Pakistan: Ideological illusions

August 31, 2007

Sixty years of Pakistan

Pakistan with its newly emerging society inherited three elements as legacy. First was the poetry of Altaf Hussain Hali and Muhammad Iqbal, structured around an illusion of a supposedly glorious past, enthralling readers and subsequently giving birth to revivalist movements of all hues. Second, having developed, perhaps understandably, an inferiority complex and a sense of insecurity, the Muslims of the subcontinent adopted an anti-Hindu and anti-democratic attitude. Third, the leadership quickly turned to dealing with all political issues sentimentally rather than rationally.

When the demand for Pakistan was put forward, it shaped itself into a claim for a separate homeland for Muslims where they could live according to their beliefs. Consequently, separation rather than integration became the core of the Pakistan movement. Today, sixty years after independence, as we look back at our history we find these elements still alive in Pakistan’s body politic.

The country has faced a number of political, social, economic and cultural crises after its creation. However, the state survived and took a direction that was supposed to help determine its identity. The factor that played an important role in shaping this identity and determining its destiny was the formulation of an ideology. To have an identity separate from India, the new country also required an ideology. If India was secular, Pakistan had to be an Islamic state in order to justify its separation and the partition of the subcontinent.

In the early phase, the task of framing this ideology lay in the hands of modern scholars such as IH Qureshi and SM Ikram who provided a historical basis for the concept of ‘two nations’ and the role of Islam in shaping a solid Muslim community on the subcontinent. In his book titled Ideology of Pakistan, published in the fifties, Javed Iqbal observes, "Obviously Pakistan is an ideological state and can therefore survive now only as long as its ideological integrity is ensured. It is this ideology which is the foundation of our nationhood, and is the source of our national, political, economic, cultural, religious and moral values or ideals and their expression." He further writes, "Pakistan claims itself to be an ideological state because it is founded on Islam."

In the second phase, the task of consolidating and solidifying the Pakistan ideology was taken over by religious scholars and educationists or authors of textbooks who had government backing. In one such textbook, Pakistan Studies, the author, Gul Shahzad Sarwar says, "The ideology of Pakistan means the ideology of Islam. It guides us in every aspect of life." The same theme is repeated in other textbooks prescribed by educational institutions. Guided by ideology, the state and society itself underwent the process of Islamisation with rapid transformations in our educational, legal and economic systems that subsequently opened the floodgates of confusion and chaos.

The implication of the Pakistan ideology is that the state is a religious entity whose official faith is Islam. It contradicts the concept of a modern nation state, in practice in modern democracies all over the world, whose base is secular nationalism. It naturally excludes all non-Muslim minorities from the concept of nationhood and relegates them to a secondary position of citizenship. A severe blow was dealt to these minorities in Pakistan when the Objectives Resolution was passed in 1949 declaring, "sovereignty belongs to god". The very idea contradicts the modern concept of democracy in which sovereignty belongs to the people. The resolution also declared that no law could be passed that goes against the texts of the holy Koran and the Sunnah (traditions of the holy prophet).

Consequently, as far as Pakistan was concerned the entire process of law-making remained at a standstill if viewed from the perspective of a fast changing modern world, new technologies and a revision of outdated or extinct values. According to the Pakistan ideology, the concept of two nations did not end with partition and serves even today to know the difference between Muslims and non-Muslims. Today our ideology is sacrosanct and to challenge or deny it is a crime punishable with 10 years of rigorous imprisonment (under a law passed during former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s regime).

Today this ideology seeps into every aspect of an average Pakistani’s life. Religious parties have gained strength while enthusiastically and repeatedly calling for the creation of a ‘truly Islamic’ state. They adopt two approaches to achieve their objective. In one case, the strategy is to capture power by armed struggle, which they call jihad, against secular and irreligious elements. In the other, there are parties that would like to control the state through the democratic process but with a promise to implement the shariah. Mainstream political parties also publicise the religious provisions in their manifestos to counter religious parties and gain popular votes. Undeniably, religion has become the most important factor in the politics of Pakistan, even dragging the army into the fray when the army’s job is to defend the nation’s frontiers.

This ideology has also transformed and reshaped the images of two individuals who are the pillars of Pakistan’s creation: Muhammad Iqbal and Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Iqbal is identified as the person who presented the idea of Pakistan as a separate homeland for Indian Muslims. In this respect, as creator of the idea, Iqbal assumed a position of greater importance than Jinnah who was only given credit for actualising the former’s dream, which automatically relegated him to a secondary position. The Pakistani state recognises Iqbal as its ‘national poet’ and it was no coincidence that his ideas suited the interests of Pakistan’s ruling class. Iqbal has also become a favourite figure for Pakistan’s religious parties who continue to discover themes in his poetry that help them promote their religious agendas. His concept of ghazi (holy warrior), momin (true believer), Muslim ummah and his faith in military power for the glorification of the nation, his anti-West, anti-democracy, anti-women, anti-philosophy and anti-fine arts rhetoric provides rich and persuasive material to the fundamentalists.

The same elements have also transformed Muhammad Ali Jinnah into a religious figure. The fact that he was secular in his private life is comfortably ignored. On the basis of speeches in which he mentioned Islam, his personality and his views were reconstructed and he is today portrayed as a deeply religious person. In a tactical move, the religious parties, instead of disowning Jinnah, transformed and adapted his image to suit their interests. Popular articles, especially in Urdu newspapers, narrate stories about his religious zeal. In his official portrait Jinnah is deliberately shown dressed in the traditional sherwani, which immediately gives viewers the impression of a man of faith. These fabricated images of Jinnah and Iqbal are effective tools in the hands of right wing parties today.

An ideological state has to carry a heavy burden. It has to constantly defend and protect itself from all manner of challenges on a permanent basis. It must also justify its existence scientifically, culturally and socially, distort facts in order to hide its weaknesses, and interpret and reinterpret its image on a quasi-perpetual basis to legitimise its existence and usefulness. In an ideological state only one truth prevails. All thought is discarded. All doors to new ideas are adamantly banged shut.

If we analyse the situation in Pakistan at this juncture, we realise that its society has suffered and declined as a result of this infamous ideological stranglehold. Since there is no space for new ideas and fresh thought, creativity has seen a decline; it is no longer capable of producing philosophers, historians, poets, artists, filmmakers, architects, short story writers, novelists or musicians. Intellectually and culturally, it has become barren. There is nothing that could nourish young minds except obsolete or outmoded ideas.

The writer Qurratulain Hyder ultimately returned to live in India following bitter criticism of her novel, Aag Ka Darya (River of Fire). Josh Malihabadi’s poetry was banned when the establishment and religious groups did not like comments he made in an interview. The poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz stayed out of the country for most of his life. (Credit must go to Habib Jalib who continued to write rebellious poetry despite being imprisoned on several occasions.) A much dejected Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, master of classical music, returned to India where he was received enthusiastically, as was his due.

In the academic field, too, the country suffered heavily. To meet the exigencies of an ideological state, two new subjects, "Pakistan Studies" and "Islam", were introduced at all levels of education to turn successive generations into "good" Pakistanis and "good" Muslims. Historians and political scientists began expending all their energy in attempting to justify the creation of Pakistan. As the standard of academic research declined, Pakistani "scholars" lost all contact with international academia. Sadly, there are no organisations for social scientists to come together and discuss recent research, and only a few substandard research journals that are, understandably, not recognised internationally. Internationally, Pakistan stands nowhere in academic status and credibility. This is a tragedy.

When only one truth and one ideology prevail, society plunges into extremism and fundamentalism grows rapidly as the only solution to all problems. As there is no alternative to challenge this fundamentalism, society at large believes in its validity and its power to change and reform. Ironically, technology is also helping to popularise conservative ideas with the help of cassettes, documentaries, CDs, the Internet and email. Almost every television channel in Pakistan broadcasts programmes that promote extremism and make people more narrow-minded.

In a sign of superficial religiosity, the organisation of religious gatherings has become a popular phenomenon in order to express piety and devotion. There is a popular trend to go for Hajj and Umrah in order to earn respectability in the eyes of the people. In the name of charity, the rich, especially the business community, donate a lot of money to madrassas and mosques. But in spite of this show of Islamic fervour, society remains morally corrupt and inept. Crimes against women are increasing: kidnapping, rape, honour killing and the parading of naked women has become routine.

In these sixty years Pakistan’s performance has not been much to write home about. While some individuals and groups have raised their voices against ideological restrictions, and made an attempt to create a liberal and progressive atmosphere, not much attention has been paid to these brave initiatives. As for the question: Is there still hope that Pakistan will rid itself of the ideological stranglehold? The answer is both yes and no. It depends entirely on the creative powers that may still be struggling to break free.

Archived from Communalism Combat, August-September 2007, Anniversary Issue (14th), Year 14 No.125, India at 60 Free Spaces, Pakistan 1

Pakistan: Requiem for a tradition

August 31, 2007

Classical music is languishing in Pakistan

Classical music is standing on its last legs in Pakistan. The sarangi and vichitra veena are dead. There is only one sarod player in the entire country, Asad Qizilbash. Tari Khan is the only tabla player who can play a complex rhythmic cycle. Ashraf Sharif Khan Poonchwale is the only sitar player who can rub shoulders with sitar players of international repute.

The saddest aspect is that none of these artistes has a successor and their art will be buried with them. Vocal music is also in shambles. The progeny of Fateh Ali Khan and Salamat Ali Khan have been a great disappointment to their gharanas. Thus, the gaiki (style) of Patiala and Sham Chaurasi is literally dead. Ghazal and thumri are also on the deathbed, ever since the incapacitation of Mehdi Hassan, Ghulam Ali, Farida Khanum and Iqbal Bano due to age.

Pakistan inherited classical music, like other assets, at the time of partition but did nothing for its development. It was unable to retain even a genius like Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan. Bureaucratic arrogance forced him to surrender Pakistani nationality and settle in India where he was revered like another Tansen. Ustad Alla Rakha received much the same treatment as Bade Ghulam Ali Khan. His greatest contribution to the world of music is his son, Ustad Zakir Hussain, who is regarded as the tabla player of the century. Alla Rakha could never have made this contribution had he lived in Pakistan.

Some 20 years ago, a great Indian sitar player, Rais Khan became a Pakistani national after marrying our Bilquis Khanum. Neither the music institutions nor the artistes in Pakistan bothered to benefit from this opportunity. He was given the same treatment as Bade Ghulam Ali Khan and as a result his music never witnessed further progress. Rais Khan, by becoming a Pakistani national, deprived his son Farhan of the vast exposure he could have had in India. His son can never be a good sitar player while he lives in Pakistan.

The mindset of musicians has also caused colossal damage to music in Pakistan. Pakistani musicians deliberately kept their art secret and made no efforts to pass it on to coming generations. A friend, Hassan Azad, a mathematician and a student of sitar, was always curious about the secret behind the systematic expansion of ragas. No Pakistani musician was willing to share this knowledge with him. It took Hassan 45 years to learn the secret after he was able to instantly notate the music composed by stalwarts such as Ustad Fayyaz Ahmed Khan, Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Ustad Amir Khan, Ustad Inayat Khan, Ustad Vilayat Khan and Ustad Shahid Parvez. (See Hassan’s work at http://faculty.kfupm.edu.sa/ math/hassanaz/essays-music.htm.)

Musicians like Ustad Amir Khan, Ustad Abdul Karim Khan and Roshan Ara Begum never vocalised their bandish (compositions) clearly. All their music was in aakaar (improvisations that involve using vowels alone). Perhaps that is why classical music could never attract a lay audience. Moreover, not a single musician documented the music of his gharana. As a result, their gharana gaiki passed away with their death.

Pakistani musicians have been extremely miserly about teaching music – even to their own sons and daughters – so that no one could overshadow them. A well-known tabla player from Lahore who is given to challenging everyone has recently been challenged by his own son! Music is not impossible to learn but the attitude of musicians has made it so. When one hears from an ustad (teacher or master) that it took him 20 years to perfect the first note, sa, who would want to learn music? And if at all one still persisted, musicians employ other deterrent tactics. They start fleecing you in the name of gunda-bandi and nazar (tutelage and gifts). A friend, Nazir Khan says he spent about one million rupees on a well-known Rawalpindi musician to teach his son tabla and classical vocal music. The musician literally ‘robbed’ Nazir Khan for eight years to teach Khan’s son what he could have learnt from an attai (non-gharana musician) in three months.

Naqi Khan, grandson of Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, wanted me to become his gunda-band shagird (committed disciple) before he answered my question pertaining to voice culture. On the other hand, a leading sitar player from India, Ustad Shahid Parvez had no reservations about giving me the right tips on the telephone! He was in fact magnanimous enough to teach me a 13-beat rhythmic cycle that he had himself composed and which had been played by Vijay Ghate in one of his recordings of raga Rageshri.

I asked Tari Khan, who is also a good friend, what the first lesson he had learnt from his guru had been. "I don’t remember," he said, thinking I might benefit from his reply. That is the mindset of Pakistani musicians. The result is that classical music is declining in Pakistan and thriving in India.

Archived from Communalism Combat, August-September 2007, Anniversary Issue (14th), Year 14 No.125, India at 60 Free Spaces, Pakistan 2

Pakistan: We sinful women

August 31, 2007

New standard-bearers of progressive Urdu poetry: The feminist poets

Anyone who is familiar with the field of Urdu poetry will readily recognise and acknowledge that it is extremely gendered. This gendering works at two levels. First, most of the poets are men; virtuosity in verse is still considered to be a male purview and women poets, even well-known ones, continue to be marginalised. Second, the predominant themes and metaphors of this genre assume the poet-as-male (and consequently the reader-as-male) and revolve around the themes of the beauty of the beloved, the plight of the lover and the pains of unrequited love.

Women feature mostly as an abstraction and as the object of the male protagonist’s desire⁸³. As Rukhsana Ahmad points out in her introduction to Beyond Belief (the first collection of feminist poetry published in Pakistan), ‘(t)he bulk of published Urdu poetry is still love poetry bound in the old traditional idioms and conceits’⁸⁴. These ‘conceits’ include the male poet as the embodiment of agency and the woman as a mere object, represented as ‘a feckless beloved, who was endowed with heavenly beauty… fair of face, doe-eyed, dark-haired, tall, willowy, for whom the poet was willing to die but who vacillated from indifference, shyness and modesty to wanton wilfulness and cruelty⁸⁵.’

