Dear Friends,
Thank you for inviting me to the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. It is a great honour for me to come to your wonderful country and to present my films to you. I am especially grateful to Professor Hidemitsu Kuroki, Ms. Riho Isaka and Ms. Naoko Murakami for the efforts they have made to bring me here and for giving me an opportunity for interacting with you. I look forward to learning more about the rich culture and ancient tradition of your great country, about which I have heard so much through books and films. I also hope to imbibe the rich experience of Prof Kuroki and the university in general in peace-building initiatives and conflict resolution.
Three of my films will be screened here today. I will provide an introduction to each of them to help you understand their context. I will begin with a brief introduction of myself and then I will talk about the first film in the schedule, Naga Story: The Other Side of Silence.
I was born in Kerala, one of the southern-most states of India. Kerala has an unusual geography and history which make it very different from the other states of India. With the Arabian Sea in the west, the Western Ghats towering 500-2700 m in the east and networked by forty four rivers, Kerala enjoys unique geographical features that have made it one of the most sought after tourist destinations in Asia. Waterfalls. Sprawling plantations and paddy fields. Ayurvedic health holidays. Enchanting art forms. Magical festivals. Historic and cultural monuments. An exotic cuisine.... An equable climate. A long shoreline with serene beaches. Tranquil streches of emerald backwaters. Lush hill stations and exotic wildlife. And what's more, every one of these charming destinations is only a two hour drive from the other. Kerala is one of the last homes of the Asiatic elephant. Ayurveda which evolved around 600 BC in India is a system of medicine that stresses the prevention of body ailments in addition to curing them. It is a complete naturalistic system and Kerala is the only State in India which practices Ayurveda with absolute dedication.
Kerala, India 's most advanced society : A hundred percent literate people. World-class health care systems. India's lowest infant mortality and highest life expectancy rates. The highest physical quality of life in India. Peaceful and pristine, Kerala is also India's cleanest State. Women are also empowered in Kerala. In fact many families follow the matrilineal system and my own name is my mother's family name. Kerala was also the first state in the world to democratically elect a communist government.
I was born in 1974 and completed my BA in English from Calicut University, Kerala. I then acquired a Master's in Business Administration. Kerala has a very strong tradition of filmmaking, both fiction and non-fiction. During my undergraduate days, I became involved in student politics and made a film on the destruction of tropical evergreen forests in the Nilgiri biosphere. After completing my MBA I moved to Delhi and began documenting the Naga and Kashmiri political movements. Two films have evolved from this - Naga Story: The Other Side of Silence (on the Naga struggle) and PAPA 2 (on enforced disappearances in Kashmir). My film Hey Ram!! Genocide in the Land of Gandhi, on the Gujarat riots, was the first on the subject, and was widely used to raise awareness about the riots. I followed this up with Voices from Gujarat on the continuing peace process in Gujarat.
I have made several films on the dalit issue. Resilient Rhythms documents a range of responses to the dalit issue, from identity politics to armed struggle. My other dalit issue films are Of Inhuman Bondage, on manual scavenging, and Your Slaves No Longer, on the land struggles of Musahars (a dalit community).
I have worked as Location Director for a Channel 4 News report on the funding of Hindu Extremist organisations and shot the film in UK and India. This film – "Hindu Nationalism in Britain" – was telecast in UK on the day of the Gujarat elections and was widely reported in the Indian media as well. The report has subsequently been tabled in the British Parliament.
My recent campaign films Twice Evicted and Caste Out have been on the Tsunami and its aftermath. I am currently making a film on the peace process between India and Pakistan, with Kashmir as the Central issue. I am also making a film on the Maoist movement in Nepal.
I have given you a rather detailed introduction of myself and where I come from. With your permission, I will return to today's programme. It is interesting that the first film in the schedule is about a subject that has several touchpoints with Japan, though this may not be very well-known.
When I moved to Delhi in 1998, I met a few Naga students at the office of the Naga People's Movement for Human Rights, and became interested in their political movement. I went to Nagaland, a state in India's north-east, to shoot the 20th anniversary of the NPMHR. After the first day's shoot, in the night, while having a drink, a Naga friend told me that the meeting ground had been used as a concentration camp by the Indian armed forces in the 1960's. I was shocked that the Indian government could have done something like that and that too under the leadership of Jawaharlal Nehru, who is hailed as the father of Asian democracy. And for many years all these things have been hidden from the rest of the Indian public, in whose name these crimes were supposedly committed.
I would like to explain a little more about the situation in the north-eastern part of India, which is where the Nagas live. India is a very large country with numerous races, religions, languages and cultures. It is said that in India, the local language changes every 11 km. While this may be an exaggeration, it is certainly true that the people who live within the political boundaries of India are very different from each other.
India's north-east, which is where the Naga lands are mostly located, is made of seven states. The people who belong to this region are mostly of mongoloid descent and in appearance, lifestyle, language and culture, they are very different from the mainland. They have always been separate from mainstream India and this isolation continues till date.
Till the 19th century the contacts of the Nagas with the outside world were minimal. They lived in fortified, self sufficient sovereign village republics and engaged in fierce inter village wars involving head hunting. In 1826 British colonial activities started moving towards the Naga territories. The Nagas' fierce resistance to this ensured that the British were never able to control their territories and as long as the British ruled India, the major part of the Naga territory was referred to as "Unadministered Areas". In these places, the British administration had no presence or meaning and Naga customary law and the village and tribal councils functioned with substantive autonomy.
It is easy to see that the Nagas never considered themselves part of India. When the Indian independence struggle led by Gandhiji became a mass movement at the end of the nineteenth century, the Nagas did not participate in it. It is also noteworthy that even the mainstream Indian nationalists did not involve the Nagas in their struggle, though the Nagas had a long history of resistance to the British. The Nagas conveyed clearly to the British and the Indians that they considered themselves a sovereign nation and did not want to become part of India. Hence on August 14, 1947, one day before India's independence, the Nagas declared independence. They conveyed this to the British, the Indians and the United Nations and affirmed it by a plebiscite in 1951.
