Honoured in 2008: A Moment Etched in History
- A Deep History of Riots: From 18th Century Ahmedabad to Modern Gujarat
- Gujarat 2002 and the Politics of ‘Restoring Peace’
- The Contradictions of Modern India: Celebrating Constitution vs. Justifying Riots
- Gratitude for a Brave Tribute: Remembering Kavita Karkare
- Voices of Solidarity: Medha Patkar, Sunil Dighe & Others
- From Bhagalpur to Manipur: Have We Learned Anything?
- Lessons from Iraq: War, Media Manipulation, and Silenced Truths
The Price of Truth: From Dabholkar to Lankesh
A series of memories.
I have a picture of the award ceremony in 2008, in which Smt. Kavita Karkare, wife of martyr Hemant Karkare, has away the award by the Maharashtra Foundation in America, for our work in communal harmony. Today, this award is going to complete seventeen years.
The beginning of riots in the country is mentioned in the book of Shailesh Bandopadhyay, translated from the original Bengali titled 'History of Indian Riots' of Ahmedabad in the beginning of the eighteenth century. The British have also used the people of the Hindu and Muslim religions living in India a lot for their one thousand years of politics under the policy of divide and rule. And because of that, the country has been divided on the basis of religion. It seemed that now there will be no riots in India.
Although the British left, one of the poisonous organisations they had built up on the basis of their divide and rule policy, within six months of independence, after seeing the anger of the common people of India following the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, went into hiding for a few days.
But for the first time in our country, the Home Minister of India, Amit Shah, who holds a constitutional post, called the Gujarat riots of 2002 as an act of restoring peace forever in his Gujarat assembly election campaign. And that too in the same Ahmedabad where the first recorded riot in India took place two hundred years ago.
If riots were necessary for eternal peace, as per Amit Shah's statement, then how many riots have taken place in two hundred years? And during 1946-1947, India had to face partition because of the biggest riots in history. And in Gujarat, in the first week of March 2002, in a place like Naroda Patia in Ahmedabad, where more than two hundred people were burnt alive in the riots, the daughter of the main accused was given a ticket by the Bharatiya Janata Party in the assembly elections, and while speaking during her election campaign, he called the riots as an act of restoring peace forever, and the responsibility of law and order of our country has been handed over to the hands of the person who called it an act of restoring peace forever.
And on the other hand, programs are also being organised in our country to commemorate the restoration of our Constitution on 26 November. Some are organising programs to read out the proclamation of the Constitution. Some are addressing meetings and conferences on important sections of our Constitution. And those who have been given the responsibility of protecting the current law and order of the country by taking an oath on the Constitution, what message are they giving by talking about bringing peace to the riots? How many contradictory programs are going on in our country at the same time? And that is why I feel guilty about the act of honouring me with the Communal Harmony Award that I received 17 years ago. Despite our thirty-five years of efforts with the comrades of Shantiniketan and all the reformist groups of Bengal and Bhagalpur, after the Bhagalpur riots, today the person who spoke about the work done to bring peace to the Gujarat riots has been given the responsibility of handling the law and order of a country with a multi-faceted culture like India.
Pragya Singh Thakur, who is involved in serious criminal cases like Malegaon, Samjhauta Express, Ajmer Sharif, Mecca Masjid, Hyderabad,and Nanded blasts (against which the trial is still going on in the court), has been given a ticket of the Bharatiya Janata Party from Bhopal in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. And she did not just sit in the biggest auditorium of our country for five years. She has also been a member of many sensitive parliamentary committees. If this is not hypocrisy on the part of the political unit of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, then what is it? Is allowing violence to happen in Manipur for two years also necessary for eternal peace? Or is the killing of hundreds of people of the minority community in mob lynching in eleven years also necessary for eternal peace? Is it therefore also necessary to keep the entire country boiling by constantly creating communal polarisation for eternal peace?
In the pre-planned program, this award was to be given by former Maharashtra minister Mr. Madhukarrao Chaudhary. But before lunch, after all of us awardees had expressed our views, the chairman of the award organising committee, Mr. Sunil Deshmukh, asked me in private, "We have decided to give you the award from the hands of martyr Hemant Karkare's wife, Mrs. Kavita Karkare, instead of the fixed chief guest. Do you have any objection? At that time, Mrs. Pratibha Patil was the President. I said, "Even if you had asked me to compare this award between President Mrs. Pratibhatai Patil and Mrs. Kavita Karkare, I would have said yes to giving it from Kavita Karkare's hands. Because I had never even dreamt that I would get the opportunity to receive this award from the hands of the wife of one of the bravest police officers of our country, martyr Hemant Karkare. But my humble request is that, considering the protocol of giving awards by you people, I should not say it again. But since Mrs. Kavita Karkare has given me the award, please allow me to speak for two minutes after receiving the award." So he immediately said ye,s smilingly.
