In this Part-2 session, I continue my discussion with Professor Christophe
JAFFRELOT, regarding his book, “Gujarat Under Modi”.
In this episode Christophe unravels to us the reasons behind the dominance
of the conservative faction of Congress in Gujarat unlike in other states such
as Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. He recounts to us the less known facts regarding
the failure of Narendra MODI as a BJP coordinator in Gujarat that led to
factionalism of the party. Further, Christophe highlights the nexus between the
Narendra MODI government in Gujarat with the Muslim mafia led by Rashid LATIF
and Soharabuddin SHEIKH.
Watch the interview as well to listen to Christophe’s comments on the
recent India-Pakistan skirmishes and the larger implications for the region. He
strongly advocates the restitution of statehood to Jammu and Kashmir and
questions the constitutional validity of the 2019 decision to repeal article
370.
Here is Part 2 of an engaging series of interviews with Professor
Christophe JAFFRELOT!
Note:
1) The music video at the beginning and at the end of the interview is
the “Saheb” video clip produced by Paranjoy GUHA-THAKURTA. The
original clip could be consulted at the below link.
Anubandh: Hello, I am Anubandh KATÉ. I am back again with Professor Christophe JAFFRELOT, with whom I started a discussion about his very important book “Gujarat Under MODI”. Welcome, Christophe!
Christophe: Well, thank you for the invitation, Anu!
Anubandh: Thank you. This book is important as we discussed last time because not many publishers were ready to publish it in November 2013 when you were ready with the manuscript. It was only in 2024 that it got published. Unfortunately, even today, apparently not many people know about this book or know the details about this book. This is one of the reasons why I really wanted, why I am keen to take this discussion forward.
Thus, in the first session, we discussed about the political history of Gujarat and several important chapters. These are important. These are vital because Gujarat has a very strong implication about what has happened to India in the last decade or so.
Today, I would like, and if time
permits, to cover the part regarding the Gujarat pogrom of 2002. And yet, there
are a lot of other aspects that needs our attention. When I saw our first
interview again, I felt it was important to bring in those issues. Therefore, I
will evoke them. In addition, because we recently had some very serious
developments in India with this attack in the Pahalgam where 26 Indians were
killed by the terrorists. Therefore, we will perhaps also visit that.
Well, in your introduction, you wrote that social scientists have a duty as well to write books and not just few articles here and there in journals or newspapers. So, the question would be, what do you really mean by this? Who are you really addressing this concern to? Is this to your Indian / Pakistani colleagues or to the French ones?
Christophe: It is a general trend. Political scientists are less and less inclined to write books because articles matter more for their career. Therefore, the political scientists are more or less following the trend that has been initiated by the economists. In fact, political scientists very often try to emulate the economist’s ways. I do think that there are things you cannot say fully in articles. You need more space and nothing can replace the books really.
Anubandh: Yeah, this reminds me the earlier discussion we had regarding your book on AMBEDKAR and his biography. There, AMBEDKAR had raised a very important question at that time saying, why do we need political freedom? It is to have social and economical emancipation of the people. Similarly, why do we need social scientists’ work? Well, it is meant for the good of the public. In many cases, your work is referred is listened by policymakers, by diplomats, by analysts. Whatever might be their purpose of doing it and the way in which they implement it, at least with this interview, we have a direct possibility to make your work reach the common people.
I would now like to ask you a few questions here about the Pahalgam attack. Since you have studied Pakistan as well as India, how serious is this attack and the tension which is building up now? We have seen this also in 2019, just before the general elections (of 2019), there was Pulwama attack. Now there are elections in Bihar and Bengal. So, is this that the terrorists also have taken some fascination for democratic electoral programs or schedules? What do think?
Christophe: Well, It is very difficult to respond to this question because we do not know how these terrorists operate really. What is the window of opportunity? Is there any other doing? Clearly, this place was not sufficiently securitized. It was a new place for tourists. Therefore, that may be the reason why this strike could take place at that time, in this place. Really, if we knew how terrorists operate, we would not have so much need of intelligence. That is really a question for intelligence people more than for academics.
