 | |
| Author | Rana Ayyub |
|---|---|
| Country | India |
| Subject | 2002 Gujarat riots |
| Genre | Investigative journalism |
| Published | 2016 |
Gujarat Files: Anatomy of a Cover Up is a journalistic book about the 2002 Gujarat riots authored and self-published by Rana Ayyub. The book is dedicated to Shahid Azmi along with advocate and activist Mukul Sinha. The foreword of the book is authored by Justice B. N. Srikrishna.
By posing as Maithili Tyagi, a US based film-maker and a student of American Film Institute subscribing to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's ideology, Ayyub managed to get access to senior police officers, bureaucrats, and politicians in Gujarat. She even managed to meet Narendra Modi in her Maithili Tyagi disguise. Ayyub was wearing a concealed camera and microphone during these meetings which enabled her to record her conversations. The book is based on these recorded conversations. The recordings were made in the years 2010–11 in a time frame spanning eight months. The entire exercise had been carried out on behalf of Tehelka for whom Ayyub was working at the time. Tehelka put an end to the investigation in April 2011. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
According to a September 2016 column by Priya Ramani in Mint, Gujarat Files has become a bestseller with Ayyub managing to sell 32,000 copies of her book. Ramani notes that although no publisher was willing to publish her work, India's biggest English language book distributor, India Book Distributors (IBD), has reached an agreement with Ayyub to distribute the book the previous month and they have already sold 8,000 copies of the book. [6] A Hindi-language edition was published in 2017. By 2019n, Ayyub said the book had sold more than 600,000 copies. [7]
It is alleged that many bookshops have refused to stock the book. In a July 2016 interview in Frontline, Ayyub claimed that she called bookshops in Mumbai and Ahmedabad pretending to be a reader looking to buy Gujarat Files.
The book stores in Ahmedabad categorically said it was not the type of book they wanted to keep. Mumbai bookstores said there was a huge demand from readers because it was an Amazon bestseller but that it was too dangerous a book to be stocked in their bookshops. One of them suggested that I order a copy from Amazon since it involved no risk. [4]
In a review of the book in The Hindu , Suchitra Vijayan writes that the book attempts to show how the bureaucracy, and the police, working in tandem, created lawlessness in Gujarat "in the aftermath of the anti-Muslim pogrom in 2002, and the numerous encounter deaths that took place between 2002 and 2006." [8] Vijayan quotes Justice Brandeis of the US Supreme Court: "If the Government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.” [8] According to Vijayan, the book contains incriminating information against Amit Shah and Narendra Modi; and the information that dalit and lower caste police officers in Gujarat were co-opted and made instruments of state violence. [8] However, Vijayan calls the book an unfinished work "waiting for context and analysis." [8] In a review of the book in the Hindustan Times , Manjula Narayan writes that the book "[implicates] powerful politicians and [reveals] sins of omission and commission." [9] According to Narayan, the book is "an important work" which confirms many fears of corruption surrounding the Gujarat riots. [9]
In a review of the book in the Business Standard, Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay notes that the book's importance is due to the details it provides regarding the events in Gujarat in, and after, the year 2002. [2] According to Mukhopadhyay:
[T]he book is an important document — not as much for being a complete and rounded analysis or story but for providing important nuggets of information that enable further detailing of the Modi persona and the nature of the regime he ran in Gujarat. The book provides significant insights through disclosures made by retired and serving police officials in which they present their perspective on events in Gujarat during the 2002 riots and subsequent contentious developments: the repeated police encounters. [2]
In a review of the book in Mint, Salil Tripathi notes that "The picture that emerges from Gujarat Files is profoundly disillusioning because it reveals that the checks and balances which are so vital for a functioning democracy simply did not work in Gujarat." The officers Ayyub interviewed express helplessness in carrying out illegal orders because not doing so would jeopardize their careers, according to Tripathi. While commending Ayyub for her courage in the journalistic work she did to collect the material for this book, Tripathi observes:
The most disturbing part about Ayyub’s account is the casual acceptance of encounters. Senior police officers are aware of the questionable legality of encounters, but they seem to accept these as part of their job; their regret is over details (such as there was no need to kill Kausar Bi), and not over the practice itself. Human rights groups have long criticized extra-judicial executions in India, and “encounter” is a euphemism for illegal murders carried out by the state. [1]
