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Editorial
Shamelessness In Saffron Colour
So far, no
reasonable critique has emerged to counter the common refrain among
the right-thinking people in Punjab, rest of India and all across
the human rights domain: If the 1984 genocide of Sikhs investigated
properly and the guilty brought to the book swiftly, the 2002
Gujarat may have never happened.
The 1984
genocide victims are still waiting. The shenanigans of the various
Indian governments, investigating agencies including the CBI and the
judiciary make one thing clear: some nice words will be uttered from
time to time but nothing much will happen on the ground.
In case of
Gujarat,
we celebrate the doggedness of the civil society activists and
liberal domain who refused to just let the matters rest with a
Congress government at the Centre. It was clear that the soft core
Hindutva will not go with any determination after the hardcore
variety.
The
investigation into the 2002
Gujarat riots
was never going to be easy. Gujarat Government was in the dock, and
the the agencies of investigation were in its hands. Where was the
hope of any justice? Particularly when Narendra Modi was being
projected as the role model and even the India Inc, the
billionaires, said they want to see him as the next Prime Minister?
The crucial step
of Supreme Court sending the right message by publicly indicting the
Narendra Modi government and transferring the high profile cases to
neighbouring Maharashtra, then setting up a Special Investigation
Team have yielded results.
But even as the
SIT marshalled the evidence, look what has come to the fore:
Commission after commission either ignored tell tale in-your-face
kind of evidence.
It was one
police officer who had made an extra set of CDs that contained the
damning phone records, and it was a couple of dogged journalists,
among them Steven Desai of the Indian Express (now working with the
Hindustan Times), who made it a matter of faith to get down to the
bottom of it all.
At the WSN, we
salute all those who shed a tear for the men, women and children
killed by the Hindutva-inspired goons. We salute all those who kept
up the fight. We hail all those scribes whose pen refused to scratch
out the truth, and we salute all those police officer who knew the
truth could get them into trouble.
It is necessary
to hail the spirit of these fighters, because look at how the enemy
is not failing to celebrate those whose hands could be bloodied.
Gujarat's
BJP government has proved that not only will it not learn any
lessons; rather, it will send signals that killing people is okay as
long as they are minorities.
Gujarat BJP MLA
and state minister Maya Kodnani faces charges of involvement in the
2002 massacre of Muslims in Naroda Patiya. She denies involvement.
But her statements to the SIT contradict what she told a police
officer just after the massacre; her cell-phone records don’t square
with her admitted whereabouts when the massacre was taking place. In
response, the SIT called her for questioning in January 29, and when
she failed to respond, was forced to declare her an “absconder”.
Though there is no explicit law forcing “absconding” ministers to
quit the cabinet, the Constitution mandates that the state cabinet
is collectively responsible to the legislative assembly. And the
very least that “collective responsibility” entails is that the
minister be publicly accessible. When a minister is declared an
“absconder”, it goes against the bare minimum that a minister must
do: be present. But Kodnani continued to be a part of the state
cabinet while remaining underground. She has now got anticipatory
bail.
But with what
face will the BJP now talk of good governance? Well, it will do so
with a straight face. Shamelessness comes cheap in color saffron.
11 February 2009
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