Author: Swapan Dasgupta
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: May 7, 2006
Last Tuesday and Wednesday, a handful of TV
channels tried their utmost to trigger communal riots in Gujarat, if not the
rest of India. I happened to be in West Bengal on the days Vadodara was said
to be burning, and it was clear as daylight that the media was bent on stirring
things up. Sitting in a studio while voting was in progress in Muslim-majority
districts like Murshidabad, I could only speculate about the editorial rationale
behind constant telecast of footage of young lumpens stoning policemen and
frightened women mourning the tragic killing of a Muslim businessman in a
burning car. The commentary was equally inflammatory - "animal-like brutality"
and "tandav lila" were just two of the descriptions of Gujarat's
still-born Intifada.
By the evening, Communist leaders were warning
people to be vigilant about a replay of the 2002 riots, the explosion of passion
that yielded such handsome dividends for the Left in the 2004 general election.
I don't know whether the media coverage of
the Vadodara clashes influenced Muslim voters to gang up against the Trinamool
Congress and BJP candidates in West Bengal, but in the rest of India riots
didn't break out. This was despite the attempt of at least one channel to
suggest that local Muslims were being targeted as Pakistanis by a communalised
Gujarat police.
"Modidom", the secular activist
description of Gujarat, did not burn but not for the want of secular prodding
of local Muslims. The clashes in Vadodara prompt larger questions centred
on the mindset of secular activism. First, it was apparent to all that the
demolition of what the secularist weekly Outlook called the "less significant
and tiny Rashiduddin Chishti dargah" built in the early-20th century
was not the outcome of any Hindu-Muslim tensions.
The removal was dictated by the imperatives
of urban renewal-in this case, road widening. It was not any different from
the demolition of at least 10 Hindu temples in the city for the same reason.
In other words, the demolition was prompted by the local municipality's sense
of the larger good. There was a case for relocating the dargah but to suggest
that the roadside shrine should have been left alone because it was dear to
local Muslims suggest that there should be one rule for the aam aadmi and
one rule for minorities. Teesta Setalvad may believe so but there is no reason
why upright, patriotic Indians should concur.
In theory, the suggestion is preposterous
but this is precisely what secular activism is now demanding. The demolition
of the grand malls on MG Road in Delhi was bitterly resented by fashion designers.
They pleaded with the authorities, wept before the cameras and staged havans
and dharnas but to no avail. The malls were deemed unauthorised and demolished.
After all, there couldn't be one law for Page 3 people and one law for slum
dwellers.
Yet, differential treatment is what the wannabe
Intafadists demanded and secured, if the response of the Centre is anything
to go by. Maybe they took their cue from the Shahi Imam of Delhi's Jama Masjid
and his brother who assaulted a person within the precincts of the Prime Minister's
residence and in full gaze of the cameras. To this date, the Delhi Police
have refused to register an FIR. The ingenuous suggestion is that such an
FIR goes against the "secular" Preamble of the Constitution. Would
such an argument have held if the assailant was, say, Praveen Togadia of the
VHP?
These are no longer rhetorical points. For
the past few months, undesirable pressure groups ranging from the Maoist killers,
Taliban look-alikes and disruptive Luddites-backed by mediapersons who wish
they didn't have passports have been pressuring a vulnerable Centre to acquiesce
in moves that stall the march of a resurgent India. Narendra Modi is constantly
at the receiving end of their ire because he is one man who is not afraid
of calling their treacherous bluff. What a shame that he confines himself
to Gujarat.