Anubandh: Yeah, at the same time, what we know is that India has, perhaps the world has, the most militarized region in the world, which is Kashmir. More than seven lakh (7, 00, 000) Indian army personnel are permanently posted there since last many decades. Therefore, that is what we know. And it is expected that there shouldn't be intelligence fallouts like this. Anyway, moving on.
What would you say to Indians because we have seen some very serious attacks as a backlash on Kashmiris and Muslims. Although there have been attacks on Muslims since quite some time now and you have been writing about it. What would you say to common Indians?
Christophe: Well, the common Indians are not necessarily sufficiently aware of what is the situation in Jammu and Kashmir. A kind of rosy picture has been painted, and that is why tourism is back in such a big way. In fact, tensions have continued after 2019, after abolition of Article 370. And we have clearly a division of opinions vis-à-vis Jammu and Kashmir. There are those who consider that it is only by giving more autonomy to Jammu and Kashmir as a state that you will defuse separatist tendencies. I am thinking that this is the right approach. And you have those who consider that on the contrary, it is by giving autonomy that you create separatism. That is why you have this centralizing attitude. Abolition of radical tendencies is only one thing. You know, the transformation of the state of the Indian Union into an Union Territory is certainly another very important decision that was made. Because it deprived the Kashmiris and the Jammu people from a police reporting to the local government, from a more local bureaucracy. You have a kind of “invasion”, of people coming from outside, out of the state. And you have also a new approach to land. Land was supposed to be for the locals. It is now taken away. It is taken away also by the tourists organizations and hotels and so on. Therefore, clearly the problem has not been solved. Far from that, by most realizations. Maybe this terrorist attack will be the wake-up call for the Indian people who thought that, well, that was over. That was now a closed chapter. It is not and to retur n to a full the statehood would be for me the next step. For making more likely a kind of a political settlement. There is no alternative. A political settlement is what needs to be done with the players, the actors who are prepared to play the constitutional game. By the way, this decision in 2019 was probably unconstitutional. However, no Supreme Court judge has had the guts to look at it. It is pending. It is pending for years. Because the judiciary is not taking the sensitive issues, it is sitting on them for years these days.
Anubandh: Yes, I found an echo of what you just said about the importance of democracy and democratic institutions’ functioning in Kashmir. I had the pleasure to interview recently Professor Sten WIDMALM of Uppsala University (Sweden) regarding his book, “Kashmir: In Comparative Perspective”. And in that book, he argues that during 1977 to 1987, that was the golden democratic period for Kashmir. It was so helpful for the people, the economy and the social fabric that even if terrorist groups tried to recruit militants, there were no takers. Therefore, I think that is what is validated.
Christophe: The big mistake was the 1987 elections, because when you steal elections from the people, they withdraw from the democratic game. And then they can listen to extremists, to radicals. That is what has happened in 1989. Two years later, that was the beginning of JKLF (Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front). Then, of course, Pakistanis could use these separatist tendencies and they Islamized the guerrilla.
Anubandh: True. Since we are talking of these looming war clouds over India and Pakistan, I would like to take you back where your mentioned that a Chief Minister of Gujarat was killed by the Pakistani army or air force in 1965. I tried to dig in a bit. I will read some information because I think It is very relevant here. Later, I would invite your comments.
“His name was Balwant Rai MEHTA, who was a freedom fighter and during the Indo-Pakistani war of 1965, on 19 September 1965, the then serving Chief Minister MEHTA flew in a Beechcraft commuter aircraft from Tata Chemicals, Mithapur to the Kutch border between India and Pakistan. The plane was piloted by Jahangir ENGINEER, a former Indian Air Force pilot. It was shot down by the Pakistani Air Force pilot HUSSAIN, who assumed it to be a reconnaissance mission. MEHTA died in the crash along with his wife, three members of his staff, a journalist and two crew members. Finally, in August 2011 Qais HUSSAIN wrote to Jahangir ENGINEER's daughter apologizing for his mistake, stating that a civilian plane was mistaken for a reconnaissance aircraft by Pakistani controllers.” He was ordered to shoot it down.
I wanted to highlight this because things somehow are taken at their face value and we have to understand that there could be something else behind it. How would you react?
