Naroda Patiya verdict: Aides face the music, Modi remains ‘righteous’: by Kingshuk Nag
When I first heard of the conviction of former Gujarat minister Maya Kodnani and Babu Bajrangi in the Naroda Patiya case on Wednesday morning, my first reaction was: why is it that the associates of Narendra Modi get nailed every time but he gets off scot-free? I am referring to Modi’s former minister Amit Shah and police officers like DG Vanzara who were close to him and had a free run. Vanzara and Rajkumar Pandyan (another police officer close to him) are languishing in jail; Amit Shah is also facing charges. Today, 31 more have been convicted but Modi (who, of course, was not directly involved in the incident) is going strong. While the Congress and Keshubhai Patel will put up a stiff fight, it is likely that he will be returned for the third time in the elections that will be held four months from now. And using this victory as ‘public approval’ for everything that he may have done or not done in the past, Modi will lambast the secular forces, blaming them for everything conceivable including all the ills that afflict India.
For those who came in late, the Naroda Patiya incident happened on February 28, 2002, a day after the Godhra train burning incident. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) had given a bandh call and a huge crowd gathered at Naroda Patiya in Ahmedabad and attacked members of the minority community, killing 91 people. This was the same day when at Gulberg Housing Society, former MP Ehsan Jaffri was killed along with members of the same society even as police made themselves scarce. In fact, the attack on Gulberg Society happened after the additional police commissioner MK Tandon had visited the place and said that there was nothing to fear. His departure had been taken as a signal by rioters to burn down Gulberg Society. This was also the day when rioters and other antisocials had a free run, looting establishments belonging to the minority community and killing them at will. A Muslim high court judge had to run away from his house and take refuge at the house of a colleague for no crime other than being a Muslim. The car of the collector of Gandhinagar was also stoned because the collector was a Muslim. Sitting at the police control room were two ministers of the Modi government doing God knows what and this is when Ahmedabad was literally burning. The police commissioner of Ahmedabad, PC Pande, had gone into hibernation mode that day & DG of police K Chakravarthy was fuming and fretting in private with no guts to lead his men from the front.
Modi’s government should have been dismissed immediately – for failure to control law and order and for the anarchy prevailing on the streets – not only that day but also for the next few days. But there was an NDA government in New Delhi and the home minister was none other than Lal Krishna Advani, widely known as the godfather of Modi and the Prime Minister was Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who had mastered the art of doublespeak. It was not that they did not know what has happening — although Modi must have purveyed that it was all a “spontaneous reaction” to the Godhra incident and public anger was tremendous. A cabinet minister called George Fernandes who held the defence portfolio had been sent to Gujarat to assess the situation, but he had clearly reported to Vajpayee what was happening. To no avail, of course, other than a small reprimand from Vajpayee that ‘rajdharma’ has to be practised. Modi countered rather rudely that this was what he was doing.
From day one, those not enamoured with Modi have asserted that the role of the chief minister was more than that of being a helpless spectator. In fact, Modi’s revenue minister Haren Pandya (subsequently assassinated) deposed before the Concerned Citizens’ Tribunal that Modi had told his ministers in the aftermath of the Godhra incident (on the evening of February 27) that the public reaction that would happen in Ahmedabad should be allowed. IPS officer Sanjeev Bhatt (then in the intelligence department), who had attended a meeting of officers with Modi, also said that the latter had wanted that the reaction be allowed to happen. The then home secretary of Gujarat, Ashok Narain, also is on record saying that he had warned that bringing the bodies of the victims of the Godhra train burning incident to Ahmedabad would incite violence but his warning was not heeded and a decision was taken to bring the bodies to the city.
On Wednesday (August 29, 2012), Maya Kodnani (who was an MLA then but was subsequently promoted as a minister; the question remains: if she was in the eye of a storm, why did Modi promote her?) was convicted under more than a dozen sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) including 302 (murder) and 120B (criminal conspiracy). Ditto for Babu Bajrangi. For those who do not know who he is, he is a VHP member who saw himself as a ‘social reformer’. Eyewitness accounts on which the court relied to convict Maya Kodnani spoke of how she had incited the mobs to murder.
I do not know what Modi’s reaction is to the convictions in the Naroda Patiya case. He will probably say that it only proves that his government has not tampered with the law and justice machinery in the state. Well that’s not that simple as that because this was a case monitored by the Supreme Court and witnesses protected by central paramilitary forces and legal aid from luminaries. But the question still buzzes in my mind: everything happened when Modi was at the helm of affairs. How is it that he is not being made to take responsibility for what happened in Gujarat in those fateful days. Does merely winning elections absolve him of everything? What sort of system is this where politics decides everything and extinguishes the line between right and wrong?
