The Hindu : Why Modi drew a blank

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, May 02, 2003

Opinion

Opinion - News Analysis

Why Modi drew a blank

By Kuldip Nayar

I am not surprised that the Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi drew a blank at a meeting of envoys to attract foreign investment. In fact, I would have been surprised if any one of them had been taken in by his glib talk.

The question is not whether Gujarat is today peaceful and normal but whether those who disturbed peace through premeditated murder, rape and looting have been isolated for punishment. My information is that the high-ups, whether in the State Government or in the Sangh Parivar which backed Mr. Modi, have not been even questioned, much less named. Some of them were directing murder and worse on mobile telephones, police control rooms or otherwise.

The State Government is still not serious and is pursuing the cases registered nonchalantly. Nobody is there to upbraid Mr. Modi. The authorities, supposed to be protectors, are exerting pressure for withdrawal of FIRs which many complainants had filed. Even in some rural areas, from where hundreds were ousted, there is a demand that the victims take back the FIR before their request even to return to their own homes is accepted.

Economic boycott against Muslims continues unabated in several cities. There is normality, which the Chief Minister claims, is in the sense that no killing or looting is taking place. But the Muslim community remains frightened. Except for a few Hindu activists, the majority community has stayed distant from the Muslims. By and large, the Gujaratis give the impression as if what happened was inevitable and that Muslims had "asked for it." Even after 15 months there is very little remorse and definitely no repentance. This has hurt the foreigners the most because Gujarat is known as the land of Mahatma Gandhi.

Mr. Modi should realise that the confidence of investors and others would be in proportion to the confidence the minority community shows. They are still a harassed, haunted lot. The State has turned its back on them. Until the minorities in Gujarat talk in good terms about Mr. Modi and his administration, investors would not return. During the rioting, one foreign firm withdrew from the State. It did not return even at the request of the Ministry of External Affairs. The firm felt so horrified over the happenings that it did not even care for the high profit it was making. The owners reportedly said that they had no future in Gujarat where the State itself was a party to murders and the like.

In fact, the manner in which Mr. Modi has smeared the face of India has affected foreign investment in the rest of the country. The gaurav yatra, a shameless exhibition of the perversion and glorification of the crimes committed, may bring the votes, as they did in the State elections. But they can never bring back the honour which Mr. Modi and his party men `murdered' in broad daylight in the State.

How can the question of foreign investment arise? A few brave Indian industrialists have told Mr. Modi to his face that they themselves could not consider investing in Gujarat because of what happened there. He should have offered an apology but instead took umbrage at their remarks. The CII was made to apologise on behalf of those who had criticised Mr. Modi.

It is a pity that the Centre has not brought by this time legislation to implement the Genocide Convention, which India has signed and ratified. It should have used the measures allowed by the Convention to prosecute and punish all those who participated in the planning and execution of murder, rape, theft and destruction in Gujarat during the communal carnage. Were this to happen, foreign investment would flow even without Mr. Modi's asking for it.

But the fact is that the Centre has been a mute witness to the concerted and systematic challenge to the secular foundation of the polity, to the extent that it failed to protect the life, liberty, reputation and property of a sitting High Court judge as well as a retired High Court judge still in service of the Government. I know that Mr. Modi's bent of mind is different. But then he should not be asking for investment from outside.

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