Christophe: Well, I would simply say that this is typically the kind of mistakes that can escalate. This is why a kind of trust, a minimum level of trust between these two countries is necessary. Otherwise, you can have these kind of mistakes. And you can have escalations after these mistakes are made.
Anubandh: Indeed. Now let us go back to the political history because few points were left to be discussed. In the last session, you pointed out that the conservatism, the traditionalism of Congress in Gujarat was in particularly very strong, prominent, unlike in Bihar and UP (Uttar Pradesh). You stated that in Bihar and in UP, we saw the socialist, the left wing of Congress getting dominance or prominence over the traditional one. This is what you had stated. However, could you tell us why exactly according to you this happened?
Christophe: Well,
number one reason was that the left was excluded. And the left was excluded at
a very early stage when Indulal YAGNIK was shown the door. That was with the
blessing of Mahatma GANDHI. Thus, there was, from the 1920s, a clear domination
of the Gujarat Congress leadership by the most conservative wing of the party.
You have conservative wings everywhere. There was a conservative wing, of
course, in Congress of Uttar Pradesh as well. For instance Govind Ballabh PANT,
was definitely not on the left. Nevertheless, there was, there was still the
creation of the socialist party till the late 1940s. You still had a left wing
on the congress side in UP, not in Gujarat. Therefore, that is the number one
reason.
The number two reason is, of course, Gujarat is mostly dominated by businessmen, even more than Brahmins. Baniyas, Vaishyas, are playing a key role. These people are, of course for private enterprise, against communism for sure, socialism also. They could not appreciate the progressive agenda that NEHRU could articulate, for instance, at that time, or Subhash Chandra BOSE. Therefore, it is a different ecosystem and it remained very different one for decades, till the congress split. Because when it split in 1969, well, the conservative remained with the congress. Indira (GANDHI) could promote more progressive people, including Ehsan JAFRI, including of course Madhav Singh SOLANKI. This is when you have the left staging a comeback in Gujarat. The KHAM coalition made of Kshatriyas, OBCs, Harijans, Dalits, Adivasis, Tribals, and Muslims. This coalition is remarkably progressive. In the 1970s, you have Mandal in Gujarat. They are really playing a pioneering role, making this huge coalition.
This is precisely what the
Patels did not accept. The Patels resisted,
made the life of SOLANKI miserable, pushed him out and replaced him. Chimanbhai
PATEL, for instance, played a very big role in this sense. When BJP started to
rise precisely in the 1980s, precisely during the anti-reservations riots, in
which Patel played such a big role. Patels then shifted to the BJP instead of
continuing with the Congress. Therefore, you have this kind of tension,
permanent dialectic between the left and the right within the Congress. The
left lost to the Patelites before independence. They somewhat gained momentum
after the split of 69. And then they were again the losers when the main castes
and upper castes preferred to support the BJP at the expense of a more
progressive leftist Congress. Therefore, it is not that there was no left wing
in the Congress. It is that it was too weak. It was too weak for resisting the
pressure from the conservative,
be that of the upper castes or the Patels.
Anubandh: True. There are two justifications which you gave in your book regarding the social polarization in Gujarat. They were quite intriguing to me. I mean, one of them is evident. You said there was this antagonism against the Muslims, their (perceived) domination. You related that with the fact that Gujarat is a bordering state with Pakistan, with the (ancient) Muslim raids and other aspects. That is understandable in a way.
Nevertheless, counter-intuitively, at least for me was that when you said this KHAM coalition of Kshatriya, Harijan, Adivasis and Muslims which was promoted by the Congress, under the leadership of Madhav Singh SOLANKI, further caused the social division. Which means it widened the social division. Could you please elaborate this point?
Christophe: Well, the moment you have the Muslims as one group, you also polarize along communal lines, not only social lines. Therefore, it is not only that the plebeians, where the rise of the plebeians, Kshatriyas, the Adivasis, the Harijans was resisted by dominant caste and upper caste, but it is also that these groupings, Patels especially, but also Brahmins and Thakurs were much more Hindu than the OBCs, Dalits. Of course, especially because of the rise of the Swaminarayan movement. The Swaminarayan movement was so strong in Gujarat. It was such an important vehicle for Sanskritisation. Patels became much more Hindu when they became Swaminarayan followers. Therefore, you have the superposition of the two lines of cleavage, of the two fault lines. The social fault line, the upper castes versus the Plebs, the Plebeians, and then the Hindu versus Muslim kind of dialectic. That reinforced the line of cleavage. This is, by the way, something we see elsewhere when two lines of cleavage coincide, then It is a recipe for tensions. And I mean, mean violence. We have seen that elsewhere.
