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October 7, 2003 The
Times Of India TODAY'S
EDITORIAL Godhra
victims’ relatives call for end to politics of hate It
would be deeply ironic were it not so tragic that the latest cry of
injustice in Gujarat has come not from the ‘minority’ survivors
of Best Bakery and other assorted post-Godhra cases but from the
‘majority’ victims of Godhra itself. At a press conference in
Mumbai on Sunday, close relatives of some of those killed in the
horrific train tragedy voiced a charge that has become shockingly
familiar to those following events in Gujarat, namely, that there
exists little realistic possibility of ensuring justice in
Hindutva’s laboratory state, thanks to what they described as the
parivar’s “politics of hate and communalism”. In particular,
they accused leaders of the BJP and the VHP of not only
“pressuring” the victims’ families into giving false
testimonies but also arranging to have party workers depose in their
place before the Nanawati commission, which was appointed by the
Modi government to inquire into Godhra and its violent aftermath. In
a stunning vote of no-confidence in the state’s already
discredited legal process, they demanded that inquiry into all riot
cases to “be held outside Gujarat” and under the supervision of
the Supreme Court. While
many in the BJP, notably chief minister Narendra Modi, will be
tempted to treat the latest allegations in the same cavalier manner
as they have dealt with others — as another
“pseudo-secularist” conspiracy to malign Gujarati pride and
identity — it won’t be nearly as easy to shrug off the charge.
For one, the charges made on Sunday came not from the usual
quarters: minorities, civil rights groups and political opponents.
For another, the BJP, led by Mr Modi, has long made Godhra into
something of a cause celebre and used it to rationalise, if not
justify, the constitutional breakdown in Gujarat. Thus far, the
party had cynically deflected all criticism of its handling of the
post-Godhra violence in Gujarat by invoking the cause, and indeed
the overwhelming support, of the “silent majority”. In having
82-year-old Girish Rawal from Ahmedabad — who first lost his wife
in the Godhra carnage and then his son in the violence that followed
— question its “use of religion” to further a divisive
“political agenda”, the BJP risks losing not just legal face
but, worse, political credibility. While it is for the Modi
government to deal with the legal ramifications of this damning
indictment, the party can perhaps begin to make amends by accepting
Mr Rawal’s appeal of dissociating itself from the VHP yatra being
planned on the Ram temple issue, later this month. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?msid=218566
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