What I get from Rana Ayyub’s Gujarat Files?

The book ‘Gujarat Files: Anatomy of a cover up’ is focused over riots happened in Gujarat in year 2002 and subsequent police encounters of half a dozen people. It was later found out in the investigation that riots were supported by the then state government and police encounters were cold blood non-judicial killings. The book includes testimonies of the administrative and police officials from the Gujarat where it puts an affirmative stamp over the allegations against then state government of BJP, a right-wing political group, led by Narendra Modi, serving as the current Prime Minister of India. The book creates an account of biggest cover up which failed in due course of time.

I talked with Rana on phone and congratulated her on release of her undercover investigation named ‘Gujarat Files’. After Ayyub’s advice, I looked online for book but it seemed out of stock. Surprisingly everywhere. Later I was informed that it’d get filled up soon. But few days after I moved to Delhi and grabbed a copy of the book.

In a casual sitting with Hindi poet Mahesh Verma and an awarded journalist from Indian Express, I was discussing this book. I had it in my bag but I hadn’t read a single word. Before going through the book, I was sure that I’m in sort of need to find out if this book is a pure journalistic work or there has been help sought from the fictional storytelling to keep the flow going. I expressed my confusion and the journalist said, ‘Aren’t you already aware of what happened in Gujarat? Who was responsible for the all encounters and cold blood killings? Who passed put the orders? I mean we all are aware of this. You should get to know that how this all has been told in this book.’

The idea is enough to struck the conscience. Almost everybody knows what is there in the book. I can be sure that even those people know about the content who haven’t read a word from it. They know it out of their denial. Almost everything is out of the ‘Gujarat Files’ even before it could get in hands of reader.

I completed book in single sitting. It definitely mean that it has that kind of storytelling progression even with the dealing with the facts and undercover interviews. There is no shame if you call this book a sensational stuff coming out of a courageous undercover investigation. Sensational — this in the time when people allegedly involved in provoking the riots and fake encounters are in the power in the Indian democracy.

Why Ayyub had to publish a book by herself?

Yes, the book is published by Rana Ayyub herself in cooperation with Leftword books. Walking in the past may be the best way to get the idea of possibilities of what could happened if someone else than author would have decided to publish the book.

Amit Shah, the president of the power holding Bhartiya Janta Party(BJP), had spent some time behind the bars for his involvement in fake encounter cases. Couple of years back when Shah was promoted to the post of President of BJP, Rana wrote an article in Indian daily DNA. The article — loaded with the facts about the cases against the Shah — was removed from the website of DNA after few hours (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Outrage-on-social-media-after-DNA-takes-down-article-critical-of-Amit-Shah/articleshow/38264714.cms). However, several alternative media outlets republished it and it still can be read. http://www.indiaresists.com/a-new-low-in-indian-politics-full-text-of-rana-ayyubs-dna-article/

In past, there has been episodes of violence and lawsuits against Penguin India after it published ‘The Hindus : an alternative history’ by american indologist Wendy Doniger. The book was accused of going against the basic ritualistic idea of Hinduism which is being practiced by radical Hindu organizations of India. The publisher withdrew the book from markets after the protests and lawsuits. The incident with the Ayyub’s article and Doniger’s book sets some example of what could happen with Rana Ayyub’s Gujarat files, if it was published by any publisher in India. Publisher could’ve bagged enormous amount of money if it decided to publish this book. The book is getting out of stock from Amazon frequently. But the basic idea of getting thrashed by ‘pro-nationalist’ values has began haunting the Indian publishers, even the news publishers. So this may be the reason that Ayyub published this book by herself, and yet it is again a courageous attempt after the courageous undercover investigation. Not only publication, Ayyub is promoting the book by herself while doing the countrywide travelling. Her twitter and instagram feed is full of her journey stories.

The book projects the quite unpopular form of journalism in India. Investigative journalism in India is still finding its way into common newspaper reading population. With handful names of investigative reporters in the country, only few magazines and a newspaper are running the show. Apart from that, Indian journalism is still loaded with pretentious writings, biased talkshows and reports which put the ‘Nationalism’ first than the facts and events. So Rana Ayyub’s this work — which is set in context of infamous Gujarat riots of 2002 and fake encounters happened in Gujarat in the following years — completely stands against the famous basic and gruesome journalistic setup of the country.

