Saturday, May 12, 2012

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Date: Sat, May 12, 2012 at 6:36 PM
Subject: [All India Secular Forum] http://www.thestatesman.net/index.php?option=com_c...
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http://www.thestatesman.net/index.php?option=co...
Irfan AEngineer 6:36pm May 12
http://www.thestatesman.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=409581&catid=39

THESTESMAN

12MAY2012



Modi is SITting pretty!
Although the public cannot judge his guilt or innocence, it can assess his administrative competence, says rajinder puri

IT is not the public that must determine whether Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi was guilty or not of involvement in the Gujarat riots against Muslims. Official investigators must determine that. If guilty, it is not for the public to determine the extent of his guilt. The courts must determine that. It may be recalled that Modi allegedly instigated police officers to display a heavy hand against Muslims after the Godhra train fire killed many passengers. These allegations have been made by police officers RB Sreekumar and Sanjiv Bhatt, respectively. However, I might add that within a very short time after the Gujarat riots senior retired police officer KPS Gill had met Gujarat police officers during his visit to the state to assess the situation. He quoted them as making the same allegation. I reproduced his statement in the media shortly thereafter.

Although the public cannot judge Narendra Modi's guilt or innocence, it can assess his administrative competence. He proved himself to be woefully incompetent. That is the kindest interpretation one may put on his decision to parade the bodies of the Godhra victims in a public procession through the streets of Ahmedabad, which provoked the horrendous riots. Nor might one engage in a needless debate about the comparative conduct of Narendra Modi and Rajiv Gandhi after the Gujarat riots against Muslims or the Delhi riots against the Sikhs, respectively. Let the Congress and the BJP argue about that.

What the public can and should assess is the quality of our investigative agencies that is not relevant to politics. That is a matter of public concern. And that is what leads one to ponder a part of the report submitted by the Special Investigative Team appointed by the Supreme Court to probe the Gujarat riots. With reference to Modi's alleged remarks made to Gujarat police officers, the Sit report states, "Even if such allegations are believed for sake of argument, mere statement of alleged words in the four walls of a room does not constitute any offence." This statement has profound implications that may lead one to revise the interpretation of history.

It might be recalled that when his exasperation with the Jews had reached boiling point, Adolph Hitler held a meeting with his collaborators. In that meeting Hitler opined that the only remedy lay in what he termed a "final solution". He thought that the Jews must be exterminated from the face of the earth to resolve his problem. Subsequently, the Holocaust occurred.

Millions of Jews were gassed to death. But did Hitler personally organise the camps to imprison Jews? Did he personally install the gas chambers? Did he personally manufacture the lethal gas that killed millions? It is not known if he did any of these things. He did utter a few words within, presumably, the four walls of a room. So, was he guilty?

The Sit would have a hard time deciding that.

The writer is a veteran journalist and cartoonist

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