Let146;s suspend Parliament8230;

Gujarat's Chief Minister Narendra Modi claimed that he had brought Gujarat to normalcy within 72 hours of violence first having surfaced. Ye...

Gujarat8217;s Chief Minister Narendra Modi claimed that he had brought Gujarat to normalcy within 72 hours of violence first having surfaced. Yet, today, 25 days after riots broke out in the state 8212; which is something like 600 hours 8212; Gujarat is still witness to the most horrendous displays of mob violence. The latest saga from the Guptanagar area of Ahmedabad8217;s Vejalpur is of a young Hindu woman who stood by her Muslim friend and was stripped naked and stabbed to death by a mob for this.It is only one more in a veritable sea of horror stories. If Narendra Modi is disturbed by the fact that his state is teetering on anarchy, he shows little signs of it. To the world he presents as immobile, as unrepentant, as defiant a visage as ever, all the time passing the buck, as he shrugs off his own responsibilities of ensuring that law and order prevails and every citizen protected.

Earlier he had blamed the English-language media for Gujarat8217;s violence. Now he has some more villains to add to his list 8212; parliamentarians. Irresponsible statements made by the Opposition and former prime ministers in Parliament are what is keeping the state burning. In fact, Modi avers, they are keen to keep the state burning. According to him, the violence in Gujarat will end only when the Lok Sabha session ends. Fine, if that is the case, let us suspend Parliament forthwith. If such action brings a modicum of civilisation back to the state; if it ensures that one section of the population does not attempt to eliminate another section of the population; if it wakes up the state government from deep slumber and gets it to crack down upon those it now protects, it will certainly be worth suspending the working of our democracy for a spell. And, while we are about it, let us also censure those who voice their apprehensions about Gujarat and fears that its chief minister is either plain incompetent or, worse, deliberately choosing to be so. If those so censured include former prime ministers, so be it.

But, alas, things are not so simple. The more Modi protests, the more the evidence against him surfaces. No less that J.S. Verma, chairman of the National Human Rights Commission NHRC, has expressed his deep shock at the state8217;s utter failure in anticipating the riots in the wake of the Godhra attack and in controlling the situation. The NHRC chairman rued the sense of insecurity that now besets the people of the state. The abysmal conditions in the camps housing those who have been rendered refugees in their own state had appalled him and he blamed not just the politicians but officials for their inaction and inefficiency. He rightly reminded them that their job was to perform their duties under the law and they did not have to seek political permission in order to do this. But what had distressed Verma most of all was that no leader of stature had thought it fit to camp awhile in these makeshift colonies to calm things down and build confidence in the people. The tragedy of Gujarat, and indeed this country, is that there are very few people like Verma willing at this juncture to rise above political and sectarian divides and uncompromisingly commend something that the nation supposedly takes as its guiding principle 8212; the rule of law.