People's Democracy

GEORGE FERNANDES’ "deep pain at media reports" of his speech in parliament during the debate on Gujarat under Rule 184 and his self-serving clarifications do little to assuage the outrage felt by women all over India at his despicable remarks. Television cameras captured the moment when the defence minister of India spoke as the defence minister of criminals who had perpetrated grotesque acts of violence against Muslim women and children in Gujarat. Gesticulating rudely at the opposition, cheered on by his RSS friends, he appeared as he is, a man weakened so much by his lust for power that he has forgotten even the first lesson of political decency and human behaviour. Ridiculing the suffering of the victims, he had said, "A woman with her womb cut open and her foetus torn out, women raped, we have heard these stories for 50 years, it is what happened on the streets of Delhi in 1984."

Thousands of Sikhs were killed in 1984. What had Muslim women and children of Gujarat to do with it? Even if, as he now claims, it was the Congress party that was the target of his attack, can the terrible events of 1984 be cited as precedent for the current violence? Have you heard a single Sikh justifying the violence in Gujarat with the argument that since the Sikhs had faced violence in 1984, what is wrong if it is happening against Muslims now? On the contrary, members of the Sikh community have been appalled at the ease with which leaders quote their examples and yet, have done nothing to expedite the processes of justice.

Past events of communal cruelty, and state connivance should surely be lessons for democratic governments to put into place measures to prevent their recurrence. George Fernandes has, on the contrary, used past violence to justify the present violence in Gujarat. This goes even beyond the sickening reference to the "action-reaction" theory floated by Modi and later used by the prime minister in Goa. The message to women is: since in Independent India, there is nothing new in your being made special targets of communal attack, you had better suffer it in silence.

On his many trips to Gujarat, like other central minister, Fernandes had neither the time nor the inclination to meet any of the women victims or the survivors and did not visit a single rural camp where many of them have taken shelter. Without doing so, how could he misuse the floor of parliament to so insensitively rubbish the reports of sexual assault on women? Earlier, in his famous peace march in Ahmedabad in the company of the man who was a sponsor of the carnage, Fernandes had made the facile plea to the victims to "forget the past and look to the future". Perhaps they would, if they could feel that justice had been done. Does Fernandes not know that the police even today are refusing to file FIRs in most cases of rape? Does he not know that those named are all free men roaming the streets? Has he bothered to find out why, of the 32,000 claimed to have been arrested by the government, almost all are out on bail because the charges against them were trivial? According to an estimate by a reputed NGO in Gujarat between March 1 and April 1, the population in Gujarat’s jails increased by only 1500.

Not far from the horribly torched carriage of the Sabarmati Express that Fernandes had visited, is the Iqbalpur relief camp in which a young 21-year old woman has taken shelter. On February 27, when an angered mob committed the unspeakable atrocity of burning 58 people, including women and children, to death, she, five months pregnant and frail, was resting in her home in a village in Panchamahal district. She knew nothing of the incident. Today, she tells you in a monotone as though speaking of someone else, of how she, her three-year-old daughter and her extended family of 12 members tried to escape the mob which surrounded their village on March 1, of how they were caught of how her child was taken from her arms and smashed to the ground, of how she and all the six women with her were gangraped and how she regained consciousness to find them all dead beside her, covered with stones. Of that group she is the only survivor. Her's was the first of the only three FIRs registered on rape. She has named the men responsible for the rape and the killings. That was two months ago, but not a single one of them has been arrested.

During the parliamentary debate, there was not a word from the Treasury benches that would give any hope to her or to the numerous victims like her that they would get justice. Fernandes’ comments will, in fact, make the search for justice even more difficult. Quickly following the example of his protector, Narendra Modi attacked the opposition for calling five crore Gujaratis rapist and warned them that they would have to pay a heavy price for such comments. Thus, complaints of rape by victims against criminals of the Bajrang Dal and the VHP get transformed into accusations against "all Gujaratis", in whose defence the chief minister stands. In any civilised country, such a man would be behind bars. Instead, he is defended by the rulers of India.

What is required today is a national recognition that the scale and savagery of violence against Muslim women and children in Gujarat has been unprecedented. This recognition is essential because only then can there be the required national endeavour to help the victims.

Towards this end and as part of the wider struggle for the restoration of the rule of law and Constitution in Gujarat and for the removal of the chief minister, women’s organisations throughout India will be observing May 13 as a day in solidarity with the women victims of Gujarat. The three demands being highlighted are: immediate filing of FIRs in cases of sexual assault, and violence against women and arrest of all those named; the institution of special courts with a time-bound mandate in all such cases; rehabilitation measures specifically designed for families rendered female headed because male members were killed.