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Refugees
in State Vs Refugees in Country
Sunita Vakil
The communal carnage that
engulfed Godhra barely a month back resulting in the death of more
than seventy people was the ultimate act in savagery. The
retaliatory spiral of voilence was all the more gory as it claimed
the lives of more than 800 people and injured several hundred. A
bruised and battered Gujarat watched in shocked silence as
communally frenzied mobs enacted the scenes of worst barbaric
cruelty. All the political leaders and parties came down hard on Mr.
Narendra Modi, the Chief Minister of Gujarat for failing to curb
violence and maintaining law and order in his home state that
resulted in communal backlash. An NHRC team was rushed to Ahmedabad
which blamed the Chief Minister for inaction and condemned the
killings of a particular community.
Congress leaders and
leaders of other political parties hotfotted to Ahmedabad to take
stock of the situation and lost no time to criticise the BJP
government there. The Gujarat Congress slammed the Modi Government
for failing to check the violence and instilling confidence in the
local masses. The state Congress leaders demanded the immediate
removal of Mr Modi as chief Minister and institution of an
enquiry by a sitting Supreme Court Judge into the incidents of
communal voilence. They also demanded to invoke Article 355 to
protect the life and property of the citizens. Mr Kapil Sibal of
Congress said “The government, by using Art 355, could have
dispatched Army straight away to the riot-affected zones without
concurring the state government. It did not do so. It also failed to
hand over the riot cases to the CBI, which it could well have done
under the Article without consulting the state government.
Almost all political
parties expressed anger and shame at the post-Godhra incidents but
no one condemned the inhuman killing of seventy people including
women and children in the Sabarwati Express . It speaks volumes
about the fake secularism of our political leaders who have an
entirely biased concept of secularism. They dared not express grief
about the carnage lest their declarations be spelled out as some
sort of sympathy for the slayers of the minority community, which
would have been a bad political move. But this time around Mr A. B.
Vajpayee deserves due credit for inspecting the wreckage of the
Sabarmati Express compartment in which 58 Kar Sevaks were burnt
alive. Mounting pressure from political parties compelled Mr
Vajpayee to visit the strife-torn Gujarat and take a first hand
repertoise of the situation. The Prime Minister was stunned beyound
words by the dance of death of destruction rampart in the State. He
could not control the film of moisture over his eyes and appeared to
be quite helpless and bewildered . Profoundly disturbed , Mr
Vajpayee expressed his anguish in an emotionally charged voice “ I
have come here with a broken heart to share your tragedy”, he said
“with what face will I go abroad after all that has happened
here” ?
Offering words of
consolation to the roit-ravaged masses, he said in chocked voice
“Don’t think you are alone. The whole country is with you”.
Speaking to about 8000 displaced Muslims in the Shah-e-Alam camp in
Ahemdabad Mr Vajpayee said “Becoming refugee in one’s own
country is something that pierces the heart”. While the PM has
said all the right words and made all the suctiable gestures in
Gujarat, it is quite unfortunate that our Government and also the
Opposition parties, who are raising quite a din about the atrocities
meted out to one particular community are displaying a muted
response about the killings rampart in Nort-East and Jammu and
Kashmir ? The difference lies only in that Gujarat has got
sucked up in a vicious circle of reprisal killings while as in
Kashmir ethenic cleansing of Hindus is taking place on a daily basis
by the Islamic militants.
It is quite ludicrous that
the Congress and other opposition parties who cry themselves hoarse
over the recent incidents in Gujarat have tended to neglect half a
million Kashmiri refugees who were hounded out of their homes, their
houses burnt and properties looted and were forced to live a life
that voilates all standards of human diginity. While TV channels and
newspapers are full of reports about Gujarat carnage, the hardships
faced by Kashmiri refugees hardly find a mention anywhere. Are there
any answers for this step-motherly treatment ? Has Mr Vajpayee
ever taken the trouble of reaching out to this forlorn and forgotten
displaced community ?
