Volume 3, No. 6, June 2002

The people wanted the removal of the Gujarat chief minister Narender who deserved to be tried and hanged publicly. Instead Modi got kudos for defending Hindutva, continued in his hangman’s job and got the backing of the "country" when ‘people’s representatives’ succeeded in thwarting the censure motion thus getting Modi exonerated in the parliament. What the people got from the "most honourable men" running the country was a hostile and damn-you-all attitude and a vindication of the carnage and the violence still continuing in Gujarat. Modi stayed, so stayed the central government and so stayed the NDA minus Ram Vilas Paswan. The hullabaloo that was kicked up with the Censure Motion died down with the "victory" of the Vajpayee govt. in the House on April 30.

Yes, the whole world was looking. The censure motion was unable to censure the government. The treasury benches washed the dirty linen of the Congress to hide their own filthy record in Gujarat, or, if we are to say it correctly, to justify their own crimes. Vajpayee did not answer the charges of the opposition. The Congress avoided answers to the BJP charges.

It is said that the debate among the wisest and the most learned political elite of today’s India touched the nadir. That they sunk to the level they had never before. The critics and historians may debate over it whether it was or not. But one thing it did well: it nailed the people in the brightly lit chamber of the Indian parliament and left the floor of the house in the age-old fashion. After the day was over they greeted each other, said good-bye and promised to meet again. The heat and the bitterness they exhibited at the time of "mudslinging match" evaporated the time they were out in the corridors, in the resting rooms they were friends and in the dinning hall they dined together.

The reporters reported that the debate between the parliamentarians of the treasury benches and of the opposition was like a mudslinging match. One would concur that had they not been wise they would have thrown fireballs instead of mud against each other and the poor old building would have burnt down like any neighbourhood in Ahmedabad. They were prudent enough not to put their own house on fire while accusing and counter accusing each other. The lady of the saffron brigade charged the lady of the "secular" brigade that she wanted to capitalize on the Gujarat carnage to put herself on the throne. The charge was not unwarranted; the latter had oriented all her criticism towards the necessity of "good governance" meaning that had Modi acted efficiently enough the massacres would have been avoided; that the Vajpayee government had not acted as required by censuring Modi or removing him, and so, failed to deliver. She argued as if Modi and the Vajpayee governments had acted sans politics or ideological beliefs and were only inefficient as governors and bureaucrats and they could have averted the tragedy had they acted swiftly. But who wanted to avert it?(!) They wanted it enacted in the first place. And they succeeded in their diabolical design. This was very much a part of their governing strategy and were long waiting for this opportunity to arise.

Answering the debate the PM said that the Gujarat carnage happened because the opposition did not condemn the Godhara incident. Nobody could understand what he meant about "condemnation" as everyone had already condemned it. In fact he wanted a wholesale condemnation of the Muslim community as the RSS, VHP and Bajrang Dal had done. Clearly, for him it was not a question of governance but a political decision to punish the Muslims as a whole. When told that the opposition had condemned the Godhara incident in unequivocal terms he accused her of not taking up the issue in the parliament. And she answered back that the PM and his party too could have done that. She accused the PM of lying in the Goebellion way like the RSS was doing.

The PM in fact wanted to take to task all the opposition parties for their so-called pro-Muslim stance. It was the same argument that he had put forward in Goa to exonerate Modi and put the blame on the opposition. Exonerating Modi amounted to the Center’s complicity in the carnage.

This was earlier said by many of the opposition speakers in the House in their own way. And the treasury benches raked up the 1984 mass killings of the Sikhs and nearly 15,000 communal riots that had happened mostly during the Congress rule after 1947. That was a way of saying: So what, if Congress can organize its own killings then why accuse the BJP for doing the same? The communal riots after all were not a new thing in India and had not occurred for the first time, they argued. And the Congress accused the BJP of sidetracking the issue. Right, the BJP was sidetracking the issue. It is a standard method used in the Indian parliament whenever a crime against a section of the people, especially Muslims, dalits and women, is taken up for discussion. Usually they don’t come to the real point and evade answering the real questions. Had not the congress done the same concerning the 1984 massacres of the Sikhs? And nobody was ever punished for the thousands of deaths by burning. And the leaders who incited, organized and led the mobs ultimately came out of the courtrooms by making V-signs. Instead ‘to be hanged till death’ they were given the verdict of ‘acquittal with honour’. Why book Modi now and for that matter the leaders of the VHP, the Bajrang Dal, the RSS and the BJP? ‘Now cooperate with us’, the Vajpayee govt. seemed to say. But they did not; well… they did in the end. In the end Sonia Gandhi appealed to the "nobler instincts" of the Prime Minister to "rise above party affiliations and respond to his responsibilities and obligations to the people of India, irrespective of religion or faith." She said that it was still not too late and the situation could be redeemed. After accusing him of "double speak", "falsehood" and "lying" she appealed to his "nobler instincts." That was a diplomatic way to say that he had acted ignobly, in other words, shamefully, yet she used the softer words when she saw that enough had been said and the opposition was unable to secure sufficient votes for the motion to pass.

