MODI the FASICT and the FACTS.....

NARENDRA MODI; THE FASICT AND THE FACTS...

Before the 2004 elections the BJP ran the Shining India campaign, which evaporated in the face of reality. Before the 2009 elections it was the “iron strong man” campaign projecting Advani which also failed. Now heading to the 2014 elections, the BJP is talking of ‘Vikas Purush’ and policies of so called ‘Vibrant Gujarat’ under the leadership of Narendra Modi, as the future model for India. Orchestrated media shows and twitter campaigns, mobilised crowds, breathless spokespersons heralding of Modi as saviour, are all part of the massive public relations exercise which we are being subjected to a public relations firm called APCO Worldwide, has been especially hired for a reported fee of 25,000 dollars a month, to project Modi as the one-point solution to all the social ills and political maladies afflicting India. On the board of directors of APCO are retired officers of the Israeli diplomatic and security forces who have been hired in different countries by various dictators trying to whitewash their crimes. This company was known to play dirty tricks when it was exposed as having set up front organizations to support the American tobacco lobby to rubbish evidence that tobacco causes cancer. Today it is here in India to promote the cancerous politics represented by the communal agenda of the Modi-led BJP, in its most virulent avatar.

The first Himalayan blunder of such public relations exercises which thoroughly exposed the Modi bandwagon for what it is, was the claim that Modi had “saved” 15,000 Gujarati pilgrims by hiring 80 cars to 

bring them down from the hills, during the terrible calamity which hit the Kedarnath and Badrinath hill areas of Uttarakhand. People were puzzled as to how such a claim could be made when it took the army and defence forces ten days of constant helicopter sorties and transport to rescue around 40,000 people. Analysts made calculations with the number of pilgrims in each car, the number of kilometers to be travelled and so on and came to the conclusion that it would take, with non-stop driving without a second’s rest, 233 hours or almost ten days to manage this feat which Modi’s PR team said was completed in one day! But it is not just the foolishness of the claim, it is the desperation to use every opportunity even the most tragic plight of the yatris, to score a goal for Modi. In the event, in the face of the exposures, Modi had to backtrack and the President of the BJP Rajnath Singh then denied that such a claim had ever been made in the first 

place! 

In fact all the Modi claims are filled with similar such falsehoods. But the packaging of Modi is not just a PR exercise to promote the agenda of an individual relentlessly pursuing his personal ambitions. It is an exercise which is backed by corporates both domestic and foreign who see in the Modi model an opportunity to fulfill their dreams of a corporate led “reformed’ India. It has the backing of the RSS, impatient of the restrictions put by NDA allies on its core Hindutva agenda which it believes will be best safeguarded under the leadership of Modi.

Modi’s role in the 2002 genocide

Volumes of material on the genocide in Gujarat bring out how minorities were subjected to, the bloodshed, arson, rape and loot, and how the law enforcement machinery of the Modi Government not only permitted a free run for the most rabid organisations of Sangh Parivar but actively connived with them in many places. For most people, the Gujarat pogrom of 2002 has become synonymous with horrifying images of charred bodies of Muslim men, women and children.

During the carnage, from the beginning, the complicity of the state government was obvious. Narendra Modi reportedly gave instructions to top officials not to take action against the rampaging mobs already on the streets. Also, trained volunteers led these mobs and most of them knew they had political patronage. Since there was systematic erosion of the rule of law in maintaining state ‘neutrality’, the antiminority bias had become part of the state policy. While Modi propagated the fiction that the Godhra incident was a pre-planned act by terrorists, his Home Minister Gordhan Zadaphiya saw the hand of ‘enemy country’ Pakistan in the whole episode. This laid the base for the attack on Muslims, drawing an utterly perverse link between 

international terrorism, Pakistan and every Muslim.

