Mallika Sarabhai: In search of Gandhi’s transformed 'teen bandars'

The reprimand is swift and unequivocal. You mess with me and I will make your life miserable. And I am powerful. I have the power of the state, you will be erased. It has happened with police officers. It has happened with the occasional IAS officers. It happened with me even though I am a private citizen, and with a few others who try and lift the mayajaal woven around us in Gujarat.

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There is no attempt to hide the reprisals because there is no accountability demanded by Gujaratis in general. You open your mouth about Mr Modi and within hours you will be accused of some wrongdoing, coercing someone, blocking the due process of law. I even got accused of stealing two saucepans from the cook that ran the café here at Darpana. Police stations who regularly refuse to accept FIRs on matters such as rape, thought it fit, under orders, to accept an FIR for stealing pots and pans. Arrest warrants are well-timed to fall within court holidays so that one stews in jail as bails are not entertained. For me, the day came in 2003, when courts were shut for Diwali.
The case against me, punishment for filing first PIL against Mr Modi and state machinery for Godhrakand, was for stopping a young woman from illegally migrating to the US. An arrest warrant was issued against me for preventing a crime. Sri RB Sreekumar was hounded, his pension stopped, superseded and accused for reporting crimes to his superiors. Worse, for having told the truth about state government's false accounting of the Godhra aftermath and pointing out Vanzara's illegal acts.

Similarly, Rahul Sharma, Vivek Srivastava, Himanshu Bhatt, MD Antani, Satish Verma, HR Gehlot, PC Thakur, Kuldip Sharma, Rajneesh Rai and AK Surolia have all been punished and harassed for following their conscience and police manuals rather than becoming Mr Modi's henchmen.

VK Gupta, Surat police commissioner during the riots who controlled the city so as there were only seven deaths during those tough times, and others who did the same in Rajkot, Bhavnagar, Jamnagar, Valsad, Surendranagar, Bharuch and Kutch districts were all routinely harassed. 

On the contrary, officers and commissioners, in cities where rioting continued, were given lucrative posts, extensions and more rewards. These include, among many others, PC Pande G Subbarao, Manjula Subramanium, K Nityananda, GC Raigar and DG Vanzara.

In spite of profound evidence before SIT against many of those mentioned as being rewarded, only one inspector has been arrested by the commission for his culpable role in the riots, from among all those officials accused. One inspector? Capable of so much rioting and such organised mayhem? And if this really is the case, he should be made commissioner of police for his great
organising skills.

And now Sanjiv Bhatt. The script is so overused that it was easy to predict. First, harassment and threats. Then the cases. Then the chargesheet. Then the arrest, more, I suspect, for the chance to raid and search his house, than anything else.

This blatant arrogant use of power to thwart truth and democracy must stop. Each of us must rise and shout, block, protest, dismantle. The time for the three monkeys who refused to see, hear or speak evil is long past. We need to become the monkeys who shout the truth, who hear and recognise lies, and who see the villains for what they are. Arise.

— The writer is a noted danseuse and social activist