The Hindu : No escaping accountability

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jun 17, 2002

Opinion

Opinion - Editorials

No escaping accountability

THE `REFORMIST ZEAL' that the Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, has displayed towards `madrassas' (Muslim seminaries) has nothing genuinely reformist about it. For all the seeming innocuousness and reasonableness, as projected by Mr. Modi's expressed desire to be guided by the reforms carried out in countries such as Pakistan, Malaysia and Indonesia, the `reforms' initiative has clearly a sinister design behind it. The reason has to do with the Gujarat-specific backdrop against which the idea has emanated and is being pursued. Unforgettable indeed are the recent worst ever state-inspired Muslims-targeted revenge killings and riots that have ravaged Gujarat for well over three months and the huge negative fallout of which is yet to be neutralised in any significant way. In a way, the Chief Minister gave a part of his game away while giving vent to his `reformist' urge, when he mentioned the reported seizure of AK-47 rifles and RDX material from a few `madrassas' in the State; it is to try and establish a motivational and logistical linkage between `madrassas' and the Godhra-type massacres, whitewashing in the process the subsequent pogroms of the majoritarian fundamentalist elements (represented by the Sangh Parivar) directed against the minority community.

In a sense, the targeting of `madrassas' in the name of `reform' is of a piece with the unabashedly discriminatory attitude Mr. Modi has adopted towards the Muslims, true to his `swayamsevak' mindset, at every stage and in every sphere of the developments post-Godhra. Witness, for instance, the `every action has a reaction' theory he advanced to justify the carnage that followed the Godhra massacre; the differential monetary compensation he mooted for the lives lost, with the Hindus being held entitled to a higher amount; the relief camps for the Muslims among the riot-hit getting short shrift in the matter of basic necessities of life; and a blatant indifference to the rehabilitation imperatives of the minority families. The communal bias stands out starkly even in the arrest of culprits and in the filing of chargesheets, with those belonging to the Hindutva outfits such as the VHP and the Bajrang Dal treated with kid gloves or being let off the hook. A more recent example of such a pro-Hindu bias is the brazenly distorted version the police had presented in the chargesheets related to the Naroda-Patiya and Gulmarg Society cases of massacre — the two major episodes wherein 130 persons were burnt alive — by attributing them to acts of provocation by the minority community. Given this, Mr. Modi's prioritised `madrassa' reform initiative cannot but be seen as yet another component of the `experiment' he is supposed to be trying out in what has come to be regarded as the `laboratory for Hindutva concepts' (Gujarat).

In fact, the BJP Ministers at the Centre have been making it a point to draw the attention of the State Governments to the "proliferation'' of `madrassas' in recent years and urging them to be "vigilant'' while registering them. According to the Union Minister of State for Home, Ch. Vidyasagar Rao, there are over 11,400 seminaries spread across 12 States, mostly along the international border. Almost invariably the attempt is to set the `madrassas' in the context of Islamic fundamentalism and militancy, with dark hints being thrown about the illicit flow of foreign funds and linkage with Pakistan's ISI. In the scheme of the Sangh Parivar, `madrassas' figure as an effective medium for projecting the Muslim community as the villain, in the same way as the `missionaries' do vis-a-vis the Christians. None would deny that the `madrassas' are crying for change insofar as their course-content and training are concerned. But any change effected by a Government has to be such as not to infringe upon the rights guaranteed under the Constitution. When people such as Mr. Modi speak of reform or modernisation of these minority institutions it is nothing short of chicanery.

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