At the beginning of this introduction, I had said there was several touchpoints between the Naga political struggle and Japan. I will now describe the first of these. At the time of the Second World War, a section of Indian nationalists raised the Indian National Army to free India from British colonial rule through military combat. The INA was actively supported by the Japanese Imperial Army as an additional force to fight against the British. The composition of the INA was diverse: it included many Indian soldiers who were taken prisoner when the Japanese captured Burma. It also included A Z Phizo, the father of the Naga national movement, who held the rank of captain. In February 1944, the combined Japanese and Indian forces marched up to Kohima, which is the present-day capital of the Indian state of Nagaland. In Kohima, the combined forces fought against the British army in a very hard battle for 64 days but ultimately lost. An estimated 8000 Japanese soldiers died in the Battle of Kohima, and this loss is said to be the beginning of the Japanese Army's retreat in the Second World War. Kohima now has a famous war memorial which is also a joint cemetery for British, Indian and Japanese soldiers. The Japanese government, Japanese survivors of the Battle of Kohima, and families of Japanese soldiers who died there, have helped build a catholic church in Kohima so that memorial prayers can be offered for the dead. Even today, there are many Japanese visitors to the church and the war memorial and there is even a Naga-Japanese Society in Kohima.
To return to the Naga struggle, clearly, the Nagas were not part of Gandhiji's non-violent mass movement for independence. They only related to the militant part of the Indian independence struggle. At the same time, the Indian nationalist leaders could never understand the Nagas because of cultural differences. The Nagas' declaration of independence, combined with their persistent demand for a separate homeland made the Indians suspicious. The Nagas met Gandhiji and told him they did not want to be part of the Indian union. While this made Gandhiji very sad, he said that he would not try to force the Nagas into joining India. It was with this strong support from the leader of the Indian independence struggle, that the Nagas declared independence on August 14, 1947.
The other Indian leaders, however, did not take this seriously. Nor did they ever try to engage the Nagas in dialogue. They continued to treat the Nagas' demands as a law and order problem, and finally, sent in the Indian army. This marked the beginning of the first phase of the Nagas' armed struggle against the Indian state. At the time everyone was involved in the battle against India. Ordinary women would cook food for the militants and carry messages for them hidden in their hair or clothes. There was immense support for the struggle. And the more the people fought, the harsher was the state repression including aerial bombing of civilian population and setting up of concentration camps to break the militants' support structure.
The second phase of the Naga struggle started in 1963 when the Indian government managed to split the Nagas with a so-called peace accord. The accord gave the Nagas a state within India called 'Nagaland'. But most of the Naga lands remained outside this new state. In 1975, the Indian government forced some Nagas to sign an accord in Shillong whereby they accepted India's constitution; effectively making them part of the Indian union. The father of the Naga nationalist movement, A Z Phizo, was in exile in London. He, however, remained silent on the Shillong Accord.
This was a travesty of faith for a large section of Naga nationalists. In 1980, the united Naga national movement split and SS Khaplang, Isak Swu and Th Muivah formed the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (NSCN). The NSCN continued the armed struggle against the Indian state and also ran a parallel government. In 1988, the NSCN also split into the NSCN (I-M) and (K). The parting was less ideological and more to do with tribal egos. In 1988 when the NSCN split, more than 100 of the I-M group were massacred and Isak and Muivah barely escaped. Subsequently sections of the Khaplang group are accused of colluding with Nagaland political leaders and Indian military agencies.
The I-M group has emerged as the dominant group in the armed struggle against India. Its militant struggle against the Indian government continued till 1997 when both sides declared a ceasefire. This marked the beginning of the third phase of the Naga struggle. Following the ceasefire, there have been many highest-level peace talks between the Indian state and the Naga leadership. In 2001, the Indian prime minister met the Naga leaders in Osaka. This is another touchpoint between Japan and the Naga political movement. There have also been meetings in Paris, Bangkok, Amsterdam and the biggest of them all, New Delhi. The New Delhi meeting was a breakthrough as it was the first time the Naga leaders met the Indian Prime Minister in India.
A major roadblock however, for the Naga movement is their demand for Greater Nagalim, or the unification of all Naga territories. The British had divided the Naga lands between Myanmar and India, and the Indians divided them into four other states. Also, since the British could not subdue the Nagas themselves, they encouraged inter-tribal warfare. They brought the Kuki tribe from Myanmar and planted them as buffers around Naga territories. This ensured that the Nagas were contained to some extent. Post-independence, the Indian government has continued this policy. The Indian government promised the Kukis land and helped them to raise a militant outfit to fight against the Naga insurgents. As a result, when the Nagas called for unification, there were violent demonstrations from the Kukis, and also from non-tribal groups like the Meiteis. These other groups feared the domination of the Nagas, and also felt that the territorial integrity of the states to which they belonged, was threatened. The violent demonstrations gave the Indian government a good excuse to reject the Naga demand.
Let me summarize the main reasons for the Indo-Naga conflict. The Nagas believe that they are a distinct people with a unique history. They have never been part of the political or cultural ethos of India. As a distinct nation, they feel they have the right to self determination. The Nagas also see themselves as a homogenous people in terms of their culture and society, divided by colonial powers. Hence they aspire to be politically reintegrated. The Nagas sense of alienation is constantly reinforced by the discrimination done against them. The Government Of India, in return, has responded militarily to Naga aspirations deeming them secessionist, a law and order problem and terrorism. Violent oppression and human rights abuse, especially against women, has produced more violence. It has also sought to split the Naga national movement by exploiting tribal differences that have fed factional violence and produced cycles of revenge violence.
So this is the present state in which the Naga political movement finds itself. In my film I have tried to show the history of the Naga nationalist movement and also show something about their culture. I would now like to bring up the last on my list of the touchpoints between Japan and the Naga political struggle. On November 14, 2002, members of a Japanese charity supported by the government and business houses arrived in Kohima to apologize to the Nagas for the atrocities they committed on the local population at the time of the Second World War. An eighty-year old war veteran, Dovi Khate, formally accepted the apology on the behalf of the Nagas and granted pardon. "My friends were tortured by the Japanese and I was very bitter but now that they have apologised, it is all over," Khate said. The famous epitaph at the Kohima War Memorial reads: "When you go home, tell them of us and say, for your tomorrow, we gave our today." But no tomorrows ever dawn from the darkness of war.
