Foot Soldier of the Constitution by Teesta Setalvad

Author:Teesta Setalvad [Setalvad, Teesta]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Leftword Books
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

1In the issue of Communalism Combat to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the Gujarat genocide (July-August 2007), I recounted how many of the powerful bureaucrats – complicit in constitutional actions under Narendra Modi – had been carefully and quietly rehabilitated in key ministries of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA I) government. Those policemen who continue to be targeted, such as Rahul Sharma and R. B. Sreekumar, are those who refused to compromise on their stance vis-á-vis 2002. They are still being made to pay for raising the bar, testing the system, with difficult and uncomfortable questions.

2Later amidst much fanfare and drama, Shirodkar’s counsel got some of these remarks expunged when the appeal in the Best Bakery case was heard in Mumbai in appeal in the High Court.

3After 2008, Pande rose to become Director General of Police (DGP) for Gujarat. He had been silenced by lucrative promotions, first in service and then after retirement. Today he sits on the board of the Adani Group, earning a lucrative emolument.

4‘Preparation for Violence: Role of the BJP and Allied Organizations – the RSS, VHP BD’, Concerned Citizens Tribunal Report: Crimes Against Humanity, Gujarat 2002 and A. G. Noorani, The RSS and the BJP: A Division of Labour, New Delhi: LeftWord Books, 2000.

5One such account of what transpired at these training camps, where hatred against one community was bartered through narratives against the Muslim community, has been documented in detail in the Concerned Citizens Tribunal Report, Crimes Against Humanity, Gujarat 2002.

6Sanjay Basak, ‘TV (Star News) tapes prove Modi attacked Muslims’, Asian Age, 15 September 2002.

7Many of the IAS and IPS officers who complied with the state’s resolve to abdicate constitutional and legal responsibility for protecting fundamental rights of citizens, were rewarded handsomely with lucrative postings by the government in power in the state, the very same government that stood indicted, nationally and internationally for the wilful breakdown of the Constitutional machinery, between February and May 2002, in the state of Gujarat.

8Dionne Bunsha, ‘A relentless hate campaign’, Frontline, vol. 19, issue 10, 11-24 May 2002 & ‘Patterns of Violence’, Concerned Citizens Tribunal.

9M. M. Tirmizi, ‘The Fight Continues’, Communalism Combat, no. 124, July 2007.

10Justice Kadri died in 2014. Justice Divecha died in 2016.

11Media coverage was very positive at that time. In an editorial in The Indian Express (‘Justice Triumphs’, 25 February 2006), the editors wrote, ‘For modern day Neros, a reminder from the court: you have to pay for your fiddling. The verdict is a ringing endorsement of the role played by sections of the media, civil society, organizations and individuals, especially Teesta Setalvad of Communalism Combat who, unfazed by vicious propaganda, stayed the course.’ The editors of The Telegraph wrote in their editorial (‘Just a start’, 26 February 2006), ‘Very few triumphs are absolutely unequivocal. It is understandable that right-thinking Indians would hail the Best Bakery convictions as a triumph of justice . . . Best Bakery is only just the beginning of a process of investigation, exposure and punishment that is likely to reveal truths which could undermine some of the fundamental premises of a modern secular democracy.

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