 You start right from the beginning why the book? I think that question is best put to left word so Dan was yeah Vijay is not here, but it was left word that actually persuaded me to write it Journalist I'm with I also am journalist first activist later not too used to talking about myself and writing about myself It was very difficult. They actually wrote to me soon after the CBI raids in July 2015 But I only started working on it in April 2016 They felt it was important that the story be told this way So if we go back to the beginning of the story I think a lot of people are aware of the background But I would still leave you right through the beginning you became a journalist to come from a family with a distinguished legal heritage Why a journalist? Try it as it sounds it was standard seven and all the presidents men and this little paperback that my father brought me from strand bookstore and I just finished it in three nights and Some are always at this feeling that of the two sister the two sisters of the two sisters I would be the one who does law not her and I just then remember having long discussions with my dad and saying sorry It's not going to be law anymore. I'm going to do journalism And I was lucky. I always had a father Encouraged discussion debate arguments and he didn't once tell me You know come back to the family patient because we're much easier doing law One would have been a mainstream lawyer where the one was good or bad But yeah, it was journalism from the beginning after that Considering the amount of time you've spent in law courts. Do you regret that choice? Well my lawyers also gonna be here I think up by NASA to come But I don't think so because some training was there I did two years and then I dropped out without taking my son I've been lucky enough to have the best in the field But you know ironically the lawyers who stood by us for 15 years. I'm not the family names I've said this in my book The lawyers who stood by for the long haul have been lawyers for first generation Who've made it on their own and who are committed to the ideals of the law They are not the big names in laws So I think that's a very important lesson for me that those whether it's me at this I whether it's a partner, but whether it's coming in just one I mean Prashant is an exception But otherwise it's people who actually build you know They've really been the first people to get into law in there in their families So they would tell you I think that the drafts I prepare I write I do the drafting and then they do the sobering down because for me For me, it's important that everything is put on record for them. It's important to negotiate a very conservative system So the balance is then struck So you start as a journalist in the mid 80s 84 early 80s and very early on in your career you run into communal violence Would you just tell us? You know, I said that that you know 84 what happened in Delhi Of course is a national shame and memory as it should be but but for us in Western India Maharashtra Bombay and Devandi born very very badly in 84 me of 84 and that was my first occasion to cover communal violence for the daily and Javed covered it for be one Javed covered B1 B and that that it was a The difference between 84 and 92 90 she was very stuck because in 92 93 class was breached so you didn't have the In Bombay post-babri, you didn't have the east-west divide in 84 Everything was happening east of the railway track. So Western part of Bombay Almost didn't know what was happening. So for many of us It was a task to tell that part of Bombay how the rest of Bombay was burning and it was the shifts in that turning to Hindutva It was all the symptoms that we see in the in communal violence were there and that was really open my eyes to how communal violence should be covered. What are the do's and don'ts for a reporter? And because later you make this point and it's an important point that journalism after Reporting on incidents as they happen often doesn't display long-term interest in following up. What is happening? In your experience between 84 and 92 93 Did you return to the story or there were other stories you started doing this? It is a realization that came later That's what I know. I think the realization grew. It didn't happen. It was not immediate It was certainly hit me by the hit us both by 93 But I remember 84 85 86 was such a crucial period for many of us in India. We were seeing on the streets The outbreak of majority in Communism, you know, Advani's rat Yatra Rides before and after where the rat Yatra went and Shah Bano You know, it was literally that majority minority Communism playing into each other I remember attending so many public meetings and Muhammad Ali Road women the area where? Very very volatile things were being said about the Shah Bano judgment and there were problems in the language of that judgment as Chandrature himself Admitted later that I should not have commented on the Quran. I should not have talked about everything But you know the nature was that you know maintenance for a Muslim woman and then you suddenly asked for a special law and The same government that opened the talas of abri masjid conceded and give that divorce protection act So I once took your feeding majority and minority Communism and That was again a throwback to partition and what happened pre partition where the Muslim League story We know but the RSS and Hindu maha sabha story is not told by us often enough because we've not internalized So we seem to be repeating some of these Huge historical errors with greater and greater intensity Now I guess there was a pattern already to this the 84 campaign itself by the Congress was a campaign one on Majoritarian Communism it was just a different minority that was the target of that campaign And I think that's a lesson maybe every other political party in the country picked up including the she'll say no Which it already perfected it in different ways So when in 90 to 93 you are still a reporter and you compare 84 90 to 93 What hit you what were the changes in your own outlook towards these situations, you know by between 83 