Kanwal Rekhi hits out at Gujarat intolerance By Ela Dutt, Indo-Asian News Service
New York, May 22 (IANS) Kanwal Rekhi, the millionaire Silicon Valley entrepreneur, has lashed out at sectarian violence in India that has raised serious questions about the nation's future and its time-honoured secular philosophy. Rekhi, in a column in the Wall Street Journal along with Professor Emeritus of Stanford Henry Rowen, said the severity of the Gujarat communal killings had not yet been highlighted in the American media, but "the Indian government's response has begun to raise questions about the character of the world's largest democracy." The handling of the Gujarat riots "has shaken the faith of large segments of the population in India's future as a polity that cares for all its citizens," the article said. "India is being provoked by Pakistan-based terrorists, but its failure to protect innocent Muslims at home weakens the government both domestically and internationally," Rekhi and Rowen contended. "America has come to understand the imperatives of even-handed treatment for its citizens. Until India does so, the people of the world's second-largest democracy (U.S.) will be unable to accord the world's largest democracy the respect that many of us would like to see it deserve," they said. Rekhi and Rowen noted that neither Vajpayee nor Home Minister L.K. Advani had condemned the violence and only stated platitudes, and that the prime minister had actually castigated Muslims around the world as being unable to live in harmony. "Unlike President George Bush, who after September 11 went to a mosque and severely condemned any effort to threaten law and order, neither Vajpayee nor Advani has visited a mosque, and neither visited Gujarat during the initial phase of the riots," the two emphasised. Apart from the communal frenzy that took the life of around 950 people, mainly Muslims, in Gujarat, the mounting refugee problem and filthy camps are adding to the image of inaction, the two wrote. "During the weeks after riots began in Ahmedabad, the government has conspicuously failed to enforce the law," according to Rekhi and Rowen who echo what the Indian media, human rights groups around the world as well as the European Union have highlighted. The state of things is not because of the state's inability to protect its citizens, but because the Gujarat government's implicit support of rioters and shrugging off the plight of the refugees, the authors pointed out. "If anything, the local government's attitude has shifted from lack of interest in its minority citizens before the riots to active hostility afterwards. The atmosphere is such that a state minister in Ahmedabad asked the government to move the victims' camp because it makes his Hindu constituents feel insecure," the column said. While Chief Minister Narendra Modi may be saying things are in control, "the police chief in Ahmedabad said his policemen favour rioters who are Hindus." The two also named an Indian bureaucrat who described the Gujarat riots as a "state-sponsored pogrom." They attributed Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's inaction to the fact that the Gujarat government is a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, or to the fear that a more rightwing government may come in place if Modi is removed. The Modi government must be removed, and the state should be brought under central control, after which the police force must be replaced with a relatively unbiased army that could enforce the law impartially, the authors contended. Many overseas Indian Hindus donate money to causes in India that they think will help build temples and educate and feed the poor, Rekhi said. "Many would be appalled to know that some recipients of their money are out to destroy minorities (Christians as well as Muslims) and their places of worship. Vajpayee could deal a severe blow to such covert causes by simply labelling them as terrorists." --Indo-Asian News Service =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet =================================================================== For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!
