The more enduring images of the night of terror at Akshardham are actually, more stirring than tragic. My own favourite is that of a wounded Gujarat policeman raising himself from the stretcher just before it is pushed into the ambulance, pumping the air with clenched fists, flexed muscles and a defiant look for the cameras.
I choose this as my favourite because he was no trained Black Cat commando, or a crack army soldier, but an ordinary policeman who may be spending more of his time catching traffic offenders than facing terrorists firing AK-47s.
It is also to be noted that he is from the same Gujarat police which earned itself such a poor name for being ineffective, partisan, and professionally incompetent just the other day during the riots.
But why limit yourself to the police. Contrast the conduct of the entire political class now with how it behaved after Godhra. Now, Advani was in Gandhinagar even while the siege was on. He also made it quite clear that he was there to ensure two things: one, the quickest end to the siege and, two, that there should now be no repeat of the post-Godhra kind of reprisals.
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The prime minister showed the presence of mind to fly in straight from Male and reinforcing the same message, that nothing would serve the purpose of our enemies more than perpetuating a cycle of violence and counter-violence. Terrorism, he said, was waging its last battle and, to make sure the message wasn’t lost on anyone, he talked confidently of how Akshardham had shown that our armed forces could defeat any terrorist challenge.
Translated into Gujarati, this would read something like, Narendra Modiji, we do not need any mobs to go around settling scores this time. Sonia Gandhi, too, arrived at the same time, speaking a similar language of pain and maturity, not indulging in name-calling or accusing somebody of security or intelligence failure.
What was the net result: in spite of the truly insane bandh calls by the Congress and the VHP, not a single life was lost, hardly a bus burnt. Contrast this with the mayhem after Godhra.
How could this happen when, in terms of impact as well as gravity, Akshardham was a much greater provocation than Godhra. At Godhra, there was at least a background of altercation leading to mob violence. Here it was an entirely cold-blooded, calculated terrorist strike on one of Gujarat’s foremost Hindu symbols, where babies and old people were deliberately picked out to cause the gravest possible provocation.
Or, let’s look at it another way. Presume that Godhra and Gandhinagar were both the handiwork of the same diabolical mind, whether shown as ISI, or any other malevolent acronym, with the same objective of throwing Gujarat into turmoil and unleashing not only in the state but also all over India what the prime minister described as the cycle of violence and counter-violence (hinsa aur pratihinsa). But why was his failure this time as spectacular as his success following Godhra?
This didn’t happen just because the prime minister, the deputy prime minister and the leader of the Opposition landed up at Ahmedabad so quickly. It happened because this time, the message went out to Modi and his government most unambiguously that there was to be no repeat of the post-Godhra pratihinsa.
And once that decision was firmly taken, the same police which looked the other way while the mobs looted, burnt and killed, were out on the streets ensuring no one could even pick up a stone to throw at anybody in revenge. Unlike in February, when it took more than 72 hours, this time the army was called in immediately, even if it continues to be as fully deployed on the borders as then.
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[Dropcap]M[Dropcap]odi was now telling the BBC and the rest that the Muslims were safe under him. If only our top political leadership had been half as alert, post-Godhra. If only Vajpayee and Advani had laid down the law on February 28, instead of waiting for 72 hours.
If only the Congress had been as quick and firm in its condemnation of the outrage then as now. And if only Modi had told his police even then that he wanted no reprisals, as he has done now, rather than spouting that ‘how could we have stopped a natural, spontaneous reaction’ nonsense.
If anything, this only confirms the old, proven wisdom on communal carnage in India. If the state machinery is determined to prevent it, then the mob can never rule the streets. Some of our recent riots either had the state looking the other way or being even complicit to some extent. Or the killing of Sikhs, the post-Godhra riots and the post-Ayodhya carnage in Mumbai would not have stopped the moment the first army columns appeared on the streets.
Nothing gives a conspiracy theory more validity than timing and coincidence. Godhra happened on the eve of the union budget and Gandhinagar just when the second round of voting was proceeding quite remarkably well in Kashmir.
The timing of both events, the budget and the elections, were known well in advance. So if the same mind planned both incidents, his purpose was not just to destabilise India but to also steal away from it a rare moment of glory. If all this is true, as many in this government and the BJP tend to believe, then it is also true that Modi and his government played right into their hands the first time.
His reward may have been the pathetic title of ‘Chhota Sardar’ from his admirers and the promise of a polarised vote. But the price Gujarat, and India, could pay for that could be a terrible one. For the pleasure of winning a state election we could end up opening a terrorist front in what had so far been our most secure border state, and one that was fast emerging as the very engine of our economy, industry and enterprise. Besides, it could provide an entirely new fifth column to India’s enemies.
In recent times, both Advani and Vajpayee have acknowledged that Gujarat’s riots were a national shame and embarrassment. Now both have stepped in to ensure it is not repeated even if that would have further strengthened the wave of polarisation the Sangh Parivar’s favourite tiger is currently riding.
Will they merely stop here, or take this process to its logical conclusion? If counter-violence to avenge terrorist attacks is a bad idea for it will divide us on communal lines, it is even more sickening to aim to ride that divide to power.
It is time, therefore, to abandon the idea of using that polarisation as a cynical political tool. It is time to return to elections on governance and performance and restore sanity in our politics.
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