While choosing to study in a college in Gujarat, not once did I realize that I was going to the state which had seen the most recent riots in the country. It was partly due to lack of awareness, but more so because while living in the capital, I had become a spectator to an episode unfurling in another part of the country; and by virtue of being a spectator, I was isolated from it. There was a sense of security- riots were what you read about in the newspapers- they didn’t (and couldn’t) happen around me. Godhra, Best Bakery, Teesta Setalvad, Nanavati Commission- all of these were ‘terms’ I had come to know because I had read them all so often in papers or seen them on TV. I knew the trivia, but trivia is devoid of human presence.
Even in my first year of college in Ahmedabad, the sense of isolation, security and of being a spectator persisted. I once calculated that my batch mates- many of them local residents- would have been between ten and twelve years old at the time of the riots- that made them old enough to remember living through the riots. But, not once in my eight months in college, had anyone mentioned it. I had heard friends talk about living through the Bhuj earthquakes, but not the riots. The riots were just another topic, amidst a lot of other topics about politics, latest songs, upcoming events, economic deals- basically a part of casual talk between friends. It seemed strange, they too were spectators and not participants- something that physical proximity to the epicenter of the incident would have warranted.
Just out of curiosity, I would occasionally ask- what it was to live through riots. I wasn’t inquiring about the riots as an event in history; I was just curious about what it felt like to have lived through the riots- there is a difference between the two.
This June, as a consequence of series of incidents, I realized two years after studying in Gujarat, that I knew awfully little about the why, the what and the impact of the riots. I began reading up on line, talking to people, watching videos and films about the riots. I knew the places mentioned in the reports, this time not just as trivia, but as places I had frequented. The gruesomeness, the brutality and the administrative efficiency of the execution of the riots was shocking and chilling. It struck me that I had known more about the Sikh riots of ’84 than about the Godhra riots. It was this sudden feeling of confusion- How could I have not known about this? The riots suddenly seemed more real and the sense of security was replaced by naked fear- my friends lived through this, it could happen to me. But all my friends are the fortunate ones- the riots had not penetrated the walls behind which they were safely locked. They all remember being locked in their houses; one remembers seeing from her balcony, black smoke rising in the distance. Only one knows of a friend who’s shop was burned down. Another recently told me that she remembers being scared- every man, including her father, with a beard or a mustache had it shaved off.
When I read the papers now, I realize that behind all these legal battles and the cases being passed off from one court to the next, are people who saw their loved ones being raped, slashed, burnt in the most horrific way possible, waiting for retribution- some form of closure.
It is impossible to talk about the riots without talking about Narendra Modi. The fact that the riots – to whatever degree- were state sponsored is a part of the horror of the incident. Lately every time I talk to my friends about Gujarat, development or the riots I ask them what they think of Modi. I clearly remember a conversation five years back, when I was in school in Delhi, when a friend stood in defense of Modi- stating that even if he was guilty, he was the guy Gujarat needed. I didn’t know enough then to argue. But the arguments haven’t changed much since. In my first year, a friend told me, that Modi had been maligned in the media outside Gujarat- that I being from Delhi was inherently biased. I shut up because I believed that there was a possibility of his statements being true- every resident of Gujarat I knew loved Modi. Something that one gets to hear often is that Gujarat hadn’t developed in thirty years as much as it has in the past ten years under Modi. And this is a fact obvious to me after living in Ahmadabad for just two years.
There are two wide defenses that I have heard in favour of Modi, and I don’t know which is the saner of the two. One states that Modi is a remarkable administrator, the guy responsible for making Gujarat what it is today, what happened was unfortunate and even if he is guilty, his qualities outweigh his guilt. The second one is a more blatant admission that the riots were necessary, that the riots led to a long lasting era of ‘peace’ and stability that has continued till date.
I can not buy either of these arguments. Its as if human lives became the currency traded for peace, development and stability. But what is the meaning of these ideals for all civilizations, if it comes at the cost of human lives? Or is it that some humans are more equal than other humans, and thus deserve to be the traders of this barter rather than the currency itself?
There are alternate paths to the same goals, and we often choose to be guided by what is convenient rather than by what is right. But these are alternate world views are endorsed even by people very dear to me. Sometimes, it gets very frustrating: How could you not see it my way? But I know that my friends too would want me to see things their way. Neither sides will agree to the other. And as strongly as I believe I am right, so do they. The only solution out of this dead lock as I see it, is time. We’ll all just continue living by our world views, fighting for what we believe is right. At some point maybe we’ll come up against each other, maybe one of us will change our minds, maybe all of us will change our minds. Who knows? I still think that people don’t know enough about the riots- that if they knew more, they would believe differently. I hope they would.
- Tarunima Prabhakar