My country is burning - in the State of Gujarat thousands are dead and lakhs have been left homeless and penniless. There have been stories where women have been gang-raped, their new born babies thrown to the side of the road, and their families burnt alive.
Gujarat has reached the epitome of the philosophy of "hindutva" - there's a minister in the Gujarat Govt. who's proud to be a member of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, the same VHP who says things like this -  http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp?art_ID=8001446 - and I quote from their latest pamphlet of hatred - ‘‘Several youths who took to the streets to provide security to the Hindus have attained martyrdom. Several have been booked for offences of murder, attempt to murder and rioting.

“They are now in jail and it is your responsibility now to ensure that their families do not starve. Mere words of sympathy will not help, you will have to come forward and contribute your mite, or else your conscience will prick you, the community will not forgive you.’’

Yes, please donate money to help protect those unjustly jailed, unjustly jailed for moving around cities with lists of muslim shops, families and systematically burning them down, gang-raping their women and killing their children - they were doing this to defend my noble religion.

And we have our honourable Prime Minister saying "‘‘Disruptions are temporary, things will be all right again shortly,’’ ( http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=8000801) - what is the muslim girl who was gang raped by 3 men and had her child snatched away from her going to say to that? Yes, Mr. Prime Minister, I understand that losing my honour, my livelihood and my family is just a temporary inconvenience and all will be alright soon - rest of the world and my countrymen, please look the other way, all is fine here.

Here's another quote from the illustrous VHP pamphlet:
“Godhra is just one manifestation of the cancerous growth of terrorism that has now spread all over the country, Godhra is just a trailor of a film, the whole film is yet to come, there are thousands of more Godhra carnages being planned,’’
Lets talk about Godhra, shall we? It was a horrible, horrible massacre - an entire train compartment full of Hindu "karsevaks" (or are they now "ramsevaks") was burnt, and such an act needs to be condemned in the strongest possible terms by any human being with a conscience, BUT there is not a shred of evidence to prove the "terrorist conspiracy" "ISI-backed Pakistani plot" theory - weeks after Godhra and we still dont have a shred of evidence to prove the massacre was planned, and yet we have tons of reports surfacing that the violence was a spontaneous reaction - that the karsevaks were travelling without reservations and harassing passengers, forcing them to get off before their designated stop, that they harassed a muslim tea-stall vendor and took his daughter into the train, and that aggravated the local population who stopped the train and flung whatever they could at the train. But no, within hours our Sherlock Holmes politicians had it figured out that it had to be ISI-backed international terrorists with the support of the local muslim population and therefore all muslims were potential "terrorists". If the VHP, Bajrang Dal, and the so-called protectors of "hindutva" were so concerned, why dont they DEMAND a full and thorough investigation into Godhra, something thats not happening - the investigation is in the hands of a railway inspector when it needs to be a full-scale inquiry.

I hope the Gujarat Chief Minister is smiling - he has succeeded, with elections just around the corner, he's going to ride the Hindutva train and have his vote-bank, heck, hes even advertising how many rounds of bullets the police fired and how many people they killed in the newspapers, and of course "all's well, dont look her" ...

When Gujarat was devastated by the earth-quake, the entire nation and the entire World rushed to help. Gujarat needs help again. There are the survivors of the carnage, robbed of their livelihoods and families, crammed into 56 relief camps with horrible conditions - medical and humanitarian aid is needed urgently - if you can help with money or in kind, please contact:
Center for Study of Society and Secularism
>9 B, Himalaya Apartments
>6th Road. Santacruz (E) 400055), Ph. 6630085, 6149668.,
>e-mail  csss@vsnl.com
or contact me at  halfworm@postmark.net and I can get you in touch with people collecting donations and doing relief work in Gujarat.
Also, there is a silent dharna planned at Hutatma Chowk in Bombay on the 30th of April at 5PM to call for peace and protest the activities of the Gujarat Govt. - you can contact me for further details.