The evidence for what happened within and to the train compartment that day five years ago remains very murky indeed. It has not been established that it was a deliberate and malicious act – by anyone. Is the Gujarat government even seriously interested in bringing the facts to light? Or is it convenient to have this wrapped in a confused haze so that the unethical mind-set that holds ALL Muslims – men, women and children (born and unborn) - responsible for the charred bodies at Godhra is reinforced and reiterated with impunity?

The bland reporting says of the 2002 genocide that over 2,000 citizens of the Muslim faith were killed, and well over 100,000 became `internally displaced.’ The careful and detailed analysis in well over forty reports shows the brutal and hideous violation to the integrity of people’s life and bodies by members of the Hindu right; the trauma of seeing neighbours and named familiar faces turning with intentional violence against them; the acute insecurity and lack of safety of the victims; a sense of every vestige of human decency abandoned. And yet – what is repeated in the world media is this very bland and acutely unethical linking of the burning of a train compartment with a one-liner on the subsequent `riots.’ When will they ever learn?

A Politics of Hate

The perpetrators of murders, rapes and other mass violations are still at large. The survivors of the genocide remain uncared for, unlooked after, and are abandoned both by the political processes, and by the dominant society. The politics of hate continues with the unchecked and infamous words of leading activists of the Hindu right who have taken pride in stating that the genocide in Gujarat has shown the Muslim citizenry in India what `Hindu courage’ and `Hindu pride’ is capable of. For racialised subjects living in the West to link up (however tangentially, however indirectly) with this `pride’ in a resurgent Gujarat means linking up with a politics of hate that jeopardises the lives of vulnerable groups in India.

The crucial question remains: how can justice be achieved for the survivors of the genocide? How can wounds be healed? The pervasive sense of betrayal on the part of those who have been violated shows that the process of `healing’ has not even begun. How can this process be begun? Five years hence from the genocide, it is of critical importance to raise these questions, and to think seriously about our responsibilities to the needs of the survivors, and our responsibility towards bringing about a more just and peaceable society.

This can only be done if the politics of hate is matched with a powerful social movement that is based on a politics of care. To emerge from a dark tunnel of horror, knowing that while the forces of the Hindu right have attempted to desecrate everything we hold dear, life and living can never be built upon a poisonous hate. I have called this work of healing `making reparations,’ for the crucial building block to healing is making repair.

An active Politics of Care

So what is this work of making reparations? First and foremost, the survivors’ require genuine justice. They cannot continue to live in fear of their lives with the perpetrators still remaining free and at large. Survivors require political care: the civil liberties and human rights organisations seeking legal redress for the countless stabbings, killings, burnings, rapes and other violations that took place need to be publicly supported in the international arena. A politics of care means supporting the movement for justice so that survivors are not intimidated into dropping their legal cases. It means breaking the silence on the continuing violations of survivor rights in Gujarat today. For if the processes of law continue to be subverted, the past cannot be put away, the memories and experience of the violations seep into the present and stain the future. We cannot allow named perpetrators of hate crimes to be let off the hook by the courts. Nor stand by and watch as the survivors continue to face intimidation when attempting to give evidence in court. When those who have witnessed and borne the brunt of the trauma were as young as four and five, then it is even more urgent to ensure that this work of repair is deepened and consolidated.

The survivors also require real, actual care. How is it possible that those living in refugee camps and colonies are today looked after primarily by Muslim faith organisations? Does nobody else care? What message do the survivors get from this? And how can a peaceable, viable joint life and future be built in the face of this? It is correct that the massive international relief measures instigated by the global Indian diasporic communities regarding natural disasters (Orissa flood, Kutch earthquake) has not been matched in the face of this major politically inflicted disaster of 2002. Those of us who hold on to our sense of self and gain worth not from hate, but from doing work that is centred around building peoples’ capacity and institutions that promote well-being, dignity and justice, need to pick up the cudgel for doing this work of repair with the survivors of the 2002 genocide. It can be done. It is not too late.

Humane, non-denominational organisations require to link up with the work done in Gujarat to support the survivors. We know that there are 58 relief colonies in urban areas of Gujarat and 23 in rural areas, where the survivors live in the most dismal and desolate conditions. There is no clean water, no sanitation, no schools for children. The government has abandoned its responsibility of care for the citizens who were `internally displaced’ by the genocidal violence. We need to build a powerful social movement here in the diaspora that will pour its energy into providing care for these refugees of violence. It would not be impossible to ensure that each relief colony be supported to start a school for the children living in these colonies. Indeed, it is essential that this be done. It would be a powerful marker of care for the community and the future generation, whereby political debate would be replaced by the actual meticulous work of repair being poured into traumatised victims. The funding levels required for this should be channelled through non-denominational bodies, in order to ensure that what is built up is a peace and care initiative that is not hijacked by the promotion of prejudice. It is very possible to do this. Indian society is a strange mixture of authoritarianism and social justice activism. It would be useful to link up with the latter. It is not too late.

An active politics of care as I have outlined here, would provide an exemplary and abiding practice in opposition to the politics of hate. A powerful civic, social movement can be built up that would enable us to turn disillusionment into active care, despair into hope.

Parita Mukta (Warwick University) interest’s include the erosion of the politics of hope; and the rise of Hindu authoritarianism in India and within the British Indian community. (2002).