People's Democracy

"My heart is thorn-filled with longing for Gujarat

Restless, frantic, flame-wrapped in the spring

On earth there exists no balm for its wound

My heart split asunder by the dagger of separation"

THE tomb is no more. But much more has happened. Listen to some survivors of the carnage and the excerpts of an all women fact-finding team on Gujarat once considered Gandhi's land.

The following are excerpts from a detailed report – "How has the Gujarat massacre affected minority women? The Survivors speak "—released in New Delhi on April 16, 2002 by a six- member team which conducted the study. The team members were: Syeda Hameed, Muslim Women’s Forum, Delhi; Ruth Manorama, National Alliance of Women, Bangalore; Malini Ghose, Nirantar, Delhi; Sheba George, Sahrwaru, Ahmedabad; Farah Naqvi, independent journalist, Delhi and Mari Thekaekara, Accord, Tamil Nadu. They undertook a five-day fact-finding mission from March 27-31, 2002, to assess the impact of the continuing violence on minority women in Gujarat.

"Other fact-finding teams have also visited Gujarat post-Godhra. However, given the particular targeting of women in this carnage, there was an urgent need for a sectoral investigation into how women in particular have been affected. The objective of the fact-finding was to determine the nature and extent of the crimes against women; find evidence of the role played by the police and other state institutions in protecting women; determine new elements in the current spate of violence and distinguish it from previous rounds of communal violence in Gujarat; determine the role of organisations like the VHP and Bajrang Dal in both the build-up to the current carnage as well as in actually unleashing the violence.

The team visited seven relief camps in both rural and urban areas (Ahmedabad, Kheda, Vadodara, Sabarkantha and Panchmahal districts) and spoke to a large number of women survivors. Ensuring that women’s voices are heard was a matter of priority for the entire team. The team also spoke to intellectuals, activists, members of the media, administration, and leaders from the BJP, including MLA Maya Kodnani, an accused named in the FIR in the Naroda Patia massacre. The fact-finding was conducted under conditions of continuing violence and curfew in many parts of the state.

We have been shaken and numbed by the scale and brutality of the violence that is still continuing in Gujarat. Despite reading news reports, we were unprepared for what we saw and heard; for fear in the eyes and anguish in the words of ordinary women whose basic human right to live a life of dignity has been snatched away from them".

MAIN FINDINGS OF THE TEAM

• The pattern of violence does not indicate "spontaneous" action. There was pre-planning, organisation, and precision in the targeting.
• There is compelling evidence of sexual violence against women. These crimes against women have been grossly under-reported and the exact extent of these crimes—in rural and urban areas—demands further investigation. Among the women surviving in relief camps are many who have suffered the most bestial forms of sexual violence—including rape, gang rape, mass rape, stripping, insertion of objects into their body, molestations. A majority of rape victims have been burnt alive.
• There is evidence of state and police complicity in perpetuating crimes against women. No effort was made to protect women. No Mahila police was deployed.
• The impact on women has been physical, economic and psychological. On all three fronts there is no evidence of state efforts to help them
• The state of the relief camps, as mothers struggle to keep their children alive in the most appalling physical conditions, is indicative of the continued abdication of the state responsibilities.
• Rural women have been affected by communal violence on this scale for the first time.
• There is evidence that the current carnage was preceded by an escalation of tension and build-up by the VHP and the Bajrang Dal.
• There is an alarming trend towards ghettoisation of the Muslim community in rural areas for the first time.
• Sections of the Gujarati vernacular press played a dangerous and criminal role in promoting the violence, particularly in provoking sexual violence against women.

The following were some of the general recommendations made by the

team :

• Immediate removal of the chief minister and imposition of President’s rule.
• Immediate conviction of all those criminals who killed, burnt, maimed and looted ordinary citizens, from the top down, not sparing high executives, senior public servants and police officials.
• Examination of the role of the state, including the political executive, in planning, abetting, or containing the violence in Gujarat after February 28, 2002. Charges to be framed accordingly and action taken.
• Immediate setting up of special courts, with non-partisan judges from outside Gujarat, for trying the cases on a daily basis and delivering quick justice. The victims to be given state assistance for legal battle.
• CBI to be assigned for investigation into riots in the worst hit areas such as Godhra, Naroda Patia, Gulbarga Society, and Best Bakery, Vadodra.
• Set up an independent commission headed by a sitting Supreme Court Judge to enquire into both phases of violence-Godhra and post-Godhra.

