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Sunday,
March 17, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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SPECIAL REPORT FROM GUJARAT The forgotten legacy of the Mahatma
The ethos of the subcontinent is stronger in Kashmir than in Gujarat |
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Ayodhya tiger leaves pug marks on the Centre
Modi no longer enjoys people’s confidence
Our stalwarts have no sympathy for riot victims
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SPECIAL REPORT FROM GUJARAT THE Gujarat government did not adequately gauge the intensity of public anger after the Godhra carnage of February 27 which killed 57 persons. When the charred bodies, including those of women and children, arrived at the Ahmedabad railway station the next day, the police arrangements were hopelessly inadequate. The police presence had been strengthened only in the areas of old city including Dariapaur and Kalupur, which have been rocked by communal violence in the past. While these areas remained relatively quiet, irate mob started targeting property belonging to Muslims in other areas. Locals say rioters were emboldened after they found that the police was not doing much. The bandh call by the VHP on February 28, which was supported by the ruling BJP, added to the confusion of the 5000-strong police force in Ahmedabad having a population of over 50 lakh. Minority shops and houses in predominantly Hindu neighbourhoods became the easiest targets of the mob ire. Former Congress MP Ehsan Jaffery, who lived in such a neighbourhood, was killed along with several persons who had taken shelter in his house. Though Jaffery made several calls to police officials and senior Congress leaders, none of these helped. Many innocents were torched and killed in the madness of some people at other places in the city. In a seemingly orchestrated drive, hundreds of hotels belonging to Cheliyas were targeted all across Gujarat. For the first time in the history of the state, communal virus spread to the rural areas. Fields were littered with blood in several districts with Panchmahal, of which Godhra is a part, witnessing a pogrom. Even the official figure of killings was close to 650. Police
officials, who have been criticised for their apathy during the riots, say that they could have done little before the mob of several thousands went on the rampage. They say that people were in a frenzy and members of the crowd even dared police to open fire. Though records indicate that at least 99 persons were killed in police firing (which officials repeatedly cite to prove that police was not inactive), a sizeable number of those killed belong to the minority community. Some women too joined the angry mob and, at places, shops were burnt with the motive to loot. Police officials say that they had seen car-borne people proceeding to loot shops. Some shops belonging to the majority community also fell prey to the loot mentality. There was retaliatory burning of shops by the minority
community. Some shops belonging to the Sindhi community were also destroyed. While the four-day violence badly scarred the social fabric of Ahmedbad, it certainly did not help heal the wounds of Godhra. “All I want is the return of my four-year-old nephew, Rishab Kumar”, cries Janki Devi Chaurasia, one of the fortunate survivors of the Godhra incident. Ms Janki Devi, who was returning with her husband, son and nephew from Allahabad where they had gone for the last rites of a relative, was in the train compartment which was stoned and set on fire by the mob at Godhra. She recalls that soon after the train started from Godhra station at 7.45 am, it was stopped and stones were pelted at their compartment for about 45 minutes. “All of us scampered for safety by moving to upper berths and covering ourselves with blankets”, she says, pointing out that stones were pelted from one direction. “Then a thick smoke enveloped the compartment and the weapon-wielding crowd seemed to be coming close. Soon there was fire”. The Chaurasia family has learnt little of the post-Godhra violence and does not seem interested. “All I want to say is that I do not feel safe any more”, says Arvind. There have been insinuations about what led to Godhra. Yatin Oza, three-time BJP MLA who joined the Congress recently after quitting his Sabarmati seat, feels that either the state government did not get proper intelligence about a pre-meditated attack or did not act on the information. “It would have taken time to convince and gather 3,000 persons armed with swords and petrol bombs at Godhra. Why has action not been taken against the intelligence officials concerned if they did not do their work?”, he asks. By the admission of the local police, Oza says, there were eight men on the sensitive station instead of the mandated 30 when Sabarmati Express halted at Godhra. “Why action has not been taken against the officials found absent”, Oza demands. While a judicial inquiry is being carried out into the Godhra carnage and the subsequent riots, Congressmen hardly dispute the political fall-out of the violence of the past two days. The BJP was on a losing wicket in Gujarat as reflected in the results of the civic body polls and of the recent assembly by-elections where it lost both the seats it had won earlier. Observers say that there was disillusionment among the BJP cadre over the party going slow on Hindutva, its silence on Ram Mandir,
