SPEECH

Secularism is at Stake : Sonia Gandhi

Address of Smt. Sonia Gandhi, in Lok Sabha on Motion under Rule-184 on 30 April, 2002

Mr. Deputy Speaker Sir,

I thank you for allowing this substantive motion under Rule - 184. Gujarat’s tragedy is a national calamity. It is a challenge to our collective conscience. It has called into question the commitment of the ruling political establishment in Delhi and Gandhinagar to the letter and spirit of the Constitution. It has had profound implications for the international image of our country.

We wanted this discussion because this is a moral issue of paramount importance for us. Secularism, which is the very foundation of Indian nationhood, is at stake. India’s composite heritage is under attack. This is a defining moment for all of us in public life.

Sir, Gujarat burns and bleeds. It continues to burn and bleed. Contrary to claims being made, violence continues unabated. Governance has collapsed in the state and the state government stands severely indicted by statutory bodies like the National Human Rights Commission and the National Minorities Commission as well as by a number of citizens’ groups and citizen’s organisations and fact finding teams. Both the Commissions have concluded that the state government was guilty not only of imcompetence but of deliberate connivance. The Human Rights Commission recommended inquiries by the CBI; the Minorities Commission recommended an inquiry by a sitting Supreme Court Judge. Both these recommendations have been contemptuously dismissed by the state and Central governments. Instead, the Chief Minister is using an inquiry by a hand-picked retired judge to block all investigations into the vicious violations of human rights in the state. This brazen defiance of all Constitutional norms was what prompted us to recommend, to demand the removal of the Chief Minister, a demand that has been supported not just by Opposition but by the coalition partners of the NDA itself as well as large segments those who have been supporting it. Perhaps some of them have been misled so far by the mask worn by the BJP leadership. It seems some of them have now seen the light.

Ordinary citizens belonging to all communities continues to live in fear, in terror and insecurity. Business and trade have come to a standstill. The unorganised sector which provides the bulk of employment has been badly affected. Confidence in the civil and police administration has been completely destroyed. A delegation of women from camps in Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar and Mehsana that I met just on Saturday, they met many of our colleagues in Opposition and the President and related to me the horrors they experienced as well as the most miserable condition in the camps, the continuing neglect and the all pervasive fear that engulfs them.

Sir, the six-member women’s fact-finding team that went to Gujarat has met many of us. I listened in horror to what they had to say about large-scale rape and molestation. Many of the victims have been killed, have been burnt after being raped. Nothing can be more heart-rending than the words of Medina Mustafa, a mother of one of the victims who witnessed her daughter being raped and dismembered. I quote from the Hindustan Times of April 18 of the account of the mother, "I could hear my family shouting for mercy as they were attacked. I recognised two people from my village - Gano Barai and Sunil - pulling away my daughter Shabana. She screamed, telling the men to get off her... The screams and cries of Ruqaiya, Suhana, Shabana, begging for their izzat could clearly be heard. My mind was seething with fear and fury. I could do nothing to help my daughter from being assaulted sexually and tortured to death. My daughter was like a flower, still to experience life. Why did they have to do this to her? What kind of men are these? The monsters tore my beloved daughter to pieces. After a while the mob was saying cut them to pieces, leave no evidence. I saw fires being lit". Yet, to this day, I am told, there is only one FIR lodged in all of Gujarat on a complaint of rape.

Sir, here we have is another report carried in a very prominent daily, the Times of India of April 19. In this news, we have the story of a brave and courageous woman, a woman whose actions epitomized all the noble values we cherish. It is the story of Geetaben, who was killed mercilessly by sangh parivar mobs in Ahmedabad on March 25 for saving her Muslim friend. Her murder was meant to convey a message - a message of segregation, a message of separatism.

How long must the agony of Gujarat continue?

The people of Gujarat want a return to peace, they want to return to amity and understanding. Gujarat is a society which has seen the intermingling of different religions. Gujarat has produced great social reformers, political leaders. How can we ever forget that Gujarat is the land of the Mahatma?

Gujarat has produced India’s most high-minded civic groups. For long, Gujarat has shown the way to the rest of India. We want to see that glorious Gujarat again. We want to see Gujarat moving forward again with dignity, pride and harmony.

But, Sir, the tragic events of the past two months have cast a long shadow. The government in Delhi has looked on as a passive spectator by a blatantly partisan Chief Minister besmirched the fair name of Gujarat. Even the sacred dharti of Sabarmati Ashram was not spared. A peaceful meeting was disrupted by Sangh Parivar activists and by some members of the police. Media persons too were brutally attacked. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I am grateful to you for your observation on behalf of the entire House expressing shock and anguish at this incident at Sabarmati Ashram. The clinching evidence of the state government’s partisan policies came in the form of large-scale transfer of police and civil administration officers who had tried to fulfill their Constitutional duties in a professional and impartial way.

All the time when the efforts of the government should have been focussed exclusively on law and order and on relief and rehabilitation, we heard the Central and the State governments threaten to dissolve the Vidhan Sabha and hold elections. This threat was an insult to our democracy and to the Constitution. It was a cynical move at a time when people were being killed. Let not the BJP think for a single moment that we are afraid of election. We are not. We will face the election whenever it is held with a clear conscience, confident that the people of Gujarat will send a resounding message to those who are trying to destroy our secular legacy.