Ramachandra Guha has called Gujarat Files "a brave book". [10] Reflecting on the procedure used by Ayyub in composing Gujarat Files, Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay has observed: "Going undercover and interviewing many who had been in the thick of gruesome extra-constitutional operations required bravado and this must be appreciated." [2] Priya Ramani has noted that though the book has been criticized for being poorly edited and lacking context, its actual content has not been criticized by anyone. [6] Manoj Mitta has noted the silence on the book of those who were secretly taped by Ayyub, and also of a large section of mainstream media. [5] While noting the silence on the book in a section of the Indian media, including the complete silence on Indian television, Jyoti Malhotra has commented that many journalists have privately applauded Ayyub's courage in authoring this book. According to Malhotra, the charges in the book are serious in that Narendra Modi himself is accused of being complicit in the 2002 Gujarat riots. The book also accuses Amit Shah "of allegedly masterminding the Gujarat riots as well as ordering the killing of a terrorist Sohrabuddin Sheikh, his wife or live-in partner Kausar Bi and his associate Tulsiram Prajapati, "according to Malhotra. [11] "If these transcripts are validated, they could present serious legal and ethical repercussions about Shah’s use of the State police force as his personal assassination squad and the bureaucracy as his fief," writes Suchitra Vijayan. [8] Indira Jaising, who represented the CBI in court in the Ishrat case, has observed that "[t]he book validates what CBI investigations had revealed.” [3] Reflecting on the book, Manjula Narayan observes:
Gujarat 2002 is still with us. The shame and horror continues to haunt us, which explains the packed book launch venues and the eagerness of several liberal public figures to be seen at them. Registering your presence is a public announcement of your cosmopolitanism and enlightened politics, disseminated in quick time over social media networks. Ayyub’s repeated suggestion that mainstream media has blacked out her book – most print publications, at least, seem to have reviewed it within a fortnight of the launch, an honour normally reserved for the likes of Amartya Sen – has contributed to the conspiracy theories besides bolstering the author’s reputation as a fearless journalist. [9]
In 2023, the author was interviewed regarding Indian-United States relations on Democracy Now! [12]
In the Haren Pandya murder case, the Supreme Court of India dismissed Rana Ayyub's book, stating that "it is based upon surmises, conjectures, and suppositions and has no evidentiary value.". [13] [14] [15] Ayyub termed the court's comments "puzzling", since the CBI had used her work as evidence in other related cases, and noted that no officer or bureaucrat had denied her claims or taken her to court. [16]
In response to claims by Rana Ayyub at the book's launch & suggestions in the book that her work was not carried by Tehelka (the weekly the author was a journalist with) citing “political pressure”, Shoma Chaudhury, then managing editor of Tehelka, has written: "It did not meet the necessary editorial standards. While parts of the story were good, there were a lot of loopholes and serious concerns about the procedure that had been followed. Rana is a courageous reporter and out of a respect for her work I would not like to detail those concerns publicly. However, they were discussed with Rana in great detail many times, both via emails and verbal discussions. [17]
The ethics of doing journalism using secret recordings has been called into question. [1] [11] [18] Ayyub has addressed this issue by noting that there was no other way to place the facts on record. [11]
Narendra Damodardas Modi is an Indian politician who has served as the 14th prime minister of India since May 2014. Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the Member of Parliament (MP) for Varanasi. He is a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a right wing Hindu nationalist paramilitary volunteer organisation. He is the longest-serving prime minister from outside the Indian National Congress.
Teesta Setalvad is an Indian civil rights activist and journalist. She is the secretary of Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP), an organisation formed to advocate for the victims of 2002 Gujarat riots.
The 2002 Gujarat riots, also known as the 2002 Gujarat violence, was a three-day period of inter-communal violence in the western Indian state of Gujarat. The burning of a train in Godhra on 27 February 2002, which caused the deaths of 58 Hindu pilgrims and karsevaks returning from Ayodhya, is cited as having instigated the violence. Following the initial riot incidents, there were further outbreaks of violence in Ahmedabad for three months; statewide, there were further outbreaks of violence against the minority Muslim population of Gujarat for the next year.
The Sohrabuddin Sheikh encounter case is a criminal case in the Gujarat state after the death of Sohrabuddin Anwarhussain Sheikh on November 26, 2005. A special CBI court acquitted all the 22 accused in the case in the alleged encounter killing of Sohrabuddin Sheikh and his wife.
Haren Pandya was the Home Minister of Gujarat in India. He was allegedly murdered in 2003 in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, when he was sitting in his car, after a morning walk in the Law Garden area in Ahmedabad.
Ehsan Jafri was an Indian politician and former member of the 6th Lok Sabha for the Congress Party, who was killed in the Gulbarg Society massacre.