Article 370 and the renaming of Ahmedabad as Karnavati. “The party’s handling of Kashmir and the release of militants like Azhar Masood also led to disenchantment among the BJP workers”, says Mr Mahesh Dave, a resident of Ahmedabad. The situation seems to have reversed after the recent violence and there’s an acute polarisation in the state. Among the majority community, there seems to be strong backing for Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. Local Congressmen have been privately advising their leaders not to be too shrill on the demand for Modi’s ouster. Yatin Oza is surprised. “My 82-year -ld father N R Oza, a senior advocate, who never talked on communal lines, today tells me that if he has to choose between me and Narendra Modi, he would vote for Modi. He feels like touching Modi’s feet”, Oza says. Pointing out that there is a strange feeling of vindication among the majority community, Oza says that the Modi government may go in for early elections to cash in on the prevailing sentiment. Justice B J Divan, a former Chief Justice of the Gujarat High Court, says that after the sister organisations of the BJP called a bandh on February 28, a great deal of damage was caused to property owned by the minority community in the state. “Police did not effectively intervene though they were present”, he says. Justice Divan, who has been working for Ahmedabad’s development for almost two decades now, feels that the remarks of the state’s political leadership about a natural backlash to the Godhra massacre also added to the simmering tension
between the two communities. “Of course, Muslims also tried to retaliate but by that time the Army had already moved in”, he says, dismissing the accusation that Army was requisitioned late. Referring to the past incidents of communal flare-up, he says that there has been a foreign conspiracy to malign India that
minorities, specially Muslims, were not safe here. “But this time the people walked into their trap”, he regrets. About the role of police, he says that they either did not act deliberately or were afraid of their political masters. Comparing the situation with the communal flare-up in 1982, when the Hindus did not react, Justice Divan says that it was the first time that a “pro-Hindu government” was in office. While he does not rule out the possibility of deliberate incitement, Justice Divan says that rumours like women having been kidnapped from train compartments of Sabarmati Express in Godhra also fuelled public anger Mr Angrez Singh, a resident of Ahmedabad, feels that the local administration did not deal with the rioters firmly. “The Mandir-Masjid issue should be resolved at the earliest”, he emphasises. One of the most bizarre aspects of the riots that gripped Gujarat after the Godhra incidents was the destruction of religious places. Idols or saffron flags were placed in a few mosques after these were damaged and some darghas and temples also became targets of the mob fury. One of the most
conspicuous darghas (also because it was on the road) was of Vali Gujarati, a Urdu poet from Gujarat. Former prime minister I K Gujral also expressed dismay at the destruction of the dargah. The road where the dargah stood has now been metalled. Over 20 religious places including 10 dargahs were damaged or destroyed in the four-day communal frenzy in Ahmedabad. It is likely that the state government would now allow only approved places of worship, figuring in the requisite maps, to be re-built. As if waiting for an opportunity, the Congress-ruled Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (or was it the state government’s PWD) became suddenly active. Some of the encroachments on the busy roads of the city including the Ashram Road, considered the main artery of the city’s vehicular traffic, were removed while the city was still under curfew. Bulldozers were seen flattening shops built on the encroached land adjacent to those destroyed by an angry mob. Mass burial of the victims were held but none of the senior political leaders attended them. “The erosion of trust and faith between communities who have lived with some of their neighbours who participated in the violence will be hard, if not impossible to repair”, says Teesta Setalvad of People’s Union for Human Rights. Fatima Beevi, now in Shah Alam