Gujarat riots of 2002: The making of the mob

It was in 2003 a year after the mass violence in Gujarat which left 1044 people dead a majority of whom were Muslims that Delhibased Revati Laul arrived in the state as correspondent for a mainstream television news channel Wounds from the previous year still fresh Laul remembers the tension that hung in the airYet the sweeping sentiment was anything but that of regret Everywhere I went people would tell me behen you will not understand why we supported the bawal riot she recalls I started to ask myself what was it that made so many people support this mob This she says wouldnt have been possible without understanding the personal motivations of the perpetrators of these crimes If we really want to change this politics of hate we cant keep focusing on the victims because in doing so wed only end up polarising this space further she says in a telephonic interviewRevati LaulHer new book The Anatomy of Hate Context Westland Publications is an attempt to revisit the concomitant riots that followed the burning of the 59 karsevaks on a train in Godhra but through the lens of three men Suresh Langdo Jadeja Pranav name changed and Dungar who brazenly extended support to the violence that tore through Gujarat But it doesnt end or begin hereLaul now an independent journalist who has been covering politics for over 20 years gives us the backstories to the events and experiences that shaped their violent streak and the aftermath of it The fulcrum of her narrative she says was Pranav whom she came across somewhere in 2005 I ran into Pranav at a workshop that I was covering where historian Ram Puniyani was discussing polarisation and violence I remember turning my camera to the first person sitting in front of me and asked him What do you think about all of this And he said My way of thinking has changed entirely I wasnt expecting thatThis man happened to be Pranav a student of Social Sciences when the riots broke out Initially scared about the goingson he became party to the violence with fellow hostel mates ransacking and looting shops It wasnt like we wanted them Muslims to die or anything like that We were just caught up in the swing of things and felt we werent responsible for their fate he later told Laul in an interview for which she pursued him for nearly 10 years before he agreed to be part of her book Pranav was interesting because he underwent a metamorphosis In his story we see that after cheering on the destruction of Muslims he later gets a job at an NGO that is rehabilitating them That for me is the pivot of the book Because its important to know what happened to the perpetrators after the riotsThe same cannot however be said of Suresh whose story is unarguably the most gutwrenching He was part of the mob that spearheaded the massacre at Naroda Patiya in Ahmedabad Of the many horrifying incidents involving him Laul writes of how a Muslim man was told of his heavilypregnant wife being circled by Suresh and his gang They ripped out the foetus within her and killed it before murdering her His story was the only one relayed to Laul through those known around him his Muslim wife Farzana Bano in particular whom he married only to seek revenge from the community against whom his hate had been piling up Suresh is a character for which there is no redemption in the book But this wasnt a story of redemption anyway It was a quest to understand where the mob comes from and repopulate these areas and try and find out why they have fallen off the map says LaulSuresh for instance belonged to the tribe of the Charras They owed their notoriety to a law put in place in 1871 by the British The colonisers were terrified of nomadic tribes like the Chharas and their constant movement especially after the Great Revolt of 1857 So they labelled them criminal tribes Laul writes in the book It was only five years after Independence that the law was denotifiedBut even after they became free the social and economic stigma against them continued Laul says now If we dont want another Suresh to happen we have to change how we look at the Chharas or others like them says the author For me this book was not to show the heinousness of their crimes It wasnt meant to be a voyeuristic exercise I just wanted to know where extreme violence comes from It comes from us it comes from us absenting people and pushing them to the point till they lead the kind of life that we cannot imagine ourselves livingCatch up on all the latest Mumbai news crime news current affairs and also a complete guide on Mumbai from food to things to do and events across the city here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updates