P. B. Sawant was an Indian judge of the Supreme Court of India.
R.B. Sreekumar is a former Gujarat State Director-General of Police.
The Gulbarg Society massacre took place on 28 February 2002, during the 2002 Gujarat riots, when a crowd started stone pelting the Gulbarg Society, a Muslim neighbourhood in the eastern part of Chamanpura, Ahmedabad in the Indian state of Gujarat. Most of the houses were burnt, and at least 35 victims, including a former Congress Member of Parliament, Ehsan Jafri, were burnt alive, while 31 others went missing after the incident, later presumed dead, bringing the total deaths to 69.
Amit Anil Chandra Shah is an Indian politician who is currently serving as the 31st Minister of Home Affairs since 2019 and the 1st Minister of Co-operation of India since 2021. He served as the 10th President of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from 2014 to 2020. He has also served as chairman of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) since 2014. He was elected to the lower house of Parliament, Lok Sabha, in the 2019 Indian general elections from Gandhinagar. Earlier, he had been elected as a member of the upper house of Parliament, Rajya Sabha, from Gujarat from 2017 to 2019.
Sanjiv Bhatt is a former Indian Police Service officer of the Gujarat-cadre. He is known for his role in filing an affidavit in the Supreme Court of India against the then Chief Minister of the Government of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, concerning Modi's alleged role in the 2002 Gujarat riots. He claimed to have attended a meeting, during which Modi allegedly asked top police officials to let Hindus vent their anger against the Muslims. However, the Special Investigation Team appointed by the Supreme Court of India concluded that Bhatt did not attend any such meeting, and dismissed his allegations.
The Truth: Gujarat 2002 was an investigative report on the 2002 Gujarat riots published by India's Tehelka news magazine in its 7 November 2007 issue. The video footage was screened by the news channel Aaj Tak. The report, based on a six-month-long investigation and involving video sting operations, stated that the violence was made possible by the support of the state police and the then Chief Minister of Gujarat Narendra Modi for the perpetrators. The report and the reactions to it were widely covered in Indian and international media. The recordings were authenticated by India's Central Bureau of Investigation on 10 May 2009.
The Ishrat Jahan case is an ongoing case where officers of the Ahmedabad Police Crime Branch and members of the Subsidiary Intelligence Bureau (SIB) of Ahmedabad are accused of fatally shooting four terrorist suspect people unlawfully on 15 June 2004 in an "encounter killing".
Dahyaji Gobarji Vanzara, popularly known as D. G. Vanzara, is the former Inspector-General of Police (IG) from Gujarat, India. He was in judicial custody from 2007 until his bail in 2015 on charges of having conducted a series of extrajudicial killings, while heading the Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS). He was acquitted in Sohrabuddin case in 2017.
Mukul Sinha was an Indian human rights activist and a lawyer at the Gujarat High Court in Ahemdabad. He was an active trade union leader and a trained physicist. He legally represented the families of the individuals who were killed in Gujarat following the 2002 riots and in Manipur, in which he secured convictions of the politicians and police officers involved. Along with his wife Nirjhari Sinha, he founded and served as the president of Jan Sangharsh Manch, an independent civil rights organization with the aim of addressing issues of labour and workers rights. He was also a vocal critic of erstwhile Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
Tulsiram Prajapati was a man, who was killed while in custody at 5 am on 26 December 2005. The case is widely believed to have been an encounter killing by the Gujarat Police. DIG D.G. Vanzara has been in jail for seven years, on charges of having organised this encounter, among others.
Rana Ayyub is an Indian journalist and opinion columnist with The Washington Post. She is author of the investigative book Gujarat Files: Anatomy of a Cover Up.
Yogesh Chander Modi is the former Director-General/Chief of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) of India. A 1984 batch officer of the Assam-Meghalaya cadre, Y.C. Modi has over 33 years of experience in the Indian Police Service (IPS). He was designated the Director-General of the NIA on October 30, 2017 and will hold the position till his superannuation on May 31, 2021. The Director-General is highest ranking agency executive in the NIA appointed by central/federal government of India, and Y.C. Modi is the 4th person to hold this post after Radha Vinod Raju, SC Sinha and Sharad Kumar.
Aakar Patel is an Indian journalist, activist and author. He served as the head of Amnesty International in India between 2015 and 2019, and currently serves as the chair of the Board of Amnesty International in India. He is the author of Our Hindu Rashtra, an account of majoritarianism in India, and of Price of the Modi Years, which examines the administrative performance of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In 2014, he authored a translation of Saadat Hasan Manto's Urdu non-fiction Why I Write.