Why This Doublespeak

BJP, under the stewardship of Narendra Modi has scored an emphatic victory in the recently held general elections in India, decimating their main opponent the Congress Party, which has been relegated to a distant second position. Modi will be taking oath of office on Monday, 26th May as India’s next Prime Minister. The swearing in ceremony will be attended by various heads of State including the Pakistan Premier Nawaz Sharif.

That Modi has been a controversial political figure since the last 12 years is a known fact. He has often been accused of being complicit, if not directly involved in the killing of more than a thousand Muslims in the communal carnage in Gujarat in 2002.The media has kept the pressure on him for the last one decade. Not only media, but human rights activists and some NGOs have also worked tirelessly to bring the culprits to book. They have succeeded in some cases; some cases are still pending in courts at various stages of investigation.

One may never come to know of Mr Modi’s exact role in the 2002 communal carnage, given the complexity of the issue and the slow pace of investigations in India. But despite that, one must admit that it is perhaps the only major incident of communal carnage, where many culprits have been booked, thanks to a pro active judiciary, which transferred some cases out of Gujarat for fear of the witnesses being threatened.

It is not that Gujarat 2002 was the only major incident of communal carnage in post independence India. India has had a history of communal violence in which mostly the Muslim minority suffered major damage. Interestingly most of the major acts of communal carnage have taken place under the ‘secular’ Congress Govt in various States, be it Bhagalpur in 1989, Mumbai in January 1993 or Assam in 2012 and 2014. When anti Muslim violence erupted in Nellie in Assam in Feb 1983, the State was under the President’s rule. But the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi said that,’’ “One has to let such events take their own course before stepping in”, in reply to Financial Times, when asked why she had not acted earlier to control the violence. Mrs Gandhi was never probed for what she meant by this nor has the Congress party ever been made to answer for what has been one of the worst communal riots in independent India, in which more than 2000 people were killed, most of them Muslims. In the subsequent Assam Accord of 1985, 310 charge-sheeted criminal cases related to the Nellie violence were dropped by the Central Govt led by Rajiv Gandhi.

What happened in Delhi in Nov 1984 is one of the most barbaric acts of communal violence. But this time it was the Sikhs who were at the receiving end of this violence unleashed by and in most cases abetted by Congress workers and leaders. Indira Gandhi’s son, Rajiv went one step ahead of her mother when he said that ‘’When a big tree falls, the earth shakes’’, referring to his mother’s killing. The role of some Congress leaders and workers in this carnage is known, but despite a lapse of 30 years hardly any culprit has been punished. No justice has been given to the victims of Bhagalpur, Nellie and Mumbai as well. These acts of communal carnage remain a festering wound on the body politic of India. But it somehow seems that communal violence unleashed by the ‘’secular’’ Congress is acceptable, compared to the one unleashed by the right wing BJP and its associates. Unless communal violence in India is viewed by rising above petty political considerations, justice will remain a distant dream for the victims. It is time communal violence unleashed by any party is seen in its utmost ugliness, without falling prey to semantics. It is time to call a spade a spade.

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