Sir, the Prime Minister’s shifting statements have shocked us all. One day, he offers sympathy. The next day he condemns a whole community. One day he pleads for tolerance. The next day he plays on divisive prejudices. When the Prime Minister himself engages in such double-speak, what can the nation expect of this government?

In Gujarat, the Prime Minister at the Shah-e-alam camp said and I quote, "my only message to the Chief Minister is to follow rajdharma. This word has great meaning. A ruler should not discriminate among his subjects on the basis of religion or community". Wonderful words. The victims of the violence might have felt reassured by such words coming from the Prime Minister.

But just a few days later in Goa, the Prime Minister has said and I quote,

Wherever the Muslims are staying, they do not want to live and mix with them in peace and instead of preaching peacefully, they want to propogate their religion by terrorising, frightening and threatening.

Need anything more be added to these words?

Sir, we must consider ourselves fortunate that in recent weeks, the disturbances were confined to Gujarat only. That is because an overwhelming number of our people are secular. And that is because an overwhelming number of our people reject the politics of hate and communal divide.

Sir, I think it is now time to look ahead. It is now time to rebuild Gujarat, to rediscover and regenerate its well-springs of tolerance and accommodation.

There are a large number of people who have stood out in recent weeks. When actually the government has collapsed, it is they who have mobilised relief and provided help. That gives us hope. Civil society in Gujarat must be encouraged and proactively supported in its efforts to restore normalcy. NGOs, citizen and social action groups, womens’ organisations, Gandhian associations, must all be mobilised systematically to bring Gujarat back on the path of harmony. This of course also needs the support of the State.

Last year when a different tragedy struck Gujarat, the whole nation responded generously. Indeed assistance came not only from the nation but from all over the world. This time too it is still not too late for all of us to mount a national effort to collect relief for the victims.

Sir, the nation cannot forget what has been perpetrated in Gujarat, what has been engineered in Gujarat. We must now at least ensure that the catastrophe that overtook us will not take place again either in Gujarat or elsewhere in our country.

Let us not look at Gujarat from the point of view of this faith or that, from the point of view of this community or that. We have to look at the carnage in Godhra and the carnage in Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Sabarkantha, Mehsana, Rajkot and other parts of the state as an assault on human freedom, as an attack on fundamental human values, as a subversion of the very essence of our culture, and as a rejection of the very character of our civilisation. And Sir, let us, once and for all, put an end to this propaganda that the barbarous Godhra incident was not condemned forcefully on time. Mr. Mulayam Singh referred to the same issue. I was the first to condemn the terrible Godhra tragedy in the strongest possible terms on the very evening it happened, on February 27 itself. This technique of repeating a falsehood so that it eventually passes off as a truth is a favourite tactic of the RSS, Sangh Parivar (like the obnoxious times in Germany).

Even the Prime Minister has recently remarked that the incidents in Gujarat could have been pre-empted had Parliament condemned the Godhra carnage. Now, I wonder what prevented the Prime Minister as the Leader of this country, the Leader of this House from taking the lead in this matter. It is regrettable that the Prime Minister should project this failure of his as Parliament’s dereliction.

India’s image has been tarnished the world over. We have never had to face such an embarrassment before. But our democracy is strong and resilient. Our institutions are committed to the Constitution. Our media is vigilant.I am confident that basic human rights of all individuals and communities will continue to be zealously safeguarded from assaults of the type we have witnessed in Gujarat.

We must now move from polarisation to reconciliation. We must move from discord to dialogue. We must move from a bigoted interpretation of our past to realising our shared future.

Sir, the state government has betrayed the people of Gujarat. The Central Government has failed the people of India. The State Government, aided and abetted by its patrons in Delhi, has destroyed the very fabric of Gujarat’s society. It has grievously, but grievously wounded the very soul of Gujarat.

Today, we condemn them. In doing so, we uphold the ideals of our founding fathers. In doing so, we reaffirm our commitment to preserve and protect our secular heritage. In doing so, we express our resolve to confront and combat those who mock at the Constitution and trample on all values that we hold dear.

Mr. Deputy Speaker Sir, Today, I appeal to him to rise above his party affiliation and respond to his responsibilities and obligations to the people of India, irrespective of religion and faith. It is still not too late. The situation can still be redeemed. Put the Gujarat Government on notice under Article 355 of the Constitution for having failed to control internal disturbance and for having failed to ensure that the Government is carried on in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution. Bring the guilty to book immediately, quickly. Restore law and order firmly. Ensure that full relief and rehabilitation measures are extended to all the affected families without delay. Remove the Chief Minister who, by deliberate design, is failing to fulfill his Constitutional duties. Appoint a sitting Supreme Court judge to ascertain the whole truth within the next three months. Implement all the recommendations of the National Human Rights Commission immediately.

Mr. Deputy Speaker Sir, until these steps are taken, we will continue to present to the people, through Parliament and directly, with all the emphasis at our command, the insidious agenda of the BJP and its governments and the grave threat such an agenda poses to our nation.

Today, from this House we send a message to the people of Gujarat. The nation has looked to you, the people of Gujarat for leadership in the past. Show us the way once again so that we are all able to once again hold our heads high and reassert our natural claim to being a beacon for respecting and celebrating diversity.

Thank you Sir