Economist pontificates on Gujarat

This is from the Aug 12 edition. Yeah, right, Harsh Mander, "activist
and writer". Yes, writer of lurid fiction -- he made up a lot about
Gujarat.

And, yes, 'hideous accident'. Just like the dropping of the atomic bomb on
Hiroshima was a 'hideous accident'. And the massacre of 3,000 Sikhs in
Delhi in 1984 was a 'hideous accident'.

'Final Solution' is probably crude propaganda. It fits in with the Old Left
imperative, so they give it lots of awards.

The Economist is consistently anti-India. Their stringer in Delhi appears in
to be one of those blimpish Britons who believe the empire still
exists. Is it a coincidence that British journalists in India are the
worst racists and the most anti-India? John Burns of the NY Times,
Peter Popham of the Independent, Luke Harding of the Guardian, all
come to mind as sterling examples.

There are other articles in the Aug 19 edition that are also anti-India.

When I post stuff from the paid section of the Economist, I only post excerpts, so as to honor their copyright.


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Sectarian tension in India

It still hurts

Aug 12th 2004 AHMEDABAD
From The Economist print edition


Reuters





Truth and justice, like reconciliation, prove elusive in Gujarat

Get article background

THE scar left by the pogrom directed at the Muslim minority in the
Indian state of Gujarat in February and March 2002 has yet to heal.
That is partly because not a single murderer has been convicted,
although perhaps 2,000 people died. The state government is under
pressure from local activists, human-rights groups and India's
staunchly interventionist Supreme Court to see that justice is at last
done. But it continues to act less like a scourge of illegal violence
than its sponsor.

This week, the Supreme Court rebuked the state government's prosecutor
for his failure to secure the arrest of ten of 21 Hindus accused in an
infamous court case arising from the violence: the burning to death of
14 Muslims in a bakery. The accused have already been acquitted once,
after witnesses withdrew their evidence. Prosecutors appealed, but in
April the Supreme Court ruled that a fair retrial was impossible in
Gujarat and moved the case to the neighbouring state of Maharashtra.

... deleted

The government has, however, acted against those accused of the
horrific "crime" that sparked the carnage. Using the controversial
Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA), it has charged 123 Muslims and
detained nearly 100 over a fire in a train compartment, which took
place in the town of Godhra. Of the 58 people asphyxiated or burned to
death, many were Hindu devotees, returning from a gathering at the
contested site of a temple in the holy town of Ayodhya. A Muslim mob
was alleged to have doused the carriage with petrol, ignited it and
locked the doors.

Revenge for this massacre was the BJP's explanation for the slaughter
that followed. Even Atal Behari Vajpayee, the BJP's leader and, at the
time, prime minister, seen as a moderate, asked "Who lit the fire
first?". That foreigners and the liberal English-language press in
Delhi largely ignored the Godhra massacre, concentrating on the
killings of Muslims—some 9-10% of Gujarat's 50m population—heightened
the sense of grievance. It helped Mr Modi lead the BJP to a landslide
victory in state elections in December 2002.

Yet forensic analysis and eyewitnesses have cast doubt on the
government's theory of a preplanned arson attack. A hideous accident
seems more likely. Last month, the railway minister in the government
that came to power in Delhi in May, Laloo Prasad Yadav, announced an
enquiry into the Godhra incident.

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Harsh Mander, an activist and writer, says that if the government
fails to do more it risks "missing a moment in history", when it has a
chance "to make amends for past injustices". It may already be too
late, however, to rebuild trust between Hindus and Muslims. The
killing accelerated their segregation—a process, says Hanif Lakdawala,
a prominent social worker, that is now 90% complete.

An example is the expanding ghetto behind the Bombay Hotel in
Ahmedabad, Gujarat's main city. A warren of crude redbrick houses—much
of it, during the present monsoon, under water—it is now home to some
4,000 Muslim families, mostly fugitives from the 2002 violence.

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Communal relations in Gujarat raise concerns far beyond the state.
This month, India's film censors refused a certificate to "Final
Solution", a documentary on the 2002 pogrom and its aftermath, which
has won prizes at film festivals from Berlin to Zanzibar. The censors
accused the film of promoting "communal disharmony". Its maker, Rakesh
Sharma, says they have become politically partisan.

The BJP itself has been in some disarray since its election defeat.
Some members partly blame the setback on the stigma of the Gujarat
pogrom. But the BJP's more fervent supporters—who idolise Mr
Modi—accuse the party of having compromised its core "Hindu"
principles to court moderate support. In Gujarat itself, Mr Modi has
survived, for now, a rebellion from within the local party. His job
was in jeopardy not because of his hardline views but because his
high-handed manner has alienated many state legislators. For this
reason, many in Ahmedabad still expect him to go later this year. The
debate in the BJP over how to assess his rule, however, will go on
much longer. So, sadly, will its effects on Gujarat's communal
relations.