People's Democracy

TWO rallies held in Kolkata on April 28 sharply condemned the communal carnage in Gujarat The speakers at the rallies included former Bengal chief minister, Jyoti Basu, Urdu playwright and lyricist, Javed Akhtar, and noted actress and Rajya Sabha MP, Shabana Azmi.

Speaking at the rally held at the Yuva Bharati stadium at Salt Lake, Jyoti Basu said that the impending discussion of the Gujarat issue in the Parliament would expose those who would take up a stand in favour of the forces that orchestrated the killings in the aftermath of the Godhra incident. The focus of attention of the nation, said the CPI (M) leader, would be on those political parties who would stand behind the BJP-led union government’s decision not to remove the incumbent chief minister Narendra Modi and who would, thus, reveal themselves in their true light.

Lambasting the Gujarat government, Jyoti Basu charged the Modi administration of abetting the ghastly trail of murder, loot, and arson. The fact that the nation had to witness such terrible transgressions of human dignity in Gujarat even after more than half-a-century of political independence, said Basu, "continues to sadden us no end." Basu iterated his thesis about the Vajpayee government being uncivil and inhuman, and he pointed out that the prime minister had lost face long before the Gujarat killings when he had kept his equanimity after the Babari Masjid had been pulled down back in December 1992.

In his address to the rally held at Yuva Bharati stadium, and at the Park Circus maidan, Javed Akhtar said that the stand taken by the prime minister, A B Vajpayee, and by the leaders of the BJP, over the Gujarat killings would go a long way towards wounding and tarnishing the secular tradition of the Indian civilisation. Vajpayee, said Akhtar, continued to put the entire country to shame by way of his adoption of a shameful stance on the Gujarat killings, which was not at all becoming of a prime minister of India.

Shabana Azmi drew the attention of the people to the numerous instances of violation of the modesty of women by the rioters in an organised spree of mayhem. It was a shame, said Azmi, that Gujarat chief minister Modi was being allowed to continue in office after his condemnable role in the Gujarat riots.

Other speakers at the two meetings included, anti-communalism activist and lawyer, Teesta Setalvad, and the noted economist Ashok Mitra who presided over the Park Circus meeting, and Left Front government minister, Mohammad Salim who was in the chair at the Yuva Bharati stadium rally.