I was uncertain if the ghazal concert by Jagjit Singh would still be held in Ahmedabad, Gujarat on that fateful day, February 27, 2002. I had reason to believe otherwise: just a few hours earlier, I received a call while working in a Hindu slum in Ahmedabad that communal violence had erupted. Apparently a train of Hindu pilgrims was attacked somewhere, I was told, and that I should immediately return home. An American Hindu colleague of mine and I both waited for the bus to take us across town to the Hindu host family with whom I was staying. But as my Hindu friend in the slum community received text messages about what was really ensuing, he ran out and said, "No Zahir, you specifically have to leave." I was eager to know why but he never budged. "Its for your safety," he kept imploring.

It was only on the rikshaw ride home that the picture emerged: our Hindu driver carefully skirted all the Muslim majority locales in Ahmedabad as off in the distance, we could see fires flaring up in only Muslim populated areas. As we drove through a mixed Hindu-Muslim neighborhood, we found ourselves stuck in a massive traffic jam, only later to learn that just a few hundred yards ahead of us a Hindu mob had stopped a car full of Muslims, removed them from their vehicle, and burned them alive.

It is difficult to say this without sounding profoundly naive and perhaps insensitive, but at the time, it seemed pretty normal. Perhaps that was a reflection of the company I kept. I had arrived just twelve days earlier to work on micro-finance issues and I was posted to work in a Hindu slum area. I never took much notice of this: my intention in working in Gujarat was to understand my ancestral homeland and to learn and to help people, regardless of their religious background.

When I returned home later that day, my boss Raju bhai assured me that the violence was nothing unusual. India blows off some steam from time to time, he told me, and that the violence would flare up for a day or two and then subside. Perhaps he had a point, I thought. Despite romanticized notions of Gujarat being tolerant, probably on account of it being the birthplace of the non-violent sage Mahatma Gandhi, communal violence between Hindus and Muslims in Gujarat has flared up intermittently since 1969. Between 1987 and 1991 alone, for example, 106 Hindu-Muslim skirmishes erupted. But neither he or I had any ability to know that what would transpire in the subsequent months would amount to a State sponsored pogrom against Gujarati Muslims in what many of have rightfully called one the darkest chapters in India's history.

We ended up going to the Jagjit Singh concert that night. After all, in the Hindu area where I lived and where the concert was held, I had no way of knowing that just a few miles away in the Muslim locales, some of the worst violence was ensuing, already on that first night. It is difficult and troubling to think about that concert, let alone to muster the courage to admit that I attended, while so much chaos erupted around me. Within the confines of the manicured lawns of the concert setting, Singh's lyrics, many taken from poems by Muslim poet Mirza Ghalib, hearkened an India ripe with Hindu-Muslim synergy, an India that I found disappearing in my subsequent six months working with the 85,000 displaced Gujarati Muslims in Ahmedabad alone.

I do not wish to recount the details of what happened in Gujarat, as that has been extensively documented, most exceptionally in Human Rights Watch's "We Have No Orders to Save You," and journalist Dionne Bunsha's Scarred: Experiments with Violence in Gujarat. Nor do I wish to recall the personal toil of witnessing violence on this scale--that is far too personal to elucidate in this space and at least for me, in the guise of non-fiction. But I wish do elucidate two points from that episode that have sinced shaped my activism.

The first is that the initial telling of a historical event is seldom the complete or even accurate version. When the violence reached an unbearable level, I thought that my presence, as a Gujarati Muslim, was endangering my dear Hindu friends. So I left for New Delhi where I soon found myself addressing a gathering of NGOs about my experiences. But I learned that speaking about Gujarat is partly about giving testimony and partly about withholding information. I remember telling that gathering that contrary to popular notions of Indian communal violence, the violence in Gujarat was most acute in mixed locales and that the only safe areas were Muslim ghettos. That fact rattled the notion that communal violence is minimized when Hindus and Muslims intermix. Gujarat proved just the antithesis - Muslims were most vulnerable when they lived in close proximity to their Hindu neighbors. I told that group, much to their dismay, that I understood why many Gujarati Muslims had built ten foot walls to protect their families and their homes. Thinking of communal harmony was privilege that many Gujarati Muslims could not afford to think of as they witnessed the mass scale rape of women and the pillaging of their homes.

This self-censorship was magnified when I returned to the US and I began showing photographic proof that the initial train attack was burnt from the inside and was likely the work of the Hindu pilgrim themselves. At one event in LA, I was nearly punched in the face by an angry audience member. Needless to say, I learned to finesse my message, especially when speaking to audiences who believed the mistaken notion that what transpired was a tit-for-tat riot.