For the criticism of the BJP the BJP leaders and their supporters unleashed every kind of tirade against the Congress party and the whole of the opposition. Attacks and counter attacks raged for full sixteen hours. The headlines of the bourgeois newspapers wept, groaned and howled over proceedings in the parliament. "Is this democracy?" They asked. They wanted the parliamentary game to be played in a fair manner. Fair meaning the BJP government should admit to its follies and act according to the wishes of the house…err…the people. The mainstream media encouraged others to follow the example of Paswan admitting that though he had shown opportunism yet his opportunism had something positive in it. They looked towards the TDP, the Trinamool Congress, the National Conference and others hailing their halfhearted stand and calling them to cross over to the opposition benches to show their full-heartedness. But the men belonging to these parties chose to display their opportunism not by leaving the treasury benches and sitting in the opposition but just by abstaining or choosing to vote with the government in spite of the differences. They calculated that the Vajpayee ship was not going to sink and there was no prudence in deserting a sailing ship. With Mayawati’s new mice getting on the wagon the PM Vajpayee could have maintained the crucial balance. All appeals to hear to the voice of the heart than to the party affiliation failed miserably. The heartless cannot have a heart. The opposition always calls to the treasury benches to listen to the hearts. When they change places they stop listening to their own heart and the erstwhile treasury bench-sitters suddenly find out that they too have a heart. It is always the same in the opportunist bourgeois politics. And in the end everyone takes a long long sigh of relief, sometimes of desperation, saying, ‘after all it is all a game of numbers’. Exactly, neither of the heart nor of the conscience. It is heartless politics, a politics belonging to and emanating from exploitative class interests where either the numbers decide or the sheer force, as was the case during the emergency period of 1975-1977.

In response to the terror tactics and complicity of the state in Gujarat the treasury benches raked up the emergency days when the Congress party had terrorized the whole country. To every criticism and blame of the opposition the ruling saffron coterie had an answer. It was a sort of brick batting where blames were used as bricks as frequently as possible. And nobody escaped unhurt. Neither anybody had nor needed any veil. Us hamaam mein sabhi nange the. All the blames were correct. Their dirty linen was so dirty that no soap could erase their blots. Not even the usual references to the land of Gandhi, secularism and dignity of the human being.

When it came to the question of atrocities over women in Gujarat the honourable ex-socialist turned-fascist George Fernandez, the defence minister, had the temerity to remind the house without betraying any human sentiments that it was not for the first time in history that women were raped, ripped apart and their foetuses wrenched out. It has always been there, he argued. So, why fuss? Take it easy. Only Gujarat and the saffron brigade could not be blamed for that hence any need of pressing the charge. That was the best way to defend a criminal from a charge of felony. But it misfired and many women parliamentarians protested vehemently against the male chauvinist uttering of the defence minister and demanded an apology. Only the women members of the saffron brigade and some belonging to their allies quietly digested it. They did not feel any wrong in Mr. Fernandez. Had they felt like being offended their whole position on Gujarat would have demanded a change. That would have been a price too heavy. For them the most coveted agenda was the saffronisation of the society and Modi and his cohorts had done it well. Why the Muslim women should be spared if their men are to be eliminated. So they remained silent.

The next day Fernandez defended himself and said that he meant no disrespect to women when he said all that. That was a classical example of saying a thing disrespectfully and hatefully and still interpreting it not being disrespectful and hateful! A number of women organizations came out on the streets that day and demonstrated against the defence minister.

