Men, Matters & Memories
M L Kotru
It may fascinate some but the suspended Gujarat DIG, D.G. Vanzara’s resignation letter (from the IPS) to the State Government does make very depressing reading. The senior IPS officer, allegedly involved in a chain of fake encounters, has in his letter accused the Narendra Modi government, with the Chief Minister and his former Minister of State, Amit Shah at the heart of it, of framing police officials while protecting party men close to himself.
Vanzara says that some 34 policemen, including six IPS officials, have been jailed to “save its Government’s skin from the CBI and also to reap very rich political dividends.” The cops’ arrests had helped to keep the party cadres happy with the “glow” of fake encounters (almost all the victims of encounters were Muslims). He rues that Modi in his hurry to march to Delhi has forgotten the debt he owed to the cops.
The letter is particularly harsh on the role of the BJP General Secretary and Modi’s Minister Amit Shah until he was arrested and subsequently bailed out in one of the crimes featuring the cops as well. Amit Shah is Modi’s alter ego, and was dispatched to re-energize the Uttar Pradesh unit of the BJP as Modi prepares to take over the Government in Delhi.
Mr. Vanzara who was arrested by the Gujarat Police in April 2007 in connection with the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case is also an accused in the deaths of Ishrat Jehan and Sadique Jamal. The senior IPS officer in his letter argues if he and his fellow cops were deemed responsible for the fake encounters then the men who masterminded the policy too needed to be arrested as the officers had only carried out the “conscious policy” of the Government. The imprisoned DIG has no qualms in stating his firm opinion that the place of this (Modi) government should be, instead of Gandhinagar, (the State capital) in State prisons.
I asked myself why didn’t senior officers like Vanzara protest or try to advise the government against the path chosen by it, to which the answer now comes in the resignation letter itself when Vanzara says that he maintained “graceful silence” because of his supreme faith and highest respect for Modi whom he adored as “God”. But the God (Modi) could not rise to the occasion under the evil influence of Amit Shah who usurped his (Modi’s) eyes and ears and has been successfully misguiding him by converting goats into dogs and dogs into goats for these last 12 years. (The goat dog thing must obviously have been derived from Gujarati folklore).
The Vanzara letter, regardless of what you make of his conduct as a senior police official, serves as an eye-opener to the way the Modi mania operates in the State. And obviously the saffronite bosses from the RSS headquarters in Nagpur will be more than convinced that in backing up Modi’s candidature as the BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate they have not at all erred.
The proof of this was in evidence over the last weekend when the top RSS leadership converged on Delhi to ensure a closing of ranks by the BJP. While some senior leaders are periodically wont to voice doubts over projecting one leader as the prime ministerial candidate for 2014 polls, the issue had caused concern at RSS headquarters.
Deep discussions by the top leadership in Nagpur preceded its Delhi visit where Modi’s conduct and the current tone and tenor of cadre support for him were also assessed. Questions though had continued to be asked about Modi’s desperate attempts at projecting himself in the Prime Ministerial mode. So muchso that some BJP leaders questioned the wisdom of Modi converting his independence day speech in his home State into a rebuttal of what Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had to say from the ramparts of the Red Fort to mark 67th birth anniversary of the independence day of the nation.
The quietly critical assessment of Modi from within the BJP and the NDA is the reason for the clamour for Modi as PM from Bihar some three weeks ago which brought the party President Rajnath Singh rushing to Patna and Bodh Gaya to revive the call for “Modi for PM”, not without causing additional worry to some of the senior party leaders in Delhi which was obviously conveyed to Nagpur. Then came the RSS leaders conferring with party leaders in Delhi, including L.K. Advani, reassuring them that all would be well in the end.
With major Assembly elections in States like Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Delhi and Chattisgarh due in the next few months, the BJP, with no fresh allies in sight as yet, will need much more than the Modi magic to make it past the winning post.
The presence of the RSS leaders in Delhi was indicative of the nervousness of the parivar over the possibility of Modi not being able to carry the day with most senior party colleagues, not particularly happy with his having assumed the Prime Ministerial mantle even before the poll campaign.
There are possible challengers to Modi’s emergence as the top contender, among them the most senior and respected Mr. Lal Krishen Advani, Sushma Swaraj, Nitin Gadkari, Shivraj Singh Chouhan and even Rajnath Singh who has for months now been plugging the Modi line (with RSS blessings, of course). Manohar Parrikar, the Goa Chief Minister went public on Wednesday criticising Modi. But, then, according to some analysts Modi has evolved since the decade, and more he came to head the State Government. Many attempts to upstage him in Gujarat have not yielded much. His image may have been dented in between but the legend of the man appears to have survived. He has always tried to remain one step ahead of the law, although close aides like Amit Shah, were arrested.
No Indian leader has faced the kind of censure Modi has in Europe, the US and the West as a whole. Yet he has built an image as a wealth generator in his State. No Chief Minister has been regularly snubbed by regional leaders but he still continues to gain as an important political figure.
The US may have refused him a visa repeatedly but a section of Indians seem keen to discuss the possibility of his becoming Prime Minister or at least a prime candidate in the run up to premiership. Set-backs the man has had aplenty but there really has been no looking back on his part so far, not publicly at least. I do personally believe that the man is so obsessed with himself, so arrogant, so vindictive, most unsuited to be the Prime Minister of as diverse a country as India. Yet, you cannot ignore him.
It is against this backdrop that D.G. Vanzara’s resignation letter has the potential to become a major embarrassment. It is damning, even with high praise for the God-like Modi, that on a casual reading it may well be misunderstood as high praise for Modi and his Government. Worded in a manner to suggest that the chief recipient of the former IPS officer’s ire is Modi’s man Friday, Amit Shah, who with his “evil influence” has usurped Modi’s “eyes and ears”, the deceptive eulogy of Modi is a cover for a full blown attack on the man whom Vanzara accuses of “marching towards Delhi” without sparing a thought for the 30-odd cops who had merely followed the Chief Minister’s orders. Vanzara’s lament may not even earn him a reprieve but it does leave Modi and his government with much to answer.
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