Khushwant Singh: The End of India as we know it

I have seen it before with my own eyes in 1947 and 1984. The police stood by like tamashbeens (spectators) watching the carnage. They had been tipped off not to interfere but let looters and killers teach hapless men, women and children a lesson they would never forget.

In Gujarat they went several steps further. Not only did the police remain inert, when the army arrived on the scene, it was not deployed. Flag marches are spectacles which don’t frighten evil-doers. What does frighten them are orders to shoot at sight which were issued too late, only after many lives had been lost. Officers who tried to do their duty and foil the plans of the mobs were transferred out. Even in the camps set up for the riot victims there was harassment.

There can be no doubt there was serious dereliction of duty on the part of the chief minister, his cabinet colleagues and the IG of police. Even a year after the rioting, many Muslim victims remain homeless. Those who have returned to their homes have been forced to withdraw all complaints filed with the police. They are at the mercy of their Hindu neighbours who have warned them never to forget their subordinate status. I won’t be surprised if Muslims in Gujarat one day have to start paying religious taxes like the jazia which medieval Islamic rulers imposed on their non-Muslim subjects....

How did Gujarat become the laboratory of Hindutva? It did not happen overnight. The Sangh and its sympathizers began poisoning Gujarat not long after Independence. Even the Congress took advantage of the slowly vitiating atmosphere to divide Gujarati society for electoral gains, unwittingly helping the RSS. The 1969 Ahmedabad riots were the first triumph of the RSS in Gujarat. Its fortunes began rising after that. I went to Ahmedabad in 1970, five months after the riots. ...

At the end of my visit I told the then Mayor of Ahmedabad about what I had seen and heard. “It is all over,” he assured me. “It will not happen again.” I hoped he was right. But I was not so sure.

Of course it did happen again, more than once, and most tragically in February 2002. Those deep divisions I saw over thirty years ago were not allowed to heal. The Sanghwalas were never interested in bringing communities together. In Gujarat, a border state, they have terrorized and alienated the state’s 10% Muslim population. History will judge them for the damage they have caused, but that will happen in the future. Meanwhile, with a triumphant Modi as their mentor, they will repeat the Gujarat experiment all over India, unless we stop them.

- See more at: http://www.caravanmagazine.in/vantage/case-gujarat-extract-khushwant-singhs-end-india#sthash.khYuLEbv.dpuf

Good riddance!

India that Kushwant knows was not the India that his grandfather/great grandfather knew and so on ad infinitum. And there is no proof that the India Kushwant recognizes is the best one either. So this has only as much value as an individuals opinion and no more.

>>> Not only did the police remain inert, when the army arrived on the scene, it was not deployed.

If Modi invited the army tro come and restore peace, why are you people blaming him for the murders?