Sangh parivar disrupts communal harmony meet in ahmedabad, while the
police brutally beat up journalists
The meeting on 7th April, 2002 at Gandhi ashram (Ahmedabad) was
organised by several NGOs and forums working for peace and communal
harmony. The call for the meeting was issued by Mallika Sarabhai,
Girish Patel and others. The meeting was attended by representatives
from Citizen's Initiative, Vishwa Gujarati Samaj, Movement for
Secular Democracy, Muslim Relief organisations, SAVE and
others. Medha Patkar, who happened to be in Ahmedabad, also attended
to express her concern for communal harmony. Over 300 activists from
Ahmedabad and different parts of India attended. A large group of
Gandhians led by Ilaben Bhatt, Chunibhai Vaidya and Narayan Desai
discussed the relevance of Gandhian praxis in today's time of
communal frenzy.
The objective of the meeting, was circulated during the inaugural
introduction session as:
"This meeting has been called to try and find long term solutions to
the climate of hatred and violence that is surrounding us in the
country today. It is a meeting to try and devise strategies to
inculcate values of coexistence and tolerance into the populace once
again so that the torn fabric of India can once again be made whole.
We need to devise long term plans to make peace and coexistence
national agendas of paramount importance so that we again live
without fear and hatred. While recognizing that acts of
terror and hatred will continue, the great question that we must find
a solution to is of how to stop revenge being meted out to entire
communities for what are individual acts of inciting violence or terror.
The people we have amongst us today represent organizations that have
worked in these areas in different ways in different parts of the
country and with different segments of the population. Our great task
is to synergise all these movements into one cohesive one to stem the
cancer of divisiveness.
Our single agenda therefore must be the search for a comprehensive,
long term and all pervasive strategy to inculcate the vital values of
peace and coexistence."
Some youth came to the meeting place around 11 am and were angrily
discussing among themselves about the large presence of Muslims in
the meeting and the daring of the organisers to talk about communal
harmony. They went away. An hour after Medha Patkar came to the
meeting during lunch, around 2 pm a small mob and a huge contigent of
police landed. The mob led by Amit Thakur and V K Saxena, President
of National Council for Civil Liberty (NCCL), started
screaming anti-NBA slogans, while some youth (BJP goons, described as
"BJP activists" by Saxena to the PTI) began beating up Medha and
others. The police, led by Mr. Parghi (IPS, DCP Zone1) attacked the
journalists with lathis and rifle-butts. Dimant Purohit (AAJTAK TV)
and Pranav Joshi (STAR NEWS) were badly injured.
The Narendra Modi government, aided by the communal Gujarati
press, will try to evade responsibility for the violence, pinning the
blame on Medha Patkar. But the brutal attack on the media and the
disruption of the meeting for peace action (not Narmada dam) cannot
be justified by any sensible citizen and has to be condemned in the
strongest terms. The attack on the meeting reveals the
fascist culture in Gujarat and the worse to come to throttle any
voice of sanity and peace.
Please send your protest (in solidarity with the secular peace forces
in India) to the President of India and/or the Indian Ambassador in
your country.
- wilfred, ahmedabad
April 7