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.

Bush and Ghulam,

It always amazes me how angry people get without understanding what the other guy is saying when they hear something that does not suit what they want to hear! Where did I say I sanctioned what happened in Gujarat? You two dummies should calmly read what I am saying - take a deep breath, and your tranquilizers - and then read it again and again until what I am saying sinks in. Don't call hajibaba in case you need help! He seems worse than you two in comprehension exercises.

As for you Bush, being muslim or not, who cares man - the point is you want me to shut up because I am saying something people don't want to hear; which is that the underlying truth of why such violent acts happen must be addressed in order to not let them happen again. Seems like you are a little too carried away by your own cleverness in copying Borat's name!

But if you guys are happy with using the symptoms alone and not deal with the causes, I will leave you to feed each other hateful ideas and images meant to create more hatred.

Don't forget to send your loved ones a post card when you are with the houris!

You're getting boring, vasan. You know the reason I take issue with you is your defense of what happened in Gujurat. You are not a convincing liar, and your attempts to sugarcoat the atrocities there are a reflection of how callous you are. You are the sort of certified hindu fanatic who goes around vandalizing shops which sell Valentines day cards like the Shiv Sena thugs. What savagery you worshipers of blue elephants and cattle are capable of! All you fascists ought to lined up and sent to your next incarnation.
Hopefully you will comes out better....possibly as a hole in the ground toilet in a Mumbai slum.

Bush (or Wannabe Borat or whatever it is you are desperate to be),

I am not a convincing liar becasue I am not lying. Unlike you, I even use my real name! As for your filthy words - I hope this is not what they mean by etiquette in this website (or for that matter in your home). But then, when a man chooses to lie about his name, he has obviously decided that nobody is going to know what he does and is indulging himself in filthy fantasies. As the saying goes, the true character of a man is what he does when he thinks no one is looking! You obviously are in that category by the fact that you hide behind fake names! A cowardly and a filthy mind! Can it get any worse?! Oh wait - it can what if we add a marked lack of originality to that? What do we get? A Borat wannabe of course! Like I said - don't forget to send home a post card when you are with the houris - and better huury - it is getting so crowded they announced they are running out of houris for everyone!

For anyone else - in the off-chance that someone else might be reading this - other than the idiots I argued with, this was my point. It seems Indian Muslims can only see two kinds of Hindus - the overly apologetic Deepa Mehta kind, or the fanatical kind. Until Muslims begin to understand the layers upon layers that exist here, the discussion is doomed to be dominated by fools. Nowhere did I say I condoned anything that happened in Gujarat. The very first line I wrote here is testimony to that. Yet, just because I am not apologizing profusely for the work of fanatics, many muslims read my words to mean I was condoning the hienous acts. That's all there is to it. You see and hear what you want ot see and hear - but then, that is the story of humanity. Not just Indian Muslims.

You may be using your "real" name(irrelevant in a discussion like this) Vasan, but you are still lying and playing down the atrocities of Gujurat. We live in the digital age, so don't think people aren't privy to your dirty deeds against minorities. Don't lecture people on manners when you yourself mock and call others names. You keep repeating the same self-righteous nonsense, insisting that the victims of your mini-pograms have to "understand layers and layers."
Layers of what? Bullsh** I know you Hindu fanatics have plenty of that in India.

Borat Wannabe,

How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four; calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.

Pretending to be Borat does not make you one, pretending that Islam was spread by sufis in India will not make it so. Calling me a fanatic does not make me one.

Why is the name irrelevant? If you believe in what you say, you better stand by it by letting people know who are.

Au contraire, a coward who leads duplicitous lives, one on the net and one in real life, prefers to hide behind fake names to make slanderous comments on the net while pretending to be something else in real life.

Rs. 106.5-crore package for Gujarat victims

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: The Union Cabinet on Thursday approved a Rs. 106.57-crore relief and rehabilitation package for the victims of the 2002 Gujarat communal riots.

It includes an ex gratia payment to the next of kin of 1,169 persons who died. The payment will be made at Rs. 3.5 lakh a victim, in addition what was already given by the State Government.

An ex gratia payment of Rs. 1.25 lakh will be made to each of the 2,548 injured persons. It will be reduced by the amount already paid by the State Government.

The package consists of part-reimbursement of an ex gratia of Rs. 30.1 crore paid by the State Government for damage to residential property and an ex gratia of Rs. 17.18 crore for uninsured commercial/industrial property.

Cabinet spokesperson Priyaranjan Dasmunsi said children and family members of those who died in the riots would be given preference, with age relaxation, in recruitment to paramilitary forces, IR battalion, the State police forces, public sector undertakings and State and Central government departments. The Central and State Governments might launch special recruitment drives to accommodate eligible members from the riot-affected families.

Those who lost their jobs would be allowed to rejoin duty by treating the period of their absence as dies non, and those who had to leave their jobs because of the riots and had since crossed the age of superannuation might be given pension benefits by relaxing rules.