That the carnage, which has been termed an upsurge of Hindus by the VHP and other RSS affiliates, was not spontaneous is also proved by the fact that cranes, trucks and shovels were used extensively for the whole operation. Also the extensive use of gas cylinders, availability of lists of Muslim households and business enterprises in advance and the import of trucks of swords and dangerous chemicals also point to the fact of extensive planning which went into preparation of this pogrom. And yet neither the Chief Minister, the State Government nor the State agencies have been held accountable and punished. It is a matter of shame that the then Central Government under Atal Behari Vajpayee and all the allies at the time, kept silent while the great cover–up of the responsibility of the State Government was done. L.K. Advani was the prime mover as the country’s Home Minister in this cover up. The culpability of the Chief Minister and others is thus the core issue in bringing justice to the minorities in Gujarat to heal their wounds

Modi Model of Governance:

On the terrible day of February 27 2002 the Sabarmati Express carrying karsevaks from Ayodhya was attacked just before the train reached Godhra station in Gujarat. 58 people including women and children were killed. It was a terrible and shocking crime. Subsequently over 100 Muslims were arrested. 31 have been convicted and the rest acquitted.

 However, as the evidence being argued before the Metropolitan Magistrate in the Ahmedabad Court shows, the police were informing the Chief Minister’s office from the beginning of February of the communal mobilizations going on to take groups of karsevaks for the Ayodhya Mahayagna for the building of the temple. These messages are dated from between 7-2-2002 till the return of the karsevaks on 27-2-2002, but the Modi Government deliberately ignored these messages. Communal and provocative anti-Muslim slogans were being shouted all along the way to Ayodhya and back, again no action was taken. 

At the time of the horrific attack on the train, Narendra Modi was the newly elected Chief Minister of Gujarat. Who were the people he was in constant touch with on that day?The phone records quoted in 

Zakia Jafri’s protest petition show that even before Modi contacted officials, almost as soon as the information of the news reached him, he spoke to Jaideep Patil, the General Secretary of the Vishwa Hindu 

Parsihad who has been chargesheeted as a main accused in another case of the killings of eleven Muslims. At that time reports were reaching Modi’s office of the grossly provocative, communally rabid and bloodthirsty slogans being raised by crowds being mobilized by the VHP. It is known to any administrator in Gujarat that Godhra is a highly communally sensitive place where there have been several riots in the past but Modi refused to act on the stream of reports being sent by field operatives of the State Bureau of Intelligence.

 In the statement prepared by the Modi Government and read out in the Assembly which was in session, the Home Minister deliberately concealed the fact that both the District Magistrate of Godhra and the officer in-charge had repeatedly reported the communal slogans being shouted by the karsevaks. But when Modi arrived in Godhra later that evening, he held a minicabinet meeting which decided to handover the bodies of the Godhra victims to the same Jaideep Patel, the leader of precisely that organization which had already started drumming up communal hatred through slogans and speeches. Shockingly, this criminal was himself present in the said meeting presided over by Modi, as testified by the Godhra district magistrate Jayanthi Ravi.

Secondly while Modi himself was in Godhra, he permitted the postmortem of the Sabarmati train victims to be performed in the open on the railway platform in front of the growing frenzied crowds.This was an unprecedented action which stoked the flames of the communal fire. 

What was the result? The bodies were literally used to mobilize mobs all over Gujarat and to start the communal genocide. In Ahmedabad the motor cavalcade with the bodies was headed towards the Sola Civil Hospital. Even more damning, the Chief Minister held a meeting at his residence later that night in which the then senior police officer has given witness that the Chief Minister effectively neutralized any action the police should have taken. Was that good governance?

No Police Intervention

There was no police intervention to stop the already rampaging mobs. The next morning Jafri’s house was surrounded. In spite of repeated requests from him, no police force was sent.In contrast to the refusal to send forces in spite of the repeated messages from the police and SIB, the PCR records — which the SIT was trying hard to conceal — also reveal that the Government had enough forces to escort a VHP leader known for his inciting slogans, Acharya Giriraj Kishore, from the airport to the Sola Civil Hospital to accompany the processionists, shouting filthy hate speeches and murderous slogans. But they did not have enough forces to send to Naroda Patiya where 96 persons were massacred in broad daylight (chargesheet figures in the Naroda Patiya case, though more deaths have been recorded) and 69 persons at Gulberg Society the same day and around the same time aggressive processions were being allowed. Modi, allowing and openly supporting the bandh and neutralising his administration, decided to give the RSS-VHP-BD mobs a free run of the Gujarat streets to massacre innocents.