On March 10, 2004, a group of Japanese, British and Indian war veterans met at the Kohima War Memorial for a special memorial service and to take steps towards reconciliation. Masao Hirakubo, 84, a Japanese Catholic who was in Kohima for two months during the war, said a part of him remained with his many friends and fellow soldiers who did not return from the battlefield. He said he came to renew the "bond with the dead and to bring peace and reconciliation." The dead, he added, would "never want such a battle to be repeated."
On August 15, 2005, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi apologized for Japan's role in the Second World War on the 60th anniversary of the war's end, and vowed Japan would never again take "the path to war." This year was also the 60th anniversary of one of the biggest ever crimes committed on the human race. I am talking about the dropping of atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States of America. The US has never expressed regret at this heinous crime; in fact, it has always justified itself. There cannot be any meaningful reconciliation until there is just peace. 9/11 has changed the face of the world. No amount of weapons including nuclear ones can save any nation from its so-called enemies. In this neo-liberal economic world order, nation states have just become security states and have withdrawn from welfare activities. There can be peace in the world only if there are civil society initiatives and direct people-to-people dialogues.
There will be peace in this world only if there is no social, economic, political or cultural hegemony over nations, people, races, religions or communities. Most of the nationality movements in Southeast Asia – including the Naga movement – have their genesis in our colonial history. Today a different kind of colonialism is trying to capture the whole globe. These imperialist forces have already made their intentions very clear in Afghanistan and Iraq.
This film Naga Story: The Other Side of Silence is about 3 million indigenous people who have been fighting for their right to dignity, self-determination and freedom. Let my conclude my introduction by quoting the last interview in the film. A Naga elder says: Some nations are big. Some nations are small. But that does not mean big nations should oppress the small nations. That way, dear friends, it is a film against imperialism. Now I invite all of you to watch this small film and I hope you will like it. Thank you.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Introduction to Hey Ram!! Genocide in the Land of Gandhi
The next of my films which is going to be shown today deals with communalism. In 2002, the western Indian state of Gujarat witnessed such large-scale state-supported organized violence against Muslims that it could only be called genocide. My film, Hey Ram!! Genocide in the Land of Gandhi was a campaign film that was shown quite widely at the time. Since it is a campaign film it is more of a record of witness testimonies and therefore very little background is provided in the film itself. To an Indian audience, the references are very clear, so I will explain them a little to help you understand the film. The film was made while the violence was happening and the first Indian screening was held on March 23 rd, in Constitution Club in New Delhi, and the first international screening was held in London in April. The violence went on till May 2002.
Way back in 1997, when I was a student, doing my Master's in Business administration in Coimbatore, a city in the southern Indian state of India, communal tension broke out in connection with the demolition of an ancient mosque in north India, called the Babri Masjid, to build a temple for the Hindu god, Ram. The police ended up shooting 19 Muslims in a one-sided action. In a reaction to this, there were serial bomb blasts on Valentines' Day, 1998 and 59 people were killed. Even though I shot all this, I could not make a film since I could not raise enough resources then, as I was student. So in 2002, when a train was burnt by a Muslim mob, in a nondescript town in Gujarat in western India, a town known for its communal disharmony, anticipating the violence to follow, and wanting to do something at least this time, and knowing that there was nothing else that I could do, I packed my camera and rushed to Gujarat.
Now I will start with the title of the film itself. "Hey Ram!" were the last words uttered by Gandhiji, the father of our nation when he was shot by a member of the fascist Hindu organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or RSS . Gandhiji is known for his belief in, and propagation of non-violence, so it is very ironic that he himself had a violent end.
Now, Ram is a Hindu god. He is born as a man to rid the world of evil and is known for his ideal behaviour – he is the ideal son, the ideal brother and the ideal king. Gandhiji himself laid great emphasis on right moral conduct and was therefore a devotee of Ram. It is a measure of his faith that his last words were the name of the god he loved so much.
But here, I have also used the words Hey Ram!! in an ironic sense. The RSS which is essentially a fascist organization has been using the name of Ram for mobilizing Hindus against Muslims in India. They have converted the iconography of the "Ideal Man Ram" into that of a militant, warrior king. The same Ram whom Gandhiji had worshipped for his justness has now become something like an avenging angel.
The name Rashtriya Swamsevak Sangh means National Volunteers Association. It was founded in 1925. The roots of the RSS lie in the Indian independence struggle. The founder members of the RSS thought that India should belong only to Hindus. Centuries of colonization, first by the Muslims, and then by the British, had weakened the Hindus and so there should be a movement to reawaken them. Hinduism as a religion has no central text like the Bible or the Koran, nor does it have one single philosophy. Instead it encompasses a huge variety of beliefs and customs. The RSS saw that the Hindus were disunited because of these differing customs and sought to bring them together to worship one common goddess, Mother India. The RSS encourages Hindus to become militant warriors who can protect Mother India from evil outsiders such as Muslims and who will make India regain her "past glory". Effectively, the RSS wants India only for Hindus and has run systematic campaigns to have Muslims vilified and branded as terrorists or Pakistanis. They raise slogans like – For Muslims, there are only two place – Pakistan or Kabristan (the graveyard).
The RSS runs camps or ' shakhas' in almost every city, town and village of India. These camps are ostensibly for children to play games and develop some physical stamina, but this is also where the indoctrination process begins. Children are taught that the nation belongs only to Hindus and all outsiders should be made to leave. While at times the hate campaign has erupted into aggressive acts of violence, the more harmful part is the slow vilification campaign or the economic boycotts engineered by the RSS .
Over the past 50 years, the RSS ( Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) has emerged as an increasingly powerful force in India and has become the head of what is now known as the Sangh Parivar , or family of Hindu nationalist organizations, with a spread across all sectors of Hindu society. These organizations include the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, founded in 1948 and now the largest student organization in India; the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS ), founded in 1955 and today the largest trade union in the country; the Jana Sangh (1951) and its successor, the BJP, representing the political arm of the RSS ; the Vishwa Hindu Parishad ( VHP ), founded in 1964, and its thuggish offshoot the Bajrang Dal (1984), which represent the more explicitly religious wing; and the newly formed Swadeshi Jagaran Manch , founded in 1991 to protect Indian economic self-reliance from the threat of foreign capital.
The RSS has now grown to a family of about 75 sister organizations, many of which act as fronts for the more notorious deeds of the RSS .
