Seen in isolation, the violence in Vadodara that left four people dead, two of them killed in police firing, doesn’t amount to much in a country where life is cheap. But this happened in Gujarat, where every incident must be — and usually is — seen through many prisms, and analysed for any fallout with the potential to impact life and politics across the country. This was always so in a tinderbox state, and even more so in the aftermath of Godhra and the tortuous Best Bakery case. For Chief Minister Narendra Modi, this is a test and a wake-up call; with the state due for elections within the next 18 months, his response to the development will be watched with keen interest by the electorate, India Inc, and the public at large. Gujarat’s traditional strength is its ability to react to crisis by getting on with life, putting business before emotion. And so, despite suffering two potentially crippling crises in two years — one man-made, the other, the earthquake, natural — Gujarat just picked itself up and carried on. Since the mid-nineties, per capita income in Gujarat has grown at 5 per cent, and the state has pulled in the biggest share of investment in the country since 1991 (18 per cent, compared to Maharashtra’s 14 per cent). It is part of a momentum built up over the years, though Modi will doubtless take the credit for much of this. The economy can be taken for granted, Modi is tempted to believe so can the electorate. Given the politics within the state, betting on Modi’s re-election is perhaps not unduly risky. Yet Gujarat’s traditional strength is also its biggest weakness because the ability to bounce back from crisis has its roots in the willingness to sweep issues under the carpet — where they remain, bitter and bubbling, to erupt every now and again. Indeed, Monday’s violence would have evoked little surprise or outrage among the sharply polarised people of Gujarat; inured to it, they would have responded with a shrug of the shoulder. This is where the state government must be pro-active, stepping in to assert its credibility and demonstrate that it is a government of and for all, not just sections of the population. This is Modi’s test; it’s in everyone’s interest that he passes it.