The PWA [Progressive Writers’ Association] poets, notwithstanding their commitment to social change and egalitarianism were, for the most part, inheritors of this legacy of Urdu poetry as well as its purveyors. In their work, a woman was frequently seen as an exemplification of beauty and a repository of purity. She was often depicted as a weak victim of oppressive structures who depended on men to save and protect her and on their generosity of spirit and sense of righteousness to rescue her from her plight…

In their role as social reformers, the Progressives did, at times, take issue against the oppression of women and sought to highlight their condition. Speaking against the institution of the veil in his poem Purdaah Aur Ismat (The Veil and Honour), [Israr-ul-Haq] Majaz offers the following commentary:

"That which is not visible cannot be Exquisite

That which remains hidden cannot be the Truth

That is not Nature, nor is it Destiny

Whatever else it is, this is not Virtue"

There are also the occasional moments when the progressive poet sees women as potential rebels and agents who have a role to play in the public space and in social transformation. In a poem Naujavaan Khaatoon Se (To the Young Woman), Majaz writes:

"It would be better if you shrugged off this wicked veil

It would be better if you used your beauty to cover yourself…

This scarf that covers you is beautiful indeed

It would be better if you converted it into a banner of revolt"

While Majaz’s poems take a position against the sequestering of women behind the veil, it is important to note that their tone tends to be patronising for they are essentially exhortations by the male poet to women. Perhaps the poem by a male progressive poet that comes closest to representing a woman as a subject in her own right is Aurat (Woman) by Kaifi Azmi:

"The past hasn’t recognised your worth

You are capable of producing flames, not just tears

You are Reality, not merely an interesting tale

Your Being is more than your mere Youth

You will have to rewrite the theme of your History

Arise my love, that we can walk together

"Destroy the idols of Custom, break the shackles of Tradition

Free yourself from the enfeeblement of Pleasure, the false ideas of Delicacy

Step out from the confining circle of Femininity drawn around you

And if Love becomes a prison, then reject the constraints of Love

You will have to crush not just the thorns, but the flowers in your path too

Arise my love, let us walk together…"

Kaifi’s poem is radical in the way it positions a woman as a fellow companion, in its exhortation that women break free from the confines of tradition and custom, but particularly in its insistence that women not only crush the ‘thorns’ in their path but also its ‘flowers’ (delicacy, elegance, femininity, grace and even love) that serve as mechanisms of limitation and control. Where it falls somewhat short is that while Kaifi is establishing the position of his female companion as a comrade, he demands that she shed her accoutrements of femininity in order for her to ‘accompany’ him on his quest. Nor does Kaifi manage to fully reject the conventional characterisation of women in the dominant discourse of the time, for the woman of his poem has the capacity to produce flames ‘in addition to’ the ability to shed tears; her existence is ‘more than’ her beauty and youth.

Notwithstanding a few scattered examples of such engagements with patriarchy, none of the PWA poets ever wrote in a manner that unambiguously assumed women’s independent power, subjecthood and agency. For this to happen in the field of Urdu poetry, we had to wait for the works of the feminist poets from Pakistan, particularly Kishwar Naheed and Fehmida Riyaz. In order to understand and appreciate their work, it is important to place it in the context of the material and social conditions in Pakistan within which it was written.

The political, social and cultural milieu of Pakistan in the 1980s was defined by General Zia-ul-Haq’s Islamisation programme and its attendant attack on women’s rights. Zia’s misogynist policies were an articulation of the anxieties of class and gender felt by middle class men during this period who resented what they saw as the increasing presence of women in the public sphere and feared the repercussions this might have in the private sphere of the family. It is perhaps a testimony to the force of these anxieties that the state’s blatantly sexist policies and the far-reaching changes they forged within Pakistani society and culture did not inform the work of progressive male poets in any significant way (perhaps the one exception was Habib Jalib, the only one who participated in the famous 12 February 1983 demonstration organised by the women’s movement against the [discriminatory] Law of Evidence). This burden was left for feminist poets to bear.

The challenge posed by these feminist poets to the establishment worked at different levels: first, they were women poets writing in what was an overwhelmingly male literary milieu; second, they were feminists raising their voice against an increasingly hostile and misogynist social and cultural context; and third, they were producing work that effectively subverted existing, accepted conventions of poetic form and content.

The poetry of these feminists was not confined to women’s issues; they were fierce critics of the reactionary political, social and cultural changes taking place in Pakistani society. However, given that the brunt of the state’s retrogressive Islamisation policies along with the changes they wrought in other aspects of Pakistani life was borne by women (and minorities), most of their poetry did overwhelmingly address ‘women’s issues’ such as the Zina Ordinance (which included punishments such as stoning adulterers – both male and female – to death, and which tried rape victims under charges of zina, or adulterous sex).

Not all women or poets of the time chose to challenge the prescribed literary forms or themes, nor was all women’s ‘progressive’ poetry (that which worked to subvert the patriarchal establishment) of one piece. Progressive poetry written by women ranged from the work of Parveen Shakir and Ada’a Jafri – whose poetry was less explicitly political insofar as it did not address explicitly ‘political’ issues, and who tended to use conventional poetic forms such as the ghazal (and in the case of Jafri, some of its standard expressions as well) – to that of poets such as Kishwar Naheed and Fehmida Riyaz, whose writings were stridently feminist in their tone and subject matter.

However, given the male dominated nature of the Urdu literary establishment, the very fact of a woman writing ghazals was itself subversive since it inverted the implicit convention that women were the objects rather than the subjects, or agents, of romance and desire. Feminist poets had to deal with a significant backlash, including criticism from the largely male status quo, for their ‘loose morality’ and their ‘masculinity’⁸⁶, and were frequently subjected to the threat of violence from the state and individuals⁸⁷.

Since women were at the vanguard of the movement against Zia’s martial law government and its policies, it is not surprising that they were also the most political and prominent writers/poets/artists of the time. As Kishwar Naheed points out in her well-known poem, Hum Gunahgaar Auraten (We Sinful Women):

"It is we sinful women

Who are not intimidated

By the magnificence of those who wear robes

Who don’t sell their souls

Don’t bow their heads

Don’t fold their hands in supplication

We are the sinful ones

While those who sell the harvest of our bodies

Are exalted

Considered worthy of distinction

Become gods of the material world

"It is we sinful women

Who, when we emerge carrying aloft the flag of truth

Find highways strewn with lies

Find tales of punishment placed at every doorstep

Find tongues which could have spoken, severed"

Besides being a harsh indictment of those who sold out to the establishment, these words also directly subvert the dominant stereotypes of women as weak and ineffectual and their accompanying ideas about ‘femininity’. The phrase ‘we sinful women’, repeated like a chant throughout the poem, functions as a slap in the face of the religious orthodoxy and the state, referring as it does to the Zina Ordinance which uses the crutch of Islam to hold women responsible for all sex crimes.

Fehmida Riyaz’s poem Chaadar Aur Chaardiwari (The Veil and the Four Walls of Home) was another explicit example of the way feminists used poetry as a medium of dissent against the Zia regime and as a critique of the hypocrisy of the religious orthodoxy. The poem derives its title from the name of the campaign started by Zia’s Islamic Ideology Council, which was part of the general move to restrict women’s participation in society to the domestic sphere…:

"Sire! What will I do with this black chaadar

Why do you bless me with it?

I am neither in mourning that I should wear it

To announce my grief to the world

Nor am I a disease, that I should drown, humiliated, in its darkness

I am neither sinner nor criminal

That I should set its black seal

On my forehead under all circumstances

"If you will pardon my impertinence

If I have reassurance of my life⁸⁸

Then will I entreat you with folded hands

O Benevolent One!

In Sire’s fragrant chambers lies a corpse

Who knows how long it has been rotting there

It asks for your pity

Sire, be kind enough

Give me not this black shawl

Use it instead to cover that shroudless corpse in your chambers

Because the stench that has burst forth from it

Goes panting through the alleys –

Bangs its head against the door frames

Attempts to cover its nakedness

Listen to the heart-rending shrieks

Which raise strange spectres

"They who remain naked despite their chaadars

Who are they? You must know them

Sire, you must recognise them

They are the concubines!

The hostages who remain legitimate through the night

But come morning, are sent forth to wander, homeless

They are the handmaidens

"More reliable than the half share of inheritance promised your precious sperm…

"My existence on this earth is not as a mere symbol of lust

My intelligence gleams brightly on the highway of life

The sweat that shines on the brow of the earth is but my hard work

The corpse is welcome to this chaadar and these four walls

My ship will move full sail in the open wind

I am the companion of the new Adam

Who has won my confident comradeship"

In this powerful poem, Riyaz, by rejecting the chaadar being offered to her by the self-styled keepers of people’s conscience, also rejects the Islamists’ construction of her as a sexual object that is required by the law to be veiled and sequestered within the four walls of the home. She subjects these powers to biting sarcasm by repeatedly addressing them with mock honorifics such as ‘huzoor’ [sire], and a series of formulaic phrases such as jaan ki amaan paaoon [have reassurance of one’s life], dast-basta karoon guzaarish [entreat with folded hands] and banda-parvar [Benevolent One]. Since she is not in mourning, nor a sinner or criminal, she argues with mock innocence that she does not understand why she is being offered the black shawl (or, by implication, the seclusion of the chaardiwaari). The rest of the poem lists the crimes against humanity which her addressee is guilty of, particularly the (sexual) exploitation of women through the institutions of concubinage and marriage, an exploitation that often begins at a very young age.

The poem ends with her concluding that it is he, not she, who needs the black shawl so that he may cover his own hypocrisy and shame. Although Riyaz never mentions Islam directly, it is the absent referent in her text because it is under the chaadar (cover/cloak) of Islam that women have been subjugated for ‘long centuries’. The ‘spectres’ of all these female victims who carry the stench of death are the skeletons in the Islamist’s closet to which Riyaz ‘respectfully’ draws his, and our, attention.

The last stanza of the poem is worth noting, for in direct contrast to the depiction of women in Urdu poetry, Riyaz counterposes her own reading of women against the traditional as well as Islamist ideal of ‘womanhood’ and proposes a new female subject – an intelligent, sentient being (as opposed to an object of desire and symbol of lust), a worker whose ‘sweat shines on the brow of the earth’, a quintessentially modern subject whose ‘ship will move full sail in the open wind’. The relationship between men and women is also redefined as one of comradeship between equals; this kind of comradeship is only possible, however, with a radically reinvented and redefined man – an Adam who is capable of winning her confidence and is thus worthy of her⁸⁹.

In her poem, Riyaz lampoons the normative Islamist discourse of a patriarchal and paternalistic relationship between women and men and rejects the notion of a woman as an obedient wife who revels in her role as the ‘light of the home’ and one who is supported by a husband who has unquestioned authority over her in all matters. The idea of an equal and companionate relationship with a man is thus a radical proposition, especially when accompanied by implications of a life of unfettered freedom expressed through the trope of the sailing ship, deliberately counterposed to the chaardiwaari. It is also worth noting that Riyaz’s use of words like laasha (corpse), gala sada (rotten) and natfa (sperm) – words not normally used in poetry – along with the explicit references to sex and depravity provide another layer of subversiveness in terms of both form and content.

[In] [y]et another poem by Riyaz, titled Aqleema… [t]he explicit references to the female body are Riyaz’s reminder to us that patriarchal society objectifies its women and treats them as sacrificial lambs, destined to be butchered and consumed. The poem goes on to draw attention to the fact that Aqleema has a mind too, one that is rendered invisible by the patriarchal system, not merely to human beings but also to god himself, who has chosen to reveal his word to the world through male prophets alone…

The deconstruction of the normative ideals of womanhood and femininity was a recurring theme in the work of the feminist poets, who deployed a radically different aesthetic both in the choice of their themes and their language in order to challenge existing standards of public discourse and poetry. Boodhi Ma (Old Mother), by the contemporary Punjabi poet Gulnar, is an address to an old woman who has been repressed by patriarchal structures of power and control throughout her life and is a defiant call to all women to reject the roles imposed on them by societal and religious norms. It is interesting to note the unselfconscious use of the English word ‘symbol’ in the poem, another flouting of the conventions of Urdu poetry and its formal diction. This deployment of everyday speech in a literary piece is testimony to the fact that the Urdu for these poets is a living language:

"Old Mother

Why are you teary-eyed today?

***

"Why are you sad?

You, who have given birth to sons?

***

"Oh Mother, your fate!

Your childhood spent in bondage to your father

Your adolescence under the control of your brother

Your youth in bondage to your husband

And your old age in your sons’ servitude

But doesn’t Heaven lie beneath your feet?!

Then why, in the cruel cold of winter

Are your feet bare?…"

In the Islamist rhetoric, women are idealised as mothers beneath whose feet lies heaven and as good wives who are the ghar ki rani/malika or the ‘queens’ of the domestic realm. Gulnar critiques these ideals by inserting the figure of a woman who, despite having adhered to all the conventions and expectations of the good woman in her avatars as daughter, sister, wife and mother of ‘seven sons’, is nevertheless left shelterless and uncared for.

In contrast, Gulnar offers a protagonist who is the Islamists’ nemesis: modern, enlightened, educated and unwilling to accept the roles assigned to her by mainstream society in general and religious orthodoxy in particular. She is sensible and hard-nosed (a far cry from the whimsical beloved of mainstream Urdu poetry), wears leather shoes, adopts ‘spectacles’ to see the world clearly through her own eyes, and has rejected the realm of abject domesticity for the world of letters and the realm of intellect. And unlike the protagonist of Riyaz’s poem, Gulnar’s woman does not appear to need a (male) companion in her quest for self-actualisation.

***

While the feminist poets focused considerably on the condition of women in Pakistani society, they also articulated a comprehensive critique of their contemporary social conditions. Poems such as Kishwar Naheed’s Sard Mulkon Ke Aaqaaon Ke Naam (To the Lords of the Cold Nations) offers a commentary on Eurocentrism while Censorship and Section 144⁹⁰ challenge the state’s repressive policies. Fehmida Riyaz’s Kotvaal Baitha Hai (The Police Chief is Waiting) and Khaana-Talaashi (The Search) describe her interrogation and the search of her home by the police. Ishrat Afreen’s Rihaa’i (Release) is a poem that talks about how the fight for liberation from ‘the mountains of dead traditions, blind faith, oppressive hatreds’ (Pahaad murda rivaayaton ke, pahaad andhi aqeedaton ke, pahaad zaalim adaavaton ke) is an obligation owed to the next generation while Neelma Sarwar’s Chor (The Thief) reflects on the cruel disparities of wealth in society.

