In February 2002, 59 Hindu pilgrims perished when their train caught fire just outside Godhra station in the Indian state of Gujarat. The cause of the fire was never conclusively established; yet of the many unsubstantiated theories that still swirl around the fire, the one that had the most devastating impact on was the claim that the train had been set alight by a Muslim mob.
What followed was three days of riots that resulted in the deaths of at least 790 Muslims and 254 Hindus, with another 223 people reported missing and 2,500 more injured. Civil society groups estimate that the actual death toll was closer to double that number. Over two decades have passed since the Godhra train fire, but Indian society is yet to come to terms with its aftermath.
I’ve found myself thinking a lot about Godhra since three young girls were killed, and eight more children and two adults injured, after being stabbed at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport last week. Online misinformation wrongly suggested their attacker was a Muslim man who had arrived in the UK in a small boat last year, sparking a frenzy of anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim riots in recent days.
At their surface, these two incidents could not be more different – in scale, cultural contexts and geographies – but there are eerie similarities in the aftermath of the two incidents. Perhaps there is also a lesson for Keir Starmer’s Labour government, and for civil society, as we contemplate the visible resurgence of the far-Right here in the UK.
When the Hindu-right in India lost the general elections two years after the Gujarat riots, it appeared that Indian voters had rejected the madness of religious conflict.
The British public is now fixated on how many small boats cross the English Channel each year, rather than focusing on the fact that 30 per cent of children in the UK live in poverty
The incoming centrist government was led by a technocratic cabinet headed by an celebrated economist who had little personal charisma but a briefcase full of seemingly well-designed schemes; while the parliamentary right-wing party in opposition appeared headless, in disarray and completely out of ideas.
Yet the terrifying narratives and energies released by the Godhra riots didn’t go away. Instead, we witnessed an early iteration of what is now a familiar global phenomenon: the Indian right went through a series of purges, moving ever-rightwards with each cycle, until the fringe had effectively cannibalised any centrist elements or ideologies that remained. And when the far-right fringe ate the centre-right, they inherited an organised party infrastructure that was the perfect vehicle to seize power.
In 2014, two elections after the Godhra riots, the chief minister of Gujarat, who had at best stood by as his state burned and at worst actively contributed to the conflagration, rode his reputation as so-called defender of the Hindu faith to become the prime minister of India, a seat he holds to this day. Under Prime Minister Modi, the Bharatiya Janata Party plays the role of both the government and also the arms-length conductor of right-wing mobs who can be summoned at any moment to do its bidding.
Five weeks after Labour’s landslide victory, it is clear that Starmer’s principle opposition will not come from a discombobulated Tory party. Instead, it will come from far-Right groups who have laid waste to the streets and who will define the terms on which his government will govern: “immigration”, which – depending on the audience – codes quite clearly as “race”, “Britishness” and similar euphemisms for difference.
Early evidence suggests Labour seems to think it can beat the xenophobes on their own terms. Three weeks ago, home secretary Yvette Cooper chose The Sun as her vehicle for an article that clubs together immigration, shop-lifting and knife crime and promises to deploy 1,000 civil servants to a deportation programme that will start by raiding businesses suspected of employing the undocumented.
This is a trap, because there is no way that Starmer, Cooper and co. will ever be able to deport enough people to satisfy the mobs chanting “Kill Him” as they drag Asian men from their cars, nor will they ever be able to stop enough boats to satisfy the mobs content to burn a children’s library, mosques, supermarkets, and hotels providing accommodation to asylum seekers. A new National Violent Disorder Programme and the expanded deployment of facial-recognition cameras will not solve the fact that a sizable percentage of the British public is now fixated on how many small boats cross the English Channel each year, rather than focusing on the fact that 30 per cent of children in the UK live in poverty.
All that these measures will accomplish is validate the right-wing claim that small-boat immigration is an existential problem rather than a convenient scapegoat for the many failures of successive governments to create a just, equitable society. Efforts to “get tough” on disorder will further shrink democratic space and continue the build-out of a surveillance regime that will affect everyone’s civil liberties. Then as 2029 rolls around, these misplaced promises will set the stage for a narrative of Labour’s failure, and open the door for a figure in the guise of Modi, Donald Trump or Jair Bolsonaro.
Yet there is hope.
With the election in the bag and the far-Right on the streets, now is the time for Starmer and Labour to reclaim their base
Progressive movements across the UK are coming out in large numbers to stand beside immigrant communities. While it is too early to say, this week I sat in on conversations that suggest that the sight of Nazis attacking mosques may lay the ground for a tentative rapprochement between alliances torn asunder by Israel’s continued bombardment of Gaza, and Starmer’s refusal to condemn it. It is no secret that he became prime minister by severing Labour from its traditional foot soldiers who could be counted upon to place their bodies on barricades to stand up for progressive ideals.
With the election in the bag and the far-Right on the streets, now is the time for Starmer and Labour to reclaim their base and reframe the conversation around the many challenges posed by the long shadow of austerity.
As a recent immigrant to the UK, and as someone who worked in a riot relief camp in Gujarat in the aftermath of the riots, I can’t help but draw parallels between the images of burnt-out husks of buildings across the UK and the riot-torn neighbourhoods I visited 20 years ago.
In Gujarat, I was tasked with interviewing riot victims to prepare claims forms for what they lost in the carnage. The interviews would start with bureaucratic efficiency as people systematically narrated a litany of objects – clothes, appliances, bicycles, kitchen utensils, all the many things that go into carefully building a life.
But every now and then, someone would go off track and describe something that could never be replaced or compensated for: the loss of a family album, a wedding sari, a parent, a child, a memory of the before times when the people across the street looked different, and sounded different. When it was okay to be different, until suddenly it wasn’t.
A version of this article first appeared on openDemocracy
