Author: S. V. Ramakrishnan
Publication: Organiser
Date: May 26, 2002
A growing tragedy of recent times
is the decline of credibility all around. First, starting in the 50s, the
politicians lost their credibility. Then the Administration, e.g., the
Police lost the trust of people. And lately the national media, viz. the
English language press and TV channels like Star, which should normally
be a sort of conscience keeper, have followed suit. The growing primacy
of the electronic media has made things worse. Perhaps the replacement
of the more sober British model of journalism by the opinionated and sale
oriented American model may also have something to do with the fall. The
official press code, outdated and unimaginative, also tends to treat us
as immature children and not as responsible citizens. When serious happenings
of great significance occur, the intelligent observer is largely left to
his own wits, having to piece together bits of news and reading between
the lines to guess the truth.
I was in Gujarat in early April.
The period of active rioting was over. The great spree of arson and burning
of men and women that had started at Godhra had ceased at last, but sporadic
stabbing was feeding the politicians and the press and keeping up the tension.
It was widely believed that Congressmen were keeping the pot boiling by
these means to discredit the Government and ask for its removal. I could
easily sense the hatred and distrust in the minds of the two communities
and also the tension in the air. Normally, Hindus do not think or vote
as one entity. They more often think and group on caste or language basis.
A majority of Hindus are generally neutral. This time, however, it was
difficult to find a neutral Hindu. Anger is still running very high at
what happened at Godhra. Nobody has any doubt that the carnage was a hundred
per cent preplanned. The story of a sudden altercation between Rambhaktas
and a tea vendor is dismissed with contempt. How could a crowd of about
two thousand Muslims, armed with swords to watch that nobody' escaped from
the fire, materialise suddenly? Local information has it also that the
Station Master who was a Muslim was in league with the conspirators and
did not give the line to the engine driver when he decided to ignore the
chain pulling and speed away. It is also widely believed that some young
Hindu women were abducted from the train and their whereabouts are not
known' Largely the media has somehow blacked this out. But it is definitely
a factor behind the backlash. "How could this be done to Hindus in their
own country? Governments are not taking care of Hindus; they have to protect
themselves" was the feeling that I found widespread in towns and universal
in villages. Like in the face of an invasion, there is a sudden feeling
of unity among Hindus. There is also a sense of satisfaction that having
been repeatedly wronged, this time they have given back fully.
At any rate, it does not seem to
have been have been in the force of the Government an d the police power
to instantly bring the riots under control. An unusual feature of this
year's riot was that it affected rural areas as much as the urban; and
simultaneously so. This made its control very difficult and also slow.
The police force had to be stretched dangerously thin. There have been
earlier communal riots in this State, though not for the past eight years;
they were largely confined to any one city like Ahmedabad- or Vadodara.
This time, they simultaneously broke out in everywhere from North Gujarat
(Mehsana and Sabarkantha districts) to South Guiarat (Baruch and Surat).
Ahmedabad, Kheda and Baroda districts in Central Gujarat were the worst
hit. Panchmahal District that has its headquarter in Godhra had to suffer
the inevitable reaction to the train massacre. Relatively, Saurashtra region
was less affected.
A very distinctive and significant
feature this time is that the riots covered villages as well that made
the Government's task slow and difficult, a fact not fully appreciated
by its critics. Control as well as rehabilitation in rural areas is necessarily
very different from the cities.
It may sound -odd in the face of
the adverse attention of the national media (Gujarati media has, however,
been favourable to him), but Narendra Modi has emerged popular as never
before. I heard it so, many times that had the BJP High Command brought
him in a year or two earlier, it would have been better. If he resigns
and goes in for an election now, he will win hands down with the vast majority
of Hindu votes though he is unlikely to get the Muslim votes. With only
less than a year of his normal term left, he nay very well do so, declaring
that he would go to "the people's court". Early in April, the Times of
India speculated that the Prime Minister after his Gujarat visit would
be in for a "change of guard" in Gujarat. The Old Lady of Boribunder is
of course not well disposed towards Modi and this was more wishful than
realistic. The reality is that if the BJP changes the horse midstream,
it would prove suicidal to it at a time that it can not afford another
state lost.
Modi has the image of a strongman
and an able administrator. When the Supreme Court gave an order, some months
ago against the, use of microphones in the mosques, his Government immediately
implemented it and removed loudspeakers from mosques, something not done
elsewhere. Also, when the Godhra outrage occurred, he promptly razed to
the ground the sprawling slums that had grown on Government land on both
the sides of the railway line at Godhra, because that is where most of
the lumpen elements who perpetrated the massacre came from. These things
have endeared him to the majority community who say that there is at last
a Government that governs; the Muslim community is correspondingly bitter.
The underworld in Gujarat has been
greatly emasculated as a force in the recent years of BJP ascendancy. Muslims
say that the underworld, largely Muslim, was offering them some protection
during the earlier riots and that is missing now. It is a sad commentary
that highlights the leaderless condition of the Muslims in Gujarat. Consequent
of this vacuum, there is a feeling of despair and dejection among the Muslims
as a whole. Congress that is very vocal about the riots and the interests
of the 'minority', as it compulsively calls Muslims, has not thought of
addressing this real and basic problem of theirs. There is the immediate
prospect of mental polarization and physical ghettoisation of the two communities,
with both Hindus and Muslims vacating the areas where the other is the
majority and shifting to their majority areas.
As mentioned earlier, a section
of the national media has not exactly covered itself with glory in its
coverage of the momentous happenings in Gujarat. Its prejudiced presentation
of news has created a serious credibility gap. The media seems to have
fallen a victim to its own stereotypes. Its selective amnesia on Godhra
and its one sided emphasis only on what followed is striking. At any rate,
this failure only aggravated the situation in Gujarat and not otherwise.
It has also made things more difficult for the rest of India understanding
and assessing the trauma in Gujarat and its likely fallout elsewhere in
future.