Stirring a toxic cauldron

Vajpayee is a BJP leader, and possibly a beleaguered one with his own political compulsions, but they cannot be allowed to overrule his constitutional obligations. And his constitutional obligations require that he is seen to uphold the principles of unity and fraternity at all times. For his Friday speech, however, the prime minister chose the language of sectarianism and retribution, words that bordered uncomfortably closely to Narendra Modi8217;s infamous action-reaction formulation. 8216;8216;If the Godhra incident had not happened then whatever followed would also not have happened,8217;8217; he had thundered. If this is not washing one8217;s hands of prime ministerial responsibility, what is? First, the tragic attack at Godhra should not have happened. But once it did, it was up to the Union and state governments to have ensured that 8216;8216;whatever followed8217;8217; did not in fact follow. It was the Modi government8217;s clear dereliction of duty in failing to control the riots, and indeed state complicity in them, that had led to a chorus of protests and the demand for his dismissal from parties across the political spectrum, including the BJP8217;s allies in the NDA government.

The manner in which this demand was treated at Panaji was once again indicative of the cavalier fashion in which the ruling party has come to address issues of principle and accountability. If the Modi resignation seemed like an elaborate charade, the verbose prose with which his party exonerated him seemed almost farcical. Even as Ahmedabad continued to smoulder six weeks after the first signs of violence broke out, with armed mobs hurling incendiary material at each other, even after the NHRC and the Minorities Commission had expressed serious reservations over the Modi government8217;s handling of the riots, the party pronounced in a resolution that it was confident 8216;8216;Modi can meet every challenge, that by effective action he can counter every canard8217;8217;. What was worse was the 8216;permission8217; granted to Modi to seek a fresh mandate at a time when over one lakh people are presently living broken lives in relief camps. This takes the politics of opportunism to new levels of insensitivity. The party president, Jana Krishnamurthy, with all the cunning of a trained lawyer, breezily justifies the go-to-the-people call by saying that in a democracy 8216;8216;the people are supreme8217;8217;. He must also know that no system that calls itself democratic would countenance riots. If the idea of an early election in Gujarat is to cash in on inflamed public sentiments to shore up a sagging political bottomline than the BJP must be left in no doubt that the nation is in no mood to return to the atavistic politics of an earlier era.