The debate (or the mudslinging as some bourgeois columnists have called it) in the parliament revisited the days of emergency, the 1984, the winter of 1992 and numerous other occasions of pogroms against the Muslims and other minority communities. The villain of the debate, however, remained Modi. The Hindutva forces led by the prime minister never let go the initiative out of their hands as they were emboldened by the submissiveness of their allies who, though opposed the government on Modi but would not dare to support the censure motion. The government did not face the danger of being toppled. The BJP allies played a heinously opportunist role. While the Samata brigade acted in complete consonance with the BJP’s saffron agenda in Gujarat the TDP and the National Conference got complete marks in the grimy game of hoodwinking the people.

The TDP kept everyone guessing what it will do till the last minute of the debate. Having mastered the art of brinkmanship he waits till the last moment to strike the best bargain. To show its Muslim followers that it cared for them it attacked the saffron brigade’s bloody tactics and demanded the sacking of Modi Government. It went into many sessions of its political bureau to decide what to do in case the BJP does not sack him. By the time the Goa conclave was held the BJP had made it clear that there was no question of sacking Modi. Instead, the conclave hailed him as a fighter for the Hindutva forces and declined to accept his resignation. But the TDP supremo Naidu declared that it was unacceptable that Modi should continue and the elections are held over the blood of innocent Muslims. He continued to evade direct answer to the question what he would do in case the BJP does not sack Modi. First he said it was a question of principle and the PB would decide over it. But the PB did not decide anything. Then the TDP spokesman said they will decide during the debate in the parliament itself as there was enough time yet. When all the speakers had finished their speeches Naidu said they will take a decision after the final speech of the PM. And in the end they just packed up and did not participate in the final vote though the PM made it clear that Modi will stay. The whole exercise of Naidu was acrobatic and opportunistic and unprincipled. The TDP tried to give the impression that it did not practise opportunism and cared for the Muslims. Muslims or the Muslim vote bank? The latter is the unambiguous truth. It declared that it would continue to support the BJP led alliance from the outside on all its good actions!!! The trading over votes is not a new thing in Indian ‘democratic’ setup. The game of numbers induces everyone to say and retract a thing a number of times. Double speak is the hallmark of bourgeois opportunism everywhere. Naidu, with his 29 seats, is an ace wheeler-dealer trading votes for monetary gains.

The National conference’s lone minister Umar Abdullah, the son of the J&K chief minister Farooq Abdullah, kept his resignation letter from the cabinet in his pocket all along. Once he showed it to the PM who advised him to rethink over it. And he folded it back into his pocket. Then he lambasted the saffron brigade during the debate and scored many points. After the vote he again brought out his letter from the pocket as he and his NC colleagues had abstained and had not voted for the government. The PM smilingly rejected his resignation offer and he learnt the first important lesson in opportunism and again tucked back his piece of paper into the pocket and hurriedly headed towards his ministry to clean the dust off his chair. The boy is treading proficiently in the footsteps of his father and will make a good politician in the coming days.

Mayawati’s brigade did not say a single thing over Gujarat though it claims to be a champion of dalits and all the oppressed minorities often wooing them with promises to fight for their rights. Mayawati only looked with greedy eyes at the throne of UP forgetting that it had roped in Muslim votes on the above said promises. Not a word did she utter against the saffron brigade and the BJP leaders. On the other hand the prime minister who calls himself a man of principles never blinked an eye in spite of Mayawati’s betrayal towards the BJP on previous two occasions. The saving of the present crisis ridden and threatened government became his first priority and he showed his real opportunist essence once again.

The Trinamool Congress of Mamta Bannerjee was another classic example of sewer politics. Her first reaction to the Gujarat carnage and Modi was that it was BJP’s internal affair. Then when pressure started building up against the NDA alliance from inside, mainly from the TDP, she too started demanding the removal of Modi. But in the end voted with the government and lashed out at her regional opponents, the revisionist CPM, that it was too behaving in a fanatic way like the religious fundamentalists. She chose to sidetrack the main issue in her own fashion.

While the debate inside the parliament was going on there was a big demonstration going on outside demanding the sacking of the Killer Modi. But inside the hall the people’s representatives were engrossed in their own schemes to topple, to manipulate, to vulture upon and to prey upon each other.

