The Hindu : `Keep up pressure on Govt. over Gujarat'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Apr 28, 2002

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`Keep up pressure on Govt. over Gujarat'

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI APRIL 27. With the Government continuing to turn a blind eye towards the Gujarat violence, civil society is busy knocking at the doors of the "secular parties'' in the hope that they would bury their differences and put up a joint fight against the BJP in the next Lok Sabha elections.

Today, exactly two months after the violence began in Gujarat, civil society is sticking to its guns despite the seeming futility of it all.

But, even as seminars and discussions are being organised almost on a daily basis, there is a growing realisation that platitudes alone will not shake the Government into action.

Stating as much at a panel discussion on `Recent Developments in Gujarat' — organised by the National Dialogue here today — the former Chief Justice of India, A.M. Ahmadi, said "polity has to send a clear message to the BJP that what you are doing or allowing to be done is something that will harm the nation''.

Earlier, the former Gujarat Chief Minister, Shankarsinh Waghela, who quit the BJP to join the Congress, cited his 30-year-long association with the RSS to assert: "If you have not seen Hitler, watch the BJP.'' Sensing a degree of fatigue setting into civil society — "given the apathy and complicity of the powers that be'' — he urged right-minded people to keep up the pressure on the Government and not give up.

Mr. Vaghela was also of the view that the situation had become so bad because a man of "criminal mentality'' such as Narendra Modi was the Chief Minister. Such being the case, "Narendra Modi's removal is a precondition for restoration of normalcy'', he said.

Though the media came in for great appreciation, the Editor of Outlook, Vinod Mehta, said the Fourth Estate had been rendered practically "impotent'' by the Government's refusal to budge despite all that had been written/shown about Gujarat.

"Never before has the media been under such relentless attack. They accuse us of distorting news. Yes, we did distort because had we shown all the savagery and bloodletting, then there would have been more violence.''

Meanwhile, the New York-based Indian National Overseas Congress (INOC) has written to the President, stating that the events in Gujarat had "completely shaken the confidence of the NRI community in the Government and its capacity to uphold and protect the constitutional rights of its citizens, especially minorities''.

Urging the President to dismiss Mr. Modi, the INOC noted that "events like this could force secular-minded NRIs to distance themselves from making meaningful contributions and keeping meaningful connections to their motherland as it slides towards anarchy and chaos''.

A similar demand for Mr. Modi's removal was made by the former Union Agriculture and Rural Development Minister, Jagannath Mishra.

He said the hour had come when all non-BJP parties have to make a choice between a secular nation and the current dispensation that is bent on dividing the country along communal lines.

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