The team has made in all twelve recommendations pertaining specifically to women. Some of them are :

• The issue of sexual violence is grossly under-reported, especially in rural areas. Testimonies from all the affected areas need to be recorded on an urgent basis to understand the nature and extent of crimes committed against women. This task must be done immediately as many of the victims may soon start leaving the camps.
• FIRs need to be lodged immediately. A special task force, comprised of people from outside Gujarat, to be set up immediately for taking cognizance of the context in which sexual violence has taken place and commence the task of filing FIRs. A time limit should be set within which justice will be dispensed for cases of sexual violence.
• For cases of rape, medical examinations should not be treated as the basic evidence. Given the testimonies, many women were fleeing for several days and did not have access to medical facilities, medical examinations should not be asked for at all.
• Counselling to be provided immediately, even before registering the cases so that the women are able to give essential information, which they have difficulty speaking about. People with expertise in trauma counselling need to be identified and assigned to this task.
• Women’s rights activists to be enabled to work freely among the survivors and police protection to be provided to them. Those harassing them should be charged and brought to book.
• It is imperative that the appalling sanitary conditions be improved and better health care be provided in the camps. Adequate facilities to address the health needs of pregnant women and the trauma of all the camp residents, particularly women, must be provided.
• Given the government’s negligence and the negligence of the National Commission for Women to make itself available (until the writing of this report), the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women should be called in for investigation and assessment.
• In all the relief work, rehabilitation should be treated as a separate issue and not be confused with relief and immediate cash compensation.

In testimony after testimony, people identified by name members of the Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad involved in inciting and committing violence. The fact-finding team spoke with women activists and victims in the camps about their views on the growing polarisation between the Hindu and Muslim communities. Both sets of people linked it to the aggressive agenda of the sangh parivar- particularly the Bajrang Dal, VHP and, in some cases, the Shiv Sena. In the rural context, women directly linked a rise in tension with the establishment of local units of the Bajrang Dal and the VHP. They spoke of meetings organised by these groups and the arms they distributed at these meetings. Many believe that the tension has really escalated in the last six months. For instance Jayanti Ravi, Collector Panchmahals confirmed that in October – November 2001, (near the time of Navratri), there has been tension in the area. Around that time several activities like Ramdhun and trishul distribution programme had been organised. Women activists have been directly threatened by these organisations.

The team saw small rays of hope too. It said: "Everywhere the fact-finding team went, we heard cases of ordinary Hindus and Adivasis protecting Muslims. This was also true of urban areas. These were small but significant moments in our fact-finding mission – signs of humanity and compassion in the otherwise overwhelming narrative of hate.

Krishan Nagar, a semi-slum cluster in Vadodara is inhabited by poor Hindu and equally poor Muslim families. The fact-finding team visited the home of Shri Pillai who is responsible for saving the lives of 500 muslims of the area by hiding them in his house. He and his wife heard of the impending attack by the mob while they were at a Muslim barat (Hindus and Muslims were attending each others’ functions). Apprehending trouble, Pillai along with his 3 brothers, started quietly to bring Muslim families into his house. Between all the brothers they kept them for 24 hours, fed them and left them in safety at the Qureshi Jamatkhana.

In Sabarkantha and Panchmahals many women and children received help from members of the Adivasi community when they were hiding from mobs in the forest. These are two examples.

In its conclusions the report unequivocally condemned the Godhra carnage and the barbaric acts of killing and terror wreaked on innocent Muslims by communalised mobs in Ahmedabad and other areas in Gujarat. It has asserted that what happened post-Godhra in Gujarat was in the nature of a pogrom in its essential design and has the makings of a larger agenda for the subjugation, crushing and elimination of religious minorities. While nothing can justify or rationalize inhuman acts such as the burning of the bogie near Godhra railway station, it is clear that the intelligence of the state government failed in its responsibility to forewarn. Not only that. Its aforesaid failure enabled communal elements to take hold of the state. Our findings reveal that the post – Godhra carnage did not happen as a spontaneous reaction to burning one bogie of the Sabarmati Express but that it was a calculated response, the culmination of a hate campaign carried on for more than a decade to promote the Hindutva ideology.

Shocked by what they saw the fact finding team quotes the famous poet W. B. Yeats when he said:

"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Are full of passionate intensity"