me jao….

    Reply
  17. Omar says:
    February 26, 2012 at 7:55 PM

    RSS should be renamed as Riots Shiksha Sangathan!

    Reply

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  • 01 – The Godhra Carnage
  • 02- Role of the Government in controlling violence
  • 03-Gujarat's Bloody History of Violence
  • 04-Attacks on Hindus
  • 05-Attacks on Muslims
  • 07-Contrasts between 1984 and Gujarat 2002 riots
  • 10- Some Court Judgments
  • 11- Tehelka lies
  • 12-Concocted Lies and Myths by the media
  • Justice Tewatia Committe's report
  • Listen Indian media and politicians
  • Our Debates
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