Marshall’s assertions, that Santosh tried to justify the riots in Orissa, are hollow.
A fair assessment would have been one done by placing all the records on the table and not selectively placing some passages and interpreting a couple of lines out of context. Santosh did not justify the riots in Orissa. He condemned them on more than one occasion. Here is one such of his posts where he has quite categorically hit-out against the perpetrators of the gruesome and horrific crimes. http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg34637.html What Santosh stated, about the retaliatory nature of the riots, is a matter of fact and is not an opinion. The Swami’s death was indeed a trigger. A dog will run after a car not knowing what to do with it after catching it but humans will not do anything without a cause or a reason. The rioters believed that they were taking revenge for the murder of the Swami. Their minds were conditioned to think in that way. Ditto in Gujarat and Delhi where the rioters believed that they were taking revenge for the Godhra Carnage and Indira Gandhi’s assassination. The worrisome part in each of these incidents was that humans behaved not like the intelligent species but worse than animals, targeting innocent citizens who had nothing to do with the initial crimes. Divisive factors like Ideology and religion had a lot to do with this and Political/ Religious groups entered the scene for their own ulterior motives. Now here are a couple of passages from Justice Srikrishna’s report, analyzing the link between the Mumbai Bomb Blasts and the Mumbai riots. “Tiger Memon, the key figure in the serial bomb blasts case, and his family had suffered extensively during the riots and therefore can be said to have deep–rooted motives for revenge. It would appear that one of his trusted accomplices, Javed Dawood Tailor alias Javed Chikna, had also suffered a bullet injury during the riots and therefore he also had a motive for revenge”. “Apart from these two specific cases, there was a large, amorphous body of angry, frustrated and desperate Muslims keen to seek revenge for the perceived injustice done to and atrocities perpetrated on them or to others of their community and it is this sense of revenge which spawned the conspiracy of the serial bomb blasts. This body of angry, frustrated and desperate Muslims provided the material upon which the anti–national and criminal elements succeeded in building up their conspiracy for the serial bomb blasts.” Now what would Marshall call a report of this kind? A sham, a piece of communal garbage, a justification? Would he interpret these lines out of context and call Justice Srikrishna a Terrorist sympathizer? Was Justice Srikrishna justifying the Mumbai Bomb Blasts or was he analyzing the reasons that led to the criminals in behaving in that fashion? I presume Marshall would choose the latter. On a similar note, Santosh only wrote about the retaliatory nature of these riots and he tried to analyze the reasons behind them. Nowhere did he write that he agreed with such irrational and unruly behavior. Marshall will need to understand that not everybody will share his opinions on the nature and reason behind the riots. Different people will frame their own opinions differently. One should not be seen as justifying the riots just because of that. In the light of the above, Marshall’s charges against Santosh are baseless and his arguments do not hold much water. They need to be dismissed with the contempt they deserve. His apology too is akin to the proverbial cat going to a pilgrimage after devouring a hundred mice and should be taken with a pinch of salt. Cheers Sandeep