For the RSS , Gandhiji was a traitor to the Hindu cause because he believed in the equality of all religions. They saw him as a 'Muslim-lover' and 'traitor' who was causing great damage to Mother India, and as someone who needed to be killed. Thus on January 30, 1948, an RSS man shot the Mahatma dead.
Now, the RSS has had an uneven past in India. After Gandhiji's death it became an object of hate and many years passed before it could distance itself from that stigma. In recent years, however, it has enjoyed a lot of popularity. 1984, its sister organization, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad or World Hindu Council, started the Ram Janmabhoomi campaign, i.e., a people's movement to build a temple at the birthplace of Ram by demolishing the historic Babri Masjid mosque.
The term Ram Janmabhoomi literally means 'birthplace of Ram'. Ram was said to have been the king of Ayodhya , a town in north India, and there are several temples in Ayodhya which claim to be the actual site where Ram was born. Of these the most famous is the disputed Ram Janmabhoomi site. At this place, there is a mosque called the Babri Masjid which was obviously built over the ruins of a temple. When the Muslims started invading India and conquering portions of it, it was common for them to destroy Hindu temples to loot them, or build mosques over them. There is a strong belief that the Babri Masjid is built over a temple which is allegedly the birthplace of Ram.
A very interesting phenomenon happened a few years after the VHP launched the Ram Janmabhoomi campaign. A television serial depicting the life of Ram was televised between 1987 and 1989. This serial swept the Indian audience. Life would come to a stand-still on Sunday mornings as people would sit glued to their television sets to see the story of their beloved Lord Ram. These were still the early years of colour television in India and it was an unprecendented experience for Indian viewers. It is no wonder that after the serial became so popular, it was easy for the VHP to step up their campaign to liberate the Ram Janmabhoomi site from the "oppressive" Muslim mosque which was "built" over it.
In 1984, then BJP president L K Advani assumed the leadership of the committee for "liberating" Rama's birthplace. Over the next eight years, the issue became a central feature of the BJP 's agenda of asserting the predominance of Hinduism. By exploiting popular discontent with the ruling Congress Party, the BJP was able to boost its representation in the Lok Sabha (India's lower house of parliament) from two in 1984 to 86 in 1989 and 118 in 1991.
For the RSS , the VHP and the BJP , the Ram Janmabhoomi issue has - over the years - become an issue of national honour. They say that Hindus have been ruled by Muslims for long enough and it is time for Hindus to redeem their lost glory. Their idea of redeeming lost glory and honour is to attack the Babri Masjid and build a temple to Ram.
In 1990, L K Advani launched a 10,000-kilometre Rath Yatra (chariot procession) throughout central and northern India that had the stated aim of beginning the construction of a Ram temple at Ayodhya . The procession culminated in December 1992 in Ayodhya in the state of Uttar Pradesh where the BJP had taken power for the first time at the state level in 1991. BJP chief minister Kalyan Singh allowed large mobs of Hindu extremists into Ayodhya and to gather near the Babri mosque. When concerns were raised over a possible attack on the mosque, the march leaders insisted that their actions would only be symbolic.
On December 6, at least 60,000 Hindu extremists gathered around the mosque, many carrying pickaxes, hammers, shovels, iron rods, crowbars and grappling hooks. Advani , along with other BJP leaders, presided on a special platform as the mob invaded the mosque grounds and began to physically tear it down.
Some 25,000 police, including elite armed officers from the national paramilitary units, were present on the day but stood by passively as the demolition took place. Police commanders attempted to justify their stance by saying that any intervention would have led to a bloodbath—a concern they have not shown in other circumstances.
The destruction of the Babri mosque immediately inflamed communal sentiments across the Indian subcontinent. In India, about 3,000 mostly Muslim people were killed, thousands were injured and hundreds of thousands were left homeless. Anti-Hindu mobs took to the streets in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, leaving more dead and injured.
However, neither Advani nor the BJP has shown the slightest intention of dropping the issue. The destruction of the Babri mosque in 1992 played a key role in the BJP 's rise to power. It demonstrated the party's ability to capitalise on a right-wing communalist agenda that made Muslims the scapegoats for deteriorating social and economic conditions.
This brings us to Gujarat in 2002. Gujarat is a state lying on the western side of India. It is known as one of the more prosperous states of India and as a place where the spirit of entrepreneurship is deeply revered. Gujarat is also the birthplace of Mahatma Gandhi, the father of our nation. However in the post-independence scenario Gujarat has had a history of violent communal outbreaks. Gujarat witnessed its first major communal riot involving large-scale massacres, arson and looting in 1969. The riots took a toll of over 1,000 lives and property worth millions of Rupees was destroyed.
The BJP , the political wing of the Hindu nationalist organizations, came to power in Gujarat in the mid-nineties. Steady state support was extended to the activities of these right-wing organisations like the RSS . Between 1987 and 1991, an estimated 106 major riots took place in Gujarat. Political rivalry and conflicts during elections were responsible for triggering around 40 percent of these riots. Tensions related to 'religious processions' triggered another approximately 22 percent of all riots. Other triggers were personal ill-feelings, cricket matches, sudden quarrels, love affairs between Hindu girls and Muslim boys and vice versa , and so on.
In 2002, the VHP again gave a call to all Hindus to participate in the building of the temple at the disputed site. Against government orders, they asserted that they would lay the foundation stone for the temple by March 15. As before, many volunteers came from all over India. Again, as before there was a hysterical Hindu nationalist atmosphere. This was the basis for the tragic events in Gujarat. On February 27, 2002, groups of volunteers were returning to Gujarat from Ayodhya in the Sabarmati Express. From the time the train started, the volunteers started creating trouble. They misbehaved with co-passengers, forced Muslim passengers to shout pro-Hindu slogans and held up the train at several stations while they shouted slogans. The train finally reached Godhra at 8 am on February 27, several hours late.
Godhra has a large Muslim population and stories of the volunteers' misbehaviour throughout the journey had already reached. When the train reached the station, almost 5 hours late, the volunteers again got down and started misbehaving with any Muslim they could see on the platform. Soon a rumour spread that the volunteers had kidnapped two Muslim girls with the intention of raping them. While it was true that a volunteer had tried to grab one girl, she had managed to escape. However, the hysteria only grew, and when the train left the station, it was almost immediately stopped twice by someone pulling the emergency chain. A mob of almost 2000 Muslims had gathered from the surrounding areas by that time and the crowd started attacking the train by pelting stones and fire bombs. One coach of the train caught fire and 58 passengers died, including 26 women, 12 children and 20 men.