Anubandh: And we will revisit that, how the Adivasis and Dalits were instrumentalized during the 2002 riots. We will look at it later. But since we also talked about this biggest co-option of India, where Mr. MODI, who represents OBC, is now the leader of BJP since last many, many years. It has in a way punctured or made ineffective the positive discrimination policy. And yet, recently we have seen, just yesterday that BJP was in a way compelled to order or to accept the caste census. So, how should we interpret? Is it the fact that the opposition with the leadership of Rahul GANDHI and other parties have made a success? Or is it a tactic by the BJP to take away the attention from tension with Pakistan because they apparently cannot attack it, since China is there and China has a lot of stakes in Pakistan? How do you look at it?
Christophe: Well, I think it is because of domestic politics. It is because of the Bihar elections. MODI cannot let the opposition win Bihar. Also because he needs Nitish KUMAR. He needs the JDU in parliament. And Nitish KUMAR has already initiated a caste census. Bihar is the only state, so far, having had a caste census. Therefore, it was inevitable. He had to make this concession. Thus, it is tactical, definitely tactical. However, once you have a caste census, you have caste back in the public sphere. Therefore, it is probably a tactical move that will have structural consequences. The next Lok Sabha elections will be fought probably on caste as much as on religion for a change. Because if we have the census, and probably we will have to have the census if they want to do de limitation because the de limitation implies census results. Then it will be debated, talked about, the under-representation of OBCs in the state apparatus. It will be so obvious that a new kind of debate may be starting or gaining momentum. It was there already last year, but it will probably gain momentum in the context. Therefore, a tactical move can have long-term consequences.
Anubandh: Yeah, but in your proposal or affirmation, what
is the presupposition for me is that this caste census will be done honestly
and we can trust the data because that has been the main concern.
Christophe: Well, yes, of course they can forge data. It depends on who will be in charge because you will have state governments involved. It cannot be the center alone that decides. Therefore, to twist the arms of opposition-led state governments might be more difficult. However, yes, you can always forge data. That is something they are doing routinely already.
Anubandh: And another thing which we could also take as a reference was the bill on the women's reservation, which is passed but not implemented! And we do not know when it will be implemented.
Christophe: Yeah, but they cannot do that with caste. You know, if they promise a caste census and do not do it. There will be an uproar. This is so sensitive, you know, and this is interesting to see how badly organized women are in Indian politics compared to castes, to the OBCs, to the Dalits.
Anubandh: That is a good observation. Now let us move on. I would like to talk a bit about Mr. MODI's presence in Gujarat before he became the Chief Minister. And you point out, and There is long and detailed history that you give in the book. But I would like to point out to one responsibility which was given to him, if I am not wrong, he was a coordinator of the BJP. He had to look that the functioning of the party works well. And you argued that because there was this tussle between Shankar Singh VAGHELA, Keshu Bhai PATEL and Narendra MODI. And where Shankar Singh VAGHELA, who had, and your words were that he had built the BJP brick by brick. He had to compete with Keshu Bhai PATEL. And he moved his MLAs to another state.
Could you please explain to us what really happened? How the built up to Narendra MODI's later prominence happened in Gujarat?
Christophe: Yeah,
this is something rather badly known. MODI was a Sanghatan Mantri in the 1980s.
Therefore, he was in charge of the organization of BJP. He was really the
organizing secretary. That is what Pracharaks do in BJP. Most of the Pracharaks
seconded to BJP are in charge of the organization at the district level, at the
state level. And after Kishu bhai PATEL could win the elections in 1995. There
was a faction fight that MODI did not handle properly. He should have given
something to the VAGHELA faction and he did not. As a result, VAGHELA revolted,
broke away from the BJP. He became, first of all an independent. He had his own
party. And finally joined the Congress and became the president of the Congress
in Gujarat for years. The headquarter, the party headquarter at Atal Bihari
VAJPAYEE in the first place were very, very upset. In fact, he was removed from
Gujarat. He was asked to come to Delhi and from there he was asked to take care
of Hariyana and Punjab, because he had messed it up everything in in Gujarat.
