New Delhi, Nov 10: Sonia Gandhi on Gujarat riots recalled the horrors of the 2002 violence in her newly released memoir. She said she was “haunted by misery” after meeting survivors and accused the then Narendra Modi-led state administration of failing to respond.
In her memoir, Belonging: A Journey of Love, released on Tuesday, the former Congress president described her visit to Ahmedabad. She travelled there as part of an all-party parliamentary delegation and visited relief camps housing survivors. She also witnessed the suffering of families affected by the violence.
“When I was leader of the opposition in Parliament, I met the victims of many tragedies, and each time I was haunted by the misery I had witnessed. In 2002 the state of Gujarat was ravaged by communal riots; much of the carnage was televised live with the advent of cable TV and shook the country with its fearsome images. The riots were triggered when four coaches of the Sabarmati Express were set on fire and fifty-nine pilgrims died. The train was returning to the state capital Ahmedabad from Ayodhya carrying Hindu kar sevaks-volunteers for the Ram temple,” she wrote in her book.
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Sonia Gandhi recalls meeting Gujarat riot survivors
Gandhi also remembered watching television reports of the violence with disbelief and horror. She tried to contact Congress colleagues in Gujarat who were desperately seeking assistance.
“The cause of the fire remains disputed, but the turmoil that followed spread to many parts of the state, and the victims were overwhelmingly Muslims. We watched the live reports in horror, and tried to get help to our colleagues in Gujarat who were calling us in desperation, but the administration failed to respond,” she added.
“The riots were said to have been fuelled by a fanatical fringe of the BJP and RSS, the Bajrang Dal. The chief minister of the state at the time was Narendra Modi,” Gandhi wrote in her memoir.
She also recounted meeting survivors at relief camps across Gujarat.
“After the meeting, we were herded into a bus ‘for security reasons’, then taken to some of the relief camps housing the survivors of the massacre. It was in one of the camps crowded by traumatised men, women, and children squatting in a makeshift hall that the most wrenching moment came for me,” she said.
Memoir recounts survivor’s emotional plea
Gandhi described seeing a physically weakened child inside one of the camps. The child had a gaunt face and a dazed expression.
Her father held her up before the visiting politicians. He urged them to look at what had happened to his daughter.
“Here, this is my child-take a look at her, take a good look. The rakshasas (demons) raped her again and again,” he told the delegation, according to Gandhi’s account.
The man then broke down. He asked the visitors what he could do for his daughter and pleaded for their intervention.
According to the memoir, he repeatedly said: “Main kya karun, kya karun? Kuch karo, kuch karo.”
“We were shattered. I stood in a state of stupor, gripped by horror and unable to speak or react beyond a few mumbled words of sympathy,” she wrote.
Sonia Gandhi recalls Vajpayee and international reaction
The Congress leader also recalled the political response to the riots. She said people widely expected then-Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to dismiss Chief Minister Modi. However, she added that pressure from within his party reportedly stopped him.
“There was an international outcry, and the governments of the US, UK, and some European countries declared in 2005 that they would not grant the Gujarat chief minister a visa. Twelve years later, they would all felicitate him when he became prime minister of India,” Gandhi wrote.
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–IANS