In a similar vein, Fehmida Riyaz’s long prose poem Kya Tum Poora Chaand Na Dekhoge? (Will You Not See the Full Moon?) uses the moon as a metaphor for truth while deploying colloquial terminology to criticise conspicuous consumption and ridicule the subservience of Pakistani society to the petrodollars of the Saudi kingdom…

Understanding that the Islamisation project was a ‘culturalist evasion’⁹¹ of the real issues facing Pakistan, Riyaz uses her poem to highlight the concerns of the people at large who live under conditions of starvation and depredation while the city panders to the desires of the elite. The poem is replete with gothic representation and a pastiche of strange and ominous images such as the kites circling a burning sky, the city as web or a trap and the pathological and almost sexual lust for imported commodities which awakens the ‘whore of purchasing power’. This stark reference to the increasing commodity fetishism of the wealthy classes and the symbols of this fetish (the shopping plazas, the mansions) are described as boils on the molested body of the city, just as conspicuous consumption is a sore on the diseased body politic of the nation state.

The satirical allusions to the influence of petrodollars and the throwaway Arabic phrases are references to the Pakistani state’s proclivity to look towards Saudi Arabia for affirmation in the political, economic and even cultural spheres, the increasing use of Arabic words on Pakistan Television, the introduction of Arabic as a compulsory subject in public schools and the Arabisation of Urdu itself, all of which were a result of the Zia regime’s effort to move ever further away from an Indo-Islamic culture which was shared with India and towards an ‘Islamic’ identity defined by Arabic elements.

The onward march of capital and the obscene culture of consumption it engenders are depicted through the superimposition of sexuality, depravity, lustfulness and disease in a way that highlights the indifference of the system to the poor and the dispossessed. Fehmida Riyaz’s theme throughout her long poem is that Islamisation is simply a ruse with which the rulers defuse dissent and construct consent while dividing the nation sharply between those who have economic and political power and those who do not.

The arrival of the feminist poets in the realm of Urdu poetry signalled the beginning of a new brand of progressivism, one that took on the establishment in ways that were radical and powerful. These poets – Kishwar Naheed, Fehmida Riyaz, Ishrat Afreen, Saeeda Gazdar, Neelma Sarwar, Sara Shagufta, Zehra Nigaah, Gulnar and others – transformed not merely the themes of Urdu poetry but also its language and its grammar. As Rukhsana Ahmad writes, these poets represent ‘that strand of the progressive tradition in Urdu poetry which had in the early forties so powerfully contributed to the freedom movement.⁹²’ They, more than anyone else in the contemporary period, are the true inheritors of the tradition of progressive poetry, its champions, and its trailblazers.

A very short poem by Ishrat Afreen, titled Intisaab (Dedication), sums up the contribution of the feminist poets to literature quite well:

"Mera qad

Mere baap se ooncha nikla

Aur meri ma jeet gayi

(My height
Surpassed that of my father
And thus, my mother won)"

(Excerpted from Anthems of Resistance – A celebration of Progressive Urdu Poetry by Ali Husain Mir and Raza Mir; India Ink, Roli Books Pvt. Ltd., 2006.)

Endnotes

83 Admittedly, some might dispute this claim, citing the example of the ghazal in which both the lover and the beloved are referred to in male terms. However, the themes of these poems and the actions of its protagonists, particularly in the context of the times, leave us with little doubt about the gender of the subjects/objects of the poet’s voice.
84 Rukhsana Ahmad (editor and translator), 1990, Beyond Belief, Lahore: ASR Publications, p. iii.
85 ibid., p. ii.
86 The charge of masculinity was most often thrown at Kishwar Naheed because of her blunt personality and her even more blunt poetry.
87 Both Fehmida Riyaz and Kishwar Naheed were targeted repeatedly by the state. Fourteen cases of sedition were filed against the magazine edited by Fehmida Riyaz, one of which carried the death sentence. Riyaz had to go into exile in India along with her family. Naheed was constantly harassed in her job as a civil servant and frequently threatened. Cases were filed against her as well. Clearly, both were seen as threats to the state.
88 A standard way of beginning an address to the prince or emperor.
89 This poem can be interestingly juxtaposed against Ishrat Areen’s Adhoore Aadmi Se Guftagu (Dialogue with an Incomplete Man) in which the poet declares:
"How can I share my thoughts and feelings with you?
How can I take you along on this journey of the intellect?"
Despite his ‘artistic skills… stature… personality’, the man being addressed by Afreen is seen by her as no more mature than a callow boy:
"You are a mere boy
Who is attracted to
Weeping girls
Wounded and flightless butterflies
Boats anchored at the shore
And who seeks sanctuary in the simpering pleasures found in the broken wings of a dove
Who for the sake of immature desires
Will sacrifice his principles"
90 Section 144 in the [Pakistan] Penal Code is used to restrict assembly of people in public spaces, a common law deployed to prevent public gatherings and therefore, pre-empt dissent.
91 Samir Amin’s term.
92 Rukhsana Ahmad, op. cit., p. iv.

Archived from Communalism Combat, August-September 2007, Anniversary Issue (14th), Year 14 No.125, India at 60 Free Spaces, Pakistan 3

Pakistan: Report what?

August 31, 2007

Simple answers, complex situations

Anis Haroon, the well-known women’s rights and peace activist, relates a story about the time she visited Bangalore, India, in 1989 to attend a South Asian women’s conference. She was among the three Pakistani participants but the only one to have a ‘police-reporting visa’. This led to a memorable incident at the local police station, at a time when few Pakistanis were able to visit India and vice versa…

Pakistan-India relations had for years been marked by acrimony and tension at the best of times, punctuated by outright war at others, the most bitter of which was still a not too distant memory – 1971, when Bangladesh won its liberation from Pakistan with India’s help. But by 1989 there was a different atmosphere. The cold war was over. So was the Afghan war. Those were the heady days of the ‘restoration of democracy’ in Pakistan. Gone was Gen Zia-ul-Haq who had taken Pakistan in an altogether different direction than envisaged by earlier leaders. Gone were Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and Indira Gandhi and their tense competitive relationship, particularly since 1971. A cautious thaw in Pakistan-India relations was discernible with the new generation of leadership symbolised by Benazir Bhutto and Rajiv Gandhi, both of whom had recently come into power in their countries, holding out the promise of participatory democracy and better neighbourly relations.

But all the years of a lack of contact between Indians and Pakistanis had made the people of either country almost an alien species to each other – and it took a grumpy subinspector to bring home the ridiculousness of this enforced separation, when visas were difficult to obtain – and then only for those visiting relatives across the border. The eighties saw the formation of the South Asia Association for Regional Cooperation in 1984 and the rise of the NGOs. Many individuals and NGOs began to form regional alliances to discuss issues of mutual concern – the earliest such meetings were focused on safe ‘non-political’ issues like environment and women’s rights, and played a crucial role in bringing people together on these platforms, particularly Indians and Pakistanis.

It was in this context that Anis Haroon, in India to attend one of the first of such regional meetings, found herself outside a police station at the remote suburb of White Plains in Bangalore, armed with her ‘police-reporting’ visa and accompanied by a conference volunteer.

South India is another country for many North Indians and Pakistanis. The only common language is English and some Hindustani. The following conversation took place in a mixture of both, with some frustrated exclamations in mutually incomprehensible Urdu and Kannada escaping the protagonists from time to time.

"Hello, I’m a Pakistani," Anis announced, waving her green passport at the drowsy subinspector inside the police station.

Grunt. "So?"

"I’ve come to report," she persisted.

The policeman finally looked up, displeased at being disturbed. "Report what?"

"I have to report my arrival."

"Why?"

Nonplussed silence, then: "…Because I was told I must."

He seemed more alert suddenly. "Are you here illegally?"

"No."

"Have you lost your passport?"

"No…"

"Your ticket then?" Inspector a bit irritable by now.

"No but…"

"Have you lost your luggage? Has someone misbehaved with you?"

"No, no, no." Anis also somewhat irritated.

"Then WHAT are you reporting? Go away and stop wasting my time!"

With this bit of irrefutable logic, the man flapped Anis and her companion out of the police station and returned to his snooze.

Perturbed at not having the precious stamp attesting to her legal sojourn in India, they reluctantly began to turn back when the station house officer put-putted up on his motorbike. A superior officer! He would understand the complexities of Pakistan-India relationships and legal requirements! The two women explained the situation and the SHO went inside to confront his recalcitrant junior. After five minutes of loud arguments in Kannada, the visibly annoyed subinspector beckoned in the source of annoyance, who returned inside meekly to present her passport to him.

Grumbling loudly in Kannada, he scribbled something on the police reporting form, and gave back her green passport (thankfully duly stamped) and gestured her away. Safely outside, Anis Haroon looked at what he had written: "A Pakistani has come to this police station to report. But she has nooooothing to report."

Thankful to at least have the precious stamp attesting that she had ‘done the needful’, Anis returned to the conference where she recounted the story.

Later, Shoaib and Salima Hashmi made a skit out of it, which they played out in front of Rajiv Gandhi and Benazir Bhutto – both reportedly laughed a great deal at the ridiculousness of the situation, which was actually a true story. But their personal response to the story notwithstanding, neither was able to do away with the visa requirement that Pakistanis and Indians visiting each other’s countries must report to the police within 24 hours of arrival and departure (although this condition is occasionally waived).

A child of 15 or a grandmother of 70 – unless they have the connections to obtain a waiver, all Indians and Pakistanis visiting each other’s country must present themselves to the police after arrival and then before departure. The logic of this requirement defies all reason.

The subinspector in Bangalore in 1989 hadn’t caught on yet because there were, at that point, so few visitors from Pakistan, but the only beneficiaries of this archaic and discriminatory requirement are the police, who make a nice extra packet every month by facilitating such reports.

As Dr Mubashir Hasan (founding member of the Pakistan Human Rights Commission) notes, even when the rulers try to end this requirement, the bureaucracy stands in their way – he cites the specific example of Nawaz Sharif and Vajpayee during that historic bus trip in 1999 when the senior civil servants in attendance shot down this proposal made by the two prime ministers during their meeting.

With the composite dialogue dragging on and on, showing no results, surely this is something both governments can agree on – something that a grumpy police officer in Bangalore recognised years ago – that Pakistanis and Indians legally visiting each other’s countries have nothing to report. n

Courtesy: www.chowk.com

Archived from Communalism Combat, August-September 2007, Anniversary Issue (14th), Year 14 No.125, India at 60 Free Spaces, Neighbours

Deconstructing Godhra

June 30, 2007

Courtesy: AP

The alleged torching alive of 59 persons in coach number S-6 of the Sabarmati Express returning from Faizabad (Ayodhya) to Ahmedabad at the Godhra railway station on February 27, 2002, became the sordid justification for unleashing the post-Godhra carnage across Gujarat. The incident was first described by the district collector, Jayanti Ravi, to be an accident. But from 7.30 p.m. onwards the same evening, Narendra Modi, the chief minister of the state, started portraying it as a conspiracy inspired by Pakistan’s ISI.

On the afternoon of February 27, in parliament, the then prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee described the incident as an accident. Weeks later, at the BJP’s national meet in Goa, he too fell in line, justifying the post-Godhra carnage with his famous "agar Godhra na hota to Gujarat na hota" (If Godhra had not happened Gujarat, too, would not have happened). The sangh parivar’s Goebbelian propaganda machine relayed this message of "Muslim aggression" and "Hindu retaliation" throughout the country and abroad. Riding high on the carnage, Modi called a snap poll and romped back to power in 2002.

The report of a three member fact-finding team from Delhi, brought out by Sahmat, New Delhi (March 18, 2002), CC’s special issue, "Gujarat – Genocide 2002" (March-April 2002), and most importantly, the report of the Concerned Citizens Tribunal, Crime Against Humanity, authored by a panel headed by former judges of the supreme court, justices VR Krishna Iyer and PB Sawant (November 2002), were the first efforts at deconstructing the Godhra lie. The mainstream national media, which is often faulted for its failure to do a systematic follow-up on tragedies, kept a keen watch post-Godhra. Two reports in The Times of India, the first based on statements of policemen on the spot, the second on the findings of the Ahmedabad based Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL), also confirmed the attempts to manipulate Godhra to political advantage.

Since 2002, two significant legal efforts have taken this exercise further. One is the voluminous evidence placed on record before the Nanavati-Shah Commission by advocate Mukul Sinha of the Jan Sangharsh Manch (JSM). Building on the evidence available, the JSM has systematically deconstructed the Godhra lie. The other is the petition by Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP) in the Supreme Court, documenting the rank injustice meted out to the accused. CJP has filed a transfer petition urging that the Godhra trial also be reinvestigated by an independent agency and transferred out of Gujarat. The petition is supported by five families of Hindu victims of the coach burning. It was the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) that had originally recommended this action in its first report on Gujarat. Thereafter, it also filed a transfer petition in the apex court. Over five years after the carnage, 84 accused in the Godhra arson case remain in jail. Repeated pleas to at least grant bail to the accused have yet to be given a proper hearing by the highest court in the land.

On November 21, 2003 the Supreme Court stayed 14 trials in Gujarat, including the one related to the Godhra burning. This has not deterred the Gujarat police from continuing a politically motivated investigation into the incident. But no such further investigations have been made by the same police into the post-Godhra massacres, Naroda Gaon and Patiya, Gulberg Society, Ode and Sardarpura.

There is no clear evidence that any person in Gujarat (except, perhaps, members of the VHP) knew of the specific date on which kar sevaks would travel from Ayodhya to Gujarat. Central, state and local intelligence agencies have in fact deposed before the Nanavati-Shah Commission stating that they did not have any information about the kar sevaks’ travel plans

Here we bring to CC’s readers the deconstruction of the Godhra lie, relying on the sources of information mentioned above.

Background

In 1933, a young arsonist named Marinus van der Lubbe from Holland had been wandering around Berlin for a week, attempting to burn government buildings. The exact sequence of events will never be known but Nazi storm troopers, under Nazi leader, Hermann Göring’s direction, befriended the arsonist and helped him to burn the Reichstag (German parliament) that night.

The storm troopers, led by SA leader, Karl Ernst, used the underground tunnel that connected Göring’s residence with the cellar in the Reichstag. They entered the building, scattered gasoline and hurried back through the tunnel to safety. The Reichstag was set on fire on February 27, 1933.

Following the arrest of the Dutch arsonist, Adolf Hitler became enraged: "The German people have been soft too long. Every Communist official must be shot. All Communist deputies must be hanged this very night. All friends of the Communists must be locked up."

Leaving the scene of the fire, Hitler went straight to the office of his newspaper, the Völkischer Beobachter, to personally oversee news coverage of the fire. He stayed up all night with Goebbels to put together a paper full of tales of an alleged communist plot to violently seize power in Berlin. Over 4,000 communists were killed thereafter.

VHP’s ‘Chalo Ayodhya’

It all began with the VHP’s mobilisation for a programme in Ayodhya, which they called ‘Purnahuti Maha Yagna’.

Three groups from Gujarat, consisting of about 2,000 Ram bhakts (devotees) each, were to go to Ayodhya for kar seva. The first group of about 2,200 Ram sevaks was to leave Ahmedabad on February 22, 2002.