There are however several mysteries surrounding this incident – who pulled the chain twice so that it stopped? Why was only one coach so badly damaged? How exactly did it catch fire?
The enraged volunteers learning of the deaths caused by the ghastly burning of coach S6 then tried to attack a nearby mosque. The police fired tear gas shells and live bullets to disperse the mob of volunteers. The damaged coaches were detached, and the train departed with the rest of the passengers at 12.40 PM. According to informants, some volunteers in the Sabarmati Express on the way back stabbed 2 or 3 people at the Vadodara railway station, giving a clear warning of things to come. The inquest and post- mortem of all the recovered bodies was undertaken by 4.30 PM. Under instructions from the administration in Ahmedabad , all the bodies, excluding 5 that were of passengers from the Godhra region or that side of Gujarat, were dispatched to the Civil Hospital, at Sola , Ahmedabad . The arrival of the dead bodies in Ahmedabad , and their public funeral, could have been expected to worsen an already inflamed situation.
Gopal Menon
Way back in 1997, when I was a student, doing my Master's in Business administration in Coimbatore, a city in the southern Indian state of India, communal tension broke out in connection with the demolition of an ancient mosque in north India, called the Babri Masjid, to build a temple for the Hindu god, Ram. The police ended up shooting 19 Muslims in a one-sided action. In a reaction to this, there were serial bomb blasts on Valentines' Day, 1998 and 59 people were killed. Even though I shot all this, I could not make a film since I could not raise enough resources then, as I was student. So in 2002, when a train was burnt by a Muslim mob, in a nondescript town in Gujarat in western India, a town known for its communal disharmony, anticipating the violence to follow, and wanting to do something at least this time, and knowing that there was nothing else that I could do, I packed my camera and rushed to Gujarat.
Now I will start with the title of the film itself. "Hey Ram!" were the last words uttered by Gandhiji, the father of our nation when he was shot by a member of the fascist Hindu organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or RSS . Gandhiji is known for his belief in, and propagation of non-violence, so it is very ironic that he himself had a violent end.
Now, Ram is a Hindu god. He is born as a man to rid the world of evil and is known for his ideal behaviour – he is the ideal son, the ideal brother and the ideal king. Gandhiji himself laid great emphasis on right moral conduct and was therefore a devotee of Ram. It is a measure of his faith that his last words were the name of the god he loved so much.
But here, I have also used the words Hey Ram!! in an ironic sense. The RSS which is essentially a fascist organization has been using the name of Ram for mobilizing Hindus against Muslims in India. They have converted the iconography of the "Ideal Man Ram" into that of a militant, warrior king. The same Ram whom Gandhiji had worshipped for his justness has now become something like an avenging angel.
The name Rashtriya Swamsevak Sangh means National Volunteers Association. It was founded in 1925. The roots of the RSS lie in the Indian independence struggle. The founder members of the RSS thought that India should belong only to Hindus. Centuries of colonization, first by the Muslims, and then by the British, had weakened the Hindus and so there should be a movement to reawaken them. Hinduism as a religion has no central text like the Bible or the Koran, nor does it have one single philosophy. Instead it encompasses a huge variety of beliefs and customs. The RSS saw that the Hindus were disunited because of these differing customs and sought to bring them together to worship one common goddess, Mother India. The RSS encourages Hindus to become militant warriors who can protect Mother India from evil outsiders such as Muslims and who will make India regain her "past glory". Effectively, the RSS wants India only for Hindus and has run systematic campaigns to have Muslims vilified and branded as terrorists or Pakistanis. They raise slogans like – For Muslims, there are only two place – Pakistan or Kabristan (the graveyard).
The RSS runs camps or ' shakhas' in almost every city, town and village of India. These camps are ostensibly for children to play games and develop some physical stamina, but this is also where the indoctrination process begins. Children are taught that the nation belongs only to Hindus and all outsiders should be made to leave. While at times the hate campaign has erupted into aggressive acts of violence, the more harmful part is the slow vilification campaign or the economic boycotts engineered by the RSS .
Over the past 50 years, the RSS ( Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) has emerged as an increasingly powerful force in India and has become the head of what is now known as the Sangh Parivar , or family of Hindu nationalist organizations, with a spread across all sectors of Hindu society. These organizations include the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, founded in 1948 and now the largest student organization in India; the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS ), founded in 1955 and today the largest trade union in the country; the Jana Sangh (1951) and its successor, the BJP, representing the political arm of the RSS ; the Vishwa Hindu Parishad ( VHP ), founded in 1964, and its thuggish offshoot the Bajrang Dal (1984), which represent the more explicitly religious wing; and the newly formed Swadeshi Jagaran Manch , founded in 1991 to protect Indian economic self-reliance from the threat of foreign capital.
The RSS has now grown to a family of about 75 sister organizations, many of which act as fronts for the more notorious deeds of the RSS .
For the RSS , Gandhiji was a traitor to the Hindu cause because he believed in the equality of all religions. They saw him as a 'Muslim-lover' and 'traitor' who was causing great damage to Mother India, and as someone who needed to be killed. Thus on January 30, 1948, an RSS man shot the Mahatma dead.
Now, the RSS has had an uneven past in India. After Gandhiji's death it became an object of hate and many years passed before it could distance itself from that stigma. In recent years, however, it has enjoyed a lot of popularity. 1984, its sister organization, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad or World Hindu Council, started the Ram Janmabhoomi campaign, i.e., a people's movement to build a temple at the birthplace of Ram by demolishing the historic Babri Masjid mosque.
The term Ram Janmabhoomi literally means 'birthplace of Ram'. Ram was said to have been the king of Ayodhya , a town in north India, and there are several temples in Ayodhya which claim to be the actual site where Ram was born. Of these the most famous is the disputed Ram Janmabhoomi site. At this place, there is a mosque called the Babri Masjid which was obviously built over the ruins of a temple. When the Muslims started invading India and conquering portions of it, it was common for them to destroy Hindu temples to loot them, or build mosques over them. There is a strong belief that the Babri Masjid is built over a temple which is allegedly the birthplace of Ram.