and 98 93 had done daily in Indian Express and then business India And you found suddenly that the media is not linking up these trends that we are talking about today For instance the the way important point you made I've said this in the book as well that 84 this city born Delhi after 31st of December when you had Indra and his assassination and first to third We saw the anti sick program brutal program and the PUC a little book guys You know we all have that book who are the guilty and the Congress persons named in that book You know who never of course got their just desserts legally But the election that was held in December and I remember the campaign It was a very very histrionic nationalistic campaign But what struck me was that the guys named in that report all three or four of them were given tickets by Rajiv Gandhi's Campaign and the city of Delhi voted them in it's not just the political party giving it But all of us who give votes in the name of that majority Terrorism and like you said the sick minority was the target So that happened in Delhi then in Bombay 93 Madhukar Sarpodar in my constituency where I live Juhu He's swept and he was responsible where I'm part of here Vadi for the violence. He's given a ticket. He wins So Modi winning in 2002 2017 is just a logical extension of that same politics and if we go back Much of this was already playing out in Gujarat from the caste change from the caste to communal violence at that point If I'm not mistaken Modi was actually involved at that time in some of the politics. Yeah, he was I mean, I'm not really documented it very minutely. So I wouldn't like to comment but There's one I anecdote about his emergency era politics when he was hiding from the authorities But but he was involved in then and it was very easy in Gujarat to convert Anticast thing to an anti-communal thing and it happened twice or twice over In 92 93 is the one rare example. I wanted to just ask because that's only That's not there in the book, but it is the one example where a Judge actually managed to sit and prepare a report that we can pay attention. Did you cover that aspect as a reporter? Why was that different? Was it the personality of a person? What made it so unique in our You know her torch actually after 93 one of the things I did was to look at all the Commission reports of the Post-partition communal violence and justice Shri Krishna was a rare example, but not the only example You had the Jagmohan Reddy Commission report of 69 you have the Vidyatti Commission report of Delhi Cherry You have the Ranchi Commission Run Ranchi violence report and in fact judicial Commission reports of sitting judges and retired judges have been exemplary Right up to Vada. It was a Vada commission on that stains massacre that completely went awry because of the regime and power But the problem is that the judicial Commission reports pinned responsibility But the justice process did the opposite the justice process did not punish the So I now started looking at the whole question of why don't why do we have an absence of institutional memory in this country? Surely if your judicial Commission reports are telling you that a certain kind of right-wing propaganda Is perpetuating hate speech before the first stone is cast and the police is behaving in a partisan fashion She Krishna said it but also Vidyatti said it also the right to come and she said 1969 I'm the part said it the Jagmohan Reddy Commission, but the courts have not in Internalized this in terms of delivering of justice So I don't know this it is this dichotomy that we need to address and Somewhere during this period you make the switch from being a reporter to focusing Exclusively on what is after all the most important problem this country faces communalism. How did that happen? Yeah, it was one of those choices I mean I was the Bombay union of journalists you talk about we were talking about the working journalist act So we were trying to tell journalists not to sign the contract and be working journalists be with the Federation of Working Journalists I was we formed the women and media committee with senior women journalists to look at portrait So feminism labor all of these were priorities and suddenly after the same period 86 onwards one felt that communalism is what one should be concentrating on and deepening one's understanding of So that came out of this 86 to 92 93 period of experiencing what India was But towards a Early 2001 is suddenly getting the feeling that just doing communalism is not going to work You have to look at neoliberalism. You have to look at the effect of the neoliberal politics and how it is fragmenting resistance So there's been a lot of rethinking on that as well Then there are the series of reports in the early 2000s leading up to 2002 where over and over again you write in caution That's something major is in the offering. This state is headed toward disaster Yeah, that that is for anybody who thinks that one obsession is one individual one should read those issues of combat because right from 1991 I've been tracking Gujarat People say why maybe because my family came from there. I don't know what it is But I've been looking at Gujarat very carefully 1991 I did it for business India then for combat five cover stories on the developments in Gujarat and a feeling that state and Societal organizations whether it's about council whether it's the teachers organization are all being completely taken over Taken over by proto fascist forces that don't believe in the Constitution So the feeling that something you had selective censuses of Christians the selective censuses of Muslims taking place You are the Gujarat police saying that inter-community marriages of anybody even if they are back 18 will be criminally investigated Every step was anti-constitutional. I remember coming to Mr. Fahle Nareema and I remember coming to Justice Varma I know you've written with documents saying please let's file a preemptive thing about what's happening in Gujarat Actually talk to Fahle Narema and you go to the NHRC Do you feel that? Things could have turned a little differently at