Part of the problem in achieving an honest dialogue on this issue is that the Gujarat violence is viewed as a problem of the past and as an aberrant blotch on India's record that evaporated when the violence subsided. This could not be farther from the truth. Lingering problems exist within Gujarat, the least of which are the palpable tensions. And while antagonism against Muslims thankfully has not manifested itself in brutal violence since 2002, there is still widespread curtailment of the rights of Muslims, Christians, Dalits, and others in India. India's central government may now acknowledge what transpired in 2002, but there is still strong denial at the popular and governmental level within Gujarat.

For example, eighty-seven Muslim men have been held since 2002 for "starting the train fire" and "igniting the violence," despite India's Supreme Court own acknowledgment which found the Hindu nationalist BJP group complicit in the violence. Hemantika Wahi, the standing counsel for Gujarat, recently responded to possible news that these 87 may be set free and also to charges India's draconian anti-terror laws have been used to target Muslim by noting that "Not all Muslims are terrorists but all terrorists are Muslims." Most recently, a film called "Parzania" by Gujarati director Rahul Dholakia about the 2002 violence was prevented by theater owners in Gujarat from being screened, despite the fact that the filmed had already cleared India's rigorous (and often politically slanted) film censor bureau.

Film's like Dholakia's are promising, partly because they help usher in a more honest discussion of what transpired. After all, it was not long ago that those who called the violence pre-planned and orchestrated by the state were called absurd. But often the truth trickles out, and though its pace may be frustrating, it is still nonetheless cathartic for those who seeking a public reckoning of the pain they endured.

The second lesson Gujarat taught me is not to compare two historical tragedies. When I spoke at college campuses throughout 2003 and 2004, I often found it tempting, especially when addressing Muslim audiences, to compare the Gujarat violence to another horrific act, that of the attack on Palestinians in Jenin, which also happened in early 2002. I had reason to make this comparison: Muslims throughout their world expressed justifiable outrage over Israel's incursions into Jenin but remained largely silent over the pogrom against Muslims in Gujarat. But I quickly learned to cease making such comparisons, partly because I refused to participate in an effort to pit and to measure the suffering of one people against another.

I have been called many things in the past five years, most of which are not suitable to publish on this site. But perhaps one of the most unfair criticisms leveled at me and other activists working against communalism in India is that somehow our assessment of what transpired in Gujarat is maudlin or excessively sentimental. This indeed may be the case, but it is not without reason. I will always remember 12 year-old Sadik, who I met in a relief camp just shortly after the violence ensued. He fled for relief after he witnessed his father burned alive and his mother raped and then immolated. He never did speak to me - or to anyone - during the six months that I saw him in the camp. But at night, after the aid workers would leave, I often found Sadik sitting alone in the corner, crying quietly.

I am not sure what has happened to him since but I suspect there are nights when he still cries and wonders why, five years later, his tears are still needed.

None of what I am about say is in support of the atrocities that happened in Gujarat. My intention is to educate some muslims on why Gujarat is such a hotbed of anti-muslim sentiment.

Most people know Gujarat as the birthplace of Mahatma Gandhi. They forget it was also the birthplace of Sardar Patel. Before him, long before all this, Gujarat was the site of the temple of Somnath which was sacked and plundered repeatedly by Muhammed of Ghazni. Allauddin Khilji destroyed quite a few temples too. But the destruction of the temple of Somnath is as clearly remembered by Hindus as the murder of Ali in Karbala is, by Muslims. When even the Muslims of India who probably don't know where Karbala is, bemoan the act of Ali's murder every year, is it any surprise that Gujarati Hindus associate Gujarati Muslims with Ghazni?!

The point of this is, living memory is different from what is written in History books - especially history books written by people who are from a different culture than the one they are writing about, as is the case with Indian history written by the British or British-educated Indians.

Guajarat has always been a cauldron of seething emotions.

Uhm, Mahmoud lived 1,000 years ago...yup, that actually is 3 zeros. I would think that making india a better place to live in *today* is more important than what happened all those 1,000 years ago. Why obsess about long-passed temples and mosques and just build new ones, or would the very thought of building new ones cause still more riots??

Hey OmarG, finally something we agree upon. Imagine if blacks in the United States felt that way. The whole country would be ablaze.

Hmmmm.. just thinking aloud, does this put creation of Pakistan (or division of India) in 1947 into perspective?

Vasan, all right, point taken.

Why is nothing done to get justice today? How is it that the collective Indian conscience has swallowed this, and Narendra Modi is hailed as a reformer and role model in India. The business community in India has been completely unsrupulous morally.

