STOP THE KILLINGS!

DISMISS THE MURDEROUS GOVERNMENT OF GUJARAT!

VHP OUT OF AYODHYA!

 

PICKET THE INDIAN HIGH COMMISSION

INDIA HOUSE, THE ALDWYCH, WC1

MONDAY 11 MARCH 4.30pm - 6.30pm

 

South Asia Solidarity Group and Asian Women Unite! have called this protest to express our grief and anger at the terrible events in Gujarat during the last week, and to add our voices to the demands of progressive and anti-communal people across India for those responsible for the killings to be brought to justice.

We are also coming together to oppose and resist the growing influence of communal organisations, in particular the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) who are using these events to poison relations between South Asian communities in Britain.

 

Communalism and cold-blooded murder

For several months, the VHP has been whipping up communal tension and targetting Muslims in India. In particular, it has renewed its focus on building a Hindu temple at Ayodhya in U.P., at the same site where the destruction of the historic Babri Masjid (mosque)on 6 December 1992 led to riots in which more than 3,000 people died. Far from trying to prevent this, the Central Government led by the BJP, which also controls the state government of Gujarat and up until elections last week, U.P., has provided ample suppport to the VHP. Soon after September 11, the government introduced a draconian new anti-terrorist law - POTO.  This has been used to persecute Muslim youth on  a large scale, while the terror outfits of the Hindu right remain free to do as they wish.  In the last week of February, ‘kar sevaks’ - VHP activists travelling to Ayodhya for the temple building -  were reported to be terrorising train passengers, tearing off burkhas of Muslim women and attacking those they suspected of being Muslims.

On 27 February several compartments of a train carrying VHP activists to Ayodhya were attacked and set on fire at Godhra in Gujarat and 58 people were killed, including women and children and other passengers unconnected with the VHP.  No sooner had the news of Godhra spread than organised gangs of  the Hindu communal organisations went on the rampage while the police stood and watched as silent spectators, or in some cases actually took part in the killings. From well-off residential areas in Ahmedabad city to smaller towns and surrounding villages, Muslim neighbourhoods were singled out and people burnt alive. The planned and cold-blooded nature of the killings was clear - in one case alleys adjoining Muslim homes were filled with water and electric cables submerged in them so that those who tried to escape the massacre would be electrocuted. Up to 1000 people have been killed. Former MP Ehsan Jaffrey was burnt to death along with  members of his family and 38 others. In Naroda near Ahmedabad, a thousand strong crowd surrounded a slum, dragged people out and burnt 67 of them alive. Among those who have lost their lives is Mohamed Aswat Nallabhai from Batley who was on holiday and was travelling by minibus with three relatives when their vehicle was set alight. Two others who were with him are still missing.

 

The Gujarat Government - Active Sponsors of the Carnage

The BJP government in Gujarat simply withdrew itself and watched as the killer squads of the VHP, RSS and Bajrang Dal went about their systematic slaughter of Muslims with absolute impunity. Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi has shown where he stands by justifying the killings as an ‘emotional reaction’ to the Godhra incident, and congratulating the police for their ‘excellent work’. The Home Minister in his government, Gordhan Zadhapia, is himself a VHP leader. Ahmedabad  Police Commissioner P.C. Pande openly endorsed the communal role of the police in the massacres by stating that the police ‘were not insulated from the general social milieu’. Dismissal of this communal government has to be the first step to restoring trust in Gujarat.

 

In Ahmedabad, a dozen-odd relief camps which are providing temporary shelter to tens of thousands of Muslims in the city are running totally on private initiative with little assistance from the State Government or for that matter even from the Congress-led Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation and no immediate relief is in sight even after almost a week. Meanwhile, the

government has already begun to make highly discriminatory announcements about payment of compensation -  while a grant of Rs. 2 lakh has been announced for every victim of the Godhra carnage, riot victims of Ahmedabad have been promised only Rs. 1 lakh.

 

Central Government Collusion

The Central government is an alliance of parties led by the BJP - the party of Prime Minister Vajpayee. The BJP is part of the same family of Hindu fascist organisations to which the VHP and other killer outfits active in Gujarat belong.  For all these organisations, Gujarat has been seen as a laboratory for a ‘Hindu rashtra’ or Hindu state. In fact Gandhinagar in Ahmedabad is the constituency of the notorious Union Home Minister L.K. Advani, who used Gujarat as the launching pad for his ‘rath yatra’ (chariot procession) to Ayodhya in 1990. Yet he waited three days to visit Ahmedabad after the riots, and he did not even issue a statement on the brutal killing of an ex-MP in his own constituency. While vowing to prosecute those involved in the Godhra killings, he made no mention of bringing those who took part in the killings of Muslims to justice. Meanwhile the government delayed sending in the Army by a full 36 hours and when it did the Army was deployed so slowly and selectively that the killings continued to spread across Gujarat. Only a week ago, the results of the Assembly elections in four states showed a massive rejection of the BJP by the Indian people from all communities. The BJP had fought the elections on a platform of appeals to anti-Muslim, anti-Pakistan sentiment and paranoia about national security and terrorist ‘threats’. As commentators in India have argued, ‘the fire Gujarat has been kindled precisely to silence the people and vitiate the social and political climate in the country...the anti people measures being implemented by the government can only be pushed through in this distorted and disturbed situation’.

 

BRING THE GUILTY TO JUSTICE -

THOSE ON THE STREETS AND THOSE IN GOVERNMENT!

 

Details: South Asia Solidarity Group, tel 020 7267 0923; email southasia@hotmail.com  

Asian Women Unite! Tel. 020 7424 9535, email londec@hotmail.com