A very interesting phenomenon happened a few years after the VHP launched the Ram Janmabhoomi campaign. A television serial depicting the life of Ram was televised between 1987 and 1989. This serial swept the Indian audience. Life would come to a stand-still on Sunday mornings as people would sit glued to their television sets to see the story of their beloved Lord Ram. These were still the early years of colour television in India and it was an unprecendented experience for Indian viewers. It is no wonder that after the serial became so popular, it was easy for the VHP to step up their campaign to liberate the Ram Janmabhoomi site from the "oppressive" Muslim mosque which was "built" over it.
In 1984, then BJP president L K Advani assumed the leadership of the committee for "liberating" Rama's birthplace. Over the next eight years, the issue became a central feature of the BJP 's agenda of asserting the predominance of Hinduism. By exploiting popular discontent with the ruling Congress Party, the BJP was able to boost its representation in the Lok Sabha (India's lower house of parliament) from two in 1984 to 86 in 1989 and 118 in 1991.
For the RSS , the VHP and the BJP , the Ram Janmabhoomi issue has - over the years - become an issue of national honour. They say that Hindus have been ruled by Muslims for long enough and it is time for Hindus to redeem their lost glory. Their idea of redeeming lost glory and honour is to attack the Babri Masjid and build a temple to Ram.
In 1990, L K Advani launched a 10,000-kilometre Rath Yatra (chariot procession) throughout central and northern India that had the stated aim of beginning the construction of a Ram temple at Ayodhya . The procession culminated in December 1992 in Ayodhya in the state of Uttar Pradesh where the BJP had taken power for the first time at the state level in 1991. BJP chief minister Kalyan Singh allowed large mobs of Hindu extremists into Ayodhya and to gather near the Babri mosque. When concerns were raised over a possible attack on the mosque, the march leaders insisted that their actions would only be symbolic.
On December 6, at least 60,000 Hindu extremists gathered around the mosque, many carrying pickaxes, hammers, shovels, iron rods, crowbars and grappling hooks. Advani , along with other BJP leaders, presided on a special platform as the mob invaded the mosque grounds and began to physically tear it down.
Some 25,000 police, including elite armed officers from the national paramilitary units, were present on the day but stood by passively as the demolition took place. Police commanders attempted to justify their stance by saying that any intervention would have led to a bloodbath—a concern they have not shown in other circumstances.
The destruction of the Babri mosque immediately inflamed communal sentiments across the Indian subcontinent. In India, about 3,000 mostly Muslim people were killed, thousands were injured and hundreds of thousands were left homeless. Anti-Hindu mobs took to the streets in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, leaving more dead and injured.
However, neither Advani nor the BJP has shown the slightest intention of dropping the issue. The destruction of the Babri mosque in 1992 played a key role in the BJP 's rise to power. It demonstrated the party's ability to capitalise on a right-wing communalist agenda that made Muslims the scapegoats for deteriorating social and economic conditions.
This brings us to Gujarat in 2002. Gujarat is a state lying on the western side of India. It is known as one of the more prosperous states of India and as a place where the spirit of entrepreneurship is deeply revered. Gujarat is also the birthplace of Mahatma Gandhi, the father of our nation. However in the post-independence scenario Gujarat has had a history of violent communal outbreaks. Gujarat witnessed its first major communal riot involving large-scale massacres, arson and looting in 1969. The riots took a toll of over 1,000 lives and property worth millions of Rupees was destroyed.
The BJP , the political wing of the Hindu nationalist organizations, came to power in Gujarat in the mid-nineties. Steady state support was extended to the activities of these right-wing organisations like the RSS . Between 1987 and 1991, an estimated 106 major riots took place in Gujarat. Political rivalry and conflicts during elections were responsible for triggering around 40 percent of these riots. Tensions related to 'religious processions' triggered another approximately 22 percent of all riots. Other triggers were personal ill-feelings, cricket matches, sudden quarrels, love affairs between Hindu girls and Muslim boys and vice versa , and so on.
In 2002, the VHP again gave a call to all Hindus to participate in the building of the temple at the disputed site. Against government orders, they asserted that they would lay the foundation stone for the temple by March 15. As before, many volunteers came from all over India. Again, as before there was a hysterical Hindu nationalist atmosphere. This was the basis for the tragic events in Gujarat. On February 27, 2002, groups of volunteers were returning to Gujarat from Ayodhya in the Sabarmati Express. From the time the train started, the volunteers started creating trouble. They misbehaved with co-passengers, forced Muslim passengers to shout pro-Hindu slogans and held up the train at several stations while they shouted slogans. The train finally reached Godhra at 8 am on February 27, several hours late.
Godhra has a large Muslim population and stories of the volunteers' misbehaviour throughout the journey had already reached. When the train reached the station, almost 5 hours late, the volunteers again got down and started misbehaving with any Muslim they could see on the platform. Soon a rumour spread that the volunteers had kidnapped two Muslim girls with the intention of raping them. While it was true that a volunteer had tried to grab one girl, she had managed to escape. However, the hysteria only grew, and when the train left the station, it was almost immediately stopped twice by someone pulling the emergency chain. A mob of almost 2000 Muslims had gathered from the surrounding areas by that time and the crowd started attacking the train by pelting stones and fire bombs. One coach of the train caught fire and 58 passengers died, including 26 women, 12 children and 20 men.
There are however several mysteries surrounding this incident – who pulled the chain twice so that it stopped? Why was only one coach so badly damaged? How exactly did it catch fire?
The enraged volunteers learning of the deaths caused by the ghastly burning of coach S6 then tried to attack a nearby mosque. The police fired tear gas shells and live bullets to disperse the mob of volunteers. The damaged coaches were detached, and the train departed with the rest of the passengers at 12.40 PM. According to informants, some volunteers in the Sabarmati Express on the way back stabbed 2 or 3 people at the Vadodara railway station, giving a clear warning of things to come. The inquest and post- mortem of all the recovered bodies was undertaken by 4.30 PM. Under instructions from the administration in Ahmedabad , all the bodies, excluding 5 that were of passengers from the Godhra region or that side of Gujarat, were dispatched to the Civil Hospital, at Sola , Ahmedabad . The arrival of the dead bodies in Ahmedabad , and their public funeral, could have been expected to worsen an already inflamed situation.
