Sophiya Shaikh (14) was waiting with her mother, Jaitunbibi, and sister Shahida at Godhara Railway Station for a train to Baroda on Feb. 27 (2002) morning. Hindu nazis calling themselves. karsevaks were shouting slogans and pushing around all those who came their way. So they moved to a safer corner. Meanwhile, they saw quarrel with a tea-stall man. Having got scarred, they decided to get out of the station. As they tried to go, a Hindu nazi passenger pulled her. An eyewitness ran to the nearby basti and shouted that two Muslim girls were being forcibly taken away at the station. This was enough to collect a few men first, then a large crowd from around the garages which had all the attack material easily available.
MUSLIM MOST HATED MAN
1)Psychologists say it is a ‘copying syndrome’: fire for fire. The tales narrated by people who survived the Sabarmati Express fire, the gruesome images shown on TV of burnt coaches and charred bodies – left a deep imprint on their minds. Those who rushed out to take revenge, had the fire image embedded in them and hence so many cases of people being burnt alive. Naroda Patia 65, Chamanpura 30, Pandarvada 30, Sardarpura -27, Ode-13, Hanuman Tekri-12, Limadiya 8 are the major incidents of burning alive barring the scattered ones.
2) It was re-enactment of scenes from Manto’s stories, Khushavant’s novel, Train to Pakistan, Bhishma Sawhney’s serial Tamas all based on Partition-days. Fire for Fire. Narendra Modi, justifying the Godhra aftermath, quoted Newton : Every action invites reaction from opposite side. The anger of 5-crore people of Gujarat is impossible to control. Thakre taunted the VHP with the loaded words what else you can do except calling bandh.
3)Ayodhya movement beginning from 1989, Advani’s rathyatra resulting in Babri demolition on Dec. 6, 1992, Hindu nazi RSS poisoning people with their shakhas in almost every Hindu locality-now in all Dalit and Tribal bastis as well, VHP opening its branches in every village, town, city with 65-hour chanting of Ramjap by 13 lakh people and jalabhishek in shivalayas of 5,000 villages by 9.50 lakh people, the incessant Ramkatha parayana by Muraris, Athwales, Ashrams; 85,000 ‘trishuls’ distributed by Bajrang Dal with the exhortation to brandish it as Hindu identity as is done by Sikhs carrying kirpan…. And finally the Sept. 11, Palestine, Kargil and Parliament House attack-India, Israel and America are all making the ‘Muslim’ a most hated term.
4)Add to all this the effect of social unrest being created by the economic scenario, robbing of livelihood in the name of privatization and globalisation.
5)All this is a fatal combination to drive anybody wild, and Godhra provided an opportunity to these vitiated minds and idle hands to ignite fire.
SECULAR MUSLIM, BEWARE
6)Whatever that represented the Muslim identity was under attack. As if a premonition of what was to come, Ahsan Jaffery (68), the poet-cum-parliamentarian who made 200 frantic SOS calls to police, politicians, bureaucrats but to no avail, got burnt alive with 30 others. He had written on the 1969 riots:
“Neither the apostle nor the Alexander came. Only daggers sprouted on the streets. Everyone said they were messiahs, But when they knocked, they were found to be tormentor. Human corpses decomposed on the streets, Even the crows seemed to live saner…”
7) None were spared. Not even those poor village folks whose middle or last names were the proof of their being recent converts from Hinduism: Rabiya Solanki, Suleman Rathod, Hasan Jivaji Malek.
