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