They left for Ayodhya, as planned, on February 22 and began their return journey to Ahmedabad by the Sabarmati Express on February 25, 2002.

There is no clear evidence that any person in Gujarat (except, perhaps, members of the VHP) knew of the specific date on which kar sevaks would travel from Ayodhya to Gujarat i.e. on February 25. Central, state and local intelligence agencies have in fact deposed before the Nanavati-Shah Commission stating that they did not have any information about the kar sevaks’ travel plans.

CJP and CC have studied the detailed intelligence records submitted before the commission. While the State Intelligence Bureau (SIB), Gujarat, had sent several missives warning of communal mobilisation by kar sevaks, especially regarding their travel to Ayodhya from different locations in Gujarat, the absence of adequate reports from central or Uttar Pradesh intelligence departments regarding their return journey, and their belligerent and aggressive behaviour on the return journey, is significant. The only letter that arrived from central intelligence about the kar sevaks’ return was received by the Gujarat SIB a day after the Godhra tragedy i.e. on February 28, 2002. In the absence of specific information about the kar sevaks’ return journey, there could have been no conspiracy hatched by any person to burn coach S-6 of the Sabarmati Express on February 27.

Chief minister sets the agenda

Yet on February 27, the chief minister made the following press statement which was widely publicised all over Gujarat: "The abominable event that has occurred in Godhra does not befit any civilised society…it is not a communal event but is a one-sided collective terrorist attack by one community…" He further said that this was not a simple incident of violence or a communal event but a "pre-planned incident".

Who could fit the "international terrorist" label?

They found a maulana – Maulana Umerji – and booked him a whole year after the incident had occurred. Who was this "terrorist"? An old, semi-invalid, respected Muslim leader from the Ghanchi Community in Godhra who ran a riot relief camp at the Iqbal Primary School from March 2002 until August 2002. The maulana was a senior and respected member of his community who had consistently galvanised resources for national tragedies, including the Bhopal gas tragedy in 1984, from Godhra’s citizenry.

Narendra Modi: Plotting a conspiracy theory

Arrival of Sabarmati Express at Godhra

At 7.43 a.m. on February 27 the Sabarmati Express from Ayodhya arrived on platform No 1 at Godhra railway station. The train was nearly five hours late. In their statements – nearly identical in content – before the police and later, before the commission, Sheelaben Virpal, Punamkumari Tiwari, Satishkumar Ravidutt Mishra, Sadhwiji Minakshi Deviji, a kar sevak, and Savitaben Tribhovandas Sadhu, an activist of the VHP, stated that there had been a quarrel on the platform with some tea vendors.

There was also a reported incident involving the attempted abduction of a Muslim girl by kar sevaks. In statements dated February 28 and recorded under Section 161 of the CrPC, Sophia Bano M. Shaikh, a minor, her mother and her sister all stated that some kar sevaks had tried to molest Sophia and pull her into the train. While the FSL report was filed along with the first charge sheet, the statements by Sophia Shaikh and her family were initially kept out it.

Sophia Shaikh also deposed before the commission where she stated: "The persons wearing saffron bands came down on the platform for tea and snacks. They took their tea and snacks and at that time one bearded person was there whom the persons wearing the saffron bands started beating for some reason. Seeing this, we got scared and we went away a little far. In the meantime one person wearing saffron band came and he covered my mouth and started dragging me towards the station.

"As I started shouting, he released me. As this incident happened, I went inside the platform, near the ticket counter. Along with me, my mother and sister also went inside. We people had become very scared because of which we postponed the idea of going to Vadodara and decided to go back to my auntie."

There are many similar evidences to establish that there was indeed a scuffle between some kar sevaks and the tea vendor on the platform of Godhra station, and that the kar sevaks had prevented a Muslim tea vendor from serving tea inside coach S-6 and even pushed him out of the train.

A railway guard, Pachuram Verma, has deposed before the commission stating that the chain was pulled soon after the train had left Godhra station and was only a short distance from it, and that the driver had informed him of this fact.

His statement says: "At 8.00 a.m., the train had started and at this time persons wearing saffron head and neck bands came running and boarded the train. I came to know that the chain pulling had happened because these kar sevaks had not been able to get up. I did not take any action since there was a big crowd of kar sevaks and I could not know who had specifically pulled the chain."

It is therefore quite clear that the chain was first pulled from within the train itself. Some of the kar sevaks who had got off the train were left behind on the platform when the train started at 7.48 a.m. In all probability, therefore, these were the kar sevaks involved in the scuffle with the tea vendor, because of which they did not notice that the train had started.

The conflict after the first chain pulling

After the chain was first pulled, the engine stopped just beyond the platform with coach S-6 coming to a halt near the parcel office. By this time, due to the altercation at the station and especially as news had spread that a Muslim girl had been abducted by kar sevaks, a crowd of local Muslims had gathered behind the parcel office.

Another eyewitness, a Railway Protection Force (RPF) constable named Mohan Jagdish Yadav has deposed before the commission: "We saw stone throwing between the train passengers and the outside people. Some passengers were shouting slogans of Jai Shri Ram. We told those passengers to go and sit in the train and raising our sticks we told the outsiders to go away and chased them away. The passengers who were shouting and throwing stones were passengers of two coaches. The people who were throwing stones from Signal Falia were doing so from behind the wall and some of them were trying to jump across the wall to enter the station."

The train then started moving but stopped again, coming to a halt near the ‘A’ cabin.

How did the train stop near the ‘A’ cabin?

Six months after the incident, the Gujarat government extracted two confessions, from Anwar Kalandar and another Muslim boy. They ‘confessed’ that they had stopped the train by boarding the running train and rotating the ‘alarm chain disc’ from outside.

Kalandar subsequently withdrew his confession, claiming it was extracted under torture. However, what is even more significant is the information that since 1995 the railways have modified the design of the alarm chain pulling system (ACP) to curb its misuse. (To escape a check, ticketless passengers jumped off/on the train by rotating the disc from outside to stop the train beyond platform limits.) This fact obviously escaped the Gujarat police’s attention while they were extracting a confession from Kalandar.

On an enquiry made of the railway authorities by the JSM during commission proceedings it was learnt that all 18 coaches of the Sabarmati Express possessed the modified alarm chain system. Therefore the train’s vacuum brakes could not have been activated by turning the alarm disc from outside. The ACP can only be operated from inside the coaches and corrected from outside.

From categorical statements made by both the guard and the assistant driver of the train it is clear that on that day they had corrected the ACPs in four coaches of the Sabarmati Express. Railway Guard Verma has deposed that he along with assistant driver, Mukesh Pachhori, had corrected the chain pulling of four coaches (Nos. 83101, 5343, 91263 and 88238) when the kar sevaks first pulled the chain. From this view of the matter, the ACP of a fifth coach (No. 90238), noticed by another railway official, Harimohan Mina, whose statement has been recorded, was not corrected.

To correct a chain pulling, railway employees have to physically rotate the alarm disc to reset the clappet valve. In this case, while the first chain pulling was done from five coaches, the ACP was only put right in four coaches thereby leaving one clappet valve uncorrected. This was the reason why the driver dragged the train up to the ‘A’ cabin but could not go further.

In his deposition, Rajendraprasad Misrilal Mina, the assistant stationmaster (ASM), an eyewitness, stated: "On February 27, 2002 I was on duty as assistant stationmaster at `A’ cabin of Godhra railway station from 12 at night to morning up to 8.00 a.m. Sabarmati Express train arrived at Godhra railway station at 7.43 a.m. Since the line was clear, departure signal was given at 7.45 a.m. The train started at 7.48 a.m. After some time the train stopped by blowing the whistle. I could see from the cabin that the train had stopped. At that time no crowd was seen between ‘A’ cabin and the train.

"When the train started again I looked at the clock in the cabin and the time was 7.55 a.m. When the train reached near the cabin I was standing near window of the cabin for showing ‘alright’ signal. When the train arrived at ‘A’ cabin, the engine was blowing the whistle indicating chain pulling. The period between the restarting of the train and its arrival at ‘A’ cabin would have been around five to six minutes. I did not see any crowd at that time. It was about 8 o’clock when the train had stopped.

"When the train was moving with slow speed I had seen a crowd running towards and along with the train. When I got down from the cabin, at that time some people from the crowd had come near the cabin. Few persons from the mob were throwing stones on the train…

"The mob did not arrive together but 10 to 15 persons were coming and gathering… There were women and children also in the mob. I did not see personally as to who set the fire and how."

What did the district superintendent of police, Raju Bishankumar Bhargav, see inside coach S-6?

Bhargav’s deposition before the commission is very important so as to comprehend the severity of the fire and the speed with which it spread. He said that he had reached the burning coach at about 8.30 a.m. i.e. barely 15-17 minutes after the fire began.

Bhargav said he saw people with blackened faces and with some burn injuries to the head, coming out of the coach. He saw 10 or 12 passengers coming out of the coach; they were coming out of the coach door on the Godhra town side. The injuries that he noticed were on the upper part of passengers’ bodies. He did not notice any injuries below the waist area.

Bhargav said that he did not see any flames rising in the part of the coach that he could see from the doorway. "I had seen only smoke in that area… I had not noticed any flames on the floor of the area between the two doors. I had also not smelt any inflammable fuel like petrol, kerosene, diesel, etc."

The Gujarat government’s version of the cause of the fire

It is in the second charge sheet filed on September 20, 2002, that (i) the burning from inside story evolves into a conspiracy carried out by a core group; (ii) the spontaneous collection of a mob on hearing that a girl was pulled into the train is alleged; (iii) Chain pulling is said to have been done by Anwar Kalandar who is not made an accused because it is tacitly accepted that he did this to protect the girl. The first charge sheet, which details the altercations between the kar sevaks and the vendors, has no mention of any conspiracy.

The fourth charge sheet added the terrorist conspiracy angle. Thereafter, up to the present 16th supplementary charge sheet, the police version has not changed qualitatively. The case made out in the second and third charge sheets was "refined" by adding a "conspiracy" story. According to the police, the conspiracy was hatched by Razak Kurkure, Salim Panwala, Haji Bilal and a few others in room No. 8 of the Aman Guest House (owned by Razak Kurkure) at around 9 p.m. on February 26, 2002.

The alleged conspiracy included the plan to set fire to the Sabarmati Express on February 27, 2002. For that purpose, 140 litres of petrol was allegedly bought from Kalabhai’s petrol pump the previous night and kept in Kurkure’s house. It is alleged that at around 9.30-10 p.m. on February 26, 2002, Maulana Umerji had directed that coach S-6 should be set on fire.

The entire charge by the prosecution (Gujarat government) that coach S-6 was burnt down in pursuance of a pre-planned conspiracy rests on an FSL report which mentions that some residual hydrocarbons were found in samples collected from the site and that petrol was found in two carboys.

The reliability of the FSL report on samples collected from the site is highly doubtful. Hundreds of onlookers and visitors, including the chief minister and other ministers, had visited the site and also entered coach S-6 before the samples were collected. Suspect material could easily have been removed from inside the coach. Equally, what the FSL found inside the coach could well have been planted from outside.

The FSL report dated March 20, 2002 was accessible to the investigation officer (IO), KC Bawa, before he filed the first charge sheet on May 5, 2002. Yet the charge sheet made no specific allegation about the use of petrol in torching coach S-6. Bawa’s first charge sheet was quite vague: "At that time the accused armed with deadly weapons and highly inflammable fluids filled in cans and shouting slogans, ‘Pakistan Zindabad’, ‘Hindustan Murdabad’, burnt down the coach S-6".

The big question is why did the IO refuse to specify the fluid that was allegedly used by the "conspirators"?

It appears therefore that initially the investigation began in right earnest. The two petrol pumps near Godhra station were sealed off by the police on February 27, 2002. The first petrol pump, on Vejalpur road, was owned by MH & A. Patel while the other was owned by Asgarali Qurban Hussein (Kalabhai).

On April 9, 2002, seven samples of petrol and diesel were collected from these petrol pumps and panchnamas were made. These samples, four samples of diesel marked A, B, E and F, and three samples of petrol marked C, D (from Kalabhai’s pump) and H (from MH & A. Patel’s pump), were sent for forensic examination to find out whether the petrol or diesel from these pumps had been used to burn coach S-6.

In his report dated April 26, 2002, DB Talati, assistant director, FSL, said that samples A, B, E and F contained diesel while C, D and H contained petrol. He added however that he could not give a clear opinion on whether the petrol detected in some samples in and around coach S-6 as per the FSL report dated March 20, 2002 and the petrol detected in samples C, D and H came from the same source.

The fatal blow to the prosecution’s "petrol theory" was delivered by two employees of Kalabhai’s petrol pump, Prabhatsinh G. Patel and Ranjitsinh J. Patel. In their statements recorded on April 10, 2002, the two men flatly denied having sold any loose petrol to anybody, adding that they did not sell loose petrol from their pump. Thus the police had no source whence they could allege the accused had procured the petrol. Strangely, the police did not question any employees of the petrol pump owned by MH & A. Patel; they only questioned its owners.

The charge sheet filed by KC Bawa on May 22, 2002 therefore "created" evidence to establish that coach S-6 was burnt from outside using some inflammable liquid. Bawa "recorded" the statements of nine important eyewitnesses between February 27 and March 15, 2002, namely, Janaklal K. Dave, Rajeshbhai V. Darji, Nitinkumar Harprasad Pathak, Dilipbhai U. Dasariya, Muralidhar R. Mulchandani (reportedly, the current vice-president of Godhra Nagarpalika), Dipakbhai M. Soni, Harsukhlal T. Advani, Chandrashekhar N. Sonaiya and Manoj H. Advani.

All nine of these eyewitnesses, who declared themselves to be active members of the VHP, made identical statements to the effect that they had gone to Godhra station on the morning of February 27 to meet the kar sevaks who were returning from Ayodhya and offer them tea and breakfast.

They gave the following identical statements: "…the train was standing near ‘A’ cabin; at that time, men, women and children numbering around 900-1,000 persons from Signal Falia started running towards the stationary train while howling and shouting; because of this me and other local activists ran towards where the train was standing and reached ‘A’ cabin and saw that people from Signal Falia came running there with weapons like dhariya, sword, iron pipes and sticks. Others started heavily stoning the train. These people were shouting slogans like "Sale Hinduonko kaat daalo, Mandir banane jaate hai, kaat daalo" (Cut up the Hindus; cut up those who have gone to construct a temple), etc. Five-six persons with carboys in their hands were sprinkling the fluid on one coach and they set it on fire and we kept standing at the side of ‘A’ cabin.