PEACE LOVING BOHRAS
Many of the posh restaurants that’ were burnt had camouflaged under Hindu, secular or cosmopolitan names: Bhagyodaya Hotel, Hotel Hans Inn, Hotel Tulsi, Hotel Ashirwad, Hotel Millennium, Hotel Signor, Hotel Supreme, Treat, Zenith, Topaz etc. Even couples married inter-religion had to evacuate from their Hindu neighborhood: Nafisa Barot who married a theatre personality Raju Barot, Dr.Hanif Lakdawala who married Sheeba George, an NGO Activist
High court judges and IPS Officers belonging to Muslim community had to evacuate their official bungalows and move to safer Muslim localities. A Muslim student preparing for PhD got his 5 years labour lost when mobs set fire to his hostel room. Even the state capital, Gandhinagar, could not save its govt. buildings which housed offices of the Govt. Waqt Board and Minorities Finance Corporation all were ransacked. The District Collector, Hyder, himself a Muslim, couldn’t do anything.
8) The havoc wrought this time is horrible and horrendous. Let us try if figures can tell its magnitude and gravity:
(i) 704 total killed (including 58 Sabarmati Express passengers); (ii) 7,000 injured (now in Relief Camps); (iii) 2,593 injured (now in govt. hospitals); (iv) 3,014 houses burnt; (v) 2,503 Shops burnt; (vi) 1,295 lari-galla bunt; (vii) 20,000 two-wheelers bunt; (viii) 4,000 motorcars bunt; (ix) 350 trucks burnt; (xi) 150 restaurants burnt; (xii) 60,000 people sheltered in 25 relief camps; (xiii) 6,00,000 daily wage-earners affected severely; (xiv) 1,000 shops, bakeries, showrooms, godowns owned by peace-loving Dawoodi Bohras. destroyed.
9)These official figures can hardly relate the scenes of inferno the people were pushed into. One only remembers Galib’s sher for the victims:
“do gaz zamin bhi na mil saki.”
Bjg common graves were dug for mass burials-96 in Dudheshwar. graveyard and 200 in Sarkhej graveyard. Living beside them like baggers were the hapless survivors who had taken shelter in makeshift relief camps of these graveyards.
MUSLIMS PROTECT HINDUS
10) The communal frenzy was so powerful that a husband set on fire his young wife who asked him to stay away from rioting and joining the ransacking mobs.
11)A rich Muslim family travelling by a Tata Sumo offered Rs.4 lakh to allow them safe passage. But the mob declined and set the vehicle and the occupants on fire.
12)A Muslim basti gave Rs.2 lakhs as protection money in a town to a predominant Hindu caste. This caused a fight among the other castes.
13) Twenty-two Muslim dargahs and tombs were razed to ground and were immediately converted into Hulladia (riotous) Hanuman and Godharia Hanuman.
14)But in contrast, Ilol village of Sabarkantha dt., which has 11,000 Muslims of all firkas (Sunni, Shia, Tabligi, Deobandhi, Jafri, Ishara, Sipai) and 3,000 Hindus of all castes, lived peacefully. The Hindu minority had nothing to fear from the Muslim majority so cordial was their social interaction.
15) The Eastern belt tribals were particularly ruthless this time. It is said they were paying back their exploitation and oppression made by the Muslim contractors, farmers in their forests, lands.
GOD DEFEATED BY MAN
16) A poet’s prophesy seldom fails. Harivanshray Bachchan had written a couplet much before Babri demolition and still much before the gruesome Godhra tragedy:
“Mandir-masjid balr karaye, Mei Karati Madhushala.”
No Ishwar came to the rescue when his own abode at Ayodhya was allegedly destroyed by Babar or his devotees- Ramsevaks. Karsevaks were burning in Sabarmati Express. No Allah came to the rescue when his own abode – Babri Masjid – was being demolished by karsevaks nor to the Muslims who were set to flames in the Godhra aftermath.
The God-Muslim or Hindu – is made or unmade by man. The religion only divides humanity and sows the seeds of hatred. among one another, as the poet has warned. Neither god nor satan but Modi brought qayamat for Gujarat Muslims.
M.K. Gandhi’s Gujarat has sealed the fate of Muslims. DV proves right in saying that Muslim life and property are no longer safe under Hindu nazi rule (DV Edit March 16, 2002).
