Gulbarg massacre: Conspirators can’t go scot free; riots don’t happen in a vacuum

It was three days of utter madness in Gujarat after the burning of Sabarmati Express at Godhra on 27 February, 2008. The dead in the train incident were mostly Hindus returning from a ceremony at the demolished Babri Masjid site at Ayodhya. A backlash was expected. It was also fairly known who would be in the lead; only the scale of it was perhaps not anticipated. In the communal frenzy that followed more than a 1000 people, including Hindus, were killed. Unofficial sources put it at 2000 or more. But the number is not the central point here; whether there was a conspiracy or not is.In the Gulbarg Housing Society case, the court on Thursday observed that there was no pre-planned conspiracy. Around 1500 people gathered at the society and started attacking the Muslim residents indiscriminately. Going by what the defence would say, it was a spontaneous act. The mob was only responding in anger to the Godhra incident. This could be the explanation for all other riots cases in those three days in Gujarat. Of course, the court’s observation would depend on the evidence placed before it, but is there anything called a spontaneous riot?[caption id="attachment_2812352" align="alignleft" width="380"] File image of the survivors of the 2002 Gujarat riots inside a house that was burnt and damaged in the riots at the Gulbarg Society. Reuters[/caption]This needs to be debated since riots are a serious issue. Participation of a large number of people in the attack on a hate target could be spontaneous act but it still needs some planning and a core group to fan the fire. Just as the Godhra incident could not have happened without a degree of planning – just look at the logistics part in terms of manpower and substances used — the Gujarat riots could not have escalated to such proportions without people actively involved in the planning aspect. The case is the same with the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. Most of the people arrested and convicted in such cases are only fringe players responding to certain situations in a state of violent anger, but with no instigation involved the situation itself would not be combustible.Riots have a motive, revenge is only one of them. Now that the crucial Uttar Pradesh assembly elections are approaching, there’s talk of efforts at communal polarisation. That riots play an important role in the exercise is well-documented. This has been a recurring theme in India politics, no matter which political party is involved. The motive is often political and matter of wider ideology. The only challenge is to mobilise people and use their sentiment with the right kind of input at the appropriate time. It could be love jihad at some point or consumption of beef at some other.It requires planning to get the masses sufficiently angry over beef or 'love jihad' and use the anger during times of communal tension. It is no secret that there are outfits which are actively into manipulating public sentiment. There’s conspiracy all the time. This is true of both the Hindus and the Muslims. The point is, unless the source of the trouble is identified and taken head on, riots would continue. When masterminds go scot free and only the programmed foot soldiers get punished, it becomes a travesty of justice.That is one reason why the Ahmedabad court’s verdict today is disappointing. It reduces 69 deaths in Gulbarg Housing Society to a simple case of attack by an angry mob, which never actually the case is. Perhaps this had to do with lack of actionable evidence, but the fact remains that the real actual perpetrators are free and they could be planning their next move already.Unless we acknowledge that riots don’t happen in a vacuum and these are only flash points in a long-drawn process, we will have getting people killed in such incidents.