The figures for the dead and the injured were found in State Government records. If there were any more dead or injured, not included in the State lists, the affected persons could approach the Centre.

© Copyright 2000 - 2006 The Hindu

I see you have got nothing new since your last post 10 days ago except harp on about your obsession with "borat."
You can keep doing it but the fact remains that you indeed are a hindu fanatic and supporter of terrorism whitewashing the treatment of minorities in India. You treat cattle better then human beings, you sick fellow. You are good at projecting your fantasies on other people, a legend in your own mind you are - small mind, hard heart, totally bereft of any honesty. In the meantime stop trying to be something you are not, you are not given to an ounce of sound reasoning, and cling to a joke of a worldview.

Wannabe Borat,

I will say this very s l o w l y so that you understand it.

Now let us all repeat after me!

Who could not stop laughing for days after seiing a movie called 'Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan'?

Wannabe Borat!

Who spent hours (days? Weeks?) trying to come up with a name that was 'just like boart'?

Wannabe Borat did!

Who is obsessed with Borat?

Wannabe Borat is!

Well (you can stop repeating now) I doubt if irony is one of your strong points but then, I can come down in intelligence only so much to help you out! If you are determined to wallow in stupidity - like we say in India 'What to do!'

L O L! You must really love Borat, my dear hindu fundamentalist rodent. Either that or you've run out of excuses to justify the atrocities of Gujurat.

>like we say in India 'What to do!'<

Indeed, after losing to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, thats what you would say. I just hope you lunatics don't kill your coach.

Wannabe Bo-Rat!

Let's do this once more! Repeat after me!

Who loves Borat more than anyone in the world?
Wannabe Bo-Rat!

Who has RAT in his name! Wannabe Borat!

Who loves RATs? Wannabe Bo-RAT!

As for killing a coach (oh sorry - you can stop repeating now); As for killing the coach, we take defeat in stride with our victories. Remember, we are Hindus. For us, all this world is an illusion - it is called Maya!

Oh sorry Wannabe Bo-Rat, I keep forgetting you don't get these concepts! Anyway, I can only try to elevate this conversation but considering your mind cannot rise about Rats and gutters, I guess you keep saying filthy and stupid things and I will keep trying to help you - retarded as you are!

As I said 'what to do!'

Correction: Read that '...rise above... ' not '...rise about....'

Not that it matters, but considering Bo-Rat's tiny brain, it may hurt him. We should be kind to retarded people too.

LOL!!! You're a sore loser Vasan.

Date:25/03/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/03/25/stories/2007032502771000.htm
Package for riot victims hailed
Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: The Centre's latest relief package for the 2002 Gujarat carnage victims is "modest but long overdue and welcome," activist groups have said. However, specific attention needs to be paid to the plight of the 5,000 Muslim families who continue to live in temporary camps and colonies.

In a statement, the Aantarik Visthapit Hak Rakshak Samiti urged the Centre to expand the scope of the Rs.106.57-crore package "to bring into its framework the rights to relief, rehabilitation and reparation for the thousands who still remain internally displaced due to the violence in 2002 and who have really been in the forefront of this latest chapter in the struggle for recognition."

According to the activists, the package focussed primarily on payment of ex gratia for those who died or sustained injuries and only to a lesser extent on providing compensation for damage to residential and commercial properties or those still displaced.

The statement, signed by Samiti convener Yusuf Shaikh and activists Gagan Sethi, Shabnam Hashmi and Farah Naqvi, pointed to the October 2006 report of the National Commission for Minorities, recommending that the Gujarat Government and the Centre provide basic amenities and livelihood to internally-displaced persons (IDPs) living in makeshift camps.

The NCM also called upon the Centre to implement a comprehensive economic package that would address their concerns of livelihood as well as availability of credit and raw materials.

In a separate statement, Teesta Setalvad of the Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP) described the package as the "first significant and concrete step and acknowledgement of the State-sponsored violence."

She said: "The fact that injured persons have also been granted some reparation is an acknowledgement of the extent of the violence. It is a shame that the Centre has been compelled to intervene in violence that was left uncontrolled by a State (Government) that failed to perform its constitutional commitments and duty."
.............Continued

.......Continued......
The CJP stressed the need for a package for the IDPs. It expressed the hope that the Centre's package in its final form would provide reparation for victims of sexual violence and those who suffered complete damage to homes and businesses.

It accused the Gujarat Government of "mala fide intentions" in returning Rs.19 crore of relief monies to the Centre and not disbursing enough compensation for damage caused to houses. "When the scheme announced Rs. 50,000 per house damaged, barely 20 per cent of those whose homes have been destroyed have received the full amount."

© Copyright 2000 - 2006 The Hindu

Somebody please show me a similar compensation or acknowledgment of atrocities in Pakistan and Bangladesh against Hindus (or is no one here aware of that?) For that matter somebody please also show me that people feel the plight of the many Hindus who also died at Muslim hands in these riots in India (or is that also another complete no-no?)

