JOIN US For the first time after 2002 riots, Gujarat Chief Minister and BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi on Friday admitted that he was “shaken to the core” by the riots and had “suffered in solitude.”
The admission came a day after a local court here endorsed the clean chit given by the Supreme Court appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) for his alleged role in the 2002 riots.
Modi broke his silence over the issue by striking a conciliatory note and expressing his remorse over one of the worst communal riots in the country. He, however, stopped short of apologising.
In an open letter published in his blog on Friday, Modi stated: “Yesterday’s (Thursday) judgement culminated a process of unprecedented scrutiny closely monitored by the highest court of the land. Gujarat’s 12 years of trial by the fire has finally drawn to an end. I feel liberated and at peace.
“Grief, sadness, misery, pain, anguish, agony–mere words could not capture the absolute emptiness one felt on witnessing such inhumanity.’’
The Gujarat chief minister went on to claim that his government had reacted and responded to the violence more swiftly and decisively in comparison to any previous riot in the country.
“On one side was the pain of the victims of the earthquake, and on the other the pain of the victims of the riots. In decisively confronting this great turmoil, I had to single-mindedly focus all the strength given to me by the almighty on the task of peace, justice and rehabilitation, burying the pain and agony I was personally wracked with,” he added.
Modi, who is now actively reaching out to all sections of society and has been projecting himself as an icon of inclusive development made a subtle reference to the “Rajdharma”.
The then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had asked him to adhere to “Rajdharma” and wrote that during “those challenging times, I often recollected the wisdom in our scriptures, explaining how those in positions of power did not have the right to share their own pain and anguish. They had to suffer in solitude.”
“I lived through the same, experiencing this anguish in searingly sharp intensity. In fact, whenever I remember those agonising days, I have only one earnest prayer to God. That never again should such cruelly unfortunate days come in the lives of any other person, society, state or nation,” he added.
“This is the first time I am sharing the harrowing ordeal I had gone through in those days at a personal level,” Modi claimed.
Keeping with the SIT report that had observed how Modi had appealed for calm post the Godhra carnage, Modi wrote: “However, it was from these very built up emotions that I had appealed to the people of Gujarat on the day of the Godhra train burning itself, fervently urging for peace and restraint to ensure lives of innocents were not put at risk.
“You will also find these deep emotions in my recent words at my Sadbhavana fasts, where I had emphasised how such deplorable incidents did not behove a civilised society and had pained me deeply.”
Turning the table, Modi then played the victim: “As if all the suffering was not enough, I was also accused of the death and misery of my own loved ones, my Gujarati brothers and sisters. Can you imagine the inner turmoil and shock of being blamed for the very events that have shattered you!”