Hope and despair

In February 2012, the Gujarat riots will complete a decade, 10 years without justice. A few more decades might go by in the hope for justice, just like they have gone by for the 1984 anti-Sikh riots’ victims. Proceedings, in courts and commissions stretch endlessly.

While many victims will hope no longer, some like Salim, looking to punish the perpetrators of the Naroda Patiya killings will soldier on. He says, “In many cases my fellow victims have turned hostile. The accused have bribed them or threatened them with dire consequences. My fellow victims have betrayed me.” The pain in his voice is evident.

There are cries by the victims that judicial proceedings are sought to be hushed up and appeals that the cases be transferred out of the state if there is to be any hope for justice. Riot victims claim they are being harassed by delay tactics and dirty politics.

At the forefront of the movement for justice is a group called, ‘Citizens for Justice and Peace’. Its founder member activist Teesta Setalvad, has been targeted incessantly. She faces three court cases accusing her of provoking witnesses to turn hostile and for filing wrong cases. She was accused of digging out the remains of riot victims in Pandarwada village near Lunawada (Panchmahal district). The Lunawada police would have arrested her had it not been for the timely judicial intervention.

Setalwad’s brand of activism has always been targeted. But had it not been for her demands for direct intervention of the Supreme Court, there would have been no justice in the Best Bakery and Bilkis Banu rape cases.

In the first, the fast track court of Vadodra had acquitted all accused but after the intervention of the Supreme Court, the sensational case of the burning of 13 people was shifted out of the state. Now a special designated court in Mumbai is trying the case.

Setalwad has been instrumental in resurrecting the hopes of scores of victims even though she came in for much flak when the prime victim of the Best Bakery case Zahira Sheikh flip flopped under pressure and in turn accused Setalwad of misleading her. Sheikh was later exposed and awarded one year in prison for misleading the court.

The Bilkis Banu rape case serves as a perfect example of individual activism. Despite being subjected to pressure and allurement, Bilkis, supported by Setalwad and her associates, did not dilute her search for justice.

In Madhya Pradesh, it was a larger paradigm of development that came to be questioned by the activism of the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA), today counted among the most powerful people’s organisations in the world.

It was formed in October 1985 and in its journey of 25 years has often challenged the development policies of the government and in some cases has forced it to bring amendments. The Sardar Sarovar project was proposed in 1946 to build a dam to tame the Narmada which flows through Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat.

The sharing of water among the states became a sticking point for which a tribunal was formed in 1969. The tribunal pronounced its award on December 12, 1979.

According to it, under the Narmada valley development project, 30 big, 135 medium and 300 small dams were to be built across the river. It laid down strict guidelines for resettlement of dam oustees, under which they were to be given cultivable land, homes and necessary public utilities.

But when these guidelines were overlooked and millions of people began to be uprooted for the project, the Narmada Bachao Andolan was born to question the arbitrary ways of the government and the gaps in the project.

Says leader of the NBA, Medha Patkar, “It was initially said that the oustees had no right to raise their voices. But we drove home the point that questions could be raised not only on the gaps in resettlement, but also the anomalies in the project. People suggested that I agitate on the humanitarian aspects of the project. Today not only the NBA, many other bodies are questioning this and other projects. We gave the slogan: No resettlement, no dam..No land, no dam. We were successful in getting the government to bow on these issues.”

In Gujarat, activism brought many powerful untouchables to their knees. Maya Kodnani, minister in the Modi government was arrested and imprisoned for her role in the Naroda Patiya massacre, where 95 persons were killed.

It was activism again which brought under the scanner the role of Amit Shah, the state’s former home minister, in the Shoharabuddin fake encounter case. Shah is accused of running an extortion racket and is now ‘tadipar’ (exiled) from Gujarat on orders of the Supreme Court.

Noted Human right activist, accomplice of Setalwad and founder of the NGO Prashant: A Centre for Human Rights, Justice and Peace, Father Cedric Prakash says, “Even after almost a decade people have not forgotten the worst of the riots. Social human activism is still part of public disclosure.’’

Some days ago Bollywood musician Ismail Darbar said at Surat that Muslims of Gujarat should forget the incidents of 2002. It means that riots are still part of the subconscious domain. And as an activist I believe that they should not be forgotten.”

