The Middle Class in Gujarat Must Rise to the Occasion

The gory and tragic story of death and destruction unfolded in Gujarat many years ago. Its repercussions and reverberations, however, are being felt and heard even today. The reason for it is that the heinous acts of death and destruction were carried out in most inhuman manner which have been troubling the conscience of fair-minded people ever since.
Gujarat is a divided society today. People are polarized along communal divides. In other parts of the country caste rivalries often counter-balance the communal divide but they, despite being present in Gujarat as elsewhere, have not been effective here and seem to have been swept away by the venomous communalism being practiced and propagated by Narendra Modi whose fascist tendencies are well known. Congress, the only alternative to the BJP in Gujarat at present, has been helping Modi with its failure to expose and fight his fascism effectively. The reason for Congress being soft on Modi is that it too fears the loss of the majority votes in Gujarat if it is seen to be seeking justice for the victims belonging to the minority community. Such recent outbursts as describing Modi as the merchant of death have more to do with the ongoing elections in the state than to seek justice for the riot victims.
Gujarat is a relatively developed state in India and has a sizeable middle class. Unfortunately the middle class here is communally prejudiced and behaves accordingly. What is surprising is the fact that this middle class communalism has persisted for long preventing it from having a feeling of remorse over what happened to a section of their society. This absence of remorse in the Gujarat society is striking and explains why congress and other political outfits have failed to launch a viable campaign against the fascism of Narendra Modi.
Everybody likes development and wants to enjoy the fruits it bears. The people of Gujarat can not be expected to behave otherwise. But should development necessarily be heartless also, so much so that it must prevent people from feeling pain over the plight of riot-victims? If it is so, then it must be conceded that the civil society of Gujarat is the weakest in the country.
It is the civil society of Gujarat that must try to convince people that a justice-free society is not only uncivilized but also a sure invitation to disaster. Political parties, given the way they are, can not be expected to see beyond their noses and therefore would continue to be guided by the heartless calculation of electoral losses and gains. In fact, it is the middle class or the civil society which alone can hear the cries of pain of the riot-victims, feeble or loud, and they must do it for their own well-being, material as well as spiritual.
There are people who, immediately after the Gujarat carnage and also after so many years have passed by, came out with the philosophy of “forget and forgive” and still continue to believe in it. It is a form of cruelty to ask the victims to forget and forgive. And look at the profiles of these victims. There are people who saw their wives, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters being burnt alive. There are others whose houses, businesses and properties were looted, destroyed and burnt. There are women and young girls who were raped and are compelled to live in shame. And there are people who were rendered homeless and are living in refugee camps even today. How and why these people should be asked to forget and forgive. If this has to be the norm of life, then what is the use of having High Courts and Supreme Court in the country?
In democracies political processes and formations are important. Politics is an integral part of our democratic existence and experience. We shall continue to have elections and electoral propaganda. We can also not wish away the political expediencies of regional and national parties. Periodic elections will be held and the game of being in or out of power will also continue unabated. Willy-nilly we have to be a part of all these whether we like it or not. And this compulsion must make the middle class think about the way politics and political parties are as also about the way they ought to be. After all they affect our lives and will affect our future and destiny also.
True, not only the middle class but other sections of the society should also think about its welfare. But then the poor section is too preoccupied with earning its daily bread and butter and the upper class is too busy with the creation and maximization of wealth that it hardly finds time to think objectively about the welfare of the society they are living in. It is, therefore, the middle class which has time and resources, both mental and material, to reform and lead the society in the right direction. It neither suffers from acute poverty nor from being too wealthy and therefore finds time to think about and work for the welfare of the society.
If Gujarat has to be a normal civilized society that it must be, then its middle class must rise and fight against communalism and fascism. Politics is important but this is not the only means of ensuring justice in the society. Hence, let elections come and go, and let us do our best to get the best out of these, but we should not tie the fate of our society with electoral successes and failures. As responsible and conscientious people, the middle class must continue its efforts in the right direction as conscience-bearer of the society. It is they who can make or break a society; Gujarat is no exception.