that point of time You know our courts only respond after disasters happen or talks about the media and I just felt if something preemptive or possible Yeah, but everybody said document it. We can't do anything now document it. We can't we kept documenting it But then 2000 to happen Can you just sort of describe some of that documentation because I think a lot of people tend to think of 2002 as the strain singularity the whole history of Communalism and he has just leading up to that You know, I remember the circulars coming out the circulars being brought out by the Amdabad collector it but I would have corrected stay at home department selective sense Sensuses of Christians in Gujarat selective censuses of Muslims in Gujarat. Now, this is Nothing short of building up data to enable targeting tomorrow You know, I mean put it very crudely and to put it more in a slightly dissing way it is anti-constitutional because your your data cannot be targeting one section and We would like to know that in 2002 some of these lists were used etc. So that was some kind of documentation Apart from that you had incredible amount of hate speech being generated through pamphlets over a period of time Those were not as far back as 2001 Sorry as 1998 on was not as far back as you had hate speech being circulated in their lakhs and thousands Where the singular thing was How Muslim women should be treated and times of conflict, which is rape Some of them had official VHP stamps with addresses on them which enables prosecution under the law But no steps were taken. I remember in 1998 August September PUCL of Gujarat My good friends Rohit Prajapati and Thutti Shah, Thutti unfortunately is no more with us They did this wonderful report on You know for for almost three weeks Muslims of Randhikpur and Sanjayi It's the same village where Bilki is one who was then gang raped in 2000 punch matters For three weeks Muslims had to stay out of their villages out of certain villages because the VHP had decided to take over the motor businesses in The area and it was a full-fledged documentary report of PUCL with communism combat showcased on the cover Babu Bajangi was by them running his Patel racket Which is kidnapping every Patel girl who decided to marry a non-patel And the same Babu Bajangi then becomes accused of Naroda Patia So all this is there, you know, and Babu Bajangi's and these Patel girls are 21 year old 22 year old college going professionals They choose to marry either a non-patel Hindu or a Muslim or a Christian And he kidnaps them back coerces them coerces the family. We file petitions on this in the Bombay High Court Along with their husbands, no judicial remedy. So, you know, somehow our system needs to address This fact is when anti-constitutionalism at the core of certain activities Why is our system's institution not able to arrest it? And you were in Bombay when you got the call about Godra And did you immediately head off to Gujarat? No, I went for these later I still remember it was Wednesday and it was crazy because Only thing I tried, my mobile number was the same but Mobile was very expensive those days. I kept thinking 22 rupees a minute or something And the calls would just not stop coming from for 9, 30, 10 onwards And I only got those calls because I had covered Gujarat before Because I covered Gujarat for almost 10, 15 years And from every district every year then 80, 85% were Muslims but 25% Hindus were calling out Because everybody was terrified about the kind of build-up And later on, thanks to the gentleman in the third row, Mr. R.P. Shikumar Former DGP of Gujarat who is with us and I'd like to acknowledge him here One of the greatest professors I know Thanks to academic in the Ananavati commission Everything we were seeing from the outside Was being corroborated by S.I.P reports So it's not as if only human rights activists and journalists were saying it The State Intelligence Bureau of Gujarat is warning the Home Department Home Minister is Modi warning them that this kind of build-up is happening please act But nobody's acting What was the nature of these calls? Could you just maybe describe what the tone the urgency is some of? Oh, it's very chilling, you know They were, you know, in cities it was like 10,000 mobs that that was from 28th onwards on 27th the calls we are getting is In every village the VHP is garnering artists and Shakas are meeting meetings are taking place And the call is being given to attack So they're saying we are going to be attacked and we are being told that the Muslims of Gujarat will have to pay for Ghotra Gulba got that call, Sadagura got that call, in Matnagar I got calls from there I still remember a journalist colleague The next day 28th when Andhra Bhat was attacked Alamduar Bukhari Senior journalist from Gujarat today He's living in this building where the Gujarat today presses and his entire family lives with him And 20,000 mobs is attacking and making desperate calls from Bombay Finally because I just yelled at one SP whom I know I can't name him now I was in another district, he managed to get to one officer to the fourth They were desperate calls, calls which was communicating a sense of fear from 27th onwards You were also talking to officials at the same time? All of them and they became names The faces later PC Pandey Gondya Tandon, all these names later on in the Zakhia Jafri case became people who we now call accused numbers or whatever But Jabalia, all these names are the people we were talking to A.K. Sharma who's now in the CBI, Modi's brought him here It was SP Masana All these people we were talking to and saying please why are these calls coming to us? And you know the other thing, why were the calls coming outside Gujarat to Bombay? Meaning Paroda, Rohit and Trupti were like a mini controlled room But in Andhra Bhat even civil society activists were terrified They could not step out and act So it needed an outside intervention And what was the official response to your calls? Well, they had to take the calls They would this thing, but for me that what typifies those days is when on the 2nd of March Nirmala didi, she's no