Relief Camp, goes almost breathless while describing the attack. Helpless people, she says, were hacked and burnt and children feeling thirsty were given kerosene. Policemen remained mute spectators, she complains, even as women and children ran for their lives. At the relief camp in Shah Alam area, there are hundreds like Fatima Beevi who recount shocking incidents of bestiality. Fatima Beevi spent a harrowing eight hours in Naroda Patiyan during which 11 members of her elder sister’s family including six children were killed. Sixty five of Ahmedabad’s nearly 250 killings took place in Naroda Patiyan only. Sixty-year old Hazra Biwi came to Lamba village near Ahmedabad from Junagadh on March 3 to meet her daughter but found the house locked. “Ten persons were killed and their houses burnt in the three days I spent there”, says a horrified Hazra Biwi. While she escaped the initial attack because of the sari she was wearing, a Marwari family in the neighbourhood later gave her a place in their home. She now keeps their address — Saroj Mukesh Bhai, 1032, Lamba village, Indira Nagar —close to her chest. Nearly 35,000 uprooted residents are sheltered in 20 relief camps in Ahmedabad. A few of the camps also shelter some members of the majority community who were targeted in Muslim neighbourhoods. Many victims say they can identify some of those who had attacked them. Members of the minority community have complaints against some of the vernacular newspapers who, they say, were insensitive in reporting and one-sided in
approach. Tracing the history of communal riots in Gujarat, a local daily said that the first occurred in 1714 during Holi when ‘gulal’ fell on some non-Hindus. The opposition parties in Gujarat feel that not enough is being done by the state government to create confidence among the two communities after the riots. They complain of a communication gap between the state government and the Opposition. There were a few green patches in Ahmedabad, otherwise lined with the remains of burned houses, vehicles and shops. Ram-Rahim Nagar, almost on the border of the sensitive old city, remained free from acrimony and violence all through. The residents of Ram-Rahim Nagar did not allow the mob to enter the narrow locality, mainly housing labourers and artisans from both the communities. |
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The forgotten legacy of the Mahatma UNTIL the attack on Sabarmati Express at Godhra , there was only one memory of ‘Sabarmati.’ Of its saint, who lived by the banks of Sabarmati in Ahmedabad for 13 years and changed the world. Today, Mahatma Gandhi’s legacy at Sabarmati Ashram is under attack — at the very place of its birth, by the people who had wedded themselves to Gandhian ideals. Over 650 were killed, burnt, maimed and suffocated to death in five days in a state known for its service-oriented, industrious, God-fearing, helpful and outgoing people. Gujarat is a pioneer in development and has given India two of its greatest leaders — Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. Sabarmati Ashram today looks desolate, almost forsaken. The walls of the ashram proclaim the lofty words of its saint, but there are few who read them, fewer still who internalise them. What has gone wrong? Both in frequency and numbers, communal violence in Gujarat tells a torrid tale. Last month’s riots in Gujarat were the worst witnessed by the country since Partition. The state government does not seem inclined for any serious introspection and pats itself in the back for checking rioting within 72 hours. “I have controlled riots faster than my predecessors”, claims Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. But few are convinced. Says Mr Justice B J Divan, a former Chief Justice of the Gujarat High Court: “The party in power has played some part in not putting down the riots, whether it was the Congress government in 1982-83 or the BJP in 2002.’’ Chunibhai Vaidya, a veteran Gandhian who stays close to the Sabarmati Ashram, says that one of the factors for simmering tensions in Gujarat is the penetration of “communal forces” right up to the grassroots level. “I admit that as Gandhians, we have failed to check it,” he laments. The 84-year-old Gandhian says that big donations made by sympathetic businessmen to “communal organisations” in Gujarat have been facilitating their growth. There is no doubt in his mind about the relevance of Mahatma’s teachings today but Chunibhai feels that there is a conspiracy to malign Gandhiji. Falsehood or half-truths are told about Gandhi by certain sections who also project Vallabhbhai Patel as a victimised leader having differences with the Mahatma. “In fact, Sardar Patel was obedient to Gandhi and there was no conflict between the two”, Chunibhai asserts. Many people today, the Gandhian regrets, seem to believe that Gandhi gave Pakistan, favoured Muslims and sent Rs 55 crore