HB,

I will answer your question about why Modi is hailed as a reformer. But the greater question to ask is why we are not able to get over these 1000 year old problems?

Modi is loved by people because, over and above all, he has delivered results on the economic front. The truth (cynical as it may sound) is that when someone gets things done, he is applauded. Especially in a country like India beset with corruption and lackadaisical government agencies, a leader like Modi is considered a tremendous boon because he gets things done.

Why do you think people are not questioning Modi's support of the Hindutva agenda? Large chunks of urban India and the 'secular' English press condemn him daily. Where he is appreciated, is in Gujarat, and in the minds of old-fashioned Hindus who yearn for an India that will not reject Hinduism.

It is my considered opinion that what these Hindus want is recognition of the true history of India as it is remembered in the vast ruins of great symbols of Indian culture all across India. It may be easy for Muslims and Christians to put me in the same slot as the murdering mobs that went on a rampage in Ahamedabad, but that would be just intellectual laziness on their part.

The Muslims and Christians of India need to understand (or accept) some hard truths about the way the Human mind works.

...continued...

I doubt if any Muslim would say that Makkah is just like any other place on earth. Surely they can sense that the land upon which Muhammad walked must have been blessed? The same for Jerusalem - Christians break down in tears, overcome by emotion as they walk the path that Jesus took to his ultimate death bearing a cross. Would any Muslim not be hurt by an act of sacrilege in Saudi Arabia? They will not even allow images of other Gods into the country, and all Muslims think that's the way it should be!

But for some reason they (Muslims and Christians) are not able to accord the same emotions to Hindus who are hurt every day by the sacrilege that is being committed there. Why? Why are they unable to accept that a civilization much older than either of their adopted religions can consider the land of India as a Holy land? It just boggles their minds to think that destructions of temples a thousand years ago can still resonate in the minds of the Hindus.

Worst of all- and this is the reason why we will never agree- the Muslims of India have been led to believe that Islam came into India peacefully; spread by large groups of dancing and singing Sufis.

In the Hindu mind, Islam arrived at the point of a sword in India. The small number of Arab traders who came to the Malabar Coast did not spread Islam as much as the invading hordes of Ghazni, Ghauri, the Mughals, did.

Having said that what is the way out of this mess? It is my opinion that the first step is for the Muslims to accept what happened and not fool themselves that a 'secular' constitution will make it all good.

Constitutions are merely words on pieces of paper - no matter what kind of rhapsody into which Americans can work-up themselves at the very mention of the word!

That is not to say Hindus do not respect it - they do - more than any Islamic society has proven to do, so far! But the true healing of these rifts can only begin if they all agree on what really happened.

...continued...

Making sad movies, and writing stories and painting pictures may evoke sadness and melancholy in people but does not serve to move the dialogue forward. All it does is help the Deepa Mehtas and Arundhati Roys get rich. Nothing that MF Hussain has done has helped; Slaman Rushdie did not advance the dialogue an inch; all they did was to peddle some images of misery from India to white people, and they got rich.

Dialogue begins when people listen to the other side. So far nobody has heard me. I suspect a lot of people here will write angry comments denouncing me as a Hindu fundamentalist and whatnot. But then, like we say in India 'What to do?!'

End-post.

sometimes i let myself think that India is all about the tech industry in Bangalore, coconut trees in Kerala, good food in Punjab and awesome architecture. But, thanks for reminding me that there is an obstinate dark side pervading India, as well. I think i'll take my tech spending dollars and use it in china instead... fuhgeddabout india until it can be past passions behind it.

Vasan,
There is a difference between saying you remember something, or subscribe to one version of history and mass murder and pillage. You compared the memory of Somnath in the Gujarati Hindu psyche to the memory of Kerbala in the Muslim psyche. While many do, you won't find many sensible people on this forum say that it should be reason to go about killing civilians today. Some do, but we say any bastard who bombs a mosque, church, or market in Iraq today should face justice. This does not have to depend on one's political view of the occupation or war. But why is it that no one on the "right", and that is a majority in the Gujarati Hindu, and the business community of western India, says that the criminal needs to be punished. How come all these "sophisticated" Hindutva columnists like Varsha Bhosle, Francois Gautier, B Raman, educated leaders of VHP, do not even pay lip service to justice? I don't really see what is there to complain about medieval blood thirsty tyrants when one behaves and condones the same today. If you believe in any Hindu philosophy, can you not believe in it and kick out today's tyrants out of power at the same time? I am not portraying all of India's Hindu society this way. There are millions of normal decent individuals all across the land. People I personally have seen and interacted with. But I don't see that in the popular Hindutva brigade, the triumphalist trader-business community who welcomed Modi to Bombay as the "lion of Gujarat". And I am not saying anything about you personally, it is fair enough to say that you think India has lost something since millions of its people are Muslims or Christians. That is your view, and more power to you to follow the philosophy, lifestyle or faith you chose. I like something in the Vedas and dislike something. That's my choice. But that is no excuse for murder, or for excusing the murderers.

