Even before we entered the 10th year of Gujarat carnage, ‘forget it and move on’ became a common expression from various quarters. People started talking about what Gujarat has achieved in the past few years. “Vibrant Gujarat” became a slogan within and outside Gujarat. Development and Gujarat became synonymous. Leading industrialist started queuing up for investment in Gujarat. Narendra Modi was projected as the man behind development. All this is so systematically done that even those who had shed tears during Gujarat carnage became vocal or silent supporters of Narendra Modi. The Time magazine from America put Narendra Modi’s pictures on its cover. The same country had denied visa to Narendra Modi nine years ago.
Denial or forgetting history is a politics of extremely dangerous nature. If such events are forgotten we will never be able to learn lessons from such horrifying events. How can you tell those people to forget who lost everything during this period. How can you tell those people who, after the carnage was over went back to villages and were allowed to stay there under strict conditions imposed by their neighbors. Ten years after Godhra and Gujarat we have to resolve that we will not allow such events anymore to happen. And also for justice to be given to victims, we have to keep our memories of Gujarat carnage afresh. |
