Reviewed
by ASIF ANWAR ALIG
Gujarat Files: Anatomy of a Cover Up, by Rana Ayyub,
ISBN: 978-1-943438-88-4, Printed at Thomson Press, Year2016, 206pp, Indian
Rupees 295, Soft.
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be fair, nothing seems new in Rana Ayyub’s Gujarat Files: Anatomy of
Cover Up. Facts she reveals about 2002 Gujarat carnage are available before
the Indian judiciary, investigating teams and media.
What still makes this book
food for thought for the readers? Author digresses us to look at genocide flashbacks
of reverberation which ashamed humanity. It audaciously describes how perpetrators
of genocide liquidated communal harmony with the planned vilification of India’s
secular fabric. Its social, cultural and religious ethics thus became a mockery
before the world.
Rather
an individual scoop documentation by an otherwise nameless journalist (a Muslim
girl impersonating herself into a devote Hindu filmmaker); this book in transcript
is a daring account. As a filmmaker she questioned many things to be read
between the lines. Clamored in journalistic tone yet not suspected by
perpetrators, transcripts persuade the readers to ignore connotation—not in a context
of an addition in the academic literature but its merit to be taken for fact
finding investigation source.
Her
clandestine investigations were risky affair. It became possible for her because
of professional grooming in sting operation culture of Tehelka magazine whose
investigative stories were often worth newsy and volatile for India’s power corridors.
Her investigations in conversational tone of a film’s script is now in book
form. It merits to be taken as reference by the justice system as additional
source to investigate and punish the guilty who perpetrated a pogrom that
massacred innocent lives.
Book’s
transcripts in conversational tone make everyone believe in the reality behind
Gujarat riots. With scope to be used as an additional documentation for justice
will it be of any use remains a big question in India today. The country is
ruled by a political party which perpetrated goof ups to divide the communities
for political pursuits.
It
is high time India’s justice system keeps all factors into consideration for analysis.
Deliberate communalism feeling played key role to escalate embers of hatred
between Hindus and Muslims in Gujarat to spread throughout the nation. It accelerated
fortunes of few leaders to achieve goals and reach at the zenith. This book engages
readers to delve into the realistic narration in conversations between author
and several people in Gujarat for fact revelations.
Meticulous recollection of an
investigative mission in 2010 for which Rana Ayyub was assigned by her employer,
Tehelka magazine, this
book portrays life of an undercover girl pretending herself with a fabricated
name of filmmaker Maithili Tyagi. She spent eight months undercover to obtain true
account of a story behind state’s genocide. Ironically, foolhardy sting
operation was turned down by her magazine. If this book hadn’t come that investigative
effort would have buried in the history.
Conversations between author and the
then bureaucrats to senior police officers holding key positions in Gujarat from
2001 to 2010 are put together. The audacity of this book remains unquestionable.
The previously unpublished transcripts were surprisingly withheld by the magazine
that planned a sting. It even had no takers to be published in book form.
Thus, we have the self-published copy.
It is one of the select few self-published books in India that has been accepted
wholeheartedly by the readers. Like the author lived a life of an undercover, transcripts
presented describe how and who carried violence to shame India’s integrity in
the aftermath of 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom while Narendra Modi was Gujarat chief
minister. It recounts many other details including false encounter killings from
2002 to 2006 in the behest of Modi and ally Amit Shah.
Author’s conversations identify how bureaucracy
was part of modus operandi with their connivance in conspiracies to utter
silence instead of taking actions for justice. The scenario was that authorities
became subjugators of lawlessness instead of playing their roles of law enforcement
authorities.
Transcript conversations with the then
Director-General of Anti-Terrorism Squad in Gujarat in 2007, Rajan Priyadarshi quoting
“Amit Shah often violated human rights”; SIT team members revealing in a pretext
of being interviewed for movie and much more are revelations opposite claims of
otherwise vibrant Gujarat. They bring into fore stories of suppressions in the
name of caste even in even plum positions as witnessed in the cases of D.
Vanzara, Rajkumar Pandian, Amin and Parmar to name a few.
They reveal in book’s transcript how
Modi used the policy to “use and abandon” and make them equal partners to perpetuate
atrocities. In transcripts, this book has ample insights and perspectives to
study subjugations which Gujarat encountered through unlawful use of state
mechanism.
Concluding in abrupt serenity this
book leaves a strong message that Gujarat’s civil society under Modi and Shah
witnessed terrible transformation in planned violence to develop hostility
between the two communities.
Almost completely in interview form transcriptions
from tapes, this book doesn’t offer any narrative flair. Without too much
extrapolations it still maintains substance due to speaking truth brilliantly.
Its narrative brilliance defines Gujarat’s political landscape a decade ago which
prophesied for whole nation to come into hate mongers’ grip.
Facts are beforehand through book form
now. Questions are still unanswered though whether justice would be done. Perpetrators,
as hawks, are pacifiers today with
further political empowerment in a span of more than one decade, justice seems
bleak.
This book should be read in the context of political and social farsightedness to question self whether India’s cultural, religious and social antithesis exists in its true form.
http://www.ceylontoday.lk/print20170101CT20170331.php?id=18384
This article was first published in Mosaic, Ceylon Today, April 02, 2017 edition.
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