Communal riots happen all the time, what's so special about Godhra?

Communal riots happen all the time in India, so, what is so special about Godhra riots? Why does it get mentioned so many times in the media? Why does it get special treatment? Why can't people get over it, after all, it almost happened a decade ago (in 2002)? Hindus also die in these riots so what a big deal, why make such a big issue out of it? Nowadays one can hear a lot of questions and statements like this, especially because Mr. Narendra Modi is a prime ministerial candidate of the BJP for the upcoming national elections in India, and the Godhra riots are one of the major issues he is going to face during his fight for the top post. I remember hearing similar types of questions many times before, 1984 when the massacre in Delhi happened after the unfortunate assassination of Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi said these infamous lines, "When a big tree falls, earth shakes." These words seem to somehow try to justify the riots that happened after Mrs. Gandhi's assassination. Similar statements were made after the Babri demolition and the riots that followed it, after the Mumbai bomb blasts. The list is too long to mention. Almost after every riot, there is a lot of anger, emotional drama, and blame game. Justifications are offered, motives questioned, some parties get political mileage and others wait for the next riot to get their chance to score some points for their side. This is a tragic and vicious cycle going on for several years in Indian politics. Neither political parties are interested in breaking this cycle nor do people seem to be interested in understanding that they are being used like cards and are the ultimate sufferers. Literally, people are used just like cards which are used to kill each other, which can be sacrificed if necessary to save some important cards, anything can be done to these cards to win the game. The strange thing is not only players who play this game but even cards seem to be loving this cruel game. It seems the cards are not aware of their pathetic situation.

So what is wrong with all these questions? Why do I feel they are insensitive and somehow try to legitimize or justify these riots? First of all these statements seem to assume that if something is happening regularly then we should get used to it even if it's wrong, cruel, or inhuman. Just because it's a routine event, it doesn't deserve acceptance. Another assumption some people make is two wrongs can make one right. If Muslims along with some Hindus get killed in riots or vice versa then it's okay because both sides suffered the loss. Such a strange logic is offered to justify the tragic purposeful loss of a human life. Have we become so casual and insensitive about the plight of victims of mass violence? Every riot, every murder, and every death in this manure is wrong. They all are tragic and unfortunate doesn't matter which caste, race, or religion those people belong. Political parties and religious leaders both take advantage of this rift between people of different faiths. Many of them don't seem to be interested in narrowing this gap but they want to widen it more. They want to make it so wide that there should not be any scope for reconciliation. They want to do it by using either Mandir issues, Masjid issues, fatwas, or moral policing. Communal riots are part of this game. It is for investigating agencies to decide whether Mr. Modi was involved in the Godhra riots in any way or not. He should not be treated like a criminal without any strong evidence against him but at the same time, he is answerable to questions related to these riots because he was the head of that state when this thing happened. His silence on this issue or his refusal to apologize not only displays his compulsion to play for his vote bank but also displays the perception that even though whatever happened was sad, it was not completely wrong. Riots are projected as an act of revenge, but the question is how many times do we need to ignore such revengeful acts and move on. How many times more?

Whatever happened in 1984 was wrong, whatever happened with Kashmiri Pandits was wrong, and the Godhra riot was wrong. Any riot is wrong, period. It doesn't matter which religion or party the victims belong to, every incident should be investigated, and every culprit should be punished. If this doesn't happen these things will get institutionalized like corruption and will keep on happening regularly. That is why the Godhra riots are serious, so are the Muzaffarnagar riots, so are the 1984 riots, the Malegaon blasts, Mumbai blasts everything is serious. How can we even compare or say one is worse than others? Based on the number of deaths? Based on the reason why they happened? Based on which party was ruling during that time? What criteria do people use to categorize them? Why do they even try to do such categorization? Every such incident is a slap on our country and its secular constitution, a slap on our inclusive culture but no one seems to mind it.

How can people even justify punishing the entire community for some stupid acts of a few people from that community? Terrorists do this, rioters do this and surprisingly even after performing such gruesome and cowardly acts, they find sympathizers and supporters in their community. When is this madness going to stop? If I question Godhra these people ask why am I not questioning Mumbai blasts or anti-Sikh riots? If I raise a question about Kashmiri Pundits I am asked why I am not talking about the plight of Muslims killed in Kashmir? Whenever someone questions about some "X" incident he/she is asked why they are not questioning about some"Y" incident. In the end, neither the victims of the X incident get justice nor the victims of the Y incident. Riots keep on happening, leaders win or lose the election because of them, people keep on getting killed in riots, and no one knows when all this will end? I am sick and tired of all this. I don't know whom I should blame here? Politicians who make inflammatory speeches? Religion and religious leaders who spread fanaticism? People who follow these leaders blindly? Poor investigations and the inability of our legal system to punish culprits? No one? Gandhi had said once, "An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind." Are we going to do something to stop these riots or wait to turn the whole world blind? We have to start somewhere so what can't we start with this particular incident. If we ignore this one then there will be some other reason to ignore the next one also. If we want to put an end to all this we all must act, by we I mean everyone involved in this including our judiciary, politicians, people, everyone.

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.