Gopal Menon
MY JOURNEY BIOGRAPHY
Gopal Menon is an Indian documentary filmmaker and has made films on violence, communalism, nationality questions, state repression, human rights, environment, and caste. He is currently completing a film on Kashmir – which was started in 1998 – as well as a film on hijras and sexual minority rights. He is also working on a comprehensive film on manual scavenging and has started a film on political prisoners in India. Menon has a dual approach to a subject – he follows the issue continuously for some years until a comprehensive film on the issue is made and in the interim makes small campaign films on the same issue.
Menon was born in 1974 and has a Master's in Business Administration. He started his film career with a documentary on the destruction of tropical evergreen forests in the Nilgiri biosphere. While still a student of Business Administration, he started working with the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) on the organized violence on Muslims in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, and the subsequent bomb blasts in the city. He has been documenting the Naga and Kashmiri political movements since 1998. Two films have evolved from this - Naga Story: The Other Side of Silence (on the Naga struggle) and PAPA 2 (on enforced disappearances in Kashmir). Menon's film Hey Ram!! Genocide in the Land of Gandhi, on the Gujarat riots, was the first on the subject, and was widely used to raise awareness about the riots. He followed this up with Voices from Gujarat on the continuing peace process in Gujarat.
Menon has made several films on the Dalit issue. Resilient Rhythms documents a range of responses to the Dalit issue, from identity politics to armed struggle. Other Dalit issue films are Of Inhuman Bondage, on manual scavenging, and Your Slaves No Longer, on the land struggles of Musahars (a Dalit community).
He has worked as Location Director for a Channel 4 News report on the funding of Hindu Extremist organizations and shot the film in UK and India. This film – ‘Hindu Nationalism in Britain’ – was telecast in UK on the day of the Gujarat elections and was widely reported in the Indian media as well. The report has subsequently been tabled in the British Parliament. The campaign films Twice Evicted and Caste Out were made on the Tsunami and its aftermath.
His film Rice: The Treasure of Asia completed a film on the struggle of rice farmers against globalization which was shot in six countries including India.
Menon’s films have been screened at several film festivals. Naga Story was presented the 'Spirit of the Himalayas' award at the Netherlands Himalaya Film Festival in 2004.
Filmography
· PAPA 2, 2000. Kashmiri and Urdu. 25 min
PAPA 2 was a notorious interrogation centre run by the Indian Armed Forces in Kashmir till 1996. Officially, over 2000 - unofficially, over 8000 - people have disappeared from the Kashmir Valley over the past 15 years. Most of these are enforced disappearances. The film, PAPA 2, documents the struggle of the mothers and wives of disappeared persons to trace their loved ones. It features interviews with the families of the affected people and also members of the Association of Parents of Disappeared People..
· Hey Ram!! Genocide in the Land of Gandhi, 2002. Hindi, 25 min
In the Gujarat violence, over a 1000 people were killed and more than 100,000 rendered homeless. Women and children were made the targets of especially brutal attacks. Property and sources of livelihood were systematically destroyed. Places of worship were destroyed or desecrated.
Hey Ram!! was the first film to be completed on the Gujarat riots and was released even as the violence was raging in Gujarat. It has been extensively screened in India and several other countries to raise support for the victims of the riots and to create awareness about the systematic way in which the communal violence was engineered.
· Resilient Rhythms, 2002. Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Bhojpuri with English subtitles. 66 min
India's caste system is perhaps the world's longest surviving system of exploitation based on social hierarchy. It places nearly 160 million people – the Dalits – at the outskirts of society, exploiting their services, especially to perform so-called "polluting" tasks, from cutting the umbilical cord, to disposing night-soil, to tending cremation grounds, while denying them acceptance even as human beings. The film documents the various atrocities that are committed on people simply because of their caste and shows how Dalits are fighting back.
Resilient Rhythms is the first comprehensive film on the Dalit issue attempted in India and explores a range of Dalit responses, from armed struggle to electoral politics.
· Let Iraq Live: Stop the War, 2003. English, 16 min
Featuring interviews with humanitarian workers, this was a campaign film made just before the War on Iraq.
· Naga Story: The Other Side of Silence, 2003. Nagamese, Manipuri, English and 14 Naga languages with English subtitles. 62 min
The Nagas are a 3 million-strong indigenous people who occupy the North-East frontier of the Indian subcontinent. The The Naga political struggle is one of the oldest nationality movements in South Asia, continuing till present times. The film Naga Story provides an introduction to the history of the Naga struggle, and documents the human rights abuses suffered by the Naga people in more than 50 years of the existence of Independent India.
Naga Story, which took 5 years to complete, is the first comprehensive film about the Naga struggle for identity, self-determination, peace, and justice.
· Hindu Nationalism in Britain, Produced by Channel 4 News. English. 16 mins
A news report on how funds collected in Britain by RSS-affiliated organizations in the name of earthquake relief in Gujarat, were actually used to foment communal violence in Gujarat. This report was telecast in the UK on the day of the Gujarat elections and widely reported in the Indian media as well. The report has subsequently been tabled in the British Parliament.
· Your Slaves No Longer, 2004. Hindi, Bhojpuri. 35 min.
On the land struggles of Musahars (a Dalit caste) in UP and Bihar.
· Of Inhuman Bondage, 2004. Hindi, Bhojpuri. 28 min
On the continuing practice of manual scavenging by Dalits.
· Voices from Gujarat, 2004. Hindi and English. 35 min.
Following the carnage of 2002, several organisations have been involved in the peace process. A look at the attempts for rehabilitation, and reconciliation, and the struggle for justice.
Premiered at WSF, Mumbai
· Twice Evicted, 2005. Tamil, English. 27 min
On the eviction of fisher folk from Tamil Nadu's 1000 km coastline, ostensibly for protecting them future tsunamis, but actually to push the government's hidden agenda of globalisation.
· Caste Out, 2005. Tamil, English. 35 min
On the discrimination of Dalits in relief and rehabilitation after tsunami by the State, NGOs, other communities.
· A Bloody Harvest, 2006. Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam, English. 15 min.
