Dev - The Anatomy of A Communal Carnage

#69 by dost-mittar on July 27, 2004 8:22am PT
``That indeed is the sad part, showing the extent of embedded prejudice in the society.``

Thus, according to you whereever BJP got elected the society there is embedded in prejudice and whereever they lost is a society free of prejudice.

You dont like Modi because you think he is guilty but there is no reason to insult gujaratis for electing him. Do you what these leads to: If I dont agree with you, then I am a bigot and if you dont agree with me, then you are a bigot.
People of gujarat elected Modi who you had hoped would lose bitterly. That means your view and views of people in gujarat are different. That does not mean that gujarati society has prejudice embedded in it while you are on high moral ground of having no prejudice against anyone. BJP won about 70% of seats in state election. That might mean that gujaratis know something about Modi that you dont or it could be somehow you were revealed some secrets of Modi that unfortunately gujaratis didnt know about. But it does not show any extent of prejudice embedded in gujarati society.

rahulmal:
``We have moved from the tyrannyical days of Stalinist Nehru and Indira Gandhi when state governments were dismissed at the drop of a hat. Not any more. Article 356 will be used by centre at its own peril.``

I should have clarified. I do not believe that Vajpayee should have used article 356. He should have removed Modi in the same way that he had been brought in, by a change in the Gujarat party leadership at the behest of the party top brass in Delhi.

``Heck!! Modi also won an election after riots, should have added to his legitimacy. But no, you topiwallahs have your own rules of legitimacy.``

That indeed is the sad part, showing the extent of embedded prejudice in the society.

dost-mittar,

Another knee-jerk reaction from a pseudo-secularist, `blood of the beards is thicker than the blood of the infidels` types.

``Advani could easily be Tejinder and Vajpayee could have been Dev, if he had chosen to follow his conscience and dismissed Modi.`` Why should Vajpayee not dismiss Laloo, Jayalalitha, Mualayam, or Mufti Sayeed? Laloo has destroyed Bihar. Mulayam, Mayawati, Kalyan and a whole bunch of fools are trying to ape the Bihar model in U.P. Jayalalitha`s sarees, footwear and jewellery are imprinted in the national psyche as the most glaring instance of corruption. And what about Sayeed? He led the `faithful` in anti-Hindu riots in `87, a mirror image of what those goons Tytler and Sajjan Kumar did in Delhi. Why should they be left alone and Modi crucified?

We have moved from the tyrannyical days of Stalinist Nehru and Indira Gandhi when state governments were dismissed at the drop of a hat. Not any more. Article 356 will be used by centre at its own peril. Heck!! Modi also won an election after riots, should have added to his legitimacy. But no, you topiwallahs have your own rules of legitimacy.

I dread the fact that you guys are too much into flogging a dead horse. The riots are over, there has been no repeat of the incident. Remeber Akshardham, it could have caused a reaction similar to Godhara, but nothing happened. So, stop trying to make Modi the fall guy for all the failings of our nation-state. You`ll make him a national hero.

If he is sacrificed on the altar of egos of p-sec brigade, he`ll become a leader of the Hindutva masses. You`ll write articles on the rigth-wing takeover of India, and our girls will be whipped for buying greeting cards. Don`t do this to us, please. Don`t make a national leader out of Modi.

Let me try to understand this from my perspective as a previously perplexed observor, an observor of nature, wherein nature has its own methods for solving issues pertaining to life and death:-

a) Muslim kills Kafir is OK. Fine and dandy.
b) Muslim kills Muslim is also OK. Just call the killed Muslim a non-Muslim.
c) But Kafir kills Muslim is genocide. Needs secular solutions.

Right?

So where does India come in as a stand-alone?

re:#51 by Ashutosh_Gandhi
Gujarat carnage talked about in a congressional hearing:
http://www.milligazette.com/Archives/01072002/0107200254.htm

And in Congressional hearing on International Religious freedom:

http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/intlrel/hfa82261.000/hfa82261_0f.htm


(AN EVALUATION OF THE ANNUAL REPORT ON INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

HEARING BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS AND HUMAN RIGHTS OF THE COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION ,OCTOBER 9, 2002)

Relevant passages:

1. (After 58 Hindus were killed at a train station, hundreds and perhaps a thousand Muslims were killed in the state of Gujarat in retaliatory attacks by Hindu mobs. Many were burned to death; others were stabbed, shot or suffered other atrocities, including rape and mutilation. Official bodies within India found evidence in the killings of premeditation by some Hindu extremists; complicity by Gujarat state government officials; and police inaction in the midst of attacks on Muslims. While it may be true that the BJP-led central government has not been directly responsible for the violence against religious minorities, it is clear that this government has not done all that it could to pursue the perpetrators of the attacks and to counteract the prevailing climate of hostility against these minority groups.)

