People's Democracy

Godhra Probe Makes BJP Panicky

 Harkishan Singh Surjeet

NOW that the UPA government has formed a committee to inquire into the Godhra rail tragedy, the desperation of the already frustrated BJP has reached a new high. The departmental inquiry will be headed by Justice U C Banerjee (Retd) and will submit its report in three months.

One will note that on February 27, 2002, soon after the Sabarmati Express left Godhra station in Gujarat, its bogie number S-6 caught fire that claimed 58 lives. Though the tragedy occurred in controversial circumstances, the BJP claimed that the fire was the handiwork of some Muslims, and then went ahead to launch a genocide that killed more than 2,000 Muslims in over four months time. The holocaust witnessed large-scale destruction of properties belonging to Muslims and several cases of rape and molestation of their womenfolk. Moreover, many of them were driven out of their hearth and home, and their properties were illegally occupied; many of them are still unable to return to their places.

THE BJP’S REAL FEAR

THE BJP has termed the latest probe as “unconstitutional.” Its argument is that since the Nanavati-Shah commission is already probing the Gujarat riots, there was no need for this committee. But the logic is spurious. For, the terms of reference of the inquiry ordered are different from the brief given to the Nanavati-Shah commission, and also cover aspects like railway safety and security, technology upgradation, and preventive measures to avoid a recurrence of Godhra type incidents. These are the aspects the said commission is not concerned with.

As for the BJP’s charge that formation of the committee shows the government’s vindictiveness, this is ridiculous. As The Indian Express (September 3) said, “it’s rare that a retired Supreme Court judge heads a probe panel.” But the thing to note is that the government deliberately asked a retired judge to head the committee, so that its intentions are not doubted. In fact, this probe into the Godhra train fire can be a valuable supplement to the Nanavati-Shah commisson’s work, instead of being a parallel probe.

The reality of the charge becomes evident the moment one recalls that it was in the name of the unfortunate Godhra killings that the BJP and other Sangh Parivar outfits staged their dance of death for months together. And this while there was enough ground to doubt the Parivar’s claim that the Godhra fire was part of a conspiracy. (We will return to this aspect later.) It is clear that if the truth of Godhra comes out, the real face of the fascistic demon, called Sangh Parivar, will get bared in all its nakedness. This is the real fear haunting these outfits.

Another fear is that all those killed in the Godhra fire were not karsevaks as the Parivar claimed, and the probe may expose this fact.

PARIVAR’S CLAIM OF CONSPIRACY

AS for the reason of this inquiry, it is known that when the tragic happening occurred, the railway ministry under the BJP led dispensation simply --- perhaps deliberately --- failed in its elementary duty to probe it. As the present railway minister said while announcing the inquiry decision:

“It is mandatory under the Railway Act for the commissioner, railway safety, to conduct an inquiry into an accident. In this particular case, the CRS just kept sitting without conducting an inquiry. After eight months of the incident --- when he was asked --- the CRS claimed that he did not probe because the Gujarat government had already set up the Nanavati commission. It is intriguing that the then railway minister did not think that the CRS should have gone ahead with his own inquiry. It was his duty to pressure the CRS.”

Secondly, the BJP dubbed the Godhra incident as a “premeditated criminal conspiracy” designed to kill the karsevaks travelling in the said coach and to create an atmosphere of fear and terror in the state. Then the Parivar used it to unleash a horrific genocide in the state. Moreover, no less than the then prime minister sought to justify the genocide in Godhra’s name. Speaking in Lok Sabha on March 16, 2002, Vajpayee had said: “Whatever happened at Godhra is known to all of us. But what happened thereafter cannot be justified by what happened at Godhra.” Yet, as is his wont, Vajpayee soon effected a volte face and said the following at a public meeting in Goa on April 12, 2002: “What happened in Gujarat? If a conspiracy had not been hatched to burn alive the innocent passengers of the Sabarmati Express, then the subsequent tragedy in Gujarat could have been averted.” Earlier the same Vajpayee had played offended over the use of the term “genocide” for the killing of Muslims while himself using the word “massacre” for Godhra killings. (See People’s Democracy, May 2, 2004 for details of Vajpayee’s flip-flops.)  

