Two days before Narendra Modi’s landslide Lok Sabha victory in 2014, Mukul Sinha – pioneering lawyer, activist and labour organiser – passed away in Ahmedabad.
Mukul had been battling cancer for a while. But I did not expect him to leave us when I, and many others, needed him the most. We met in 2010, just as Ahmedabad was celebrating its 600th birthday. I knew I wanted to write about the aftermath of the 2002 pogrom, but I did not know how to frame my reporting. He taught me, early on, that I should forget about Modi; that our fight must be against systems and ideas, never people.
He was markedly different from many others I met in Ahmedabad. For one, he was always up for a debate, as long as you kept smiling and making jokes. He would also often deflect questions to his wife, human rights activist Nirjhari Sinha, a stark contrast to many men I met in Gujarat who insisted, publicly or privately, that women had nothing to say about politics.
At Mukul’s memorial service, on May 13, 2014, I sat in the back with a laptop, working on an obituary, but I barely got any writing done. Every few minutes, someone would approach me and tell me a story about how much he had changed their lives. I heard stories from bus drivers, professors, journalists, street sweepers, former prisoners, judges and even people who Mukul fought against.
The hugs were tighter and longer than I expected. How could they not be? It was Mukul who held us for so long, who reminded us not to despair. Who, I wondered, would carry us if Modi won the next day?
On my recent trip to Ahmedabad in May this year, I caught up with some of Mukul’s friends and family to pay tribute to him and to gauge how he might view India today. Several responded by sending me a list of other people to interview, a testament to how expansive his influence continues to be.
The following are excerpts from my conversation with journalist Sreenivasan Jain, author and activist Harsh Mander, journalist and Gujarat Files author Rana Ayyub, activist Zakia Soman, filmmaker Arastu Zakia, dancer and activist Mallika Sarabhai, civil rights activist Teesta Setalvad and Mukul’s son and AltNews founder Pratik Sinha.
Zahir Janmohamed (ZJ): How did you meet Mukul Sinha?
Sreenivasan Jain (SJ): I first met Mukul around 2011-12 while I was at NDTV. I was working on the encounter killings in Gujarat that took place after the 2002 Gujarat riots. We were received with warmth at his home in Ahmedabad. Mukul and Nirjhari had been instrumental in uncovering the role of high-ranking government officials in the killings and they were a trove of information for journalists like me looking to pursue the story. Despite being weighed down with work, they had the patience and generosity to take us over the intricacies of each case. The conversations would sometimes extend late into the evening and dinner would magically appear. Over the course of the next few years, my team and I visited them several times. And with each visit, what started off as a professional engagement grew into a friendship.
Harsh Mander (HM): I don’t exactly recall how I met him but it must have been around 2002, when Gujarat was engulfed in the fires of a state-sponsored massacre. It was a carnage that changed the course of many lives, including his and mine. And it was natural for this diverse group of warriors against hate to come close together. I recall many long evenings at his home where we shared our anguished observations about the destroyed lives and ways of shared living that we had witnessed. We learned from and supported each other’s efforts, and sometimes, we ended up singing old Hindi songs. Among Mukul’s wonderful talents was his resonant bass voice!
Rana Ayyub (RA): Mukul was baba for me. I was the daughter he said he never had. I first met Mukul in 2007 while I was working with a news channel that had sent me to Ahmedabad as a part of a Gujarat elections reporting team. This was the election in which Modi first invoked the Sohrabuddin fake-encounter case to project himself as the Hindu leader under attack from Islamists. I have a vague memory of this meeting where he spoke to me about the Gujarat riots and piqued my interest in the spate of fake encounters in the state.
I met him again in 2008, this time for a story I was writing on Muslim boys being implicated in terror cases in the name of the Indian Mujahideen. This is when I was truly introduced to his legal acumen, to the Mukul that inspired a generation. I accompanied him to a local court for a hearing and showed him some evidence that I had gathered while we were on the way to the court. He joked if I would like to join his legal team. I remember referring to an FIR in one of the cases and Mukul knew the details verbatim.
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I was to return to the state again a couple of times for the SIT hearings in the Gujarat riots but I think my most vivid memory of meeting with him is from 2010, when I lived in Gujarat for a couple of months. The CBI had taken over the investigation of the Sohrabuddin-Tulsi Prajapati case and an SIT had been formed to look into the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter.
Mukul had become the point person for journalists who were covering the case. He also introduced me to the Sadiq Jamal fake encounter case which ultimately made me investigate the pattern of fake encounters in Gujarat. As a very young Muslim woman covering the most sensitive investigation involving Amit Shah and Narendra Modi, he was always worried about my safety. Especially because Tehelka, where I was then employed, was under the Modi government’s radar.