For ready reckoning of my non-Indian friends, the period in the book is the same when current Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was serving as Chief Minister of Gujarat. He resigned from the post of Chief Minister after becoming nation’s head in 2014. Amit Shah was serving as the Home Minister during Modi’s regime in Gujarat. And later on, it was Shah’s name that came out in investigations of staged police encounters which killed half a dozen people on framed grounds of terrorism. This book comes out as result as Ayyub interviews various top government officials of Gujarat in a spree of sting operations which she did with the help of secret cameras pinned to her Kurta, Diary and watch. She spent her time in Gujarat under the name of Maithili Tyagi, a fictional character, where she gives notion of being a NRI filmmaker who’s to shoot the ‘prosperity’ of Gujarat for a documentary.

The interviews include GL Singhal, Rajan Priyadarshi, Ashok Narayan, GC Raigar, PC Pande, Maya Kodnani, Geet Johri, Haren Pandya and others. The interviews are simply done in a measure of casual talk and it may seem edited for the ease of book readers and to keep it factual. In personal opinion, these interviews don’t reveal much. It has been widely discussed and often been proved with many facts that killing of Ehsaan Jafri and other Muslims during 2002 was strongly backed by the state. Often came up the name of Narendra Modi directly and he was alleged to stand in favor of killing of innocent Muslims during that period. Role of the then state home minister Amit Shah was proven in cold blooded killings of Muslims and staged encounters of Ishrat Jahan, Sohrabuddin Sheikh, Tulsiram Prajapati and others in Gujarat. Amit Shah was sentenced to jail and he came out on bail. So what does the book proves?

I say it testifies the theories that are just floating in the skimmed events. It testifies by the statements of the officers who were present at the encounters. It testifies by the statements of organization post bearers who led mob for killings. And more openly, it testifies the roles of two powerful people in the country.

Central Bureau of Investigation(CBI) didn’t only named Amit Shah as key conspirator in it’s chargesheet of Sohrabuddin fake encounter case, but also accused him of running an extortion racket in Gujarat which included many powerful people from the region. In one of her reports outside the book, Ayyub wrote,

As a journalist covering Gujarat extensively since 2005, as someone who exposed Shah’s role in the fake encounters in the state and who can claim to have knowledge of his political trajectory, I would not mince my words in suggesting that by appointing Amit Shah as the president of the party, the BJP has hugely disrespected the law of the land and signalled an all time low for the criminal justice system of India. For the cases against Shah are for crimes so gruesome that the cloak of political astuteness will be too short to cover it.

And in the book, where comes the testimonies of various people from Gujarat, officials are accepting the fact that officers were getting transferred on remote and unwanted locations if they refuse to obey or fulfill the orders from the Amit Shah. As Ayyub exposes, Amit Shah was dictating officers of various ranks to follow his just verbal orders, not on paper. Usually these orders were about to kill someone in the prison or in a staged encounters. If the officer failed or denied to follow the order, he was transferred to remote locations.

In undercover interview, one of the officers told Ayyub that Shah called him for a meeting at his house and without any hesitation Shah told him to kill a captive. As the events in book puts the bad cops in question, it also encircles the activities of cops like IPS Sanjiv Bhatt who have been continuously accusing Narendra Modi and his governance at the center.

And there is much more in the book. The age when Indian adults get involved in hate mongering and trolling/abusing over social media and whatsapp, Rana Ayyub was busy in Ahmedabad investigating the truth that has been partially known. It was a expedition of the facts. Now I suppose that the fact has been added to an already known story and there it makes story more question raising over the current nationalist regime in India.

Excerpt from the book can be read here: http://www.caravanmagazine.in/vantage/lone-soldier-excerpt-rana-ayyub-gujarat-files

(I’m a Journalist, blogger and writer based in India. You can follow me on twitter @siddhantmt or at facebook.com/siddhantmt.)