A campaign film to resist the World Trade Organization's entry into agriculture and other livelihood resources. Documents farmer and weaver suicides in three Indian states, and the resistance from people.
· Rice: The Treasure of Asia, 2007. English, Bahasa, Thai
On the struggle by rice farmers against globalization in six countries – India, Philippines, Bangladesh, Thailand, Indonesia and China.
Menon was born in 1974 and has a Master's in Business Administration. He started his film career with a documentary on the destruction of tropical evergreen forests in the Nilgiri biosphere. While still a student of Business Administration, he started working with the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) on the organized violence on Muslims in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, and the subsequent bomb blasts in the city. He has been documenting the Naga and Kashmiri political movements since 1998. Two films have evolved from this - Naga Story: The Other Side of Silence (on the Naga struggle) and PAPA 2 (on enforced disappearances in Kashmir). Menon's film Hey Ram!! Genocide in the Land of Gandhi, on the Gujarat riots, was the first on the subject, and was widely used to raise awareness about the riots. He followed this up with Voices from Gujarat on the continuing peace process in Gujarat.
Menon has made several films on the Dalit issue. Resilient Rhythms documents a range of responses to the Dalit issue, from identity politics to armed struggle. Other Dalit issue films are Of Inhuman Bondage, on manual scavenging, and Your Slaves No Longer, on the land struggles of Musahars (a Dalit community).
He has worked as Location Director for a Channel 4 News report on the funding of Hindu Extremist organizations and shot the film in UK and India. This film – ‘Hindu Nationalism in Britain’ – was telecast in UK on the day of the Gujarat elections and was widely reported in the Indian media as well. The report has subsequently been tabled in the British Parliament. The campaign films Twice Evicted and Caste Out were made on the Tsunami and its aftermath.
His film Rice: The Treasure of Asia completed a film on the struggle of rice farmers against globalization which was shot in six countries including India.
Menon’s films have been screened at several film festivals. Naga Story was presented the 'Spirit of the Himalayas' award at the Netherlands Himalaya Film Festival in 2004.
Filmography
· PAPA 2, 2000. Kashmiri and Urdu. 25 min
PAPA 2 was a notorious interrogation centre run by the Indian Armed Forces in Kashmir till 1996. Officially, over 2000 - unofficially, over 8000 - people have disappeared from the Kashmir Valley over the past 15 years. Most of these are enforced disappearances. The film, PAPA 2, documents the struggle of the mothers and wives of disappeared persons to trace their loved ones. It features interviews with the families of the affected people and also members of the Association of Parents of Disappeared People..
· Hey Ram!! Genocide in the Land of Gandhi, 2002. Hindi, 25 min
In the Gujarat violence, over a 1000 people were killed and more than 100,000 rendered homeless. Women and children were made the targets of especially brutal attacks. Property and sources of livelihood were systematically destroyed. Places of worship were destroyed or desecrated.
Hey Ram!! was the first film to be completed on the Gujarat riots and was released even as the violence was raging in Gujarat. It has been extensively screened in India and several other countries to raise support for the victims of the riots and to create awareness about the systematic way in which the communal violence was engineered.
· Resilient Rhythms, 2002. Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Bhojpuri with English subtitles. 66 min
India's caste system is perhaps the world's longest surviving system of exploitation based on social hierarchy. It places nearly 160 million people – the Dalits – at the outskirts of society, exploiting their services, especially to perform so-called "polluting" tasks, from cutting the umbilical cord, to disposing night-soil, to tending cremation grounds, while denying them acceptance even as human beings. The film documents the various atrocities that are committed on people simply because of their caste and shows how Dalits are fighting back.
Resilient Rhythms is the first comprehensive film on the Dalit issue attempted in India and explores a range of Dalit responses, from armed struggle to electoral politics.
· Let Iraq Live: Stop the War, 2003. English, 16 min
Featuring interviews with humanitarian workers, this was a campaign film made just before the War on Iraq.
· Naga Story: The Other Side of Silence, 2003. Nagamese, Manipuri, English and 14 Naga languages with English subtitles. 62 min
The Nagas are a 3 million-strong indigenous people who occupy the North-East frontier of the Indian subcontinent. The The Naga political struggle is one of the oldest nationality movements in South Asia, continuing till present times. The film Naga Story provides an introduction to the history of the Naga struggle, and documents the human rights abuses suffered by the Naga people in more than 50 years of the existence of Independent India.
Naga Story, which took 5 years to complete, is the first comprehensive film about the Naga struggle for identity, self-determination, peace, and justice.
· Hindu Nationalism in Britain, Produced by Channel 4 News. English. 16 mins
A news report on how funds collected in Britain by RSS-affiliated organizations in the name of earthquake relief in Gujarat, were actually used to foment communal violence in Gujarat. This report was telecast in the UK on the day of the Gujarat elections and widely reported in the Indian media as well. The report has subsequently been tabled in the British Parliament.
· Your Slaves No Longer, 2004. Hindi, Bhojpuri. 35 min.
On the land struggles of Musahars (a Dalit caste) in UP and Bihar.
· Of Inhuman Bondage, 2004. Hindi, Bhojpuri. 28 min
On the continuing practice of manual scavenging by Dalits.
· Voices from Gujarat, 2004. Hindi and English. 35 min.
Following the carnage of 2002, several organisations have been involved in the peace process. A look at the attempts for rehabilitation, and reconciliation, and the struggle for justice.
Premiered at WSF, Mumbai
· Twice Evicted, 2005. Tamil, English. 27 min
On the eviction of fisher folk from Tamil Nadu's 1000 km coastline, ostensibly for protecting them future tsunamis, but actually to push the government's hidden agenda of globalisation.
· Caste Out, 2005. Tamil, English. 35 min
On the discrimination of Dalits in relief and rehabilitation after tsunami by the State, NGOs, other communities.
· A Bloody Harvest, 2006. Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam, English. 15 min.
A campaign film to resist the World Trade Organization's entry into agriculture and other livelihood resources. Documents farmer and weaver suicides in three Indian states, and the resistance from people.
· Rice: The Treasure of Asia, 2007. English, Bahasa, Thai
On the struggle by rice farmers against globalization in six countries – India, Philippines, Bangladesh, Thailand, Indonesia and China.
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