The Hindu : Call for return of sanity in Gujarat

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, May 09, 2002

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Call for return of sanity in Gujarat

Eminent scholars from several countries condemned the carnage in Gujarat and questioned the right of a legitimate government to orchestrate such violence.

In a statement, they said that the international and the Indian media have now laid bare the ``gruesome carnage and the singularly despicable acts of depravity that one community had perpetrated over another in Gujarat''.

Asserting that there is strong evidence that behind the carnage are ``well-orchestrated organisations'', with links to the highest offices of the Indian political and administrative structures,it regretted that a segment of the intelligentsia had lent its support to the fundamentalist elements. When the international community lodged protests against the crimes, the Government's response was a ``call to stop interfering in their internal affairs or to say that they did not need lessons in secularism''. We question how a legitimate government can orchestrate and uphold carnage. We question how a secular government can side with one religious group against another. We question how a well-honed security machine can remain paralysed when pogroms are taking place in front of their very eyes''.

It wondered why there have not been vociferous protests from among the Indian community, both within India and abroad. ``We question why we are yet to see the arm of justice sweeping in and, in an open display, letting the world know how the atrocious injustices are being addressed,'' the statement said. ``We question why how a country's leader who sends a mission to a neighbouring country on allegations of human rights violations condones the same vile acts with nonchalance in his own country,'' it said.

Saying that a Government's greatest responsibility is to uphold ``fundamental human rights... rights to life, liberty, and property'', the statement averred that when it is unable to do so ``it loses its legitimacy. But when a Government is ``complicit'' in committing carnage in the horrific proportions as in Gujarat, that Government ``must stand trial by its own people first, and if that fails, by the international community''.

Warning that the Muslims must not see the acts in Gujarat as an open invitation to commit similar acts against ``any'' minority population in Muslim majority states the statement hoped that sanity, justice, and a sense of wisdom would return to the State.

The signatories included Tanweer Akram, Columbia University, U.S., M. Kabir Hassan, University of New Orleans, U.S., Kunal Ghosh, Carnegie Mellon University, U.S., Anisul M. Islam, Southwestern Society of Economists, and University of Houston-Downton U.S., Salim Rashid, University of Illinois, U.S., Mahmudul Anam, York University, Canada and Anis Chowdhury, University of Western Sydney, Australia,

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