The Hindu : The guilty men of Ahmedabad

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Thursday, Mar 07, 2002

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The guilty men of Ahmedabad

By Harish Khare

Never before has a State Government been so guilty of siding — emotionally, politically and administratively — with the rioter as happened in Ahmedabad and the rest of Gujarat.

AHMEDABAD HAS been there before. The city is no stranger to violent conflicts. 1969, 1981, 1985, 1990 and 1992. But 2002 is different; fundamentally different. Plainly put: This time the State administration has turned rogue. Never before has a State Government been so guilty of siding — emotionally, politically and administratively — with the rioter as happened in Ahmedabad and the rest of Gujarat for three days. Never before, perhaps not even in 1984, has the line between the administrator and the arsonist got so blurred and so deliberately. If the violence has tapered off it is only because the vandal has run out of incendiary energy. There are three obvious reasons for this collapse of state authority in Gujarat.

First, the presence of an activist kar sevak in the Chief Minister's post. Narendra Modi was rewarded with the Chief Minister's post because of his famed "dynamism". There was and continues to be an inherent conflict between his training and political persona as a grand kar sevak, and his constitutional role and obligations as a Chief Minister. In fact, by training and experience Mr. Modi was best equipped to deal with the post-Godhra carnage situation. After all, he is the best known product of the Hindutva school in Gujarat, and is well-versed in the art of calibrating violence. As Chief Minister, Mr. Modi could have anticipated — and mobilised his administration to frustrate — every single move the so-called "angry Hindu community" made after the Godhra incident. But he preferred to be a kar sevak and wilfully ignored his constitutional obligations. No wonder then that Ministers and ruling party legislators could with impunity lead the mobs in their murderous forays.

Second, there was this inexcusable abdication by the administrative and police hierarchy of its professional duties. Senior IPS and IAS officers have blood on their hands. In particular, the Director-General of Police and the Ahmedabad Commissioner of Police are guilty of connivance with the rioter because the two of them simply did not have the courage of the uniform they wear to tell the Chief Minister that his "illegal" orders would not be complied with. Had the DGP walked out of his office rather than allow his police force to be enlisted in the cause of teaching a lesson to a section of society, the state-sponsored violence would have simply not taken off. Just a minor outbreak of professional conscience and an intellectual awareness of statutory authority would have stymied the revenge-brigade's appetite for retribution. Or, take for instance, the excuse that the Army could not be out on the streets earlier because it took time to find the magistrates to accompany the soldiers' column. This in a regime that preens itself as a "nuclear power". No doubt a judicial commission, sooner or later, would have to fix the culpability of these IAS and IPS officers.

And, third, the political and constitutional ambivalence in New Delhi towards the events in Gujarat. Both the Prime Minister and the Home Minister failed the nation. Mr. Vajpayee watched helplessly as Mr. Modi treated him as nothing more than a Bahadur Shah Zafar, to be respected but not to be heeded. And, Mr. Vajpayee himself behaved like a Bahadur Shah Zafar. The nation did not hear for the first 48 hours how the Prime Minister was reacting to the news of medieval barbarity and of the State administration's procrastination. And, when Mr. Vajpayee did speak up, he was more sad than angry that a State Government could so besmirch India's name, bringing this country on a par with the Taliban.

Not to be left behind is Lal Krishna Advani. As Home Minister, he must have been getting the ubiquitous "intelligence" reports on how the kar sevaks were being a nuisance on their to and fro journeys to Ayodhya; as an administrator he was obliged to alert the law and order machinery throughout the country to the potential of a violent eruption like the one that took place at Godhra. But, in his ambivalent mind, the kar sevak can do no wrong. This thinking percolates down the line, and the police and intelligence officers turn off their antennae.

Then, on February 27, Mr. Advani found himself constrained to issue an uncharacteristically categorical and blunt statement, telling the VHP crowd that as Home Minister he was obliged to uphold law and order and enforce the law of the land in the matter of the Ayodhya dispute. This resolve simply melted into thin air when his party men began organising collective retribution for the Godhra massacre; throughout those four violent days the Union Home Minister forgot his constitutional obligations. On the contrary, he acted as if he found nothing amiss in a State administration treating a section of society as hostile elements. This is the same regime that only a few months ago became hyper-actively aware of its obligations under Article 355 that ensure that Government in Tamil Nadu was carried on in accordance with the Constitution. The same Law Minister, the same Home Minister and other voluble BJP Ministers are now busy finding excuses for Mr. Modi.

Because of the dereliction of duty in Gandhinagar and the ambivalence in New Delhi, the Indian state has not only lost its sheen but also stands depleted considerably of its legitimacy. Unless the ruling establishment is compelled to rectify its mistakes, we would be taking the first irreversible step towards a civil war. In fact, in his clarificatory statement (of the we-do-not-need-the- Muslims'-vote fame) of February 21, the Prime minister had reported verbatim his Varanasi speech (of February 19): "Our Government is there at the Centre. There has been no discrimination, there is no insecurity — we have treated all sections of society equally. Moreover, there is the Constitution; a Human Rights Commission has been set up; there is the Judiciary; and, there are newspapers. If there is any injustice against anybody, then that injustice can be removed by recourse to these institutions."

Mr. Vajpayee's own prescription would have to be applied against the Modi Government. In particular, the Vajpayee establishment could initiate steps to punish those senior officers who connived, directly or indirectly, in the systemic violence. The bureaucratic leadership itself must generate sufficient peer pressure to blackball those officers who give in to the political leaders' criminal demands. The PMO must find ways and means to send out a signal to the IPS/IAS cadres that promotions, postings and pensions can be denied to those who flirt with administrative illegality. This message is the minimum requirement and has to be heard and heeded in every State capital.

Moreover, the Prime Minister and others have to realise that "Ahmedabad" has undermined the minorities' faith in the constitutional arrangement. And though the sense of insecurity in a section of society takes its own toll and complicates the task of governance, the frightening development is the gathering belief in the BJP that there may be rich electoral dividends after all in Gujarat's State-blessed dance macabre. Cultivated lawlessness is an antithesis to governance and peaceful conduct of collective affairs.

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