Of all the fake stories propagated in the media, the blame for 2002 riots certainly tops the list. A whole cabal of vested interests went berserk for more than a decade in painting the Modi government black. More than the man targeted unnecessarily, it’s the people of the country who need a reconciliation with the truth. Only then can a healing process kick in and a reality check to those who painted the leadership communal incessantly and still continue to do so.
There is no dispute to the fact that Gujarat has not seen a single riot after the year 2002. This, nobody can take it away from the state leadership. The question is what really happened prior, during and post 2002 in the state. Let’s take this journey.
Background
The state of Gujarat blessed the congress party since independence till mid-1990s with a consistent victory. Post 1980s Gujarat saw a lot of religious funding from the middle-east crude oil barons and with that came a lot of radical influence among the clerics. The speed with which properties were being bought out with crude oil dollars flowing in, on both the sides of state and national highways was mind-boggling. The atmosphere spoiled further with bombay blasts, underworld operations, minority appeasement politics and jihad concept spreading world over. There was a rampant Gunda-raj where some or the other mobs of “bhai” would be eve teasing women outside societies. Random stabbings started to be taken for granted in Ahmedabad city during Hindu festivals. Occasionally, advertisements would pop up in leaflets along the local newspapers with love-jihad prize list on fetching girls of other communities. The state saw several riots through the decades, many of which went unreported too. The temperatures were soaring by the end of the year 2000. The 9/11 terror attack in the year 2001 created a fresh wave of inspiration among the ranks of radicals. In the middle of a political turmoil, BJP installed Narendra Modi as the chief minister of the state.
How did the Riots start?
The first spark came in with the burning of train in Godhra. The Kaarsevaks coming from Ayodhya were burnt alive in a well-planned mob lynching pogrom. When the dead bodies reached their homes, it sparked a chain of reaction among the people. All the suppressed anger of decades of grooming gang nuisance, mob dominance and appeasement by politicians sprung up among the people. There were cases of people even taking out their illicit business competition revenge wherein liquor biggies were involved. For a fresher Chief minister requesting help from Congress-ruled neighboring states of Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, came a stunning denial. Despite this, the Chief minister deployed the entire machinery he had, relayed personal requests to people and was successful in stopping the riots in record 3 days. The media onslaught was so biased that they counted and showed victims of only one community. The fact is there were fatalities faced by all communities. This cherry picking made people furious. Scores of workers who come to Gujarat for work from other states participated on their own in the riots. Peace-loving and business friendly Gujaratis were being defamed in the media on a blanket basis for absolutely no reason. The fake media trials and bashing was unabated, one-sided and sounding ridiculous in entirety to the people of the state.
The Chief minister won the next elections with a decent chunk of progressive Muslims voting along the party to power. He kept on insisting that he works for 6.5 crore Gujaratis to deaf ears in the media which was hell-bent on driving a political agenda. A video clip of honorable PM Vajpayee actually meaning that Modi is following Raj-dharma was tampered and pushed as PM taunting the chief minister to perform his duty. This was the astonishing level of cheap tricks being played out to manipulate the opinion of the country with wrong information.
How did the Riots permanently end in Gujarat?
The outcome intended with rioting is that the majority community abandons the area after panic-selling the properties from the riot prone zone. The Modi-Shah duo turned up the past records. They found a congress introduced legislation called the Disturbed Areas Act, 1991. As soon as a report of a communal flare up comes in, the area can be listed under the act. The properties in the listed areas cannot be rented, gifted or sold to other communities without prescribed permissions and compliances. The application of this law has brought in a realization among the vested interest rioters that they won’t be able to win the outcome of taking over the areas which they desire. This has caused a permanent end of riots in the state of Gujarat.
There is not one serious socio-political analyst with any substantial empirical evidence to show that the Chief minister or the home minister were involved in the riots or instigated people. If anything, CM Modi needs to be credited for not just stopping the 2002 riots in record time, but applying a secular legislation to put a permanent end to the menace of riots. The leadership credentials of the man are clean and visible to anyone who can visit the state and vouch for himself.
A lot needs to be fixed in terms of what kind of information warfare is being played out in our country by anti-national elements. For more than 70 years now the people of our nation are in a constant denial about the fact that a radical micro minority from the minority of 23% of the total population was able to break the motherland into three parts in 1947. While admiring the non-violence of Gandhiji, we often forget that partition was a very violent lesson for us all. If anything, it was the British who got a non-violent exit from India. Let’s remember our history correctly and not fall into the same pit again.
A nation does not break at its borders. It breaks when its civilizational identity is struck from within.