The Gujarat carnage (2002) was one of the major acts of anti-minority violence. It was a catastrophe which took the degree of violence, hate and ghettoization to a higher degree. On the pretext of the Godhra train burning, the carnage was unleashed in which over 1,000 people lost their lives. As per a sting operation by Ashish Khetan of Tehelka, the likes of Babu Bajrangi said that they were given three days. 

Bajrangi also said that he was feeling like Maharana Pratap - a 16th century Hindu king valorised for his bravery against Mughal rule in India - while doing the killings. General Zamiruddin Shah, former Deputy Chief of the Indian Army, stated that the army was kept waiting for a long time for permission by the then state government before it could do its job of curtailing the violence. That the likes of Babu Bajrangi got bail on some grounds is a reflection of the rot in our justice system. Maya Kodnani, who incited the violence and was given life imprisonment, also got bail. Interestingly, Teesta Setalvad, the activist who fought for the victims, is in jail.

Horror and shame

The mayhem was well supported by the state; this was the conclusion of the Citizens Tribunal headed by Justice P.B. Sawant. One of the cases which initially got justice was that of Bilkis Bano. She and her family ran to the fields where the mobs traced them. Bilkis, her mother and sister were gang raped. Seven of her family members, including her three year old daughter, died in the cruel attack. Bilkis, who was five months pregnant, was left for dead.

She was alive but without clothes when left by the marauding mob. She collected all her courage and fought for justice, helped by dedicated social workers. This led to the life imprisonment of 11 who were punished for the most heinous crime. This was in 2008. Now, one of the guilty approached the Supreme Court for remission. The apex court in its wisdom directed the Gujarat government to take the call, forgetting that the case was transferred to Maharashtra as the possibility of justice was ruled out in Gujarat.

On August 15, 2022, as our Prime Minister Narendra Modi talked of Nari Shakti (India's woman power) in his Independence Day address, these 11 culprits were released with a grand welcome, garlands, sweets and all.

Tormenting Muslims

During their prison term, they used to get frequent parole and frighten the eyewitnesses. Now with them set free, Bilkis Bano is totally shattered. Many Muslims in the area are leaving their homes for more secure areas -- to form new ghettoes. This decision by the Supreme Court and the Gujarat state has been dubbed against the law and human morality.

The response to this retrograde legal and political step by the system, overseen and infiltrated by the ruling BJP, has invited a severe response from civil society. The Congress has come forward to condemn it. The BJP seems to have done this to intensify polarization and to capitalize it for the forthcoming Gujarat elections.

Large sections of the media are displaying a deafening silence on the issue. The otherwise verbose Prime Minister is silent for electoral reasons. True, Khushboo Sunder and Shanta Kumar from BJP have condemned the whole episode. Otherwise, this national shame finds no place in the BJP discourse. Many women's groups and other human rights groups have protested strongly but to no avail.

Patriarchal values

The Constitutional Conduct group, constituted by the retired civil servants, have criticized the whole episode and called upon the government to reverse the decision of the Gujarat government and put the culprits behind the bars. There is also a petition signed by thousands who have not only criticized the Supreme Court but also the steps taken by the Gujarat government.

PILs (public interest litigations) have been filed by Mahua Moitra, Subhashini Ali, Revathi Lall and Rooprekha Varma among others, expressing their anguish and pain at this humiliation of women’s plight.

The worst part of the episode is the honouring of the convicts with garlands and sweets. This seems to be in tune with the patriarchal values which are inherent part of communal ideologies, Hindutva included. All fundamentalisms regard women as property of men. Communal violence is presented as a fight between two rival communities. Women are regarded as property of the men, so violating and inflicting humiliation on the women of the religion of the ‘other community’ are upheld and appreciated.

Justice must be done

The shame is not just that the convicts of Gujarat violence have been given bail and now these 11 culprits, but the mindset of the community in giving them a welcome. The degeneration of social morality under the impact of communal ideology is on the rise in an exponential way. We have seen the accused of Mohammad Akhlaq murder was wrapped with tricolor by a central government minister, Mahesh Sharma. Another minster, Jaswant Sinha, honoured the lynching accused when they got bail. To cap it all, Shambhulal Regar, the murderer of Afrazul, was upheld by a section of community which raised funds for him.

The Supreme Court must respond to the PILs and put these convicts back to where they belong -- the prison. At the same time, this communal mindset needs to be combated while realizing that Prime Minister Modi’s pronouncements of Nari Shakti ring hollow. The real Nari Shakti needs to be built by combating communal ideology and its component, patriarchy.

(The writer, a former IIT Bombay professor, is Chairman, Center for Study of Society and Secularism, Mumbai. Views are personal.)