NEW DELHI, 7 May 2006 — Gujarat is reliving the tragic communal violence of 2002. Though the latest outbreak in Baroda is mercifully far less in intensity than the prolonged disturbances which racked the state four years ago, some of the factors in the two events are distressingly similar.
These include not only the failure of the police to respond in time to the desperate cries for help from the minority community but also the vicious taunts used by some policemen when they asked the callers to seek help from Pakistan. The involvement of Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal activists in the riots was also in evidence this time, as during the violence of 2002.
A third similarity was the controversial role of the judiciary which allowed the demolition of a shrine on the grounds that it was obstructing the broadening of a road.
The judiciary’s order has now been negated by the Supreme Court. But it is clear that the earlier directive had failed to take into account the sensitive nature of the site. For one thing, the claim that the shrine was an encroachment was a curious one considering that it was more than two centuries old. So, evidently, it was the city roads which were encroaching on the shrine rather than the other way round.
For another, it was known to be targeted for demolition by the saffron cadres, who described it as a “mini-Babri Masjid”.
Although illegally constructed temples had also been demolished during the renovation program, greater consideration should have been shown to the heritage sites. In addition, more consultations were evidently needed with community leaders before the bulldozers were asked to move in.
What the riots have again shown is that nothing much has changed in Gujarat since that fateful period four years ago when the state earned the opprobrium of the nation and of the world for the communal outbreaks which lasted more than two months and claimed more than 2,000 lives.
The same insensitivity to minority sentiments and the failure of the police to act promptly and impartially against the troublemakers are again in evidence.
A senior police official, P.C. Pande, who was held responsible for the acts of omission and commission of the police in Ahmedabad in 2002, has only recently been appointed the director-general of the Gujarat police by the Narendra Modi government despite Supreme Court strictures against him.
Events in Baroda proved that Gujarat has become virtually a communal battleground with deep distrust between large sections of Hindus and Muslims, bred by years of divisive propaganda.