more, Nirmala Subramaniam had given me the numbers of the army officials The precedents Delhi, Argin Narayans, all the secretaries and all that So I kept calling this particular number from the army that was given to him I didn't have a name to that number And I kept on saying Mejha Sahib, Mejha Sahib, Ye Hora, Ye Hora, Ye Hora And the 5th time I called him he said why are you giving me a certain direction In which to go and why is the police telling me the opposite He yelled back So I didn't know what to say So I said, Sir, which of the directions are proving to be correct? So there was a 10 second silence and he said yours are So then I said why are you shouting at me? This if I remember from the book is Amiruddin Nasiruddin's brother in charge of the army there Which is just a question and aside In each of these operations this was true in 84-2002 The army is required to file status reports of operations These probably sit somewhere in the official records of the Indian government I thought you should not be asking this question Operation Aman was the report that Amiruddin Shah filed I filed an application to the defense ministry to get it My application is still pending with the chief election CICT information commissioner Delhi Mr. Ramesh Bukhraman, who is here, my man and my lawyer He went down to Trivandrum to defend that RTI application He was they admitted in front of him that such an operation report is lying with the defense ministry But they cited national security reasons for not giving it up Operation Aman if any journalist can get it And you traveled because that report according to me Documents explosively and exposes the lie that the regime has perpetuated That the army was brought in on time There were some taxes sent to Delhi But all the records again the local record show us SIV police control that Army was allowed to operate only after 2nd or 3rd March Before that it was just patrolling and not allowed to intervene So all the damage had virtually been done by then 1926 lives lost Post Gujarat Four days later you traveled to Gujarat And what do you see? What do you find? I first went straight to the Shah Al-Imran And I spent about six, seven hours there Then I went to all the other camps In and about It was awful It was a horrifying sight Because we saw the camps in Bombay also In 1993 And one of the things that really struck me was That these are like refugees in their own land Never before have I felt that the state Is not allowing refugee camps to be set up Or to exist with dignity There was a sense of desperation and fear And even the Chief Secretary Subhara Whose number was given to me by Neymar Aditi We kept telling him he was abroad at the time He kept telling him that why are relief And supplies not being given to the relief camps Why is water not being supplied Why is dignity not being given to the internally displaced And that was true in all the relief camps I think Gujarat 2002 is probably I don't know enough about Delhi Probably the only time when The community leadership was the only one that set up camps The state did not set up any And the state did everything not to give Money or help to the internally displaced refugees And the first petition defiled CJP, certain sort of lesson piece Was to get the state to pay For whatever the milk, the water, the tea, the masala That was being given to the deputy And we had to get Aspeach annoying Senior lawyer from Bombay to go and fight that Case in Dandaman, April 2002 When you entered the court in April 2002 Full of Bajrangdali's, suffering class Very scary atmosphere And I remember the day before the case Aspees said, I can't go I'm busy I'm sure you're exaggerating I'm sure you can find a lawyer From the Gujarat High Court I just said Aspee, I trust you Find me a lawyer And you brief him Don't go tomorrow Because he had a matter in Bombay He called me back in two hours and said I'm sorry, I could not find anybody I'm going and I'm not charging CJP for the ticket Because I think nobody could really understand How grave the situation is Then he had to stand for five hours To convince Justice Majumdar To simply release that Miniscule amount of money for the relief comes And during the speed you were Largely travelling alone Through the violence Yeah, I got the security after 2004 At what point did you From documenting it to putting Decide that a legal recourse You have to intervene yourself In the legal process I think the first fortnight Of 20 days because I think the first thing that kept striking Me when I would call back home Or my colleagues was that If Bombay was bad in 1992-93 Gujarat is 1000 times worse You know And one had done everything in Bombay One had written One had documented One had participated In the Shri Krishna commission inquiry One had testified Like you said A very good report had come out Sabrang had even published that report For 60 rupees and 90 rupees So it could be read by everybody And obviously that advocacy Was just not enough Because the perpetrators were not punished So I said maybe we need Take this to the next level You know let's just try and see If we can file the cases And whether Justice can ever be done I mean look at the sick Anti-sick violence How many perpetrators have been punished How many So that was when the journey began CJP was formed in April 2002 The first case was the relief time case And I believe that's the reason For much of the reprisals Because I think the government Doesn't really care when you have seminars Or write papers Or articles However good they need But if you kind of take them up in the court And maybe some of your things are proved right And 172 perpetrators are punished So would you just lead us through the Zahira case I know a lot has been written But I think we need reminding Of what all has happened right from the beginning Including how the government intervened To change the best bakery case You know best bakery case Sort of got the spotlight in July 2003 Which is almost a year And three or four months after the genocidal garbage Before that CJP had filed the case I mentioned the relief camps We had come to the Supreme Court Asking for