to the neighbouring country after the trauma of Partition. To nail the propaganda and the lies, the Gandhian has written a booklet “Spitting the sun”. “I wrote it after the play `Mee Nathuram Godse Boltoy’ was staged,” he says. A close associate of Vinoba Bhave, Chunibhai points out that extremist ideology drives man to extremism. The BJP is now having a problem with the more passionate VHP, he points out. Vinoba Bhave, Chunibhai recalls, once told Jawaharlal Nehru that casteism, which had been virtually finished by Gandhiji, had been revived by electoral politics in India. Pointing out that anything said in the name of religion touches the people deeply, Chunibhai says that when the propaganda and falsehood were not properly refuted, the people will start believing them. Instead of carrying out Gandhi’s work, Gandhians today are more interested in running institutions in his name, he says. “When I demanded a legal ban on conversion, Gandhians as a whole did not cooperate for the fear of being branded communal. Even Gandhi’s ‘Nai Taleem’ by which he wanted to create a new society has been reduced to another academic course in a market where degrees matter,” Chunibhai says. Under the Gandhi’s ‘Nai Taleem,’ equal emphasis was given to manual labour and to intellectual growth. “Our society today is divided into heads and hands. If I ask a youth to choose between a five-acre agricultural plot or a Class IV government job, he is likely to opt for the latter”. Chunibhai says. Justifying the demand for ban on conversions, he says that most conversions were taking place from among Hindus and it was natural for the community to feel concerned. Warning against extremism, he says that the concept of jehad in Islam created a notion about the religion being aggressive. Mr Bhajan Singh, who first came to Ahmedabad in 1965, feels that relations between people had soured over the years. He blames the media for not projecting proper values. “When they keep playing those rowdy, indecent numbers, who would remember Gandhi”, he asks. Maintaining that creation of Pakistan was a big mistake, Singh says that riots do not happen but are caused. Religion, he emphasises, is a personal matter and should be kept away from politics. Concerned about the reducing social interaction between Hindus and Muslims in Ahmedabad, Justice Divan says that few Muslims get jobs in organisations belonging to the majority community. “Instability of lower classes and educated unemployed cannot be overlooked”, he
stresses. Warning against gradual disappearance of mixed neighbourhoods in Ahmedabad, he says that the slightest incident of someone getting injured in each other’s locality could arouse passions. He says that ultimately economic factors would break religious bigotry. “It is happening. In Benaras, traders are mostly Hindus but artisans are Muslims. It is in the interest of both to maintain peace”, he says. Chunibhai feels that education and a mature, inspiring leadership would make the difference. Religious indoctrination coupled with unemployment leads to a situation as in Afghanistan, he points out. Citing Gandhi who said that he would want destruction of the religion that sanctioned discrimination, Chunibhai says that leaders should have courage to break away from oppressive traditions. Secular Muslims should come forward in greater numbers, he stresses, pointing out that Islam in India could have its own distinctiveness as in many other countries. J V Momin, vice-president of Gujarat Congress, says that rioting in Ahmedabad may have been led by outside elements. “Some of them were not speaking Gujarati. It is difficult to imagine men and women being burnt in Gujarat which still has influence of Gandhi and where vegetarianism is a way of life”, he says. Recalling 1969 when Gujarat was hit by a terrible communal frenzy, he says that there were certain outside forces then which did not want India to lead a conference of Muslim nations. Maintaining that appeasement of minorities leads to heart-burn, Justice Divan gives example of madarsas not being taxed while tax being taken from some other schools in Gujarat. He says the British encouraged Muslim fundamentalism which had led to reaction by the majority community even then. Chunibhai says that India’s electoral system was borrowed from England in good faith but the social conditions of the two countries were entirely different. Referring to the role of caste in the modern-day politics, he says that such degeneration of democratic ideals had not
occurred anywhere else in the world. One of the ways to improve democratic governance, he suggests, is to dismantle the centralised power structure and empower the gram sabhas. He says that there was a difference
between Gandhiji and Nehru on the issue of development but the two could never discuss the issue thoroughly. “India later largely took to Nehru’s development model”, he says.