After conferring the award, I said that "Gujarat Chief Minister Mr. Narendra Modi had come to your house in Mumbai immediately after martyr Hemant Karkare's martyrdom and had talked about giving you a few crores of rupees. And you had refused. And during the same time, when the then US President George W. Bush was addressing a press conference in Baghdad, the capital of Iraq, after the Iraq war, an Iraqi journalist threw a shoe at George Bush. Looking at both these acts, for me, you both are among the most respectable people of the world in this decade. I salute both these brave people. Because of the self-respect that you and that Iraqi journalist have shown, I have special respect for you and that Iraqi journalist in my heart. Therefore, I especially thank Mr. Sunil Deshmukh, the chairman of the organising committee of the Maharashtra Foundation Award, for suddenly conferring the award on me from your hands."
The special thing is that among the people who were honoured with the award at that time were friends like Professor Rao Saheb Kasbe, Professor Pragya Daya Pawar, Professor Anand Teltumbde, Professor Jaydev Dole etc. And in the auditorium in front were my childhood batchmate from Rashtra Seva Dal, Medha Patkar, brave officer of Mumbai Police, Mr. Suresh Khopade and eminent Marathi writers Mr. Ashok Shahane, Rekha Shahane and one of the people who wrote the manifesto of Dalit Panther, friend Advocate Sunil Dighe and many important comrades of the progressive movement of Maharashtra. And immediately after the program ended, Medha Patkar held both my hands and said, "We have to appreciate your punctuality because what you have said in just two minutes by giving the recent examples of Narendra Modi and George W. Bush is more effective than any one-hour-long speech." And advocate Sunil Dighe forcibly took me to his house after that program, which is located in a building next to the Shivaji temple. And he said, "My wife had sent me to this program today, especially for you and told you that if possible, you must bring Dr. Suresh Khairnar to your residence today." And his wife said that we watch your interviews on TV channels regularly. We are worried about your life because of your outspokenness. That is why I told my husband that whenever Dr. Suresh Khairnar comes to Mumbai, he must call him to our house. And I have to give him this advice that the way he speaks openly against communal forces, I am worried about his life. " (Only after that Dabholkar, Pansare, Kalburgi and Gauri Lankesh were murdered.)
Friends, if a housewife from Maharashtra cares about a worker like me in this way. And she is calling me to her house and telling me with so much love. Seeing this, our courage increases even more. There are still many possibilities left in our country. Because of seeing the incidents from the Bhagalpur, Gujarat riots to the Mumbai 26/11, there is a lot of worry. What has happened to the common citizens, the largest population of our country? Why are they allowing all this to happen by becoming mute spectators?
Similarly, in December 2015, I had the opportunity to go to Iraq for a program on the issue of Palestine. In the war in Iraq, which has a population of 25-30 million, the number of people killed is 1.5 million. And among them, the number of children under the age of 15 is 5 lakh. This is three times more than the number of people killed in nuclear attacks like Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
Most of the deaths have happened due to drinking poisonous water because of mixing poison in both the big rivers of Iraq (Tigris and Euphrates). And the most surprising thing is that this has not been mentioned in the world media. Although for the first time in the history of the world, media people were taken to a war in a five-star plane specially arranged by the US Army Chief. And perhaps for the first time in history, a war has been shown through live telecast. As if it was a cricket or football match.
During my stay in Iraq in Baghdad, Najaf-Karbala and Babylon, I was shocked to see the pictures of Iraq in ruins. I do not know of any discussion on this in the world. If I had not got the opportunity to go to Iraq in 2015, how would I have known? And how are terrorists like ISIS or Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi born? How would I have known the answers to questions like these?
But seeing this concern and affection in some families from Bengal to Maharashtra, especially helps me to boost my morale. However, after that, examples of people like Dr. Narendra Dabholkar, Advocate Govind Pansareji, Professor Kalburgi, Gauri Lankesh and Justice Loya losing their lives are before my eyes. And the biggest example is the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi 77 years ago. But the most important dialogue of my life is that of Gabbar Singh in the movie Sholay, "Jo darr gaya woh mar gaya".
Due to this, communal forces have succeeded in creating an atmosphere of fear among minorities in India at present. And I believe that special efforts should be made to reduce it. Just eliminating hatred or uniting India will not work in the short term. And I have been trying to speak and write about this continuously for about thirty-five years after the Bhagalpur riots.
Dr. Suresh Khairnar,
20 July 2025, Nagpur.