Note: This article was written before the results of Gujarat elections were declared.

[December, 2007]

They are Killing People With Impunity

“American planes bomb 30 Al-Qaeda targets in Iraq” is the news that most national dailies have carried out today i.e. 22.1.2008. What is new about it that should merit our attention? The whole world knows that the Americans are killing the Iraqis for four years now and no one knows how long this gory process of murders most foul will continue.
Officially America is not at war in Iraq. In fact, the war ended long ago. Under the UN (which should have died long ago) mandate Americans are the occupation force in Iraq and their mission is to maintain law and order until an Iraqi government is put in place. And the Iraqi government is already in place but the Americans continue with their murderous presence, of course now on the request of the “genuinely and fairly elected and representative government” of Iraq. What else can be expected from a pack of puppets, for they can not survive in office even for a day without the brutal and oppressive presence of American forces in Iraq.
For Americans the Iraqis are “the other”, and not their own people. And those who are fighting for the liberation of Iraq are the worst enemies whom the Americans are free to kill with impunity. They have just to say that they have bombed and killed Al-Qaeda men, and no one in the world will question their merderous act.
As mentioned above, the Americans are in Iraq to maintain law and order which by implication may mean to fight insurgency also. But fighting insurgency does not entitle them to bomb and kill people on mere suspicion. If the American forces have intelligence information that here or there the Iraqi insurgents are hiding, the best way for them should be to surround the place and secure their surrender so that they are tried and punished according to the law of the land. Well, they will have the right to fire back if they are fired at but in such situations also the use of force must be proportionate. On mere suspicion bombing targets to ashes is not just disproportionate but also brutal, inhuman, illegal and immoral.
The Americans have spent nearly a trillion dollar on their so called war against terror which they have been fighting mainly in Iraq and Afghanistan. One must ask how many dollars they have spent on developing infrastructure or building schools and hospitals in the two countries they have occupied for many years. But perhaps this is an irrelevant question; why the war-mongers would spend in social sector?
But one must ask why the Americans are keeping people as prisoners without trial. For instance the Muslim fighters and others captured in Afghanistan have been detained at Guantanamo Bay which happens to be outside the jurisdiction of American courts. These helpless people have not only been deprived of their right to fair trial, but they are also treated as animals. Even convicted people, in American and everywhere else, have some human rights which the Arab-Muslim prisoners at Guantanamo Bay are not allowed to enjoy. But despite this inhuman treatment of fellow human beings at Guantanamo Bay America continues to be a civilized country and society.
The American disrespect towards international law, fair play and human rights has emboldened many of its allies and friends to adopt similar policies. Many pro-America Muslim countries, following the American example, have detained/imprisoned people without trial whose fundamental human rights are constantly being violated. Pakistan has gone a step ahead and, like its patron, America, has bombed and killed its own people in its tribal areas. Earlier such actions used to be condemned in the United Nations but now they are treated as routine and normal and no one dares to criticize the US and its cohorts.
India is facing insurgency in its many parts and in some places the insurgents directly engage the security forces and fire at them. Often the situation becomes very grave, and sometimes the security forces also overreact, even violate human rights, for which they are tried and punished. But in no circumstance they use the air force to bomb and kill the insurgents. Always our first option is to arrest the insurgents and try them in a court of law. Our security forces do receive information that here or there the insurgents are hidden. But instead of bombing them to ashes, they flush them out, arrest and try them in a court of law. This is a laudable civilized behaviour that a developing country like India has exhibited even in most provocative situations. Compared to it, the so called civilized America has fared poorly in Iraq and Afghanistan. The reason is simple. The insurgents and Naxals from Kashmir to Nagaland are our own people who have taken to arms due to one or another reason, right or wrong. How can we bomb and kill our citizens, however misguided, even dangerous they might be. Americans do not bomb and kill culprits in America because they are their fellow citizens. But the insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan are not their fellow countrymen but they are their enemies and therefore they have to be bombed and killed.

[January, 2008]