How disappointing that nobody during last week’s Parliamentary debate on Gujarat raised the one question that is more important than any other when it comes to Gujarat: Should Narendra Modi be allowed to ask people to vote on his pogroms? There was much talk about the timing of elections not being right, about the need to hold them under President’s rule, about wounds not having healed but, for some reason, nobody thought it worthy pointing out that there are some things that cannot be put to vote, and one of them is the sort of violence the government of Modi permitted in Gujarat. The Home Minister, whose absence of remorse over what happened to Muslims in Gujarat has been painfully evident, believes that the people of Gujarat will give Modi their ‘‘certificate’’ of approval. He told Opposition MPs in Parliament: ‘‘You have forced him (Modi) to go to the people by abusing him day and night. I told him the Opposition thinks you are guilty. He wanted to seek the people’s mandate in April itself but we told him to go for election after peace returns.’’ What happens in Gujarat will have consequences beyond its borders. If Modi gets his mandate, we can be sure that anti-Muslim pogroms will be an inherent part of the BJP strategy for the next general election If the ‘‘people’s mandate’’ is all that matters, why should we need a constitution that guarantees certain basic rights to every Indian citizen regardless of his caste or creed? If we had sought the people’s mandate before enshrining these rights in the constitution we might have found upper caste Hindus voting for untouchables to remain untouchables and a majority of Hindus may even have voted to deny Muslims full citizenship rights on the ground that they had ‘‘broken up’’ the country. Would the ‘people’s mandate’ have made these things acceptable? If Modi manages to get the BJP re-elected in Gujarat will it make his pogroms right? Since he has chosen to seek the people’s mandate for the evil he allowed to continue unstopped for months, the best thing that could happen is for him to be defeated. But, the most frightening thing about Gujarat is not the possibility of a Modi victory in the election but the complete inertia that seems to afflict our ‘‘secular’’ Congress party. Inertia so total in Gujarat that it makes you wonder if there are any Congress workers left in that state. Had there been, there would surely have been them running refugee camps, guarding Muslim areas and—most importantly—helping terrified Muslims move back into the communities they abandoned when the violence happened. On a daily basis, we read newspaper accounts of Muslim families being turned away from villages that were once their homes. There have been reports in The Indian Express of Muslim houses and lands being taken over by Hindus. And since it is clearly Modi government policy not to help Muslims, surely these things would be happening less if there were other political workers to turn to. But, there is no sign of Congress, none at all. Sonia Gandhi’s contribution has been a couple of televised whirlwind tours of Ahmedabad and one passionate speech at the joint session of Parliament. Surely, more should be expected of someone who hopes to be Prime Minister after the next general elections? Currently, more should be expected of the leader of the only party that can given the BJP a fight in Gujarat. What happens now in Gujarat will have consequences that go well beyond the borders of that state. If Modi manages to get his mandate we can be sure that anti-Muslim pogroms will be an inherent part of the BJP’s strategy to win the next general election. Already, the General who will lead the campaign is in place with our new Deputy PM playing an increasingly assertive role while the Prime Minister fades slowly into the background. Advani’s Hindutva card may not work at a national level but even if it fails, it could permanently damage Muslim faith in India, so something needs to be done to ensure that what happened in Gujarat is not repeated elsewhere in the country. Which leads us to the next question: what can possibly be done if the Home Minister of the country gives his seal of approval to Modi’s methods? Before the Prime Minister goes into permanent retirement—which seems to be where he is heading—he would be doing us a big favour if he made some effort to draw a lakshman rekha for his Home Minister. Clear rules need to be drawn up about how far Hindutva can be allowed to go. Advani has often publicly defended Modi’s handling of the violence on the ground that he did his best and that he stopped the violence quicker than most other chief ministers would have been able to. Could someone make it clear to the Home Minister that to those of us who do not see Gujarat through his Hindutva eyes, it certainly did not seem that way. If the Prime Minister cannot do it then it is time that the BJP’s allies in the NDA asserted their right to intervene to stop the NDA agenda for governance being replaced by the BJP’s personal agenda. Meanwhile, the best thing that can happen to Gujarat is a long spell of President’s rule so that the victims of the violence can spend some time putting their shattered lives back together. This is infinitely more important than the ‘‘people’s mandate’’. Respond to tavleensingh@expressindia.com
