Well, if we restrict ourselves to the ground scenario, it is *now* very much
similar to those of 1985 or other riots. The initial phase was obviously
different from anything we have seen so far, in that the Govt actively or
passively aided the Sangh/Dal forces to strike at pre-planned places and
establishments while Modi gave clear indications that you can go ahead do
wahtever, :I understand the hindu reaction". Now in the second phase,
it is free
for all. Those who want to contribute in this business have stocked enough
stones, acid bulb, desi pistols, desi bombs and even advanced things. Military
combing operations are non-starters mostly, and in few pockets, the two sides
are busy settling scores. The rest of the state, more or less, is plain tense
and nothing more.

Modi is riding the tiger. He wishes to encash the gains electorally, but the
season of summer is not condusive, while the PM has indicated that immediate
elections would look very bad. So, he wants the thing to go on simmering for a
while, at a lesser scale. But now the mobocracy has taken over. And let it be
noted that the "Attack is the best form of deence" psychology is at work on
either side.

Polarization is nearly complete, with (otherwise) very respected citizens and
your colleagues neighbours and mandir-goers mouthing the same line that
(unbeknownest to them) Hitler used: Final Solution. That this
business has to be
finished with now. That they (The Other) must be silenced/overpowered for once
and all. VHP and RSS with its pamphlets keep the fires going, just in case
sanity returns.

Liberalism has gone for a toss. As I might have indicated earlier,
even to argue
against this received notion waht Hindus must do invites risk of at the very
least angry looks and half-joking threats. Since everybody explicitly
knows that
it is RSS/VHP behind the riots, any talk of peace and communal harmony is taken
as an attack on that ideology, you are instantly labelled pseudo-secularist,
anti-Hindu. That is the line of Gujarat Samachar and Sandesh which
happens to be
in a macabre competition to throw more and more insults to the minority
community. So any organization holding even a peace meet is run by "manasik
vikrut" and so on. Any organization that wants to take up
rehabilitation for the
affected is ridiculed in public, because the affected are mostly muslims. Any
liberal voice has to be stopped right in the beginning, lest it lead to another
voice and then the next.

And then there would be the next round of violence, may be led by muslims, so
these colleagues come back and demand an explanation from you: where's your
secularism now? It all of course started with Godhara, one more reason why
secular liberals are on backfoot.

As for the English language media, I have had to study the affairs closely, One
thing is, they may have a bias, ut it is not against Hindus as everybody around
here alleges. It is simple old-fashioned anti-establishment bias. If all this
were to happen under a Congress rule, BJP might have got CM's
resignation by now
for the intelligence failure on Godhara and the same media would have acted
differently. But I can make a list of newsitems where the local media went
berserk for no reason, and elsewhere when the English media took scarce note of
something important. I guess this much division is bound to be there.
I heard of Sharifa Vijlivala's writeup. I was told this the first major piece
from the academicia. We have enough liberals there in delhi and elsewhere, but
nobody has guts to speak out against the mass hysteria, and even if you do,
who'll publish it? My colleagues in the Express here who wrote
stories that made
the local govt to accept the blunders and revoke some steps (eg, the
POTO affair
for Godhara, and difference in relief amounts; Rs one lakh v/s two
lakhs) receve
threatening messages. So I'd welcome any voice of dissent. NGOs come in two
kinds, one is a shop, to gather grants from abroad, the other is the romantic
variety where they atone for their past sins and work for the upliftment of the
oppressed. Fine. The latter variety is so stunned right now, that they have
chosen to be at margins. Say, the xaviers college affiliated body working for
dalits and STs: they even refused their premises to be used for a peace meeting
(that was later done at Gandhi Ashram and made news thanks to Medha). Corporate
people tell me that there are concrete plans to take up (and finance) the
rehabilitation of the riot-affected, but given the circumstances, how can we
when our personal safety is at risk?

The scene, in short, is very very bleak. No difference from Germany
of the late1930s.