Above: Ariel Sharon, during his Monster phase. Below: Narendra Modi delivers a Nazi salute at a RSS para-military rally. Below his photo is Adolf Hitler, often cited reverentially as a mentor of the RSS and Modi's BJP.
Columnists
The Butcher of Beirut and
The Gorgon of Godhra
SARBPREET SINGH
This is the second of a new series on sikhchic.com by the author to mark the 30th anniversary of the Indian Army’s desecration of the Golden Temple in Amritsar.
On September the 16, 1982 the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), who had invaded Lebanon in June of that year to dislodge the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) from that country, allowed the Phalangists, a Lebanese Christian militia, to enter the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatilla.
For the next two days, the militia massacred men, women and children in the refugee camps. The exact number of casualties will forever remain unknown; many bodies were buried in mass graves at the site of the massacre and many were carted away in trucks, in a chilling foreshadowing of the events that were to unfold in Amritsar two years later.
Estimates of those massacred ranged from 300 to 3000.
The outrage the massacre evoked worldwide prompted the government of Israel to institute a commission of inquiry several months later. It concluded that the State of Israel and several Israeli leaders, most prominent among them, Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, were indirectly responsible for the massacre.
The report of the commission, known as the Kahan Report, was widely publicized. Time magazine reported that the classified ‘Appendix B’ to the report revealed that two days before the massacre, Sharon had met with the family of the late Christian President-elect, Bashir Gemayel, who had been assassinated, allegedly by the PLO, and discussed with them the need to avenge Gemayel’s death.
Sharon vigorously contested the story and sued Time magazine with some success. Time’s attribution of the story to ‘Appendix B’ was deemed flawed by the jury, but the magazine always maintained that the story was true.
Ariel Sharon had to resign as Defense Minister and the stigma of being responsible for the massacre of so many innocent civilians dogged him to the end of his days. Yet, Sharon, who went on to become the Prime Minster of Israel, is remembered today, not as the Butcher of Beirut, but as a statesman-like leader, who brought the Israelis and the Palestinians tantalizingly close to peace, dramatically modifying his traditionally hardline position towards the PLO in particular, in the process alienating his own party and his right-wing supporters, but persisting doggedly in his quest for peace, until he was felled by a stroke in 2006.
In the transformation of Ariel Sharon lies a lesson for Narendra Modi, who seems to be poised to become the next Prime Minister of the ‘largest democracy in the world’, India.
In February 2002 the Indian state of Gujarat, governed by Narendra Modi, witnessed a pogrom that is surpassed in modern Indian History only by the 1984 massacre of Sikhs in Delhi.
Responding to reports that Muslims had set fire to a train carriage in Godhra, Gujarat, killing 58 Hindus -- a story later found to be suspect in many of its allegations -- Hindu death squads rampaged across the state, killing, raping and looting with impunity.
When the blood-letting stopped in mid-June, more than 2,000 Muslims lay dead and tens of thousands devastated by acts of unimaginable savagery. The pogrom was televised by India's TV channels and many Indians were shocked to hear how even the very young had not been spared; the killers were seen smashing the heads of children against rocks.
In March 2008, the Indian Supreme Court appointed a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to "inquire and investigate" cases relating to the various incidents that had occurred in 2002. One of those who died in the pogrom was Ehsan Jaffri, a former Indian National Congress Member of Parliament.
His widow, Zakia Jaffri, became concerned about the involvement of senior officials in allegedly aiding and abetting the rioters and by the lack of legal action against them by the police. She petitioned the Court, alleging criminal conspiracy, a "deliberate and intentional failure" to protect life and property, and failure to fulfil their constitutional duty.
In 2009, the Court responded by directing the SIT to investigate the actions of Modi and several other right wing politicians.
One of the key witnesses who testified against Modi was a senior Police officer, Sanjiv Bhatt, who claimed that he was present at a meeting on February 27, 2002 at The Chief Minister’s Gandhinagar residence in which Modi instructed top police officials to allow Hindus to “vent their anger” against Muslims.
Modi’s government has mounted a vigorous campaign to harass and intimidate Bhatt and to discredit his testimony. Modi continues to deny any involvement with the pogrom, bolstered by a clean chit from the SIT, citing lack of clear evidence, as he gets ready to move into the powerful role of India’s new Prime Minister.
