01556pab a2200145 454500008004000000100001800040245003500058260000900093300001600102362001100118520118500129650004001314650002201354773003401376180718b2002   xxu||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d  aBaxi, Upendra  aThe Second Gujarat catastrophe  c2002  ap.3519-531.  a24 Aug  aThe second act of the catastrophe in Gujarat was carried out within parliamentary portals, in the course of the debate on the Gujarat violence which exposed the hypocrisy that while political discourse might concern itself with people's anguish, it is in reality driven by aspects of competitive politics.  Even as extraordinary violence was perpetrated on Indian women, it was women's bodies that provided the necessary domain for the assertion of competitive party politics - a fact reflected in the arguments and counter-arguments offered during the debate. As this essay suggests, the ominous `final message that seeps through is that constitutional of governance can achieve little except normalise violence, almost as a social cost of democratic politics, in which even structured practices of governance are established that deny as well silence women's sufferings.  The task for the `active citizen' thus is to frame imaginative patterns of social action that would not merely empower victims but also adequately present the voices of suffering, giving voice to the anguish - a task that could effectively challenge the newly instituted narratives of `pride' and `honour.'  aCommunal violence - India - Gujarat  aCommunal violence  aEconomic and Political Weekly