What happened in Gujarat, 2002?

This single photo of Qutbuddin Ansari told me the whole shameful story of what happened in Gujarat in 2002. It was enough to make me retch and weep. But the truth is, the 1984 Delhi massacre of Sikhs had prepared me for what an Indian mob can do. Being the land we are, we’d have, in normal times, been angry a while and moved on with our lives. But we were not  allowed to take 2002 in our stride. Stories on those days would not cease.
I don’t have a clinching narrative on what exactly happened in 2002- but then who does? Certainly not the legion which has built whole careers gouging the riots. As their narratives began, and grew limbs and grotesque faces,I sensed an overkill. I eased down a bit and asked myself: are they shaping a spontaneous event into a political opportunity?



I had no insider sources, I live far away in Tamil Nadu, my Hindi is scratchy and the name Narendra Modi was all too new to me, as I suspect it was to many Indians. I was a decade away from becoming an admirer of his. Did the media could sense in the threat he was later to become for the Congress? Was that  denunciation of Modi begin?
Truth is, the post-2002 media activism was a performance commanded by the Congress. They feared Vajpayee’s return to power in 2004. He was not then, the darling for the Congress that he has since become. He had to be stopped. The riot was to be built as a counter narrative to the 1984 pogrom, and made to match its horrors or exceed it.
Had they eased after the Congress came to power in 2004, the media narrations would not have been scrutinised too closely. But they blew it. Stories of Modi as the author of the riot gathered momentum in step with his achievments as CM and wins in successive state elections. 2002 was revived and held aloft until the Ishrat Jehan saga was primed as the final evidence of Modi being an ogre.
As exaggerations began, they lost people’s attention. The backlash that emerged worked to Modi’s advantage. It also taught him statecraft: a steely resolve to simply ignore questions that didn’t seek the truth but only wanted to bait him and to nudge him to knot himself up. It taught him to focus hard on governance and go over the heads of everyone [-including his detractors in his own party] and to speak directly to people. He practices these proven techniques with elan, to this day as a Prime Minister.
But coming back to the events of 2002, what really happened? A number of horrible things did; how I sequence them depends on my gut instincts, or my bias, if you would. I have my right to it and I list them as follows:

• A big crowd of boisterous kar-sevaks were returning from Ayodhya. There's enough scope to believe they were unruly and taunting in their slogans. I believe they had strutted with arrogance on many station platforms on the way.
• When they arrived at Godhra, the kar-sevaks were almost home, and must have felt quite triumphal. They probably mobbed a Muslim stall owner making him feel robbed, abused and humiliated.
• As the train eased out of the platform, the stall-owner called his neighbours with an account of the event. His report enraged a Muslim posse. A passenger on the train helped to stop the train. The Muslim mob set fire to the compartment with kar-sewaks in it
• What followed is not hard to conjecture. Many authorities at the lower levels were uninformed, outnumbered, misjudged or abetted, as often happens when riots begin. Hindu extremists [- my hunch is that VHP man Togadia led them] swung in to create chaos and mayhem.
• By the time Modi acted as expected of his position, the situation had become grave. Did he pretend ignorance during the first critical hours? He probably did; indeed I'd say, 'Yes, he did'
• But then he realised quickly enough that the political cost to him far outweighed any advantage to be gained. It was too horrific and out of control to be allowed further. He swung in and brought order back.

That according to me is what happened. It should not have happened. But it did.And it will again elsewhere in this explosive land. It was not by design on anyone's part, certainly not Modi's. It was a spontaneous combustion that occurs frequently in India
What has happened in the years since 2002 however, is by design. The Congress and its henchmen-media created news and features, each succeeding one more fantastic than the previous. The cast, the plots, the funding and the intrigues are too well known to require listing again. Thus flowed an unceasing stream of anti-Modi narratives and then, a fatigue set in and majority wisdom took a  position. And it was to absolve Modi of any wilful wrongdoing and to propel him to the highest office in India.

As it always happens, truth wriggles out, past everything you can stack against it. Modi is today vastly harder to be defeated by contrived stories.