[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]

Links:

1. http://www.tehelka.com/when-a-big-tree-falls-the-earth-shakes/
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Muzaffarnagar_riots
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Gujarat_violence
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_anti-Sikh_riots

We must try to understand real pain and agony of riot victims

I recently read a blog post "We are more than our name" by Zahir Janmohamad. It's really disturbing and painful to read any riot survivor's account, this one is more painful for me as I know about this incident as it happened when I was still living in India. These riots happened in February 2002 when I was supposed to travel by train from Varanasi (UP) to Pune (Maharashtra). I read the news about the train bogie fire at Godhra station in Gujarat which killed 58 people, and communal riots followed after this. Due to the possibility of communal tension in other parts of the country, my relatives were worried about my travel as it was during the days following this incident. More than ten years have passed since this incident happened. Many people died during riots in Gujarat. This is not the only riot that happened in Gujarat or in India, there were many communal violence incidents before and after that. For example, the 1984 anti-Sikh riots after the assassination of Indira Gandhi, or Mumbai riots of 1992-93, or the issue of Kashmiri Pandits who were forced to leave their homes because of communal tension in Kashmir valley and live like refugees in their own country, or recent 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots. Many people lost their lives and survivors are still waiting for justice to be delivered in most of these cases.

This post is not about the Godhra riot or any other riot. Depending on which community or religion they belong people are more sensitive to particular riots compared to others. Their reactions are extreme if their community is at the receiving end in any of the riots. I can understand the anger and frustration when people from their own community suffer but can not understand when the same people justify other riots where people from some other community suffer at the hands of people of their own community. Somehow they feel the pain and agony of riot victims belonging to their own religion but are totally immune to the pain of victims of other religions. Every communal riot or violent incident (including wars and terrorist attacks) leaves behind victims and their relatives who suffered during that conflict and continue to suffer even after that for a variety of reasons. Most people who are not directly affected by this incident read about it in the news, watch it on TV, feel sad for some time but move on with their lives, which is very natural. Even some people who get affected by these incidents also try to overcome that stress and trauma and move on, but there are many for whom the memory of those painful days becomes a major problem in their life. It's very difficult for them to forget these events. Their physical wounds heal with time but their psychological wounds don't. These traumatic incidents leave a very deep impact on their mind and affect them psychologically. Zahir's post is one such post that displays such an impact. It shows the pain of the person who is still suffering from the trauma he faced during those days, his life is not yet normal as those painful memories are so deeply rooted in his psyche that he cannot remove them.

In India, some political party or leader gets accused for either instigating these riots or for not taking timely action to prevent it. Some political leaders owe their political careers to some of these riots. These infamous and tragic incidents made them famous and helped them to win elections and become very powerful leaders in their party and state. Many of these political leaders from various parties do get charged for some offenses related to these riots, some inquiry panel tries to investigate these riots, but I have not yet seen any powerful political leader getting punished for their involvement in these riots. Most of them get clean chit because of lack of evidence, it doesn't matter which party they belong to. I am not in a position to say for sure whether any of those accused politicians were really involved in those incidents or not as fortunately, I have not witnessed any riot myself personally but there seems to be the presence of a reasonable amount of evidence that hints towards indirect or direct involvement of many of these leaders. Many of these leaders are very powerful and popular so it is very difficult even for investigating agencies to gather any evidence against them, they always get the benefit of the doubt but that doesn't mean they are not guilty. Some of them may get punished eventually after a couple of decades once their fame and power wane, but this is useless as justice delayed is justice denied. 

It's easy to say "move on" but in reality, it's not that easy, especially for victims who faced such a horrible incident in their life, and that too when they feel that justice is not delivered to them. It must be really difficult for them to digest the fact that people who they think are responsible for these riots are free, getting rewarded, and not even regret what they did. It is easy for people like me who are not directly affected by these riots to look at them objectively, analyze them, talk about them, and even debate about them, but how many of us really understand the real pain and agony of these victims. How many of us who justify some of these riots as acts of revenge are willing to put ourselves or our loved ones in that situation? Just try to imagine the trauma of these victims before trying to justify any of these heinous acts. Our desire for revenge dominates over our ability to feel pain and compassion for our fellow humans and if it is related to our religion or country then we passionately justify these killings. Once we decide to justify any heinous act then the question of right or wrong doesn't matter much.

Most of the world will move on or even forget about these riots, but posts like Zakir's will remind us about that ugly past, about the inefficiency and ineffectiveness of our legal system. It might make some of us uncomfortable but we can not blame people like him for digging into the unpleasant past unnecessarily because for them the pain and trauma are real. We need to allow people like him to express themselves. We should hear victim's stories if they are willing to share them, maybe this will help to relieve their pain to some extent. We all should try to understand the pain and agony felt by riot victims like him. I believe communal riots are avoidable incidents. We need to spread awareness about them and have strict laws and an efficient law and order system to catch and punish the culprits, no matter who they are. As long as we allow people responsible for these riots to walk free, and reap political benefits from these riots these things will keep on happening, the names of leaders will change but whenever possible they will keep on using communal violence as a tool to get political mileage. We need to diffuse this weapon, we need to make it totally ineffective so that they stop using it, and as long as we don't do that we will be forced to read such articles and wonder if we are living in a civilized world or some jungle.  

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic. 

[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]

Links:

1. We are more than our name: A Gujarati Muslim ponders life under Narendra Modi- Zahir Janmohamad
2. 2002 Gujarat violence
3. 1984 anti-Sikh riots
4. Mumbai riots of 1992-1993
5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashmiri_Pandit
6. 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots