It is a matter of deep significance for me, a journalist and an
educationist committed to democratic and plural values, representing
an organisation that is independent of government to submit this
representation to a significant and influential body such as this
ñthe Commission on Religious Freedom and I thank you for this
opportunity.

It is at a critical juncture for the world, and for South Asia in
particular with two of our countries, India and Pakistan, in the
midst of strains and tensions made impossibly dangerous by their
access to nuclear weaponry that these discussions are taking place.
India, a large, and until recently a stable democracy has been
experiencing dangerous schisms carefully implanted by political
forces committed to manipulating religion in the pursuit of power.

Guided and inspired by the politics of the party in power, the
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) inspired by it's political mentor the
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and it's outfits like the Vishwa Hindu
Parishad (VHP) and the Bajrang Dal (BD), have been through public
statements and actual action leading successful pogroms and attacks
against the countries religious minorities, especially Muslims and
Christians, who in their ideological construct of a Hindu nation are
'outsiders.' The recent state-sponsored Genocide of the Muslim
Community in Gujarat is the most brutal expression of this ideology
of a an exclusivist Hindu State that has no place and accords no
equal citizenship to 'others.' It is an ideology that militates
against basic principles of democracy itself.

However, Gujarat did not happen overnight. Since 1998, when the
parliamentary wing of the RSS, the BJP came to power in that western
state, there have been systematic attempts through policy and violent
action, to divest minorities of their democratic rights and terrorise
them into silence. The groups involved in this are the RSS, VHP and
the BD that openly flout their close connections (ideological and
structural/organisational) with the party in power. I refer to the
selective census against Christians and Muslims in that state, the
brutal attacks on Christian religious persons and their institutions
from February 1998 onwards, the directive by the government for all
schools to subscribe to a copy of the RSS journal, Sadhana (January
2001), the selective disbursement of relief and rehabilitation
packages after the ghastly earthquake (Jan 2001), the ostracisation
and ghettoisation of Muslim children in schools in the state, the
similar ghettoisation of the community into residential areas; and
finally similarly hate-filled and violent attacks against the Muslim
community in Gujarat in August 2000 whenófollowing the attack on
Hindu pilgrims to the Amarnath shrine in Kashmir valley, the
Lashkar-e-Toyeba (a terrorist outfit that is reportedly supported by
some wings of the Pakistani military/intelligence establishment)
killed 33 innocent Hindus and, in the crossfire, 100 persons died. In
the words of the international general secretary of the Vishwa Hindu
Parishad, Praveen Togadia, who frequents this country often, then
ìthe reply for the deaths in Kashmir would be given(avenged), here,
in Gujaratî. Then as now, the Indian Muslim community is demonised by
these groups, accused of having extra-national loyalties, after which
brutal violence including quartering and rape of innocent victims of
that community is justified.

Our journal, Communalism Combat has closely documented Gujarat
including it's hate-filled textbooks since 1998 onwards. (Welcome to
a Hindu Rashtra, August 1998, How Textbooks Teach PrejudiceóOctober
1999, Face to Face with FacismóApril 2000, Great DividesóFebruary
2001 and finally Genocide Gujarat 2002).

What happened after the ghastly Godhra carnage on February 27,
between February 28 until March 15, 02 in the first round; then
continued through April and May until the 16th of that month and
thereafter and has again resumed this week is nothing short of
genocide as defined by the United Nations Convention on Genocide,
Article 2 (to destroy in whole or in part..any ethical, racial or
religious group); 2(c) adds ì deliberately inflicting on the group
conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction
in whole or in partî.

Brutal destruction of life, through rape, quartering of bodies,
urinating on them and incarcerating them so that there is no trace or
evidence of their remains; attempting and partially succeeding in
economically annihilating the community (the primary loss through
systematic targeting of businesses and properties that the community
estimates is at Rs 4,500 crores) and desecrating over 270 religious
and cultural shrines belonging to the community---all this took place
through systematic planning and targeted action by armed militias
ideologically driven by the vision of a supreme and exclusive Hindu
rashtra (state). Over 2,000 lost their lives, 500 are missing and
250-300 girls and women were gang-raped before being quartered,
burned and killed.

The extent of planning and preparation and therefore state complicity
cannot be over-emphasised. The Chief Minister Narendra Modi is
himself culpable of sanctioning mass murder, in fact in the case of
the quartering and brutal murder of former member of Parliament Ahsan
Jaffrey who's family members appear here today, there is a case of
personal vengeance and vendetta. Mr Jaffrey had campaigned against
Narendra Modi in the recently concluded bye-elections in the third
week of February and even spoke publicly against him. Among the 100
calls made by a desperate man for help that day, one was made by Mr
Jaffrey to the chief minister. His reply was callousólook after
yourself if you can.

Four other ministers of the Modi cabinet in Gujarat are indicted by
over 35 witnesses to their crimeóthe home minister, Gordhan
Zadaphiya, the health minister Ashok Bhatt, the revenue minister,
Haren Pandya, and Narayan Laloo Patel and Niteen Patel. These men
elected to power through a democratic election, who have abused their
positions and their deeds need to be condemned nationally and
internationally to any group wedded to democracy, secularism and
basic values of toleration.

