Note: This article was originally published on November 1, 2018 and was republished on December 11, 2019 after the Nanavati Commission exonerated Narendra Modi and his ministers of complicity in the 2002 Gujarat violence.
The Wire’s Arfa Khanum Sherwani interviews Lieutenant General (retired) Zameer Uddin Shah about his upcoming memoir The Sarkari Mussalman, in which he narrates his experiences of leading army operations during the Gujarat riots. In his book, he writes about how the army lost crucial hours while waiting for vehicles despite making repeated requests to then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi.
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Arfa Khanum Sherwani: Greetings. I am Arfa Khanum Sherwani. During the 2002 Gujarat riots, had Narendra Modi, then the chief minister, taken the right steps at the right time, could there have been fewer lives lost? Could the riots have been brought under control? There is a new book that contends that yes indeed, had the right steps been taken, had the army been deployed at the right time, fewer lives would have been lost. We are speaking of Lieutenant General Zameer Uddin Shah, who held the command of the army contingent deployed in Gujarat during the riots.
Lieutenant General Shah has said that on the night of February 28 he was present in Gujarat along with 3,000 soldiers under his command. On that night, at 2 am on March 1, he went to meet the chief minister. The then defence minister George Fernandes was also present at the meeting. Shah says that Modi stalled the army’s entry into the city for one entire day and refused to provide vehicles that would allow the soldiers to go from the airfield to the city. For this reason, the army could only begin its work on March 2. Lieutenant General Shah is present with us here today. He has written a book titled The Sarkari Mussalman. We will talk with him about what happened during the riots and about his book.
Thank you very much Lieutenant Governor Shah for coming into the studio. First of all, I would like to know what exactly happened during that fateful and now much-discussed night between February 28 and March 1.
‘Nothing was done during sensitive hours between February 28 and March 1’
Zameer Uddin Shah: My division was the Strike Corps and we were deployed in the Jaisalmer area. On the 28th, I went for an exercise and came back around 6-6:30 pm. The Chief of Army Staff General Padmanabhan called me, and I felt that there must be something important as the chief had called directly. All he said was to take as many troops as I could and put a stop to the riots taking place in Ahmedabad. I said that it would take us two days to get to Ahmedabad. He said not to worry as the Air Force was arranging planes and that I should take the maximum number of troops that I could to the Jodhpur airfield. I ordered my deputy to prepare two brigades. By then, a written order also arrived instructing us to move two brigades to Ahmedabad.
I reached the Ahmedabad airfield at 10 pm on the night of February 28. Our soldiers took three hours, from 7 -10 pm, to reach the Jodhpur airfield, from where they were airlifted to Ahmedabad. There were two brigades, which means six battalions, which is 18 companies. It took 40 flights to bring them all to Ahmedabad. When we were flying over Ahmedabad, I saw that the entire city was burning. There were fires raging everywhere in the city. The Ahmedabad airfield itself was silent and dark. We were told that upon arrival we would receive vehicles, magistrates, police guides, and most importantly cell phones. The army’s phones only work when they are in direct line of sight with each other, and are not very successful in urban environments and high-rise buildings.
When I arrived there, I met Brigadier Mehra, who was one of my course mates. I asked him where the vehicles were. He said the state government would provide them and that he himself did not know much about that. I asked him where the chief secretary was and said that I wanted to speak with him. He said that the chief secretary was abroad and that someone else was officiating. I asked for that person’s number. I tried to contact her but I could not. It was some IAS officer. I had, however, taken my own vehicle along. My communication devices, my ADG and my vehicle had come on the first flight. I asked for one guide and took him with me to go to the CM’s bungalow in Gandhinagar, where I reached at around 2 am. That was then March 1.
AKS: Yes, March 1.
