Gayatri Ramanathan: Secular crusader

BACKSTAGE

A few months after the Gujarat riots, President A PJ Abdul Kalam was touring the relief camps for riot victims, with Chief Minister Narendra Modi, when a burkha-clad woman walked up to him and quietly handed him a copy of the March 2002 issue of the Mumbai-based journal Communalism Combat. The 150-page issue was the first detailed documentation of how violence was perpetrated across Gujarat's 19 districts. The co-editor of the journal, Teesta Setalvad, had single-handedly documented the violence.

Four years later, the case has come a full circle as one of the star witnesses against the Modi government, Zahira Sheikh, stands in the dock as a "self-condemned liar" and has drawn a sentence of one year imprisonment and a fine of Rs 50,000. And Setalvad, after many threats of death and violence, stands vindicated by the courts.

The Supreme Court, last January, had referred the matter for inquiry after several changes of testimony by Zahira, her mother Sehrunissa, two brothers Nasibullah and Nafitullah and sister Sahira, all of whom had turned hostile during the recording of evidence, much to Setalvad's embarrassment, who had championed their cause initially.

Says Setalvad, "It is unfortunate that someone who was once the star witness in the case is facing prosecution. If she had a little more foresight she could have saved herself the ordeal." And her pre-eminent feeling for her erstwhile ward? "A sense of regret and pain that it had to come to this." And she still has mixed feelings about Zahira "" "I don't know how much of her flip-flops were because of intimidation or whether she was paid off or was it a mix of the two. It is hard for me to say anything now, as I have lost touch with her."

The 42-year-old journalist-turned-activist's fight against communalism began way back in 1983, when she and her husband Javed Anand formed a pressure group, Journalists Against Communalism. After Mumbai's riots, Teesta, the daughter of a lawyer and social activist, started Communalism Combat. Later she formed Citizens for Justice and Peace, with prominent Mumbaikars such as Javed Akhtar and Alyque Padamsee to fight the battle against communalism. She is also the winner of several awards, including the Chameli Devi Jain award for outstanding woman journalist and the Dutch Prince Claus award of 2002.

Setalvad's focus now is on getting the other 13 cases transferred out of Gujarat. She sees the judgement in the Best Bakery case as the beginning of an overhaul of the system. "These cases are not just about the Gujarat violence. They are also about bringing about systemic change. They are about the root problems plaguing the system "" of witness protection, police reforms and the role of the state public prosecutors." Some of the issues the crucial April 21 hearings will focus on.