------submitted to the Baltimore Sun, 3/7/2002-----------

Dear Sir,

The outrageous events of the last week in the Indian state of Gujrat shook
the world. The facts are known to most: A violent mob attacked a train
full of people returning from Ayodhya at Godhra station, killing more than
sixty people, many of them women and children, most of them burnt alive.
The reprisals for this ghastly deed were shocking in their intensity,
leaving hundreds dead as neighbour turned on neighbour throughout Gujrat.
And all this in Mahatma Gandhi's homeland.

We, a group of Indian students here in Baltimore, were stunned by this
turn of events. For four days we read of mobs ruling the streets
of Ahmedabad. On the Internet we saw grainy news footage of housewives
gathering stones to pelt people they haved lived next to for years, fires
burning on the streets. To say that we were outraged would be an
understatement. We were numbed, are numb, with grief and horror. It pains
us to think that all this is happening in a state which just over a year
ago came together to deal with the massive human tragedy of a devastating
earthquake. Gujrat today seems to have been forsaken by all the Gods whose
names are invoked as calls to violence, and by Mahatma Gandhi whose name
is rarely invoked any more.

We ask the people of America, they too have learnt the heartrending havoc
that hatred can wreak, to join us in condemning the violence that we
witnessed in Gujrat last week. In New York, last September, and throughout
these United States we saw the calls for restraint, the wisdom which
prevented the anger from slipping its leash and attacking innocents. The
Gujratis who live and work in this country witnessed it too. We appeal to
them to speak the language of peace to their relatives. And to the people
of India, our people, we appeal: Rise in response to the mobs. Protect
your neighbours. Never let this happen again, ever.

Sincerely,
Amitabha Bagchi
for
the Association for India's Development
at the Johns Hopkins University (AID-JHU)