Modi, Mody & Co
Rajdeep Sardesai
There are two Mr Modis I
know in Gujarat. One spells his surname with an ‘i’, the other with
a ‘y’. Narendra Modi is a familiar household name. He is the Chief
Minister of a ‘Vibrant Gujarat’, his political constituency’s ‘Hindu
Hriday Samrat’ and the BJP’s man-in-waiting. After more than five
years in power, he is the unquestioned leader of the Gujarat BJP and
easily the most popular political figure in the state today. In the
last five years, he has won every election in the state with a
comfortable majority, from panchayat polls to a two-thirds victory
in the assembly elections. His face adorns hoardings across the
state and his supporters and well-oiled propaganda machine have
anointed him Gujarat’s modern-day sardar. Truly, in the last five
years, Narendra Modi has been catapulted from a relatively faceless
RSS pracharak to becoming a larger-than-life figure within the
Hindutva pantheon.
But this article is not
meant to be about the Modi you know. Let me introduce you to another
Mr Mody from Gujarat, the one who spells his surname with a ‘y’.
It’s unlikely you’ve ever met, or heard of, Dara Mody. In his early
40s, Dara Mody is the typical anonymous Indian. He works in the
Gujarat government’s Science City in an Ahmedabad suburb as a
projectionist in an Imax theatre. Driving around in his two-wheeler
across the city, he is a God-fearing Parsi, soft-spoken and rather
shy. Television cameras are unlikely to follow him, no one will
chant his name and he hasn’t ever appeared on a hoarding. He is very
different from the other Mr Modi, and yet the fate of the two men
are strangely linked.
For the last five
years, while Narendrabhai has been winning election after
election and building an ever-rising personality cult, Dara Mody has
been roaming the streets of Ahmedabad and its police stations in
search of his son. Dara’s 14-year-old son, Azhar, went missing on
February 28, 2002, the day the post-Godhra violence tore apart parts
of Gujarat. It was a defining day in the lives of both the Modi(y)s.
While the violence transformed Narendra Modi into a modern-day hero
of hatred and a ‘saviour’ of Hindus, Dara Mody’s humdrum
middle-class life was shattered irrevocably.
Dara lived in
Ahmedabad’s Gulberg society. When he left for work at 9 am that
February day, he could have scarcely imagined how his little world
would be changed forever. Gulberg was the scene of one of the worst
massacres of the 2002 Gujarat riots, where more than 49 people were
butchered (there is no other word that can be used to express the
savagery) to death. Among them was the former Congress MP, Ehsaan
Jaffrey. Dara’s teenaged son, Azhar, was with his mother, Rupa, and
sister, Binaifer, when the mob attacked Gulberg. A frightened Rupa
held on to her two children, desperately telling the attackers that
she was a Parsi and not a Muslim. Her son was snatched away, never
to be found. She and her now 13-year-old daughter have lived to tell
the tale of horror and bestiality.
While Narendrabhai
has thousands of supporters cheering him on, Dara has his distraught
wife and shell-shocked daughter for company. What binds Dara’s
family together is their search for their lost son, his memories
captured in a fading photo album, including the last image of Azhar
in his school uniform, proudly holding the tricolour. In the last
five years, Dara, like the other families in Gulberg society, has
been unable to return home. Their three-room house is still locked,
a portrait of Zarathustra and a wall calendar with a February 2002
dateline the only reminders of what was once a happy, innocent
little world. Time has stood still in Gulberg, a burst of
bougainvillea in the central garden the only sign of life in an
abandoned neighbourhood. Not one person has been convicted for the
Gulberg massacre, and Dara can’t hope to return to his home for fear
that the killers may be roaming on the streets outside the colony.
Till a few weeks ago,
Dara’s story was just another statistic on the bloody map of Gujarat
2002, a map that includes both those who lost their loved ones in
the Sabarmati train tragedy and those who suffered in the riots. At
least the families of those who died in the Sabarmati blaze have the
comfort of knowing that the alleged perpetrators have been arrested
under Pota and are awaiting sentencing. By sharp contrast, there has
not been a single conviction in any of the major riots cases. Ask
Dara what he feels today, and the eyes become moist. “How can I feel
anything when I have lost my teenaged son,” he says, without,
remarkably, any trace of rancour. And then, with a hint of a smile,
he reminds you, “I work for the government in Science City. How can
I say anything about my employers!”
Now, Dara’s story is
the subject of a major movie, Parzania, a film that has
already won critical acclaim across the world, but is unlikely to be
screened in Gujarat itself. Why should we have to revive the ghosts
of 2002, Gujarat has moved on, runs the argument. On the face of it,
Gujarat has indeed moved on. The state ranks second today in terms
of new investments — proof, say Modi’s fan club, that Gujarat’s
entrepreneurial spirit has triumphed over the scars of violence. The
‘Vibrant Gujarat’ conclave — the showpiece of the Modi government —
has been seen as a resounding success, with 363 MoUs being signed,
and investments worth thousands of crores being promised. With the
entire weight of India Inc — from Ratan Tata to Mukesh Ambani —
lining up behind the Chief Minister, Gujarat’s pariah status is
gone. Five years ago, CII and several corporates had questioned the
Modi government’s handling of the riots. Today, virtually every
business house is extolling the virtues of the Chief Minister,
widely seen as being non-corrupt and administratively efficient. In
a state where the Opposition is feeble, and where previous chief
ministers have been seen as either corrupt or ineffectual, Modi stands
out as someone who has brought a muscular energy and a reputation
for financial probity to the CM’s office.
Why then should pesky
‘secularist crusaders’ spoil the party by repeatedly raising the
ghosts of the 2002 violence? Why should human rights activists from
outside Gujarat hold public hearings in the state to find out about
missing persons? Why should only the stories of grieving families
of the riots cases be told? Why not make a film on the Panchal
family, whose four members died in the Godhra train burning? And why
give so much attention to Dara Mody, when the real hero of Gujarat
is perhaps the other Modi? Unfortunately, those who ask these
questions fail to answer certain more basic questions: how can the
quest for individual and collective justice be seen in narrow,
partisan terms? How can the political ascent of an ideology be used
to sweep aside the human dimension of a tragedy? Can a state’s
success be measured only in terms of monetary investments? What
about the social fabric that remains badly ruptured? Is the shining
present good enough to sweep aside the darkened recent past?
Perhaps, some answers
can be found if the two Modi(y)s meet. Maybe, Narendrabhai
may wish to consider placing his arm around Darabhai’s
shoulder, maybe he might find the time to share Dara’s grief, maybe
he could even consider doing something as simple as saying sorry to
the Mody couple. It is not just communal hatred that divides Gujarat
even today. It is the absence of a sense of remorse or compassion.
In the long run, this cannot be the recipe for a ‘Vibrant Gujarat’.
Rajdeep Sardesai is
Editor-in-Chief, CNN IBN and IBN 7
Email Rajdeep Sardesai: [email protected]
