I'm no book critique, not even people who love me the most and somehow agrees on what I say about the books that I've read and those I don't want to read, will never call me even something close to a book critique. The light works on polity and non-fiction are saved for a week long read, even if they have just 300 pages. I do this to save money on buying books too frequently and to utilise the money that I've spent on books by keeping them in use for the longest period possible. I've broken my own set of rules for some exceptional books like Basharat Peer's Curfewed Nights, Rahul Pandita's Hello Bastar, and now on Rana Ayyub's Gujarat Files. The fact that I'm quite old fashioned not-so-tech-savvy and don't really have any access to gadgets like Kindle, made me order the hardcopy from Leftword. I got my copy much after the Bhakts filled the Amazon page with their hollow reviews, which reflected much of their hatred for some "Muslim journalist" trying to "defame India" and the Hindu emperor. The book took me four hours to complete after an early dinner. Going by the track record of Amit Shah and Narendra Modi, I wonder why the ruling dispensation of the RSS didn't ban the book yet.

Within hours of its launch on Amazon, the product page was filled with numerous reviews from the zealots belonging to the camp of Narendra-Amit. Their filthy and out-of-context misogynist criticism only filled the pages of Amazon and proved their desperation to boo Rana Ayyub for her work, for her Muslim identity, and for her gender. They tried their hard to not let others read the book, however, the more they criticised the book, calling it anti-national, the more this book was sold. So Rana Ayyub must thank these bunch of jokers for their selfless service in promoting the book. Even hired staffs would not have taken so much trouble to promote such work, which these people took voluntarily.

Rana Ayyub seems to be one of the last remaining vestiges of inquisitive and daring journalism, a practice where journalists with spine actually worked in a distant past. The omnipotence of corporate media has first enslaved the free conscience of journalism and its cardinal ethos with the power of the market, it then simply took the spine away from modern mainstream journalism. The journalists who are "making it big today" are those who are made to believe by their masters that they aren't loud-mouthed caged parrots, enslaved by the corporate bodies, but they are free. So, when you see slaves are made to believe that they aren't slaves, but actually free people serving the master out of their own "free" will, the game of slavery changes drastically in favour of the slave owners. There are people who escape the temptations of enslavement, Rana Ayyub stands in that row.

The book is self-published by the writer when all publishers distanced themselves from taking a political risk in a fascist state, where offending the government can slap you with a sedition charge. As someone well acquainted with the publication process, I can vouch that independent publication takes a toll on the writer(s) and their accomplices due to the hard challenges that editing, design, and printing throws. Rana Ayyub and her team surmounted this barrier successfully and hence deserves a lot of kudos.

The book opens the Pandora's box on the Gujarat anti-Muslim pogrom and the fake encounters of Ishrat Jahan, Sohrabuddin Shaikh, Kausar Bi, Tulsi Prajapati. It narrates the tale of the most thrilling undercover journalism taken up by a daring woman in a state notorious for its fascist administration and extreme bigotry against people of other religions. By becoming Maithili Tyagi, a daughter of a Sanskrit teacher and RSS supporter from the USA with roots in Kanpur, Rana Ayyub was able to penetrate deep inside the inner self of the Indian bureaucracy, represented at its best by the most sycophant Gujarat bureaucratic staff. From the police officers, then working or retired, along with retired bureaucrats, bailed out Hindutva fascist leader, widow of a slain minister, everyone felt comfortable with Maithili, their own community member and opened up their inner self to her. Most of them, like top cop Pande, nonchalantly spoke about the necessity of punishing "these Muslims", how they have faced wrath in 2002 for their own deeds, etc.

It's an open secret that Gujarat has the most bigoted and reactionary administration in the entire country. It was Narendra Modi's turf, the place where his zeal to serve the big corporate houses brought him the laurels of fame and helped him in his candidature for the premiere's post during the 2014 general elections. Only a novice reader of the subject would be surprised by the utter disregard for human lives that the top most crooked bureaucratic staff displayed during their interview with the author. For the rest, it is a mundane thing, because in India you can only be in the administration if you subscribe to the Brahminical hegemonic system and feel no guilt in ostracising the minorities, Dalits and Tribals. 

