89% Hindus, 9% Muslims
Chief Minister of Gujarat: Narendra Modi, BJP, October 2001–
The state of Gujarat witnessed one of the worst cases of mass violence in Indian history. While government accounts reported around 850 deaths, it is likely that more than two thousand people, overwhelmingly Muslims, lost their lives in what has been called the «first state-led pogrom» in India. Every report on these events indicated that the riot was well-planned and sponsored by the BJP-led Gujarat administration and its chief minister, Narendra Modi. The violence was preceded by concerted attempts to identify Muslim houses and shops in Ahmedabad and other of the state’s cities and villages.
The violence was ignited on February 27 by an attack in Godhra (Gujarat) on a train carrying Hindu pilgrims and kar sevaks who were coming back from Ayodhya (Uttar Pradesh) where they had offered support for the campaign to construct a Ram temple in place of the destroyed Babri Masjid. It is alleged that they harassed Muslim passengers-forcing them to shout «Jai Shri Ram» («Long live Ram»)-and Muslim station vendors, refusing to pay them for refreshments. When the kar sevaks forced a Muslim woman into the train, a passenger pulled the chain, thereby stopping the train in the sensitive Muslim locality of Godhra. A mob of 500–2,000 people encircled the train and set fire to the wagons, killing 58 Hindus, including 25 women and 14 children. By evening, the corpses had been transported to Ahmedabad for a public ceremony. The VHP, with the support of the BJP administration, subsequently called for a February 28 state-wide bandh (strike) in Gujarat. The violence started on that day. Armed mobs of activists from the VHP, the Bajrang Dal, the RSS and the BJP, some wearing uniforms (khaki shorts and saffron scarves), arrived by truck in Muslim areas, targeting Muslim households with militia-like precision. They used voters’ lists from the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation to identify Muslim houses. The police refused to intervene, having received orders not to give assistance to the Muslim community. Policemen, in fact, participated in some attacks, actively colluding with Hindu criminals. One hundred and eighty-four people died throughout the state of Gujarat-shot by the police.
In Ahmedabad, 252 people died. The largest number of killings occurred in the Naroda Patia and Gulmarg Society areas. In Naroda Patia, 65 people were burned alive by a 5,000-strong mob after having been hacked and raped. In Gulmarg Society, the 250 persons who had sought refuge in the house of former Muslim MP (Member of Parliament) Ahsan Jafry were targeted by a crowd of 20,000. Seventy people were murdered, including Jafry who, in spite of countless calls to the administration, could not elicit any assistance. He was dismembered and burned alive.
The entire state of Gujarat was rocked by violence. Sixteen of its twenty-four districts were affected. The violence then spread to rural areas where, it is estimated, 1,200 villages were targeted. Adivasis participated in the attacks against Muslims on a scale never witnessed before. In the city of Baroda, on March 1, fourteen persons were burned alive at the Best Bakery, a Muslim establishment. Two hundred and forty-nine people died in Panchmahal district, 54 in Dahod district, 57 more in Mehsana district, 30 in Kheda district, 28 in Sabarkantha district, and many more in other districts.
Five hundred and twenty-seven mosques, madrasas, dargahs (shrines), and graveyards were destroyed. The violence left behind 100,000 refugees, including 10,000 Hindus. Sexual violence was used on an unprecedented scale (for India). Women were gang-raped and pregnant women were disemboweled. Christians were also targeted in the riots. Incidents of violence went on until the end of April 2002.
On September 24, in Gandhinagar (Gujarat), two men armed with AK-56s killed 28 persons in the Hindu temple of Akshardham to avenge the crimes committed against Muslims in the months of February and March.
Almost ten years after these incidents took place many of the instigators of one of India’s most dramatic episodes of mass violence are still not behind the bars. Although the faces of the guilty men are well-known (newspaper evidence is damning), justice has been repeatedly delayed. The grip of Hindutva forces over Gujarat’s state machinery is a plausible explanation for the delay. In 2008, the Shah-Nanavati Commission, appointed by the state government of Narendra Modi, submitted its report, which largely exonerated Gujarat’s administration. The Commission’s methods were challenged, however, by many Indian personalities and NGOs, as having been both partial and complacent. The Indian Supreme Court was therefore forced to set up its Special Investigation Team (SIT) to reinvestigate many of the cases, but its functioning remained heavily dependent on the cooperation of judicial and police officers belonging to Gujarat’s state apparatus. A report was submitted in December 2010: the material gathered did not prove sufficient to justify legal action against the Modi administration.
So far, only a few riot cases have been tried by Indian justice, more or less successfully:
- The Best Bakery case: In March 2003, a Gujarati court tried the case concerning the burning of the Best Bakery establishment in which 14 persons lost their lives (including 12 Muslims). The trial was cut short however, when one of the main witnesses, whose family members had been killed during the attack, eventually withdrew her testimony (probably under pressure and subject to intimidation). The 21 accused were acquitted. The case came to symbolize the complicity and partiality of the state’s justice system. The investigation had indeed been carried out by the very same police force whose passivity during the attack was at issue. The case was eventually re-opened and reinvestigated in 2004. It was re-tried in 2006 by a Mumbai court: nine of the accused were convicted of murder, and were sentenced to life imprisonment.
- The Godhra train-burning incident (with Hindus victims): after many controversies (the Shah-Nanavati commission claimed that the arson had been previously-planned by Muslim criminals, while a committee headed by a former Supreme Court judge, U. C. Banerjee, concluded that it was a mere accident) a special court, in February 2011, convicted 31 of the accused (11 death penalties, 20 life imprisonments) and acquitted 63 others (including the main suspects).
- The Sardapura massacre: in November 2011, a special court in Gujarat sentenced 31 people to life imprisonment for the killing of 33 people in the village of Sardapura (Mehsana district) on 1 March 2002. The victims had been locked into a room and burned to death by a mob of assailants. Although forty-two of the accused were acquitted due to lack of evidence, this was the first time a trial held in Gujarat successfully convicted people for the 2002 events.
***(Communalism Combat 03–04/2002); ***(Concerned Citizens Tribunal 2002); ***(Human Rights Watch 2002); **(Outlook 18/03/2002); ***(Engineer 2003b); ***(Jaffrelot 2003a); ***(Mann 2005: 484); **(Tehelka 03/11/2007), ***(Jaffrelot 2011), **(India Today 10/11/2011)