Left, Right and Center After Godhra Judgement

Much Sabarmathi water has flown after the incidents took place in Godhra on the 27th of February 2002 and the riots that followed in Gujarat. One would think that, nine years on, the country would have moved on, but this does not appear to be the case.

Everyday one sees at least one mention of the post Godhra riots, without mentioning that there was an incident in Godhra where 59 people, including women and children, were burnt in coach no. S-6 of the Sabarmathi Express on its way to Ahmedabad from Ayodhya. The incidents were the subject of several enquiries and finally, after almost nine years, a special court produced a verdict where, of 94 accused, 31 were found guilty and 63 acquitted. Sadly, the persons acquitted had to wait 9 years only because there were several petitions filed in the Supreme court seeking to stay the proceedings of the special court. These were the products of numerous NGOs that thought they were assisting the persons under trial. Be that as it may, the special court could finally proceed with its business around a couple of years ago and reached its conclusions and passed judgement in this month, viz. February 2011.

Only a day back I watched Left Right and Center, a programme on NDTV, one of the well known news channels in India. This channel has a key role in shaping opinions in India and, while I have never been comfortable with its uncanny ability to mix news and (its)views in a seamless manner, the proclivity for which exists in the mainstream English language press of my dear country as well, I do not have any criticism of the channel in regard to its conduct of this programme.

Nidhi Razdan, the anchor, did a good job of conducting the discussions. The participants were Shoma Choudhary of Tehelka, Kanchan Gupta from The Pioneer, Ashis Nandy, a well known sociologist and Kiron Kher, a well known actor of Bollywood. I caught the discussions only after Kanchan had finished saying his piece on the Godhra train burning judgement. The others, with the exception of Ms Choudhary, were not overly critical of the judgement, but Prof. Nandy was critical of the BJP. This is only to be expected from a member of the Secular Left that controls the discourse in the country and is no lover of the BJP. They remind me of Animal Farm of George Orwell, where pigs are taught "Four Legs Good, Two Legs Bad", this being a general critique of all homo sapiens, who were considered the enemy. In the case of the Left and some of their fellow travellers, "Congress Good, BJP Bad!"

What really made me feel more than just a bit perturbed was the view of Ms Choudhary. She agreed to the following: -

1. There was a mob of Muslims at Godhra station
2. They set fire to the train bogey S-6

However, she differed with the judgement passed by the esteemed court in regard to there being a conspiracy to do so. To put it in simpler terms, there was no premeditation and all evidence relating to this aspect rests on the testimony of two persons in regard to selling 140 or so litres of petrol, on the previous day, to a few persons who were part of the mob. What Ms Shoma said was that there was no premeditation and that the mob was suddenly provoked into burning the coach. Let us assume that Tehelka and Shoma have done more research than the Court that spent so many years investigating the case.

As per Ms Shoma, we have the following: -

1. There was a mob of Muslims at Godhra station
2. For some reason they were provoked suddenly when the train happened to be passing by
3. They were angered by the very presence of the people in that particular bogey, including some women and children
4. They set fire to the train bogey S-6

Here are my questions.

1. How does a mob of around 1000 to 2000 'like-minded'people gather all of a sudden in a small town like Godhra, and that too early in the morning?
2. If they were not properly organised, how did they go inside, douse the bogey with petrol, pull the chain, get out, set fire to the petrol from the outside and join the mob?

The mob did not allow a single person to escape from the bogey as they kept pelting it with stones. The persons inside were forced to keep the shutters closed for fear of getting hurt by the stones. Sadly, there was no escape from the flames.

And here's my last question to Shomaji. Even assuming this kind of behaviour is not a result of conspiracy, something which has been debunked by the Court, does it condone a crime that resulted in a gruesome death of so many people, including women and children, whom nobody could accuse of 'provoking' or 'hurting sentiments' unless of course, their very existence was provocative.

Next, if that provocation was justifiable, why not the riots that followed? Not my view, just logical progression. Thankfully, we have a Government in Gujarat that has ensured that several cases have been lodged, tried and sentences pronounced. While cause always precedes effect, neither is pardonable, if both are murderous in nature.

Murder is Murder, regardless of who commits it, whether as an individual or in a mob. To think that a murder, that occurs because a mob suddenly sets itself upon a small number of people of another religion, is justified is completely indefensible. What does that tell you about the person with such an attitude?