i will bet 1,000s of years ago, some hindu invaders converted a whole bunch of innocent pigmies living in India to their hindu religion. So now, when Muslims and Christians show up and do the same, it rubs them the wrong way. And they want to act all haughty and self-important that every human being was born hindu from time immemorial and converted to some other religion later on. The usual arrogance of organized religion.

HB,

Why do you place so much value on the words of these columnists? Do you think that any of the murderers in Ahmadabad would stop if Francois Gaultier condemned the act?

I doubt if these columnists have been read by anyone other than guys like us who search the internet! My point in writing my lengthy commentary about ancient Hindu misgivings was to point out that celebrity opinions are irrelevant in such historical hatreds.

How many of the Tutsis and Hutus do you think were actually motivated by columnists or even mob leaders? Bosnian Muslims and Serbs massacring each other - you think if only Milosevich had told them to stop they would have? Right now, in Darfur who exactly is the one man whose word will bring it all to an end? Even the greatest Bogeyman of them all created by the Americans, Osama, will not be able to stop it!

Hatred is not merely the creation of one Hitler or one Mao, but no doubt, they were the catalysts for the violent acts they oversaw. More than creating the hate for a certain segment of a population, what such men tap into and exploit, are the unhealed wounds of history.

India is unique in the sense that in spite of what I believe is an enormous wound, Hindu society at large has tried to forget and move on. The onus is on the intelligentsia among Muslims in India to recognize this. If that does not happen, it is my opinion that we will continue to see such sad things again and again.

...continued...

...continued...
In spite of occasional eruptions of Hindu-Muslim riots, I believe that the Hindus are still far more peaceful and forgiving than any other population on earth. Genocides like those that happened under Pol Pot or Mao, or those that happened in Bosnia, Darfur, Rwanda, and Somalia (the list is endless) will not happen in India. I could go on and on about how many such wounds are in the minds of Hindus but that would only serve to distract. This is not any 'dark side' as Omar opines, but it is history. You will encounter the same wounds in Bosnia among Muslims if you talk to them today or in Chechnya if they are allowed to speak.

If ordinary folks are not drawn into some form of cathartic conversation (as I am obviously having here) it will be an eternal, hateful co-existence with occasional, violent outbursts. I cannot stop it, Gaultier and Varsha Bhosle cannot stop it, none of us here can stop it. It takes the activists who are on the ground in India to stop it.

The irony is, this is exactly what Zahir Janmohammed's article above is all about - bringing out the truth! He says 'Parzania' will help bring the truth out about a heinous act that happened five years ago, I am asking for the truth(or what the Hindus consider the truth is) about last 1,500 years to be brought out so that we will not need to make or watch movies like Parzania again and again.

Finally, I sincerely hope 'haji baba' is not the same as 'HB' because the two comments are from two very different intellectual levels!

End-post.

Sounds like terrorism to me.

"Posted by BushTerrorWarForMakeBenefitGloriousNationOfIsrael"

Allow me to be the first to congratulate the winner of altmuslim's first Username of the Year award.

<polite applause>

http://www.wmin.ac.uk/mad/pdf/5%20-%20Mediated_Nationalism.pdf

>>> I doubt if these columnists have been read by anyone other than guys like us who search the internet! My point in writing my lengthy commentary about ancient Hindu misgivings was to point out that celebrity opinions are irrelevant in such historical hatreds.

Whats worse than someone who peddles the misery and realness of Indias situation for some romantic tragedy to appease a white mind? (like Roy who happens to do alot of good IN HER country) ... Someone who peddles the romantic tragedy to appease their present day nazi fervour. Get it straight. This whole situation is not a growing tragedy of past injustice. Its the fervent racist effort of hindu nationalist socialists. Not some past deep scarring on the human psyche. Its been shown continually that muslims in India are economically and socially the most vulnerable community within India. Its also been shown that hindus are being manipulated and being given the easy target of an irreverent muslim neighbour to arouse passions and win votes. This is the factual background to this violence.

That muslim victims receive less money than hindus, that organs of state like the police were complicit in this violence, and that like the massacre at the goldent temple there is a huge case of self censorship .. is indicative of a worrying trend in Indian and Pakistani politics ... not unlike the imagined colonial discrimination that pre-empted teh Rwandan genocide. Its the factual state of present day Indian racist politics and NOT some hollywood styled turban wearing arab from the 10th century with a gleaming crescent shaped sword.