He had not handled factionalism the right way. And not only because of VAGHELA,
but also because of another man, another Pracharak JOSHI, Sanjay JOSHI, who was
very much at cross-purpose.
This is what very often we completely underestimate. The depth of personal rivalries within the BJP ecosystem, among organizers, among politicians, the facade of unity, the facade of discipline. It is completely, is largely over-emphasized. This episode is very revealing of precisely the depth of these divisions.
Anubandh: Yeah, one aspect now I remember. The destination which Shankar Singh VAGHELA had chosen to fly away his MLA's was Khajuraho.
Christophe: Yeah, of course. Yeah, because you know, that is what they do when they do not want the MLAs to be intimidated. They take their MLAs to another state.
Anubandh: Horse Trading!
Christophe: Everyone does that. Yeah.
Anubandh: One more aspect was and I think it is very important also for my audience to understand and to know. It is that Shankar Singh VAGHELA, the man who Christophe said built BJP brick by brick.
Christophe: Well, along with MODI, they were together. They were absolutely comrades in arms for years, for decades, and still they split.
Anubandh: Right. And what is striking, surprising is that Shankar Singh VAGHELA later became the President of Congress in Gujarat! That speaks for the political short sightedness of the Congress, in a way.
Christophe: It speaks for the conservative attitude I have
mentioned. This is the problem, you know, this kind of porosity between the
conservative wing, the rightist wing of Congress and the RSS, Sangh Parivar, is
there since day one. Because the Patellites had this kind of soft corner for
the Hindu nationalists.
Anubandh: Let us move on. There is one important character in your book and the episode is also about Abdul LATIF and the Muslim mafia gangsters. Those who were quite strategically blamed, perhaps rightly, correctly by the BJP. But surprisingly and not surprisingly, once in power, BJP collaborated with him. And there was this nexus between politicians and gangsters. Yet, it was exploited for political reasons. Could you tell us about this Abdul LATIF character? By the way, there was a Bollywood movie also on this, Raees in 2017 of Shahrukh KHAN.
Christophe: Yeah, well, this is again the underbelly of Indian politics and this kind of nexus between politicians, policemen and gangsters is, of course, very much developed in Gujarat because It is a dry state. Because you have bootleggers. But you would see the same thing in Maharashtra. You know, Dawood IBRAHIM has been protected for decades by politicians and policemen till the 1990s, late 1980s. Abdul LATIF was in fact a lieutenant of Dawood IBRAHIM. He represented Dawood IBRAHIM in Gujarat. And he was simply somewhat more specific because Gujarat being a dry-state, you have all these bootleggers making money by...distributing booze. But of course, the policemen knew very well what was happening. They got their cut. And politicians knew very well. They got their cut as well. You know, this is a kind of division of labor. Muslims play the role of the mafias. Because they are less educated, ghettoized, ostracized, pushed out of the legitimate domain of society and politics. But they play a very useful role for all the others. And that brings a lot of money to everyone, policemen as well as politicians.
During the 1985 riot. That was a devastating one. LATIF was behind the bars. But he had done so much for the Muslims who had been at the receiving end that he was elected in the municipal elections with a record number of votes. Then he decided to stop being a criminal, but they did not let him go. They did not let him stop. They needed someone to get the money, to collect the money. Therefore, this is the irony that you will find also in case of Sohrabuddin SHEIKH. Sohrabuddin was a criminal that everybody used.
Anubandh: Including Amit Shah.
Christophe: Including Amit Shah. He was the marble mafia,
that was the sand mafia, all kinds of mafias.
Gujarat is the state where you have have the largest number of RTI (Right to Information) activists who have been killed. If you go by per capita, absolute numbers are more on the Maharashtra side. Because Maharashtra is much larger. But the per capita number of RTI activists eliminated are in Gujarat, not by chance.
