Rituals Yes, Action No.
Batuk Vora

Last few days before and after onset of New year, South Gujarat proved to be rather highly tense and tough region for people of minority communities- both Muslims and Christians, as never before in last fifty years of independence. They still live under a dark shadow of communal onslaught from Hindu fanatics, according to an on the spot observation of this writer.

Amod, a little town in Bharuch district, saw a flare-up of Hindu-Muslim riot too in the wake of anti-Christian riots in Dang district the week before. The Muslim candidate earlier fielded by the Congress at Bharuch parliamentary by-election was reported to have hidden some weapons in his house that was raided by police. The central Government team that was deputed to assess the situation has completed the ritual of submitting a report to the Union Home Minister and the Home Minister himself has remarked that "the government is bound to establish safety condition for people of all different religions." Yet, people here in South Gujarat believe that yet another ritual has been perfected by the bureaucracy while a crackdown on communal forces is not yet quite visible. Chief Minister Keshubhai even gave a green signal to Hindu communists by declaring that they had only retaliated initial attack of the Christians on Hindus!

"This is a usual scenario. We are used to see it again and again when the real culprits go scot-free, Keshubhai does not explain why a permit for a violent rally was first of all given to a so called Hindu Jagaran Manch," wailed Ramanbhai Chaudhary, an Adivasi (tribal) member of Gujarat Assembly. "Lack of action is not the only problem for victims of Hindu communal attacks, the real problem is still at hand: anytime any day more burning of Christian churches may take place or more violence on minorities could further inflame the situation," he said.

In the present case, when a well organised attack on Christians took place in nearby Dang district, which is still continuing in the name of Hindu Jagaran Manch, a new name plate with old saffron flags and same old Sangh Parivar faces, surfacing in village after village with the state government patting their back.

Explaining further, he showed a report on Social and Economic Survey of the tribals of Dang (1997-98) brought out by the government itself, which revealed that tribals here were last on development indices, compared to other districts of Gujarat. "The number of houses owned by tribals in Dang was just 28,000 for a population of 1.4 million, compared to about half a million from 3 million tribals of Panchmahal district, or 3.92 hundred thousand houses for 2.2 million population of Valsad district, or 3.39 hundred thousand owners of houses against a population of 3.4 million in Surat district!

"The other day last year, a Dang tribal woman was shot dead by a Forest Department guard for trying to build her hutment on a given plot of patch of land in the Dang’s bamboo forest," said the official. In unemployment, dang tops the list with 50 percent, according to the same report. The same is 47 percent in Panchmahal, 33 percent in Ahmedabad, 45 in Valsad and little more than 30 thousand in Surat district. No surprise, the last census showed the Christianity rising by 416 percent in Dang, compared to 28 percent in Panchmahal, 31 percent in Valsad and 46 percent in Surat!

In the present case of anti-Christian riots, the pretence of looking at the issue little dispassionately was given a go-by. What else could one conclude from the fact that the central "fact finding" team did not deem it fit to visit the trouble spots of Dang and ignored a repeated request from Christian community to meet its members? "Vote politics has gripped the extremist section among Hindu groups," concluded a veteran tribal leader Chhotubhai Vasava, defeated Janata Dal candidate for recent Bharuch parliamentary by-election. Entire campaign during this by-election was openly communal as never seen before, with Hindus, inflamed by anti-Muslim propaganda of BJP, supporting the BJP; the Muslims supporting the Congress which fielded a Muslim candidate and a fair proportion of tribals voting for Janata Dal’s tribal candidate.

The first indication that the Sangh Parivar was looking towards targeting Christians as a strategy to countering Sonia Gandhi came when the winning Bharuch BJP candidate Mansukh Vasava told the press after the victory that "it was a vote against

Christian missionaries and forcible conversions." The permission granted to Hindu Jagaran Manch to hold a rally a few yards from the church at Ahwa town on Chistamas day and the transfer of controversial DSP to the sensitive town the next day seemed to indicate a clear pattern. "No sensible official would give such a permit to a highly political rally, which was later described by VHP leader Pravin Togadia as just a religious "Satsang" (congregation) ceremony! When however, the situation took a turn for the worst, and the national media began to make a big splash, the BJP tried to apply brakes but it was too late to reign the lumped elements.

"While the Christians have been at receiving end and their contribution to the state, especially in education field, very considerable, there is no denying that conversions took place at rapid rate. Some soul searching would be in order," wrote Times of India, local edition. Dang is one of the 200 "sensitive districts of India focused by Vishwa Hindu Parishad’s plan to "re-convert" people in 50,000 villages of these districts to Hinduism," according to Part Six of the series of Parichay Mala booklets distributed by VHP countrywide. A corpus fund of Rs 50 million has been set up for implementing this plan, according to local edition of Indian Express.

"Freedom of religion" as ordained by the constitution of India is subject to public order and morality," declared the VHP’s newly appointed international general secretary Dr. Pravin Togadia. As part of an anti-communal stir, a new development at Surat, 500 students from Gujarat colleges gathered on Jan. 2, at Kanjibhai Hall, under the auspices of All India Democratic Students Organisation. They decried communisation of education undertaken by BJP government and also condemned attacks on Christians. Among those who spoke at the rally were, Ahmedabad based Prakash Shah, a veteran Gandhian and Hakumat Desai, a retired professor.

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