Spare a thought for the Prime Minister. I grant that he is deeply troubled but seems helpless to do anything except making reassuring speeches.

George Fernandes is the third person in authority to say that the media – the English media; apparently they have no quarrel with Ahmedabad’s Sandesh and Gujarat Samachar for instance – are projecting the situation wrongly. Modi began it; he is media savvy and knows that to retain attention he has to embellish the lie just a little every time he repeats it. Accordingly, the chief minister has started articulating the injury done to 5 crores of Gujaratis by the media. From RSS pracharak he has risen in his own estimation to master of all who live in his state. The second in chronological sequence is Advani who made the same charge to journalists in Tirupati on 6th April. Don’t ask me why he went to Tirupati. I am told people go there either to beg forgiveness for their sins or to seek favours of the deity.

George has some questions to answer. On his way to Ahmedabad, he said the Army would be withdrawn from Gujarat as the situation was now normal. After a long conversation with Modi and while still there, he says something different – it is for the State government to decide when the troops should leave. Strictly speaking he is right, the Army was asked to come to the aid of the civil power and therefore will leave when the civil power requests. The events of 21st April however, give the lie to a presumption that the situation is in danger of returning to normal any time soon. I have reported in earlier Caveats that the modus operandi was for the Gestapo to be in the vanguard, clear homes of any possible weapon, even kitchen knives, before mobs move in with gas cylinders, swords, petrol and acid vials and set men, women and children on fire, generally after raping the women; indeed fire and rape have been the major weapons of terror against Muslims. It is common to come back for the bodies of the dead in order to char them beyond recognition so that there is no question of seeking death certificates, indispensable to seek compensation. In the Jamalpur, Darwaja and Danilimda areas of Ahmedabad in the old city the violence is spreading; triggered by custodians of law and order who barged into Muslim homes and started violating women, one of them got stabbed and died in hospital. In the skewed logic on offer the injured party is the police who promptly go on a rampage and at the time of writing it continues.

Spare a thought for the Prime Minister. I grant that he is deeply troubled but seems helpless to do anything except making reassuring speeches. While the mayhem in Ahmedabad by the Gujarat Gestapo is continuing, he promises that those involved in the Gujarat carnage will not be spared no matter to which religion they belong. To bring the perpetrators to justice it is necessary to charge them; to charge them FIRs must be filed. Is the Prime Minister aware that the police do not register FIRs on various pretexts, like register missing, officer absent, and so on? He has not seen what I have seen – sheafs of FIRs already filed brought to the camps torn in two in an act of defiance and in the full confidence that nothing would happen to them for this outrage. The police are part of the problem; often they are the vanguard leading the drunken mobs; the Prime Minister should insist on reading intelligence reports from Gujarat, although after the recent transfer of senior officers, I cannot be sure that they are worth reading.

What is needed is to send specific directions to Modi under Article 355 of the Constitution, failing which there is a clear case for imposing President’s Rule under Article 356. But the BJP, steeped in democratic traditions, are opposed to Article 356. It is a Catch-22 situation for democrats in good conscience. Governor Bhandari would also have to be changed, but will this be enough. The administration will be effectively in the hands of the Home Ministry and who is to say what their view can be – on current evidence it is unlikely to be reassuring. The Constitution is only a means to an end. The end is good governance. To seek good governance in Gujarat today is to look for a black cat in a dark room that is not there!

Let me return to George Fernandes for a moment. He wants to organize a peace march, presumably in Delhi, to which he has invited Chandrababu Naidu and Mamata Banerjee. After the collective performance of politicians over Gujarat, it is an insult to the victims to have them within a mile of any genuine peace march. Such a march should be by men and women of stature and substance, not empty vessels which will only make a great deal of noise. If George wants marches, these should be flag marches by the Army in Ahmedabad and elsewhere in Gujarat. The Army are the only ones with a reputation and they would be welcome. But they must be given a free hand.

Are you ready, Mr. Defence Minister?

April 23