DR. S. AUSAF SAIED VASFI comments on the recent Supreme Court order to probe the role of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and 62 others in the Gujarat genocide in 2002, and wonders how some of the BJP leaders are proposing Modi as the future Prime Minister of India.
“Your rajdharma is to punish offenders and bring the guilty to book. If you can’t, you quit.”
– V. N. Khare, Chief Justice, Supreme Court of India, castigating the Gujarat Government on September 12, 2003, while hearing the Best Bakery case.
“The modern day “Neros” were looking elsewhere when Best Bakery and innocent children and women were burning, and were probably deliberating how the perpetrators of the crime can be saved or protected.”
– Justices Raju Doraiswamy and Arijit Pasayat, April 12, 2004 judgement.
The Supreme Court, on April 27, directed the Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the role of the Gujarat Chief Minister and his administration into the post-Godhra, 2002 Gujarat genocide.
To be headed by a former CBI Director, Mr. R.K. Raghavan, the SIT would also look into the role of the ministers and the MLAs and some other Saffron leaders like Mr. Praveen Togadia in the organised violence. Ex-DGP Mr. K. Chakrawarti, Ex-DGP Mr. A. K. Bhargava and the present DGP Mr. P.C. Pande will also be asked to explain their role as they were answerable for the utter collapse of constitutional governance. Under lens would also be all the Collectors and SPs of the riot-affected areas. The investigation report has to reach the Apex Court within three months.
FINGER CROSSED
The un-informed want to celebrate the direction of the highest palladium of justice, while the informed sit finger-crossed for more than one reason:
By any twist of logic, the order is not conviction. At the most, it is something extraordinary at the moral level and the level of propriety. Had the chief accused, who happens to be a hero to a section of the plural policy, been asked to step aside till the investigation was complete, it would have been somewhat substantial. But their lordships, Mr Justice Arijit Pasayat and Mr. Justice A.K. Ganguly did not deem it fit.
Now the accused, carrying the halo of martyr, is using the order to further polarise the electorate on sectarian grounds.
SHAH AND NANAVATI
See the cumulative effect in the backdrop of the fact that both, the Shah Commission and the Nanavati Commission, have, by large, exonerated the state administration from culpability in the disturbances.
Although their findings are in contradiction with those of the Human Right Commission, saying it in so many words, nothing “rebuts the presumption that the Modi administration failed in its duty to protect the rights of the people of Gujarat,” the fact remains that the accused , till date, has had the honour of the last laugh.
The Amnesty International had said the last word on the reason behind the miscarriage of justice: “The same police force that was accused of colluding with the attackers was put to charge of the process of justice.”
See the said miscarriage of justice in the light of the fact that in early 2002 in Gujarat more than 3,000 people were killed and over 1,40,000 rendered homeless. Would the victims and their next-to-the-kin ever digest non-punishment of their tormentors?
While passing the disquieting order, we feel, their lordships could not keep the timing of their decision in mind. Here judicial circumspection and statesmanship was necessary.
H.T. REPORT
In a 200-word story, Satavan Desai, in The Hindustan Times (April 28) recalls appropriately: Seven years before the Supreme Court ordered a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the alleged role of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and his administration for aiding and abetting the 2002 riots, the state police had informed the government about suspected role of a BJP leader and VHP-Bajrang Dal workers during the riots.
The letters, details of which are available with HT, are part of government records. And while the state sat on it, the SIT has not taken any cognisance of it. In an April 19, 2002 letter, then Ahmedabad Police Commissioner P.C. Pande had informed the Director General of Police K. Chakravarty that BJP MLA Bharat Barot (then State Civil Supplies Minister is suspected to have aided and abetted a case of rioting in the city’s Delhi Darwaja area with support from Bajrang Dal workers.
In another letter on April 22, 2002 Pande had told Additional Chief Secretary Ashok Narayan that “groups providing support to the government are indulging in activities which can in future prove to be adding fuel to the fire.” In the first case, five persons were arrested and released on bail with no action against Barot, the government chose to dump the second letter. Barot is a five-term sitting BJP MLA from Ahmedabad’s Dariyapur Kazipur Assembly constituency.
