Narendra Modi, the infamous Chief Minister of Gujarat, has had a full 7 years of near complete immunity and full reign over his state in India despite overseeing a near holocaust of Muslims in 2002. With his implicit, and sometimes explicit permission, Hindu nationalists slaughtered, raped and displaced Muslim men, women and children.
Official figures put the death toll at 2000 in total with another 250 missing. Actual numbers must be much higher – probably closer to 10,000. Over 100,000 people, both Hindus and Muslims, were displaced when Modi’s crazed followers destroyed entire neighborhoods and cities. It has even been called a genocide by some in the Indian media. Tehelka has the full report.
Ruben Anderson reported for Reuters in 2005 that politicians were more than complicit in this communal slaughtering. He writes:
“…a group of Indian investigators says it has unearthed evidence of what human rights activists have said for a long time – that politicians and policemen helped or even led the mobs in Gujarat in 2002 when an estimated 2,000 Muslims were burned, shot and bludgeoned to death.
“The police were colluding with the killers, and some among them also played an active role,” said Mukul Sinha … with Gujarati human rights group Jan Sangharsh Manch.
The group has analysed mobile phone traffic between police, politicians and religious leaders on the fateful days after February 27, 2002, when mobs went on the rampage through Muslim neighbourhoods following the still unresolved burning of a train carriage of Hindu volunteers in the town of Godhra.
According to the investigators, the police moved away just in time for the mob to hit Muslim areas in Gujarat’s capital Ahmedabad and stayed at a distance until the violence was over.
They say they also have proof that police were talking to top Hindu religious leaders and politicians during the carnage, including the state’s then home minister. “The police claim they were outnumbered, but you have to be on the spot to be outnumbered,” said Nirjhari Sinha, the main investigator.
How likely is it that Narendra Modi, the all powerful CM, would remain aloof from all this? What is the possibility that the home minister could issue such drastic orders to the police without at least some collusion from his boss?
The allegations against Modi include the following (quoted):
- Modi along with over 50 other politicians had aided and abetted state-wide communal riots in 2002 in connivance with police officials and senior bureaucrats
- Modi was involved in the killing of a former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri
- his “government … was not allowing FIR to be registered into the [above] killing”
- Indian and global human rights organizations have singled out … Modi … as the key culprit [of the riots]
- Gujarat sectarian riots had the “sanction” of Chief Minister Narendra Modi and that many of the accused had admitted this on camera
- Modi had encouraged them to massacre Muslims and prevented police from stopping the killings
- Modi manipulated the legal system to protect the rioters
- Modi kept on changing judges to ensure [the] release [of a perpetrator]
- Modi gave [the rioters] three days time “to do whatever they wanted.”
- Modi’s ministry contains … many criminals and ruffians.
Tehelka conducted investigations years ago and found that the perpetrators didn’t even express any remorse. This is perhaps even worse than the Nazis, at least some of whom felt bad for their victims (read about the Valkyrie affair). Harinder Baweja writes:
Suresh Richard, an accused in the Naroda Patiya massacre, confesses to rape. He tells you he is not lying, because he is admitting to it in the presence of his wife. He tells also of how he and his fellows killed Muslims when they heard that some of them were hiding in a gutter, hoping to escape the marauding mobs. Haresh Bhatt, a sitting MLA (Member of the Legislative Assembly), similarly needs to be questioned, to be proceeded against because he reveals how rocket launchers were assembled in a factory owned by him. In over 40 hours of tape, none, save one of the protagonists, expressed any remorse. Frighteningly, they all said they would like to kill many more.
And now, 7 years after the riots, Narendra Modi may be questioned by a special investigation team about his involvement in the affair. 7 years. And, this is only after the Supreme Court of India issued orders to investigate the perpetrators.
Narendra Modi has been constantly protected by the BJP, which was in power at the Center till 2004. Modi was re-elected in Gujarat in Dec 2002 (a few months after the massacres) and once again in 2007. It must have been easy in 2002 with thousands of Muslim voters displaced. In 2007, 1 in 5 candidates in Gujarat had criminal records. No doubt voter intimidation and disenfranchisement were rampant. CNN reported in 2002:
BJP won a victory for communal forces by dividing majority Hindus and minority Muslims.
The hope of any justice for the victims and punishment for the worst offenders is virtually non-existent.
And the funny thing is that the victims of the carnage and their families haven’t received their compensation even 7 years after the Central Government allocatted the monies.