2. (The Indian government (according to the Department of State) is ``less likely to act against Hindu extremists implicated in communal violence.`` )

3, ( Additionally, India has rules and plans in place to quell ``communal violence`` and establish federal rule on an emergency basis; in the case of Gujarat, such plans were not enforced.)

And, finally, here is the ``Testimony of Robert M. Hathaway
U.S. COMMISSION ON INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
HEARING ON COMMUNAL VIOLENCE IN GUJARAT, INDIA AND THE U.S. RESPONSE
JUNE 10, 2002``
http://www.imc-usa.org/cgi-bin/htdocs/reports/robertReport.htm
Hope this helps to dispel any doubts u have. The world thinks Modi is a scum.
Sridhar

Arjun:

Under no circumstyance am I defending Modi at all. I apologize for giving that impression. My issue is with a scenario where the pot is calling the kettle black.

#53 by pmishra2 on July 26, 2004 3:01pm PT
I think it does matter to find out the real culprits for godhra and aftermath of godhra as it would help to prevent in future. Riots have happened often is many parts of India and not just gujarat but I was amazed to see english media quickly blame it on Modi. It was astounding that they decide to publish lies about Modis statement. The best one was ``Every action has reaction`` while he never said that.
Many people dont like his religious fervour but India is not any european country whose secular credentials be used in India. There is nothing wrong in not being secular as long as one has same respect for his religion and other religions.
There are people/politician who dearly love to exploit religious facts. For them Jesus and Mohammed are fact but Ram and Krishna are myth. As long as politicians tend to play this game these kind of riots will happen.
The best thing would be to get rid of those politicians. And to get rid of them, people have to cast vote against them. That leads to how does one decide to vote in India. Education will play a very important role. Today a person is considered literate if (s)he could read & write his name. The quality of public education is very absymal. One of the reason for chinas growth is that it has invested a lot in education unlike Indian government.
The only solution I believe is invest in education. To find politician who could think in long term basis and not just worry about the next election or by-election.

#59 by dost-mittar on July 26, 2004 6:29pm PT
Anything associated with hinduism is looked fundamentalist in todays psuedo-secular world. That was not true about 50-60 years ago. You are trying to juxtapose those words in todays bigoted world. While Gandhi used to term of Ram Rajya to be of self-rule, peace and prosperity. He never intended to make muslims worship Hindu gods. He was against proselytize though. Its just horrible to see someone twist those words of Gandhi. Gandhi has gone on fast not just to stop killings of hindus but also muslims. He has felt sorry when workers of british government were killed by mobs.
It would be wonderful to keep religion out of government completely and making it truly secular i.e. no religion rather than all religion equal.

rahul_capri:
I think that we agree on substantive issues. After all, the basis of this discussion is still largely the film.

...I am a bit disappointed that the discussion on this thread has been mostly a hindu-indian dialogue; muslim Indians are absent from this discussion which has made this discussion somewhat one-sided.

Ashutosh_Gandhi:
I dont think that anything that I say will change your mind. But I would just like to add that Mian Musharraf was an expression to deride Muslim Indians and to suggest that they were unpatriotic. Hum Panch..was to spread the myth about the multi-wife muslim even though polygamy is an exception rather than the rule even among muslims now.
...and it wasn`t only the ``biased`` english language media that held Modi guilty, the judiciary has also passed remarks against the Gujarat govt. and so have Vajpayee and even Thakray. So, are all of them biased?
..and when I referred to villages, I did not mean that different castes (and muslims) do not have separate quarters. They do! And yet, they know each other well, there is frequent interaction and social and economic interdependence.

ferozk#25
Hi:
I am glad that someone finally asked a question about the film!
No, it`s not a typically bollywood film, which is why it was not a block-buster despite a powerful cast. As regards the answers, a good film offers a mirror to the society and that`s what this film does. There is not too much sermonising here. It tries to present different perspectives about the communcal situation before it presents its own.