The conduct of the police and civil administration-- bound as they
are by their employment rules to uphold the basic tenets of the
Indian Constitution and Indian law that are immutably committed to
equity and non-discrimination--- in not simply failing to prevent
rape, quartering, burning alive of human beings and the mass
destruction of property actually joined hands with the well-trained
and armed mobs requires the most urgent attention. It is not the
first time that the Indian police have been exposed for anti-minority
biases; in fact as the Rodney king case in the USA and the Stephen
Lawrence incident in the UK reveal other democracies are not immune
to prejudice in the agencies of government ñredressal and reform is
where we in India lag behind and it is time that the issue of
Institutional Police Reform and Greater Representation within the
services and the force receive long term political attention. It is
the institutions of democratic governance within India that need
revitalizing, decentralization and greater responsiveness to people's
needs and human rights issues.

The hate speech through pamphlets and propaganda, reproduced by some
mainline newspapers in the state of Gujarat reveals a methodology
that uses hatred and violence in words and actually translates it
into action (see page 132 of Communalism CombatóGenocide 2002 issue).
The arming of cadres of the RSS/VHP and BD, the fact that they are
paid cadres, the fact that much or most of the finances of these
organizations comes from expatriate Indians in the US, the fact that
three state governments within Indiaóthat includes Maharashtra,
Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan have recommended a ban against the VHP
and the BD on grounds that they create terror and are armed are
issues that need to be considered while responding to the genocide in
Gujarat.

Today, in Gujarat, we face a refugee crisis of momentous and tragic
proportions. Over 1,50,000 persons are in relief camps even now and
with the rains on their way, epidemics will join hunger, pain and
suffering that they have been undergoing for over 100 days. Last
Friday (June 7, 02) the chief minister Modi at a meeting with Muslim
businessman flatly refused to rehabilitate the victims. ìI will not
buy land nor build houses for those dishousedî he is quoted by The
Times of India,Jine 8 as saying. After being complicit in the
violence the chief executive of the state is brazen in owning no
responsibility for life, liberty, shelter and dignity of refugee
victims.

Having said this, I would wish to raise a broader issue of
communalism within South Asia that the western world responds to
extremely selectively. Until the Taliban harmed US national interests
what it did to it's own women and children did not concern the most
influential country in the world, the US (in fact it supported the
Taliban), similarly the US and the west have not been articulate on
the issue of the treatment of rights and minorities in Pakistan and
Bangladesh (Hindus to a larger degree and Christians in smaller
measure have been targeted in that country since elections last
September), blasphemy laws single out Hindus and Christians in
Pakistan for discriminatory treatment, over 200,000 Hindu Kashmiri
pandits are also refugees in their own country (having been driven
out of the valley by militants in the name of Islam) and the schisms
between the Tamil Hindu majority and the Sinhala Buddhist majority in
Sri Lanka are deep and discriminatory to the minority. Unfortunately
the west has not been too concerned by either a consistency of
response nor a holistic policy on South Asia around these issues.
Narrow commercial and strategic interests alone have governed
responses cloaked in the garb of human rights and hence the skeptical
response. Even today we fear, looking at the US silence on Gujarat
that other interests lie behind the silence.

While internally within India these shocking and condemnable state
sponsored pogroms and genocides have taken place, Indian public
opinion has risen sharply and condemned them. However the crude and
brutal attacks inspired in large or some measure by Pakistan's Inter
service Intelligemce Services (ISI) and it's Army through armed
fanatics on innocent civilians within India is constant factor that
complicates and dilutes this public opinion and it's efficacy.
Gujarat has gone off the front pages in India following the brutal
massacre of women and children in Jammu in mid May; not only that the
hype of war has successfully sidelines the sharp and vocal movement
for justice in Gujarat.

Western powers need to study and understand the rise of the politics
of manipulating religion in the pursuit of power with the seriousness
that this tendency deserves. It is this politics that brutally took
the life of the father of the Indian Nation, Mahatma Gandhi, an
apostle of non-violence who has not received the distinction of being
awarded the Nobel Peace Prize when Martin Luther King Junior who was
inspired by Gandhi's commitment to this path fortunately received the
honour. It was this politics that isolated Frontier Gandhi (Khan
Abdul Gaffar Khan) in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) when
India was Partitioned in August 1947. This politics has today come
unto it's own in many countries of the region: within India, a
democracy, large sections of it's religious minorities are isolated
by rhetoric that guides mob furies and even policy where the BJP
rules; in Bangladesh where the violent and brutal attacks on Hndus
that began with the new government being elected to power on a
jingoist anti-minority sentiment last October, continues; within
Pakistan where Hindu and Christian minorities and Ahmadis are
discriminated against; in Sri Lanka where the Tamil Hindu minority is
discriminated and before the US' 'war against terrorism', in
Afghanistan where the Taliban (then supported by the US and west) had
made life a living hell for it's own, especially women.

The South Asian term communalism, evolved historically in the decades
preceding Independence and Partition means just this. The region and
its people have been victim to this politics that resulted in the
partitioning of the country on religious lines; brutal violence
including barbaric killings, rapes and mutilation of women belonging
to the 'other' community (be it Hindu, Muslim or Sikh) took place;
moreover over 10 million persons were forcibly made refugees and had
to leave home and hearth.

Western powers whether it is the British who played some role at the
time of Partition or more significantly, now, need to respond to the
rise in religion based chauvinism in many countries within South Asia
with this wider historical perspective in place. The issue needs to
be dealt with in the context of State responsibility, Governance and
the Rule of Lawóin the context of India within a democratic
framework. The crisis raises serious questions of the ethics of
democratic co-existence and religious pluralism vis a vis the state.

I trust and hope that this opportunity offered following the genocide
in Gujarat opens possibilities such an approach in the future. Ends.