Fact: Out of the state’s 18,600 villages, 240 municipal towns, and 25 district headquarters, less than 90 places saw riots. If one includes the two big cities of Ahmedabad and Vadodara, by the wildest stretch of imagination, only 2 % of the state can be assumed to have been burning. Only 40 or maximum 50 out of the state’s 18,600 villages saw riots. Had the state government been involved in the riots, or wanted to encourage the riots, it would have created riots in 10,000 out of Gujarat’s 18,600 villages. In the past curfew has been placed in 300 villages at the same time time. As compared to that, absolutely nothing happened in 2002.
That the whole of Gujarat was burning is an incorrect depiction of the riots by a section of the media. The riots did not spread to Saurashtra and Kutch, both of which are border areas. Saurashtra (52) and Kutch (6) accounted for as many as 58 out of the Gujarat assembly’s 182 seats at that time. That is, they are nearly one-third of Gujarat. This shows that the State Government had absolutely no hand in instigating the riots and it by no means wanted to encourage the riots. If the State Government wanted to instigate riots, it could have easily done so in Saurashtra and Kutch. It was reported that a section of the Patels were unhappy with Keshubhai Patel’s replacement as Chief Minister, and that Narendra Modi was a bit unpopular in them. Since Saurashtra was the home turf of Keshubhai Patel, instigating riots there would have polarized the Hindus there and helped the BJP in general and Narendra Modi in particular. But this region was peaceful. Hindus did not retaliate in one-third of the state even for the first three days.
Northern and southern Gujarat were peaceful after 2nd March 2002 and only some places in central Gujarat saw riots. Basically, after 2nd March 2002, riots were limited only to Ahmedabad, Vadodara, and a few places in Panchmahal district near Godhra-by and large. All TV channels and almost the entire print media admitted at some point or the other that Saurashtra and Kutch remained peaceful throughout the two-and-a-half months of rioting and saw no riots. But this admission was more pronounced not during the time of riots in Gujarat, but many months later, during the coverage of the Gujarat Assembly elections of December 2002.
Around 6 December 2002, Narendra Modi was invited on Star News/ NDTV’s programme Hotline. In that programme, the anchor Pankaj Pachouri asked Narendra Modi this question. He said, “Your party always gains because of the riots. But no riots took place in Saurashtra and Kutch, so you are all set to lose there. How will you respond to this?” To that Narendra Modi replied:
“When 2% of Gujarat was burning, you were saying that the whole of Gujarat is burning. Now you are saying that no riots took place in Saurashtra and Kutch. So, first you apologize for lying that the entire state was burning when only 2% of the state was burning.”
In the entire State of Gujarat, there are 18,600 villages, 240 municipal towns and 25 district headquarters. The riots occurred in no more than 90 places. If one includes the two big cities of Ahmedabad and Vadodara, by the maximum stretch of imagination, it can be said that 2 per cent of the state was affected by riots, or was in flames.
In this regard, some people quote a report of R Sreekumar, a police officer, of August 2002 and claim that 154 Assembly seats, with 151 towns and 993 villages were affected by riots. This does not mean that all these places saw riots. On page 153 of SIT closure report, Ashok Narayan, ACS (Home) is quoted as saying that Sreekumar arrived at this figure by including all places where food grains and other items of relief had been provided in relief camps or other places by the government. Ashok Narayan is quoted as saying that the actual places seeing violence were lesser. Naturally, there is a vast difference in the places where the foodgrain was provided and places which actually saw violence. Besides, there are many issues with Sreekumar, who is a known anti-Narendra Modi man, and his claims have been deemed ‘unreliable’ and ‘motivated’ by the SIT owing to various issues.
Anti-Sangh Parivar and Leftist magazine, fortnightly Frontline also reported after the December 2002 Gujarat polls: “The Bharatiya Janata Party made its greatest gains in the riot-affected areas — it captured 50 of the 65 riot-affected constituencies…In places untouched by riots, the BJP lost ground. In Kutch, it got only two out of the six seats, compared with the four seats that it had won in the previous election…In Saurashtra, where the water crisis is acute, the BJP slipped from its 48-seat tally in 1998 to just 37 seats this time.”
URL: https://frontline.thehindu.com/cover-story/article30214974.ece
If Frontline itself claimed 65 riot-affected seats out of 182 (this includes places like Ahmedabad district and Vadodara district which had 19 and 13 Assembly seats at that time, and also 2 other cities of Rajkot and Surat), then it shows that it is absolutely impossible for riots to have occurred in 993 villages and the correct number of places of violence must indeed be close to 90, since Ahmedabad and Vadodara districts themselves account for 32 Assembly seats. And Frontline also admitted that Saurashtra and Kutch were untouched by riots.
On the 1st day of the riots, 26 places needed to be placed under curfew as reported by dailies the next day. On the 2nd day, 34 places needed to be under curfew as reported the next day by dailies (these included the 26 already under curfew). And on the 3rd day 40 places were under curfew. The Hindu reported on 4 March 2002: “Curfew has been lifted in most areas of the 40 towns and cities where clashes were reported (till 3 March 2002)”. This shows that only 40 towns and cities saw violence in the first 3 days.
Since the riots after the first 3 days were mainly limited to Ahmedabad, Vadodara and some other places, even assuming that 10 more places than those in the first 3 days, saw violence after the first 3 days, the number of total places seeing violence becomes 40 + 50 = 90. We can clearly see that it is absolutely impossible for riots to have occurred in 993 villages, and that the figures of maximum 50 villages and maximum 90 places seeing riots are absolutely true.
To read the full chapter, read the book “Gujarat Riots: The True Story”.
https://www.amazon.in/Gujarat-Riots-True-Story-Truth/dp/1482841649/
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