"In this mob, I saw from the village of Godhra, R. Amin Hussein Hathila…" In their respective statements the nine eyewitnesses named around four Muslims each. The 36 Muslims thus named by these eyewitnesses were arrested for burning down the coach from outside. Those arrested included Haji Bilal and Mohammad Hussein Kalota (the then president of the Godhra Nagarpalika). Not one of these nine eyewitnesses, who claimed to be standing beside the ‘A’ cabin, said a word about Jabir Binyamin Behra and others arriving in a tempo with seven or eight carboys of petrol, climbing into coach S-6 by cutting through the vestibule and so on.

After making out a case that coach S-6 was burnt from outside, Bawa started discovering any number of carboys containing traces of kerosene from around the ‘A’ cabin. All this to build up the case that the fluid used to burn coach S-6 was kerosene. Between March 29 and April 5 three carboys were allegedly recovered from three of the accused, Haji Bilal, Abdul Majid Dhantiya and Kasim Biryani.

Since Bilal was considered to be the main conspirator at the time, along with Kalota, the kerosene theory was accepted. In his report dated April 26, 2002, DB Talati said he had found traces of kerosene in the three carboys that were sent to him for examination! The kerosene theory prevailed until the beginning of July 2002. From then on the new investigation officer, Noel Parmar, had more refined ideas and fuel in mind.

Even the prosecution’s star "eyewitness", Ajaykumar Kanubhai Bariya, who for the first time narrated the absurd story of the accused entering coach S-6 by cutting through the vestibule between coaches S-6 and S-7, did not allege that petrol was used to burn coach S-6 in his statement on July 9, 2002. This is what Bariya said, "…after some time I saw Rafique Bhatuk come with the carbo and give it to Irfan Bhopa and he told me, ‘Put this carbo in the rickshaw’. I kept that carbo in the rickshaw as I was very scared. The smell like kerosene was coming out from the carbo…"

Switch over

The primary motivation to introduce "petrol" as the ostensible fuel used by the alleged conspirators along with the theory that coach S-6 had been set alight from inside was the May 2002 report by Dr MS Dahiya, director of the FSL, Ahmedabad. Dahiya opined that coach S-6 could not have been burnt from outside. His report also said that it would take 60 litres of petrol poured inside the coach to burn the same. Dahiya’s report apparently did not reach Bawa in time for him to realise that his theory that the coach was burnt from outside using kerosene would contradict a report based on scientific analysis!

An enormous amount of material (370 kilos of burnt out remains) from inside coach S-6 was once again collected on May 1, 2002 and sent for forensic examination. The FSL report No. 2002/c/594 dated May 17, 2002 did not however find any trace of petrol in the residues from inside the coach. One yellow carboy showed some traces of petrol. But this carboy does not figure in the subsequent story.

The entire "petrol" theory hinges on Jabir Binyamin Behra’s "confession" dated February 5, 2003. According to this "confession", at about 9 p.m. on February 26, 2002, Razak Kurkure asked Behra to accompany him to fetch petrol from Kalabhai’s petrol pump. Behra and a few others, with seven 20-litre carboys, went there in a tempo. After the carboys were filled up, they were brought back and kept in Kurkure’s room located behind Aman Guest House. This petrol was then used to set fire to coach S-6 the next day.

Behra’s story is "corroborated" by the statements of two employees at Kalabhai’s petrol pump, Prabhatsinh Patel and Ranjitsinh Patel, who allegedly sold the petrol to Razak Kurkure. These were the same men who in April 2002 had already given a statement to the police categorically denying that any such sale of petrol had taken place. Further statements by both these men were recorded on February 23, March 11 and March 12, 2003.

In these statements, both of them alleged that at about 10 p.m. on February 26, 2002, Kurkure rode up on his M-80 (two-wheeler) alongside a popti (green) coloured tempo. After Salim Panwala had paid for 140 litres of petrol, Ranjitsinh filled up seven carboys with 140 litres of petrol.

The two Patels also stated that although they had given statements to the police earlier, on April 10, 2002, since the police had not asked them whether anybody had bought loose petrol from their pump on February 26, 2002, they had not disclosed these facts at the time. Since the police had only asked them about petrol being purchased by the accused on February 27, they had denied the same a year ago! This was why they were now disclosing the facts before the magistrate, a year later.

Shockingly, the April 10, 2002 statements by Prabhatsinh and Ranjitsinh Patel were only produced with the supplementary charge sheet dated April 16, 2003. These were the statements that the two men had given the day after the police had collected petrol samples from Kalabhai’s petrol pump on April 9, 2002.

Prior to the charge sheet of April 16, 2003, the two statements recorded on April 10, 2002 were not produced before the court along with earlier charge sheets. In other words, they were suppressed for over a year.

Apart from Jabir Binyamin Behra and the two employees from Kalabhai’s petrol pump, another person, Salim Zarda, who had also allegedly accompanied Razak Kurkure to Kalabhai’s petrol pump on February 26, 2002, also ‘admitted’ that the tempo was carrying seven or eight black 20-litre carboys in the tempo and that these were filled up with petrol at Kalabhai’s pump, and so on. The very petrol pump which, in fact, the police had sealed off for a fairly long period of time after the train fire was suddenly brought in as the source of a core group plan a whole year later.

So one year after the incident, the kerosene theory was suddenly abandoned in favour of petrol as the inflammatory fuel used. But the problem lies precisely in this double switch over: from kerosene to petrol, and from the earlier claim that the coach was burnt from outside to the new theory that the coach was set fire to from inside. The contradictions are so glaring, they make the investigation a complete charade. Truth, of course, is the biggest victim.

It appears that when there was little evidence to support the prosecution’s case, a statement by Jabir Behra was recorded (which was also done in violation of the law) after which Prabhatsinh and Ranjitsinh Patel were allegedly forcibly detained and their confessional statements recorded under confinement. Ahmed Kalota, the uncle of accused No. 42, Mohammad Hussein Kalota, submitted a written application to the additional sessions judge, Godhra, expressing his apprehensions about the "kidnapping" of Prabhatsinh and Ranjitsinh Patel and their illegal confessions being recorded. At the time, the press and the electronic media had reported extensively on the matter.

Another significant point is that the carboys containing traces of petrol were not found near coach S-6 but some distance away. They were found at a distant location adjacent to a Muslim-owned garage that was burnt down by kar sevaks at around 11 a.m. on the same day (February 27, 2002) as a reaction to the burning of coach S-6.

Retractions

Jabir Binyamin Behra retracted his confession before the POTA court on July 28, 2003 and the retraction was recorded. He complained that the confession was extracted forcibly and that his relatives were threatened. He reiterated this before the Supreme Court as well. Behra also submitted an affidavit to the Nanavati-Shah Commission dated January 19, 2005, detailing the torture and coercion used to extract his confession. His confession should therefore be treated as wholly involuntary and cannot be relied upon.

Salim Zarda, too, submitted an application to the POTA court complaining about the torture and coercion used to extract his confession and retracted the same.

Similarly, Saukat Farouque Pataliya retracted his confessional statement before the POTA court, complaining that he was made to sign a blank confession sheet, that he had been lured and induced and that the police had even threatened to beat up his wife. Saukat Pataliya has also filed an affidavit before the commission.

Mohammad Sakir’s confession has not been produced before the court by the police, and apparently he too has retracted his statement. As for the statements made by persons who are not accused in the crime, such as Ajay Bariya, Prabhatsinh Patel or Ranjitsinh Patel, the commission cannot rely on such statements unless they are proved and the deponents are cross-examined in a rigorous manner before an appropriate forum.

As far as Anwar Kalandar is concerned, he has appeared before the commission to make a deposition. Although the police tried to prevent him from doing so, with the commission’s permission his affidavit was placed on record dated April 7, 2005.

Since the prosecution did not choose to cross-examine Kalandar it is presumed that the contents of his affidavit before the commission have been admitted by the prosecution. In his affidavit, Kalandar describes in detail the inhuman torture and the threats (of being killed in an encounter) that he was subjected to by the police in order to extract confessional statements from him. He has categorically denied the facts recorded in these statements.

Shockingly, Sikandar, a witness whose statement was produced as evidence by the police, is also listed as an absconding accused, right from the first charge sheet onwards.

The moot question now is whether the commission, which is merely a fact-finding and recommendatory body, will have the jurisdiction to decide whether the confessions and statements are voluntary or otherwise before they can be used or be considered reliable. As the matter stands, a competent court (trial court) has yet to decide on the issue and therefore the commission cannot, under law, rely upon these statements/confessions to arrive at any conclusions.

Whose conspiracy?

Modi had obviously decided on the motives and identity of those who had set coach S-6 on fire by the evening of February 27, 2002 itself. The investigators in the Godhra arson case are not investigating the case at all but doing everything they possibly can to prove the state’s chief executive right!

The conspiracy theory has been developed without the slightest application of mind. By using torture, coercion and the draconian provisions of the POTA law, absurd confessions have been extracted whereby a person ends up confessing to having done something that it was impossible to do. As pointed out earlier, it was impossible to stop the train by rotating the alarm disc from outside because of the modifications in design. Yet the investigators forced such a "confession" to support their claim that Salim Panwala had instigated Muslim hawkers to stop the train near the ‘A’ cabin as part of a "pre-planned conspiracy".

While extracting "confessions" from Anwar Kalandar and Iliyas Hussein Mulla, several other blunders were made. Kalandar is made to say that the first chain pulling was carried out to enable kar sevaks who were left behind on the platform to board the train. After the train restarted at 7.48 a.m. Salim came running up from the direction of the parcel office and urged Kalandar to stop the train because a Muslim girl was being abducted.

Kalandar also "confesses" that Iliyas Hussein Mulla and Hussein Suleman also came running up with Salim to the pani ni parab (water distribution outlet) where Kalandar was standing and due to Salim’s urging the three of them jumped onto three different compartments of the Sabarmati Express. Kalandar does not say that Salim had told him to stop the train at the ‘A’ cabin!

In his statement dated August 2, 2002, Iliyas Hussein Mulla states that he was selling his wares on coach S-9 of the Sabarmati Express when it first arrived at the station. He further stated that at that time, before the chain was first pulled, Salim Panwala was standing near the bookstall on platform No. 1. He states that it was Salim who told him to jump into the S-9 coach and pull the chain when the coach approached the parcel office (not at the ‘A’ cabin).

He adds that he did pull the chain when the train approached the parcel office and then ran out of the station, went to Signal Falia and waited near the Aman Guest House. He did not know where Saukat and Hussein got off the train.

Iliyas Mulla goes on to state that during the period when the train had stopped near the parcel office (i.e. between 7.48 a.m. and 7.55 a.m.), Razak Kurkure came and told him to once again go and pull the chain to stop the train near the ‘A’ cabin. Iliyas then came through a breach in the wall in front of Aman Guest House and jumped onto coach S-4 of the running train. This time around he only saw Salim from a distance. Thus Iliyas Hussein Mulla wholly contradicts Anwar Kalandar who said that Salim Panwala had told Anwar, Iliyas and Hussein together to stop the train.

Interestingly, Jabir Binyamin Behra states that while stone throwing was going on from behind the parcel office, he along with some others ran towards the Aman Guest House where he saw Razak Kurkure and Salim Panwala coming out though the back door of a room at the guest house!

He also said that he and some others had been told to bring the tempo carrying the carboys to a spot behind the ‘A’ cabin and as they were going towards the ‘A’ cabin he spotted Salim Panwala and Kurkure on a two-wheeler.

Thus whereas Kalandar and Iliyas Mulla say they saw Salim Panwala at the station even up to 7.55 a.m. i.e. until the train started after the chain pulling, Jabir places Salim inside the Aman Guest House during the stone throwing period and thereafter. The main executor of the conspiracy, Salim Panwala, appears to be omnipresent.

One year after the incident, the kerosene theory was suddenly abandoned in favour of petrol as the inflammatory fuel used. But the problem lies precisely in this double switch over: from kerosene to petrol, and from the earlier claim that the coach was burnt from outside to the new theory that the coach was set fire to from inside. The contradictions are so glaring, they make the investigation a complete charade

Iliyas, who boasts of his skills as an expert chain puller, states that on the second occasion he had jumped onto the footboard of coach S-4, towards the platform side. He then had to go through a tear in the canvas between the vestibule of coaches S-4 and S-5 to reach the northern side in order to reach and rotate the alarm disc, which, he claims, was located only on the northern side. This chain pulling expert seems unaware that there are two alarm discs on both sides at one end of every railway coach manufactured in India.

The most glaring omission in the prosecution’s tale is however its silence about what the conspirators’ original plan, was, had the train not been delayed by several hours. The VHP has alleged that if the train had arrived at the correct time, the plan was to set fire to the entire train at Chanchelav, a village about 12 to 14 km from Godhra (towards Dahod), around midnight. But the Sabarmati Express has no scheduled halt there. The VHP has so far not disclosed how in its view the conspirators planned to stop the train at midnight when its activists had not allowed anyone to even board the train from Lucknow onwards.

The fact is that if the kar sevaks had not pulled the chain to pick up their colleagues who had been left behind at Godhra station, the Sabarmati Express would have passed through Godhra without a hitch and saved the nation one of its greatest tragedies.

While the prosecution’s entire theory revolves around the allegation that several Muslims, including Jabir Binyamin Behra, had cut through the vestibule canvas of coach S-7 to get onto the train, there is absolutely no proof of such an absurd claim.

Storm troopers of the parivar

It is evident from their statements that the nine active members of the VHP who were standing next to the ‘A’ cabin right from the beginning did not see or make any allegations about anyone climbing onto coach S-7 and cutting through the vestibule canvas. The ASM, Rajendra Mina, who was in the ‘A’ cabin at the time, also does not make any such allegation. In fact, his deposition stated that he had not seen anyone climbing onto the train. If the slashed canvas was the most vital piece of evidence in their case, why didn’t the police collect and preserve it? Why was it allowed to be sold as scrap for a few meagre rupees?

How does the prosecution explain the statement it recorded from the parcel office clerk on March 1, 2002 to the effect that after the first chain pulling at the Godhra station passengers in the train were pelting stones at the people behind the parcel office?

Where are the black plastic 20-litre carboys that were supposedly filled with petrol and brought on a tempo to a spot behind the ‘A’ cabin and from which petrol was allegedly poured into the coach? The FSL has found three carboys containing traces of kerosene and three small carboys containing traces of petrol. Why didn’t the police find a single one of these 20-litre carboys? The FSL report clearly stated that the burnt residue of materials inside the coach did not contain any residue of a "plastic container".

How will the prosecution explain the fact that the two small plastic containers that were found to have petrol in them were found not near the coach but across the tracks near the Mallas Auto garage which was burnt down by passengers and kar sevaks on the Sabarmati Express around 11 a.m. on February 27, 2002? Two trucks outside the garage were burnt using petrol. From where did the passengers get the petrol?