Rana Ayyub's investigation trail didn't reveal any new information than what has remained in the public memory bank since the 2002 pogrom managed by the state. We know how a marauding flock led by the RSS trained mercenaries were butchering Muslim men, raping women before lynching them and their children, burning alive hapless Muslims, extracting foetus from the womb of pregnant women to ensure no Muslims are born in Gujarat, all these when the police and administration deliberately stayed away from saving the people under the directions of Narendra and his coterie. Though the courts and the entire bureaucracy of a Brahminical state like India can try their best to make us believe that there were no communal carnages and genocides in Gujarat, the people always knew the truth. For the broad masses of workers, peasants, and working people, Narendra Modi cannot be someone more than a Gujarati trader trying to trade off the nation by igniting flames of communal genocides.

However, the Gujarat Files provides us an insight into the contradictions within the ruling classes of Gujarat, how Narendra Modi and Amit Shah's attempt to establish their absolute hegemony over the entire state machinery of Gujarat irked many of the officers who had their own ambitions and were offended by the fact that the sycophants of Modi and Shah dwarfed them in achievements during their career period. Everyone who spoke of being upright had their own set of skeletons in the closet. The ATS head of Gujarat, the now released official bhakt, Vanzara, and even the once pro-active officers like Geeta Johri kept their own dark secrets buried deep inside the well. 

Rana Ayyub described her encounters with these strange sycophants, semi-sycophants, retired fascists and dumped fascists in a very vivid manner, providing a picturesque description of not only the "Vibrant Gujarat" but also the Gujarat under the saffron skin, which will make the reading interesting. The narrative is somewhere out of the track, at times, many interview transcriptions are interrupted with other details, which again cause a disruption for the readers. 

The moment of disappointment comes as you near the closing pages of the book, where Rana Ayyub aka Maithili Tyagi makes a breach in the wall and gets the passport to the centre of power, Narendra Modi, then grooming himself for the premiere's position. She gets a chance to meet Modi, though earlier she was warned by other people who knew Modi that the cunning saffron ring leader will never talk beyond his love for Vivekananda and Gujarat development model to anyone, and once asked about the pogrom, he will sweep the question under the carpet and re-route the entire conversation. Still, she makes it.

As the first meeting between Modi and Ayyub was quite unremarkable, however, the urge to get publicity, that too a positive one among the NRI lot in the US, incited the megalomaniac Modi to call Ayyub for a second round. However, the "pragmatic" editors like Shoma Chaudhury and Tarun Tejpal applied an emergency brake on the entire exercise raising the "risk issue" that Tehelka can face by attempting to trouble Modi and his saffron brigade. The wounds of Bangaru Laxman's sting operation bothered Tejpal and Chaudhury even after a decade!

The farce of the corporate controlled media is that it can only dare to lift the veil up to a safe level, lifting it beyond that could reveal the grotesque face of the state machinery, which is repeatedly dipped in the pool of cosmetics to make it appear democratic and progressive. At the crucial moment when the corporate media houses face a "do it" or "conceal it" situation, it's most likely most editors prefer to ensure their stakeholders are not offended and mostly vote for concealing when the subject is something disturbing for their investors. Similarly, Modi was the blue-eyed Indian boy of the international monopoly and finance capital, he was then courting the Tatas, Ambanis, Adanis and others for support to his premiership. There could have been nothing more people like Tejpal could do, but toe the line of not offending the status quo. Rana Ayyub was abandoned with her enormous and incredible research and investigation work. Until she wrote this book.

It's a good read for those who would like to pick up between-the-lines from the conversation the undercover journalist had with the people from both sides of the administration, those who succumbed and those who didn't. It's a good document to know how much crooked are the bunch of people ruling India today. Hope to see more from Rana Ayyub in the future, more works that could trouble the mighty nobles and knights of the Hindutva empire in making.