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Journalism of Courage
IT IS quiet at 51 Swati Society, Sama Road, Vadodara. Pesky mediapersons and intrusive cameras holding a continuous vigil at the address for a week are missing. Bhuvaneshwari Madhu is back to her job as a schoolteacher; husband Narayan back at his government job. All it took was a media appearance and a categorical denial: 8216;8216;I am not the woman in the CD.8217;8217;
But it threw up other questions. First, why were fingers pointed at the family and Bhuvaneshwari in particular, most notably nudged by Vadodara8217;s own BJP circles? The family is neither politically active nor has any direct BJP connections, although it swears by the RSS ideology. 8216;8216;Whosoever is behind this is very powerful and has done this with political motives. That is why we are scared,8217;8217; she had said. Which brought back the issue to the Parivar 8212; who scares the Chittes, an avowed Sangh family, and why?
There are hardly any doubts that it is a Parivar insider, and more specifically, from the BJP. Sangh veteran MG Vaidya, in a later article in Marathi daily Tarun Bharat, suggested it was the handiwork of someone locked with the Chittes in a power struggle. The needle of suspicion, he said, pointed to some 8216;8216;influential persons8217;8217; in the Gujarat government.
The Chittes locked up their residence and went into hiding the day the Sanjay Joshi CD-resignation drama unfolded during the BJP8217;s silver jubilee programme in Mumbai. The silence didn8217;t help them, though 8212; within a few days, Gujarati dailies vied with each other to publish the family8217;s background, photographs of Bhuvaneshwari8217;s marriage in which Chief Minister Narendra Modi was a guest, even bringing up younger sister Srilekha8217;s degree from Jamnagar Ayurveda College.
So, a week later, she spoke up. Flanked by her husband and younger sister, the schoolteacher took all questions patiently, revealing details of her family, known for their RSS background in Vadodara. Bhuvaneshwari8217;s father, the late Vasantrao Chitte was a fine arts professor at M S University and the two sisters, like the rest of the extended family, kept up their RSS connections. Mother, Kamal, is locally known as Modi8217;s 8216;8216;rakhi sister8217;8217;. The family, like most others with RSS connections, had played host to various Sangh leaders, even Sanjay Joshi, who Bhuvaneshwari said is 8216;8216;a father figure, like an elder brother8217;8217;.
But for the neighbours in the middle-class housing society, it meant big help on fixing civic problems, with the BJP in power. Yet, at the first sign of trouble, the advice to the Chittes from local BJP leaders, particularly MLA and party whip in Gujarat Assembly Jitendra Sukhadia, was to lock up and leave. Sukhadia, however, had denied meeting the family or talking to them and pleaded ignorance about their whereabouts.
Now, however, the family will be glad to move house to the IPCL township quarter allotted to Bhuvaneshwari on her appointment to the corporate-run school. No more press conferences, no legal action against publications as the family had threatened, all8217;s quiet. 8216;8216;Life is back to its usual routine. Everyone believes us and has been most co-operative,8217;8217; is all Narayan Madhu has to say.