Why did police inspector Barot from the police control room, Gandhinagar, inform the director general of police’s office at 9.35 a.m. on February 27, 2002 that kar sevaks had set fire to three coaches of the Sabarmati Express train at Godhra and that the number of injured was not yet known? Barot therefore asks the police to be vigilant.

The burning of coach S-6 – Evidence

This is a first-hand account by Hariprasad Joshi, a passenger allotted berth No. 43 on coach S-6 of the Sabarmati Express: "…the smoke had reached the place where I was standing inside the coach and as I inhaled the smoke that reached there, I got suffocated and had fallen down on the floor but as the smoke was less in the lower side, my breathing was restored and I found relief… As there was a huge rush near berth No. 72 of the coach, to save my life, I travelled to the opposite side towards seat No. 1 by crawling on the floor and had reached to right hand side door. The behind of my jacket near the shoulder and jacket cap had got burnt due to flames of fire. I had burns on both the ears and on the face and I had jumped down off the coach from the door near seat No. 1.

"The moment I jumped out of the coach and fell on the ground my breathing was restored on getting the fresh air and it had then struck me that my wife was inside the coach. Therefore I had walked up to the side near the seat where myself and my wife were sitting near the window."

Flashover

"Marleau had become separated from his fellow firefighters when a room in an apartment building suddenly exploded into flames in what is commonly called a flashover or backdraught… Capt Marcel Marleau, 47, died battling a fire in a Montreal apartment building… when he was caught in a backdraught, or a sudden explosion of flames…" (Dene Moore, Maclean’s Magazine, January 26, 2006).

"A sudden and sustained transition of a growing compartment fire to a fully developed fire occurs when all of the combustible materials present reach their auto-ignition temperature. Flame-over or roll-over can be an indication that flashover is imminent. It is important to note that ventilation may initially cause the fire to burn more intensely and as a result more heat energy may be released into the compartment than can be lost through the ventilation opening.

"Flashover can occur when a developing compartment fire produces flames in the thermal layer near the ceiling. The flames in the thermal layer can roll or dance across the ceiling as the unburned products of combustion ignite and burn off more completely. Heat will increase and force firefighters to the floor. This lowering of the thermal layer is often accompanied by the sudden lowering of an existing layer of smoke."

The burning of coach S-6 of the Sabarmati Express on February 27, 2002 was not the result of any pre-planned conspiracy by Muslims. It was not due to petrol or inflammable fluid that coach S-6 burnt down but due to the flash fire that followed the initial ignition. The luggage caught fire thereafter and burnt the coach at a slower rate

Backdraught

"A ventilation induced ignition of the gases or combustible products accumulated in an under-ventilated compartment fire. With the introduction of ventilation, the accumulation of unburned particles suddenly ignites and can blast out of the opening used for ventilation.

Warning signs for backdraught

"Intact windows can show heavy smoke staining or glass crazing. There can be smoke issuing from the eaves or pulsing smoke movements in and out of cracks and openings. Upon opening a door or a window there may be a sudden inrush or draw of air that may create a ‘twister’ effect in the smoke. Blue flames may be visible in areas separate from the main fire and heavy smoke exiting a doorway or a window may roll back into tiny mushroom shapes."

(Excerpts from "Rapid Fire Progress" by Rob Aldcorn, February 22, 2006; http://www.firefloor.com/RapidFireProgress.htm.)

Conclusions by Jan Sangharsh Manch

The Gujarat government’s official version regarding the burning of coach S-6, developed through multiple charge sheets, does not inspire any confidence since it suffers from innumerable contradictions obvious from the record itself.

The official theory is as follows: At about 9 p.m. on February 26, 2002, in the Aman Guest House, Razak Kurkure, Salim Panwala and a few other Muslims from Signal Falia had conspired to burn down coach S-6 of the Sabarmati Express. This was planned at the behest of Maulana Umerji. At about 10 p.m. that night, 140 litres of petrol was bought and hidden in Razak Kurkure’s house. After finding out that the train was running late, the burning of coach S-6 on February 27, 2002, at 8 a.m., was organised in two stages.

A mob of 1,000 was mobilised to stone the train. Under the cover provided by them, a few boys carrying 140 litres of petrol were sent into the coach by cutting through the vestibule canvas. Once inside, they poured out the petrol and set the coach on fire.

The above thesis suffers from the following obvious defects:

Absolutely no indication as to what the original plan was if the train had arrived at the right time.
Absolutely no evidence has been brought on record to show how the conspirators found out that kar sevaks were travelling by the Sabarmati Express that would reach Godhra on February 27, 2002. The police and the intelligence department have consistently claimed they had no such information! Besides, the train arrived way past its scheduled arrival time, four or five hours late.
In the first three charge sheets prepared by two separate IOs, there are no allegations at all regarding the purchase of 140 litres of petrol from Kalabhai’s pump.
On the contrary, in their statement before the police on April 10, 2002, the two employees at the petrol pump (Prabhatsinh Patel and Ranjitsinh Patel) had not mentioned any sale of large quantities of petrol on February 26, 2002. However, a year later, in March 2003, they were brought before a magistrate to make such allegations.
There is evidence on record to show that it was kar sevaks who had pulled the chain and stopped the train at Godhra station, and not Muslims.
The FSL has not found any petrol hydrocarbons among the 500 kilos or so of burnt materials found inside the coach. And no "black carboys" (in which 140 litres of petrol was ostensibly carried) were found anywhere near the compartment, either inside or outside.
The FSL did not find any traces of any carboy (plastic) inside the coach. Where did the carboys in which the 140 litres of petrol was allegedly carried vanish?
If 140 litres of petrol had actually been poured inside a coach and set on fire, this would have created a massive explosion, especially because of the confined space in which the ignition occurred.
If such a fire had in fact occurred, would a single passenger have come out alive? Over 70 passengers of coach S-6 of the Sabarmati Express, with superficial injuries above the knee, survived the fire. Can such a pattern of burning of injured passengers be explained by fluid induced burning which would have a much greater impact?
The burning of coach S-6 of the Sabarmati Express on February 27, 2002 was not the result of any pre-planned conspiracy by Muslims. It was not due to petrol or inflammable fluid that coach S-6 burnt down but due to the flash fire that followed the initial ignition. The luggage caught fire thereafter and burnt the coach at a slower rate.
The commission should order a fresh investigation by a body of experts who have a special knowledge of fire in enclosed spaces.
The investigation officer should be replaced immediately.

Archived from Communalism Combat, July 2007 Year 13 No.124, Genocide's Aftermath Part II, Godhra 1

Discriminatory justice

June 30, 2007

The plight of those accused in the Godhra train arson case is a grim travesty of justice. They have been denied a fair hearing and deprived of basic freedom. While in trials related to the 2002 carnage incidents, influential accused have been let off, repeated efforts to obtain bail for the Godhra accused have proved futile.

A total of 135 persons were accused in the Godhra arson. Of these, 22 persons are absconding. Twelve of the accused were released under Section 169 of the CrPC, which provides for release of accused if, after investigation, there is found to be insufficient evidence against them. One of the accused died while in judicial custody. Of the remaining 100 persons, 84 persons are still in judicial custody, including two persons who were minors at the time of the incident. Only 16 persons have been granted bail. This includes bail granted to three persons who were minors at the time of the incident. The last bail order was granted by the Gujarat High Court on October 30, 2004. The court has simply not heard any bail applications since.

One of the 22 absconding accused, a maulvi, was implicated in the crime by an accused/witness, Sikandar, who stated that the maulvi was allegedly seen on the terrace of a masjid at Godhra (ostensibly planning the conspiracy) although it was later established that the maulvi was in Maharashtra and not even in Godhra on the relevant day.

There were many serious discrepancies in the arrests, glaring inconsistencies that have been pointed out to the state, which simply refuses to address these concerns. Some of these anomalies have been laid out below.

At least 20 of the accused persons were arrested as members of the mob, several hours after the event, without any statement or complaint naming them at the time (see box).

Five of the Godhra accused are shown as identified by a witness, Dilip Ujjambhai Dasariya. A schoolteacher, Dasariya has stated on affidavit that he was not present at the spot but on duty 25 kilometres away when the incident took place. The school where he teaches has certified to this fact. The prosecution has however refused to place this fact on record. Aminabibi, the wife of accused, Saeed Abdulsalam Badam, a resident of Chikhodra village in Godhra taluka, has filed an affidavit before the Supreme Court stating that her husband, a poor labourer, has been falsely implicated based on the solitary statement of Dilip Dasariya who, by his own admission, was not present at the scene of the crime on February 27, 2002.

The plight of those accused in the Godhra train arson is indeed a sorry one. Accused No. 54, Ishaq Mohammed Mamdu, is totally blind. In 1997, years before the train arson took place, the civil surgeon at the district hospital issued a certificate confirming that Mamdu suffered from 100 per cent blindness, following which he received assistance as a handicapped person from both the state and central governments. Mamdu’s father has made applications for reinvestigation into his arrest but this has not been done.

On the contrary, in a pathetic attempt to justify Mamdu’s arrest, the state of Gujarat has obtained a doctor’s statement dated June 2002 that states, vis-à-vis the 1997 certificate, that though Mamdu is blind his eyesight allows him to see up to a distance of one metre. Moreover, there is no record of a physical examination being conducted on Mamdu prior to the doctor’s certificate being issued. The state’s contention is that he was part of the mob. Despite this, and though the only allegation against him is that he was part of the mob, Ishaq Mamdu’s bail application has been consistently rejected.

Another of the accused persons, 42-year-old Fakruddin Musalman, died while in judicial custody on April 30, 2003. Fifty-year-old Siraj Abdulla Jamsa, a cancer patient, passed away after he was granted bail. Gulzar Agnu Ansari, aged about 23, suffers from tuberculosis even today. Maulana Hussein Umerji, aged about 60, suffers from kidney malfunction, high blood pressure and arthritis. Siddiq Abdulla Badam, aged about 38, suffers from bone tuberculosis. Anwar Mohammed Menda, aged about 33, suffers from serious mental depression. Idris Ibrahim Charkha, aged about 32, also suffers from serious mental depression. Anwar Hussein Ahmed Pittel, aged about 30, suffers from severe haemorrhoids.

Leaders of the minority community who played a significant role in providing relief to victims of the post-Godhra carnage were specifically targeted and arrested without evidence. Maulana Umerji, Harun Abid and Harun Rashid are some examples.

Injustice for all
1. Accused No. 1 in POTA Case 1/2003:
Name: Mohammad Ansar Kutubuddin Ansari
Arrested on February 27, 2002; Time: 9.30 p.m.
Five police statements, Witness statement recorded – March 1, 2002
2. Accused No. 2
Name: Baitulla Kadar Telee
Arrested on February 27, 2002; Time: 9.30 p.m.
Witness statement recorded – March 1, 2002
3. Accused No. 3
Name: Feroz Khan Gulzar Khan Pathan
Arrested on February 27, 2002; Time: 9.30 p.m.
Five police statements; Witness statement recorded – March 1, 2002
4. Accused No. 6
Name: Ishaq Yusuf Luhar
Arrested on February 27, 2002; Time: 9.30 p.m.
Five police statements; Witness statement recorded – March 1, 2002
5. Accused No. 9
Name: Sabir Anwar Ansari
Arrested on February 27, 2002; Time: 9.30 p.m.
Two police statements; Witness statement recorded – March 1, 2002
6. Accused No. 10
Name: Inayat Abdul Sattar Jujara
Arrested on February 27, 2002; Time: 9.30 p.m.
Two police statements; Witness statement recorded – March 1, 2002
7. Accused No. 11
Name: Nasirkhan Sultankhan Pathan
Arrested on February 27, 2002; Time: 9.30 p.m.
Two police statements; Witness statement recorded – March 1, 2002
8. Accused No. 12
Name: Sadiqkhan Sultankhan Pathan
Arrested on February 27, 2002; Time: 9.30 p.m.
Two police statements

The misconduct by investigating agencies and the prosecution in the Godhra trial is potentially extremely dangerous not only because it violates the rule of law and the basic rights of the accused who have been unfairly implicated. In the wider context it epitomises the discriminatory system of justice at work in the state of Gujarat. Discrimination is particularly apparent with regard to bail, where many of those accused of mass murder in the post-Godhra violence roam free while most of those allegedly responsible for the Godhra arson are denied bail five years after the event. This sends a detrimental message to society as a whole.

CJP has placed on record before the Supreme Court the sworn affidavits of five Hindu victim survivors of the Godhra arson, family members of victims who died in coach S-6 of the Sabarmati Express, who have also made a plea to the apex court for transfer of the Godhra arson case out of Gujarat. They cite threats, intimidation and political manipulation by the state administration that precludes a free and fair trial within Gujarat. They have stated that the VHP has influenced public prosecutors to present a partisan and unsubstantiated theory behind the tragedy. The case for transfer of the Godhra trial was made and supported by family members of the accused and supported by Hindu victim survivors of the train arson incident.

Illegal invocation of POTA in the Godhra case

The invocation of POTA (enacted on March 28, 2002) in the Godhra train arson case was itself both mala fide and illegal. On February 27, 2002 i.e. when the alleged offence occurred, POTO (Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance, 2001) was not applicable in the area. It was on February 28, 2002, after the Godhra incident, that the state of Gujarat issued a notification declaring the whole area to be a notified area under POTO.

The Gujarat government did not publish the necessary circular in the state gazette announcing the application of POTO to Godhra on February 28, 2002. In spite of this, an attempt was made to wrongly apply POTA in the Godhra arson case by declaring that POTO could be applied to the Godhra incident on February 28. This attempt failed.

It was nearly a year later, on February 19, 2003, that POTA was invoked in the Godhra case. It appears clear that this followed the confessional statement by Jabir Binyamin Behra dated February 5, 2003, a statement that Behra ultimately retracted, stating that the confession had been extracted under torture. Behra’s confessional statement drew the first picture of a pre-planned conspiracy behind the train arson incident.

Interestingly, five days before POTA was applied in the Godhra train arson case i.e. on February 14, 2003, bail was granted to most of the accused for the first time by the Gujarat High Court. It is evident that POTA was applied to ensure that further bail orders were not passed.

Legal provisions under POTA allow for the review of individual cases by a central review committee to prevent misuse of the Act and its draconian provisions. A decision by the Central Review Committee on May 16, 2005 ruled that none of the alleged offences in the Godhra case warranted the invocation of POTA. However, the committee’s decision has not been taken into consideration by either the Gujarat government or the POTA court. Matters relating to bail for the accused, especially in view of the decision by the Central Review Committee, have been brought before the apex court. However these too have faced repeated delays.

