People's Democracy

AS we go to press, the Narendra Modi Government-sponsored genocide in Gujarat enters its 10th week. Unofficial informed estimates place the death toll over 2000. Even official figures reveal that in the first four days of this week, over 20 people have been brutally done to death. Neither a professor returning from teaching nor an eight-year old girl was spared in this pogrom. In this connection, one can only recall the anti-fascist anger penned some decades ago by Ravindranath Tagore:

The three-day debate that took place in the Rajya Sabha on the situation in Gujarat with the opposition demanding the removal of Narendra Modi saw, yet again, a shameless display of verbal gymnastics. Both the Prime Minister and the Home Minister excelled their own double-speak in virtually justifying the brutal rape of civilisation in Gujarat. The government reversed its stand in the Lok Sabha when it opposed the opposition-sponsored motion and supported a similar motion in the Rajya Sabha in the face of a certain defeat.

This, we are told by the Prime Minister, was done to show the world that we, the opposition and the government, are united as far as the developments in Gujarat are concerned! In the same breath, in a rare confession, he informs us that he had at one time thought of removing Narendra Modi as the Chief Minister. But, subsequently, he tells us that he had changed his mind on the basis of his assessment that the removal of Modi may worsen the situation and lead to more violence. He asks the Rajya Sabha, if he was not entitled to his assessment? Certainly, you are Mr. Prime Minister. But, if such an assessment is against the interests of the country and the people and justifies the communal carnage, you are not entitled to be the Prime Minister, Mr. Vajpayee.

Continuing with such spurious logic, Mr. Vajpayee had the gumption to ask the opposition to suggest any measure other than removing Narendra Modi to restore normalcy in Gujarat. Can there be anything more ridiculous than to suggest to provide justice to the victims without punishing the culprits!

By now, it has become a common practice that every speech of the Prime Minister begins with a retraction of his earlier speech. On this occasion as well, the Prime Minister informed the Rajya Sabha that what he had said in Gwalior, a day earlier, that there is no question of invoking Article 355 in Gujarat was wrongly reported by the media. His government, he said, in the Rajya Sabha, was accepting the opposition-sponsored motion and agrees to invoke Article 355. However, as expected, he refused to elaborate on any single measure that his government would take under this constitutional provision to restore normalcy in Gujarat and punish the perpetrators of this genocide.

Now, both the Supreme Court and the Sarkaria Commission have unambiguously ruled that Article 355 is a provision that permits the Central government to intervene in any State, if the administration is not being run in accordance with the Constitution. How such an intervention will take place is detailed in Article 356. And, this provision is, once again, unambiguous. If there is a Constitutional break down in any state, the Centre is bound to dismiss the state government and impose President's rule to restore normalcy. By accepting the invocation of Article 355, the Vajpayee government is bound by the Indian Constitution to proceed to invoke Article 356 and dismiss the Narendra Modi government as the state administration is blatantly violating the Constitution.

The CPI(M) had, all along, consistently opposed the gross misuse of this article 356 in the past. However, on one occasion, following the demolition of the Babri Masjid, the CPI(M) supported the dismissal of the four BJP-led State governments in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh which actively mobilised people with the express purpose of demolition of the Babri Masjid. The BJP's challenge of this was dismissed by the Supreme Court which ruled that no State government can be allowed to remain in office if it undermines secularism which is a basic feature of the Indian Constitution.

In Gujarat today, it is this basic feature of our Constitution -- secularism -- that is being willfully, wantonly and criminally destroyed. If the Vajpayee government is sincere in its acceptance of the opposition motion in the Rajya Sabha, then it has no option but to dismiss the Narendra Modi government in Gujarat forthwith. Clearly, the BJP is far from being sincere. The Home Minister, Mr. L.K. Advani, has stated that his government has only accepted Article 355 and not Article 356 of the Constitution. The perfidy could not have been more brazen.

Beyond all doubt, it is clear that the government's position in the Rajya Sabha was meant for international consumption while at the ground level, it continues to patronise the communal genocide in Gujarat. The international community has minced little in expressing its outrage. The British government has conducted its own enquiry and clearly called this violence as State sponsored. It, in fact, went to the extent of stating that if the Godhra incident would not have occurred, then some other pretext would have been found to embark on such a genocide. The European Union has summoned the Indian Ambassador in Spain and handed over a demarche expressing grave concern at the continuing violence in Gujarat. Many NRIs are contemplating to take Narendra Modi to international courts on charges of genocide.

However, it will take much more than sophisticated rhetoric to allay the apprehensions of the international community. Particularly, since at the ground level, the Vajpayee government does exactly the opposite of what it preaches in Parliament. The VHP leader, Mr. Ashok Singhal, is allowed to go scot-free after making the most provocative of statements hailing the Gujarat carnage. The provisions of every law in this land would dictate that anyone who makes such communally provocative statements inciting violence must be arrested. This Vajpayee government, on the contrary, seems to patronise and encourage such elements.

While the BJP indulges in such semantic calisthenics in the Parliament, Gujarat continues to burn. The Vajpayee government seems determined not to intervene while the various siblings of the saffron brigade mount a campaign hailing Narendra Modi as the "chotta sardar". Clearly, the RSS and the saffron brigade are seeing political benefits and electoral profits by sponsoring such a communal genocide.

Under these circumstances, the Indian people, who cherish our rich diversity and seek communal harmony, have no other option but to intensify popular struggles against this fascistic communalism. Popular assertion to politically ostracise fascistic communal forces is the only way to save India, as we know it, today.