transfer of investigation In the eight other cases including Koolberg Siddharth Pura and all that So it was not the first thing that CJP took up Okay But between I think July 2002 And July 2003 There were acquittals Faster acquittals Best bakery Pandir Varda Kediyat Big big massacres In Kediyat two tempos with 61 Muslims Had been burned alive Pandir Varda 24 Muslims massacre So suddenly you saw a spate of acquittals And the last such was in June 2003 Which was the best bakery Now Ben Justice Varma, the NHRC team Had visited Gujarat You know you go around He had insisted that I go with him To get some of the testimony So you give your card So Zaira Sheikh Soon after she You know what happened in the acquittals was that The entire Habibullah Sheikh family Turned hostile in Barola They did not defend their case and they The trial was over in a A week She then went to her village in UP Bust the area I think was her name When she comes back She gives me a call and she says that You know I feel very guilty about what I have done And I want to tell you why I did it I want to tell the world why I didn't She was only 18, 17 and a half year old Or like that So we consigned lawyers We asked her to write Her mother writes to us She writes a sense of facts to CJP And then she comes to Bombay When we had that very historic press conference On 7th of July Where she actually narrates in front of the media And the media was very different then Very, very different media So she narrates the entire story About how she was pressurized by Madhu Sivastav A BJP MLA To actually take back her testimony I remember Abhishek Kapoor Being the next best correspondent From Baroda He had written the story about how At the time, contemporaneously How she was kept under Madhu Sivastav Kabja Why her testimony was on You know, so all this material helped After the press conference We bring her to NHRC By then Justice Anand is the chair And she testifies And gives her testimony And then NHRC decides to File a case for transfer CJP files case along with her After NHRC files Both the cases are clubbed together And then like the rest is history Initially, the Supreme Court sends us back to the High Court Okay, the High Court gives that notorious judgment Of Justice BJ Settna Which not only upholds the quittles But cause Mehid Desai and me anti-national Simply for recording Zaira Sheikh's affidavit We come in appeal to that The Supreme Court And then we get that historic judgment On 12th of April, 2004 Which is I think for me the first judicial acknowledgement Of the horrors of communal violence by the Supreme Court ever Because it actually talks about What communal violence does to society Talks about witness protection It talks about all of that And then the trial starts in Bombay And then she turns hostile for a second time I just want to connect this hostility to a larger issue Because when you enter Gujarat You enter court You face hostility That is personal hostility By the VHP Carter, the Bajrangal Carter But at some point this hostility becomes institutionalized The state of Gujarat itself is doing this And this is seen in turning of witnesses A personal campaign against you How does that happen? Where does it start and how What is the extent over the years as it grows You know, I think it's because we stayed on If we had for instance done the best way to the case And then dropped the other cases Then I think it wouldn't have been that Because I remember till 2003-2004 I was going to the collector's office I was going to the chief secretary's office As a petitioner in the compensation case We were comparing notes What does the collector's report say About how much compensation has been given You know, the usual thing that governments do with NGOs You know, that we can talk But at the moment the best bakery transfer happened I think that was a huge, huge For them a huge question of the whole Because it was a scathing comment on I mean, I don't know if you remember but Chief Justice Khare summoned BGP Chakravarti And Chief Secretary Lairi to the Supreme Court And asked them how come a witness turned hostile on your watch Now that's not really happened before That the Supreme Court is so proactive So I think the best bakery case Was one of those benchmark cases That after that transfer happened out of Gujarat The real hostility began That was the first false FIR against me Which Zahira was made You know, after statements One BHP man filed the FIR about tutoring of businesses That's it First time I had to seek anti-spatry bail Now I have to seek it nine times And because you just alluded to it Could you just sort of describe in detail How the government intervenes Takes Zahira to a protected place And there's a week in which She's actually in their custody Completely And it's this Amit Shah Who by then is Home Minister Who is today kind of ruling over the country In this Gunda style There's this Silver Oak Guest House And this is part of the court record In the Zahira Shake case In the trial So November 2003 When the trial starts again Her testimony is supposed to take place On 4th of November On 3rd of November She's whisked away to Baroda Given command of protection And she gives that statement That Tista kidnapped me And under Urus I made those remarks That's it And then that whole campaign begins By 10th of November I approached Supreme Court And request a kind of Impartial inquiry into Who's telling the truth business In that period Between November And I think her testimony In the Zahira Shake In the trial takes place in March, April next year There's a whole 10 day period When she's in Galdinagar Between the Gujarat High Court and beyond There's this Silver Oak Guest House And this information I got from Reliable police sources Like a journalist Where she is kept She and her brother Nafitullah Who's thereafter dies Under suspicious circumstances They're kept there And for 10 days Entire staff of that guest house is dismissed Only person with access to her And her brother Amit Shah and his kothiri There's no staff allowed also In case somebody leaks the story or whatever This is all part of the record In the