The Hindu Business Line : Rebelling against injustice

Gujarat is ghettoised, the police are biased and the propaganda against Muslims continues. I believe in reconciliation, but fear a volcano is waiting to erupt. — Anu Aga

Meher Pudumjee

Among the first corporate dons to speak out against the communal carnage in Gujarat in 2002, Anu Aga, then Chairperson of Thermax, earned respect even from her opponents. Then the chairperson of the CII western region, she spoke out despite reservations among many of her CII colleagues in Gujarat. "Many threatened to resign but I said that after visiting the camps, hearing about the brutal stories of pregnant women's bellies being cut open, how could I not take up this cause? Later of course, the CII supported me to the hilt," she recalls.

Subsequently, she read Harsh Mander's "evocative and beautifully written article on the Gujarat killings, got to know him and so many people at the grassroots level, and I thought injustice has been done. And right from childhood injustice is something I've always rebelled against."

Anu recalls how her daughter Meher Pudumjee, "the person closest to me", got angry with her. "She even challenged me asking how much of it is for your own ego."

Anu Aga

Admits Meher, "Initially I was a little scared, because we have a family and a business to take care of. I also felt that you can't do such things on your own, you have to rally the masses around rather than take up a cause alone. But now, looking back, I say `wow'!"

Anu adds that some people from the CII advised her to keep extra bodyguards for her grandchildren. "But I said `No', I have faith nothing will happen. I also told Meher I'm not foolish, I don't take up every cause; I'm very perturbed by many things, but I keep quiet. But this is one issue which if we don't take up now, what kind of a legacy will we leave for our country? And even if our business drops or something happens to one of us, I'm willing to take that risk. And Meher realised the validity of my argument."

The gutsy woman recalls how after her husband died in 1996, she lost her only son in a car accident a year later. And yet she was willing to take such a huge risk?

"Actually it was because of it. Once you've faced death, what else can you face that is more traumatic? I've gone through a mediation programme called Vipassana — which Meher too underwent subsequently — that gives me a lot of inner courage. And when you've gone through an experience of death, which is the worst thing that can happen to anybody, and accepted it... after all, all of us are going to go, so might as well go for a cause. Khali aisehi mar jaaney ka kya fayda? And yet I won't make everything a cause, even though journalists prod me to speak on one issue or another!"

Anu thinks justice has not yet been done in Gujarat. "It is ghettoised, people live separately, in schools, the propaganda against Muslims continues and the books are rewritten with false accusations against Muslims. Unfortunately we think that because the riots have stopped, everything is all right. It is not. I do believe in reconciliation, but I feel very scared that there is a volcano waiting to erupt and it can spread to other States too. The police are biased, there is a lot of propaganda, Muslims are insecure, and children are indoctrinated at a young age. What is scary is that educated Hindus have started accepting glibly all the propaganda. The same stereotypes about Muslims and the Pakistan cricket match... "

But Meher's views differ from her mother's. "I think there are many little things that are responsible for what happened. And we have to look at both sides of the story. Unfortunately the media too often focuses only on one side of the story to make it more dramatic and get people to read or watch it. And I genuinely feel you need two hands to clap. We simply have to listen to both the sides, because I'm sure there is a lot of history behind what the Muslims are saying and also what the Hindus are saying. And then, there has to be reconciliation after that."

She feels "right now we're listening only to the Muslims. I agree that what was done to the Muslims in Gujarat was pathetic and horrible, but I do think we have to listen to both the sides and get a fair picture."

Anu intervenes, "I don't subscribe to her views... this do haath se tali business. I feel a minority needs the protection of the majority. And that's true for the Pandits in Kashmir too. People ask why I didn't speak then; well, I did not have adequate awareness on the issue in those days. But whether Kashmir or Gujarat, I feel the majority has to take care of the minority."

On the argument that in order to create vote banks, governments have bent over backwards to please Muslims, she says this "needs to be discussed and debated openly. That is not done, but a vicious propaganda against Muslims continues and that has to be countered, as also clichés such as: `All Muslims are not terrorists but all terrorists are Muslims.' I'm against madrassas doing the wrong thing, microphones being used at 4 a.m. or roads blocked for their prayers. But you don't kill people for all this; there are legal redressal mechanisms available."

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