New Delhi: J.S. Bandukwala, a well-known rights activist who spent many years working towards a more inclusive society, passed away on Saturday morning in Vadodara, Gujarat. He was 77, and is survived by a son and a daughter.
According to his doctor, Bandukwala, who lived alone, had been unwell for the last week due to age-related complications. “He had diabetes and cardiac ailments among other comorbidities. He was also suffering from mild Alzheimer’s in the recent past. For the last one week, we had deputed medical staff at his residence because he was refusing to be hospitalised. He developed septicemia in the last few days. We were trying to convince him to get hospitalised last evening… He passed away this morning at his residence,” Dr Mohammed Hussain told the Indian Express.
A physicist by training, Bandukwala had been vocal about the rights of marginalised group since his students days, when he served as president of the Vadodara’s Maharaja Sayajirao University students’ union in 1981. In Gujarat, he worked tirelessly against the ghettoisation of Muslims, including fighting against the displacement of Kalyannagar slum communities and struggling for their rehabilitation since 2015.
In 2018, Bandukwala had written to Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani on the matter, saying that the situation in the state was not different to apartheid in South Africa and Vadodara Municipal Corporation’s conduct was “most shameful”. The VMC was attempting to shift the displaced families to Muslim-dominated areas, which Bandukwala rejected. “The Muslims have the right to live anywhere, and not just in Muslim ghettos like Tandalja. The conclusion we can draw is that Muslims can only live in select Muslim localities. This is segregation as practised in the USA before Martin Luther King struggled to abolish it 50 years ago. Note that this apartheid system last prevailed in South Africa… Does Gujarat want a repeat of this apartheid in 2018 vis-à-vis Muslims?” his letter to Rupani said, according to the Indian Express.
In an article for The Wire in 2018, Bandukwala described the personal losses he faced during the 2002 communal violence in Gujarat – including his house being burnt down:
“As a matter of principle, I prefer to live in a plural locality. I still believe that true national integration can only occur when people of all castes and faiths live in proximity to each other. Unfortunately in India, people live in areas clearly marked as belonging to their caste and religion.
“I must confess my heroes have been Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King, who paid a heavy price for their belief that blacks and whites can live, eat and work together. But the flip side is that I could easily become a target of mob attack, anytime the communal temperature would start to simmer.
“That is what happened the day after Godhra train burning. My neighbours turned their backs on us. The mob had brought gas cylinders which they lit up, and within 15 minutes, the beautiful memories of that house had been turned into rubble. The only saving grace was that both my daughter and I were saved in spite of attempts to kill us. My world had collapsed.”
Even in the midst of that violence, Bandukwala wrote, not all was lost – there were still friends and colleagues who stood by his family and offered him shelter. On being met with kindness from others, including Hindus in different parts of world, Bandukwala wrote, “My faith in Gandhi and my fellow Hindus was restored. I had to see beyond my own loss and pain. Bridges had to be built both to my own community and also to the Hindus of Gujarat. The dreams of our icons – from Gandhi to Jawaharlal Nehru, from Rabindranath Tagore to Subhas Chandra Bose, from Gopal Krishna Gokhale to C. “Rajaji” Rajagopalachari – cannot be allowed to bite the dust before hate and bigotry.”
For the rest of his life, he worked for a more peaceful and united society, and for the educational, social and economic upliftment of Muslims in Gujarat.