Modi:Mitta::Courier of the Dead

Last seen there were 58 dead bodies and some injured persons in Godhra by 9 a.m. on 27 February 2002; one of the injured would die later. They had been headed to Ahmedabad. Four of the dead got claimed by their relatives in the course of the day. The Government decided to have the remaining 54 bodies shifted to Ahmedabad.

It is well known, that the decision to do so was taken at a meeting chaired by Mr. Modi in Godhra. Mr. Mitta confirms that Mr. Modi has said so himself to the SIT headed by R K Raghavan.

The other option would have been to keep the bodies in Godhra until their families could be located and ferried in to claim possession per prescribed procedure, presumably after filling the paperwork in triplicate and establishing their bona fides!

The latter option is the one Mr. Mitta says Mr. Modi should have opted for. This is getting interesting. Maybe we will get a discussion on how that might have changed the course of events and how it would have helped cool tempers all round before they got to a boiling point.

No such luck. A whole chapter is instead devoted to the hapless Justice Nanavati commission's failure to pin the blame for the decision to shift on Mr. Modi.

How is Nanavati's failure relevant any longer, Mr. Mitta, after Raghavan's SIT asked Mr. Modi the question and got the answer?

Then there is the VHP functionary, Jaydeep Patel, to whom the dead bodies were released. Mr. Mitta can not understand how, from among the hordes of people he met that day, Mr. Modi does not recall meeting this all important person. Whom he has acknowledged knowing. And who was also present in the same building! Same building, dammit!!

How is this meeting so important, Mr. Mitta? They could well have conspired on the phone! Or through an intermediary! Or through a note written in vanishing ink! Or through a wink and a nod!

Mr. Mitta does not like the fact that the bodies were handed over to the VHP.  Or that a low level factotum of the government signed the release letter. Was it to misdirect attention away from the 'highest levels' that approved the transfer? Much verbiage is expended on the letter. However, in what way this letter being drafted or typed or signed differently would have influenced history remains a mystery.

Why was the VHP involved? VHP was not responsible for the dead or the injured, Mr. Mitta tells us. The fact that the kar sevaks were VHP volunteers is not relevant. That VHP was best positioned to identify and locate their families is besides the point. They should have waited for the families in Godhra, as per the bureaucratic procedure.

Mr. Mitta demands an explanation for this departure from the norm. What were the exceptional circumstances, he wants to know, that warranted it?

Mr. Mitta deserves an answer.

Next: The Post-Godhra Mayhem
Previously: Modi:Mitta::The Godhra Incident
First: Modi:Mitta::Fact &amp:Fiction

Modi:Mitta::The Godhra Incident

Introductions out of the way, early on in the book we get a long awaited confirmation of fact.

Mr. Mitta acknowledges that 59 Hindus were burned alive in a train just outside Godhra railway station on 27 February 2002. He hastens to add that the attack was invited by their chanting provocative slogans like “Jai Shri Ram” and a dispute about payment for tea and snacks they had bought at the station. A "telling" mention of Karsevaks teasing Muslim women at the station is also thrown in.

While Mr. Mitta allows that the response to this provocation was “disproportionate”, he does lament that the trial court held the carnage to be a result of “conspiracy” rather than a “voluntary outburst” provoked by the preceding “skirmishes”, which would have called for gentler punishment.

The fact that the person accused of being the chief conspirator, based on a co-conspirators’ confession, was not convicted for lack of corroborative evidence should tell us that there was in fact no conspiracy or pre-planned mischief.

It must be a common practice in Gujarat villages, at least those abutting railway stations, to buy and store large quantities of petrol of an evening just in case a quarrel breaks out during the night or, if the train is delayed, the next morning. The fact that petrol was bought in advance is neither important nor disputed nor indeed proof of conspiracy.

What is crucial is that the two Hindus who sold the petrol changed their testimony. They lied because they were bribed by the VHP; we knew it all along. They lied at the behest of their employer, a Muslim gentleman; impossible, why would they? What clout did he have, apart from being the giver of their daily bread?