Shockingly, over 45 of the accused have made written applications voicing their apprehensions about the likelihood of a fair trial within the state of Gujarat. From a perusal of these applications it is clear that the accused see little hope of facing a free and fair trial in the state. The persistent refusal by investigating agencies to follow up and investigate the facts raised by these applications, and the failure of the special POTA court to ensure this, also suggest that the Godhra arson case is not being conducted in a manner that inspires confidence in the people.

Some of the accused persons who were jailed at the Vadodara central jail were subsequently transferred to the Sabarmati central jail and they have also challenged this transfer. The jail transfer has meant that families of these accused persons, all from economically backward sections, already reduced to penury by the absence of an earning family member, cannot even exercise their basic fundamental right and visit their kin in prison.

There are also severe discrepancies in the discovery panchnamas relating to the recovery of weapons. These too have been detailed before the Supreme Court.

There are similar and serious lapses in the timing and statements/complaints in the arrests of the accused.

All police witnesses who provided statements are employees of the Godhra railway police station and serve under the same investigating officer who has been investigating the case. This further implicates the investigating agency on charges of bias. In fact, 36 of those accused in the Godhra train arson case were acquitted in another case, related to the Neelam Lodge (Godhra town CR No. 66/2002), on the same day. Ironically, the police witnesses are common witnesses for the same accused in both cases.

After the police filed the first charge sheet in May 2002, the government’s own Forensic Science Laboratory report came out. Far from strengthening the government’s position, the report exposed the prosecution’s case. This led to the entire team of police investigation officers being changed.

The statements before the police as well as the witness statements that allegedly led to the accused, clearly indicate that some of these witnesses were also active participants in the commission of the crime. What is more, if their own statements are to be believed, these witnesses are guilty of far more serious offences than those who were booked and denied bail for the past few years.

The very magistrate who had earlier recorded statements by two such witnesses under Section 164 of the CrPC, refused to record a statement by accused/witness, Jabir Binyamin Behra, on January 29, 2003 when he realised the seriousness of the lapse. Instead, he directed that Behra should be brought before the chief judicial magistrate (CJM) or a high court judge because the judicial first class magistrate’s court did not have the appropriate jurisdiction. Following these developments, Behra was brought before the CJM in February 2003 and a confessional statement by him was recorded on February 5. All three of Behra’s recorded statements are practically identical and adhere to a strange prototype – there is virtually no change in their content. Yet the law is clear in that such statements must be in the language and words of the accused.

The Gujarat police and prosecution have also denied the Godhra accused access to vital documents. For instance, confessional statements and statements by the Patels dated April 10, 2002 were not initially supplied to the accused persons. As the accompanying story shows, Prabhatsinh and Ranjitsinh Patel, employees of a petrol pump in the area, had clearly stated that no petrol had been bought from them (petrol that the prosecution claimed was used in the arson).

The stay on the Godhra and post-Godhra carnage cases by the Supreme Court did not extend to staying the investigations. The state of Gujarat, which is the prosecution in all these cases, has, in the case of the Godhra arson, continued with an aggressive investigation apparently to suit political ends. In the post-Godhra cases however investigations have simply not proceeded as they should. True investigations would involve serious complaints by victim survivors about doctored FIRs, incorrect naming of accused and several other harmful revelations.

The conduct of the judiciary in Gujarat, be it in the POTA court or the high court, has been highly questionable. Bail applications have been pending without decision in the Gujarat High Court since May 2003. Hence the CJP has supported the NHRC’s plea for a transfer of investigation and trial of the Godhra arson case outside Gujarat.

Archived from Communalism Combat, July 2007 Year 13 No.124, Genocide’s Aftermath Part II, Godhra 2

Badge of honour

June 30, 2007

Courtesy: Getty Images

"If observance of Truth was a bed of roses, if Truth cost one nothing and was all happiness and ease, there would be no beauty about it."

– Mahatma Gandhi, Harijan, September 26, 1936.

In the weeks following the Godhra arson it became increasingly evident that the Gujarat genocide had been crafted in minute detail, meticulous orchestration and planning that resulted in the widespread bestiality witnessed during the carnage. Militias numbering several thousand persons, trained to disseminate rumour, barter on hate and fuel frenzy, erupted into countless streets across the state. Their venom spread through major cities like Ahmedabad, Vadodara and Bhavnagar, and swept through several districts, Kheda, Panchmahal, Dahod, Mehsana, Anand and elsewhere in Gujarat.

Newspaper reports as well as Communalism Combat’s special issue, "Genocide – Gujarat 2002" (March-April 2002), traced numerous efforts by individuals in the highest echelons of the state government and bureaucracy to prevent the functioning of the law and order machinery and administration. Officers who did their jobs sincerely were punished. Those who danced to the tunes of Narendra Modi’s Machiavellian flute all flourished.

Amidst this bloody landscape, a silent operation was afoot, conducted by some of the finest in the police force. The Nanavati-Shah Commission opened a window of opportunity for the honest officer to play his card. From mid-2002 onwards a handful of police officers have placed a wealth of scandalous material before the commission to document, in detail, the execution of the gory genocide.

On July 6, 2002, the then additional director general of police (ADGP)-intelligence, RB Sreekumar filed his first affidavit before the commission. The affidavit was deemed a privileged document until the commission released it two years later. (After the BJP and its allies were ousted from power at the Centre, the Modi government in Gujarat moved stealthily to expand the enquiry commission’s terms of reference to include investigation into the role of the chief minister and senior officers in the post-Godhra violence. The obvious intention was to pre-empt the newly formed UPA government at the Centre from appointing another commission of enquiry covering all aspects of the genocide.)

Thereafter, RB Sreekumar filed three more affidavits before the Nanavati-Shah Commission, on October 6, 2004, on April 9, 2005 and on October 27, 2005. His submissions before the commission reveal a startling pattern of state complicity and duplicity in the events related to the Gujarat genocide of 2002 and the government’s continuing efforts to subvert the process of law and justice. But his insistence on the truth in the face of such persistent and powerful adversity proved costly. In early 2005, barely a few months after he had filed his second affidavit before the commission in October 2004, Sreekumar was superseded for promotion to the post of director general of police (DGP), a post he richly deserved.

In his third affidavit dated April 9, 2005 filed before the commission, Sreekumar narrates the state government’s efforts to browbeat him into obscuring the truth. A tape recording and transcripts of a conversation that took place between Sreekumar and the undersecretary of the home department, Dinesh Kapadia, on August 21, 2004, form an annexure to this affidavit. With Sreekumar’s deposition before the commission due on August 31, 2004, Kapadia tried to persuade Sreekumar to depose in favour of the state government. Three days later, on August 24, 2004, GC Murmu, secretary (law & order), home department, and Arvind Pandya, government pleader before the Nanavati-Shah Commission, did their best to further browbeat Sreekumar regarding his deposition. This conversation was also taped and the tape recording and transcripts were submitted to the commission. These are crucial documents that record the pressure being exerted on Sreekumar by Murmu and other officials, including a lawyer appearing for the state government, to conceal the truth from the Nanavati-Shah Commission.

These were not the only attempts made to restrain an honest police officer. To his third affidavit, Sreekumar also annexes a copy of a personal register maintained by him between April 16 and September 19, 2002. Cross-signed by OP Mathur, the then inspector general of police (IGP) (administration & security), the 207-page register contains a telling narrative of repeated efforts by the chief minister and top bureaucrats to coerce an upright officer who was proving to be a serious thorn in the flesh for the state government.

On April 19, 2005, Sreekumar also moved the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) challenging his supersession for the post of DGP. In September 2005 (after he had filed three affidavits exposing the state’s complicity in the post-Godhra violence) the Gujarat government ordered a departmental enquiry against Sreekumar on the basis of a charge sheet issued by the state, which, in effect, questions the facts he has placed before the Nanavati-Shah Commission. After several hurdles the CAT finally delivered an order in Sreekumar’s favour on the day he retired from service i.e. February 28, 2007. The order is yet to be implemented. The state government has challenged the CAT order through an appeal filed in the Gujarat High Court. Sreekumar’s challenge to the charge sheet is a matter still pending before the tribunal.

Analysis of the register

It is the duty of a competent officer in the intelligence department to collect data from various sources of which he then maintains a record. Sreekumar was issued what he interpreted as unconstitutional directives from the top man in the state. He not only resisted these verbal orders, which he clearly saw as illegal, he did more. He maintained a record of these orders for the future. Not directed by his superiors, this personal register is a contemporaneous document maintained by an officer who grasped the wider motives at work and decided to provide a detailed record of those moments.

Sreekumar’s register consisted of three columns. The first recorded the date and the time when each instruction was given, the second recorded the nature and source of the instructions that were issued and the third recorded the nature of action taken. The contents of this register provide invaluable information about the workings of the Modi regime.

Sreekumar makes his first entry on April 16, 2002. He notes that the chief minister, Narendra Modi called a meeting attended by his principal secretary, PK Mishra, the then DGP, K. Chakravarti, and Sreekumar himself. Modi claimed that some Congress leaders were responsible for the continuing communal incidents in Ahmedabad. As head of the State Intelligence Bureau (SIB), Sreekumar said that he did not have any information to this effect. Nevertheless, Modi asked him to immediately start tapping state Congress president, Shankarsinh Waghela’s telephone lines. The chief minister’s principal secretary also tried to persuade Sreekumar in this regard. Sreekumar replied that it was neither legal nor ethical to do this since they had received no information about Waghela’s involvement in any crime. A terse comment contained in the third column of Sreekumar’s register states: "The chief minister’s instruction, being illegal and immoral, not complied with."

At two separate meetings held on April 22, 2002 some officers, including Sreekumar and a few others, brought up the question of the Muslim community’s severe disenchantment with the police for its failure to register FIRs and conduct proper investigations into incidents of communal violence. At the first meeting, which was convened by the chief secretary, G. Subbarao, and where Ashok Narayan, additional chief secretary (home), and the Ahmedabad municipal commissioner were also present, Sreekumar brought up the issue of the Muslim community’s lack of faith in the state administration vis-à-vis arrests of perpetrators and recommended that action be taken. The chief secretary said such action (against Hindu perpetrators) was not immediately possible as it went against government policy. At the second meeting too, the chief secretary evaded the issue of arrests. Sreekumar’s register reads: "This response of the chief secretary was reflective of government policy of evading, delaying or soft-pedalling the issue of arrests of accused persons belonging to Hindu organisations."

On April 30, 2002, ADGP RB Sreekumar received another illegal instruction from the chief minister routed via DGP K. Chakravarti. The DGP informed Sreekumar that the chief minister had instructed him to book Congress leaders for their alleged involvement in instigating Muslims to boycott and obstruct the ongoing Class XII examinations and that he (the DGP) had told the chief minister that action could only be taken on the basis of specific complaints. The next day, on May 1, the DGP told Sreekumar that the chief secretary was being persuaded to create a policy that would allow the ‘elimination’ of ‘Muslim extremists’ disturbing communal peace in Ahmedabad. Sreekumar records his reply that this would be cold-blooded and premeditated murder with which the DGP concurred. The emergent picture exposes Modi’s plans to script yet another saga of unlawful state driven violence and the chief secretary and additional chief secretary’s willingness to go along with this. The DGP emerges as a man caught in the throes of a battle with his conscience, prompted by a little help from RB Sreekumar.

On May 2, 2002, former DGP, Punjab, KPS Gill took charge as special security adviser to Narendra Modi. Two days later i.e. on May 4, he called a meeting of senior officers for an informal briefing. DGP K. Chakravarti, the commissioner of police (CP), Ahmedabad city, PC Pande, the ADGP (law & order), Maniram, the joint commissioner of police (JCP), Ahmedabad, MK Tandon, the deputy inspector general of police (DIGP)-CRPF, Sharma, and ADGP Sreekumar were all present.

While PC Pande, the then CP, Ahmedabad (and currently DGP, Gujarat), tried to paint a positive picture about the situation, ADGP Maniram provided his frank assessment that the police force in Gujarat, and particularly in Ahmedabad city, was extremely demoralised and the situation demanded that there should be a change of (police) leadership at every level, from the CP, Ahmedabad, downward. Maniram also stated that police officers had become subservient to political leaders and in matters of law and order, crime, investigation, etc, they carried out the instructions of political masters because these individuals, local BJP legislators or sangh parivar leaders, had a lot of clout. Political leaders arranged police postings and ensured continuance in choice executive posts. Maniram pleaded for the restoration of sanity and professionalism in the police force.

Sreekumar endorsed Maniram’s assessment and informed Gill that for the past five or six years the BJP government had been pursuing a policy of (1) saffronisation/communalisation, (2) de-professionalisation and (3) subversion of the system. He explained the subtle methodology adopted by the BJP government to persuade, cajole and even intimidate police personnel at the ground level. Sreekumar gave Gill a copy of his report on the prevailing situation in Ahmedabad. He also told Gill of the Muslims’ loss of faith in the criminal justice system and suggested remedial measures. Gill, however, did not respond to these suggestions. In his register Sreekumar notes: "It is felt that Shri Gill has come with a brief from Shri LK Advani, union home minister. So he will carry out the agenda of Shri Narendra Modi, the chief minister."

On the afternoon of May 7, 2002, the chief minister, Narendra Modi summoned Sreekumar for a meeting where he asked the ADGP for his assessment of the continuing violence in Ahmedabad. Sreekumar promptly referred to his note on the prevailing communal situation whereupon Modi said that he had read the note but believed Sreekumar had drawn the wrong conclusions. The chief minister argued that the violence in Gujarat did not necessitate such elaborate analysis – it was a natural uncontrollable reaction to the incident in Godhra. He then asked Sreekumar to concentrate on Muslim militants. Sreekumar pointed out that it was not Muslims who were on the offensive. Moreover, he urged the chief minister to reach out and build confidence within the minority community. Modi was visibly annoyed at Sreekumar’s suggestions.

Quoting statistics of heavy casualties among Muslims due to police firing, Sreekumar appealed to Modi to see reason and to acknowledge that it was Hindus who were on the offensive. The chief minister instructed him not to concentrate on the sangh parivar since they were not doing anything illegal. Sreekumar replied that it was his duty to report accurately on every situation and "provide actionable, preventive, real time intelligence having a bearing on the order, unity and integrity of India".

The very next day, on May 8, 2002, the DGP informed Sreekumar that at a meeting with Gill the latter had told the DGP that (1) The police should not try to reform politicians (which meant that the BJP and the sangh parivar could continue to suppress, terrorise and attack Muslims even as the police took no action) (2) There was no need to take action against the vernacular press (who were publishing communally incendiary writing that fanned violence against the minorities) (3) The police should begin to play an active role in getting rid of the inmates of relief camps. Sreekumar told the DGP that the police should not be party to the forcible eviction of Muslim inmates of relief camps and the DGP agreed with him.

