Modi’s atonement: Real or fake?

As the world stepped into another year, like everybody else, the poor minorities in India too had hoped against all hope that something good is in store for them. But alas, their fate remains unaltered as the political class continues to treat them as a vote-acquiring tool.
Be it the Muzaffarnagar riot victims, whose endless struggle against the monstrous winter chill goes on unabated while languishing in tented shelters away from home, or the victims of the 2002 communal frenzy in Gujarat that extinguished the lights of happiness from so many lives in one go, competitive vote-bank politics, it seems, will never allow them to get a proper closure. A fresh season, however, demands that we move beyond the agonizing grief. For the sinners, it is time for confessions. In a significant development, the opposition prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi has also engaged himself in a process of self-proclaimed atonement. Modi’s sudden and dramatic year-end words of repentance over the loss of Muslim lives during the 2002 Gujarat pogrom was seen as a game changer in Indian politics.
Band of faithful Modi supporters went to town on their idol’s apparently large-hearted gesture even though it seems very unlikely that the most controversial political character in recent times has realized that only the forgiveness of the victims’ kin can wash his guilt away. Letting his supporters tom-tom about the sentimental outpouring will serve no real purpose and can at best help the large number of Modi detractors to dismiss such strong note of anguish as nothing more than political theatrics. Indeed, the timing of the Gujarat chief political executives’ statement about his inner feelings could not have been more imperfect. It coincided with a judicial order that quashed the plea of septuagenarian Zakia Jafri to restart an investigation against Modi for facilitating one of India’s worst communal violence that tore through Gujarat.
Incidentally, her husband Ehsan Jafri, an ex-parliamentarian, was burnt alive by a saffron mob during those terrifying days, which none of the riot survivors can possibly forget in their lifetime. Had Modi sincerely wanted to make an honest effort to reach out to the Muslim population for dispelling the deep-rooted mistrust, he had ample opportunity to do so. And yet Modi, instead of mending fences, was busy polishing his hard-line image to project himself as a Hindutva mascot till his elevation as the prime ministerial candidate. That is precisely the reason why his party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) failed to field a single Muslim candidate in the last assembly elections. Moreover, Modi has shown a tendency to play religious cards even when it is not required. Psychologists observe that this unique trait comes from a visceral hatred toward a particular community and Modi of course has minced no words in underlining the segment he hated most. Can anyone in their right mind ever support all those nauseating assertions that Modi came up with during his infamous Gaurav Yatra (pride march) organized just seven months after the pogrom? It was part of pre-election campaigning, during which he addressed crowds every few kilometers and made tangentially threatening statements against Muslims like “people (Muslims) who multiplied thus should be taught a lesson.” The worst one was about the riot relief camps, which Modi wanted to wind-up as early as possible without proper psychological and physical rehabilitation.
A livid Modi told a rally of his supporters that relief camps housing Muslim survivors of the 2002 pogrom should be shut down because they had become “factories for producing babies.” Above all, despite all the denials about Modi’s justification of the butchering of innocent Muslims, Modi himself slipped during a television interview and acknowledged that a spate of action and reaction was going on in his State to avenge the death of 58 Hindu activists in a charred railway coach in Godhra. Even if we are to give BJP’s prime ministerial face the benefit of doubt, Modi’s public speeches bear testimony to the fact that beyond the façade of a leader, who apparently knows nothing other than “development,” lies a rigid mind where tolerance has no place. Regardless of whatever praise that people like information technology czar NR Narayana Murthy or influential businessman Zafar Sareshwala might have in store for Modi, it is an undeniable fact that this man, with a prime ministerial ambition, has failed to display magnanimity and statesmanship — the essential ingredients required to lead a diverse India.
Not surprisingly, the chairman of the Supreme Court appointed special investigation team, probing Modi’s possible involvement in the riot, too was highly critical of the Gujarat chief minister’s irresponsible utterances and behavior at a time of crisis. Surely, the business honchos in India clamoring for Modi’s ascendancy to throne are not in a position to feel the unbearable pain of helplessly witnessing the brutal elimination of loved ones by fanatical elements owing allegiance to the same ideology that Modi vouches for. It is an irony that the Indian judicial system has in a stroke of judgment absolved Modi of all guilt and thus liberated his conscience. This despite an independent committee of eminent jurists’ acknowledgement — on the basis of Modi’s late cabinet colleague Haren Pandya’s confession — of Modi’s active role in keeping the law and order machinery passive during the riots. Intriguing it is that India Inc. is still lobbying for an individual who has also been found guilty of prejudicially promoting enmity on religious grounds by the judiciary appointed amicus curiae.

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