ZUS: George Fernandes met us there. He expressed happiness that the army had arrived. I concurred but said that they are yet to be provided vehicles, maps, magistrates and police guides. He said that those would be provided. I had a map, not a military map but a tourist one, and we plotted the trouble spots on that map. After that, I returned to the airfield. The troops were there and together we waited for the vehicles to arrive. Next morning, at around 10 or 11 am, George Fernandez came to the airfield alone. I told him that nothing had been arranged as of then. He gathered all the troops and addressed them and said that it was vital to put an immediate stop to the riots.
AKS: So you are saying that no action had been taken between 10 pm on the previous night and 10 am on the following day?
ZUS: Right, no vehicles were sent. We could not have gone by foot.
AKS: How far is the city from the airfield?
ZUS: The airfield is quite far from the city. And also without guides, maps and communication devices, we could not have gone anywhere. Had we been in the jungle, we could have done “junge-bashing.” But there that could not work. The night I went to the CM’s house, I saw that the rioters had surrounded the areas where the minorities lived and that the police was firing into houses through the windows. I asked them what they were doing. They said they were trying to bring the rioters under control. I responded that in that case, the police should be firing at the rioters, and not into houses. They became ashamed after hearing me say that. I noticed moreover that the police did not seem to be doing much.
AKS: So you are saying that in the sensitive few hours of the night between February 28 and March 1, during which a lot of lives could have been saved, nothing was done? And that you started your work the next day?
ZUS: Not even the next day. The vehicles only arrived on March 2. We went to the city after they arrived.
AKS: So the night of the 28th and the entire day of the 1st went to waste? And you only got to the city on the 2nd, after which you tried to control the situation?
ZUS: Yes, we were on the airfield the entire day of the 1st. Someone recently read out the SI report to me, which says that we deployed on March 1. That is absolutely false. We were deployed in Ahmedabad and the rest of Gujarat… There were six battalions and I assigned three to Ahmedabad, one to Saurashtra, one to south Gujarat and one to Panchmahal.
AKS: I would like to inform our viewers that Lieutenant General Zameer Uddin Shah was leading the entire army peace operation in Gujarat. And that the CM had asked for the army to intervene. In fact, the army can intervene only if the CM requests it.
ZUS: Yes, yes.
AKS: And could you continue telling us more, Lieutenant General Shah, about the role of the police in the riots? Many questions have been raised regarding the fact that some police officers had joined the rioters and were ganging up against the minorities and the consequent failure of the police in fulfilling its responsibility. What did you see there?
ZUS: The Home Guards had joined the rioters. Most of the Home Guard commanders were members of right-wing organisations. They were totally complicit in the riots. The police did not take any action against the rioters. Wherever a mob of rioters appeared, the police excused themselves by saying they had work in another area and left everything to the army. They never confronted the rioters directly. The homes of the few police officers who belonged to minority communities were also burned. That took place in the Police Lines area. The police action was utterly parochial and one-sided.
AKS: And you have also said in your book that the local police was reluctant to obey the army’s orders?
ZUS: It was not quite like that. We would ask to declare curfews in selected areas. The police only imposed curfews in the areas where minorities lived. The majority-dominated areas were also technically under curfew, but it was not imposed. The areas where minorities lived were completely surrounded and closed off. I asked them to also do the same for majority-dominated areas but they did not.
AKS: Despite your saying so?
ZUS: I asked many times. We had a liaison officer, a police director general (DG). I met him and the commissioner many times. When I talked with George Fernandes on March 1, I asked him that the police commissioner and the DG should be transferred out and that the administration should get people to come in from elsewhere to lead the police. He wholeheartedly agreed and said that I had taken the words out of his mouth. But the transfer did not take place. The police leadership remained the same.
AKS: Who do you hold more responsible for that, the then defence minister George Fernandes or the current PM and then CM Narendra Modi? The latter has been accused many time since of not having fulfilled his chief ministerial duty and of having failed as an administrator. Whose fault do you think it was?
