BY EVA CHENG
In Gujarat state, where since February Hindu fundamentalist violence has killed more than 2000 people, mostly Muslims, and terrorised many thousands more, the local government plans to force 100,000 Muslim refugees out of relief camps. From the relative safety of the camps, refugees will be sent back to neighbourhoods plagued by the Hindu <%-3>fanatic-driven terror campaigns.
Outraged by the state government's plan, scheduled to take effect on May 31, to close the nearly 100 refugee camps, the activist group People's Union for Democratic Rights sought a Supreme Court order to block it. The request was turned down on May 20.
Gujarat is the only Indian state still controlled outright by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Hindu chauvinist party that has been leading India's federal ruling coalition since 1998.
The terror and killings incited by Hindu fundamentalists haven't stopped. The BBC reported incidents in which 20 people were killed on the April 20-21 weekend, followed by another five deaths and 40-plus people being injured on April 23-25. On April 26, the BBC reported: "More than two months since the riots erupted, there are still almost daily reports of communal violence, and a steadily rising death toll."
In the days before the Supreme Court decision, the Jamalpur relief camp alone received 500 more terrorised victims.
A May report by an investigative team of Indian medical personnel, Medico Friend Circle, states: "Public hospitals [in Gujarat] have been working under threat of violence against their Muslim patients. Mobs have attacked hospitals, prevented the injured from entering, moving around the wards, terrorising and attacking patients and relatives. The government does not seem to have tried to protect health services and maintain people's access to them."
A report by a delegation of British officials, leaked to the media in late April, argues that the Gujarat state government has been supporting the anti-Muslim violence, which the British officials say was clearly pre-planned<.
In a new series of actions to resist the Hindu fundamentalists, the Communist Party of India (Marxist Leninist) Liberation organised marches and demonstrations during May 4-10 in a number of Indian cities. CPI (ML) general secretary Dipankar Bhattarcharya led the actions in Bihar, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh.
The CPI(ML) further launched a "Ayodhya Chalo" program of protests on May 10-11, marking the anniversary of a 1857 revolt in Gujarat. The revolt was one of the first shots in India's independence struggle and is remembered as a bright example of unity and common struggle between Hindus and Muslims. Thousands took part in the protests which were brutally attacked by police. More than 10<%-2>00 participants were arrested.
Protest actions to complement the Gujarat campaign took place in almost all major Indian states.
From Green Left Weekly, May 29, 2002.
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