Exercise in delusion

In Ahmedabad, it is peak season for disaster tourists. More than two months after the unrelenting violence began in Gujarat, the NDA organised a peace march in the city. Messrs George Fernandes and Arun Jaitely hopped down from New Delhi, Narendra Modi joined them from Gandhinagar, and together they led a walkathon in which security personnel were easier to spot than the rallyists, and the designer-capped rallyists could be clearly marked out from the people. Nothing underlined the superficiality of the affair more than the fact that violence broke out on the rallyists’ route soon after they vacated it. It is Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s turn now. The prime minister, it is said, will participate in a similar show proposed by the NDA allies in the future. Surely the BJP and its partners don’t believe there are any takers in Ahmedabad or outside for these belated and stagemanaged displays of sincerity and solicitousness? As daily reports detail the continuing violence and constitutional breakdown in the state, someone ought to tell the prime minister and his men that these effete gestures only insult the injured people of the state.

It will be terribly difficult for anybody to stake claim to the high moral ground in Gujarat for a long time to come. It is not just the obviously cosmetic peace marches that will prove inadequate to that task. Even Ram Vilas Paswan’s resignation from the NDA, ostensibly on account of Gujarat, has failed to deliver the moral gloss. Paswan would have everyone believe that his decision to lead his four MPs out of the ruling coalition has to do with his anguish over Gujarat. That explanation is pitifully lacking in conviction. Over two months after the violence broke out in Gujarat and at the heels of the pact the BJP has recently sewn up with Mayawati, it requires no skills of political analysis to point out that the real provocation for Paswan lies not in Gujarat but in Uttar Pradesh. Paswan was evidently threatened by the BSP leader challenging his monopoly over the ‘Dalit voice’ in the NDA.

Against Gujarat’s grim landscape, political posturing, especially from within the ruling establishment, is immediately shown up for what it is. Violence continues to rage in the state. As this paper has reported, even the belated promises the prime minister made to the refugees in the relief camps remain unmet. They remain huddled in insanitary, miserable conditions. They are forced to make do with insufficient rations of food and water, inadequate toilet facilities, meagre medical attention, and a miserly trickle of compensation. These men, women and children are still fearful of venturing out of the tentative shelters to resume their normal lives. And through it all, Gujarat Minister of State for Home remains preoccupied with his theory on Godhra. Speaking to this paper, the MoS Home has cited ‘events since 1927’ to prove that Godhra has an ‘anti-national’ history. His dossier on Godhra is presumably the only progress the Modi government has made so far towards punishing the guilty. In these circumstances, the least the prime minister can do is to refuse to join the lengthening queue of disaster tourists to the state.