Free 2014: The Election That Changed India by Rajdeep Sardesai Page B

major
communal outbreak since 2002.
    The truth is a little more bitter and complex. Yes,
1984 was a terrible shame, but then so was 2002. Any comparisons in death toll figures would reduce
human lives to a tragic zero-sum game—‘my riot’ versus ‘your riot’.
Yes, Gujarat has also seen more successful prosecutions, but many of these were achieved only
because of the tireless work done by a Supreme Court-supervised Special Investigating Team (SIT) and
indomitable activists like Setalvad, and not because of the efforts of the Gujarat police. Honest
police officers who testified against the government were hounded. Lawyers who appeared for the
victims, like the late Mukul Sinha, were ostracized. As for Gujarat being riot free, I can only
quote what an Ahmedabad-based political activist once told me, ‘Bhaisaab, after the big riots
of 2002, why do you need a small riot? Muslims in Modi’s Gujarat have been shown their
place.’
    A Sadbhavana Yatra was a good first step but clearly
not enough to provide a healing touch. Nor would a token apology suffice. In my view, Modi needed to
provide closure through justice and empathy. He did not provide Gujarat’s riot victims with
either. Their sense of permanent grievance would only end when they were convinced that their chief
minister wasn’t treating them as second-class citizens. In the end, the high-profile,
well-televised yatra only served as a conscious strategy to recast Modi’s image as a potential
national leader who was now ready to climb up the political ladder.
    How should one analyse Modi’s complex
relationship with Muslims? Reared in the nursery of the RSS, political Hindutva had been at the core
of his belief system. His original inspiration was the long-serving RSS chief Guru Golwalkar, whose
rather controversial writings, especially
Bunch of Thoughts
, see the Indian Muslim as
anti-national. Modi had been careful not to endorse Golwalkar publicly after becoming chief
minister, but one sensed he could never distance himself fully from his early training (not a single
Muslim was ever given a ticket by Modi in Gujarat).
    Gujarat, too, had seen decades of Hindu–Muslim
conflict. In the land of the Mahatma, the Gandhian values of religious tolerance and pluralism
coexisted uneasily with a xenophobic hatred for the‘Mussalman’.
Certainly, every time I visited Sabarmati Ashram in the heart of Ahmedabad, it felt like an oasis of
harmony amidst the prevailing communal separateness. For the socially conservative Gujarati middle
class, Modi seemed to represent a Hindu assertiveness they could identify with.
    A year after his Sadbhavana Yatra, in September
2012, Modi had hit the road again. Ahead of the December 2012 assembly elections, there were
concerns that a poor monsoon and anger against local MLAs could hurt the Modi government. Modi
realized the need to directly connect with the voter. He launched a statewide Vivekananda Yuva Vikas
Yatra, ostensibly meant to celebrate the 150th birth anniversary of the saint, but primarily
designed to set the stage for the Gujarat election campaign to follow. Modi had long claimed to be
inspired by Vivekananda, and by publicly identifying with him, he was looking to appropriate his
legacy of ‘inclusive’ religiosity. This was again typical of Modi—he had this
instinctive ability to create a well-marketed political event that would raise his profile.
    I met Modi on the yatra in Patan district of north
Gujarat. The choreography of the interview, not just the content, was fascinating. We had travelled
around 150 kilometres to catch up with Modi. Dressed in a colourful turban, he was surrounded by
supporters. When we finally got time with him in his spacious van, we set up to do the interview in
a fairly large space at the rear end of the vehicle which allowed for proper seating and lighting.
Modi refused to do the interview there. ‘I will be sitting next to the driver—you will
have to do the interview where I am!’ he