While the people’s interest lie not only in sacking Modi but also in arresting and punishing him alongwith his marauding cohorts for what he had done and was still doing in Gujarat the parliament was enacting a huge farcical drama. Everybody knew that nothing would be done to the killers, as has been the case in numerous other anti-Muslim anti-Sikh anti-Christian and anti-dalit pogroms till date. Now with the appointment of the notorious ex-police chief of Punjab, KPS Gill, another drama will be enacted in Gujarat to show that the system works. A few of the big fish, but not the biggest and the most notorious, may be hauled up along with a number of ordinary killers (like the dalits and tribals) who were incited or hired to carry on the anti-Muslim massacres, cases against them will be registered anew, the judicial process will drag on for years and in the end the episode of 1984 trials will be repeated and ultimately the culprits will go home making V-signs, giggling, laughing and celebrating. More important, Gill has been hired, to nip in the bud the potential militancy brewing amoungest muslim youth. With already talk of them taking to guerrilla methods to strike back, the fascists are panic striken and need the services of master-killer, Gill. So the butchers have deployed one from their own ranks to oversee the return to normalcy, which is also presently a need of the rulers as the trade chambers and demarches from the imperialist countries have demanded an investment friendly environment. It is being envisaged for industry, trade and profits and not for the sake of the people. It will just be disturbed again whenever and wherever the political need of bourgeois politics arise. This is how the Indian democracy and its bureaucracy and its judicial arm work. It never punishes those from its class.

Another scene of the farce was enacted in upper house of the parliament called the Rajya Sabha. Here the opposition and the treasury benches joined hands and the censure motion was passed unanimously. It would look strange that a government censured itself by supporting a resolution of the opposition that was asking for its head just a week before. Yes, this happened in the upper house but not without amendments. They had come of age in such short a time, somebody will say. Here the government was in minority and did not feel like defending itself so vehemently. And given that the opposition had already lost the crucial vote in the counting game in the Lok Sabha it decided not to press the charges it had taken up in the lower house so vehemently. Both "factions" of the rulers decided to observe the etiquettry and betrayed good manners. All the passion and concern for gigantic human tragedy evaporated in the face of saving the "democratic ethos" and decorum. The PM asked the opposition with folded hands how and what to do about Gujarat. And the opposition told him with equal reverence that he was the wisest of all and he must know it. And they came out together smiling and greeting each other. Though here too the debate went on for 18 hours but no acrimonious words were used and the spite had disappeared. The PM was humbly asked by the leader of the opposition here that he should not keep Modi as the chief minister but should be retained on some other post but the PM told them that he had once considered the removal of Modi then he dropped the idea. Then he emphatically conveyed to the house that Modi will stay as before in the seat of the chief minister. Nobody protested sharply or questioned the ability of the PM for "good governance". The ceasefire had been agreed upon till the next round of show of strength would befall. And the PM who was accused of carrying on the fascist saffron agenda in the Lok Sabha here politely told everybody that he was never a supporter of communalism, including the Hindu communalism. He repeated his words that Gujarat was a "blot on the nation" as he had said them in the company of the killer Modi in Ahmedabad during his visit to Gujarat. A day before the vote in the upper house the home minister Advani, while speaking to the media at Port Blair, said that the tough times for the BJP were over and that he and his saffron comrades "shall overcome." He told them, "Hindutva is not something negative but a positive assertion of the country’s ethos." He said that they had "not done anything terrible" by holding on to Hindutva. Yes, it was the Muslims who had done something terrible by making this country their home. What they got here is more than terrible. They have been the targets of the very Hindutva forces Advani eulogises.

Does the whole affair need any more comment?

Yes, just one.

For the Muslim brethren there is no hope from the endless pogroms they have been subjected to since 1947 unless they unite with those who have no stake in this system and are fighting to overthrow it. They must organize forces and ally with all those who are struggling against this inhuman system of discrimination, exploitation, oppression and tyranny. Their comrades-in-arms will only be the class conscious workers, struggling peasants, oppressed minorities and the dalits, all those who have only one way-out that of putting an end to the present atrocious and anti-people set-up. It is time to come out of the shock and see treacherous behavior of the bourgeois political parties that now blow hot now cold over the massacres and use the public sentiments only to march on to the seat of power.

Yet, what was tragic was that liberals, Gandhians, NGO’s etc., were conspicuous by their absence. Revolutionaries were not present in the region. The so-called leftists, besides issuing statements, at the ground level are unprepared to act. The muslims were left to fend for themselves. It is such hypocritical attitudes, which can also be seen on the Babri Masjid issue, that enhances the distrust of the minorities in the other political forces. Their confidence can only be won if the revolutionaries play a pro-active role in fighting the fascist menace in the actual area of battle.

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