(I had landed in Ahmedabad by an early morning Indian Airlines flight on Feb 28, 2002 - a day after Godhra railway station inferno....covered 2002 riots in Gujarat extensively for Press Trust of India)
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| Snap of Sept 13, 2013: When BJP declare Modi as PM Candidate |
(have two books on the subject --- Godhra - A Journey To Mayhem and 'Godhra - Journey of a Prime Minister')
People in general seemed to have developed a complaint against his regime for farmers’ distress, joblessness and economic policies – a combine of GST and demonetisation - that has actually led to choking of cash flow. People's expectations were too high from Narendra Modi and his promises were higher !
The more things change, the more they remain the same!
On February 27, 2002, eighteen years back, the Godhra railway station mayhem took place killing 59 Hindus returning from Ayodhya. This set Gujarat ablaze in a frenzy of violent Hindu-Muslim conflict killing an estimated 2000 people, and mostly Muslims.
The Hindutva-infected Gujarat, Narendra Modi-led administration and mayhem -- had become an unholy trinity. Mr Modi was denied US Visa in 2005.
There was assumption and allegation as well that the violence that rocked Gujarat --- something for which he ought to bore personal responsibility.
The hands of time machine seemed to have full circle. Feb 27 and circa 2020 --- riots is again the global headline and Narendra Modi is now the elected Prime Minister of India.
There is a big commonality or difference yet again as now in carca 2020 as against the 2005 Visa row.
This time around, President Donald Trump has his own reasons and aptitude to reflect faith in Modi's words of assurances on "religious freedom".
Trump said: “I will say the Prime Minister (Modi) was incredible on what he said (about religious freedom)... He wants people to have religious freedom very strongly.”
The US President did not want to embarrass his host-in-chief Narendra Modi.
Notably, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has flayed Donald Trump and tweeted:
"Over 200 million Muslims call India home. Widespread anti-Muslim mob violence has killed at least 27 and injured many more. Trump responds by saying, "That's up to India." This is a failure of leadership on human rights."
Revisiting the past is not without pitfalls. To talk of 2002 mayhem, are we glorifying a wrong?
"....the ethnic violence in Delhi has drawn comparisons with two of India's worst sectarian riots in living memory.
Nearly 3,000 people were killed in anti-Sikh riots in the capital in 1984 after the then prime minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards. And in 2002, more than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, died after a train fire killed 60 Hindu pilgrims in Gujarat - Mr Modi was then the chief minister of the state," says a BBC report.
On Wednesday, the Delhi High Court hearing petitions about the latest violence in the capital has said it cannot let "another 1984" happen on its "watch".
But politics and time moves on. BJP and Narendra Modi supporters have always maintained that they stood by the
wishes of the majority.
Of course these have helped the BJP to win elections and also expand the party base across India.
Moreover, it is not without good reason that a section of Modi-detractors of 2002 seemed to have reconciled and thus Ram Vilas Paswan - who had quit the Vajpayee government - is today Prime Minister Modi's co-partner in the development yatra as his ministerial colleague.
In fact, in relation to 2002 riots and subsequent politics at the national level, a Germany-based Indian scholar
Subrata K Mitra of Heidelberg University says: “The impressive victory of the BJP under Narendra Modi raises a fundamental question about governance, leadership and the imperative of development and the making of popular will”.
Mitra further points out -“The more the ‘secularists’ of India and their foreign backers hit out at Modi as a tainted leader, the more Modi fell back on his identification with the people of Gujarat and his showcasing of Gujarat’s development as the raison d’e^tre of his leadership”.
It is said Prime Minister excels in gauging public mood very well. And as they say, - a leader is after all a creation of his own people.
Come back to Delhi violence of 2020, it is true the BJP had largely banked on a polarising campaign to win just concluded Delhi polls.
Some of their leaders including Union MoS Finance Anurag Thakur and a sitting Delhi lawmaker Parvesh Verma have been pulled up by the Election Commission, but there were no FIRs from police.
Apparently, the top leadership allowed the hate speech politics. Another leader Kapil Mishra tried to attack Shaheen Bagh protest calling it work of traitors.
"BJP leader Kapil Mishra had openly given a call for forcibly removing the protesters from various sites. Detailed reports and video images are available of the highly provocative and communal slogans given by groups of men armed with lathis and bricks in the areas surrounding the protest sites. A journalist’s account is graphic evidence of the communal nature of the mobilization by groups to disrupt and attack the protest sites," CPI-M leader Brinda Karat said in her letter to Home Minister Amit Shah.
Such allegations were widely reported in 2002 also. Congress leader Digvijaya Singh also says
there is a similarity between 2002 Gujarat mayhem and the fresh violence in Delhi.
The death toll has risen to 34 already and two of the deceased are a police man Ratan Lall and an Intelligence Bureau staffer Ankit Sharma, but it is presumed most casualty include Muslims only.
The Congress party has decided to step up campaign for ouster of Amit Shah as the Home Minister for his "inability" to deal with the violence.
In a memorandum to President Ram Nath Kovind, the Congress party has said both the centre and the newly elected AAP regime have remained "silent spectators" as Delhi streets were on fire.
"Rashtrapati ji you are given the highest possible responsibility under the Constitution of India: to act as the conscience
keeper of this Government and to remind it of its Constitutional duty and the pillars of Raj Dharma,
by which any just government must abide," the Congress said in its memorandum.
In 2002 yet again, the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had asked the then Gujarat Chief Minister Modi to uphold Raj Dharma -- the ethics of governance.
In the words of constitutional expert Subhash Kashyap, Modi does not have 'excuse' for failure.
Expectations were high in 2014 and also in 2019. The mandate of 2014 had less to do with the Hindutva agenda, but returning to power in 2019 - the Modi regime has abrogated the special status of Jammu and Kashmir, the only Muslim majority state.
His government seems to be more than keen for building of a Ram temple at Ayodhya - of course armed with a favourable mandate from the Supreme Court.
Under PM Modi, people of India have experienced unfulfilled electoral promises about job creation.
A hardcore populist, but his administration has provided over a steep economic downturn.
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