The sangh parivar is not just a sick
organisation suffering from a blind and incurable hatred of Muslims and
Christians. It is far worse than that. There is a method in the murder
and mayhem that it promotes and perpetrates, which clearly points to an
evil genius at work. Forget the average Indian, most secular activists
outside Karnataka will probably remember the year 2008 in India’s
communal calendar as the one in which the Bajrang Dal and other outfits
of the sangh parivar chose to hound Adivasi Christians in
Orissa’s Kandhamal district. They will most likely only recall that
Christians were also targeted in BJP-ruled Karnataka as a subtext of the
Orissa story. Advantage Hindutva.
For this very reason, the report of an independent
inquiry into the violence against Christians, churches and prayer halls
in Dakshina Kannada, Udupi and Bangalore in 2008 must be compulsory
reading for every Indian concerned about the continuing threats to
national unity and communal amity. The inquiry was conducted by Justice
Michael F. Saldanha (a retired judge of the Karnataka high court) at the
instance of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), South Kanara,
and Transparency International India, Karnataka chapter, and its report
was released in February.
In the October 2008 issue of Communalism Combat
we had recorded how, as always and everywhere else, in Karnataka too,
meticulous planning and build-up was an essential ingredient, a prelude
to the outburst of manipulated rage. From July 2007 onwards a malicious
campaign was launched, charging Christians with forcible conversions. It
was a hate campaign in which everyone – the media, the police and the
administration – cooperated through various acts of commission and
omission. The CC issue had also published a ‘Calendar of horrors’
detailing incidents of violence month after month.
Fast-forward to the Justice Saldanha report. The
first thing that strikes you is that, as in the case of Gujarat 2002
under the BJP’s Narendra Modi, here is yet another example of Hindutva
on the rampage, sponsored by a state administration under their control.
If there is a striking similarity at one level, there is a big
difference at another level: active proof of the evil genius’s capacity
to innovate. The genocidal killings in Gujarat had evoked far too much
national and international outrage. Besides, unlike in 2002 when the BJP-led
National Democratic(!) Alliance was in power, in 2007-2008 it was the
Congress-led United Progressive Alliance which ruled at the centre. So a
repeat of 2002 would not do; the same agenda had to be differently
executed.
Bear this in mind when you read Justice Saldanha’s
report which for reasons of space we only reproduce excerpts of in this
issue:
“The attacks that took place on September 14, 2008
were well planned, premeditated and executed with precision, as I found
out to my distress when I conducted this inquiry. What was very
significant was the fact that wherever this took place, the police
protection was zero vis-ŕ-vis the victims though they were providing
leadership and cover to the attackers, shocking as it may appear; but in
the immediate aftermath, it was the police who were the main assailants,
aided and abetted by the saffron political activists…
“Then comes the nicest part of the operation. The
home department had instructed the police to get hold of the local
shopkeepers and workmen to immediately restore all the damage that had
taken place… The speed at which this counter-operation was undertaken
was absolutely amazing. To my mind, this was a brilliant move on the
part of the state government because on the one hand, the congregation
was beaten up, they were terrorised and in every single instance, items
such as mangalsutras, gold chains and other valuables, including
ladies’ handbags, watches and men’s purses, were physically looted, the
place was vandalised, and after all of this, a pious impression was
projected by the police on behalf of the government that the authorities
were very concerned over the incident and had decided to make good all
the damage. By following such a brilliant procedure the government was
able to officially state that not a single incident of this type had
taken place and that the allegations with regard to these incidents are
not only false but are motivated.”
Isn’t that smart? The crime never took place because
the evidence does not exist. The evidence does not exist because it was
wilfully destroyed by the government’s law and order machinery. And if
this were not shocking enough, we have the subsequent conduct of the BJP
government which, after appointing the Justice BK Somasekhara Commission
of Inquiry to probe the attacks, bulldozed it into giving not only the
BJP government and party but also its various organisational affiliates
a clean chit.
In the Gujarat context too, there is a desperate
attempt to somehow get Modi a “clean chit” while simultaneously
maligning the secretary, Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP) and
co-editor, Communalism Combat, Teesta Setalvad. We applaud
Tehelka magazine for scooping the report of the Special
Investigation Team to establish that reports planted in the media about
the SIT’s clean chit to Modi are a lie. And several human rights
defenders have issued statements condemning the Modi government’s
attempts to embroil Teesta Setalvad in false charges.