Gulbarg verdict: For Modi, no clean chit will be seen as clean

It is highly unlikely that Narendra Modi’s die-hard opponents will let things rest even though an Ahmedabad metropolitan magistrate decided today (26 December) to treat the Special Investigation Team’s (SIT’s) closure report in the Gulbarg Society massacre as final. The magistrate decided to accept the SIT report, which found no prosecutable evidence against Modi and 61 others in the Gulbarg case, and reject the report of the Supreme Court’s amicus curiae, Raju Ramachandran, who suggested there was enough evidence to charge him. [caption id=“attachment_1308263” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Narendra Modi. AFP[/caption] Former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri and several others were burnt alive when a communal mob attacked the society in the wake of the Sabarmati train attack in 2002, and Jafri’s wife Zakia was the prime mover of the petition to dump the closure report and have Modi named as an accused in the case. However, as always, the magistrate’s rejection of Jafri’s petition is surely not going to end the matter, and one can be sure that there will be a petition filed in the Gujarat High Court seeking to overturn the order. Modi’s respite is for a month. Politically, it is now clear that Modi stands vindicated — at least till the matter reaches court again – and this was possibly one reason why the Union cabinet was in a rush to okay another commission of inquiry to investigate whether Modi’s right hand man Amit Shah had misused his powers to snoop of a women on the orders of “Saheb” – presumably a reference Modi himself. Once again, this may not work, since the Modi government has already set up its own commission of inquiry, and it is doubtful if the courts will allow endless commissions on the same issue. More so, when commissions tend to come to different conclusions based on the same piece of evidence. It is worth recalling that the Justice UC Banerjee Commission was set up by Lalu Prasad Yadav to investigate the Godhra train fire even though Modi had already set up the Nanavati-Mehta Commission to look into both the train fire and the subsequent communal riots. While the Nanavati Commission said that the Godhra fire was the result of a conspiracy by some Muslims, Banerjee’s interim report (the final one is still blocked in courts) claimed the fire may have started accidentally. Similarly, in the Gulbarg Society case, we have the SIT and the amicus curiae saying opposite things. What these contradictory reports based on the same evidence in each case (Gulbarg and Godhra train fire) suggest is this: the evidence is clearly not conclusive against Modi in either case. In any trial, cases are dismissed if the evidence available cannot prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt. But in Modi’s case, apparently only a guilty verdict will suffice, never mind the evidence. One can, of course, allege significant political pressures on both sides, but no one can prove this. When so many people have already been convicted in the Godhra and post-Godhra riots, the obsession with Modi’s guilt is obviously driven largely by personal or political agendas. Too many NGOs and officials and politicians have invested too much personal capital to get Modi, and this is certainly not a good thing for democracy. In the end, one has to stop somewhere even though the legal options are available to everyone. Consider the sequence of events: the local and Gujarat courts found no evidence against Modi. The matter reached the Supreme Court and a SIT set up by it also came to the same conclusion. When this did not satisfy Modi’s detractors, an amicus curiae was asked to examine the evidence again, and he came to an opposite conclusion. The Supreme Court then lobbed the ball back to the local court, which found in favour of SIT. The process can go on endlessly — making a mockery of justice. The real takeouts from the whole affair are these: When it comes to Modi, no evidence will be accepted as proof of his innocence, no matter how many courts clear him. There is a clear cottage industry that has invested too much capital and emotion in sending Modi to prison — and it is now not possible for them to abandon the vocation that gave them so much international importance. For Modi, every court verdict in his favour will be rejected out of hand by the small group of die hard opponents, and only a conviction will be seen as justice. This is a no-win situation for him. A month from now, the Gulbarg petition will be back in view as the metropolitian magistrate’s verdict will land up in another, higher court. Modi’s detractors have found a receptive backer in a beleaguered Congress party, which appears to be spooked by Modi’s rise. They will continue to be encouraged by the party to keep embarrassing the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate. For Modi, no clean chit will ever be seen as clean. Perhaps, this is his real punishment for his alleged failures in 2002.