These are only a few examples. But what they show is that either there was gross dereliction of duty by Modi and his officers which blows the myth of good governance or there was a deliberate plan, as most people following the Gujarat developments believe, of a coldblooded conspiracy to teach the ‘Muslims a lesson” the favourite pastime of communal bigots spawned by the RSS and its front organizations.

Put Modi on Trial 

In the light of this clear evidence, we the RED ARMY  is reiterating our demand that Modi’s name be added to the chargesheet at present before the court and that he should be tried for his leading role in the 

conspiracy of the worst communal carnage this country has seen..

Post-2002: Subversion of JusticeSince 2002, governments in Gujarat under Modi have taken a minimalistic approach to rehabilitate the 70 odd colonies of approximately 5,000 families of internally displaced. Some efforts were made by a few organizations and Trusts who tried to put together the facilities and provisions with great difficulty, against the odds posed by the hostile State Government. A few state run refugee camps were closed down soon under the pretext that State does not want to run “child production factories,” the humiliating insinuation being was that Muslims produce more children and are “a demographic threat to the Hindu nation.” Muslims have been pushed to the ghettoes which are poor in hygiene and distant from any civic amenities. Many social facilities like banking, schools, mobile-phone services are denied to them. Even the minority scholarship scheme funded by the central Government has been rejected by the Gujarat Government and not implemented depriving thousands of Muslim students of its benefits. In fact the case is presently before the Supreme Court. Whom can an ordinary Muslim post 2002 turn to in Gujarat?

4000 cases of violence against the minorities in Gujarat were closed by the Modi Government. It was only on the intervention of the Supreme Court that the police were forced to reopen at least half of them. In the shocking Best Bakery case 14 people who had taken shelter in the bakery were surrounded by a mob and were burnt to death. The Modi Government pressurized the witnesses into changing their statements and all the accused were acquitted. The Supreme Court had to intervene and order a retrial with the Chief Justice saying he “had no confidence” in the Gujarat Government. The case was retried and some of the criminals were convicted while others escaped due to the deliberate gaps in the investigation. 

No one can move on from 2002 as is being advocated by Modi supporters, as long as the guilty, including the Chief Minister are not punished.

Gujarat Model = Pro Corporate Model

Gujarat model is a hot inflated air baloon.....

Social Inequalities 

There are higher malnutrition levels in Gujarat compared to other States including Uttar Pradesh. Child malnutrition levels in Gujarat are the same as in Chattisgarh and Orissa. A recent UNICEF report states that “almost every second child in Gujarat is malnourished and three of four are anemic. One mother in three in Gujarat struggles with acute under-nutrition”. According to the Government of India’s Children in India report (2012) infant mortality rates considered one of the basic indicators for social advance, is high in Gujarat at 44 per every 1000, giving it a low rank of 11 among States. The Chief Minister’s insensitive statement that this is because women in Gujarat diet, reflects contempt for the poor and the working classes in “Vibrant Gujarat”. 

While the vibrant Gujarat summit showcases infrastructural development as being a priority, Gujarat has a very poor record in infrastructure for the poor. The vast majority of the rural population is denied sanitation and water facilities with 67 per cent having no access to toilets, only 16.7 per cent have safe drinking water.

In social terms the Gujarat model has been discriminatory against dalits, adivasis and women. The adivasi areas for example have seen no development with all social indicators showing the discrimination against these sections. The recent Planning Commission review of educational and health facilities shows up the failure of the Modi Government on both these spheres. UNDP statistics show that Gujarat ranks 18th when it comes to success in keeping children in school. The Gujarat gross enrolment ratio in higher secondary schools was three percentage points lower than the national average of 39.3 per cent. The Gujarat school drop out ratio for SC/ST of 57.9 per cent was much higher than the national average of 49.3 per cent which in any case is shamefully high. 

The most shocking example of the skewed social approach in this model of Governance is the high incidence of female feoticide and the consequent continually poor sex ratios. Gujarat’s sex ratios worsened in this decade from 921 in 2001 to 918 women for every 1000 men. The child sex ratios (0-6 years) though slightly better than ten years ago are still shocking at just 886 in 2011 according to the Census 2011.

