People's Democracy

RECENT survey of the villages of Dahod and Panchmahal in Gujarat says that the areas that are almost unapproachable were not spared. (These roads were re-laid after the genocide.) Armed with pistols, guns, bows and arrows, petrol-filled bottles, cans and unidentified inflammable chemicals, sufficiently large, trained gangs of the VHP, RSS and Bajrang Dal were mobilised to attack these localities. Cell phones were used to coordinate the attackers and to identify the targeted localities. It was also reported that the leaders spearheading the mobs carried with them computer sheets for identifying the Muslim houses.

But the attackers did not want to take a chance. It was reported that all non-Muslim residents in Timba village of Godhra taluka were asked to put saffron flags on top of their houses so that these could be identified from a distance.

The survey states that the attack was organised in such a manner that the RSS and VHP members from one village were sent to lead the attack on another village, about 10-15 km away from their own. To an extent, this helped in hiding the identity of the leaders and gave the impression that the local RSS and VHP members did not participate in attacking their neighbours. The organisers did not realise that the victims would move to camps where they would be forced to live together for months and relate their experiences to each other. Thus, with the help of one another, most of the victims were able to identify the perpetrators and did lodge complaints identifying the criminals. It is another matter that in most cases the police refused to lodge an FIR (first information report). In a majority of cases, they also refused to accept the complaints wherein the victims had mentioned the criminals’ names.

The survey observed that the aims of attacks on the Muslim community were threefold:

1) To humiliate the Muslim community;

2) To cripple the whole targeted population economically; and

3) To destroy their movable and immovable property to the extent that they, for a long time, dare not come back to their villages.

On the positive side, the report stated that, despite so much of communal poison spread throughout the state, there were a large number of people who maintained sanity and helped the victims. In numerous incidents, the members of the majority community jeopardised their own safety in order to save the lives and property of the targeted population. One of the aims of the study was to put on record how many individuals were involved in such efforts. The surveyors were fully conscious of the trying circumstances in which, for every reported case of bravery and brotherhood, there is a large number of cases which will go unreported. The reason is that those who were saved would not like to put the lives of their saviours to risk.

According to the data, the reported income of the more than 80 per cent of those interviewed was above Rs1000 per month. About 34 per cent family heads earned more than Rs 2000 per month. The analysis revealed that the economic status of the targeted victim population was fairly high. Family income of only 13 per cent of the respondents was less than Rs1000 per month. Of all the respondents interviewed, 14 per cent did not reveal their monthly income. The pattern that emerges from the studies of most previous riots shows that, be it Muslims or Hindus, it is the lowest economic stratum that is also most vulnerable during the attacks. In Gujarat the meticulous planning and administrative support ensured that all sections of the Muslim population were hit equally badly.

One of the questions included in the schedule was: Were the attackers wearing saffron bands on their foreheads? To this question, 84 per cent respondents replied in the affirmative. Special care was taken by the organisers to provide saffron bands and cloths to the crowd that attacked the Muslim localities. The reason, it seems, was twofold. First, since they wanted to hide the individual identity of attackers, the cloth came handy and was used as a mask to hide the face. Secondly, these attackers were collected from different parts of the district and were not familiar with each other. Hence it was necessary to provide them a collective identity so that they could recognise each other and not hurt their fellow attackers.

The scenarios of attack, as re-created by the respondents, suggest that large mobs led by the VHP or Bajrang Dal or RSS attacked the victims. The participation of these bodies is reported to be widespread. About 80 per cent the respondents reported that members of the VHP, RSS and Bajrang Dal actively participated in the attacks. When the respondents were asked to identify the attackers, most of them reported that the local leader, MLA or the sarpanch did not lead the mob. Only 62 respondents reported that they had seen the local sarpanch present among the attackers. Local leaders and MLAs were identified among the attackers by only 0.2 respondents.

In most riots that took place in the past, it was reported that mobs based on outsiders attacked a locality. The nature of Gujarat carnage differs in the sense that in a number of cases people were mobilised to attack inhabitants of their own villages. A vertical split on communal lines was engineered even at the village level. This leads to the conclusion that, on the one hand, the hate campaign was quite widespread and the attackers enjoyed a high degree of feeling of immunity from authorities. One of the reasons for high percentage of killings could be attributed to this phenomenon. They were confident that no action would be taken against them even if the victims identified them. Yet, it may be noted here that as many as 34 per cent of the respondents said none of their neighbours had participated in the attacks. A firm ‘no’ by such a large percentage of victims gives a lot of hope. Clearly, the RSS has not been able to achieve 100 per cent efficiency in tearing the social fabric on religious lines. For secular forces in the state, there still lies an opportunity to work for communal harmony and defeat the fascist forces.

The survey was conducted on behalf of Prashant and SAHMAT by Gauhar Raza and Shabnam Hashmi.