On June 7, 2002, the chief minister’s principal secretary, PK Mishra asked Sreekumar to find out which minister from the Modi cabinet had met a citizens’ enquiry tribunal (looking into the Godhra and post-Godhra violence) of which retired supreme court judge, VR Krishna Iyer, was a panel member. Mishra told Sreekumar that minister of state for revenue, Haren Pandya, was suspected to be the man concerned. He also gave Sreekumar the number of a mobile phone (No. 98240 30629) and asked him to trace details of this meeting through telephone records. On June 12, 2002, Mishra reiterated that Haren Pandya was believed to be the minister concerned. In his register, Sreekumar states that he had stressed that the matter was a sensitive one and outside the SIB’s charter of duties. Call details of the above mobile phone were however handed over to Mishra through IGP OP Mathur.

On June 25, 2002 the chief minister convened a meeting of senior officers to enforce the law according to their (Modi’s) reading of the situation. Sreekumar writes: "It is… unethical and illegal advice because the police department has to work as per law and not according to the political atmosphere prevailing in the state. He (Modi) also asked police not to be influenced by the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) brand of secularism. The indirect thrust of the chief minister was that police officers should become committed to the policies of the ruling party so that law enforcement can be done smoothly."

Battle lines were further drawn on June 28, 2002 when at a meeting convened by the chief secretary, G. Subbarao, to discuss the chief minister’s proposed gaurav yatra (march of pride) in September, Sreekumar proposed that in light of the prevailing tension the annual Jagannath rath yatra in July 2002 should be cancelled. The CP, Ahmedabad, endorsed this view while a few others suggested a change in the parade route. The chief secretary then informed the group that there was no question of such a cancellation or even a change of route. After the meeting, the chief secretary took Sreekumar aside to tell him that anyone trying to disrupt the rath yatra should ‘be eliminated’, adding that this was ‘the well-considered decision of the chief minister’. Sreekumar told Subbarao that such an action would be totally illegal and unethical. The chief secretary maintained that it could be justified in terms of ‘situational logic’. Sreekumar replied that the police had to function in accordance with the law. The chief secretary then promptly watered down his request and asked Sreekumar to keep an eye on the plans of anti-social elements.

On July 1, 2002 Narendra Modi himself convened a meeting to review the law and order situation in view of the proposed gaurav yatra in September and the annual Jagannath rath yatra scheduled to take place that month. At this meeting Sreekumar provided intelligence inputs of ‘high voltage threats’ from pan-Islamic elements who would use such occasions and elicit support from those damaged and scarred by the recent violence. He advised that the rath yatra should be cancelled. His personal register notes: "The chief minister said that the rath yatra will not, repeat, will not, be cancelled." Eight days later, describing a follow-up meeting organised by the chief secretary on July 9, 2002 where precautionary measures were discussed, Sreekumar’s register entry states that "The chief secretary informed (the meeting) that anybody trying to disturb the rath yatra should be shot dead."

On August 6, 2002 DGP Chakravarti informed Sreekumar that the additional chief secretary (home), Ashok Narayan was not too happy with the data on communal incidents that the ADGP’s office had provided to the home department. In his register, Sreekumar writes: "I responded that my office has been providing correct information and the ADGP (int.)’s office cannot do any manipulation of data for safeguarding the political interests of the Narendra Modi government."

Sreekumar’s register notes that on August 5, 2002 the additional chief secretary had expressed his annoyance and displeasure at the SIB’s presentation of data on the communal situation. Narayan noted that it did not conform to LK Advani’s reply in parliament on the Gujarat question! He felt that every incident that occurred was being labelled a communal one, thus presenting a misleading picture of the law and order situation in Gujarat, especially to the Chief Election Commission (CEC). (This was the period when the Gujarat government was trying to push ahead with early assembly elections claiming that ‘normalcy’ had returned to the state and the CEC was due to visit Gujarat for an independent assessment.) Sreekumar asked Narayan to define the yardstick for assessment of affected areas but received no satisfactory response. The same afternoon, the home secretary, K. Nityanandam instructed the ADGP’s office that they should not send any data on communal incidents whereupon Sreekumar informed him that the data could not be manipulated to serve the interests of the Modi government. By this time it was evident that with elections around the corner the higher bureaucracy was apprehensive about any information that could embarrass the government.

On August 8, 2002, Ashok Narayan informed Sreekumar and others present that the next day (i.e. August 9) the election commission, consisting of chief election commissioner (CEC), James Lyngdoh, and two other members, would be holding a meeting which Sreekumar should also attend. The additional chief secretary also told Sreekumar that he "should not make any comments or presentation which would go against the formal presentation prepared by (home secretary) Shri K. Nityanandam". Sreekumar replied that he would "present the truth and my assessment based on facts".

On August 5, 2002 the additional chief secretary had expressed his annoyance and displeasure at the SIB’s presentation of data on the communal situation. Narayan noted that it did not conform to LK Advani’s reply in parliament on the Gujarat question!

At the time, the Gujarat bureaucracy had planned two presentations to be made before the CEC, one by the home secretary and another by the relief commissioner, CK Koshy. In an informal chat with his officers on August 9, 2002, chief secretary, G. Subbarao said that his men should present a picture of normalcy so that the CEC would have no reason to postpone the Gujarat elections. The CEC met the higher bureaucracy the same day. James Lyngdoh intervened at the start to say that he was not interested in presentations. The chief secretary carried on regardless, saying that "total normalcy was restored in the entire state and no tension was prevailing anywhere". Sounding both annoyed and incredulous, Lyngdoh observed that the commission had just visited affected areas where victims had made numerous complaints. He cited reports of a recently constructed wall barring right of passage to minority members in a particular locality of Ahmedabad. Undeterred, the chief secretary replied that rehabilitation was virtually complete and that most riot victims had returned home. A visibly angry Lyngdoh then asked the chief secretary how he had the ‘temerity to claim normalcy’ given the quantum and scale of the complaints. Lyngdoh insisted that the Gujarat government provide data along standard lines about the number of FIRs filed, the number of perpetrators arrested, the number of accused released on bail, the number of displaced persons, the compensation paid, and so on.

DGP K. Chakravarti then abruptly steered the discussion to the need for extra paramilitary forces during the forthcoming gaurav yatra. Sreekumar reiterated this point. Here, the CEC intervened to point out the contradiction between the chief secretary’s claims of normalcy and officers’ demands for additional forces. Lyngdoh then asked Sreekumar to elaborate on his claim for more forces. Sreekumar made his presentation (which included data on the number of deaths, property losses, the districts and villages affected and the overall plight of victims), arguing that tension still prevailed in 993 villages and 151 towns that had witnessed riots between February 27 and July 31, 2002. The affected area, he said, covered 284 police stations and 154 out of 182 assembly constituencies. On being asked to estimate the number of additional forces required, the DGP said that they would need at least 202 extra companies.

After all the other officers had left, the chief secretary summoned Sreekumar and shouted, "You have let us down badly! What was the need for you to project all those statistics about displaced people?" Sreekumar told him that he had presented the facts. Later, as Sreekumar was waiting for another meeting, additional chief secretary, Ashok Narayan came into the room along with the DGP and asked Sreekumar why he had made a statement contrary to the government’s ‘perception’. Narayan also asked Sreekumar whether as a disciplined officer he accepted the DGP’s authority. Sreekumar told him that the question was best answered by the DGP himself. Refraining from comment, the DGP (perhaps to avoid a confrontation) said that there was no point in pursuing the discussion. DGP Chakravarti later told Sreekumar that his assessment, particularly of manpower requirements, was accurate.

This was not all. On September 10, 2002, the National Commission for Minorities (NCM) faxed a message to the Gujarat home department requesting a verbatim copy of the chief minister’s speech made at Becharaji, a temple town in Mehsana district, on September 9, 2002. Modi’s hate speech formed part of the overall message of his gaurav yatra. Keen to block such information, the home department got the DGP to endorse that Sreekumar’s department, the ADGP (int.)’s office, was not required to provide such a report. Sreekumar, however, felt duty bound to comply with the request. Risking the wrath of his superiors, Sreekumar obtained a copy of the speech and forwarded this to the commission. Sreekumar’s action, his sending a copy of Modi’s speech to the NCM, was the proverbial last straw on the official camel’s back. He was immediately transferred from the post of ADGP (intelligence) and made ADGP (police reforms), a position empty of content.

Following protocol, Sreekumar then called on the chief secretary, G. Subbarao. The chief secretary told him that he should not have spoken up in contravention of state policy. Sreekumar responded that as a government functionary his oath was to the Constitution and "If the chief minister’s policies are in contravention of the letter, spirit and ethos of the Constitution of India, no government officer is bound to follow such policies." Visibly annoyed, the chief secretary brought the meeting to an abrupt end. RB Sreekumar’s personal register ends with this episode.

Archived from Communalism Combat, July 2007 Year 13 No.124, Genocide's Aftermath Part II, State Complicity 1

Commission and omission

June 30, 2007

Questions abound about the functioning of the Nanavati-Shah Commission in light of the wealth of material placed before it. There appears to be a definite reluctance to probe this evidence further. Former ADGP, RB Sreekumar and former SP, Bhavnagar, Rahul Sharma deposed before the commission. However, several obvious questions were left unasked:

Why were no minutes prepared of the meetings held by the chief minister and other senior officers to review the situation from February 27, 2002 onwards? Why were such minutes not circulated to concerned officials?
If such minutes were prepared, why were no copies of such minutes submitted to the commission?
Why were the dead bodies of the Godhra arson victims paraded through the streets of Ahmedabad city, especially when many of the deceased belonged to places outside Ahmedabad city and a few had not even been identified at that juncture?
Did the CP, Ahmedabad, or the DGP, Gujarat, report in writing to the chief minister or their superiors in government and administration on the possible adverse repercussions on law and order by this parade of dead bodies?
If any such letters were sent to higher authorities, why were they not placed before the commission?
Why was no preventive action taken against communal elements on February 27/28, 2000 even though the call for a bandh (on February 28) by the sangh parivar and the BJP was issued on February 27, 2002 itself?
Why was the Communal Riot Scheme not put into operation in relevant areas from the evening of February 27, 2002 onwards?
Why was no prompt and effective action taken against the rioters by officers of the rank of DSP (deputy superintendent of police) and above (who had additional forces of armed policemen moving with them), particularly in Ahmedabad city which has about 40 such DSPs and Vadodara city, which has about 30?
Why was no action taken by the policemen in approximately 100 police mobile vans stationed in Ahmedabad city, as also in Vadodara city, against crowds that first began to congregate in small numbers on the morning of February 28, 2002 onwards?
Why was no action taken when enforcers of the bandh created traffic disturbances and indulged in petty crimes on the morning of February 28, 2002 so as to test the mood and strategy of the police?
Why was there a delay in the imposition of a curfew, particularly in Ahmedabad city? (In Ahmedabad, curfew was imposed as late as 1.00 p.m. on February 28, 2002.)
Why were no arrangements made for videography of the violent mobs despite regulations to this effect?
How or why did the police fail to videograph mobs even as the electronic media succeeded in doing so? Were there any orders to prevent this?
Why was no effective action taken against rioters by policemen at specific locations and in mobile patrolling groups, both in vehicles and on foot, from the evening of February 27, 2002 onwards?
Why was there such a delayed response to distress calls from prominent Muslim citizens such as former MP, Ahsan Jaffri, despite their having made frantic calls to the chief secretary, the DGP, the CP, Ahmedabad city, etc, and possibly even the chief minister?
Why were there higher casualties of rioting and police firing among Muslims?
Why were the instructions contained in the compilation of circulars entitled "Communal Peace", issued to all district magistrates and police officers of the rank of SP and above, not implemented?
Why were the "Instructions to deal with Communal Riots (Strategy and Approach)", originally issued by former DGP, KV Joseph, and prepared by former officer on special duty, ZS Saiyed, and forwarded to all executive police officers for strict implementation, not enforced?
Why was there no monitoring of the implementation of instructions issued by the chief secretary, the home department, the DGP and other higher officers from February 28, 2002 onwards?
Why was no action taken against the vernacular press publishing communally inflammatory news reports and articles despite clear reports from the SP, Bhavnagar (Rahul Sharma), the CP, Ahmedabad (PC Pande) and the ADGP (int.), RB Sreekumar, that such action should be initiated?
Why was no action taken or any enquiry instituted against police officers for their alleged failure to record FIRs and conduct proper investigations into complaints of riot victims, largely minorities, although this matter was emphasised by ADGP RB Sreekumar in his reports to the government dated April 24, 2002, June 15, 2002, August 20, 2002 and August 28, 2002?
Why was no action taken or any enquiry instituted against officers of the executive magistracy, particularly district magistrates, who failed to initiate prompt action against rioters, especially between February 27 and March 4, 2002? Similarly, why was no action taken or any enquiry instituted against district magistrates and their staff who recommended the appointment of pro-BJP/VHP advocates as public prosecutors in a bid to subvert the trials that would follow?
Why was no action taken against supervisory officers (i.e. DSPs, Range IGs/DIGs, CPs and the DGP) who violated Rules 24, 134, 135 and 240 of the Gujarat Police Manual-Vol. III by not properly supervising the investigation of serious riot related crimes and who were thereby guilty of culpable omission and grave misconduct?
Why was no action taken against supervisory officers (i.e. the Range IG, Vadodara Range, and the CP, Vadodara city) who were guilty of gross misconduct and negligent supervision in the Bilkees Bano and Best Bakery cases, trials of which had been transferred from Gujarat to Maharashtra by the Supreme Court?
Why was no investigation conducted into the deposition by Rahul Sharma, the then SP, Bhavnagar, before the commission on October 30, 2004, about the location of BJP leaders and senior officers in Bhavnagar while a madrassa was being attacked? (In November 2004, the English daily, The Indian Express, published a three-part investigative report that exposed revealing conversations between influential politicians and policemen.)
Why was no clarification provided on the government’s inadequate implementation of recommendations made by the National Human Rights Commission, the National Commission for Minorities and even the Supreme Court?

Godhra Train Burning, February 28, 2002, Gujarat 2002, Genocide, Pogrom, Narendra Modi, RB Sreekumar, ADGP Intelligence Gujarat, Nanavati-Shah Commission, Religious Intolerance, Violence, Discrimination, Rule of Law, Rights and Freedoms, Gender, Communal Organisations

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Pakistan: Ideological illusions

Pakistan: Requiem for a tradition

Pakistan: We sinful women

Pakistan: Report what?

Deconstructing Godhra

Discriminatory justice

Injustice for all

Badge of honour

Commission and omission

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