Gulberg society that witnessed the killing of 70 persons, including the Congress Rajya Sabha Member Ehsan Jafri in the post-Godhra 2002 pogrom, will soon be converted into a ‘Museum of Resistance’.
The museum, which will be the first of its kind in India, will be mapping the genocidal violence in 2002 in Gujarat. It will include Godhra train burning, killing of Muslims in Naroda Patiya, Sardarpura, Ode, Vadodara, Dahod and in villages of Panchmahal district. Christened as the Gulberg Museum of Resistance, the project is being undertaken by the Mumbai-based NGOs, Sabrang Trust and Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP). Social activist, Teesta Setalvad who took up the Human Rights cases pertaining to Gujarat is connected with both the NGOs.
As thousands of victims of the 2002 violence have been denied acknowledgement of the magnitude of indignity and violence they suffered, Setalvad and her colleagues feel the museum will represent the firm resistance to state’s callousness towards 2002 riot victims.
Speaking to this scribe here on February 16, Setalvad said that museum will acknowledge the horror and scale of the inter-community conflict in Independent India. She said that films, documents, art and literature on communal riots will be available in the museum to become a live centre for anti-communal movement in the country.
Giving details, she said while 18 bungalows and six flats in the society will be repaired and preserved in their present state to keep alive the memories of the 2002 riots, a community hall will be used to map the genocidal violence of 2002 in Gujarat. She informed that the instances of communal violence and victimization of Kashmiri Pandits in the Valley or the Muslims of Jammu and Kashmir, the Sikh survivors of 1984, the voice of survivors from Meerut or Bhagalpur, regardless of the community or creed, will also find space and a voice in this museum.
However, the exact amount of expenditure to be incurred on the project is yet to be ascertained. She will have to pay the owners of bungalows and flats at the prevailing market price of real estate in the locality. She has already made an appeal for contributions. The names of donors, according to her, will be displayed on the scroll of honour of the museum. “Though it is certainly a difficult task, I hope that we will be able to raise the money required for the purpose’’, she told in response to a question.
She said she did not want the houses of victims for free. “We will make the payment at the prevailing market rate so that survivors can buy a house or land as per their convenience’’, she said. The survivors had left the society ever since riots and never returned to live again there.
Setalvad claimed that all house owners had agreed to sell their houses to her trust. Late Ehsan Jafri’s son Tanvir Jafri said: “The burnt bungalows and flats are an evidence of the crime and we would like to preserve them”.
According to her, survivors of the 2002 communal violence will be assembling at the museum on February 28 every year. The day would be marked by recitation of verses from the Holy Quran.
It was in the Gulberg Society that the Parsi couple Dara and Rupa Mody lived in the society. They lost their 14-year old son Azhar in the 2002 mayhem.
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AUGUST 2008 |