Click to play videoChief Minister Narendra Modi, vilified as the Nero who fiddled when Gujarat burnt during the 2002 riots, appears to have mellowed down. After the serial blasts in Ahmedabad, he appealed for calm and took quick action to prevent violence.
Modi has termed the blasts as an attack on the nation and a conspiracy against “Mahatma Gandhi’s land”. Compare this to 2002, when at the worst phase of the riots, he allegedly said: “every action has an equal and opposite reaction.”
Within hours of the serial blasts on July 26, Modi’s government asked the Army to conduct a flag march in Ahmedabad to assure citizens and prevent communal violence. Compare this to February 2002 when the first Army troops reached Ahmedabad two days after the Godhra train carnage.
Modi has refrained from using the serial blasts to attack the UPA Government and instead requested Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who visited Ahmedabad on Monday, to expedite the presidential assent for the Gujarat Control of Organized Crime Bill pending since June 2004.
Compare his representation to the Prime Minister with BJP leader Sushma Swaraj’s statement that the blasts were the UPA Government’s conspiracy to divert attention from the cash-for-votes scandal and win Muslim votes.
Has Modi emerged as a mature leader? Is the Modi of July 2008 different from the Modi of February 2002? CNN-IBN’s Sagarika Ghose asked this on Face The Nation to Congress MP and spokesperson Jayanthi Natarajan, BJP ideologue Sheshadri Chari, Father Cedric Prakash, human rights activist and spokesperson for the Gujarat United Christian Forum for Human Rights.
The different Modis
“If there are no cries of vengeance or retaliation from the chief executive of a state, then it has to be welcomed. I and many other wish that this happened in 2002 and all these last six years,” said Prakash. “Whether this a new Modi I really do not know. I think he would do well if he ensures that one community is not demonised.”
Modi’s restraint doesn’t impress the Congress, said Natarajan. “The nation will need a lot more from Modi to forget what happened in 2002. It is unfortunate to praise him for something which is expected from any Chief Minister. Why praise him for what he should do,” she said.
Modi is performing his duties and he is not seeking applause, said Chari. “Modi has not changed—it is the media which has changed. I know him since 1975—give me one instance where he flared up or given a derogatory speech against any community. He has not demonised the Muslim community—it was Father Cedric Prakash and his ilk that defamed him. It was only when the Congress president called him a merchant of death that Modi reacted,” said Chari.
“During the 2002 riots Modi didn’t utter words which are being attributed to him. He has been demonised,” he said.
Prakash rejected Chari’s allegation and claimed whatever Modi said during the 2002 riots is on record and the media has quoted him verbatim.
At the height of the anti-Sikh riots in 1984 Congress leader Rajiv Gandhi said:
“When a big tree falls, the earth will shake.” History seems to have forgotten his statement, so shouldn’t Modi get a second chance too?
Comparing Modi to Gandhi is stretching the limit of logic. “The Congress has apologised for Rajiv Gandhi’s remark. What Modi did in 2002 was state-sponsored genocide. (Prime Minister) A B Vajpayee himself asked Modi to follow rajdharam (duty). There is no comparison between what Rajiv Gandhi said and Narendra Modi did,” said Natarajan.
Congress, as the BJP’s adversary, has every reason to demonise Modi but it is not going to help them, said Chari. “It is to the credit of the Prime Minister that he went to Ahmedabad and set the record set. If the Congress had done the same much earlier they wouldn’t have lost ground in Gujarat,” said Chari.
Prakash reminded that Modi may seem mellow but he has shown no remorse for the 2002 riots. “We need a Gujarat which is peaceful, where there are bridges and where Muslims can and live in the best parts of cities. We need a society which shows remorse and the remorse has to come from the top. Only then there will be healing and reconciliation,” he said.
SMS poll on ‘Has Modi emerged as a mature leader?’
Yes: 72 per cent
No: 28 per cent.
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