Thus, to justify the large-scale genocide it launched in the state from the very next day, i e February 28, 2002, the Parivar has always propagated that the Godhra fire was a preplanned conspiracy.

GROUNDS TO DOUBT RSS-BJP CLAIM

YET, as said, there has always been enough ground to believe that the Godhra tragedy involved no conspiracy, and was exploited by the Sangh Parivar to start a holocaust against Muslims in the state.

The fact that Vajpayee’s railway minister did not institute a probe into the Godhra tragedy, constitutes the first ground to doubt the RSS-BJP theory of a conspiracy.

Then there are the two reports from Forensic Science Laboratory of Ahmedabad, stating that the agency did not find any evidence of the said coach S-6 being burnt by anything inflammable thrown from outside. For example, on the basis of investigations conducted on May 1, 2002, the first report said: “No sign was observed of the use of any corrosive fluid like the acid in the said fire.” It found enough indication that the fire started inside, “from the eastern side of the coach and thereafter spread towards western side rapidly.”

Similarly, on the basis of investigation two days later, the second forensic report said: “It was found that the height of the window of the coach was around 7 ft from the ground at that place. Under this circumstance, it was not possible to throw any inflammable fluid inside from outside the coach from any bucket or carboy….. if the inflammable fluid is thrown from outside, then major part of it would fall around the track outside and catch fire and cause damage to the outer part of the bottom side of the coach. But after examination of the coach and the track, no effect was found of the fire on bottom side below the windows of the coach.” Further, “There also appears to be no possibility that any inflammable liquid was thrown through the door of the bogie.” (See for details State Sponsored Genocide: Factsheet Gujarat 2002, a compilation of official reports, CPI(M) Publications, August 2002.)

And here is another clinching evidence. Deposing before the Nanavati-Shah commission on August 31, 2004, a top ranking Gujarat police officer refused to admit that the Godhra tragedy involved any “intelligence failure” because he said there was no conspiracy involved. According to this officer called R B Shreekumar, “there is no record of any conspiracy” (The Statesman, September 1). This officer is no less than the Additional DGP (Police Reforms) of Gujarat Police. He was the state intelligence chief at the time of Gujarat genocide and was “unceremoniously removed…. when he allegedly leaked his departmental report saying that the state was not ready for assembly elections soon after the riots in 2002” (The Asian Age, September 1). 

These are only some pieces of the clinching evidence that show that whatever else the Godhra carnage may have been, it definitely involved no conspiracy hatched by anti-national forces.

PARIVAR’S INTENTION

BUT this also gives us enough food for thought about the Parivar’s game. The question is: if Godhra tragedy was not a result of any conspiracy, then what prompted the Parivar to grab it up so eagerly? The meaning is clear. With all the savage force at its command, the Parivar exploited this tragedy to pounce upon the hapless Muslim community in the state.

Also, there is ample evidence to conclude that the Parivar was preparing for this massacre since at least six months before the Godhra tragedy occurred. The Parivar had already tasted blood by launching a series of attacks against the minuscule Christians in Gujarat and various other parts of the country, including the burning alive of a priest and his two minor sons in Orissa. Evidently, it thought it was now the turn of attacking the Muslims.

That the Gujarat massacre was preplanned, has never been in doubt. There are reports that Muslim houses, shops and other establishments were being identified at least six months in advance, and these were selectively targeted. The way the genocide progressed and continued for over four months, also testifies to its planned nature. The large-scale use of mobile phones by marauding gangs was one proof of it, showing that these gangs were being directed by some unidentified centre. Also, these gangs were meticulously distributed and care was taken to deploy or persons away from their respective areas so that they were not moved while attacking the strangers. If they had been deployed in their own areas, (1) they could well be identified, and (2) at least some of them could have been swayed by feelings of mercy while attacking familiar faces.

All this shows that the Parivar had craftily made preparations to win the soon-to-come assembly polls by terrorising the Muslims and Christians in the state and by polarising the population on communal lines. This was the Parivar’s real intention in exploiting the Godhra carnage. But this also indicates that the Parivar would have gone on rampage on some other pretext if the Godhra carnage had not taken place. 

