Between 1998-2002, Communalism Combat was probably the only magazine in India to portend
the morbid events that took place in the western Indian state of Gujarat. At the risk of sounding alarmist we ran four cover stories and over a dozen special reports on the extent of communal mobilisation in that state; infiltration of wings of the Gujarat state by an ideology that eschewed the constitutional maxim of all men and women being equal; an infiltration that affected the enforcement of law when it came to protection of life and property and controlling hate speech consistently from 1998-2002. "Welcome to Hindu Rashtra" (CC, October 1998), "Conversions" (January 1999), "Face to Face with Fascism" (April 2000) and "Split Wide Open" (February 2001) are records of the extent to which the state of Gujarat had seceded from constitutional governance. What completed the horrifying picture was that civic space in Gujarat had become deeply polarised with schools and public spaces being subject to segregation, ghettoisation and discrimination.

The state sponsored genocide in Gujarat in 2002 – the battle against which has today been confined to a rigorous battle in the courts – reverberated through the rest of the country. Karnataka, Rajasthan, Orissa, could there be a repeat of Gujarat, was the question being asked (CC, November 2001, October 2003, March 2004, September 2006). The result of the 2004 parliamentary polls, when the NDA was so unexpectedly booted out of power, was in no small measure attributed to a rejection of the politics of state sponsored mass murder by the vast majority of the people of this country.

Today, two years into a fresh dispensation at the centre, we take no pleasure in bringing more bad news. We have, through the work of local groups and organisations, been tracing the growth and infiltration of communal forces in these areas and tracking the emergent situation in these states. The last issue of CC, "Bloody Harvest", September 2006 – covered in detail the deteriorating situation in Karnataka since the ‘secular’ Gowdas joined hands with the Bharatiya Janata Party to form the state government in February this year. Physical attacks on minorities in the state’s coastal districts have been met by utter inaction from the government against the perpetrators of these crimes.

On October 4 this year local members of the Bajrang Dal, acting as self-appointed guardians of the law and travelling in two jeeps, chased a mini lorry to Bunder, Mangalore, presuming it was carrying cattle for unlawful slaughter. The driver of the lorry managed a narrow escape but smelling blood, the aggressors attacked three innocent Muslim men returning from night prayers. While these youth managed to somehow escape alive, the local Bajrang Dal and VHP responded with their time tested tactics of coercion and threat. The bandh called by them in Mangalore on October 5 was total and the occasion was used to unleash terror against the minorities when shops and homes were attacked. The local police, instead of taking stringent action against the lawbreakers, took to mass combing and arrests of Muslim youth from all over Mangalore and Buntwal taluk. In sharp contrast, those persons from the Bajrang Dal who had attacked innocents and their property were left untouched. Predictably, the state home minister, MP Prakash, has stated that both the SIMI and the VHP would be investigated!

Similarly, in Chikmagalur district where the struggle over the Bababudangiri shrine has mobilised over 25,000 persons under the banner of the Karnataka Komu Souharda Vedike (Karnataka Communal Harmony Forum) over the past five years, the local BJP and other right wing organisations have organised themselves to capture the Sufi shrine. On October 7, 800 activists gathered there under the banner of the communal harmony forum despite curfew. Even as we go to press, CC has joined with the Karnataka Forum for Dignity and the Vedike in demanding stern action by the centre to address the deteriorating situation in Karnataka.

Further east, the state of Orissa has also been also home to bad news. On October 2, Gandhi Jayanti, a Christian, Ranjan Dangua, was allegedly forcibly tonsured by aggressive right wing elements there. Reports of 129 persons ‘converting’ to Hinduism have also been coming in. CC carries excerpts from the Indian People’s Tribunal on Environment and Human Rights headed by Justice KK Usha, former chief justice of the Kerala High Court, which is a thorough investigation into the extent to which minorities, Christian and Muslim, live in utter fear in that state. The law of the land is simply not being enforced by Naveen Patnaik’s BJD-run government in Orissa.

Far south, in Kerala the Thomas P. Joseph judicial commission report on the Marad violence in 2003 and 2002 has finally been made public. The Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) has been found guilty of fomenting and orchestrating the violence in 2003 and thereafter the BJP (along with the RSS) has been accused of politicising it. The report does not even spare the CPI (M) and other parties of exploiting the volatile situation.

If lasting lessons are to be learnt from this, strict and unbiased enforcement of the law is the first prerequisite. If time after time no action is taken against perpetrators of violent crimes and the law and order machinery’s actions are selective and biased this bodes ill for peace and democracy.