Zahira Shake trial When she was examined for one hour By Manjula Rao as prosecuted So what happened then What was the deal that was struck Was she intermediated further Because there is no sign of Zahira Shake yet We don't know after She served one year sentence After the 2006 verdict of the Supreme Court Who convicted her for perjury Something in her made her go to the court And actually serve her sentence So she has paid for it But the person who turned her hostile Madhu Shivasta has not paid For even a day's jail in his life So this is the kind of imbalance in the system And these are the little bits of the Story that have not been investigated for long Because we tried to persuade the court When they passed the perjury judgment against her That the 18 lakh rupees that were deposited Even the person giving it should be investigated But unfortunately that is not part of the judicial law So the strange thing is that through this As you said the media Also from 2004 to 2014 We actually have a Congress government in power in the center Yet there seems to be almost a determined lack of effort Or rather almost an attempt to subvert the process You know one has to give a nuanced answer Because in the last two and a half years One sees the difference between what a Modi government is And a Congress government is So one can't be naive about saying There's no difference at all There's a big difference But our problem was that in the cases That were pending in the Supreme Court Where a simple affidavit had to be filed By the Home Department That yes the demand of the petitioners For a CBI inquiry Central government has no objection to it And this petition has been filed by CJP in 2002 Okay UPA 1 comes to power in 2004 But SIT is appointed in 2008 Now every other month I'll look my lawyers are here They'll tell you how painfully we would mention this Every time in the Supreme Court At one point in the court There was a situation by one court officer of the government Saying yes it can be given to CBI And another one saying no CBI has too much work So you know the point is that Because you didn't have a clear unequivocal stand By the UPA 1 government You actually allowed so much time to lapse And movement time lapses Judicial memory also becomes cynical And even the judiciary wants to sort of push it away Till 2007 If you look at America's Q-Day Mr. Hari Saleh's report To the Supreme Court It is scathing He says that every single one of Mr. Shikumar's affidavits Should be part of the evidence He says the phone call records of Mr. Rahul Shadma The CD should be examined by the court But suddenly after that there's fatigue There's compromise There's whatever And the 2008 SIT Is a much more lackluster option Than a rigorous investigation That would have occurred maybe in 2004 Or five or six when everything was still fresh Evidence was available etc So you see this drop of an interest But it's a little more than that You mentioned Hari Saleh His enthusiasm again Does not seem to have continued In the same measure later I don't want to get into individual But there's a clear difference over a period of time Yeah I mean the whole thing sort of peters off So then it becomes that only CGP And our brave band of lawyers And we are carrying on Despite that And then you become even greater at that And you know somewhere I got the feeling And it's not a very happy feeling But we keep on saying these 172 convictions 126 life imprisonments That's our achievement The glass half full We never ask for death penalty Because we don't believe in retributive justice But you know Why did 1984 not get convictions? Why did 92, 93 not get convictions? So there is a certain across the party impunity And I can never forget something that haunted me Because I think Shikumaji and I threw up that list together That after 2002 And then the UPA government coming in 2004 I listed the names there Many of the top officials Who were close to the coterie Were brought to the centre He's telling us is it the force protecting itself? Is there a political across the party impunity operating here? Is there deals being struck? I don't know But it's very frustrating when you're trying to actually forge You know something new in terms of jurisprudence For the victims and survivors of mass crimes That it's then the whole secular non-secular label Start getting blurred Because the same IAS IPS officers Close to the Modi coterie Are finding plump posts in the centre Under UPA1 and UPA2 And the ones who have actually acted during the riots Continue to suffer But each one of them I mean this needs to be said That 14 districts were really bad Where the violence took place Including Bhabh Nagar Where Raul Shalma defied orders To allow violence, risked his life and protected life But all the other 11 districts where there was not much violence We need to record There were ISPs who went against the political dicta And each one of them was punished Those who gave security to Justice Krishna Aayur And Justice Savant who were part of the tribunal Samila and Saariya Naal Were particularly punished I mean you have never seen such a petty And vindict administration But now you can understand how it is in Delhi today And I mean most of these decisions fall under the purview Of a man named Mr. Shivraj Patil Whose ideological inclinations As journalists We seem to think were far closer to the RSS Than the Congress itself But I will say that No, no, no, it's true You are the whole Hussain campaign You could not have the artist come back to his own country It is uncertain The problem is this merging And this blurring of the distinction Between what is secular and what is not secular Is what has created the problem In the political arena And I still believe that between 2004 and 2006-07 If there had been certain very categoric actions To support what we were doing And what survivors were trying to do judicially Things could have been different So there are these crucial moments Even when the SIT is set up There could have been Let's put it mildly a better choice of officers What did you make of the choice of Rahul? We've said that We've set up a record On