Dev - The Anatomy of A Communal Carnage

Dost-Mittar,

Following the footsteps of the Hudson Bay Company, you may find it profitable to get the monopoly in India for hairshirts. You seem to be recommending it for the 800 million Hindus.

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#34 by mohar11 on July 25, 2004 9:20am PT.
Its been hard on people of chowk to say how they decided that Modi should be help culpable for godhra riots. The english media must have been a great influence who have tirelessly gone after Modi because he does not hold them in great regards for their partisanship wrt to communalism.

#31 by dost-mittar on July 25, 2004 8:23am PT
One of the point you made that the both hindu and muslim community are well integrated in villages is utterly false. While there are quite a number of muslims in villages but it is still segragated. Caste system still plays a big role in villages where muslims are treated as if its just another caste. And their profession are quite similar to the low-caste hindus like bhangi, chamar, mochi, etc. The reason might be that these were the people that converted to be a muslims to escape the mal-treatement from high caste hindus. Unfortunately they still face same bigotry.
Integration of two communities is more in big cities like mumbai, delhi, hyderabad, etc. But somehow ahmedabad has missed it. It is still very much segregated. While in last decade muslims have moved out from inner city in ahmedabad to the outskirts but still its a very small number of affluent muslims only and many decided to return after godhra riots.

#33
//...Why shouldnt vajpayee, advani and others be hanged to the nearest lamp post...//

Go ahead - hang whoever you think is guilty. My point was - the standards got to be uniform - same punishment for same crime. Hang Modi .... hang Rajiv Gandhi ( metphorically speaking of course) .... hang Commie politburo for their massacres in West bengal.

Utter intellectual dishonesty on part of the intelligentsia has to stop.

#15 by dost-mittar on July 24, 2004 8:19pm PT
You stated three reasons that make you assure of Modis involvement in the Godhra riots.
1.) Mian Musharaaf.
2.) Hum Paan Humara Pachees. and
3.) List of Muslim owned establishment.

BJP has been talking about Pakistans involvement in internal matter of India for a long time. So, Modi used the word ``Mian Musharaaf`` rather than ``Mr. Musharaaf``. Does that make him the instigator of violence? There is a myth in India that Muslim population will surpass hindu population. I dont believe in this but I have seen many people accepting that as a fact. Also, he was showing the difference between the laws for Hindus and Muslims that one could have 5 wives while other only one. Though, I think even one would be tough to handle. Do you know how Mayawati or Lallo ignite hatred among different caste in their speeches. Most of time Modi has been trying to implicate the difference between Hindus and Muslims on Congress. He has always potrayed that psuedo secularism by congress is the root of evil.
About your last point then, government does not keeps track of establishment whether they are Hindu or Muslim or Sikh owned. So, your point that government provided people with the list of muslim owned establishmentit is very ridiculous. I dont know how many chowkies are from Ahmedabad but local population know if not all but owner of many establishment whether they are muslim or hindu owned. Even the name of the stores could give an idea like ``Akbar-Ali``, etc. There were few incidents when the mob though it was a Muslim owned place and after destroying it they found that it is Hindu owned. An example was that a particular restaurant served non-veg food. Thus, the assumption that it must be muslim owned and later after destroying it they found it was owned by south-indian hindu.
Thus, I am still looking for answer as to how is Modi culpable for the gujarat riots while neither of your argument provides any answer.

The reason I posted messages on this board is to find out why people thing Modis is responsible for Godhra riots.
#26 by mohar11 on July 25, 2004 7:38am PT
You state that Modis should be hanged to the nearest lamp-post. Why and how do you arrive to the conclusion that Modis is guilty for the riots caused?
The reason stated so far:
1.) Regular cops didnt fire guns. While both hindus and muslims were killed in police firing.
2.) He used the term ``Mian Musharaaf`` in his speeches. These were to indicate Pakistans involvement in Indias internal matter. It is common to call a muslim ``mian bhai`` in gujarat.
3.) ``Hum Paanch Humara Paachees``. Modi has blamed the difference between Hindus and Muslims law on congress and accused them of patronage of pepole of particular religion. Just look AP governments 5% quota for Muslim. Doesnt anyone believe that it will cause the problem with people converting to get a job.
4.) List of muslim owned establishment. Government does not maintain list of established that has religions information. So how could this list emerge?