Zakia Soman (ZS): Talking about Mukul bhai makes me emotional. With his unfortunate death, Arastu [Zakia’s son] and I lost a loving family member and someone who was very close to our hearts. I first met him in the aftermath of the Gujarat communal carnage of 2002. I was new in the field of social work, helping survivors with relief and rehabilitation. He was a well-known lawyer who was fighting for the truth to be brought out in the Nanavati Commission. We became friends almost immediately, largely owing to his pure, child-like demeanour. I was at home with him at once.
While I was grappling with the communal situation on the outside, there was internal turmoil too, owing to my painful marriage. Years later I realised that the presence and warmth of Nirjhari and Mukul bhai encouraged me to take the final step [towards ending my marriage]. My subconscious was influenced by them although we never discussed my domestic situation. Later on, they both told me they had noticed the sadness in my eyes and knew that something was wrong. They became pillars of support and stood by me after my marriage ended. Mukul bhai told my ex-husband, “You are the biggest loser I’ve ever known.”
Arastu Zakia (AZ): Mukul Uncle entered my life when I was 14 and was finding it incredibly hard to process all that I’d experienced during the pogrom of 2002. My parents used to run their own NGO at the time and as there weren’t other NGOs run by educated, English-speaking Muslims in Ahmedabad, many activists and journalists would land up at our house. While many of them would appear rather aggressive even in their personal lives, Mukul uncle always wore a smile. He was tender, loving and before I knew it, had already become a father figure to me.
Mallika Sarabhai (MS): I knew of Mukul, long before I met him, as the troublemaker who brought union activities to the physical research laboratory. A scientific laboratory, that my father had started several years earlier, where Mukul disrupted a lot of work. So he was first known to me as a villain. And it was not until 2002 that we found ourselves on the same side of the fight, against Modi and the administration, and since then we became fellow comrades fighting for justice. He was the one who suggested that I should run for office in the Gujarat elections against L.K. Advani. He was an integral part of my campaign and strategy etc. We worked very closely together at the time and continued doing so later as well.
ZJ: What made him unique?
SJ: Sometimes, those who are fighting against injustice tend to slip into a form of activism that may colour their arguments or the fight becomes about themselves. That was not the case with Mukul. He chose to remain committed to facts and rigour, and avoided hyperbole. He never centre-staged himself in the work he was doing. This was presumably one of the several reasons why he was widely regarded. For someone fighting heavy odds and at great personal risk at times, he remained steadfastly gentle, funny and kind – characteristics unique to an earlier generation of Indians to which he belonged, and who are fast-vanishing.
HM: It was his courage, of course, combined with his fierce political analysis, his efforts to ideologically fight communalism, even among trade union workers (something that the formal left parties have not done nearly enough of) and his doggedness. But also, his knowledge of science which helped him dismantle the dangerous theory that a group of Muslims deliberately set fire to the train in Godhra. This was the justification provided by Modi and the Hindu Right for the carnage that followed.
RA: What made him unique was his scientific temper that helped him see the evidence, not just as a lawyer but with the forensic precision that his cases required. But he truly stood apart for me because of his empathy, humanity and his moral compass. I have had discussions with him on political and religious ideology, we’ve had differences of opinion over faith, but it was never condescending. He was always empathetic and felt deeply for the people whose struggle he gave a voice to – be it as a trade unionist at Jan Sangharsh Manch or a lawyer fighting the most critical cases of human rights. “I would not like to stay in a country where Modi is the prime minister,” he had told me a couple of times. The 2014 exit polls had come, I was on a television debate and while I was live, I got a text saying “Mukul baba is no more”. This was the exit poll that gave Modi a complete majority. In life and in death, he lived his truth.
ZS: Mukul bhai and I began working together for justice for survivors. We worked very closely with families of those who were falsely framed under POTA and campaigned for the repeal of this draconian law. I was very new to activism and I learnt a lot from Mukul bhai, who was already a trade unionist and social activist. He was remarkable in his commitment to social justice for all, especially those from underprivileged backgrounds. He was also a sharp legal mind and a strategist. This was visible in the way he dealt with the proceedings in the commission. But more importantly, he was a people’s person. His home and his office was open to anyone seeking justice. He took up their cases pro bono. Now, after 20 years into activism, I have several friends and comrades in the field. Mukul bhai was unique in the fact that he was never bitter about his opponents. He did not hate those whom he was fighting against, instead he pitied them for their lack of humanity. He always found a reason to laugh and have hope even during the worst crisis. He would be a formidable voice of dissent if he were alive today.
