Is Gujarat a turning point for India?
The events at Godhra and the ensuing communal carnage in Gujarat, like the Babri Masjid demolition and the 1984 massacres, constitute an ugly chapter of our contemporary history. For the sheer brutality, persistence and widespread nature of the violence, especially against women and children, the complicity of the State, the ghettoization of communities, and the indifference of civil society, Gujarat has surpassed anything we have experienced in recent times. That this happened in one of India’s most ‘well off’ and ‘progressive’ states, the home of the Mahatma, is all the more alarming.
This book is intended to be a permanent public archive of the tragedy that is Gujarat. Drawing upon eyewitness reports from the English, Hindi and regional media, citizens’ and official fact-finding commissions – and articles by leading public figures and intellectuals – it provides a chilling account of how and why the state was allowed to burn.
With an overview by the editor, the reader covers the circumstances leading up to Godhra and the violence in Ahmedabad, Baroda and rural Gujarat. Separate sections deal with the role of the police, bureaucracy, Sangh Parivar, media and the tribals, the economic and international implications of the violence, the problems of relief and rehabilitation of the victims, and, above all, their quest for justice. The picture that emerges is deeply disturbing, for Gujarat has exposed the ease with which the rights of citizens, and especially minorities, can be violated with official sanction. The lessons of the violence ought to be heeded and acted upon by the public. For, in the absence of this, can another Gujarat be prevented from happening elsewhere?
Gujarat
Acknowledgments
Note on Contributors
Introduction
1. Chronicle of a Tragedy Foretold - Siddarth Varadarajan
The Violence
2. The Carnage at Godhra - Jyoti Punwani
3. A License to Kill: Patterns of Violence in Gujarat - Nandini Sundar
4. Narratives from the Killing Fields
5. When Guardians Betray: The Role of the Police - Teesta Setalvad
6. "Nothing New?": Women as Victims - Barkha Dutt, Women's Panel, PUCL-Vadodara and Shanti Abhiyan
7. Adivasis and Dalits: Tribal Voice and Violence - G. N. Devy
The Violence in Gujarat and the Dalits - Mohandas Namishray
8. The Truth Hurts: Gujarat and the Role of the Media - Siddharth Varadarajan, Rajdeep Sardesai, PUCL-Vadodara/Shanti Abhiyan, Anil Chamaria
The Aftermath
9. Little Relief, No Rehabilitation - People's Union for Democratic Rights
10. Apart, Yet a Part: Ghettoization, Trauma - And Some Rays of Hope
11. The Elusive Quest for Justice: Delhi 1984 to Gujarat 2002 - Vrinda Grover
12. India's Reaction to International Concern - A. G. Noorani
Essays and Analyses
13. The Dialogue of Vali Gujarati and Hanumanji - Ranjana Argade
14. Genocide of the Idea of Gujarat - Shail Mayaram
15. The Pathology of Gujarat - Achyut Yagnik
16. Caste, Hindutva and the Making of Mob Culture - Ghanshyam Shah
17. The VIP Needs to Hear the Condemnation of the Hindu Middle Ground - Ramachandra Guha
18. Where Will It End? - Mahasweta Devi
19. NM and Kalinga? Thrice Impossible, Brother Gill - Prakash N. Shah
20. Just Another Day in Ahmedabad - Gurpal Singh
21. I Salute You Geetaben - Siddharth Varadarajan
Appendix 1: Prime Minister Vajpayee's speech at Goa
Appendix 2: Chronology of Events
Copyright acknowledgments
Postscript: Terrorist Attack on the Swaminarayan Temple
