55 degrees of separation from the idea of India

Luckily, television has made it hard for politicians—even of the brazen BJP kind—to get away with their lies and Aaj Tak and Star News exposed Jaitley’s idea of ‘‘normality’’ with commendable speed. On the day of the President’s visit to Ahmedabad these channels showed interviews with victims of the violence, desperately poor people who said they had received hardly any money at all yet from the government and so were unable to even begin rebuilding their homes, leave alone their lives. One old lady interviewed by Star News in the ruins of her home said when asked what message she had for the President, ‘‘Only that we get enough money to rebuild our homes. And, that I get some compensation for my husband who was killed’’.

Others living in the open in camps for nearly six months said they would like to go back to their homes but could not do this without monetary help from the government. Is this what the BJP calls ‘‘normality’’?

Are these the people we expect to vote in an assembly election so infused with communal poison as to make further violence inevitable? Already, Pravin Togadia, that leading light of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad has taken to addressing public meetings with huge posters of the Sabarmati Express on fire as his backdrop.

If Hindutva leaders exploit Godhra in this fashion will ‘‘secular’’ ones not exploit the riots and will this combination not lead to more violence?

The President can probably do little to prevent the election from going ahead but if his visit was an attempt to put some balm on the wounds of Gujarat then he should make it his mission to ensure that relief and rehabilitation actually happens.

So far there is no indication that Narendra Modi’s government has made anything more than a cursory effort at providing relief to those whose lives have been shattered by the violence.

Most of the victims were Muslims which complicates matters further since Modi knows they will not be voting for him and they know that he cannot be trusted.

Ideally, as this column has pointed out before, what Gujarat needs is a longish spell of President’s rule but in the absence of this perhaps the President could take direct charge of relief and rehabilitation. Surely, even the BJP could have no objections to that?

Modi’s government has shown the average Gujarati Muslim the ugliest, most inhumane face of the Indian state and the only way in which some of the damage can be undone is if relief and rehabilitation is done in more humane fashion that we have so far seen.

Otherwise it should come as no surprise if Gujarat becomes the newest hotbed of Islamic terrorism. Desperate people do desperate things.

More Islamic terrorism will widen further the chasm of hatred and suspicion that already divides Hindus from Muslims in Gujarat. As it is we have seen a state whose community spirit was remarkable when it came to helping the victims of last year’s earthquake virtually do nothing to help the victims of the pogroms that came in the wake of Godhra.

NGOs and other good Samaritan organizations who have done more than any government organizations to help ease the pain of Gujarat say they have been disappointed at the country’s lack of enthusiasm when it has come to sending relief material or money to the victims of the violence. ‘‘Its as if’’, said one social worker, ‘‘they think that the Muslims somehow deserved what happened’’.

How tragic that these are the sort of things we should be discussing in the week of the 55th birthday of the Indian nation state. How tragic that 55 years on so little has changed and what an irony that it should be our great Hindu nationalist party who should prove that Mohammed Ali Jinnah was right when he talked of Hindus and Muslims being two separate nations.

The frightening thing is that the BJP seems oblivious to the damage it has done so instead of moving away from the sort of violent Hindutva that Modi represents it is embracing it eagerly in the desperate hope that this could be a means of renewal for a party that has become fat and greedy with power.

The move away from the soft Hindutva that Atal Behari Vajpayee represented is so rapid that it would have made more sense for our new Deputy Prime Minister to address the nation on August 15.

Alas, other than the President’s visit to Gujarat there is little to cheer about on this 55th birthday.

Respond to tavleensingh@expressindia.com