Gujarat genocide: BBC exposes Modi’s savagery acts
THE political leader of the so-called largest Indian democracy, Narendra Modi has been factually accused by the BBC of committing savagery acts against the Muslims in Gujarat in 2002 when he was the CM of the Province.
The truth-unravelling report of the BBC holds sufficient evidence against the Indian Prime Minister.
This fact finding report is good enough to reveal Modi’s evil planning of a Muslim genocide in India.
Prior to the BBC telecast the first part of its documentary “India: The Modi Question” on its channel BBC 2 on January 17, it relayed a more than 11-minute report— on the documentary in its programme “Impact” on BBC World News—whose second part is to be released shortly.
The said BBC report has been actualized by the UK Government report regarding the Gujarat massacre.
‘’ I took a great deal of personal interest because India is an important country with whom we (the UK) have relations.
And so, we had to handle it very carefully,” recalled former Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw (2001-2006), on camera, in the documentary.
“What we did was establish an inquiry and have a team go to Gujarat and find out for themselves what had happened.
And they produced a very thorough report.” According to the UK government inquiry, the events of systematic violence have the hallmarks of ethnic cleansing.
Violence erupted after the bombing of a train killed dozens of Hindus and was blamed on Muslims.
In retaliation, Hindu mobs set fire to Muslim-owned homes and stores. More than 1,000 people – mostly Muslims — were killed, according to government figures.
According to the BBC, an inquiry was also set up by the European Union, which also carried out an investigation.
It reportedly found that “ministers took an active part in the violence and the senior police officers were instructed not to intervene in the rioting.
” It is estimated that 230 mosques and 274 dargahs were destroyed during the violence. For the first time in the history of communal riots Hindu women took part, looting Muslim shops.
It is estimated that up to 150,000 people were displaced during the violence.
Starting February 27-28- 29, 2002, a three-day retaliatory killing spree by Hindus left hundreds dead and tens of thousands homeless and dispossessed.
The looting and burning of Muslim homes, businesses, and places of worship was also widespread.
Muslim girls and women were brutally raped. Mass graves have been dug throughout the State.
Gravediggers told Human Rights Watch that bodies keep arriving, burnt and mutilated beyond recognition.
Modi was the Chief Minister of the State of Gujarat during the anti-Muslim violence in 2002. Though the Indian Chief Court later ruled there was not enough evidence to charge him with complicity in the violence, Modi’s critics continue to accuse him of tacitly supporting the riots.
“The BJP’s embrace of the Hindu majority at the expense of minorities has seeped into government institutions, undermining equal protection of the law without discrimination,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
“The government has not only failed to protect Muslims and other minorities from attacks but is providing political patronage and cover for bigotry.”
According to the Genocide Watch, ‘’India is plagued by religious and regional tension. In 2002, hundreds of Muslims and Hindus were killed in inter-religious violence in the State of Gujarat.
Many thousands more fled their homes. Dozens of worship places and houses were destroyed.
Some government officials were involved in the riots as they purposely refused to intervene and stop the killings, and even supplied weapons and planned attacks by Hindu mobs.
Because of its religious, caste and economic discrimination, India is at Stage 5 polarization’’.
The first time that genocide was codified as an independent crime under international law was in the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (hereinafter, the Genocide Convention).
According to Article I of the Convention, “The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish.
” The Genocide Convention entered into force on 12 January 1951. Arguably, the contemporary international criminal law continues to consider genocide as horrific in its scope precisely because perpetrators identify “entire human groups for extinction” and “seek to deprive humanity of the manifold richness, its nationalities, races, ethnicities and religions provide” (Krstiæ, Appeals Chamber judgment, para.36).
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) states that whether or not a country has ratified the Convention, it is legally bound by the principle that genocide is a crime prohibited under international law.
The legal meaning of genocide refers to the international treaty (1948), the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG).
The UN’s Genocide Convention was ratified by India in 1959, and thus, it becomes an obligation to abide by the same under Art. 51(c) of the Indian Constitution.
Whereas since many Hindu extremists—calling for genocidal violence —still roaming free whilst India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi maintaining a conspicuous silence, thus, India breaches its obligations to the Genocide Convention.
Article 7(1) of the ICC (Rome Statute) states, “crimes against humanity means any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack”.
Therefore, the actusreus in this offence is established in the Indian government authorizing state police forces to imprison, torture and commit other inhumane acts against civilian protestors.
Moreover, experts say anti-Muslim sentiments have heightened under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has pursued a Hindu nationalist agenda since elected to power in 2014.
Since Modi’s reelection in 2019, the government has pushed controversial policies that critics say explicitly ignore Muslims’ rights and are intended to disenfranchise millions of Muslims.
Thus, clear much enough from the above-noting that from becoming a CM to an Indian PM, nothing remained so important to Narendra Modi, than to accomplish his evil agenda of religious and ethnic hatred against the Indian Muslims—glaringly proved by a massive genocide of the Indian Muslims in Gujarat.
His blemish record of barbarism against Muslims of India must qualify him to be called a fascist leader in India, his blemish record must be rectified as his criminal record.
—The writer, an independent ‘IR’ researcher-cum-international law analyst based in Pakistan, is member of European Consortium for Political Research Standing Group on IR, Critical Peace & Conflict Studies, also a member of Washington Foreign Law Society and European Society of International Law.
He deals with the strategic and nuclear issues.
