How can we forget Gujarat 2002?

The riots violated the collective conscience of India. But by projecting Modi as a potential PM, we are denying justice to Muslims. Ajaz Ashraf writes.

The judgement of the special court in Ahmedabad convicting 32 people for their role in the Naroda-Patiya massacre should help heal the wounds of the Muslim community. It should also bolster their resolve to secure justice through methods neither illegal nor destructive. Yet the verdict is not likely to diminish the fear the community has about majority communalism, nor persuade them to believe that the horror of Gujarat will never revisit them.

HT Image

These divergent implications of the verdict were reflected through two unconnected occurrences on the day of the verdict. Naroda-Patiya rejoiced at the long spell of imprisonment the convicted were to now languish in. Outside it, in India and abroad, netizens were excitedly logging in to ask questions to Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, who was to answer them, live, through the Google Plus Hangout. The dense traffic crashed its website, delaying the programme. The overwhelming response to Modi demonstrates the enduring romance between him and sections of society, particularly the middle class.

For Muslims, though, this romance was yet another proof of inadequate empathy in the majority community for the suffering Muslims endured in Gujarat, the horrific stories of which inculcated in the community a deep fear about its future. Their collective memory of 2002 is revived every time an opinion poll shows Modi leading the pack of prime ministerial candidates in the 2014 election. Nor can they fathom those who praise Modi's style of governance even though it was under his watch a state pogrom, camouflaged as spontaneous riots, was launched against them. The massive mandate Modi received in two successive assembly elections perplexes Muslims into asking: why hasn't the violence of 2002 repulsed the Hindu supporters of Modi?

This question is linked to the idea of justice that is too expansive for the court to accommodate. There is no denying that the Naroda-Patiya judgement upholds the principle of deterrence. You could even say that the severity of the judgement is retributive. Special court judge Jyotsna Yagnik alluded to these two principles, declaring that she had refrained from sentencing the culprits to death only because of the global trend against it.

Yet even death penalty to them may not have completely satisfied Muslims. This is because what they subconsciously desire is restorative justice, a veritable return to the ideal of communal harmony, a consensus that the riots of 2002 had violated the collective conscience of the nation. This idea of justice presupposes a shared idea of what constitutes collective conscience, actions deemed violative of it, and willingness among transgressors, and their silent supporters, to accept their responsibility, preferably even atone for it.

Indeed, the very nature of restorative justice makes it imperative that the impulse for it should emanate from society. No doubt Muslims admire civil society activists who waged a relentless battle to secure judicial justice for the Gujarat victims. Yet they are dismayed at the orchestrated campaign to project Modi as the prime ministerial candidate. For them, Modi was and still remains the face of terror they first countenanced through the nightmare of 2002. The endeavour to project him as a possible PM consequently persuades Muslims to believe that there is as yet no societal consensus that the Gujarat riots violated the nation's collective conscience, particularly as he has adamantly refused to apologise for them.

This is also why they become perturbed on hearing industrialists sing paeans to the development Modi has ushered in. Much of it is a case of myth-making. Economist Abusaleh Shariff has demonstrated that in 10 years ending March 2010, Gujarat received foreign direct investment worth Rs. 28,000 crore, as against Maharashtra's Rs. 1.75 lakh crore and Delhi's Rs. 1.02 lakh crore. Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh are the only states which have hunger levels higher than Gujarat. The state's development is historical, as is its poor human development indicators. Yet, Modi appropriates credit for the former and furnishes pathetic explanations for the latter.

For the myth of Modi to flourish, it is concomitant for people to stifle the periodic admonitions of collective conscience delivered through civil society activism and judicial verdicts. To Muslims, though, it appears that the brutality of 2002 doesn't constitute a violation of the collective conscience serious enough to dissuade the nation to turn against the man who dreams of becoming the PM. It is this form of justice Muslims prefer, than what the judiciary can dispense.

Ajaz Ashraf is a Delhi-based journalist

The views expressed by the author are personal