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The ethos of the subcontinent is stronger in Kashmir than in Gujarat I
was sitting in my car just outside a Kashmiri village one day, waiting for a political worker whom I was to interview. Suddenly, a boy appeared at the window on the other side of the car and looked curiously at me, a friendly smile playing on his lips. “Aap Pandit ho (Are you a Pandit),” he asked, using the term generally used for Kashmiri Hindus. When I said no, he replied, with pride in his tone, “Main Pandit hoon (I am a Pandit)”. One had got so used to the fact that most Kashmiri Hindus have fled the valley's violence that finding a Hindu living apparently normally in rural Kashmir came as a bit of a shock. The boy, who could not have been more than ten years old, said his name was Vinod. Then, turning to the boy round whose shoulders his arm was draped, he said: “This is my friend, Irfan”. The duo looked almost like an advertisement for Hindu-Muslim amity. If it had not happened, without warning to anyone of my presence there, I might have suspected that it was staged for an unsuspecting journalist. However, I was reminded of other encounters with Hindus in rural Kashmir over these past few years of endless violence. A few days after the Chittisinghpora massacre of more than 30 Sikhs two years ago, I found some rural Pandit homes in the south of the valley. In one such house, I was generously offered milk but my hosts were clearly uneasy. No doubt they were worried about being mistaken as intelligence informers if an obviously non-Kashmiri person was seen leaving their house. That caution was understandable, given the attitude of many militants, but many ordinary Kashmiri Muslims are actually proud that there are still Hindus among them. In the immediate aftermath of the burning of the shrine at Tsrar-e-Sharif way back in 1995, I met a large group of Muslim families who had fled their burnt homes in that town and taken refuge in a hamlet on the road to Srinagar. Even in the heat of their anger over their holiest shrines had been burnt in an operation that the army had botched, Muslims in that hamlet spoke in an enthusiastic chorus of the care they took of the one old Hindu widow who remained among them. She had refused to move when her children migrated. Ever since then, her Muslim neighbours had made sure she was supplied with milk, vegetables and whatever else she needed, even amid general strikes or curfew. A few weeks before that experience, my Muslim taxi driver had eagerly asked, while I was on a tour of north Kashmir, whether he should take a detour to the temple of Khir Bhawani, one of the holiest shrines for Kashmiri Pandits. He was sure I would want to pray there and said he would be happy to take me at no extra charge. None of these gestures, of course, can mitigate the brutal murders of a large number of Kashmiri Hindus, particularly in 1990, or the horrific viciousness of some of the multiple rapes by militants. My point is only that, while that pattern of behaviour is no doubt revolting, there is also another, less noticed facet of behaviour in this Muslim-dominated area where Hindus are extremely vulnerable. Any move that treats these remaining Pandits in the valley as disposable pawns in a political chess game is shamefully reprehensible. Over the past few days, a fresh volcano of anger has built up among Kashmiri Muslims over BJP MP Vinay Katiyar's ludicrous claim that the relic in Srinagar's Hazratbal shrine is of a Hindu sage. His calculatedly incendiary claim may have been meant to provoke an anti-Hindu backlash in the valley. That would allow the BJP to strengthen its Hindu base across the country, as it has already done in Gujarat through the recent butchery there. About 15 years ago, some Congress politicians fomented communal riots in Kashmir by showing video clips of locks being opened at the Babri mosque in Ayodhya. Some temples in the valley were vandalised as a consequence and those Congress leaders used that to build a base among Hindus elsewhere. Such cynical misuse of religion by the Congress, the BJP or by anyone else at any time is not only shameful but also extremely dangerous for the long term. The survival of neighbourliness towards Hindus in the valley owes much to Kashmir's Sufi culture, but also to the basic human values that are so deeply rooted in the subcontinent. That ethos has been violated in Gujarat over the past three weeks. That there has been no backlash against the very vulnerable, and very few Hindus in the valley indicates that the essential ethos of the subcontinent is stronger in Kashmir than in Gujarat. |