AZ: Some accomplished activists were hard to like. He was the most loveable and loving human being who also happened to be an accomplished activist. Many times, he would tell me, “Beta, aaj ne high court mein mujhe bola sir tum chup raho, tum ko yeh log maar daalegi” (his Bengali Hindi never left him). “Toh maine bola maar daalo yaar, ek din toh marna hi hain!” All of this with the most earnest smile. How do you intimidate such a man! Secondly, I’ll always remember his memorial service. He was the kind of atheist who’d have come back from his grave had a religious funeral been thrown for him). Even Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders took the mic and said “Inhone zindagi bhar bohot sataya, par aadmi sachhe the.” That level of respect, from a supposed enemy, is a testament to the integrity and humanity with which he fought!
Teesta Setalvad (TS): Mukul Sinha was a towering yet quiet figure in Gujarat’s social justice fabric. While working with the unorganised working class and mobilising those rendered homeless by the state’s vicarious development policies, he came unto his own post the Gujarat pogrom of 2002. His erudite advocacy and empathy for the survivors made a lasting impact. The gaping hole of his untimely and unfortunate departure is made worse by what his country’s women and men have had to endure under this regime.
Pratik Sinha (PS): My father would very often end his speeches with the slogan, “ladenge, jeetenge”. He was a fighter, with a ton of optimism. At home, he was my doting father, my greatest friend and the one I would turn to when I needed answers to questions in life. The questions would range from politics to love, and he would patiently answer them all. Through all the struggles, he was a source of jokes and witticisms in the darkest of times. At home, he was a doting partner to my mother and who taught me how to love. My father was a brilliant, multi-talented man whose gentleness and camaraderie is missed by everyone whose lives were touched by him.
MS: I have to tell you that Yadavan Chandra, who is the artistic director of Darpana Academy of Performing Arts, wrote and created a pilot for a web series [based on Mukul] called Comrade Bapu. It’s the story of a man who, for no personal gain, just wants to do good and fight against injustice and Mukul is his mentor. Every time he’s in trouble, Mukul, who is not alive, comes to him, showing him a way out.
ZJ: What do you think he would make of India today?
SJ: I think it would be safe to say that he would be deeply distressed. Even though, in many ways, he would have anticipated what was to come given his ringside view of the so-called Gujarat Model. Being an optimist, he wouldn’t point just to the bleakness, but at the myriad struggles against the present regime. I think he would also be deeply proud of how Nirjhari and his son, Pratik, are keeping the fight alive.
HM: He is a hero who fought bravely and stubbornly against the forces of hate, fear and fascism that have engulfed India today. These are times when we need him more than ever. I am sure he would have been devastated to see how much India has transformed under Modi, especially the mounting radicalisation of the Hindu heart and mind. And he would have fought all of this with even firmer resolve.
RA: What I think for Mukul is what I think of Shahid Azmi, two men who were such an integral part of my life. Both of them would have been at the forefront of the cases in which some of our best student activists are behind bars. Both would have called this anti-Muslim fascist regime by its name, as opposed to playing both sides. Both of them would have been pained to see the criminals they fought against, sitting in the highest echelons of power. Even through his cancer diagnosis, when he could barely be there for himself, Mukul was trying his best to see the case against the accused in the Ishrat Jahan case reach its conclusion. He would have been pained to see what he fought against in Gujarat is now the reality of the country. I dedicated Gujarat Files to Mukul and Shahid, to whom this country owes a big debt. Some days when it gets very lonely fighting the dozen odd cases, I think of Baba.
ZS: He would stand up against the forces of communal hate and fascism as he always did in his life. His presence would have provided hope to so many people. The survivors of Gujarat carnage lost a leading fighter, the world lost a gem of a human being and I lost my best friend.
AZ: Mukul Uncle passed away a short while before the 2014 election results and my mother always remarks that someone up there didn’t want him to witness this happening to India. Uncle kept dictating articles for his blog, Truth of Gujarat to his son – who now runs the formidable AltNews – almost until the moment he closed his eyes. Even though others around him would scoff, he’d always say, “You just wait and watch, I’ll get him arrested.” If he were alive today, he would still be in the thick of a legal battle to win justice for the downtrodden but with the sweetest smile on his face.
PS: He would have continued to trust that people would fight against injustice and he would’ve done the same, even today.
MS: He would be in despair but incredibly proud of what his son is doing. It is beautiful [what Pratik has achieved]. He would really be so proud.
Zahir Janmohamed is an assistant professor of English at Bowdoin College.