ZUS: I will not make any political statement. All I know is that there was an administrative failure. There was no chief secretary. The officiating chief secretary failed to take action. The police was largely non-committal. All its action was one-sided. And that administrative failure was the direct cause of the extent of the riots.
‘I am not a sarkari mussalman‘
AKS: I would like to now move forward and discuss your book. The title The Sarkari Mussalman, is very interesting. Zameer Uddin Shah has spent 40 years serving the country as a soldier. He retired in 2008 as deputy chief of army staff. Post his retirement, he served as the vice chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University. He has since also worked in other important posts. I am very curious about the title. Why did you call the book The Sarkari Mussalman? Usually, we see that term used for highly placed Muslims who are considered government stooges. The term is used derisively, yet you have chosen to call your book that?
ZUS: Yes, you see, my father was posted in Nainital, but he was transferred to Ajmer and asked to deal with the Dargah Sharif. The Khuddam of the Dargah was displeased with my father on the assumption that he would push forth the government’s agenda. So I had heard the term already in my childhood. People would say Mr Shah is a sarkari mussalman, and what they meant was that he was a government stooge.
Regardless, when I was the second lieutenant, I met some horse-riders in a hotel in Mussoorie. I found out that it was the Aligarh Muslim University riding team which had come to participate in an event at the Indian Military Academy. So I thought it was a good opportunity to talk to them about the military. I spoke to them about the dignity and prosperity that a job in the military offers. And I told them that horse-riders were needed in the army, and that the army accords special significance to polo. When I did an informal poll to see who was interested in joining, none of them raised their hands. They said to me that I am a sarkari mussalman, a government stooge, and so there was no reason to trust what I said. I have thought since that it is a very derogatory term. But there are two types of sarkari mussalman: The first is the one who does not pander to his community, one who sticks by the rules, and then they get derogatorily referred to as a ‘sarkari mussalman’.
AKS: So what kind of sarkari mussalman were you?
ZUS: I am not one.
AKS: Not during your stint in the army? Not as vice chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University?
ZUS: No, I played by the rules. Yes, there is another kind of sarkari mussalman. They are those who possess a discriminatory attitude towards their own community. They make a big show of being secular and openly say that they do not support Muslims. So there is a reaction. And they take action against members of their own community. I have written in my book that Salman Rushdie and Taslima Nasrin are taking advantage of this phenomenon. They were born as Muslims but now they write against Islam. So this was partly the reason behind the title. And my publisher said that the title was catchy.
AKS: The publisher liked it?
ZUS: Yes, indeed.
‘Every government has targeted AMU’
AKS: I would like to move forward and ask you about Aligarh Muslim University. Given what is going on there, with attacks by right-wing organisations like Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad, do you think that the Modi government, the NDA government, is specifically targeting Aligarh Muslim University?
ZUS: See, every government has targeted Aligarh Muslim University (AMU). The previous government appointed someone very unsuitable to the executive council, someone responsible for a fake movement. I wrote a letter to the HRD ministry urging them to not appoint that person to the executive council. Despite this, he was nominated. And he was also shown the letter I wrote.
AKS: But is there any difference between the two governments?
ZUS: I have not noticed any difference. I have always said that Aligarh Muslim University and Banaras Hindu University are on par with each other. But the latter gets twice as much grant money. Jamia Millia Islamia is one-third the size of AMU, yet receives more grant money. But nobody has paid this any heed.
AKS: How do you see the attack on the students of AMU? They were asked to prove their love for the country and their nationalism. How do you see this entire incident?
ZUS: When I was VC of AMU, the member of parliament of the district wrote to me saying that AMU students were ‘anti-national’ because they criticise the government. I wrote back saying that our students were free to criticise whoever they wanted, but ‘anti-national’ activities would not be tolerated by the university administration. And they are not. AMU is a modern, secular university. It has not, does not and will not tolerate ‘anti-national’ activities. This is the history of the university. The MP once raised the issue of Raja Mahendra Pratap, who according to him donated 3,000 acres to AMU. I corrected him straightway. The fact is that Raja Mahendra Pratap gave just 3 acres on lease to AMU, for which the university pays him an annuity. He nonetheless continued to express outrage. I wrote a letter to the HRD ministry saying that their MP was fomenting communal tension.
