With that lengthy ‘purvapeethika’ (background) out of the
way, let’s begin the actual dialog with an ‘amateur’ Modi-hater, our fictitious
Mr. Manish Shukla. As expected, Shuklaji right away began with the most
controversial and most beaten-to-death-by-paid-media accusation against Modi.
MS: Narendra Modi is responsible for the death of 2000
innocent Gujarati Muslims in the 2002 riots. His administration was complicit
in the riots that killed 2000 Muslims in Gujarat. I have heard some TV anchors
say that Modi was personally involved in instigating the crowds. A hundred NGOs
have filed complaints against him. If you support Modi then it means that you are
anti-Muslim.
Me: Mr. Shukla, as I promised at the outset, I will rely
only on facts in making my case. If you had confined your assertions to what
you considered as ‘facts’ then it would have been easier for me to pinpoint the
gross inaccuracies in your statements. But as expected, you have mixed your
versions of facts, which are wrong, with your own conjectures, a vast amount of
hearsay and also leaps of logic. You have reached an absurd conclusion that anybody
who supports Modi, is anti-Muslim. But let me start the rebuttal with the facts
first.
1.
On Feb 27th, 2002, 57 Hindu
kar-sevaks, returning from Ayodhya, were burnt alive in a train at Godhra
station. At that time, India and Pakistan were engaged in an eyeball-to-eyeball
confrontation following the terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament. Mr. Modi
had been anointed the Chief Minister of Gujarat for a mere 5 months with no
prior administrative experience.
2.
As soon as the Godhra incident was reported, the
situation became tense all over Gujarat and Modi immediately visited Godhra by
4 pm on the same day. Modi made an appeal for calm and implored the people of
Gujarat to maintain peace and not to resort to violence.
3.
An immediate request for an army deployment was
made to the Home Ministry of India and due to the ongoing Operation Parakram,
army units had to be airlifted from other states to be deployed in various
cities of Gujarat.
4.
The entire law enforcement machinery was
immediately activated and deployed at various sensitive spots all over the
state. Large scale preventive arrests were made each day from Feb 27, through
March 3rd. Overall hundreds of Hindus and dozens of Muslims were
arrested as preventive measure. Curfew was imposed in hundreds of localities.
5.
Gujarat Government made requests for additional
police and other law enforcement personnel to three neighboring states
Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. All three state govts were headed by
Congress CMs. Digvijay Singh (yes, the same moron who blamed Hindus for terror
while giving Pakistan a clean chit), the then CM of MP declined the request.
Ashok Gehlot, the Congress CM of Rajasthan similarly declined the request.
Vilasrao Deshmukh of MH did send a few police forces and they were promptly
deployed in various parts of the state.
6.
The rioting started chiefly on March 1st
and continued till March 3rd. There were numerous incidents of
police firing in which hundreds of Hindus died. Overall the death toll was 790
Muslims and 254 Hindus died in the period. Most of the Hindu casualties were
from police firing.
7.
Throughout the period, Modi made several
statements, each appealing for calm and peace. He intervened personally in many
cases where Hindu mobs had threatened certain Muslim localities and sent timely
reinforcements to save hundreds of Muslim lives. Click here for details of Modi's words and actions during those fateful days
From the above (each and every statement made above has been
corroborated against various independent sources of information) it is very
clear that:
I.
At no point did Modi ever exhort the Hindus to
resort to violence. He DID NOT condone violence and did everything in his power
to bring the situation under control.
II.
Modi did not make a single statement to
exacerbate the situation. In fact every statement made by him appealed for calm
and peace. He did not rest on mere words but actively followed them up by
deploying all possible anti-violence personnel and measures, including the
armed forces.
III.
The administration did its best to control the
situation and DID NOT tie the hands of the law enforcement personnel as can be
seen from the number of Hindus killed in police firing.
IV.
A large number of Hindus were also arrested as
preventive measure all over the state.
So your first assertion that Modi or his administration is
responsible for the death of 2000 Muslims is WRONG on almost all counts. Having
said that, the fact remains that over 1000 people were killed in the state as a
result of the rioting. And it is true that Modi was the administrative head of
the state. But NO ONE, even the most adept administrator could have prevented
the large scale backlash of Hindus after such a heinous act of terror as Godhra.