It can be unequivocally
asserted that the government and leaders of opposition parties are
unconcerned about these everyday killings of the “other minority
community” in “another part of the country”. Even NHRC is
nowhere visible in Kashmir. there are daily attacks on security
establishments and government buildings. People belonging to
minority community who have no means to shift to other parts of the
country are butchered like cattle and the government does not even
bother to count the corpses. The last two weeks witnessed a lot of
selective killings of the minority community.
The attack on the Raghu
Nath temple in Jammu in which ten people were killed was an act fit
to be conemned by all political parties but no attention was paid to
the dastardly act and the Media also gave it a passing reference.
Again, seven Hindus were shot dead when heavily armed militants
swooned on Dandli village in Udhampur district and opened fire on
the villagers killing seven of them and injuring three others. In a
separate incident, three persons were killed and 10 injured,
Contd. from page 1 some of them seriously, when a bomb exploded in a
sweet shop in the border town of Rajouri in Jammu. Moreover,
militant attack on security installations has become a regular
feature in which many securitymen get killed.
Considering that the above
mentioned heinious acts are no less acts of savagery, then why
don’t Mr Vajpayee’s eyes brim over with tears and no healing
touch is provided to the brutalised community ? Doesn’t he feel
anything when Kashmiri Pandits are butchered in the name of ethenic
cleansing ? Why doesn’t he feel shame when Hindu piligrims are
killed, Temples destroyed and burnt and properties of minorities
looted and vadalised ? Can he provide any answers since he himself
asserted that a person in governance should make no discrimination
on the basis of caste, creed and religion ? While visiting Gujarat,
the Prime Minister expressed his emotions in a chocked voice “with
what face can I go abroad after what has happened in Gujarat”.
It was a good thing that he was expressing his concerns about
Muslims but what about Kashmiri Pandits who continue to be ignored
for more than a decade ? Is it because they are Hindus and have
stood by India even when the latter did not have any concerns about
their fate ? We surely do respect the sentiments of Mr Vajpayee when
he declares in a painful voice that people becoming refugees in
their own land pierces his heart but why is this sentiment directed
only at the refugees in Gujrat and not at those in Jammu who have
been living with the label of refugees in their own homeland for
more than a decade ? Can his theory of pseudo-secularism explain
that one ? Our benevolent Prime Minister needs to be reminded that
there are “ other refugees “ also in the hinterland of his
country who have lost everything to Islamic militancy. While as the
former are at least still in the state they were born and brought
up, Kashmiri refugees had to run for their lives and take shelter
outside their their home state where they had to build their life
all over again.
What the common man fails
to understand is that why the government is biased towards one
community and does not bother about another one which faces the eye
of the storm every single day.Why special steps are not being taken
to curb voilence in J and K also ? When all the political parties
are baying for Mr Modis blood why not a single demand has been made
for giving marching orders to Dr Farooq Abdullah who like Nero has
been fidddling while Kashmir continues burning ? What contribution
he has made for the people of J and K in his five year stint as a CM
? His Government has failed to provide solace to the strife-torn
masses of the valley.All that he has done is hanging to the seat of
the power by playing petty politcal games.
While in Gujarat, the
Government has ordered rebuilding of houses, ex-gratia compensation
and many other schemes to help the ravaged masses to tide over their
miserable phase, no such benifits are for Kashmiri refugees. There
houses were looted, destroyed and burnt but the got no
compensation. They get a meagerly Rs 2400 per month as the relief
from the Government which does not even suffice to pay their monthly
rent, not to speak of feeding hungry mouths and other expenditures.
Things have come to such a pass that the hapless Migrants have
started selling their offsprings to provide them two square
meals. Moreover,
since Gujarat has served as a wake up call for Mr A. B.Vajpayee
making him cognizant of the problems faced by refugees. There are
greater chances that his philonthropism will now drawout to Kashmiri
Pandits also and would goad him to launch measures to improve
the living conditions of a community languishing in ignominity for
long.
The author is the Managing Editor of Weekly
Kashur Gazette published from New Delhi.
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