It was not without reason that chief minister Narendra Modi dissolved the state assembly at the height of the genocide and demanded that the Election Commission hold early elections in the state. It is another thing that, in view of the situation in the state, the commission did not oblige it. However, Modi finally won the assembly elections by polarising the Gujarat masses on communal lines though the BJP fared comparatively badly in Lok Sabha polls as the polarisation had largely dissipated by that time.

POLITICAL PATRONAGE

THAT the marauding gangs were extended full patronage and cooperation by the political establishments in the state and at the centre, is also well documented. First of all, despite the gruesome killings going on in several parts of the state, for several days Modi did not ask for army deployment, nor did the centre took initiative to control the situation by sending the army in. If anything, the then defence minister George Fernandes, a well known windbag, congratulated Modi for having promptly brought the situation under control (Vajpayee later paid the same compliment to Modi) even though the genocide continued for months together. If Vajpayee later deplored Modi for the BJP’s defeat in Lok Sabha polls, it did confirm the charge that the state government was hand in glove with the killers; only that the central government was not innocent either and that the deploration only reflected on Vajpayee’s own character.

The transfer of certain police officials to far away places, for having tried to honestly do their duty, also testifies to the patronage the killers enjoyed.

And on August 31, R B Shreekumar, referred to above, made a “sensational testimony before the Nanavati-Shah commission of inquiry,” revealing “how senior BJP politicians then in power in the state had interfered in the functioning of the police during the post-Godhra riots and prevented the force from controlling the violence” (The Asian Age, September 1, 2004). He also told the commission that “police inspectors were taking orders directly from the political leadership, ignoring their superiors,” and that “senior police officers had later felt depressed and demoralised and there was no proper investigation into the cases, nor any proper recording of statements, and people named in the FIRs were not arrested” (The Statesman, September 1). However, the officer did not name any politician, saying he was bound by the protocol. Yet, though the things he has divulged may be valuable as corroborative evidence, there was nothing “sensational” in them as The Asian Age has called them. These facts were known to one and all from the beginning.  

The blatant patronage extended to the killers even made the Supreme Court pronounce its now-famous remark that when Gujarat was burning, “the modern-day Neroes” were busy contemplating how to save the culprits.

The official patronage extended to the Sangh Parivar killers is also evident from one more fact. While the state administration booked under POTA 123 Muslims for their alleged role in Godhra carnage (98 of them are still in judicial custody while the rest have been declared absconders), the POTA was not invoked against a single man involved in the post-Godhra massacre.

WHAT WE ALL HAVE TO DO

OVERALL, the situation in Gujarat under BJP has reached such a point that the apex court of the country felt constrained to express lack of trust in the state administration and prosecution. That was why it ordered that the Best Bakery case and Bilqis Yaqub Rasool case be tried in Maharashtra.

In the meantime, many skeletons have tumbled out of the state government’s cupboard and many more are likely to tumble out in coming days. Teesta Seetalvad’s Citizens for Justice & Peace has already identified the culprits in several cases, filed petitions against them, and most of these petitions have been taken up for hearing. It is also learnt that some other organisations have begun “to shortlist all those cases where despite the FIRs mentioning sections 302 (murder) or 307 (attempted murder) of the Indian Penal Code, police officials investigating the cases closed the files by filing ‘A’ or ‘B’ summary reports” (The Asian Age, September 3). The estimate is: some 60 such cases may get reopened if the judiciary takes note of these attempts.

This is the real reason the BJP has got panicky after the UPA regime decided to have a probe into Godhra. The need today for all of us is not only to extend assistance to the victims in fighting the court cases but also try to get as many cases reopened as possible. We must also see to it that the karsevaks’ own behaviour from Ayodhya to Godhra is brought under the ambit of the probe. We have to ensure that this gang of killers is isolated from the people to the maximum possible extent and pushed to the wall. This is absolutely imperative in the interest of our secular ethos, composite culture, national unity and civilised existence.