It is notable that Modi started his political life as a grassroots worker for the right wing Rasthriya Swyamsevak Sangh (RSS) whose chief, Golwalkar, wrote in a 1939 book that Nazi Germany had manifested "race pride at its highest" by purging itself of the "Semitic races"!
Ariel Sharon started his career as a young soldier in a unit of the Gadna, a paramilitary youth battalion in 1942, and later the Haganah, the precursor to the IDF. His own right wing credentials were impeccable and he went on to become one of the moving forces behind the creation of the Likud party in 1973, after distinguishing himself as one of the greatest field commanders that the IDF had ever seen.
Despite the setback that his career suffered after the Sabra and Shatilla massacres, Sharon doggedly revived his political fortunes, ultimately becoming Prime Minister in 2001.
As Prime Minsister, Sharon shocked the world and his right wing base in particular by his willingness to open a dialogue with Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas and announcing his commitment to the creation of a Palestinian state in the future.
He embarked on a course of unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, which Israel had controlled for decades, a gesture that was welcomed by both the Palestinian Authority and Israel's moderates as a step towards a final peace settlement.
However, it was greeted with bitter opposition from within his own Likud party and from other right wing Israelis, who saw his about-face as a betryal. Sharon responded by leaving his beloved Likud party and creating a new centrist party committed to the peace process.
Sharon had always been a hard-liner. He had no love for the Palestinians and he was as committed to preserving Israel’s interests as the most dogmatic right wing partisans. As an IDF commander, he had been ruthless, even cruel.
He was clearly complicit in the Sabra and Shatilla massacres and in other horrible incidents during Israel’s conflicts with its Arab neighbors which resulted in the loss of numerous civilian lives.
Yet, when it truly mattered, he had the wisdom and the courage to make the right choices. Tough choices for sure which earned him much opprobrium in the short term.
Ultimately however, those choices redeemed him.
Minorities in India await Narendra Modi’s ascension to the throne with bated breath as he inches towards his own ‘tryst with destiny’. There is little reason to be optimistic, because his track record dealing with minorities as the Chief Minister of Gujarat is dismal.
One can only hope that the responsibility that will be thrust upon him will force him to evaluate the choices he made in the past and the choices he will make in the future.
Perhaps he too will be redeemed!
Five hundred years ago, a gentle prophet, sickened by the murderous frenzy unleashed by the invader Babar and his minions upon the innocent people of the Punjab fulminated thus:
Kings have turned into hungry lions, their henchmen into dogs
Blight the sleep of common men; these vicious snapping cogs
With talons sharp, tender flesh they rip
Packs of dogs lick bloody drip
Beware of The Lord; fear judgment day
Feckless traitors, disgraced, will pay
The ‘Butcher of Beirut’, its seems to me at least, avoided the fate that Guru Nanak Sahib warned of.
I hope from the bottom of my heart that The ‘Gorgon of Godhra’ finds the courage and wisdom to do so as well.
April 30, 2014
Conversation about this article
1: Mohkam Singh (Kanpur, India), April 30, 2014, 9:18 AM.
Sarbpreet ji: let me paint you a scenario which, though staring us in the face, has been steadily overlooked by the world's media. Ariel Sharon was not spared divine justice for his monstrous crimes. The instruments of that divine justice were none other than his own colleagues and countrymen. You be the judge: in November 2005, he formed a new party. Widely expected to win the oncoming election, he proclaimed his plan to "clear Israel out of most of the West Bank" by unilaterally withdrawing from the region. Then, guess what! Suddenly, within a few weeks -- on January 4, 2006 to be exact, he has a stroke and is whisked off for a series of operations and treatments. Coincidence? He's never been seen by any member of the public or media since then, except for a closely-monitored photo-op or two. He was reported to be in a continuous coma for E-I-G-H-T years from that point on, suffering from one organ failure to another, barely kept alive with the help of feeding tubes. Throughout that time, nary a mention of his condition to the world of this "war-hero" and former Prime Minister. The Israeli government controlled all access to him or information flowing out about him. He was variously described as being in a "permanent vegetative state", "permanently incapacitated", and in a "serious but stable condition." Finally this year, more than 8 years after he was last seen, he was declared dead on January 11 this year (2014). I don't know about you, but I think this lion who had pounced so mercilessly on lambs did receive his fair share of divine justice ... every ounce of it. So did Israel for its own role in the monstrous crimes ... Sharon's and those of others. Today, it is surrounded on all sides by enemies who publicly acknowledge they aspire for the destruction of Israel. I do not support their crimes or condone their mischief, but I do see them as instruments of poetic justice. I don't know what you'd call all of it, but I call it divine justice for the crimes against the Palestinian people. And as for Narendra Modi and his band of jackasses: just you wait. As sure as the sun rises in the East and sets in the West, they too will get their just desserts. So will the Congressies. We are ALL subject to what Guru Nanak has described so powerfully in his daring words.