Ayodhya tiger leaves pug marks on the Centre THOUGH the Ayodhya crisis has blown over for the time being, the tiger the BJP has been riding since 1990, has left its pug marks on the Vajpayee government. The “Delhi Durbar” learns that when the so-called secular allies of the ruling NDA — Trinamool, TDP and DMK — made noise about government not consulting them before the crucial hearing in the Supreme Court, the government dealt with the brewing crisis in two ways. First, Mr Vajpayee said the stand was taken by the Attorney General on his own and the Government had given him no brief. On persistent needling by the allies, the government hit back with one of the BJP Ministers doing some plain talking. He told the allies categorically that they should not be under the impression that the NDA government is running because of them. He is understood to have conveyed to them that though the Vajpayee government was being governed under the National Agenda for Governance (NAG), the BJP will, from time to time, come up with its own agenda. After all, the BJP has to remain in the business called politics and it can’t lose its vote bank at anybody’s diktat. WOMEN POWER In the beginning of the week while the Lok Sabha was in session, Leader of Opposition Sonia Gandhi noticed a BJP MP passing a chit to an officer sitting in the Officers’ Gallery. Normally, this is a prerogative of a minister and the officers at the Officers’ Gallery are at the beck and call of their respective ministers in the event of their seeking some clarification. In this case, the officer to whom the MP had sent the chit responded and returned the chit with his reply. Sonia was immediately up on her feet and drew the attention of Deputy Speaker P M Sayeed to this. Heavyweight Congress member Renuka Choudhary pounced upon the opportunity of impressing her leader and threatened the officers of dire action. Mr Sayeed said he would give his ruling in this regard. The question is will the Deputy Speaker take note of the point raised by Sonia and the conduct of the MP or the conduct of Renuka who threatened officers in the open house? VHP NETWORK The Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) is known for some daring operations which endeared it to top echelons of bureaucracy at the peak of Ram temple agitation more than a decade ago. In 1990 when the then UP Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav — nicknamed by the VHP “Maulana Mulayam”— made foolproof arrangements, Ashok Singhal used a novel way to smuggle himself into Ayodhya. He wore trousers and passed off as a commoner. Later, another top VHP leader, Acharya Giriraj Kishore, shaved off his flowing beard and tonsured his head to escape arrest. He spent days in the company of a police sub-inspector who had been entrusted with the task of arresting him but the poor police officer had no clue that the middle-aged man he had been gossipping with for days was his quarry. This time, the VHP had instructed its kar sevaks to be dressed in jeans and look like tourists, students or journalists rather than kar sevaks. Obviously, this was to beat the government’s restrictions on the entry of kar sevaks in the under-siege Ayodhya. But the secret agent-like skills of the VHP were not called into play throwing up hints that the VHP knew well in advance what was in store. This shows how effective is the VHP’s intelligence network! UNRUFFLED MODI Ahmedabad was the destination for political leaders in the capital in the past week as they went about having an idea of the loss the massive city had suffered in the communal violence. While most of the Opposition parties demanded the removal of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi for mishandling the “post-Godhra situation”, the NDA allies backed the BJP saying that an inquiry into the violence had been ordered by the Gujarat government to fix responsibility. Union Defence Minister George Fernandes, who was among the first Central leaders to visit Ahmedabad, counselled for more and better-trained police in Ahmedabad. Home Minister L K Advani,
while admitting that the riots had tarnished the image of BJP government, gave the state government a clean chit. Most Opposition parties formed part of the all-party delegation that went to Ahmedabad. Former prime ministers V P Singh and I K Gujral and BSP chief Kanshi Ram also visited Ahmedabad where over 240 persons (of nearly 650 in the state) were killed in communal violence. Except Mr Advani and Mr Fernandes, no other leader apparently met Mr Modi. But the Gujarat Chief Minister was unruffled. He said that riots had been controlled effectively and in a short time. Mocking Shabana Azmi, who had called him a “mass murderer,’’ the Chief Minister offered her good wishes, saying that five crore residents of the state would not tolerate attempts at tarnishing the image of the state. Modi, it seems, is not worried. Even if Opposition parties are unsuccessful in ousting him, he is likely to go in for snap polls much ahead of the assembly polls due in a year. There is a strong polarisation in the state on religious lines and BJP would be hoping to cash in on it. SOCIALIST BOND Thanks to his socialist credentials, Defence Minister George Fernandes found an unlikely friend in opposition Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav in the Lok Sabha last week. George, who had been facing a boycott from the Opposition in Parliament ever since he was reinducted into the Cabinet despite the Tehelka probe being on, got a chance to speak in the Lok Sabha after Mulayam Singh Yadav pitched for the Defence Minister’s statement on the Lucknow tragedy concerning Army recruits. The Congress party apparently did not take kindly to this. It paid back the Samajwadi Party in its own coin when Mulayam Singh Yadav raised the demand for moving an adjournment motion against Prime Minister Vajpayee’s statement on Ayodhya in the House. No opposition party supported the Samajwadi Party and the isolated party had to stage a noisy walkout. JOKES DEPT. It is a job not many would envy. It is learnt that major cellular phone companies have set up joke departments where the personnel work on funny one liners and two liners. These are in turn forwarded on the short messaging service to several customers and a chain reaction takes place. Several jokes are known to make rounds of the country in a single day. While mobile phone users enjoy the humour it is the companies which have the last laugh. For every message that is forwarded by SMS, the mobile firm gets a payment. Contributed by Rajeev Sharma, Prashant Sood, Satish Misra, Girija Shankar Kaura and T V
Lakshminarayan. |
Modi no longer enjoys people’s confidence Narendra Modi now stands in the dock and the pressure for his resignation has been mounting even as the BJP’s leadership including Home Minister L.K. Advani defend what appears to be patently indefensible on several counts. The state government’s intelligence machinery failed to detect in time what is made out to be a planned attack — a horrendous one indeed — on VHP activists returning from Ayodhya. Also the administration not only blundered in anticipating the backlash of the despicable Godhra carnage but allowing rampaging mobs, alleged to comprise VHP and Bajrang Dal activists, to loot and burn the houses of minority community. The least the Chief Minister can do is to quit, particularly after a pensive Prime Minister Vajpayee’s observation quoted widely by the media worldwide — “Gujarat riots are a black mark on the nation’s face”. Modi no longer enjoys the confidence of the people of Gujarat. Delhi-based scribes had enough occasion to interact with Modi when he was the BJP’s general secretary and often briefed the press. A master of rhetoric, he was apt in twisting and distorting facts in a bid to push them down the throats of media men but the technique could succeed only once. Some in the regular BJP beat even began calling him “prophet of propaganda”. He could not make headway even with beat correspondents when he tried to defend the indefensible or make them believe what was unbelievable. This was not only the trait of Modi but other spokespersons also who, while trying to suppress truth, would take recourse to many lies. The BJP’s central leadership had in mind the assembly elections due in little over a year’s time when they rail-roaded Modi to Ahmedabad in spite of resistance put forward by the state unit’s heavy weights. The leadership expected Modi to perform like his Uttar Pradesh counterpart, Rajnath Singh, and resurrect a fast declining party to face the coming electoral battle. Despite Rajnath Singh, the BJP could not make it in UP; a defeat in Gujarat terrifies them. The RSS too threw to winds its ground rule and, for the first time, allowed Modi, a full time “Pracharak”, to accept a high office. Fifty-one-year old Mody is known as “ new age pracharak” ; designers spectacles, shining gold watch and good things in life are an indication to that effect. His opponents dub him as arrogant and high-handed. Modi’s association with the RSS dates back to the later years of his teens. Eyes of a senior “pracharak” fell on an young man who was whiling away time in the canteen of Gujarat Road Transport office in Ahmedabad. The “spark” in the eyes of 18-year old youth impressed the senior RSS man and he introduced him to others in the organisation. Modi actively participated in the Navnirman student movement against the Chimanbhai Patel government in 1973. Since then he steadfastly worked with the organisation and the reward came in 1986; he was appointed organisation secretary of the Gujarat BJP. Modi’s organisational abilities sparkled when he came to the notice of L.K.Advani. He was said to be strategist behind Advani’s cross-country Rath Yatra, beginning from Somnath. He worked out even the minutest detail and, for the first time, came to be known nationally. His expulsion from Gujarat proved to be a blessing in disguise as he made steady headway in Delhi and looked after the party’s affairs in Madhya Pradesh and Bihar at the time of elections. Modi had emerged an important leader in the BJP’s hierarchy when he was drafted to pull out the party out of doldrums in Gujarat, the last bastion of the Sangh Parivar. Now in dock himself, is Modi the right man to lead the BJP in the coming assembly elections? |
