The Gujarat Riots — State Sponsored Ethnic Cleansing?

Author: Rafat Kapadia

How does a man deal with his son being burnt alive, his 80-year-old mother and 14-year-old daughter being raped, his pregnant wife having her stomach slashed and her foetus killed and then, all of them burnt alive? Horrifying as this sounds, these incidents have become a part of many a Muslims life in Gujarat, India. Thousands have been massacred, raped and rendered homeless. Mobs of extremist Hindus, supported by both the state and central government, went on a rampage against Muslims and thus destroyed the already tattered secular fabric of India.

Officially, the number of people who have died in the past two or so months is 800. Non-government organization's (NGO) have put the toll at about 2,000, and most of the dead are Muslims. The riots were sparked off when a train, carrying mainly Hindu activists, was torched by a Muslim mob in Godhra. This served as a reason for the extremist Hindus to unleash their act of vengeance. The misbehaviour of the Hindu activists in the train, their communal chants asking Muslims to leave India, their offloading the Muslim passengers on the train was quickly forgotten and their death was used as a reason to systematically destroy Muslim citizens in Gujarat. This systematic killing puts one in doubt about the "spontaneous" nature of the violence as claimed by the central and state government.

The BBC obtained an internal report in which British officials state "the violence, far from being spontaneous, was planned, possibly months in advance, carried out by an extremist Hindu organisation with the support of the state government." The aim of this violence was simply ethnic cleansing — to purge the Muslims from the Hindu areas. Muslim houses and shops were singled out and targeted. Survivors speak of the mob having sheets with the name and addresses of Muslim residents, of checkpoints being established on highways where cars were stopped and the occupants killed if they had Muslim names, of entire colonies being torched and worst of all, police aiding the mob. The Gujarat police force, comprising mainly of Hindus, has been accused by certain NGOs of firing on Muslims who were being attacked, of looking the other way when the mob attacked, of covering their faces and joining the mob in raping and murdering. The victims were at the mercy of the mob. Hundreds have been killed this way and are still being killed.

Raping was used as a tool to carry out this brutal pogrom. Thousands of Muslim women were raped. One NGO, Communalism Combat, compiled a report in which the survivors spoke of the horrors of the riots. There were cases in which a family saw their neighbour's 14-year-old daughter and 80-year-old mother-in-law raped before she herself was raped. They were then torched to death.

Fear and concern for the safety of their own womenfolk paralysed them and they couldn't go and help. Women speak of no one being spared, not young minors, not pregnant women. Pregnant women had their stomachs slashed and their foetuses killed before their own eyes. Rape victims were burnt to death, in order to leave no evidence of the mob's heinousness.

Ghettoizing of the Muslim community is another disturbing trend that has been observed in Gujarat. Flyers asking Hindus to boycott Muslims, not to do business with them, to rape and destroy them have been found circulating in various cities of Gujarat. These bear the name of prominent Hindu organisations that are associated with the central and state government.

Despite repeated demands by the opposition and NGO's to replace the chief minister, Narendra Modi, who belongs to the ruling party, the central government has refused to do so. They have staunchly supported his actions and his handling of the riots. The prime minister himself praised him. A man who is responsible for a massacre that "cleansed" Gujarat of the Muslims has been supported by the elected leader of the country.

In fact, a few days ago, the prime minister, addressing a rally in Goa, stated that Muslims are the root cause of all the riots and fights that happen in India and thus denounced the entire community. This leads us to doubt the very essence of the secular nature of Indian state.

The government has drawn flak from the international community and is finding it increasing difficult to answer it. British officials have severely censured the actions of the state government and have even stated that peace between the two communities is not possible as long as the current chief minister remains in power.

International recognition of the ills plaguing Indian society provides hope to ordinary Indians, both Muslims and Hindus, of better times to come in which the government will not be biased towards any particular community and strive to make India truly secular.