record of the Supreme Court On 26th of March 2008 When the Supreme Court said that we'll appoint So-and-so as a thing We said we are the petitioners We represent the survivors And we would like at least these three or four officers From the Gujarat Kada to be there And the High Court has given it in other cases Like Ishrat and all But in our case And by then Mr. Saivey was talking to Mr. Rodgi And they hadn't been I don't know what But all the officers that were appointed Were appointed Were a deal between the Gujarat government and Mr. Saivey None of our names were considered I can I mean mention the names And these are all mainstream officers from the Gujarat Kadas Who could have assisted Raghavan But who had an independent reputation There was Rajneesh Rai we recommended There were many people we recommend in that list We know them all But they were not taken up So there I started feeling that you know Everybody from the system Whether it's the judiciary Whether it's the mic Everybody is kind of now trying to Push off this petition And trying to dilute the SITS So I mean Let me just ask you the straight question Even without a law of command responsibility Do you believe there is enough evidence To lead us directly to Mr. Narendra Modi Bit of the indicators in this book And I persuaded my publishers To have part two to this They've agreed And I think that will point it out When I tried to say that The evidence we galvanize in the Zakhia Jafri case If you read it very very carefully And it's not just about the 27th February meeting You know that's because the 27th February meeting Dramatic, etc It's important but The build up before 27th There was a whole build up to Gujarat Before 27th February Which is again We have indicators from the State Intelligence Bureau reports, etc We have police control What I think there is enough evidence To prosecute the Chief Minister I don't know if there's enough evidence To convict him But to derail the possibility of a prosecution Is to actually deny that that evidence exists And for me It's a test for the courts of this country It's a real test for the courts of this country That whether they can stomach this evidence And die just It's there before them Despite the attacks on us Like I said The Supreme Court was faced with a dilemma The SIT appointed by it said There's not enough evidence to prosecute But the amicus curate Mr. Raju Ramachandran I was hoping he's coming to It is a point Mr. Raju Ramachandran clearly said That there's evidence to prosecute the Chief Minister So the Supreme Court was faced with this dilemma The Supreme Court sends us back to the low strung Which is the magistrate Saying go there Exercise your rights File a petition It takes us one year To access the investigation papers Supreme Court says we have a right to them But the SIT Harises us so much That we have to come back in a separate SLP To get the papers Then we get 24,000 pages in February 2013 In two months we go through those And file a petition Which is about 1,000 pages That is argued Till September In December 2013 It's rejected by only one court The lowest court We've challenged it in a high court It's the SLP that has delayed the hearing Now the hearing has begun And the next hearing is on 31st March So it's not a closed chapter yet And my conviction is That I don't know whether the courts Have the stomach to actually grant The fact that it can be a prosecution But I believe there's enough evidence As you go along at each step Of course there's institutional There is governmental But when you take officers Like Raghavan You take individual people It seems largely also to come back To the fact that There's a complicit belief That's almost majoritarian Which goes beyond just arm twisting There is complicity out of sympathy For almost what has happened in 2002 Yeah That Or there's a belief that you don't take this further That what you've got is enough And don't go beyond that Don't go into Culpability, administrative or criminal Of IAS officers Or police officer Because that disturbs the morale of the force Don't get into trying to question The command responsibility of the politician Because it's happened before It'll happen again The point is that That's what the By the way the experiment to The entire movement to get the communal violence Bill, the prevention of communal violence bill Which you know needs to be said That whole business That entire impetus came And you know again the UPA one Government under the common minimum program Thanks to the concerned citizens driving report Promise this country that it will give us And prevention of communal violence bill And again I believe many of us work towards it We lobbied for it We addressed meetings for it And I think we became greater enemies of Everybody concerned in the political class And possibly even bureaucrats and policemen Because I think the greatest resistance was from there That you know if you have in a law enacted That it's under my watch And you know my reference to Kutteke Bachche because You know Kutteke Bachche is not Pillaz Pillaz is different when you say Pillaz When you say Kutteke Bachche That then you are responsible You have to be responsible for that activity And that takes me back to a Vibhuti Narayan Rao interview I did in 93 An officer who's really studied this entire thing deeply When he said no communal riots Can continue for 24 hours Unless the state wants it to continue So if you hold the SP responsible If you hold the collector responsible The DM responsible Kabhi to bandh ho gana Ne to bandh ho gana In all these cases Today where do you see Still open possibilities of taking it forward What remains outstanding What are the cases you're still pursuing Which is where something can still come out The Zakia Jafri case The Zakia Jafri case is in the High Court We have argued it very rigorously In the five written arguments 31st March is the next hearing Then SIT will reply to us I'd like to state here which I said in the book also That SIT has become completely hostile to the survivor And SIT is appointed Because of a survivor petition in the Supreme Court Okay To transfer