Pande, now Gujarat’s police chief, wrote the letters on the basis of inputs provided from the Special Branch: How is it that the then SIT did not take cognisance of the two letters and the state police sat pretty on this tell-tale report, which also happens to be a part of the government record?
The matter would be looked into for proper perspective.
MODI IMAGE
Mr. Modi is aggressive rather belligerent after the Apex Court order to the SIT to probe his role in the Gulberg tragedy. In the past, he once walked away from the TV studios, cornering his macho persona on the delicate question.
But in the meantime he won over two sub-sects of our Shia brethren: the Bohras and the Khojas. It is alleged the Tablighis as well as some moderate Sunnis have also gravitated towards his sweet superlatives about them (Bharat Desai and Harit Mehta in the Times of India, April 29). So far so good. But what about his image – that he has two horns on his head?
AS PRIME MINISTER
Before delving deep into the subject – projection of Mr Narendra Modi by a section of the BJP as the next Prime Minister of Bharat – let us be clear about the Saffron concept of a model head of government. To cut the long story short, Nathu Ram Godse did not find any iota of stuff that goes to make a model Hindu head of state or an ideal head of government in Mahatma Gandhi. Paddling a soft line towards Pakistan was tantamount to betrayal of the Hindu cause, so dear to the Mahatma’s assassin. That is why he, without any remorse, pulled the trigger against a defenceless, innocent soul. Godse, systematically fed on hate of Muslims and Islam, mounted the gallows totally unrepentant.
ADVANI’S STUFF
Mr. Lal Krishna Advani, the saffron’s wannabe Prime Minister, is not made of the stuff Godse was made of. Yes! Mr. Narendra Modi certainly is. Has anybody in the country found any trace of repentance for the 2002 genocide in Gujarat in Narendra Bhai? On the contrary what we see is: “Do not forgive Narendra Modi, if he has done anything wrong. Hang him publicly if you find him guilty (referring to the post-Godhra violence).” These are the words for Mr Modi himself.
That Mr. Advani is not, from the RSS point of view, a model Hindu leader, can be imagined from the treatment meted out to him by the parent body after his innocuous praise of Mr. M.A. Jinnah’s secular approach during his visit to Pakistan, a couple of years ago: that ostracisation of the Leader of the Opposition by his own parent body speaks volumes about the undesirables of the RSS.
The younger cadre of the RSS and BJP, fed on disaffection and “incongruity” of Islam and Muslims in the daily drills in all the parts of plural Bharat, is restive. Because of the BJP’s dependence on its allies in the NDA, the RSS agenda could not be fulfilled by its political wing, the BJP. These cadres are less-than-aware of the intricacies of the politics of alliances. Nor can appreciate the reality of international pressures on certain delicate issues.
LIMITATIONS
Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, during his terms, would have definitely built a magnificent Ramjanmbhoomi temple on the debris of Babri Masjid, abrogated Article 370 and ushered in Uniform Civil Code on heterogeneous India. But its “not-so-Hindu” allies refused to allow him to do so. These limitations are, and shall remain, incomprehensible to the said cadres, unless they reconcile with the reality of alliance politics as well as existence of Muslim segment with its identity and dignity.
The Saffron leadership, as represented by Mr. Arun Jaitley, Mr. Arun Shourie, Mr. Venkaya Naidu etc., has toed the safest possible line that in 2009 Mr. Advani will be the leader of the ruling coalition, while in 2014 it may be the turn of Mr Modi. But this arithmetic is not flawless. Will Mr. Advani not stake his claim for the second term? And will Mr. Advani not reconcile with the situation obtaining after 10 years? And finally, shall the younger saffron segment, which now pilots the RSS-BJP, Shiv Sena and Bajrang Dal, agree to that formulation?
ABHINAV BHARAT
The discovery of Abhinav Bharat plot in January this year has obviously unhinged the saffron leadership. Now the cubs fed on unalloyed hate have grown up and are asking for their pound of flesh from their irresponsible leaders.
After Mr. Karkare’s untimely death, the pace of investigation is too slow. And if the NDA comes to power after May 17, the investigation may become part of dusty history. But the fire lit by Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, serving army officer Lt. Col. Srikant Prasad Purohit and former army officer Major Upadhyay and their accomplices would take time in dying.