A Cold Eclipse

Conspirators & Rioters


ASHISH KHETAN

There were the cool strategists — leaders, officials, ideologues. And then there were the foot soldiers, who raped, killed and looted. The genocide was clinical.

THERE WAS no spontaneity to what happened in Gujarat post- Godhra. This was no uncontrived, unplanned, unprompted communal violence. This was a pogrom. This was genocide.


In a planned, coldly strategic manner, Muslim neighbourhoods across both urban and rural Gujarat were targeted. Large sections of Hindus were united under a single objective: to kill Muslims, wherever and by whatever means, preferably by first stabbing and mutilating them, and then by setting on fire what remained, whether dead or alive. During the course of the TEHELKA sting, many accused said they preferred burning Muslims alive over other forms of death since cremation is considered unacceptable in Islam.

For three days after the February 27 fire on the Sabarmati Express at Godhra, Gujarat’s BJP government receded from public view and let the armed mercenaries of Hindu organisations take over. For three days, absolute anarchy reigned. Execution squads were formed, composed of the dedicated cadre of Hindu organisations — the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the Bajrang Dal, the Kisan Sangh, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad and the Bharatiya Janata Party. Masjids and dargahs were destroyed across the state. Seventy-three Muslim religious places were torched in Ahmedabad alone, 55 in Sabarkantha, 22 in Vadodara.

The architects of Gujarat’s greatest shame were of two sorts. There were the coolheaded strategists, the conspirators, who plotted the carnage from behind the scenes. And there were the foot soldiers, the members of the saffron army, drugged on the vicious agenda of so-called Hindutva, who went out and looted, raped and killed. On occasion, the planners were also sometimes emboldened to go out and participate in the massacres.