Indian Minorities in UK Condemn Hindutva Threat

Last year’s anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat were state sponsored terrorism, a well known Human Rights activists and former judge of the Bombay High Court Justice Suresh told a public meeting in London on Sunday.

The meeting on “Indian Minorities in the Wake of Gujarat Genocide” was organised by a London based advocacy group Council of Indian Muslims (CIM) – UK.

Justice Suresh, who was on the Concerned Citizen’s Panel which investigated the causes of these riots and published a damning report holding the BJP led Government of Gujarat responsible for the crimes committed against humanity, said that preparations were being made for these pogroms for two years.

He said that in each communal violence that has taken place in India since independence it is the minority community which suffered most and investigation reports bore witness to this fact but no action has been taken against any culprit and no recommendation has ever been implemented. Making special reference to the 1992 Bombay riots and Sri Krishna Commission’s report’s recommendations, Justice Suresh said the way in which cases were dropped against the culprits was a travesty of justice.

However, he said, “with regard to the barbarity and savagery Gujarat excels.” Expressing his horror Justice Suresh asked, “Can a state declare band [call a strike]?…It means what? It means we do not run the country, we do not implement law. This is complete abdication of constitutional responsibility and Narendra Modi got away with that. [In this stance] the Central Government could have taken action, the court could have taken action but nothing was done.”

He said that among all the charred remains of the victims of the Godhra Express train tragedy not even a single person was identified as that of a kar sevak, yet against the advice of the district administration Narendra Modi brought out a procession and inflamed communal feelings of the public.

Dr Alan Hobson, Parliamentary officer Christian Solidarity Worldwide told the meeting that he went to Gujarat after the riots and himself witnessed the wrath of BJP precisionists when they say a “westerner in the car”. Dr Hobson said that he had been working closely with the British MPs to raise the issue in the Parliament. He told the gathering that BJP lobby had become so strong in the UK that one of the MPs who had helped him on several issues in the past politely refused to ask a question in the parliament saying that that was a “very controversial issue”.

Dr Hobson urged the British Indians to be united and lobby their MPs to act against the threat of Hindutva to minorities in India.

The meeting was also addressed by Professor Richard Bonney Director Indo-Pak Institute University of Leicester, Eugene Culas, Director Voice of Dalit International, Maulana Atiqur Rahman, author and former editor of Lucknow based Nada-e-Millat and CIM’s Chairman Munaf Zeena.