Quid Pro Quo?

In response to Modi’s questioning by the SIT (see scans of news reports from 29 March 2010) BJP is saying we really did not drag your big boy in in 1984, why are you doing this now?

It is a pity most websites devoted to Modi's role in 2002 killings are so very pro-Congress, it would be great if some of them at least could see that murder is murder - It doesn't matter what political tag it was committed under.

Maybe 2002’s Big Fish Won’t Get Away as Easily as 1984’s

In mid-March 2010, the Indian Supreme Court appointed S.I.T. (Special Investigation Team) and at long last dared to actually call Gujarat's hugely popular C.M. Narendra Modi (by the way he is "Namo" to his juvenile fans who are apparently so keen on him that someone is even making and selling dolls with this name) to ask him a few questions about his "alleged" role in the murder of Congress MP Ehsan Jaffrey and 60+ others during the 2002 Gujarat massacres.

While leading Indian newspapers didn't spend too much valuable space on reporting on the S.I.T., The Times of India in an inside small piece did remind the readers in a summary manner that there are at least two eye witnesses who heard Jaffrey plead on the phone with Modi himself to do something -- and the police had more than abundant time to do something -- but Modi simply abused Jaffrey loudly on the phone and condemned him to a brutal death at the hands of his goons, along with many other Muslims who had sought refuge in the MP's house hoping that they will be safe at least there.

The hate speeches of Modi and his ilk in the lead-up to this massacre post Godhra can be easily found by anyone willing to go over the newspaper files of that time (they were even reported verbatim in some smaller newspapers). Yet just some weeks ago there was another news item from which it seemed the Supreme Court was now plaintively requesting Modi's own Gujarat government to assist the totally stuck super-sleuths of India's FBI, i.e. CBI, who apparently were not able to make much headway because they -- poor dears! -- were not able to get copies of the said speeches and so had come complaining to the Supreme Court to help them some.

What kind of farce is this? Who is being fooled by this kind of investigation…? From day one it has been amply clear that the massacre of 2002 was done at the behest of Modi himself, nothing of that magnitude was possible otherwise. Going back to 1984 and Delhi it is equally obvious prima facie that the massacre of the Sikhs then was carried out, at the very least, with the implicit approval of Rajiv Gandhi himself.

One would think that in any society in which justice and fair play have any meaning, the faintest accusation of a crime as grave as murder (yes, even one murder, not thousands as in these two cases) would be enough to at least disqualify a person from continuing in high office till a thorough complete probe had shown him blameless.

Higher the office, more the power, so there is more room for abuse, it should require less not more by way of proof ... Yet in India at least it is definitely the other way around.

Even 25+ years after the massacre in Delhi, the late Rajiv remains very much the darling of the ruling party, and indeed it is universally accepted that Sonia derives her power from this fondness with which this murderer of thousands in November 1984 in Delhi is remembered.

Likewise 7 years after the "riots" in Gujarat, cuddly "Namo" is talked about fondly in drawing rooms as the BJP's next PM .....

Surely something is very very wrong with even the basic idea of democracy if it can somehow manage to project such people in this way. But I think history catches up with the truth eventually, and the said massacres shall be laid squarely on these two, despite all the efforts being made to the contrary by their acolytes.

It is a bloody game this and politicians will continue this way unless people bring them to book, especially oh especially, the big fish: one must go after them first, not last!

Salt on Our Wounds

25 years later, Sikhs around the world continue to hold protests, vigils, and conferences commemorating the Indian State's organized pogroms against Sikhs in Delhi and across the country.

The Indian State hasn't launched a single objective investigation into these massacres and continues to sweep all evidence relating to these attacks under the rug. The dozen or so Indian kangaroo courts and commissions that have examined the issue have thought it was better to whitewash the matter than to hold the perpetrators responsible.

In the course of the last two and a half decades, its become evident to anyone objectively studying the Nov 1984 massacres that Rajiv Gandhi and his kitchen cabinet, along with other high level politicians, played a key role in organizing the mobs that were given lists of Sikh homes and businesses to attack and loot.

What's most shocking is that powers that be within the Indian State and Punjab Government felt it appropriate to name Hospitals, Colleges, and Technology Parks in honor of Rajiv Gandhi - the central mastermind of the 1984 carnage. Rajiv, in front of National media, said "When a tree falls, the earth shakes." As the leader of the world's largest democracy, Rajiv felt there wasn't an issue with ordering systematic massacres of Sikhs under the guise of spontaneous 'riots', in response to the assasination of his mother by her Sikh bodyguards in return for her ordering the attack on the Darbar Sahib (Golden Temple) Complex earlier that year, where thousands of innocent Sikh pigrims were killed.

Would the United States ever erect Technology Parks in the name of King George III or Israel inaugurate Hospitals in honor of Adolf Hitler? How can Sikhs and the government of Punjab allow anyone to give such reverence to Rajiv Gandhi?