Re. the city on the river(s), it is at its seasonal best right now. The bluefest has just ended and the chamber music festival has just started. Went for a picnic yesterday at Vincent Massy Park. The picnic benches and the barbeque pits are still there and are still free but now one has to pay for the parking. Also, very few people were using bbq pits, it seems that the new generation is so used to the gas bbqs that they have forgotten how to use the old-fashioned charcoal ones.

warpster#22
I would agree with you to the extent that the ethos of the 85% majority would be reflected in the society, regardless of any constitution. But one has to be mindful of the minority sensitivities. For example, Gandhi used the term Ram Rajya to provide the image of a society where the voice of the lowest citizen is heard, but it raised the fear of a `hindu raj` in the minds of many members of the minority community. Similarly, performing `bhoomi poojan` while laying the foundation ceremony of a public building might appear innocuous to the hindus, but not to others. It is best to keep the religion completely out of public affairs if everyone has to have full and complete ownership of the society ownership of the society.

harimou#38
Sorry, your sarcasm escaped me!

ps i am sorry about the yucky formatting

dost-mittar #31
Sorry for a late reply.
``There are too many vested interests trying to prove one point or
another
and no one seems to be interested in finding the truth.``
I agree.That is why we should be careful when we generalize, half
truths
can be more dangerous than lies.At least we can ask the right
questions.Is
it too much to ask for the truth in this era of media proliferation?
``But one thing that I am certain of is this: unless one can find some
rock-solid evidence that the Godhra killings were engineered by some
hindus to justify the subsequent killings in Ahmedabad and Baroda
and I
haven`t seen a shred of such evidence- this line should be completely
abandoned``
You missed my point,or i could not make it in so many words.Please
see my
posts..I am not saying that the killings were provoked,nor that there
has
to be an apportionment of blame between the victims and the
killers.Nor am
I hinting at ISI conspiracy theory.I am saying that there are other
local factors at play which have to be analyzed and presented.Please
go
through the article that I have given the link to.Here is an excerpt-
Start Quote
``Because deadly ethnic riots are activities undertaken by crowds,
understanding why these riots occur and how they unfold requires
analysis
of the dynamics of crowd behavior. Rioters display a mixture of lucid
calculation and irrational passion in their behavior, carefully
targeting
their victims but finding emotional release in their killing. ``
End Quote

Religion is an afflliction with which we all were born and will die
But
it manifests into violence at only some places.So,for finding a
solution,IMHO we should concentrate on the subtext,rather than the
heading.You wrote in post #31.
``Why it takes place in a few cities, I believe, is because in those
cities
there are large populations of both communities but they are living
more
or less segregated lives in separate localities. In villages where
the two
communities are well-integrated, there is peaceful coexistence``
This is more or less the same point made in the article I posted. If
the
deciding factor is civic interaction,can`t there be a chance that
the
pricinipal reason for riots in Gothra and Ahmedabad was lack of civic
interaction? And then we would be moving towards some sort of
solution.But
when we project Gothra and Ahmedabad as ONLY cases of religious
extremism
(Which is how normally it is projected,this is
the way in which our minds have been conditioned to think) we create a
vicious
circle and we succeed in widening the rift between both the
communities in
not just at the affected places,but everywhere else too . I know, it
will
be a denial not to say that religious extremism causes these
riots,but it
will be more of a denial if we take this statement at face value and
dont
try to find out the reasons for religious extremism. Likewise if I
conclude from things getting relatively better in Meerut and
Hyderabad
that this is because religious extremism is decreasing,it would not
be
entirely correct.There can be a multitude of factors-economic
development,increase in civic interaction etc.
Though it may seem hard,we must try to judge each event on its facts
and try to find out what exactly went wrong or right.
Again quoting from you-
``The short answer is that the reaction takes place wherever the
politicians at a particuar time are willing to exploit a tense
situation, be
it Modi in Ahmedabad, Thakray in Mumbai or Sajjan Kumar in Delhi. ``
Exactly.These are the factors which are sidelined when we make
generalizations like secularism is dying or extremism is rising.We have
to
raise the social psychological political causes of riots which affect
both
communities equally.The benefits are many-
a) We get cooperation from both communities in eradication of these
causes-nobody is accusing them of anything so they are going to be less
hostile.
b) We are actually working positively towards achieving some sort of
solution,instead of playing the blame game.
c)We are getting a more realistic idea of the complexities and
intricacies of how our society functions.
Please let me know if I was able to make my point or not.I would
have wanted to elucidate some of the points in more detail.

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folks, (or as urstruely says hinduon) talk to your neighbors, relatives, and it will be very clear why modi thought he could get away with rabble rousing (that he did). many believe that muslims just needed to be ``taught a lesson to remember`` so that godhra does not happen again, in sentiment, while disagreeing with killings, rape and mayhem. modi being a good politician, sensed the pulse of the electorate, and brought home a thumping victory.