Provocation and Patience
Barely one week of the Ahmedabad carnage taking human toll of hundreds of muslims in India, the Alice-in-Wonderland speeches at the SAARC Information Ministers Conference in Islamabad about the need for amity and friendship in South Asia provides small solace for the dead and dying in Gujerat. Apropos of Nero fiddling while Rome burned, we are hypocritical about how we wish each other eternal bliss. Given that the bulk of India’s Armed Forces are on our doorstep with intentions of grievous bodily harm (or at least threatening it) for over two months now, this charade we could have done without. Only morons would wish war with India but we must be joking if we are happy to see L K Advani’s pet guided missile Pakistan. As hopes and aspirations among the assembled media persons rose to a peak on the second day of the Agra Summit last June, “iron butterfly” Sushma Swaraj was sent by the “hardliners” to do a mid-morning “walkabout” Press Conference through the corridors of the Agra Sheraton, making it quite clear to whosoever would listen that notwithstanding whatever Atal-ji and Jaswant Singh might promise to Gen Pervez Musharraf on Kashmir, it cut no ice with her (and India’s) real boss, the Home Minister. By late the same night, contrary to all expectations, a rather astounded Pakistani President was in the air on his way home without any agreement.
It started with a muslim mob at Godhra Railway Station setting fire to a train carrying slogan chanting VHP activists back home from Ayodhya, the site of the destroyed Babri Masjid. Kindly explain how a mob got onto a moving train before it reached the railway platform? Try these facts for size, the train pulls into Godhra, the chanting pilgrims, on a high after their Ayodha visit, demanded tea from the 6 or 7 tea-sellers. The tea-sellers, all muslim, refused the tea and a verbal brawl turned into a free-for-all, the fracas turned into a riot. Outnumbered by the local muslim mob, the driver backed the train off from the Station. The tea-sellers hurled burning kerosene stoves through the compartment windows. The momentum of the train fanning the flames, it spread rapidly and the Hindu pilgrims were trapped inside. The provocation notwithstanding, the muslim action setting the train on fire was atrocious, condemnable and led to a far greater tragedy. They lacked the common sense to realise they would be condemning hundreds of their helpless fellow muslims, outnumbered badly in the BJP-ruled State, to death. The extremists needed a plausible excuse, the tea-sellers at Godhra Railway Station provided that excuse.
