Thread by @ZahirJ

Today is the 20th anniversary of the Gujarat pogrom. On Feb 15, 2002, I arrived in Ahmedabad to work with NGO as an AIF fellow. I saw the violence. I worked in the camps. I spent years reporting on its aftermath. A thread on what we often get wrong about 2002. 3 parts; 61 Tweets

1/ There is a tendency, in both Indian and US media, to speak about the 2002 pogrom as having lasted a few days or weeks. This NYT timeline, for example, says "Hindu Mobs turn on Muslims for weeks." nytimes.com/interactive/20…

2/ That's not true. What terrified me about being there in 2002 was 1) the violence lasted for months 2) the violence morphed into what the sociologist Nandini Sundar called "economicide," or economic genocide 3) there was widespread complacency and/or support for the violence.

3/ Yes, the first few days were especially brutal. Some examples. On Feb 28, a mob of 5000 attacked Naroda Patiya, killing 97 (36 women, 35 children). In 2018, Gujarat HC acquitted former BJP minister Maya Kodnani, "the kingpin of the violence." thehindu.com/news/national/…

4/ Also on Feb 28: Congress MP Ehsan Jafri was killed. A special court said he was "burnt him alive in a fashion that there was no possibility of any remnant of the body." One person, Jayesh Jinger, burnt several Muslims and left them at Jafri's doorstep. indianexpress.com/article/india/…

5/ Violence against women was especially rampant. In Harsh Mander's book "Between Memory and Forgetting" he writes that "the Gujarat carnage stands out for its extensive and specific targeting of women, young girls and children." theprint.in/pageturner/exc…

6/ In their book "Splintered Justice," Warisha Farasat and Prita Jha write that Hindu rioters did not limit their acts of sexual violence to Muslims. They also targeted Hindus who had any association with Muslims.

caravanmagazine.in/vantage/rape-2…

7/ Much has been written, for good reason, about these first days/weeks of violence. But the violence lasted well into the summer of 2002. To ignore that is to diminish what Muslims in Gujarat faced. It's also parrots the Gujarat gov view that they contained the violence.

8/ The Modi govt claimed the violence was under control within 72 hours. But The Times of India reported on May 10, 2002 that 72 days later, the violence and curfew was still raging on, calling it "mayhem" and "hopelessly vitiated." timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/72-days-…

9/ Modi's own ministers were so upset with Modi's failure to curb the violence after months of rioting that Modi cancelled his first ever meeting with Muslim heads of multiple relief camps and instead met with his ministers to try to "manage" them. timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/modi-ski…

10/ That same day, May 10, TOI reported that five were killed in the Old City of Ahmedabad. timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/5-dead-w…

11/ At the time, in May 2002, there were still 49 relief camps in Ahmedabad with about 60k displaced, nearly all Muslim. I worked in several. Water and food had to be rationed. Sleeping areas were cramped and dehydration rampant due to heat. timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/gujarat-…

12/ Only after pressure from his own party, and from the TOI and other news outlets/reporters, as well as from the business and int'l community, did Modi offer assistance to Muslims in May of 2002. timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/modi-ann…

13/ By that point, in May 2002, only 2 FIRs on rape had been filed in Gujarat that year--despite the widespread occurrence of rape during the pogrom. timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/only-2-f…

14/ Some 2000 were still missing, and the Gujarat govt said that if relatives could not prove that their loved ones were dead, they could not get compensation.

15/ It was one of the most difficult experiences of my life: trying to help Muslims in the relief camps prove their loved ones were dead so they could get a tiny bit of money to rebuild their lives.

It was the Gujarat govt who did not, and does not, want Muslims to move on.

16/ In June 2002, the relief camps were still open. Muslims who tried to return home were often targeted by Hindu mobs.

Instead of trying to help them, though, Modi forced the camps to shut and called for early elections: timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ahmedabad…

17/ One of Modi’s cabinet ministers was blunt about BJP’s motives: “If we are unable to hold elections early, the whole purpose of dissolving the assembly early will be lost. We wish to cash in on the upsurge of Hindutva over the last several months.”
m.timesofindia.com/city/ahmedabad…

18/ The Election Commission stated Gujarat was not fit for early elections in 2002. Modi responded by insinuating that EC head, J M Lyngdoh, was only criticizing Gujarat because he was Christian, something that earned Modi rebuke from then PM Vajpayee. timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/PM-raps-…

19/ Relief camps were threatened/attacked in March, April, May, and June 2002. On April 16, for example, Hindus fired into a camp in Dahod. Gujarat police were posted at the entrance; they did nothing. Source: Nandini Sundar, A License to Kill, "Gujarat: The Making of a Tragedy"

20/ At the time, in June '02, I was trying to help Muslim children in camps return to school. But when they tried to return, many were beaten up by Hindu parents and/or their children. When Muslim parents asked for their kids' exams to be delayed, they were often refused, mocked

21/ Many Muslim women were widowed. One NGO helped those who wanted to remarry. Many chose men who would take them out of Gujarat. At a mass wedding I attended, Hindu mobs attacked. Leave Gujarat, mobs said. The eerie thing is that the Muslim women were doing precisely that.

22/ I dunno: maybe journalists could chill with their condescending questions to Gujarati Muslims about when will they will move on and instead ask Gujarati Hindus the same about 2002: when will they let go of their anger? When will they, finally, leave Muslims alone?

23/ In June 2002, just before my flight back to US, I watched Muslims build a wall between a Muslim and Hindu locality. My well meaning Hindu friends said, "walls only divide us." Sure, yeah, but they did not have to live with Hindus throwing stones at them well into 2002.

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