Professor Ghanshyam Shah shares his experiences with Senior Editor Sheela Bhatt to provide us an understanding of the Gujarat riots. The second segment of a two-part interview:

Part I: 'The BJP has communalised Gujarat in the name of nationalism'

What are the reasons for the intense violence displayed in these riots?

An act of an individual cannot be called a violent act of the community. Mobs can't do such things. I am not sure what kind of mob this was. My experience of an actual communal situation helped me look at such incidents. One category of rioters is the people who plan these riots and are never present at the site. The second are skilled people who know how to use gas cylinders and how to unlock shops. The third category is the mob, sympathizers but not the actors of the violence.

In 1992 I have seen the actual act of violence at three places. Two people came on a motorbike, within minutes they unlocked two shops and got the furniture on the roads. One guy burnt it and within minutes they disappeared. This kind of rioting requires skill. I don't believe the agitated crowds did it on their own.

To understand the violence we must look at the growing insensitivity in society. I saw a dead body at Surat railway station after the riots. People just gave it a glance and walked away. That doesn't mean they approved of the violence. This passiveness has increased tremendously in society.

This argument is not convincing. On February 28 and March 1-2, at 30 places in Gujarat we saw more than 5,000 people at each place who assembled to fight almost a war with the Muslims. They were active people, not passive.

I agree, but I don't think all 5,000 people were active. Yes, all of them were anti-Muslim, but I am not very sure whether they were actively supporting the act of killing. The support to looting is understandable. What we have heard from our colleagues from tribal areas was that the tribals were given money, given puri-shak (fried rotis and vegetables) and asked to loot, burn and kill. This is an act of the lumpen trained to do such things. I am not ready to believe the community did this.

You are a Gujarati. Is that why you are softer in your analysis of Gujarati society?

Possible, possible. I don't think 800 people have been killed by an average Hindu or an average Gujarati. An average man can't kill people in such a way.

Who killed them then?

The skilled people who were employed for it, and paid for it.

And can they do it so effectively, and so fast?

Yes, because society is insensitive, inactive and indifferent.

In this same society, women are killed by mothers-in-law. Kerosene is thrown on them due to ego clashes. We don't generalise that an average woman is violent. But we can't say that women just can't indulge in violence. These are two different stereotypes.

Do you see any remorse in Gujarati society for supporting the violence?

Interview them after two months!

Where does the solution lie?

I don't see any immediate solution to the Gujarat problem. As an individual we have to find out. The communalists should know they are inviting disaster for the survival of their children. How long can we support these communal beliefs? Fanatics say we will kill everybody. Is this the solution? Is it possible to kill everybody you don't like to live with? The most fundamentalist Muslim countries could not do it. How can a country like India do it? It is not a realistic possibility. It is not possible to throw all the Muslims out of the country. Even the communalists will have to be more practical. I think the Gujarati middle class will get back its senses.

Why are Gujaratis not convinced of the virtues of secularism? Why are people like you always called pseudo-secularists?

The majority thinks that all the secularists consider are the views of the minorities. Talk about the minorities makes us pseudo-secularists in their eyes. Just because we do not talk about the majority, they brand us thus. The same secularists talk about the rights of Indians in Britain, oppose racial discrimination in London, and that is accepted. But here our views are not accepted. Abroad, Indians are in a minority; here Muslims are in a minority.

In the US after 9/11 when a Sikh was murdered the rights of the minorities were raised. It was argued in the US that not all Muslims and not all Asians are involved in terrorism, but the majority in India would not like to accept the same argument here. If the Asian minority in the US had been butchered like the minority community in Gujarat has been, perhaps then the majority community in India would have been alarmed. But in the US, though there is discrimination, the State didn't allow minorities to be butchered like it happened in Gujarat.

How do you assess the mood of Gujarati voters in 2002?

In 2001, when the Gujarat BJP lost we had conducted a survey with the help of 35 students. We asked BJP workers at the grassroots level why they lost so badly. There is an intense sectional fight in the BJP at all levels. Another reason they gave was that their slogan [to fight] 'Bhay, Bhookh aur Bhrastachar (fear, hunger and corruption)' remained merely a slogan, the BJP could not operationalise it. The Hindus belonging to the RSS thought they were not able to resolve the contradictions of globalisation with swadeshi.

And therein lies the tension of the BJP in Gujarat. A senior party ideologue in Gujarat told a surveyor that Hindu voters first demand security, not bread!

Last year it was quite clear to BJP leaders in Gujarat that they would lose power. How could they save the situation? Perhaps by intensifying the feelings of insecurity and fear, by saying that Muslims are fundamentalists... we are not secure... we, the Hindus, don't have any future. They got the opportunity after Godhra.

When tempers cool down, an average man will think of bread. Perpetually you just can't live in a fear psychosis. The people may participate in riots out of emotions, but in calmer moments they know it is not correct and not in their interest. The same thing happened in 1969.

'Boycott Muslims' pamphlets were also distributed in 1969. The only difference is that this time it is not vague; now they list people's details and products of Muslims. But in 1969, after just three months, the two communities mingled. Economics has its own logic. Ideology can't work there. That is the compulsion and contradiction of the BJP government. They want to make India swadeshi. But even [Home Minister Lal Kishenchand] Advani can't do it. In case tomorrow the RSS chief becomes the prime minister, he can't do it. The economy doesn't permit it. Capital accumulation doesn't toe the Hindu line. Gujaratis are given a new kind of garba for Navratri by the Bajrang Dal, but people don't adopt it.

Society is always formed on a positive note. That is what happened in Germany. It was worse than Gujarat. Germany could come up because supporters of Nazism became a minority. I am hopeful about Gujarat.

Design: Dominic Xavier

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