Does it mean that I (or Modi or his supporters) condone the violence?
ABSOLUTELY NOT. But it is a wild leap of logic to BLAME the person who tried to
do everything in his power to mitigate the horrendously explosive situation
that he was presented with. And it is an outright LIE that he actively abetted
the massacre.
If you do not take my word for it, then check the verdict handed by the Special Investigative Team (SIT), constituted by the Supreme Court of India, headed by Mr. K R Raghavan (ex-Chief of CBI). The SIT was
actively monitored by the Supreme Court and had access to all the documents,
witnesses and evidence. And the SIT gave a clean chit to Modi. Justice Nanavati
commission also gave a clean chit to Modi and his administration. The very
basic fact is that Congress and the assorted NGOs that have been baying for
Modi’s blood for over a decade have ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE that points towards
a complicity in the carnage of 2002.
Let me inform you of some more facts:
-
The 2002 riots in Gujarat were by no means the
largest riots. Gujarat had been an extremely communally polarized state since
the independence. There have been hundreds of small riots and at least a dozen
large riots that claimed the lives of hundreds to thousands of mainly Muslims.
These riots went on for weeks and months with the vicious cycle of communal
killing repeating itself until both the parties were exhausted. EACH AND EVERY
RIOT PRIOR TO THE 2002 WAS UNDER THE AUSPICES OF A CONGRESS CHIEF MINISTER AND
A CONGRESS GOVERNMENT AT THE CENTER. Not even a single CM or minister from the
Congress stable has been subjected to even an inquiry, much less the targeted
media lynching unleashed on Modi. If you resort to hyperboles that Modi has the
blood of hundreds of Muslims on his hand, then the CONGRESS HAS THE BLOOD OF
THOUSANDS OF MUSLIMS ON ITS HANDS. Again, this does not absolve Modi if he had
a hand in instigating the violence. But as I showed before, there is absolutely
no indication, much less evidence, to show that Modi had a hand in instigating
the violence. Each and every action and utterance of Modi has been towards
stopping the violence with everything at his disposal.
-
The 2002 riots have been followed by an
astounding period of over 10 years of complete calm with ZERO communal disturbances
in the state. This is the ONLY and the longest period of a riot-free existence
for the Muslims of Gujarat. And guess what, the Muslims of Gujarat have
overwhelmingly reposed their faith in their chief minister by electing him a
third time despite crores of rupees spent by the Congress in trying to woo them
away by constantly lying about Modi’s so-called anti-Muslim agenda.
-
The aftermath of the 2002 riots also witnessed the
first time when a large number of the riot-related cases were successfully
prosecuted and exemplary punishments meted out to a large number of criminals.
And this includes a large number of Hindus from the VHP and other assorted
organizations. It included Maya Kodnani, a former minister from Gujarat. Can
you name a single major politician convicted for riots from the Congress-ruled
states? Everybody knows what happened with the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in Delhi
and surrounding areas. Well-known Congress politicians have not even been
prosecuted while there are clear evidences of their direct involvement in the
killings of hundreds of Sikhs.
So in summary, it is completely wrong to say that Modi or
his administration is responsible for the 2002 riots. It is an outright lie to
say that Modi aided and abetted the riots by instigating the Hindus. And it is
absurd to claim that Modi-supporters like me are anti-Muslim.
MS: I still don’t buy it. Everybody knows the state of
justice in India. You can buy your justice for the right price. How can I
believe the SIT acted impartially in exonerating Modi?
Me: Shuklaji, if you are not prepared to trust the highest
court of law of India then there is nothing that can be done. I have already
conceded that the riots and the loss of life as an extremely regrettable fact.
But if you simply hold a kangaroo court in the media and do not go by the
weight of the evidence, then you are simply indulging in a spurious exercise.
If there is any evidence to the contrary, please bring it to my notice.
Otherwise, your assertions are nothing but opinions, not supported by facts.
And as I mentioned before, I cannot change people’s opinions if they are not
willing to accept the facts. And we are just getting started. I know that we
have a lot more to discuss. All I wish to do is to present the facts as they
are verified by the authorities but deliberately ignored or suppressed by the
anti-Modi brigade. You are still free to hold on to your opinion if you insist
on doing it in spite of the evidence to the contrary.
To be continued …Dialog 2: Modi and the 2002 riots Part II
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