Modi ally sparks outcry by saying 2002 Gujarat religious riots ‘taught a lesson’

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Louise Thomas

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India’s federal home minister Amit Shah, a close aide of prime minister Narendra Modi, has sparked anger after he proclaimed at an election rally that the perpetrators of violence during the 2002 Gujarat riots were “taught a lesson”.

In February 2002, the western state of Gujarat saw widespread communal violence in which 1,180 people, mostly Muslims, were killed.

The riots occurred after the deaths of 59 people on the Sabarmati Express, who were mostly volunteers of Hindu organisations.

They died when their coach was set on fire at Gujarat’s Godhra station by a suspected Muslim mob, though it is often disputed as to who lit the fire.

Mr Modi was then the state’s chief minister, while Mr Shah was the state’s home minister.

“During the Congress rule in Gujarat (before 1995), communal riots were rampant,” Mr Shah said at an election rally on 25 November for the ruling, Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in his home state, which is going to polls next month.

Mr Shah claimed Gujarat witnessed riots in 2002 because perpetrators were used to indulging in violence due to the support from the Congress party.

“Congress used to incite people of different communities and castes to fight against each other. Through such riots, Congress had strengthened its vote bank and did injustice to a large section of the society,” he was quoted as saying by news agency Press Trust of India, which translated his speech from his native Gujarati language.

“But after they were taught a lesson in 2002, these elements left that path. They refrained from indulging in violence from 2002 till 2022. BJP has established permanent peace in Gujarat by taking strict action against those who used to indulge in communal violence,” he added.

Mr Shah, however, did not elaborate on who these “elements” were.

Gujarat has remained a BJP stronghold for almost three decades since the party first came to power in 1998.

Mr Modi was the state’s chief minister for over a decade from 2001 until 2014, the year he was first elected prime minister.

Mr Shah’s comments have sparked outrage with several political leaders calling out the federal home minister for admitting culpability in the riots.

Earlier this year, India’s Supreme Court dismissed a plea challenging the findings of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) report on the 2002 riots.

The ruling gave Mr Modi and 62 other senior government officials a clean chit from accusations that the government did not take measures to stop the riots.

The plea had been filed by Zakia Jafri, whose husband, Congress lawmaker Ehsan Jafri, was tortured and killed in Gujarat’s Gulberg Society by rioters on 28 February 2002.

“This is the Home Minister of India. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten his not-so- little hand,” tweeted Mahua Moitra, an opposition lawmaker belonging to the Trinamool Congress Party.

“Fanning communal flames & then polarising states for electoral gains has been BJP’s modus operandi for decades now,” said the Congress’s Shama Mohamed.

All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi lashed out at Mr Shah and said his “lessons” were about letting criminals walk free.

“Amit Shah, that the lesson you taught in 2002 was that Bilkis’s rapists will be freed by you. The lesson you taught was that you will free the murderers of Bilkis‘ three-year-old daughter. You also taught us that Ehsan Jafri can be killed,” he was quoted as saying by news channel NDTV.

In August, 11 men serving life terms over the gangrape of Bilkis Bano, who was pregnant at the time, and the murder of her seven family members during the riots, were released by the Gujarat government.

“Amit Shah’s ‘teaching a lesson in 2002’ speech is admission of his guilt in horrendous Gujarat genocide and a grave infringement of Election Commission’s Model Code of Conduct,” said Thomas Isaac, a minister in the Left-leaning Kerala state.

Former bureaucrat EAS Sarma has written to the country’s Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar and Election Commissioners AC Pandey and A Goel and said the home minister's speech was in violation of the election model code of conduct.

A source in the Election Commission said that the poll body has sought the opinion of the chief electoral officer of Gujarat after multiple complaints, reported The Telegraph.

“The complaint is under process in the zonal division concerned,” the source was quoted as saying to the newspaper.