And as for you Wannabe Borat, glad see you are laughing - I would hate to hurt a 'Special person' like you. But mull over this for sometime (but if you don't get it, let go - don't hurt yourself - and wipe the drool off your face, it is unsightly)

"The sparrow flying behind the hawk, thinks the hawk is fleeing!"

>> It seems Indian Muslims can only see two kinds of Hindus - the overly apologetic Deepa Mehta kind, or the fanatical kind.

How foolish. you're accusing muslims of seeing hindus in stereotypical light. And you do this by viewing muslims in an equally bigotted light. Then you expect us to apologise for it. When you can't even make the distinction between who experienced aggression and who the aggressors are. You're still avoiding that this is a

1.) recent phenomenon being trumped up nationalist idealism and racism.
2.) that it is muslims who are most vulnerable in India and not Hindus.

>> Somebody please show me a similar compensation or acknowledgment of atrocities in Pakistan and Bangladesh against Hindus

Had you actually argued a similar situation in Pakistan, you may have swayed opinions. But we all know that there isn't a concerted effort to undermine and humiliate hindus in Pakistan .. especially to the extent of incidents in gujerat, nepal etc. Where police stood by and watched as people were burnt alive!!

Ghulam,

I get all my reports of atrocities against Hindus and Hindu Temples in Pakistan and Bangladesh (this is against those few that are left) from 'the Dawn'.

If you are interested, look up the archives and you will find hundreds of such stories where Muslims kidnapped Hindu girls and the Police agreed with the Mullahs that the girls went 'voluntarily'. You must be really naive to not know any of it, or you choose to be so.

Recently in the heart of Karachi a Krishna temple was razed to the ground and the Dawn carried a photo citing abuse of minorities. The government did not care to react. I am not obsessed enough to dig up all this and present it here to impress you. If you choose to learn things you don't know (or seem to pretend not to know) , look it up; otherwise, continue to think you are the best in the world and the rest are scum!

None of this endorses the brutality in Gujarat, but you don't seem to get the point that there are deeper reasons for the turmoil in India than some superficial reason you seem to want to believe. You want to think this is all just a few years old? Ok - Your choice!

If you think Muslims are treated so badly in India, ask them if they want to go to Bangladesh or Pakistan! Or even Saudi Arabia!

This is what I mean by 'collective memory'. Just for a moment try to understand that the Hindus have memories far older than this - the Shia-Sunni rift. If the converted Shias and Sunnis of India can fight battles that happened between Arabs a thousand four hundred years ago, why is it so hard for you all to believe that Hindus would remember the atrocities of Muslims five hundred years ago? And by the way, this happened not in a distant Iraq but right where they live today - Ayodhya, Benares, Mysore (yes - surprise - Tipu Sultan massacred a whole village too!)...etc.


Curfew in Lucknow areas after Milad-un-Nabi clashes, 40 held
Lucknow, April. 1 (PTI): Curfew was clamped in Thakurganj and Chowk Police Circle areas here and over 40 people were arrested after clashes broke out between two groups of Muslims during a Milad-un-Nabi procession in the old city today.

SSP Jyoti Narayan told PTI that curfew was clamped in the entire Thakurganj and Chowk Police Circle as a precautionary measure.

The two groups had clashed in Thakurganj area this morning and resorted to heavy brick batting injuring over a dozen people and setting afire a number of shops, houses and a four-wheeler.

Police and fired teargas shells and resorted to baton charge to disperse the mob.

Security forces were posted on rooftops in the congested area to prevent people from resorting to brick batting again.

Principal Secretary (Home) K Chandramauli said action would be taken against those found guilty for laxity.

"As of now, we are concentrating on normalising the situation," he said.

Sunnis traditionally organise the main procession from Aminabad to Aishbagh Eidgah on Barawafat, which marks the birth anniversary of Prophet Mohammad. A number of smaller processions join it along the way.

Riots are never good for any community, family, nation, industry.

I don't how much the writer / other people on board has seen the reality in detail. How many of them are real gujarati? I was there during these riots and riots before that. I was anticipating treatment of bomb makers (who burned by mistakes, and presented to hospital with full family support) who were in the hospitals... unfortunately. I knew how muslims get money out of government. Both community has suffered but this time it was opposite then ever before and in large amount. Ultimately the summation of all event turns out about 0-0 for both communities.

Anyhow it turned out without any enhanced security Gujarat is riot free atleast for five years and that proves who is / was the ultimate terrorist who is affraid now.

For those shouting failure of government to arrest riot people shouldn't forget that the government is not able to arrest anyone who burned the religious people at first place - (I call them the problem of all) Do you ever get to read any of their names. Indian police can never get in to the areas of godhara even now. Hardly military can go in. A real terrorist area.

No one is my enemy. I had / have many muslim friends and I have sympathy for innocent people. But I am same way angry about part of terrorist in them. I am really happy about the end result - quiet gujarat for five years. That's definately because of MODI.