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Translate rhetoric into action, NHRC chief tells PM

By Our Staff Reporter

BANGALORE AUG. 4. The Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), J.S. Verma, said here today that the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, must translate his rhetoric into action, and bring back religious tolerance in the country.

Speaking at a round table on combating communal hatred, at the National Law School of India University, he recalled Mr. Vajpayee's earlier statement that he believed in the Hinduism of tolerance and respect for all, a religion that prioritised humanism. "If things had changed...," the Prime Minister had then said, "I would be far away from it.''

The former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court expressed anguish that those who had been rendered homeless in Gujarat were still unable to go back or were afraid to go back or both. A part of the reason was that "we as a people are unconcerned about anything, unless it touches us directly". He echoed Mr. Vajpayee's reaction to the killings that followed the Godhra carnage, terming it a "national shame" and adding that he felt the shame doubly, as an Indian and as a Hindu.

The homeless people of Gujarat were facing war conditions as they had suffered the pain and hardship of those caught in a conventional war. They had lost their families and property and were struggling to live with a semblance of human dignity in the face of adversity.

That the conditions were still not back to normal was evident from Mr. Verma's statement that his one hope was that the agony would not last much longer.

If the Prime Minister believed in "Vivekananda's Hinduism", which was one of religious tolerance, he must "act" to bring that Hinduism back.

The NHRC Chairman was strong in his criticism of the way things had been handled in Gujarat and made it clear that tacit support from several official quarters to those stoking the fires of communal hatred had emboldened the latter.

The result was an orgy of orchestrated violence against Muslims and loot and arson of their property, which left 1.5 lakh people homeless.

The round table comprised academicians, journalists, advocates, representatives of NGOs and students, who presented papers on various aspects of communal violence, the role of public and State agencies in dealing with it, the role of the media and on what could be done to prevent a "genocidal future".

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