Vasan is trying to spin this indefensible attempt at state sponsored genocide. What act of sacrilege did the Muslims of Gujurat do to deserve have their wives and daughters raped and dismembered by hindu terrorists? What crime did those raped missionaries do to your precious sensibilities? You sir, are full of s*** and ought to be banned from this site. Hajibaba has made an excellent point about conversions. Last time I check 85% of the Indian population was hindu so forced conversion by Muslim is a shallow myth.
Mr.Modi and his henchmen including the vile Shiv Sena animals should be arrested, prosecuted and publically executed for their crimes against humanity.

Bush and Ghulam,

For a moment there, I was wondering as to where had the foaming-in-the-mouth brigade retired?! Good to know you are alive and well and are still refusing to take your prescribed tranquilizing medication!

You are in good company with hajibaba because he does not know the first thing about the non-proseletysing nature of Hinduism - if anything, the detriment of Hinduism is exclusionism!

But that's ok, it is in keeping with what I have been saying allong; Bush's screams to ban any other point of view is exactly my point! Let only msulims tell other muslims what the truth is, and rest of world's opinion be damned! And, by the way, that 'truth' better be palatable too!

These websites ultimately serve to do something good if there are people like me with opposing views speaking up. No matter how grotesque it may seem, you need to listen to other points of view. As for being grotesque, that is the nature of all opinion that does not corrospond to your own.

The trouble with opening windows to let light and fresh air in is that the man who is closeted in a dark, musty room all his life is unable to tolerate the light and fresh air! He screams to be left alone in the darkness.

>I was wondering as to where had the foaming-in-the-mouth brigade retired?! <

Coming from a dude who's being an apologist for state sanctioned terror, thats beyond funny.

>he does not know the first thing about the non-proseletysing nature of Hinduism - if anything, the detriment of Hinduism is exclusionism!<

If you're so inclusive then why don't you share your religion with others? You wont because you see yourself as a "chosen race." Its the philosophy which is at the crux of the campaign to make India into a Hindu fundamentalist state, devoid of minorities.
Buddhism, Christianity and Islam offer the low caste untouchables the one thing which Hinduism won't allow : equality.

>Bush's screams to ban any other point of view is exactly my point! Let only msulims tell other muslims what the truth is, and rest of world's opinion be damned!<

Your first mistake is assuming that I am a Muslim, your second being that you falsely insist that you're being slammed because of who you are. Its your uninformed hindutva fascist views which are are being savaged, and righly so. I can honestly say that you are disgusting excuse for a human being for playing down what happened in Gujurat.

>He screams to be left alone in the darkness.<

So sayeth the blind hindu fanatic in a well lighten room.

>> where had the foaming-in-the-mouth brigade retired?!

Sentimental argument because the facts and the truth have no bearing on your opinion.

>> I believe that the Hindus are still far more peaceful and forgiving than any other population on earth.

Absolutely. Except for the huge class discrepancies and sexism in the country, and an almost romantic self obsession that could lead to self censorship of incidents against gujeratis, sikhs, nepalese, kashmiris ...

>> How many of the Tutsis and Hutus do you think were actually motivated by columnists or even mob leaders?

Do you actually want to follow this question? lol You'll find violence was instigated by a few and lapped up by the stupid and greedy.

>> It may be easy for Muslims and Christians to put me in the same slot as the murdering mobs that went on a rampage in Ahamedabad

Were you actually party to this madness?! Looking for a sympathetic audience? Hindus are not battered wives. They carry their vote in a democracy within the organised structure of a state. You talk about dancing sufis, bit you're the only one spinning here. Everyones violence and murder is so unique and justifiable to themselves. And I can guarantee you that an impartial hindu observers would call cutting a foetus out of a womans belly because of trumped up politicing and nazi agenda .. MADNESS.

In the past thirty years (not one thousand years) .. a self gratifying, selfpitying ideology has grown out of what is disguised as Hindu consciousness and is eroding away at the peaceful and mutual co-existence that exists between muslim and hindu in india. India/pakistan/bangladesh itself is a colonial construct as is the noble/knowledgeable-big brother Hindu, insolent/selfish-little brother Muslim.

You are peddling a lie. No less. You are creating a friction where there is none. And justifying a course of action that is evil. Self pity justified 9/11 (a small scale isolated incident) and the holocaust (a large scale social and ethical failure). Its up to you to decide where you want this incident to go. And I fear you've already opted for further violence against a people that are already vulnerable to attack.