APOORVANAND - The Chief of Counterfeit Grief
We hear that
governance now will have a different cadence
Tyranny will now be the protector
Cities will be without walls or doors
The sky will tremble with counterfeit grief
Executioners will be in charge of funerals,
Killers will organise mourning
Orphans and widows will find their hands and feet bound
The heads of the faith will be held aloft on spears.
If this be the realisation of India’s ancient dreams
Then soon, there will be no India, nor any of its connoisseurs.
Tyranny will now be the protector
Cities will be without walls or doors
The sky will tremble with counterfeit grief
Executioners will be in charge of funerals,
Killers will organise mourning
Orphans and widows will find their hands and feet bound
The heads of the faith will be held aloft on spears.
If this be the realisation of India’s ancient dreams
Then soon, there will be no India, nor any of its connoisseurs.
These words are from a
poem by Ali Sardar Jafri , recounted by Prof. Upendra Baxi in a lecture nearly
a year back. They have stayed with me and came back when I heard and read of
ministers and even the head of this government lamenting the lot of Muslim
women and expressing their resolve to secure constitutional rights for them.
“..in the country,
lives of Muslim women cannot be allowed to be ruined by triple talaq,” the
Supreme Leader pronounced. He expressed surprise that “some political parties
of the country, in their lust for a vote bank are hell-bent upon committing
injustice to women in the 21st century.” And he asked indignantly, “ What kind
of justice is this?” With a reformist zeal
and faith in the power of education, intellect and progressive ideas, our
leader pronounced, “In the Muslim community, knowledgeable and progressive
people are there. There are educated Muslim women who can put forth their
views.”
With the sagacity of a
statesman and with the force of the state behind him, he continued, “Politics
and elections have their own place but getting Muslim women their rights as per
the constitution is the responsibility of the government and the people of the
country.”
I felt a sense of
unease as I read the words of the first servant of the nation: it was as if a
dagger, thrust in my heart, was being twisted and I could sense the delight of
the hand behind it. Why agonise when the
man in charge of your country shows respect for and puts his trust in the power
of the educated and the progressive, even if they be Muslims? Unfortunately we
are cursed with memory. Words uttered in the past keep hovering in the recesses
of our minds and throw a harsh light from behind on what is being said today.
So, let us rewind the
tape and listen to the man so beholden to the constitutional rights of Muslim
women. It was 2002. The blood on the streets was still not dry. But he was then
on a yatra to assert the glory of Gujarat. Following in the foot steps of his
then mentor, he rides a ‘Gaurav- Rath’ and moves from village to village. The
yatra draws thousands of Hindus at all its stops. He addresses them: “60
innocent Ram bhakts were burnt alive in Godhra.” After a pause he asks, “ Are
you aware of the news?…” He asks again, “ After that, did you burn shops in the
village?” There is a faint ‘No’ in response. He asks again, “ Did you burn
houses?” He exhorts them to respond loudly and they oblige by saying ‘No’. He
persists with his questioning, “ Did you stab or behead anyone?” He continues,
“Did you rape anyone?” The crowd now knows that it is in safe company of a
friend. Each question is greeted with a more enthusiastic and aggressive ‘No!’.
“The enemies of Gujarat go around saying that each village was in flames. In
each village , people were being killed. Their heads smashed! They defamed
Gujarat so much that I had to embark on this Gaurav Yatra.”
Were not people killed
in the violence of 2002 after the burning of coach 6 of the Sabarmati Express?
Were not houses burnt? Were not women raped? Were not people displaced from
their habitats? And were they not Muslims? What did the report of the National
Human Rights Commission say? And what did the chief minister, who was the chief
minister of all Gujaratis, which included Muslims, do to ensure justice to
them?
He undertook a yatra
and led the Hindus of his state into aggressive denial of the act of violence.
You have to watch videos of the yatra to see how he did it. He established the
burning of the coach as a heinous act of demons and puts an erasure over the
event of violence against Muslims and made Hindus believe that they were the
wronged people. He portrays everyone fighting for justice for these violated
Muslims as enemies of Gujarat. In a video we see him
addressing the crowd in a chilling voice, “I am here standing in Godhra, where
I was at the same time on 27 February… The fire that burns in my heart is the
same that burns in your hearts.” The crowd get the message.
It was June of 2002.
Heavy rains were lashing Gujarat. The then chief minister of Gujarat chose this
time to order closure of all the relief camps where the displaced Muslims were
being sheltered. We rushed to the Supreme Court to seek relief for the Muslims.
The petition was not taken up. Police harassed the men who were running these
camps, slapped criminal cases against them. One by one, all the camps shut
down. The Muslims who had been there dispersed and became invisible.
How did the then chief
minister justify his act? He told his crowds that these camps were a conspiracy
and he could not allow ‘child-bearing factories’ to thrive. ‘Hum paanch, hamare
pachees’, this policy cannot be permitted. I listen to Bilkis
Bano and fail to muster the courage to listen to others: raped, ravaged Muslim
women who had to keep changing their shelters to save themselves from the
agents of the state who were after them to force them to withdraw the criminal
cases they had filed. How were educated men
and women from the Muslim community treated then? His house damaged, Prof.
Bandukwala was directly threatened by the then chief minister who mocked him by
asking why was he hiding in Mumbai.
How had he treated
Syeda Hameed, educated, liberal and progressive, the only Muslim woman in the
Planning Commission? He threatened to boycott the meeting of the commission in
which Syeda Hameed was present. She had ‘defamed’ Gujarat by speaking about the
mass crime against Muslims committed in 2002. Go and ask Sophia
Khan, Huma, Zakia Soman, Noor Jahan, Rashida and Shehnaz, Nafisa Barot,
educated, liberal and progressive Muslim women, all from Gujarat, about what
they feel about this rush of modern, constitutional sympathy of the leader and
his ilk for poor Muslim women. I need not mention Zakia Jaffri.
We have let it pass.
We have allowed tyranny to be the protector. What we hear is the laughter of a
counterfeit grief. What it does for India’s Muslims is one thing, what it would
do to the souls of India’s Hindus is the question.
See also
Prajapati encounter case: Gujarat Police inspector Ashish Pandya reinstated in service
Gujarat reinstates another suspended cop after securing bail in Prajapati encounter case
DG Vanzara's letter - Times of India (2013)
Sumana Ramanan - clips of controversial Modi speeches made just after Gujarat riots (2014)
Gujarat reinstates another suspended cop after securing bail in Prajapati encounter case
DG Vanzara's letter - Times of India (2013)
Sumana Ramanan - clips of controversial Modi speeches made just after Gujarat riots (2014)