Jobless Growth and Low Wages

In economic terms, just as at the all India level the Congress led UPA Government has boasted of high growth rates as a measure of its success, so also does the Modi led Gujarat Government. It is true that Modi has pushed corporate reform policies much faster than UPA. In spite of its urgent desire to do away with labour reform and labour rights, the UPA can only do it incrementally while the Modi Government with its outright majority has virtually banned all trade union activity in its manufacturing special zone areas.

Inequality in Gujarat among the poor and the rich is therefore among the highest in the country. According to Planning Commission, per capita income of Gujarat in 2010-11 stands at 8th place among top states. It can be said that the per capita has increased faster than in any other state, but the inequalities have also increased. The NSS0 data provides the reality: In high growth Gujarat, the quality of employment is mainly in the informal sector with 89 per cent men workers and 98 per cent women workers in the unorganized sector with no guaranteed minimum wage or protective legislation.

 As far as women are concerned the percentage is higher than two percentage points compared to the all India figure which is 96 per cent of women in the informal sector. Thus the vibrant Gujarat summits have not changed the quality of employment and life for the state’s working people. Moreover just as the UPA promotes pro-corporate jobloss growth, so also in Gujarat, data shows that in the last decade employment has dropped to almost zero in Gujarat.

As far as wage rates are concerned, Gujarat ranks low in the all India index for 20 major States. For casual rural male workers it ranks 14th who earned on an average just 69 rupees a day. For women it ranked 9th with rural casual women workers earning just 56 rupees on average. For regular rural workers Gujarat had a low in the rankings at 17th position, (Rs. 152 for men) and 9th position for women (Rs. 108) For urban casual workers, the State was in the 7th position with men earning a wage of 108 rupees and it was in the 14th position for women. For regular male workers in urban areas the position was even worse at 18th (Rs. 205) and for women 13th (Rs. 182). 

The BJP has boasted that in Gujarat there have been no suicide deaths of farmers. According to RTI gleaned information shockingly between August and December 2012, there were 40 farmer suicides. These were in the main suicides by debt ridden farmers in the Saurashtra region. The main thrust of Modi’s policies like the UPA is to encourage corporate farming and cater to the big farmer lobby ignoring the interests of small and marginal farmers.

Generosity for Corporates 

But for corporates the Gujarat model is generosity personified. If India’s top industrialists sing Modi’s praises it is not for nothing. Huge tracts of land which should have been distributed to the landless, have been given over to corporates at throw away prices — an example of 

robbing the common people of Gujarat to help the corporates. This includes forest land. But at the same time the Forest Rights Act is blatantly violated. Gujarat has the worst record in implementation of the Act. As many as 1.20 lakh claims of tribals for land pattas was rejected arbitrarily by the Government. On May 3, the Gujarat High Court accepted a petition and ordered that all these cases should be reconsidered. Currently there is a big kisan movement against the forcible acquisition of 55,000 acres of land in theBahucharaji area  for theSpecial Investment Region to help corporates get land at low prices. In 

spite of opposition, Maruti Suzuki has already been given 750 

hectares.

According to the CAG, Modi’s Govt. has bestowed around Rs 1275 crore rupees in dubious ways to benefit the corporate sector for the fiscal 2011-2012. The CAG report, which was recently submitted to the state assembly, says the chief gainers of Modi’s generosity are the Adani, Essar, Reliance, Larson & Toubro among others. It is the double standards of the BJP that it has used its majority to virtually suppress the report.

The Tatas shifted their Nano project to Gujarat. 1100 acres were given at a throwaway price of just 900 rupees a sq metre when the market price was 10,000 rupees a sq metre. A huge loan at the rate of 0.01% has been given from the State exchequer. In economic terms analysts have calculated that each car rolling out from Tata factory will have the subsidy of 60,000 rupees.

This kind of industrial development also induces displacement with women, dalits and Adivasis being the major victims of this displacement. It causes joblessness, homelessness, deprivations, marginalization and social fragmentation.