I want to know why and how only Modi is to blame for godhra riots and not advani, vajpayee, and other BJP politicians. Why shouldnt vajpayee, advani and others be hanged to the nearest lamp post.

rahul_capri (various posts)
I would not call you intolerant.
The story of Godhra is not fully known and I doubt that it will ever be fully known. There are too many vested interests trying to prove one point or another and no one seems to be interested in finding the truth. 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. It is one thing to say that the reaction to Godhra was not spontaneous or was officially inspired and that there was criminal negligence in not controlling it, and quite another to say that it was unprovoked. I find that the latter statement itself is inflammatory. No hindu, except for some politicians looking for vote banks, will accept the fact that saffronites burnt themselves or their own supporters in order to justify a retaliation. On the other hand, muslims will readily swallow this line of thinking. Therefore, promoting this line of thinking without a solid evidence, will likely widen the chasm between the two communities.

You raised the point about why Gujarat and other riots do not expand and remain localised. This is a credit to Indians that it does not. The short answer is that the reaction takes place wherever the politicians at a particular time are willing to exploit a tense situation, be it Modi in Ahmedabad, Thakray in Mumbai or Sajjan Kumar in Delhi. The reasons why the hindu-muslim riots recur again and again is well known. 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, as is the case where the numbers of either community is too small to pose a threat.

But none of the above is mutually exclusive from my earlier contention that there is increasing intolerance among hindus towards minorities, especially muslims. The article posted by gujju1 (#29) is by no means an exception, I access many such articles at suekh newshopper.

http://www.usip.org/pubs/specialreports/sr101.html
This is too long an article to paste here,but it is a very good read and demystifies why riots occur in certain places and not in others, and what role local factors play as against generalisations

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#15 by dost-mittar
//...But there is one big difference between Delhi and Gujarat riots...//

There is one more very big difference - 84 riot was presided over by ``secular`` Gandhis, the great white hope of all ``secular`` people. Which made that massacre so much more palatable - so much so that nobody ever started a campaign to fix Rajeev gandhi. Nobody asked for his head. Nobody called him a criminal.

We all still remember his comment ``When a big tree falls, grass gets trampled`` or some sh!t like that. In fact, the man went on to become Prime Minister, no less .... before he was eliminated by tamils. Well - sometimes justice does get served, in a twisted sort of way.

Of course, when we point this out - the self-proclaimed defenders of justice just slither away - throwing some lame excuse -``two wrongs don`t make it right``. Of course, it doesn`t. But very different reactions to two similar events does tell its own story.

Hang Modi from nearest lamp post - he must pay for his sins. But who is going make the Gandhis and other assorted leftist criminals pay for their sins? Jyoti Basu, Laloo yadav, Karunanidhi - the list is big.

An insightful research on why riots occur-tells us what are the real factors behind the riots instead of the gross simplifications like intolerant Hindu and militant Muslim
http://www.usip.org/pubs/specialreports/sr101.html

re: Dost-Mittar

Hello, sir, I hope all is well in your end of the city by the river! :)

I have a question. Does the movie make an attempt to discover the underlying causes of the Gujrat riots or it sticks to the Bollywood formula of good verus evil, with a few songs for the distracted?

Pardon my incredulity, but if the movie is a typical Bollywood production, then I am afraid there is nothing be remembered or learned. If, as you say, the idea is avoid a repeat of the riots, then what lessons does movie offer in hopes to prevent a similiar tradegy in the future?

In my opinion, the placement of blame is only as significant as the manner in which it was rationalized. Consequently, I am not sure, what will be learned as a result of this movie and to the repeat of Gujrat, that depends on the human nature and its love for hatred, which is phenomena of the human mind, something that movies in our part of the world have failed in understanding nor have even tried to deal with in a serious manner.

Ciao

dost-mittar-
``The muslim riots, however, seem to be endemic..``
I agree with you.But the situation in two historically most riot prone cities- Meerut and Hyderabad has improved in the last few years.There are positives too.
Instead of accurate knowledge of incidents like Gothra, we are fed news items like Muslims killed innocent Hindus and Hindus killed innocent Muslims in Ahmedabad.Instead of trying to find out what caused the muslims to attack the hindus,just the fact that they are muslims is considered enough. Likewise,instead of trying to find out what caused the revenge killings to be justified,just the fact that they were a reaction to Godhra is considered enough.If it is logical for muslims to attack hindus,why did it not take place elsewhere,and if it is reasonable to kill inncoent peopple in revenge,why did not that attack take place all over India? And when we acknowledge this as not an aberration but a trend we are playing straight into the hands of fanatics on both sides.They would love it when a Hindu is termed as intolerant for questioning the cause of Gothra . They would love it when a muslim perceives himself as a persecuted minority who is attacked and killed by majority for no reason whatsoever.they want to keep it simple. This is how they want the people to be divided and cast their votes.

#19

Dude, the ;ast time that happened was because Gujju Bania came in all guns blazing against North Indians. After he had family members abused he sticls to abusing Biharis.