Our stalwarts have no sympathy for riot victims THERE'S something amiss here. The whole of last week supposed
stalwarts of the art and music world — Muzaffar Ali, Pt Ravi Shankar, Amjad Ali Khan — held concerts here but not one of them
could think in terms of donating a part of the proceeds to those killed and ruined in
Gujarat. One had heard that artists are a sensitive lot but we’d have to do some rethinking on that account, because one expected much more than the flow of music and fusion from their end. Whilst Muzaffar Ali’s much hyped concert — Jashne Khausru — stretched over three evenings, Ravi Shankar performed with daughter Anoushka, and Amjad Ali Khan with his two sons Amaan and Ayaan. And though Muzaffar Ali has managed to cash in onto the sufi concept, he seems deviating from it as never before, for in sufism the ‘Self’ is never important. But for this artist there seems nothing beyond self and the promotion of his ventures. This is actually true of most of today’s artists (at least those living in this capital city) and that explains the politics involved where they are ready to run down each other under the facade of those smiles and elaborate namaskars... Another distressing aspect that one got to witness about artists last fortnight was total apathy towards
the dead. At the condolence meeting of the capital’s well known compere Rais Mirza, there were none of the artists whose programmes he had compered all these years! In fact, Mirza’s words had such a spark that even mediocre artists with run-down items could manage to sustain the audience attention because of the
spontaneity of those couplets that he would render. He would , as it were, almost compensate for their shortcomings, for those lack-lustre renditions. And though I would often tell himthat he ought to groom a successor, he’d laugh it off saying that compering has to come naturally...yes to him it did come naturally and with his sudden death there is a vacuum. His passing away has been a personal loss to me, one of reasons even being that whenever I would get stuck at some Urdu word or couplet, I would only have to call him up and there he’d be telling me not just the right word or couplet but also its literal and metaphorical meaning. SHEER MADNESS March 13 witnessed yet another protest march here, with political parties (Congress and the Left) also pooling together their manpower resources. There were some thousands protesting at the carnage in Ahmedabad at the sheer madness that Narendra Modi’s statements reek of (yet he continues to sit saddled with the chief ministership of that state) and the hollowness of the entire system. Many taking part in the rally said they were getting cynical about the hopelessness around, what with the State machinery having remained untouched though nearly a thousand had died and several thousands rendered homeless and grievously injured. Last Saturday, there was another media meet at the Press Club of
India. Those present included Dilip Padgaonkar, Vinod Mehta, Tarun Tejpal, Rajdeep Sardesai, Alok Mehta, Harish Khare, Prabhash Joshi and many others. They spoke on the Gujarat carnage. Despite heavy odds like the hostile State machinery’s bid to sabotage honest reportage and of Cabinet ministers’ calls to them against broadcast, the media wouldn’t budge. With tension mounting in Uttar Pradesh, the official machinery is being used for religious functions. What with Shatrughan Singh in the PMO accepting the shila! What business does the PM or the PMO have to be involved with the religious function? Of course, it’s a
different matter that these happenings have little to do with dharma and more with today’s dangerous politics. |
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THE profile of no Chief Minister has changed so fast as that of Narendra Modi. Barely five months back when he was moved to Gujarat to take over from beleaguered Keshubhai Patel, he was little known outside his home state. Yet, there were high expectations from him. Gujarat was reeling in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake and it was expected from the youthful Modi, known for his organisational abilities, to provide succour to the hapless people. What happened was that the state was hit by communal earthquake of an unprecedented velocity and the accusing fingers were raised towards the Chief Minister; his administration accused of inaction as the state plunged into anarchy and blood letting for three days. His unfortunate comment — “an action like Godhra would lead to a reaction”— gave credence to the charge that the state machinery looked the other way as the organised carnage took a heavy toll. From an innocuous RSS “Pracharak”, Modi became internationally known as a Hindu chauvinist. “The accused”, said the cover page of the “Outlook”. “Bloody India: Can secular state survive?” screamed the cover page headline of the “Time” magazine.