Mr. Mitta, in passing, also quotes the trial court, “For Godhra, this is not the first incident of burning alive innocent persons belonging to Hindu community”. We are not told if previous burnings were also brought on by heavy provocation.

Mr. Mitta follows up on many of the accused in great detail. He suffers for them through their trials and tribulations and regrets the treatment meted out to them by the police and the courts. His heart bleeds right on to the printed page for their kith and kin. There is hope, for appeals to higher courts are under way.

On the 59 burnt to death, he wastes not much of our time except to clarify that this number included 25 women and 15 children; that 58 died on the day, one died later; and that of the dead 59, actually only "52 were Hindus, while nine have remained unidentified till date".

Thank you Mr. Mitta. 

Next: Modi:Mitta::Courier of the Dead
Previously: Modi:Mitta::Fact:Fiction

Modi:Mitta::Fact:Fiction

“The Fiction of Fact Finding - Modi & Godhra” has been floating around the house for some time now.  Enticing with its promise of investigating the investigators and the investigations of Modi 2002.

 “...clear-eyed, unsparing of no one...” is the resounding endorsement of a previous work on the dust jacket of Mr. Mitta’s new book. The endorser is Sagarika Ghosh, one of the shrillest screamers on our journalistic firmament. As with many of her ilk, her linguistic reach exceeds her grasp by a long chalk. That, by itself, does not concern us but it does reflect on the author and his editors.

Finally we pick up the book and get off to a promising start. Mr. Mitta tells us in the very first pages about how he single-handedly stopped the VHP from creating nationwide mayhem shortly after the Godhra incident.

Fact 1: On 13 March 2002, the Supremes rejected a Vajpayee Government request to allow the VHP to conduct a symbolic pooja on the 15th at the Ayodhya site sacred to them.
Fact 2: The rejection order, instead of specifying all 100 odd revenue sites involved in the dispute or using a wider description like “nowhere within 100 miles of  ...”, specified two revenue sites as barred.
Fact 3: VHP chief Ashok Singhal caught on to this error and, interpreting it as permission to pooj away at any adjoining site, proclaimed victory. He was all over the visual media all day.

What followed was remarkable. The whole country heard him. Multiple times. Yet no one understood.  Except, of course, Mr. Mitta, who promptly wrote about it for the Indian Express, to appear the following morning, “pointing out the error and explaining how it had crept in”.

Chief Justice B N Kirpal read Mr. Mitta’s write up and, to his credit, quickly understood that he had slipped. He promptly scheduled a hearing to correct the “ambiguity”.

Mr. Mitta does not share with us how he happens to be privy to CJ Kirpal’s news reading habits. Living as they do in a cloistered world, it is entirely possible that CJ Kirpal, his staff, colleagues, family or friends did not hear, or hear of, Singhal boasting of victory till they heard from Mr. Mitta.

Mr. Mitta does quote jurist A G Noorani who commends Mr. Mitta’s “...mention of an inadvertent error...” for helping the court. Noorani’s early morning or otherwise equation with Justice Kirpal remains unexplored.

Having told us about this singular history shaping act, Mr. Mitta is quick to reassure us that he is not  recounting it “to blow his own trumpet” but that, and get this, he has in the course of his career routinely “sought to expose mistakes, even if by the Supreme Court...” both “inadvertent” and “deliberate”. He has a closetful of trumpets.

To research this book, Mr. Mitta has, apart from poring over thousands of documents, met with a host of lawyers, activists and whistle-blowers all intent on digging up or covering up dirt. His own efforts to assist the whistleblower cop Sanjiv Bhatt are trivial he says in the overall scheme of things, and have been overblown by the investigators.

Mr. Bhatt famously has a clear recollection of some events at a meeting where he was not present according to dozens of other people who were. Mr. Mitta avers that those others do not really count. It is all about credibility and not about numbers. 

We will never know how big a debt of gratitude we owe Mr. Mitta.

Next: Modi:Mitta::The Godhra Incident