Modi and Manohar
Two narratives ran a parallel course last week. In one, Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar was telling an outstation journalist why he believed the national mood was shaping to bring the BJP to power at the Centre with Narendra Modi at the helm. In the other, the very controversial Gujarat police officer D G Vanzara resigned from the IPS, going out in a spectacular display of verbal fireworks (his resignation though, was rejected by the Gujarat government). Jailed for carrying out a series of fake encounters in Gujarat between 2002 and 2007, Vanzara, who made no secret of the fact that he once worshipped Modi, said he felt betrayed by the Gujarat Chief Minister and his close aide Amit Shah on whose orders the accused officers had “simply implemented the conscious policy” of the Gujarat government. Amit Shah was Modi’s minister of state for home at the time.
In the interview that appeared on the website of the New York Times/International Herald Tribune, Parrikar is cautiously critical, apparently bearing in mind the fallout of his remarks some years ago on the ageing L K Advani that cost him the post of the BJP national president. Asked about Modi’s failure over Gujarat 2002, he says “It should not have happened, the administration should have clamped down on any violence, [If I were in his place] I would have ensured…but Modi was new to the job as chief minister. It was a blot on Modi’s career, but he was not personally a part of it.”
The BJP might crow over its inner-party democracy and the obvious lack of it in the Congress. But it is now out in the open and more so after the two-day weekend convention, that the RSS and the ultra-right VHP have taken complete charge of dictating the course of the BJP’s 2014 election strategy and its choice of PM candidate. It is only a matter of time before the saffron party formalises Modi’s endorsement as its prime ministerial face, nudging Advani’s and Sushma Swaraj’s “reservations” to mere media sideshows. In fact the sangh parivar and the BJP hardliners’ total brushoff of the Vanzara disclosure should set alarm bells ringing for the more moderate elements within the party.
Ever since his June elevation to the BJP’s poll campaign chief in the Goa meet, Modi’s rise and bid for centre stage has consumed the country’s media voices. His legions of admirers in high-flying business circles and among the educated and upwardly mobile Indians at home and abroad, see him as their knight in shining armour, capable of riding his steed into a bright and shining India. Modi himself has spared no opportunity to deride the lacklustre Manmohan Singh, his “weak” leadership, and the incumbent faltering government. Given the current mood of economic despondency and the very apparent public disenchantment with the government, it should be a cakewalk for the BJP in 2014. But will it? With Modi as the central figure in the BJP poll script, will the vote click, or will it polarise?
Which brings us back to the question of an apology for the 2002 Gujarat riots. None was necessary, Manohar Parrikar said. “What happened then was unfortunate, but that does not require his apology, it requires his correction and he has done that.” Gujarat 2002 is a blot Narendra Modi will never be able to wash away, even if he were to ascend to the highest post in this country. Certainly the communal riots and the thousands of its victims deserve an apology. But more than that, they are entitled to justice.