Prakash has also been the butt of police harassment for his activism. He was also summoned by the police in the Pandarwada case. Activists see the only hope in transfer of cases to outside Gujarat. Prakash believes the “problem lies in the intention.”

“We do not have a system where we can protect witnesses. In some cases police was compelled to write against Setalwad. She is staying in Mumbai yet people are trying to get her declared an absconder in the court. There is no staying how long the battle for justice will stretch”, he rues.

The NBA stretched its battle against the government to the international stage when it challenged the appraisal report sent by the government for the World Bank grant. It alleged that the report was a pack of lies and national policies and laws had been willfully violated. This resulted in the World Bank sending in an independent review commission which negated the government report.

In the initial years, the government refused to recognise squatters as land owners, but thanks to the efforts of the NBA, they were acknowledged.

The government also recognised adult male children as separate family units, gave at least five acres to those who possessed less than that originally allotted and also recognised as displaced those who had lost more than 25 per cent of their land to the dam.

None of this was part of the original government scheme.

In 1989, the NBA formed a draft resettlement policy. The government’s own National Resettlement Policy, framed in 2003, took from the NBA’s draft in mandating that minimal displacement should be permitted for big projects.

The policies of 2007 and 2009 also borrowed from the NBA’s draft. The representation made by the NBA to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Rural Development, on issues of development and displacement, that agricultural land should not be used for non-agricultural purposes and that the compensation for land should be land was also agreed to.

Today it has grown to be an issue that covers both the environment and displacement. Thus the proposed canal projects were stayed by the Ministry of Environment as these were not part of the Command Area development plan. For instance the Indira Sagar and Onkareshwar canals are in the submerged area.

For Anwar Miya, a resident of Ode village, some 20 kilometres from the milk city of Anand in Gujarat, activism has been a more personal talisman. He lost 17 family members in the 2002 riots. They were burnt alive.

With 11 other riot affected families, even today he lives in the fields as his destroyed house was never re-built. He was unable to get an FIR filed but in 2008, Setalwad’s intervention got the police to chargesheet 95 persons. Judgment in the case is awaited.

Anwar says, “It would not have been possible for us to reach the Supreme Court without the help of Teesta. We are poor villagers without any legal knowledge.” He dismisses the charges against her as “baseless”. Like the others, Anwar will go back to his home only once justice is delivered.

Former Congress Member of Parliament (MP) Ehsan Jafri was burnt alive in his Meghaninager residence by a rampaging mob. His son Tanaveer Jafri still hopes the justice will come.

“In the 1969 riots our home in Chamanpura, near Meghaninagar in Ahmedabad, was burnt by a murderous mob. But they were no human casualties.

“Ahmedabad has seen riots every 10 years: 1981, 1992 and the 2002 mayhem.

“In every riots the minority, especially the poor suffered a lot. Up till 1992, nobody came forward to file police cases against the perpetrators. They did not collect evidences or prepare documents as they were scared, intimated and pressurised by the police, local goons and administration. But, now the scenario has changed”, he says.

Jafri believes that the “50 per cent justice” that has come the way of the 2002 victims has only been because of the constant movement of NGOs against the government apathy.

“They (activists) came to us, talk to us, and call people. They prepare all the documents and it is with their help that we were able to file cases against the real perpetrators,” he says.

The NBA’s true worth on the other hand lies in the fact that it raised questions on development which became internationally relevant. They have forced the world to think about the relevance of mammoth projects that take away the rights of the marginalised and the dispossessed.

Points out Patkar, “The NBA compelled the ministry to form a sub group for the monitoring of the project. The Ministry of Social Justice formed a group on social justice which oversees the conditions of resettlement while the sub group of the Environment Ministry looks at environmental issues related to big projects.”

These now look into all proposed ‘development’ projects.

Not everyone, however, holds a brief for activism.

Dalit activist Rajesh Solanki of Gujarat says, “One school believes that the only remedy is legal. The other says political annihilation is the only solution. After a deafening decade of dark trials, tribulations and torture, we find, activism has succeeded in implicating some political celebrities and police officers, but failed to nudge bigger political figures. The question then is: has activism strengthened the political survival of BJP in Gujarat? The answer is ridiculously positive.”

At the same time, Gujarat has also been a role model of economic development and lifestyle improvement. Have activists equally praised such efforts by the government? Apparently not.

But for better or worse, for now, activism marches on with many new faces joining in.