investigation out of Gujarat And that SIT is today the most hostile towards the survivor You know how much the SIT lawyers have paid I have to say this One hearing in the High Court 9 lakh rupees a day I have the RTI so I mean They can take me to court And the SIT officers I don't know SIT officers one and a half lakhs A month for the last since 2008 And my point is What are our lawyers paid? Nothing I mean we with great difficulty We give them an air ticket And we put them up at either the sports club Or at a little hotel No fees ever charged by any of our counsels And that's why a huge tribute to that team I mean how do you Tackle this level of imbalance This SIT is appointed by the Supreme Court SIT is paid Who paid this 9 lakhs? Gujarat government Isn't there a kind of conflict of interest here? And again this is something as you've reminded Goes back over and over again The selection of prosecution The tutoring of lawyers Witnesses etc Whether of bureaucrats as Mr. Sikumar Is documented so barra or tutor At each step The government and the VHP are actually involved In the process of derailment Yeah yeah in fact In the same best bakery judgment that I called historic One of the things that the judgment talks about Is the public prosecutor behaving like defense counsel Because every single PP who's appointed for the sensitive cases Are irises men Or VHP men Which is almost one and the same thing But there's more right ball than the other maybe But they're the same thing So A Supreme Court comes down on them So they can't appoint a prosecutor Who's overtly irises of it So what do they do next? What they do is The accused lawyers I mean the level of subversion that Modi has achieved Is incidentally he's really monitored it to a T All the Lawyers who appear for the Gulberg accused The Narodapati accused The Sardarpur accused Appear for them here The accused whom we are contesting And in all the bomb blast trials On other trials they are given special rates And appointed as state government lawyers At 40,000 rupees a day 50,000 a day and all that So that they get their benefit from the state Exjector that way So you know Then you take this to the bar council I took it to one of my friends there But they said so what? I mean he's a lawyer You can do it So there's nothing in the framework That actually sees that as conflict of interest But the state has that managed it differently In fact NDTV India did a story on this Saying isn't this another kind of subversion But the system doesn't think so So then again how do you deal with that Then the people The person who kind of is used to launch an attack on me A former employee Rice khan Right He his lawyer is today A chief prosecutor The lawyer who appears for him And she might be a judge tomorrow You know so I mean This levels and levels of subversion Is something which is really very very scary Because how far can a victim go How far can a survivor go How far can a civil rights group go To contest And I believe that you know because of a certain obsession Passion that one has continued Credibility one has The lawyers believe in your integrity And one of the greatest compliments I received was A small Facebook message that Aparna put out A few months ago When all this one more controversy was raving about me and Some nastiness and all that So she's in the 14 years I've known her Not once has she asked me to do anything Which is illegal or out of the law And that's why it's a privilege to be her lawyer Now you have this kind of They believe in your integrity They know you've done nothing wrong So they stand up for you But it's a very imbalanced battle When you have the entire state Money state power being used at one level And simply conviction And a band of good people at the other And I'm just starting to Because I want to throw the question But there is still an important section left This government comes to power And suddenly your credit card bills are also publicly And whether I drink a glass of wine On my personal account Or whether I do my hair in a salon Or not which I do Is suddenly up for grant And what I'm saying is Yeah, I have a credit card And I only charge my trust For those things that are sanctioned by the trust The Gujarat police has 25,000 pages of our vouchers to prove it There's no charge sheet after three and a half years And the same society That cannot ask Modi a question about When you see Adani on the plane That transports your chief Your prime minister I mean I find it appalling He's going for an election campaign And the plane is Adani's Or his personal expenses during Navratri 9 crore rupees for Biscayri water bills Or how much he spends on foreign travels Is not being disclosed for national security reasons And then you have on the other side This kind of pettiness So the effort is simply to vilify you In the public domain And I just had to say from this forum That they've found nothing against us So they'll just continue with this vilification In the hope that the vilification and the rumour murmuring works And I just want to ask you Because this kind of vilification is particularly pernicious The first time all of us read it We stop for a moment and start wondering What is going on in terms of spending on the trust Because to bear through those documents is not easy It's not easy and I think journalists have become very lazy So for instance a name I will not mention But from India's number one paper Times of India We'll keep re-judging what the Gujarat police says in four columns And I think everybody knows the name But our rejoinder affidavit which is huge 100 pages But to which we give a succinct three page summary Will not be published or not even be read by that reporter Till we then contact the editor And four days later they'll be rejoining So I think it's not just about this I think it's about the fact that the media Becoming a little lazy And like my friend John there I'll say That when the government in power Gets a one hour news programme Against these guys It's not an exposing, it's a plant And the journalist should see it as a plant Not as an exposing Thank you Tista, I think we will end it there