Will secular India fight back?
By Seema Mustafa

In the midst of a gloom and doom scenario for Indians confronted with the possibility of a fascist takeover in the next general elections, it was a major positive when a leading television channel, Headlines Today, paused to disclose documents that have substantially strengthened the petitions of those fighting for justice in Gujarat. These documents are reams and reams of wireless messages from lower level intelligence and police warning top officials about the gathering mobs and impending violence in the days of 2002, where thousands were killed with impunity.
Secular India that seemed to have disappeared with the highly volatile campaign by the corporate media, suddenly asserted itself and at least one channel reported at some length — and over two evenings — from the documents that named the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) members leading the mobs, and sought to substantiate what every Indian knows (but some like to ignore it), that the violence of 2002 was not “spontaneous” but planned; that a babbling, intensely active wireless network tried to warn senior officials but was ignored; and the very fact that these documents “disappeared” with the Gujarat government and its police chief at the time feigning ignorance, pointing towards complicity and design.
These documents are attached now to a petition in the courts that secular India is optimistic, will not just be considered, but will go a long way in tracking down those responsible for the 2002 violence, fixing accountability and bringing the Indian judicial system closer and closer to the truth. Only one leading English newspaper of the many that call themselves the “national” media has reported from the documents but for those fighting to preserve India’s sanity and her commitment to pluralism, secularism and socialism, this still constitutes a step forward. The documents also point to complicity by the earlier Special Investigations Team (SIT), with the communist parties raising the demand for Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s resignation.
The CPI-M issued a statement saying:
“It is a matter of deep regret that the SIT chose to ignore such a damning indictment of the state (Gujarat) government and gave a clean chit to Narendra Modi raising questions about its own credibility … there can be no doubt left of the direct culpability of Narendra Modi as the main accused who ignored the warnings of his own police force and presided over the violence. Justice demands that the SIT final report be rejected and a fresh charge sheet filed including Narendra Modi as an accused.”
A major ally of the BJP has demanded the party declare its prime ministerial candidate by the end of the year, even as it is categorical that it will not accept Narendra Modi in this post. Old socialist Nitish Kumar, the chief minister of Bihar, has set new rules, leading to his party, the Janata Dal-United, having serious tensions with the BJP.
India is witnessing an intense struggle between secular and communal forces. This has been the case ever since independence, although then the secularists had leaders of the stature of Jawaharlal Nehru and others in government. Just as Pakistan is now witnessing a struggle for democracy, with the army having no choice but to stay in the backseat as the people support one or the other political party in a visible desire to keep out the uniform. After all, the very fact that a former president and army chief has been put on the run by an assertive judiciary speaks volumes for the transition that Pakistan is undergoing. The challenges facing the peoples are different, but the aspirations are similar in that all citizens of the world want to live and breathe freely, as equal citizens with equal rights and dignity. It is the governments and the political parties and the monarchs and the dictators and the armies, respectively, that throttle these aspirations by creating divisions, using force and supporting violence.
May 2013 will decide the future of democracy for Pakistan, and whether the “experiment” supported by the people at large has worked and taken the country closer to a functioning democracy. By May 2014, India will have decided whether it wants to remain a secular democracy, or whether the bagpipes of polarisation and divisiveness have mesmerised it sufficiently enough to vote for a dangerously communal neo-liberal alternative.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 20th, 2013.