AKS: What is your view on the picture of Jinnah?
ZUS: What they do is release something to the press and send us a letter. The letter takes a week to arrive. That is all the action they take.
AKS: And the report is published before then?
ZUS: Yes. And it is the same with Jinnah’s picture.
AKS: I want to know your opinion on the picture of Jinnah that hangs in Aligarh Muslim University. Should the university remove that picture or do they not need to do that?
AKS: See, were I the vice chancellor, I would have found a way to resolve the dispute. But the picture cannot be removed by force or under duress. You cannot use strong-arm tactics. There are a hundred pictures hanging there. There are a lot of people who have been made honorary members of the student’s union. My own picture hangs there. I was made an honorary member. Jinnah was made an honorary member at a time when he was staunchly pro-Congress. Had the MP spoken with the VC, some resolution could have been found. But strong-arm tactics will not be tolerated. The students at AMU have decided that the picture will remain there. They are also saying that there is a portrait of Jinnah in the parliament as well. Should that not be removed also then?
‘Muslim community does not feel secure’
AKS: I want to ask you, now that it has been nearly five years and the country is heading towards elections, how do you evaluate the last five years? How do you evaluate the tenure of Narendra Modi from the perspective of India’s largest minority, Muslims?
ZUS: Look, the statement by Hamid Ansari was absolutely correct.
AKS: So you are saying that the Muslim community does not feel secure?
ZUS: Yes, indeed. Just take a look at the activities of gaurakshaks (cow protectors). And look at social media. My own friends, some of them very good friends, are now taking to social media to speak against Muslims. It is not Pakistanis they are speaking against, which is a different thing, but rather Muslims.
AKS: Muslims of their own country?
ZUS: Yes, Muslims of their own country, and particularly against the Muslim soldiers in the Indian military. This is very undesirable. I always say that the Bohra course of action should be emulated. The Bohra community suffered the most losses in Gujarat. Yet, possibly due to their commitment to education, they came forward and rebuilt what they lost. All Muslims should do this. Muslim progress can only happen through learning and education. We received education, all my relatives serve in the army, navy and air force. If Muslims receive education, they can finish off the discrimination that they face.
The place of the Muslims in the Indian democracy
AKS: You are saying something very important. I will return to this, to the question of how the situation can improve in the future. But I want to know, in regards to the atmosphere created by the politics of the last four-and-a-half years, in which there is such polarisation, what do you see as the place of the Muslim community in the Indian democracy and constitution? Especially if these politics are to continue into the future?
ZUS: I am completely certain that discrimination is not based on religion. I think discrimination is against those who lack the opportunities for education and training, of which the two largest groups are Dalits and Muslims. Since they are less qualified, who will give them jobs?
AKS: But it is not the case that the better-educated Muslims were spared in the Gujarat riots, right?
ZUS: True, even the well-educated Muslims were killed in the riots. The most dangerous thing is that even middle-class Muslims who were living in localities and flats were driven out of there and killed.
AKS: And also the Muslims living in mixed localities, where Hindus and Muslims lived side-by-side.
ZUS: Yes, even those, and now, thanks to the riots, those Muslims have been driven out of those localities and forced to live in Muslim ghettos.
Is education enough to rid Muslims of discrimination?
AKS: As you seem to be saying that education is the solution to all these problems, I want to ask you, given the violent politics of the time and the fact that some select groups have arrogated to themselves the right to decide what constitutes patriotism, is education enough to rid Muslims of the discrimination they are facing? Will the discrimination end if Muslims become more educated?