Anubandh: Well, in the book, you also write that, in fact, police officers were not happy to take actions against Abdul LATIF and others because it would have hit their income. Anyway, you mentioned also about the 1985 riots and later we can make a link with the 2002 program. However, what really struck me was the number of people who were killed. You quote that they were more than 1000 people were killed and even before 1985 there have been several severe riots in Gujarat.
Christophe: 1969 mostly. 1969 is also in the same range. 1500 roughly.
Anubandh: One point I would like to add and then receive a comment from you is we have heard a lot about how many people were exactly killed in 2002 pogrom. And I have seen that when I was growing up, the number was 2000 initially. Ever since Mr. MODI is in power, now we see that number lowered down to almost half, 1000. In the book, you also quote that there have been mass graves, which have been found out later. We know very well in India, there is always a gap between the official and the unofficial figures. So how does one contextualize? What would be the real number of the lives lost?
Christophe: 2000 is the figure NGOs are giving because they have gone to the families of people who have disappeared. Therefore, you do not only count the dead bodies, you also count all those who have disappeared and who have never been found. This is why there is this discrepancy between the official figure and the unofficial, but probably more realistic figure.
Anubandh: What
was also shocking for me is the mention about the mass graves, because that we
have heard a lot about Kashmir, you know, but never in any other state. At
least I did not know that until I read your book. However, I would like to now
talk about the main bone of contention is to either qualify 2002 as riots or
pogrom. And that is a long debate. I would like your opinion on that. However,
before that, I would like to bring in Yogendra YADAV's view. He says that riots
are often engineered and they are not spontaneous outbursts as we are made to
believe them. They are used historically by both, Congress and BJP. BJP for the
obvious reasons. But also Congress, so that the fear of riots makes the Muslims
vote for it.
How would you respond to all this?
Christophe: Yeah, this is something we have seen in the past. Even in Gujarat. There is a great article by Ghanshyam SHAH, who was very young at that time. He made a fantastic inquiry on the 1969 riots and discovered that congressmen were very much involved in it. The same right wing people of Congress. This is if you want the dirty job of those who play vote bank politics. Therefore, in the case of Congress, you cannot say it is motivated primarily by rejection of Muslims. It is part of a political game. Fighting factions which are in office by making the law and order disturbed, by disturbing the law and order, for instance. That is something we saw, for instance, in Hyderabad in 1990, and also in Indore in 1989. In addition, the other idea that you have already mentioned is a way to punish Muslim voters when they have not supported Congress sufficiently. That is something we saw after 1977. Because of Kashmiri gate, because of Sanjay GANDHI, because of the emergency, because of mass sterilization, etc. muslims did not support Congress the way they used to. And that was one reason for some punishment. Now 1980, complete reverse of strategy, Indira GANDHI gives tickets to a record number of Muslims and Muslims have never been so many in parliament. Therefore, in three years, you change your attitude because it is not ideological. You know, the Congress has this, if you want, tactic of vote bank politics at that time. That explains the change. On the BJP side, it is of course completely different. Of course, there is a strategy. The strategy is polarization. Therefore, you need to make Hindus united against Muslims. And in fact, riots are a way to unite Hindus against any other, but the best-case scenario is when the Muslim is the other. Therefore, that is what happened in the 1985 riot because it was a way to reunite Hindus who had been divided by the caste reservation attitude, I mean, the policy of SOLANKI. But beside this, if you want instrumentalization of communal violence, there is also an attempt at eliminating Muslims from the public sphere. The riots must at least result in ghettoization. So mixed neighborhoods have been the number one casualty of riots. The ghettoization has been so much obvious in the making of Juhapura (Ahmedabad), for instance, the largest Muslim ghetto in India, probably half a million people. They left mixed neighborhoods to regroup. Therefore, they left the places where Hindus could not see them. Because no Hindu goes to Juhapura. So, you see, there are two different logics at work.
Christophe JAFFRELOT is a permanent Consultant at the Direction de la Prospective of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
He has written more than 24 books on India and 7 on Pakistan.
Christophe JAFFRELOT is a
frequent columnist in major Indian news publications such as The Hindu, The
Indian Express, The Wire.
Anubandh KATÉ is a Paris based
engineer and is the co-founder of the association, “Les Forums France Inde”.
No comments:
Post a Comment