One is given to believe that the outcome of the upcoming
Indian elections is already a forgone conclusion and ascendancy of Narendra
Modi to power a fait accompli. At least that is the perception being spread by
corporate controlled Indian media that revels in mediocrity. Curiously, that would
constitute a remarkable turn of events. Given his direct and indirect culpability
in the crimes committed in 2002, Modi should have long before disappeared from
political scenario. For long last he should have been doing his time in a
shared cell with his former protégé Maya Kodnani for his crimes of omission and
commission against humanity. Instead he is crisscrossing the country spreading
untruths and regularly mauling history; back in Gujarat his henchmen in the meanwhile
continue to indulge in thuggish skullduggery.
The exoneration by Indian courts of Modi for his role in
mayhem of 2002, that left thousands dead and irretrievably scarred minorities
in Gujarat, does not in any way prove his innocent. Rather in a curious way
represents falling in line of judiciary with ominous trend of the time
heralding triumph of unreason and bigotry. Given the spread of viciousness it
is does not come as surprise that people fighting for or demanding justice for the
victims of Modi regime of terror during those riots should now find themselves
charged as criminals. Albert Camus couldn’t have been more apt when he wrote,
“On the day when crime dons the apparel of innocence-through a curious
transposition peculiar to our times-it is innocence that is called upon to
justify itself”. In this case the happenings are not abstract concepts but
factual happenings.
Teesta Setalvad while seeking justice for Zakia Jafry is
being hounded by the state machinery of Gujarat headed by none other than Narendra
Modi. Zakaia Jafri’s husband Ehsan Jafri a former member of Indian parliament
was hacked to death by a mob of thugs guided by official voter lists during those riots.
Modi never uttered a single word of remorse for any of those heinous crimes
committed under his watch and instead a systematic harassment and victimization
of his opponents and those seeking justice has ensued to this day.
What has become one of the tragic in a series of ironies is
the fact it is not the so-called progress model but it is rather his role and unambiguously
criminal stance during and following riots in 2002 that has captured the
imagination of increasingly communal and bigoted Indian middle class. Modi’s arrival on
the national scene is not the beginning rather it signals the culmination of
the process of thorough infiltration of every strata of society by the forces
that are intolerant and visualize India in a light compatible with the vision
of communal figures from days of Hindu Mahasabha. Tactics of intimidation used
by the supporters of Modi in dealing with opponents represent a leaf out of a fascist
book.
One might remember the worst tyrants in the history came to
power through elections and massive popular support of their people. Modi seems
to be displaying all the symptoms of making of a worst tyrant. When an
outspoken critic of Modi, a former editor of The Hindu newspaper Siddharth
Varadarajan was indirectly threatened, not much was left to imagine.
Modi will not come to power because people who will vote for him are tired of
corruption. No because they are the ones who are corrupt; they are the ones who
go to any lengths to avoid taxes; they are the ones who benefit from corrupt
India. For them Modi brings them a vision of Hindu India. Alas they forget when
everybody has been dealt with, the forces of tyrant will turn on them. Recently
Pranay Gupte quoted poem “First they came” by the pastor Martin Niemoller on Jewish holocaust:
First
they came for the Communists
And
I did not speak out
Because
I was not a Communist
Then
they came for the Socialists
And
I did not speak out
Because
I
was not a Socialist
Then
they came for the trade unionists
And
I did not speak out
Because
I was not a trade unionist
Then
they came for the Jews
And
I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Because I was not a Jew
Then
they came for me
And
there was no one left
To
speak out for me -Rajiv Kumar
