Teesta Setalvad arrest keeps Godhra pot boiling
If there was any chance for closure after the Supreme Court rubbished the possibility of a larger conspiracy in the 2002 post-Godhra riots, it went out of the window after the Gujarat Police launched a crackdown. It arrested activist Teesta Setalvad and former DGP RB Sreekumar besides seeking to prosecute former IPS officer Sanjeev Bhatt following the court’s observation that people with ulterior motives had sought to keep the pot boiling, and suggesting they be put on the dock.
The basic question before the court was whether Narendra Modi as the then chief minister—at a meeting of top officials on the day the Sabarmati Express was torched killing 59 kar sevaks—issued a directive to let Hindus have a free hand to vent their anger against Muslims in the state. Bhatt alleged that Modi did, claiming he was present at the meeting, but an SIT that was tasked by the SC to probe the case, found forensic evidence to establish that he was elsewhere at the time of the meeting.
Bhatt’s claim was hyperventilated by others to build a false case against Modi, the SIT surmised. The court said failure to maintain law and order for a brief period need not be seen as part of a plot at the highest level to defeat the constitutional machinery. It upheld the SIT’s conclusion that there was no larger conspiracy behind the Gulbarg Society riots.
That the communal violence that followed after the Godhra carnage tore up the heart of Gujarat and left a deep scar on the nation’s psyche is undeniable. It was a blot on humanity and on Modi’s career, as it happened under his watch as CM. But to impute motives to the way he managed the situation without conclusive proof is not done. Modi managed to survive in power, fighting external pressures and intra-party attempts to sack him, and became a Hindutva icon.
Back to the present, had the BJP not exercised the option of going after Setalvad and others, it would have possibly helped the process of healing and changed the discourse. For, as Mahatma Gandhi said, an eye for an eye will make the whole world blind.