One of the slums that NYAYAGRAHA – the organisation of courageous local activists – concentrates its legal efforts on is the ‘Ram Lal ka kadda’ (RLKK hereon) located not very far from the recently constructed highway that connects Ahmedabad to Vadodara. The highway itself is stunning and surely worshipped by the Gujarati elite as their new road to eternal nirvana. Last summer in 2007, as I drove with Johanna Lokhande from Vadodara through this very capitalist marvel to Ahmedabad, she narrated to me some of the difficult problems that she as an activist with NYAYAGRAHA faced when trying to help the muslim victims. She informed me that some of the muslim women who had to go through the worst under the assault of the Hindu goons and their political masters, were too psychologically affected that it was very difficult to help them be independent. Often, when health related issues were involved, NYAYAGRAHA lacked resources by itself and would try to find other local people to help the woman concerned in such regards. The Vadodara-Ahmedabad corridor was also chilling as much as it was stunning: zipping through it, I could not find one street vendor or rickshaw puller or bullock-driven carts, things which were almost a certain sight in any of
Gujarats Hindu Democracy rides on the blood of its Muslim Citizens
On reaching Ram Lal ka Kadda, one sees the difficult living conditions as of any slum in
Making a trip from the
Fighting spirit, trust and generosity
What is remarkable in this process of fighting for justice, is the degree of trust that
has developed between the Nyay-pathiks (para-legals) of NYAYAGRAHA and the people of RLKK, one of several other areas where NYAYAGRAHA concentrates its legal efforts. People of RLKK advised me to give any donation for RLKK towards NYAYAGRAHA, spoke of an achievement in basic human trust which is what the goons of the 2002 campaign sought and seek to destroy. But humanity is something that is too much in abundance here in RLKK and that is something the Gujarats communal rulers cannot take away. There surely was little food in the belly in RLKK, but they were willing to feed me to juice and water when I visited. This kind of generosity is something the middle-class in
As we were speaking and the time was limited as I had already arrived late, many of the women were speaking at the same time and I was not able to make out what they were saying. When I asked them if things are atleast in some ways better since 2002, there was a clear and damning unanimity in their response: “Ji, kuch nahi chal raha hai” (nothing is moving). It was also the case that the compensation that is on the anvil is more of an insult than an injury. When the Hindu goons invaded their space and after they burnt Haneefs daughter, they also destroyed all the homes in RLKK. The people then took shelter in the near by corporation school. For the compensation towards their lost homes, the state machinery offered them 1000 ruppes (or 20 dollars) that too after a long winded legal process. If one learns about the value of human struggle from the Muslim members of RLKK, one cannot fail to note that this is being done in the face of unflinching and continuing arrogance of the Gujarats state machinery. Johanna Lokhande mentioned that Ration cards were to be restored soon, but this was already 2007 – 5 years after the violence – and does any proud citizen care to ask how poor people can get access to food without a ration card, and if one had to be that way for 5 years, its a question that surely skips the mind with convenience.
Terrorism and Genocide
Surely, for all the concern about terrorism that exists in India today, particularly among the urban middle class reactionaries who have no problems in supporting Americas global war on terror with phoney concerns about Islamic Terrorism or Maoism or some other imagined threat to their imagined glory, there is a sudden and deafening silence when the page turns to the question of their own treatment of the nations minorities. This extends to the entire country, as a recent government report (Rajinder Sachar committee) itself admitted with discrepancies in admitting muslims to various government posts, education etc. But in
The RLKK members wished me well on my way back and I thanked them for spending their much valued time with me so generously. I joined Johanna and Isakbhai – another member of NYAYAGRAHA who was with us – for a snack at a local restaurant. Johanna and Isakbhai mentioned that even after working with the people of RLKK for so long, they “do not understand how they live” (despite the circumstances). Driving back to Vadodara from Ahmedabad, on one of the roads, we slowed the car briefly. Johanna and Isakbhai pointed to the distance in the middle of a really large waste dump (where the entire city’s waste as well as industrial waste is dumped) spanning several kilometers. Lowering the car windows made the stink of industrial wastes of this area known as “Bombay Hotel” even more intense than it already was. In the distance, in the middle of all this waste spanning several kilometers, one could see a dim set of lights. That is the place where one of the relief colonies called “Citizens Nagar” was setup for some of the victims whose original homes were too dangerous to go back to after the violence. Since the state which sponsored the terrorist violence was disinterested in any relief effort, the only land that these survivors could find was this waste dump donated by some local muslim organisation. When the rains come, the only passageway to this colony floods shut and so do the residents livelihoods. Unlike at RLKK, the visitors to the colony are not offered water as the liquid here is coloured with contaminants from the industrial waste dumps. I should mention one thing before I forget. The people at RLKK agreed on one thing: that those who are being arrested in
Surely, those normal decent people among us who have the luxury to not “understand how they live” and yet do nothing to change the vicious degree of discrimination and genocide clearly have made a choice in support of freedom – for ourselves, for fascism and their continuing crimes.
[ Johanna Lokhande, an activist based in Vadodara can be contacted at [email protected]
Ishaakbhai, an activist withNYAYAGRAHA can be reached at [email protected]
Article author can be reached at [email protected] ]
ZNetwork is funded solely through the generosity of its readers.
Donate