2: Ajay Singh (Rockville, Maryland, USA), April 30, 2014, 9:51 AM.
I find this article troubling, the suggestion that there is a possibility of redemption, without any accountability, punishment or justice, for the likes of Modi and Sharon. I take issue with the statement: "Ultimately however, those choices redeemed him." This is a careless and a very reprehensible thought. I would think that for an Israeli Sharon's actions were tantamount to Nazism. There should be no redemption for Modi, I don't care if he is a saint for the rest of his life; even if he is punished and convicted for his crimes.
3: Mohan Singh (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), April 30, 2014, 10:02 AM.
Our body is farmland; our deeds are seeds we plant. Hukam and bhaana are fruits we share. Remember karam, kismat and hukam, all three are interactive. Nature's Law spares none!
4: Sunny Grewal (Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada), April 30, 2014, 10:30 AM.
I think we should ask the families of the Palestinians who were butchered in Sabra and Shatilla if Ariel Sharon redeemed himself. The victims no longer exist, they have been wiped from the face of the earth, never return again, they cannot speak and we should not try to make any attempt to put words into the mouths of the dead. What if someone told us that Sikhs should forget about 1984 because India currently has a Sikh Prime Minister? It has been said before, as if the promotion of a single Sikh will bring back the little boys who had tires thrown around their necks, the men pushed in front of trains or the security of the women raped by mobs. If Modi becomes Prime Minister, it will be a slap in the face to the Muslim families that had to endure three days of hell, to those who lost loved ones or those will forever live with the fear of a pogrom occurring against their community. Even if Narendra Modi makes peace with Pakistan, delivers a toilet to every home, brings electricity to the homes of every Indian and somehow brings together Hindus and Muslims, it will not change the fact that there has been no justice for the people that were murdered by his actions. I do appreciate the point of your article: Modi should try to utilize his position as a peacemaker rather than continue on the path of divisiveness. However, I think somewhere your article did not completely head in that direction.
5: Gurteg Singh (New York, USA), April 30, 2014, 10:55 AM.
Many prominent Indian thinkers are predicting rivers of blood and a war -- possibly even a nuclear one, if Modi becomes the Prime Minister. Chidambram, Sharad Power, Beni Parsad Verma, Laloo Parsad Yadav, etc. have compared him to Hitler and predict that India will disintegrate by the policies of the fanatic right wing. However I personally feel that the the fascist RSS will play a very cunning game as they did during the coalition under Vajpayee. Although Vajpayee was as much a thug as Modi, he very conveniently put on a mask of moderation but vigorously pursued the Hindutava agenda. It is under his watch that the Gujarat massacre happened and Modi was given complete immunity. It is Vajpayee and Advani who organized the massacre of 38 Sikhs in Chhatisingpura in Kashmir to coincide with President Clinton's visit. Although coalition politics made it difficult, but RSS was able to infiltrate most of the intelligence agencies, educational institutions, army and security outfits and place their men in key positions. But if now RSS comes to power on its own, expect a very aggressive, unabashed, criminal Hindutava agenda.
6: Kaala Singh (Punjab), April 30, 2014, 11:11 PM.
Nothing will change in India whoever may come to power. All politicians here are chips off the same block. It's a few business groups that control this country and all politicians are on their payroll. The politicians get huge money from vested interests to come to power somehow and further the interests of those who pay. These criminal politicians will employ any method to come to power, be it fraud, scams and/or murder ... even mass murder. Whoever can buy the vote-banks belonging to various castes and clans and the "godmen" who have appeared all over the country, will come to power. Votes are bought with money, drugs and booze. "Riots" are engineered against minorities and weaker sections to scare them into voting for a politician or party or to appease the general population who, forgetting their own misery, are only too happy to witness the massacre of religious minorities. Great dance of democracy indeed!