ZUS: Yes, I am convinced that it will. Why was there no discrimination against me? I did not have any political backing. Why did my children and relatives not face discrimination? It’s because the entire family has been educated at Aligarh Muslim University, one is a retired Inspector General, another is something else. None of us have faced any discrimination.
AKS: Because you come from an elite background? Was that the reason?
ZUS: No, that was not the reason. Our entire family was uprooted after the abolition of zamindari. We used to be very rich, but we were instantly rendered penniless. It was only through education that a way forward could be found.
AKS: You are saying that Muslims should focus on education at any cost?
ZUS: Yes, and make sure the education does not take place in ghettoised schools. The kind of school I went to, we had the opportunity to meet and get to know and understand all sorts of people. I still have friends from that school.
AKS: But given that RSS talks about making India a Hindu country, and the BJP is closely allied with the RSS, what place do you see for Muslims in the kind of India envisaged by the RSS? Would they remain equal citizens?
ZUS: If they are educated and make progress, there will be no choice but to accept them. This is what I used to tell my students at AMU, that if they are more qualified and skilled than their competitors, they will no doubt receive job offers. I also used to tell them that if they want to guarantee a job offer, they should wear sherwanis to job interviews as that will make them recognizable. But they can succeed only on the basis of skills and education. If they sit in dhabas all night drinking chai, they will not become skilled or educated. I am convinced that Muslim students can dismantle discrimination to become successful if they educate themselves and work hard.
‘It is also the responsibility of Muslims to protect their country’
AKS: You have also said many times that people should join the military, and that especially Muslims should. Whether joining the military is the best way to be patriotic is an issue that is often discussed. But you recommend it. Accusations are made that the proportion of Muslims in the military is smaller than their proportion in the total population. That is true. There are not as many Muslims in the military as one might expect given their total population. In the situation where it seems that the practice of recruitment is discriminatory, how are you motivating and encouraging Muslim youths to join the military?
ZUS: I tried a lot at Aligarh Muslim University. I tried to train students to join the military. I used to tell students that if they wish to ensure their own security and the security of their families, they should join the military. That way no police officer can harass them. It will ensure the security of their entire extended family. And it is also the responsibility of Muslims to protect their country. So why should they not join? Muslims should join the army, the navy and the air force.
AKS: You were yourself in the war of 1971 when Bangladesh was founded.
ZUS: Yes, absolutely. You must have heard of flagging, which occurs in the United States. Army jawans (soldiers) have always protected us. They have always taken care of us. I never faced any discrimination. The Indian Armed Forces is the safest place for Muslims. It is the safest occupation for them.
AKS: But the army also has the responsibility of recruiting people in large numbers from the Muslim community.
ZUS: Of course. But the thing is that we (Muslims) ourselves have failed to come forward.
AKS: You think that more people should apply?
ZUS: Yes. When only ten apply and one gets selected, we say that there are not enough Muslims in the military. But if one thousand apply, a hundred will get selected. Muslims should come forward and make efforts themselves. When the National Defence Academy call came around, our maulvi at Ajmer Sharif questioned my interest in joining the army. He said that I would face discrimination and other difficulties. My father asked me to disregard the maulvi and encouraged me to join. He sent me. I was only 15-and-a-half years old then. Fortunately, I served in the army for 40 years after that. It is most important that Muslims understand that this country is ours. And that the responsibility to protect the country falls on us.
AKS: Thank you very much Lieutenant General Zameer Uddin Shah. A soldier who has served the country for 40 years, Shah says that the Muslim community should consider this country their own and that they have the responsibility to protect it. Large numbers of people from the Muslim community should come forward and join the military. You should read this very interesting book, titled The Sarkari Mussalman, not just to learn about what happened during the 2002 Gujarat riots from the perspective of an army officer, but also to learn how a successful Muslim who has successively held several high posts looks at the relationship between Narendra Modi and Muslims and what he thinks about the future of the Muslim community in India.
Transcript prepared by Karan Dhingra.